The intervening night of June 25-26 is remembered in India as the night when democracy died. Then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi invoked Article 352 to impose National Emergency in India. A hastily drafted Ordinance was sent to President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, who signed the document just before midnight on June 25. Indira Gandhi announced it on All India Radio a little after midnight on June 26. The formality was complete. Democracy plunged into disarray.
The development was pictorially cast in stone in the iconic cartoon, The Emergency, by Abu Abraham in The Indian Express in December 1975, showing President Ahmed signing ordinances from his bathtub. Whether Ahmed signed the Emergency Ordinance while taking his bath or not, the image captured the imagination of the nation.
How President Ahmed signed Indira Gandhi’s ‘Top Secret’ firman
Though most commentators call President Ahmed “pliant”, historian Gyan Prakash says in his “Emergency Chronicles: Indira Gandhi and Democracy’s Turning Point” that the President had reservations about the Emergency order. However, those proved inconsequential.
Prakash writes that President Ahmed summoned his secretary, K Balachandran, at around 11:15 p.m. on June 25. When Balachandran arrived 10 minutes later, he met Ahmed, who was pyjama-clad and waiting in the private sitting room of his official residence at Rashtrapati Bhavan.
Ahmed showed a one-page letter from Indira Gandhi marked “Top Secret” to Balachandran and also told him about his conversation with Indira Gandhi earlier in the day about her receiving information about internal disturbances that “posed an imminent threat to India’s internal security”.
Prakash writes that Ahmed wanted Balachandran to advise him on the President’s constitutional power on the matter of the proclamation of Emergency. Balachandran and another official went through the provisions and told Ahmed that if the Council of Ministers advised him to do so, his own opinion became irrelevant. At this point of time, Prakash says, Ahmed told Balachandran that he wished to speak to the prime minister. Balachandran leaves to return later that night.
On his return, Ahmed informed Balachandran that Indira Gandhi’s emissary RK Dhawan had come over with a draft Ordinance for Emergency proclamation, which he had signed. Prakash writes that President Ahmed then swallowed a tranquiliser and went to bed.
In “India After Gandhi”, historian Ramchandra Guha writes that West Bengal Chief Minister Siddhartha Shankar Ray, a trained barrister, helped draft the Ordinance to declare the state of Emergency.
Indira Gandhi goes public, capital plunges into darkness
Post midnight, Indira Gandhi announced on All India Radio: “The President has declared a state of Emergency. There is no need to panic.”
But these words spelt doom for the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution. All rights except the right to life were suspended.
“That night the power supply to all of Delhi’s newspaper offices was switched off, so that there were no editions on the 26th. Police swooped down on the opposition leaders, taking JP [Jayprakash Narayan], Morarji Desai and many others off to jail,” writes Guha.
Since most papers couldn’t print, the news was broken to the rest of India by BBC World Service broadcast at 7.30 am on June 26. Its Hindi morning bulletin was hugely popular across north India. BBC reported about the large-scale arrests that had taken place during the night.
What forced Indira Gandhi to subvert democracy that her father had arduously crafted
Indira Gandhi’s father and India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, was a pivotal figure in India’s march from a British colony to a constitutional democratic republic. This came as a surprise to many that Nehru’s daughter, who did her apprenticeship in his PMO, opted for Emergency and not election when faced with severe political reverses.
India of 1975 was battling a string of problems — poverty, rising prices, joblessness and corruption in the rank and file of the government. Voices of dissent emerged in Gujarat in the west and Bihar in the east. Youths were first to take to the streets. Narayan, known popularly as JP, who had retired from politics after India won freedom in 1947, agreed to give leadership to the youth and the political opposition, but was firm on not joining any government after the fall of Indira’s.
June of 1975 — June 12 to be precise — was particularly worse for both Indira and India. “The 12th of June was a very bad day for Mrs Gandhi. Early in the morning, she was told that her old associate DP Dhar had died during the night. A little later came the news from Gujarat, which was also grim — the Janata front was heading for a majority in the state election. Then, finally, came this last and most telling blow, from her own home town, Allahabad,” writes Guha.
That day, on a petition filed by socialist leader Raj Narain, whom she had defeated in the 1971 Lok Sabha election, the Allahabad High Court found her guilty of electoral malpractices and cancelled her election as the Member of Parliament. Over the next two weeks, the Opposition — led by JP and Desai — mounted pressure on her to resign. Her close associates, including SS Ray, advised her not to give in to the pressure from her rivals.
An appeal was filed in the Supreme Court, which on June 24 gave a stay on the high court ruling. The top court allowed her to stay as the prime minister and continue to attend Parliament as and when required but denied her the right to vote in Parliament as an MP. The next day, June 25, the Opposition leaders held a mega rally at the Ramlila Maidan in Delhi. It ended at around 10 pm with a “rebellion” call by JP. The course of history took a sharp turn in the next couple of hours.
Was the imposition of Emergency a decision taken in the spur of the moment?
This question is up for a debate. But researchers point to a note written by Bengal’s SS Ray, a confidante of Indira Gandhi, on January 8, 1975, to her. Ray had advocated imposing Emergency in India to deal with Indira’s detractors under the prevailing political situation.
Link to article –
