Emergency then and now: It was declared in 1975, it’s undeclared in 2018

[dropcap]I[/dropcap] landed in Bombay in the throes of the Emergency. Forty-three years later, with the affairs of state as they are in India today, comparisons are bound to be made.

The historical reasons for the declaration of the Emergency by the former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi are well known. She wanted to stay on in power. Sooner or later, she feared, the courts would throw her out. The declaration of Emergency was to pre-empt the decision of the courts to remove her.

Dissent and opposition were curbed with an iron hand. Most of the prominent opposition leaders were arrested. A lot of our friends were arrested too. I personally saw the famous activist Durga Bhagwat being arrested in the Asiatic Library. People were kept in detention for long periods of time. There were a clampdown and censorship of the press.

The Supreme Court reached its nadir with the ADM Jabalpur case. It held that as Fundamental Rights were suspended no one could invoke its jurisdiction even if the person was done to death without procedure established by law. But even then there were judges who shone in dark days of the Emergency.

Power was concentrated formally in the hands of Mrs Gandhi and a small coterie around her. Sanjay Gandhi initiated the forced sterilisation programme, which was disaster as was also his programme to remove slums. Initially, there was fear. Soon enough the fear started receding. The Shah Commission severely and rightly indicted Mrs Gandhi.

Can we say that things are different today?

Well, there is no emergency declared. No formal emergency, at least. No mass arrests of the opposition. Those are important differences.

The similarities are also clear.