Indians, why 25th June, 1975 was called the darkest day in the history of democratic India?

PART: 1

25 June 1975 will go down in the history of the Indian Republic as a most infamous day and a black day when the then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi who headed the Congress Party as its dynastic head imposed an 'Internal Emergency' in India for reasons which had no bearing to the internal security of the country.

The Emergency was declared by PM Indira Gandhi to suppress the widespread political unrest and agitation generated by her refusal to submit to her unseating from power in a judgment by the Allahabad High Court on an election petition charging her with electoral corruption in her Lok Sabha General Elections . Rather than to submit gracefully to the verdict given in the Court judgment the Congress Prime Minister by political subterfuge decided to continue in office.

The political agitation against the Congress PM was not led by any run of the mill Opposition political party leader. It was led by one of India's most venerated Gandhian and Sarvodaya leader Shri Jaya Prakash Narayan who stood for high moral values ​​in political office and political life. He was a freedom fighter of Indira Gandhi's father's generation and he could have assumed a high political appointment after Independence. But seeing the emerging trends in the closing stages of India's freedom movement he opted to be a crusader for morality in public life and of India's political leaders.

The Emergency was declared post-midnight with Congress PM Indira Gandhi virtually forcing a pliant President Fakhruddin Ahmad to sign the Proclamation imposing the Internal Emergency. Placed in office as a pliant President, by Indira Gandhi, he did not even question the reasons from the Prime Minister for such a grave measure.

Overnight, hundreds of political Opposition leaders and activists were arrested and put in jails all over India. The Indian media was strangled and put under stringent censorship. Human rights and freedoms were brutally suppressed by the Indira Gandhi regime. India's Supreme Court judiciary was interfered with. Some reports indicate that as many as eighteen Supreme Court judges were changed including a Chief Justice. There was talk of a committed judiciary. Even from within the Congress Party, the Young Turks MP's led by later PM Chandra Shekhar were also put behind bars for questioning Indira Gandhi's policies earlier.

Pliant bureaucrats were positioned in important appointments and were given sweeping powers to stifle all opposition to the Government and they really went on a rampage. Some of them occupy high Constitutional positions today under the present Congress Government.

The Indian democracy stood subverted by Congress Party Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and India was to be under a draconian siege till the 1977 General Elections. Till then the unquestioned writ of Indira Gandhi and her younger son, Sanjay Gandhi as an unconstitutional power centre plagued India. The Emergency imposition was to impose a 'shock and awe' effect on the Indian polity and the Indian public for their temerity to agitate against the existing political set-up.

In a manner of speaking the Emergency rule in India imposed by Congress Party Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was no different from the military dictatorship regimes of Pakistan.

It was ironic that an Emergency was imposed in India for reasons of political survival by the daughter of India's most admired democrat and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. It was more tragic that Indira Gandhi who also joined the freedom struggle for India's freedom struggle alongside her father should in 1977 stoop to suppress the very same freedoms and democracy that were fought for in order to continue as Prime Minister. The self-proclaimed high political morality of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty stood compromised.

It was also ironic that the vast majority of Congress Party political leaders with the exception of the Young Turks did not raise even a whimper of protest against their dynastic political leader for the subversion of democracy. They supinely went along and many of the senior Congress Party leaders stooped low even to touch the feet of the young dynastic heir apparent.

Another 25 June came and went past without India even pausing to recall this infamous black day thirty two years ago. The Congress Party could not be expected to recall the political misdeed of an earlier dynastic head. The Bharatiya Janata Party which fought against the Emergency in its earlier avatar as the Jan Singh seems to be politically frozen today by political inertia. This was an occasion which should have been highlighted on a massive scale by it all over India. It was only in the Punjab Legislative Assembly that Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal made special mention of the excesses of the Emergency despite vehement protests by Congress MLA's. Many would not know that the Akalis under the leadership of Badal spearheaded a massive protest against the Emergency rule. More than 40,000 Akali workers were put in jails.

The bulk of the Indian media controlled by industrial houses close to the ruling Congress Party, did not highlight this infamous day. If for nothing else they could have emphasized that India's democracy should never be allowed to be subverted by self-seeking politicians.

Congress Prime Minister Indira Gandhi Imposes Internal Emergency

Against such a background, the only redeeming feature that strikes the mind is that the people of India did no hesitate to strike back in 1977 against Congress Party Prime Minister Indira Gandhi for her subversion of democracy and the Emergency excesses. They unseated her from power. Though she came back to power again, not because of any new found political popularity but because of the internal squabbles of the Janata Party, politically the things were never the same again for her. Her image took a dive.

In this lie many lessons for the India of today stretching from attempts to put into Rashtrapati Bhavan once again a pliant political non-entity as President by the Congress Party President, to the questioning of Supreme Court judgments on unconstitutional legislation passed by the Parliament by political leaders and contriving dubious legislative measures to perpetuate in office those unseated as happened in the Office of Profit controversy.

India's middle class in1977 was small and yet they along with the rest of India unseated Indira Gandhi for her political transgressions and subversion of democracy. Today India's burgeoning middle class is over 300 million strong and they must politically empower themselves not only to correct the distorted electoral arithmetic imposed by casteist political leaders and custodians of minority vote banks, but also to act forcefully as sentinels of Indian democracy.

Never again should the people of India ever allow another Internal Emergency to be imposed on India by self-seeking Indian politicians, however charismatic. It is well said that 'Eternal Vigilance is the Price of Liberty' and every Indian citizen should be alive to it.

24-Jun-2014

Emergency: The Darkest Period in Indian Democracy

PART: 2

April 28th 1976 is remembered as a black day in the history of Indian democracy. The very foundations of democracy were murdered on this day when the Supreme Court pronounced its judgment in ADM Jabalpur Vs Shukla. The decision of Supreme Court in ADMJabalpuer Vs shukla had greatly disappointed the Indians who loved the pledges of justice and liberty incorporated in the preamble of our constitution.

FACTS OF THE CASE

The germs of this case were to be found in the election of Mrs Indira Gandhi (the then prime minster of India) which had been held to be invalid by the Allahabad High Court. In her desire to stick to the chair of prime minster she chose to declare a national emergency on 25th June 1975 on the ground of 'internal threat' to the security of India. As a result of the emergency censorship was imposed on the press on 25th June 1975 itself. On 5th August 1975, Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA) was approved by the parliament and a number of opposition leaders were detained under this law. Any person who was considered to be a political threat or who could raise the voice of opposition was detained without trial under the MISA. According to Amnesty International, 1, 40,000 persons were arrested without trial during the emergency period. Many of the detained persons challenged their arrest through writs before the High Courts under Article 226 of the constitution of India. As a result of these writs the state governments in many of the High court's raised the issue that, whether such writs were maintainable on the ground that under the presidential order declaring emergency the right to file such writ was taken away. All the High court's declared that despite the suspension of fundamental right of a detained person, he could show that his detention was not in accordance with the law under which he was detained or that there was a mistake of identity.

The government being unsatisfied with this decision appealed to the Supreme Court and thus the most controversial case of ADM Jabalpur Vs Shukla came before the Supreme Court for hearing.

The then attorney general Niren De contended that the writ petitions would necessarily be dismissed since the right to move any court had been suspended and the detenue had no locus standi.

ISSUE

The main issue before the Supreme Court in this case was: -

Whether the high courts can entertain a writ of habeas corpus filed by a person challenging his detention, during the emergency period?

DECISION OF SUPREME COURT

"In view of the presidential order dated 27th June 1975 no person has any locus standi to move any writ petition under Article 226 before a high court for habeas corpus or any other writ or order or direction to challenge the legality of an order of detention on the ground that the order is not under or in compliance with the Act or is illegal or is vitiated by mala fides factual or legal or is based on extraneous grounds ".

This was the judgment delivered by four senior, most judges of the Supreme Court including chief justice ANRay. The dissenting judgment was that of justice HRKhanna. His contentions were opposed to that of the majority judgment. Justice Khanna made a significant quote in his judgment which runs as follows: -

"As observed by CJ, Huges, judges were not there simply to decide cases, but to decide them as they think they should be decided, and while it may be regrettable that they cannot always agree, it is better that their independence should be maintained and recognized than that unanimity should be secured through its sacrifice. A dissent in a court of last resort, to use his words, is an appeal to the brooding spirit of the law, to the intelligence of a future day, when a later decision may possibly correct the error into which the dissenting judge believes the court to have been betrayed ".

CRITICAL ANALYSIS

The chief reason behind the filing of this writ petition was the political unrest during that period. Opponents had long made allegations that the congress party had taken recourse to electoral frauds to win the 1971 election. Cases of election fraud and misuse of state machinery for election purposes were lodged in the Allahabad High Court against Indira Gandhi by Raj Narain who had been defeated in the parliamentary election by Indira Gandhi. The Allahabad High Court in its judgment declared Indira Gandhi's election as void and also unseated her from the Lok Sabha. This decision in course of time became the primary reason for the imposition of the 1975 emergency.

On 26th sept. 1975, the 39th amendment to the constitution was made so as to place the election of prime minster beyond the judicial scrutiny. This was an intelligent step by Indira Gandhi to safeguard her seat.

A close study of the facts behind the filing of this writ petition reveals that it was in fact a case for assertion of political powers by one party over the other.

Further during 1975, another National emergency was also in operation on the ground of war with Pakistan. But before the imposition of national emergency on 1975 an amendment was made and a new provision was added in the constitution which provided for imposition of more than one national emergency under Article 352 at the same time. This was done to overcome any legal difficulty which may arise from the simultaneous operation of two national emergencies at the same time. This was in fact another intelligent step by Mrs Indira Gandhi to legalize the imposition of 1975 emergency.

As a matter of fact it is evident that the majority judgment of Supreme Court in ADM Jabalpur Vs Shukla is to a great extent influenced by the political circumstances prevailing at that time. The supreme court even refused to follow the ruling in Makhan Singh Vs state of Punjab (1964) wherein the supreme court had pointed out that if a detenue challenged his detention on the ground that it violated statutory provision or the detention is vitiated by mala fides the challenge could not be barred because of the presidential order under Article 359 (1),

However, the lone dissenting voice of justice Khanna was paid due respect in the year 1978 when the constitution 44th amendment Act was passed. Justice Khanna had paid the price for his dissent. He was supposed to be the next chief justice of India but unfortunately he had to resign before he could become the chief justice of India.

Before the 44th amendment the national emergency provision under Article 352 (1) was as follows: - 'the president can proclaim emergency when he is satisfied that a grave emergency exists whereby the security of India or any part of the territory thereof is threatened by ( a) war; or (b) external aggression; or (c) internal disturbances'

The words "internal disturbances" was in fact responsible for the successful imposition of the 1975 emergency. The words "internal disturbance" is a vague one and it is difficult to ascertain the situations covered under this words. However the 44th amendment to the constitution has substituted the words "armed rebellion" for the words "internal disturbances" and thereby narrowed the scope of emergency situations.

The constitution 44th amendment Act has a great significance in the Indian legal history. It has made the proclamation of emergency under Article 352 (1) so complex that after 1975 no emergency has been proclaimed till today under Article 352 (1). The 44th amendment has placed a number of significant safeguards to check the misuse of Article 352 (1) in future.

Thus in conclusion it is clear that the 1975 national emergency was a pre planned drama of the Indira Gandhi govt. in order to secure certain political objectives.