Emergency, Congress and a politics of hypocrisy

Indian Express

01-07-2025

The Narendra Modi government has declared June 25, the day 50 years ago when the then Prime Minister imposed Emergency, as Samvidhan Hatya Diwas. It was the darkest chapter in the country's democratic history when Indira Gandhi undermined the Constitution, silenced dissent and plunged India into an abyss of authoritarianism. The party that destroyed the Constitution 50 years ago today claims to be its saviour.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi recently wrote an article in this newspaper ('Match-fixing Maharashtra', IE, June 7) accusing the Election Commission of India (ECI) of 'match-fixing' the elections to the Maharashtra assembly last year. His hypocrisy is staggering. While Rahul Gandhi cries foul over democratic processes without basis, he conveniently ignores his own family's and party's legacy of strangling India's democratic spirit during the Emergency.
The Emergency was a brazen assault on the Constitution's foundational values. The Preamble's promise of a democratic republic was crushed as Indira Gandhi ruled by decree, suspended fundamental rights and cancelled elections. The Basic Structure doctrine, established by the judiciary in the Kesavananda Bharati case, was rendered meaningless as Parliament's amendment powers were misused to entrench her regime. The 42nd Amendment sought to make the executive unaccountable and undermined judicial review and the separation of powers.
State governments were dismissed using Article 356. The freedom of the judiciary was eroded through the supersession of judges and the appointment of pliable loyalists. The media was gagged. Newspapers were forced to publish government propaganda and dissenting journalists were jailed. The Indian Express, headed by Ramnath Goenka, stood up against press censorship by publishing a 'blank editorial'.
Perhaps Rahul Gandhi should be enlightened that this wasn't 'match-fixing' but an outright murder of democratic institutions. The excesses of the Indira regime spared no one. Artists and creative minds faced repression. Songs by Kishore Kumar were banned from All India Radio and Doordarshan because the legendary singer had refused to support the Emergency. Ordinary citizens, especially Muslims, endured forced sterilisations under Sanjay Gandhi's draconian population control campaign. Political opponents were hunted down. Over 1,00,000 people, including activists, journalists, and opposition leaders, were imprisoned without trial. In a podcast, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, who was in jail during the Emergency, recounted how he was not even allowed to attend the final rites of his mother.
Among those targeted were towering figures like Jayaprakash Narayan, the Gandhian socialist who led the movement against Congress's misrule. Socialist leaders like Mulayam Singh Yadav and Lalu Prasad, who rose to prominence during the JP movement, were also jailed. These leaders fought Congress tyranny. Yet, in a tragic irony, their parties — the Samajwadi Party and the Rashtriya Janata Dal — now sit cosy with the Congress in the INDIA bloc. Lalu Prasad, in fact, named his daughter Misa after the draconian law which saw thousands jailed without due process. This U-turn betrays not just their principles but the sacrifices of countless Indians who resisted Congress's authoritarianism.
The Emergency was not a mere administrative misstep but the placing of parivar tantra (family rule) above loktantra (democracy). Congress continues to do that. Today, when Congress accuses the ECI of partisanship without proof, when the Telangana and Karnataka Congress governments persecute journalists and social media activists, when Congress boycotts prominent journalists and arrests some of them, it continues to not only be in denial about their historical guilt, it also exhibits that its commitment to constitutional values and institutions is conditional — not based on convictions. If Congress wins an election in Telangana or Karnataka, the ECI is fine, if it loses in Maharashtra and Haryana then the ECI is 'fixed'.
Rahul Gandhi cannot escape his party's dark legacy. Its repeated use of Article 356 to impose President's Rule reveals the party's disrespect of the Constitution's federal spirit and use of authoritarian shortcuts. If Congress truly cared about the Constitution, why did it oppose the removal of Articles 370 and 35 A which did not allow Ambedkar's Constitution to be implemented in Jammu Kashmir for decades and denied the implementation of reservations for SC and ST communities? Why does Congress advocate reservation on a religious basis in Karnataka and Telangana for Muslims, which is completely unconstitutional? Rahul accuses the BJP of 'changing the Samvidhan' but in reality, his family and party trampled upon it.
The Emergency was the real match-fixing — the worst rigging of India's democracy. Far from being an exception, such actions have defined Congress's governance ethos for decades. Congress has never really been sorry for this dark chapter. Under Bhupesh Baghel, the Congress government in Chhattisgarh repealed an Act framed by an earlier BJP government to give a monthly pension scheme to people jailed under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA) during the Emergency period.
This 50th year of the Samvidhan Hatya Diwas should serve as a reminder not just to every citizen to protect our Constitutional values, but also as a reality check for those who once murdered the Constitution's spirit and now masquerade as its defenders.
The writer is national spokesperson, BJP