New Delhi: Around 10 pm on 25 June, 1975, Prodipto Ghosh, a young Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer serving as an additional district magistrate (ADM) in Delhi, received a call on his wireless device. He was told to report to the district magistrate’s (DM) residence near Tis Hazari.
He left home, unaware that he was stepping into one of the darkest nights in India’s history. Upon reaching the DM’s residence, Ghosh found four other ADMs already there. None had any idea why they had been urgently summoned.
Their apprehension deepened when they were informed that the DM had gone to the residence of the Prime Minister, then Indira Gandhi.
“We waited for him, and after about an hour or so, he returned and he was very disturbed and shaking like a leaf. He then told us that it had been decided at the level of the Prime Minister that a large number of opposition leaders were to be detained immediately, and that a list would be forthcoming very soon from the Superintendent of Police and Criminal Investigation Department to his office,” Ghosh told ThePrint in an interview Tuesday.
The announcement left Ghosh and his fellow officers bewildered.
Just hours earlier, in the evening, Ghosh had attended a massive rally at Delhi’s Ram Lila grounds, where several opposition leaders, including Jayaprakash Narayan, had addressed the crowd. All ADMs had been instructed by the DM to be present there.
“There was nothing, nothing untoward, nothing extraordinary in the statements made by any of the other opposition leaders… but we were asked by the DM to retain our vehicles and our wireless operators when we reached home,” Ghosh said.
What happened next remains etched in Ghosh’s memory—a dark chapter in India’s democratic history: the imposition of Emergency by Indira Gandhi at midnight on 25 June, 1975, that continued for 21 months. Wednesday marks the 50th anniversary of the day.
The DM informed the ADMs that the plan was to detain opposition leaders under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA 1971), which was already in force at the time. But MISA required that the detainee be given the grounds for detention within 24 hours—and a copy of the order at the time of arrest. “The district magistrate told us he didn’t have the grounds with him. He said ‘if this goes to court tomorrow, I’ll have nothing to justify these detentions’,” Ghosh recalled. “He was visibly disturbed and under immense pressure.”
Still, the decision was made: the DM would issue the MISA detention orders—he was the only one legally authorised to do so. The ADMs would then deliver the orders to their respective superintendents of police and coordinate the detentions across Delhi.
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A long night
Ghosh said they encountered two major logistical hurdles in the way. “One is that we had never issued an order of detention under MISA before and so, first of all, we had to draft the MISA detention order and it requires legal expertise. Now, none of us were legal experts and we did not have the public prosecutor on hand to help us draft it or any legal adviser from the Delhi government. So, well, we made out a draft,” Ghosh recalled.
The list of detainees had over 200 names, and each order needed five copies.
“Now, those were days of no computers, no photocopying machines, there were cyclostyling machines. So, we had to get a typist to type out the detention orders and I was asked to proceed to our office in Tis Hazari and try to produce those, maybe nearly a thousand copies of the detention order.”
But the machines barely worked. “Now, when we went there, there were three cyclostyling machines… the first machine was just out of order… the second machine, it queued up two stencils… and the third machine, it worked but it had to be hand-cranked because the motor was not working,” explained Ghosh. With limited time and resources, only about 200 copies could be made. The orders were rationed. “We would give one copy to the detainee and one copy he would sign as a token of receipt and this would be retained in the office of the superintendent of police and the rest would be produced in due course,” he added.
The police went from house to house through the night. “In some cases, they found the detainees. In many cases, they did not find them. We would say just move on to the next person on the list. Ultimately, I think, on the first night, we managed to serve less than half of the orders, and managed to detain less than half of the people on the list,” Ghosh said.
“Now, I must emphasise that when the police parties went to the detainees’ homes, there was no violence. They came willingly. In some cases, they requested a little time to pack a bag and that was given.” The ordeal continued until about 7 am on 26 June, and until then, the exact nature of the government’s actions remained unclear.
In his testimony before the Shah Commission—a public inquiry established in 1977 to investigate the excesses that occurred during the 21-month period of the Emergency—Ghosh said he felt as if he was witnessing a “coup d’état”.
“It was only when I returned home and turned on the radio that the full picture emerged: the Prime Minister was announcing the declaration of an internal emergency. It is only at that time that we understood the precise legal and constitutional step that had been taken. Before that, all we knew was that something very likely unconstitutional was happening and that the district magistrate had been pressured to issue these detention orders,” Ghosh said.
He clarified that none of the officers received direct instructions from Sanjay Gandhi, Indira’s son who was considered her adviser at that time. “All our directions came from the district magistrate, who, in turn, was taking orders from the Prime Minister’s residence.”
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‘Threats from L-G’s office’
According to Ghosh, on the night the Emergency was declared, only the DM was authorised to issue MISA detention orders. The rest of the ADMs were responsible solely for organising and serving these orders. About 10 days later, ADMs were also given authority to issue detention orders, usually based on police requests.
“However, in most cases, the grounds of detention were completely inadequate, and in some instances, we suspected that they were falsified. When some of us pushed back, requesting detailed and clearer grounds of detention, we were met with direct and serious threats—not from Sanjay Gandhi, but from the Lieutenant Governor’s (L-G) office,” Ghosh recalled.
“The threat was quite direct. None of us really wanted to be martyrs. So, we issued the detention orders as requested, but made it clear to the DM in many cases that the grounds of detention were inadequate,” he said.
One case that stuck with him was that of Prabir Purkayastha, founder of the digital portal NewsClick, who “was detained by mistake in the first instance” instead of the intended detainee.
Ghosh reported the error to the DM, saying: “We cannot issue detention orders when the wrong person has been detained.” However, he recalled the DM’s response later that night: “Mistaken identity or not, it has been decided to go ahead with his detention.”
While he acknowledged that many bureaucrats had reservations, Ghosh said “I cannot say that any of us really directly resisted the orders which were backed by threats.”
When asked about the Turkman Gate demolition drive in Delhi (April 1976), Ghosh said it did not take place in his jurisdiction. However, he visited the site later.
“I saw that the demolitions were under way and that people were very disturbed by them. But since the firing had already taken place, the crowd had calmed down, and there was no violence when I was there,” he said.
In April 1976, the Delhi Police had opened fire at protesters who were trying to block the bulldozers and protect their homes.
‘Can’t deny rights & freedoms to people for too long’
Reflecting on 50 years since the Emergency, Ghosh told ThePrint: “I think it is clear that people cannot be denied democratic rights and freedoms for too long. And when some political formation tries to use powers which do not belong to it under the Constitution, or if they stretch the Constitution to misuse their powers, that is unsustainable in the long run.”
He emphasised that “resistance to these situations cannot come from within the government. It cannot come from the bureaucracy, the civil service, the police, or even the higher judiciary.”
Referring to the ADM Jabalpur vs Shivkant Shukla habeas corpus case, decided by the Supreme Court in 1976, he noted: “Even the highest judiciary held that not only fundamental rights are in abeyance during the Emergency, but even natural rights such as rights to life and liberty are not available during that time.”
“Do not expect resistance from within the government. It has to come from the political class, which must draw its strength from the way the public responds. But that requires lions in the political class, not jackals,” Ghosh said.
Adding, “Unless we have these two conditions—lions in politics and a sufficiently aroused public—such situations can be prolonged, but they cannot last forever.”
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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