50 years since India’s Emergency, the dark chapter highlights the struggle for democracy against authoritarianism and the resilience of its people.
It has been 50 years since democracy in India was given a serious blow with the imposition of the internal Emergency, for the first time, on June 25, 1975. It is crucial to recognise the background of this dark chapter in the history of free India. Under the leadership of Jayaprakash Narayan, a legendry freedom fighter who never sought any office, students and young people in India were agitating for democratic, economic, and political reforms. The movement began in Bihar, and as a young student activist, I had the privilege of being an active participant. Soon, it evolved into a mass movement across the country starting with the Gujarat Nav Nirman Movement , followed by the Bihar Chhatra Sangharsh Movement.
Thereafter, a pliant President, Fakhruddin Ali Ahmad, signed off on the decision to impose Emergency without cabinet approval. Regardless of all claims by Indira Gandhi, the stark fact was that it was done to save her own chair. What followed were shocking, systematic, and brazen attempts to undermine and destroy Indian democracy and turn India into a prison. Besides Jayaprakash Narayan, leaders such as Morarji Desai, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, LK Advani, Chandra Shekhar, George Fernandes, Arun Jaitley and many others were detained under maintenance of internal security act (MISA). We had already suffered long imprisonment under this draconian provision in Bihar during the student movement. In fact, I was forcibly lifted by many plainclothes policemen from outside my home and dumped into a jeep and locked under MISA. I suffered injuries in this process.