The Emergency
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi suspends civil liberties for 21 months, jailing opponents and censoring the press, until voters throw her out.
- Emergency Chronicles: Indira Gandhi and Democracy's Turning Point — Gyan Prakash, Princeton University Press (2019)
- India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy — Ramachandra Guha, Macmillan / Picador (2007)
In June 1975 a court found Indira Gandhi guilty of electoral malpractice, as a protest movement led by Jayaprakash Narayan grew. On 25 June she declared a state of emergency. Civil liberties were suspended, opposition leaders and tens of thousands of others were jailed without trial, and newspapers were censored. Her son Sanjay drove slum clearances and a coercive sterilisation campaign in which millions of men were sterilised, often under pressure.
- Emergency Chronicles: Indira Gandhi and Democracy's Turning Point — Gyan Prakash, Princeton University Press (2019)
- India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy — Ramachandra Guha, Macmillan / Picador (2007)
In 1977 she unexpectedly called elections. Voters routed Congress, and the Janata coalition formed India’s first non-Congress government. Indira Gandhi returned to power in 1980, but the Emergency remains the great example of how close Indian democracy has come to breaking.
- Emergency Chronicles: Indira Gandhi and Democracy's Turning Point — Gyan Prakash, Princeton University Press (2019)
- India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy — Ramachandra Guha, Macmillan / Picador (2007)
Why it matters today
The Emergency is India's reminder that its democracy can be suspended, and that voters can restore it. Every party invokes it: the BJP against Congress, and critics of today's government as a warning.