Reminiscing the Emergency as a 19-year-old me!

Raju Korti
On the night of June 25, 1975, India, the world’s largest democracy, was brought to its knees. Not by foreign invasion, not by civil war, but by the hand of its own elected government. Civil liberties were suspended, the press gagged, opposition leaders jailed, and the Constitution was thrown into cold storage. That was the night the Emergency was declared. That was also the night I, a promising 19-year-old engineering student, had my political awakening.

I had no inkling then that I would someday trade equations and circuits for headlines and deadlines. But that night changed something in me.

Looking back, I realise India has weathered many storms -- Partition and its festering wounds, four wars with its petulant (and at times illegitimate) child Pakistan, crooked politicians, opportunistic alliances, and man-made disasters masquerading as policy decisions. But nothing has darkened our democratic canvas like the Emergency. Those 21 months between 1975 and 1977 were not just an aberration -- they were an aberration with a chilling echo.

(Pic from Prasar Bharati archives)

Indira Gandhi, a Prime Minister who evoked either undying loyalty or simmering hatred (much like Modi does today), couldn’t digest the thought of political defeat. After the Allahabad High Court invalidated her election on charges of electoral malpractice -- thanks to the irrepressible political jester Raj Narain -- her grip on power began to loosen. And Indira didn’t like loose ends.

So, under the pretext of “internal disturbances,” and with the ever-obliging President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed reportedly signing the proclamation mid-bath (yes, literally), the Emergency was born. It wasn't so much a legal act as a desperate power play -- an authoritarian override dressed up as constitutional necessity.

At 19, I may not have had a PhD in political science, but I knew enough to smell something rotten. What I couldn't fully grasp was the depth of fear, repression, and sheer absurdity that would follow. I didn't need to read National Herald, the family’s PR bulletin disguised as a newspaper, to understand where the country was headed. I could feel it -- in the silences of those around me, in the paranoia, in the tension that wrapped every conversation in hushed whispers.

India was no longer a republic; it was a Police Raj. People, even school children, were locked up without cause. Saying anything remotely critical -- sometimes even nothing at all -- was enough to land you in jail. The fear was such that we started suspecting our own shadows. I remember stepping out only when absolutely necessary, half-expecting to be dragged off for a forced vasectomy. That wasn’t just a rumour. It was Sanjay Gandhi’s pet project: population control at scalpel-point. People -- young and old, men and boys -- were picked off the streets and sterilised. Voluntary consent was a joke. Masculinity, quite literally, was on the chopping block.

Indira’s idea of democracy had started to resemble a dictatorship -- but with a parliamentary garnish. Her pet excuse? The nation was under threat. From whom, exactly? China? Pakistan? No. The threat was internal. The threat was dissent. The threat was democracy itself.

The irony? The Emergency was meant to stifle opposition. Instead, it galvanised it. I remember listening in awe as voices across the political spectrum -- Jayaprakash Narayan, Morarji Desai, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, L.K. Advani, Madhu Dandavate, George Fernandes, Karpoori Thakur, Charan Singh, and many others -- set aside their differences to challenge Indira’s autocracy. The Janata Party was born out of that synthesis. It was my first real education in political pluralism -- and political farce.

When elections were finally held in 1977, India spoke. Indira and her Congress were wiped out. The opposition swept to power, buoyed by public fury and a hope for change. I was at rallies, listening to both Morarji and Sanjay, Charan Singh and Indira, as the political theatre unfolded. The mood was electric. For the first time, I saw an RSS march out in the open --silent but telling.

But power, like history, tends to repeat its follies. The Janata Party imploded under the weight of its own ego battles, leaving the people disillusioned yet again. Indira returned in 1980, triumphant and unrepentant. A two-thirds majority, no less. That’s when I truly understood: politics is not about ideology; it’s about expediency, selective amnesia, and public helplessness.

Today, when I rewind that era in my head, I wonder: what has really changed? We still have politicians blaming each other for the same sins they commit. Governance remains a tragic joke. We still elect leaders not for what they promise, but for who they oppose. Democracy in India has never truly matured -- it has merely mutated.

If there is one thing the Emergency taught me, it is this: in a democracy, the people don’t need to be powerful. They need to be vigilant. But vigilance requires awareness, and awareness demands courage. Sadly, both are in short supply.

And so, every June 25, I look back not with nostalgia, but with a strange mix of anger, disbelief, and grim amusement. It was the day the lights went out on democracy -- and the day a naive student like me began to see the country with unblinking eyes.

Never again, we say. And yet, I am not so sure.