“Indira is India, India is Indira.”- Congress President D.K. Barooah, 1974.
In India, ‘the Emergency’ is defined as a 21-month period from 1975 to 1977, wherein the Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency because of the prevailing ‘internal disturbance’.
Some essential points are mentioned below with regards to the Emergency:
1. Ban on Article 19 (1) (a)
To preserve the democratic way of life, it is essential that people should have the freedom to express their feelings and make their views known to the people at large, but back then, the press was censored and writers were imprisoned.
2. Arrest
A kid in the 90s won’t recognize Snehalata Reddy. An actress, social activist and thespian, she was imprisoned by Mrs. Indira Gandhi for her alleged role in the famous Baroda Dynamite Bombing Case. Her name was not mentioned in the final charge sheet, but she was held in a virtual solitary confinement for eight months without a trial.
In the dead of the night, one could hear her screams as she underwent rigorous torture. While in prison, she went into a state of coma. She was released on parole in 1977 owing to severe health concerns. She died five days later.
There were many more like her.
George Fernandes’ brother, Lawrence was also subjected to third-degree torture and by the time he was released, he looked like a skeleton. For years he walked with a pronounced limp.
The government ordered the police to place thousands of protesters and strike leaders under preventive detention. Vijayaraje Scindia, Jayaprakash Narayan, Raj Narain, Morarji Desai, Charan Singh, Jivatram Kripalani, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Lal Krishna Advani, Arun Jaitley, Satyendra Narayan Sinha, Gayatri Devi. The list is pretty much endless.
Organisations like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Jamaat-e-Islami along with some political parties were banned.
3. Forced Sterilization:
In September 1976, Sanjay Gandhi initiated a widespread compulsory sterilization programme to minimize population growth.
4. Political and civic unrest:
During 1973–75, political unrests against the Indira Gandhi’s government increased. This led some Congress party leaders to demand a move towards a presidential system with a more powerful directly elected executive.
Post 2014
Now, in 2019, how many people are being imprisoned for protesting against the government?
Rahul Gandhi seems to be holding onto the “PM is a thief!” remark. Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti’s only concern seems to be the ‘anti-India’ rhetoric. Even Kanhaiya Kumar is making his presence felt. Sitaram Yechury and his comrades are busy criticising the government. Only they know the reasons behind the criticism. MK Stalin (who was imprisoned during the Emergency) can go on and on with his anti-Modi rants. So can Mamata Banerjee, HDK, CBN and Sharad Pawar. The likes of Punya Prasoon Joshi, Abhishar Sharna, Raveesh Kumar, Rajdeep Sardesai, and Sagarika Ghose are nowhere close to getting arrested. In short, there’s no ‘Emergency’ in 2019. People couldn’t criticise the regime back then, but today, they have the liberty to take the ruling party to the cleaners.
And yet, we are fed this tirade every single day – “Democracy khatre mein hai, intolerance bad raha hai, yeh toh undeclared emergency hai.” (Democracy is in danger, intolerance is rising, this is a state of undeclared emergency).
The worst part is: that people believe all this, especially those who happen to come from the urban, educated middle-class section of the society.
This is what I want to tell my fellow countrymen, this is not an emergency but a fake emergency.
This is dedicated to some of my friends who have absolutely no idea about what an emergency really means and think it’s fancy throwing around phrases like “there’s no democracy in India”. The roots of democracy in our country happen to be way stronger than your fears.