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During the Emergency period of 21 months, individual freedoms were severely curtailed; that was unfortunate for a democracy, most admired among developing countries. Some reports say RSS was soft on emergency, quoting Subramaniam Swamy & TV Rajeswar- the deputy IB chief when Emergency was proclaimed.
Imposition & removal of emergency was done by Indira Gandhi as prescribed in the constitution.
Many intellectuals claim signs of undeclared emergency in today’s India, a serious concern. They point out to deterioration in global rank of India in quality of our democracy in the last decade by freedom house of USA, Economist of UK, V-Dem of Sweden and also in freedom of speech index published by RSB France.
Nationalists brush it aside as western bias against India (or BJP government). It took the Supreme Court 7 years to declare AE bonds unconstitutional, proving that democracy in India is still alive, though weakened.
Is imposition of emergency justified (or not justified), when the leader of a popular movement (JP) appeals to government servants, Police & armed forces to disobey a democratically elected government? If not, why is this provision there in the constitution?
Problem was not the imposition of emergency but the way it was misused by an immature team led by Sanjay Gandhi. His over enthusiasm to force sterilisation on the poor to control the population boomeranged. Press was censored heavily, still media like the Indian Express did not relent. Even cartoonists like Abu continued to ridicule the PM.
In fact, many citizens were happy to see the improved discipline in government offices, better punctuality in train schedules during an emergency.
After the emergency, Indira lost the election badly, proving the power of Indian democracy. The Janata Party that included BJP came to power. However, it did not take long for people to once again impose their faith in Indira in the next election, forgetting the excesses of emergency.
Lalu Prasad Yadav was part of JP’s anti-government movement that led to imposition of emergency. He wrote in a recent article: “The then PM had resorted to constitutional provisions to declare Emergency. Indira Gandhi put many of us behind bars, but she never abused us. Neither she nor her ministers called us “anti-national” or “unpatriotic”.
These pieces are being published as they have been received – they have not been edited/fact-checked by ThePrint.
What do you mean when you say, “ The issue wasn’t imposition of democracy….”? Imposition of emergency?