On the night of June 25, 1975, the political government of what is now known as the world’s largest democracy was forever changed. Indira Gandhi (1917-1984) served as the Prime Minister of India from 1966-1977 and once again from 1980 until her assassination in 1984. During her tenure as the first female Prime Minister, she brought about substantial changes to the political, economic, and social landscape of India. One of her most notable actions which impacted the country through many ways was the declaration of the State of Emergency in 1975. When first drafting the Constitution of India, an “emergency” clause had been implemented which allowed the head of state to suspend the constitution for the purposes of maintaining national security. On June 12, 1975, Gandhi had been found guilty by the Allahabad High Court for campaigning malpractice and even though many of her supporters had encouraged her to step down until her appeal, she believed that there was a sense of ‘internal disturbance’ in the country and did not resign. According to the verdict, Gandhi would be able to stay in Parliament but could not vote. Thus, as a result of the conspiracies against the Indian government, Gandhi ordered President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed to declare the state of Emergency through the country. The declaration of the national Emergency was not justified as it was a major threat to India’s democracy––through the means of federal overstepping­­––and a direct violation of human rights.

Gandhi’s hasty decision to declare a national Emergency and her subsequent arrests of her political opposition were a clear sign of an effective suspension of democracy in India and allocated all the powers of a virtual dictatorship to her. Article 352, Section 3 of the Indian Constitution states, “The President shall not issue a Proclamation… unless the decision of the Union cabinet (that is to say, the Council consisting of the Prime Minister and other Ministers of Cabinet rank appointed under article 75) that such a Proclamation may be issued has been communicated to him in writing.” However, soon after the ruling of the Allahabad High Court and political opposition protests, Siddhartha Shankar Ray––chief minister of West Bengal––stated that the Prime Minister’s direction was sufficient for the President to declare a state of Emergency. There persists no evidence of Gandhi waiting to have the approval of her cabinet. Since under the Emergency, the suspension of the Constitution was established, Parliament later enacted an amendment to exonerate her from her charges for electoral malpractice. The fact that her own party absolved her after she suspended the Constitution and committed campaign fraud represented the authoritarian power she held in office. She extended the executive power to such an extent that the judiciary ruling on her verdict had no effect on her. Gandhi made use of unconstitutional means to further her political agenda and maintain her power. Also, making the decision solely to declare the Emergency at the discretion of a few members of the Executive branch of the government was a clear sign of federal overstepping. Additionally, to further restrict the rights of democracy in the nation, Gandhi heavily opposed political opposition for the purposes of her “own political survival.” The Janata Party, the opposition party at the time, launched a countrywide movement in 1975 after Gandhi’s declaration, often rallying in support of the Constitution and against her. The leader of the Janata Party, Morarji Desai, was India’s first non-Congress Prime Minister and was an opponent of Gandhi. In one of Desai’s rallies, he garnered his proponents of the Janata Party explaining how they were going to overthrow Gandhi and surround her house so she would not survive the movement of the party. This action was significant because Desai was later arrested for his political beliefs which were solely a verbal threat and not led with any forms of violence. However, Gandhi’s administration violated the freedom of speech and expression which a constitutional right for citizens highlighted under Article 19, Section 1, Sub-Section A of the Constitution. Thus, Desai’s arrest clearly represents a violation of his rights of democracy. Along with Desai was another political opposer, 72-year-old Jayaprakash Narayan, who discouraged law enforcement from allowing unconstitutional acts, and his call for widespread disobedience also led to his arrest. Gandhi’s calling for the arrest of her political opposition on overblown charges and the elimination of her threats is thus completely unjustified because speech against her does not at all construe violence.

The implementation of The Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA), which was passed in 1971, provided the legal means to this abuse of power as police were using MISA to unjustly arrest political opposition. At the time, Gandhi’s critics believed her formation of MISA, whose original purpose was to benefit the country’s democracy, was in fact, challenging it. An article published in The New York Times in 1975 stated that Mohan Dharia, a political opposer, “declared today that the democracy that had been constructed by Mrs. Gandhi’s father was being destroyed by her through what he called ‘this monstrous Operation Arrest.’” Dharia’s description of Gandhi’s demolition of democracy is a representation due to her desire for power as she only encouraged supporters for her party. In fact, on several occasions, had her chief minister directing members of the government to round up people to send to support rallies for Gandhi in Delhi. She led solely for the benefit of her political career by seeing what was fit for her and not the rest of the country, contesting democracy for the government of India.

Additionally, the Emergency was unwarranted because its impacts were a direct violation of human rights which can be seen in the way of controlling the population through violent means. As the population of India continued to exponentially grow––reaching up to 660 million in 1971––population control was an aspect that Gandhi’s son, Sanjay Gandhi, took control of. First, S. Gandhi demolished architecture in Delhi including residential quarters, dislocating almost half a million people for the purposes of making Delhi a more modern city. The reasoning of making Delhi a modern city to dislocate thousands of citizens is unreasonable as S. Gandhi went on with his slum-clearance program as a form of population control, scaring the masses into as James Traub puts it, “temporary submission.” He destroyed communities on end, lacking any consideration for the thousands he was making homeless, left to die. Also, to further expand on the power allocated to him during the Emergency, S. Gandhi spearheaded a mass sterilization campaign across India where the National Population Policy was consequently passed in April 1976. This act advocated for “family planning” and was based on the financial incentives for acceptors being coerced into sterilization. S. Gandhi promoted the penalizations for couples having more than two children and in 1976-77, India had hit more than 8 million sterilizations, double the original target. The penalizations for having more than two children were violations of human rights in of themselves but varied state to state. For instance, Uttar Pradesh ordered male teachers to undergo sterilization or lose one month’s salary, Punjab invited punishments of fine and imprisonment, and for the lower class of Bihar, food rations would be limited to the family’s first three children solely. However, for lower-class citizens, having more children was important because according to a Washington Post article published in 1977, Bashir was a lower-class Indian citizen and was sterilized after he and his wife had their third child. Bashir condemned the sterilization rules by saying, “‘Each family must have at least six children… We’re landowners and if we can’t be sure of surviving heirs, what will happen to our land when we die? And what will happen to us in our old age.” There is an utter lack of empathy portrayed with the penalizations and ignorance for the condition of the Indian citizens. These sterilizations were seldom voluntary and often through acts of coercion. There was meager financial incentive involved and due to their low financial expectations, the sense of coercion amongst the lower/middle-class was perhaps one of the best ways S. Gandhi sought to control the population. For instance, the restriction on rations in Bihar represents a complete disregard for basic necessities––as it is blatantly unjustifiable to have an innocent infant die due to malnutrition for the purposes of controlling the population.

According to a report done by The Guardian, Balbir Singh, health minister of Punjab, said, “people who think they have a fundamental right to have as many children as they want… we ran into the same sort of objection with small-pox vaccinations and eventually it was accepted that everyone had to be vaccinated, even if they didn’t like it.” It is morally unjust to compare vaccinations to the forcible infringing of sterilizations which caused deaths, countless displaced and homeless, and a whole host of other violations to human rights. Due to the coercion of sterilization inflicted upon the Indian community, there was an influx in violence across the country. For instance, after an accusation for smuggling firearms, “twenty-five-year-old Abdul Rehman pleaded that he had only one child, The doctor was sympathetic, but police rode him roughshod. No firearms were found.” Rehman’s instance is a clear example of the violation of his rights as the authoritarian power allocated to the law was completely ignorant of members of the community and often ended up in innocent deaths. In fact, Indian officials hoped other “underdeveloped countries would follow their lead” for sterilizations. The Indian officials indeed left out the fact that in between August-December of 1976, there were more than twelve people killed due to rioting solely because of the forced sterilizations across parts of the country. Overall, through the destruction of communities and violence due to the forced sterilization campaigns, several people were left devoid of their fundamental rights.

Without I. Gandhi’s declaration of the Emergency, Indian society would not have faced such threats to its democracy, nor would it have caused the forcible displacement and death of so many Indian citizens. I. Gandhi was “determined to stay in office by fair means or foul to fight her ‘enemies.’” She only declared the Emergency for the purposes of saving her political career––rather than appealing to the masses which consequently threatened the idea of democracy. I. Gandhi’s intentions for the Emergency, with the aid of her son, were inconsiderate of the population as she jeopardized Indians’ rights and greatly expanded the executive power in Indian government where it was clearly not necessary. The restrictions placed by I. Gandhi under the Emergency were ultimately unwarranted and left scarring impacts on Indian society and its government for years to come.

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