Can Emergency be imposed again in India?

NEW DELHI - Thirty-five years after the Emergency stifled India’s prized democracy, questions continue to be asked whether it can be imposed again as men and women who were jailed for 19 painful months differ over the prospects of another dictatorship in the country.

Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) O. Rajagopal, who spent the entire 1975-1977 Emergency period in prison, feels that one cannot completely rule out another prime minister copying Indira Gandhi’s tactics.

“Whenever a ruling party, particularly one controlled by a person or a family, feels its support base is eroded, there is a chance of declaring another Emergency,” said Rajagopal, a political veteran from Kerala.

The 44th amendment in 1978 substantially altered the emergency provisions of the constitution to ensure that it is not abused by the executive as done by the Indira Gandhi government in 1975.

“But the power to impose emergency still there in the constitution, if there is a situation which warrants such action,” said M.R. Madhavan of the PRS Legislative Research.

But Congress MP Beni Prasad Verma, who was with the opposition in the 1970s, feels another Emergency is not possibile in India. “Our democratic institutions are today much more stronger than ever before.”

Using constitutional provisions in the wake of widespread anti-government protests, then prime minister Indira Gandhi imposed an internal emergency on the night of June 25, 1975.

An unprecedented step, the Emergency regime effectively killed democratic freedom. Thousands of political activists were jailed, including Moraji Desai, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Charan Singh and Chandra Shekhar, all of who went on to be prime ministers at different points of time.

The worst sufferers in jails were members of political groups that were outlawed by the government. These included various shades of Maoist groups who believed, and still believe, in violence.

Scores of ordinary people too suffered as authorities demolished shanties and forced their occupants in cities to move elsewhere. Thousands of men were forcibly sterlized as part of population control measures ordered by Indira Gandhi’s younger son Sanjay Gandhi.

Shamed by criticism in India and abroad, Indira Gandhi announced fresh elections in March 1977 which her Congress party badly lost, losing power for the first time in India since the country’s independence in 1947.

BJP star leader L.K. Advani, who too was jailed, says India “needs to be intensely alive to this phase of history. Allowing this phase to be forgotten would be tantamount to doing a grave disservice to democracy!

“Many are blissfully unaware that in June 1975 we came very close to a situation when the ruling party wanted to bury multi-party democracy and introduce a single party set-up,” he said recently in his blog.

Political analyst N. Bhaskar Rao, a secretary-level advisor to Indira Gandhi during the Emergency, said it did both good and bad to the society.

It drew the attention of the young generation to the values of freedom. “In today’s circumstances, it is not possible to impose an Emergency,” Rao told IANS.

According to him, no Indian president today will sign an order imposing Emergency. Without a presidential decree, Emergency cannot be declared.

“Now there is new media. Internet has come. Society is much more organised. States are mostly ruled by regional parties. There are enough precautions to resist any Emergency-like situation,” he said.

Marxist leader and trade union activist M.K. Pandhe cannot forget those dreadful days.

“I was in Kolkata (when it happened),” Pandhe told IANS. “All our party journals were censured. We could not even meet. I had to go underground at the direction of my party,” he said.

Like Rajagopal, he too feels that another Emergency cannot be ruled out.

Time is, however, a great healer.

The BJP’s Rajagopal, like many others of his era, says he has forgiven those who jailed him. “Unlike many others, I was not tortured. I am not angry with the Congress for jailing me…”