Why the BJP simply loves Indira's Emergency

India Today

25-06-2025

Over 80% of Indians weren't born when Prime Minister and Congress leader Indira Gandhi imposed the Emergency on June 25, 1975. Even the BJP wasn't born. However, with the Emergency -- when the rights of citizens were suspended, over a lakh jailed and censorship was the order of the day -- Indira handed the yet-to-be-born BJP what would remain a trump card even after 50 years.advertisementWednesday is when the country is marking the grim 50th anniversary of the Emergency. The BJP-led government declared June 25 as the Samvidhan Hatya Divas in 2024, highlighting how a Congress leader had suspended the constitutional rights of Indians.There is no doubt that the Emergency, lasting for 19 months, was one of the darkest periods in Indian history, but there are reasons enough that the BJP latches on to it unlike any other post-Independence memory.
The Emergency, the repeated reminders of it and the election thereafter have helped the BJP and the bigger Sangh Parivar chisel an image beyond Hindutva politics. It also helps the Parivar, which has been blamed for not playing an active role in the freedom movement, subtly project itself as being at the forefront of a national movement.advertisementThe post-Emergency election of 1977 is also crucial for giving the saffron leaders their first taste of power and being the catalyst for the BJP's birth.Now, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in power and the Congress sitting in the opposition for over 10 years, the Emergency also helps the BJP counter its narrative of the government trying to "change the Constitution" and an "authoritarian" leadership.EMERGENCY: BJP ONLY PARTY THAT'S OPPOSING CONGRESSThe Emergency has helped the BJP project itself as the party that has historically been opposing the Congress, and keeps doing that even today.Most other leaders and parties, like Lalu Prasad and the Communists who opposed the Congress during the Emergency, have joined forces with it against the BJP.The Congress-led INDIA bloc has the Left parties as well as the RJD, led by Lalu Prasad -- one of the products of the JP Movement.It was the leaders of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the RSS-affiliated political outfit, who formed the BJP in April 1980.Jana Sangh leaders like Nanaji Deshmukh, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Lal Krishna Advani among others were at the forefront of the agitation against the Indira government and were jailed for months.So, the BJP uses the Emergency to highlight the relentless and uncompromising fight of its leaders against the Congress for 50 years.HELPS BLUNT ATTACK ON NATIONAL MOVEMENT, TAKES AMBIT BEYOND HINDUTVAadvertisementThe BJP and the RSS have seen parties, especially the Congress, allege that the Parivar didn't play an active role in India's freedom struggle.The struggle against the brutal suppression of constitutional rights during the Emergency was the biggest pan-India movement after Independence. The marching of saffron leaders with Socialists like Jayaprakash Narayan gives the BJP a significant counter to the narrative of the Sangh Parivar's non-participation in a national movement.While thousands of members of the Jana Sangh and RSS affiliates went to jail, Nanaji Deshmukh emerged as the face of the fight for the restoration of constitutional rights.This helped the Sangh Parivar and the Jana Sangh, and later its inheritor BJP, broaden their image to citizen-centric politics, beyond the Hindutva ideology with which they were always identified.BROUGHT SAFFRON LEADERS IN CENTRAL GOVERNMENTThe election of 1977, after the Emergency was lifted, saw the Janata Party formed with the merger of the Janata Morcha, the Bharatiya Lok Dal, the Swatantra Party, the Socialist Party of India, and the Jana Sangh.advertisementThe Janata Party formed the government under the leadership of Morarji Desai. Jana Sangh's Vajpayee became the foreign minister while Advani was the information and broadcasting minister.This was India's first non-Congress government at the Centre, and would allow the saffron leaders their first taste of power.Vajpayee would go on to run India's first full-term non-Congress government, while Advani became the deputy Prime Minister. Both have launched the BJP and steered it to power.EMERGENCY HELPS BJP BLUNT CONGRESS ATTACKSThe rise of the BJP, from two seats in the 1984 election, to a majority on its own in 2014 with 282 seats, has also been at the cost of the Congress.The Congress saw itself ceding ground and drop to the lowest-ever tally of 45 seats in the Lok Sabha in 2014. The BJP juggernaut spooked it.One of the issues of choice of the Congress to attack the BJP has been the allegation that the latter craved a brutal majority to change the Constitution. Its leaders, particularly Rahul Gandhi, have campaigned in elections with copies of the Constitution.The Congress leaders also allege that the BJP brass display a streak of authoritarianism, and have infiltrated the independent institutions like the Election Commission. They allege that the country is living through a period of "undeclared Emergency".advertisement"Over the past eleven years and thirty days, Indian democracy has been under a systematic and dangerous five-fold assault that can be best described as Undeclared Emergency," Congress MP Jairam Ramesh wrote on X.Indira Gandhi's Emergency comes in as the single-most potent weapon for the BJP and its leaders to counter these charges. They project Indira Gandhi as a "dictator" and the Congress as the party during whose rule the country saw the worst authoritarian regime.The Emergency was also the time when constitutional provisions were used to suspend rights guaranteed by the Constitution. BJP leaders also allege that Indira, by getting a Chief Justice of India appointed by superseding three senior judges, compromised the sanctity of the Supreme Court.On Wednesday, as the government marked the 50th anniversary of the Emergency as Samvidhan Hatya Divas, PM Modi tweeted: "No Indian will ever forget the manner in which the spirit of our Constitution was violated, the voice of Parliament muzzled and attempts were made to control the courts. The 42nd Amendment is a prime example of their shenanigans."Modi, way back in 1975, was an RSS pracharak. "The anti-Emergency movement was a learning experience for me," he said.The fight against the Indira-Gandhi-imposed Emergency, the election that followed in 1977 and the repeated reminders of how rights were trampled by a Congress government helps the BJP, a party that now has the reins of power, counter opposition charges and strafe the Congress.- EndsMust Watch