#dnaEdit: Darkness -1975

The imposition of Emergency on the night of June 25, 1975, stunned the country. There was a time when we thought that India would never witness the disruption of democracy as did Pakistan or Bangladesh after the country gained independence in 1972. True, India had been through stormy and stressful times through the 1950s and the 1960s. Many despaired of what they considered to be India’s dysfunctional democracy and its inability to cope with the burning problems of poverty and ignorance, near-famine conditions, low growth, growing unemployment and the complete absence of hope. But on the other hand, elections were held on time in 1952, 1957, 1962, 1967 and 1971. Governments changed in the states, parties gained and lost power. It seemed that India was firmly tethered to democracy, with a fierce and vociferous opposition not allowing the government to be lulled into complacence. 

But on June 25, 40 years ago, democracy was given a quiet, and, in retrospect, brief burial. India was then two months short of celebrating its 28th year of independence. Political activists across the spectrum, stretching from the leftists to the rightists, people suspected of sympathising with Naxalites to those harbouring loyalty to the right-wing Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), were thrown into prison, without warning, without explanation and without judicial remedy. Habeas corpus, the legal right which ensured that the arrested person be presented in a court following the arrest, was consigned to the dustbin. The state’s obligation to follow the due process of law in taking action against citizens was swept away in the name of Emergency. The Attorney General of the day, Niren De, in reply to a query from Supreme Court Justice HR Khanna, explained that suspension of Fundamental Rights logically implied that the citizen even loses his “right to life” enshrined in Article 21 during Emergency.  

There was unqualified and unapologetic press censorship. All India Radio blared propaganda that was reminiscent of totalitarian regimes helmed by the military, the Nazis, the fascists and communists. India was confronting its moment of dictatorship. The only visible sign of resistance was the blank editorial space in some of the newspapers which refused to kowtow to the petty authoritarianism of the censors, which included the local police officer. Cultural dictatorship could be seen when there was an undeclared ban on the songs of Kishore Kumar on Vividh Bharati because he refused to be associated with the publicity programmes of the government.

A grave consequence of Emergency was the emergence of shameless dynastic politics of the Nehru-Gandhis. Indira Gandhi’s younger son, Sanjay Gandhi, became the evil face of Emergency, the extra-constitutional authority who whimsically commanded Cabinet ministers and officials to toe the line when he stepped out into the public sphere. He had no other qualifications than that of being the son of the Prime Minister. He was not a member of Parliament. He was not even a member of the Congress party. He played the small-time dictator through his five-point programme, a supplement to his mother’s 20-point programme, which included planting thousands of unaesthetic eucalyptus trees across the country in the name of environmentalism. In the name of beautification of the old city of Delhi, he razed to the ground the Turkman Gate slums and directed that family planning should be implemented ruthlessly to tackle of problem of population explosion. Sanjay Gandhi thought he would impose orderliness in the country. When the elections were held in March 1977, the country rejected the toxic politics of tyranny and the orderliness that came with it. Indians, especially the rural people in north India, trounced dictatorship through the democratic process of elections.