Understanding India's Darkest Hour: The Imposition of the 1975 Emergency

In 1975, the then prime minister, Indira Gandhi, declared a state of emergency. The fundamental rights of the citizens were taken away. For the next two years, the democracy was destroyed and dictatorship was established in India, and those two years are still considered the darkest period of Indian democracy. We talk a lot about emergencies, but do we actually know what happened during them? Why was an emergency imposed in the first place? What was the need for our former prime minister, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, to declare a state of emergency?

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So what is a national emergency? national emergency is a situation where there's a restriction on the fundamental rights of the citizens it's literally like a democratic nation is being into an autocratic one for a particular peroid of time and this is leally possible under article 352 of the constitution as per article 352 an emergency can be declared if any extraordinary situation arises that may threaten the security peace stability and governance of the country the article 352 state that if the president is satisfied on the grounds that the security of the nation is threatened due to external aggression or armed rebellion he can declare an emergency so national emergency can be declared for three reasons number one due to war number two external aggression and number three internal disturbances and this could be surprising for you 1975 was not the first time india went through an emergency before that independent india faced emergency two time.

The first emergency was delared by prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru in 1962 when the Indo-China War broke out. During this emergency, the government increased its power to control the media and the ability to detain the common citizens of India without any trial. Even though the war ended within a month, Nehru did not revoke the emergency, and it was officially lifted after five and a half months in 1968. The second emergency was delared by former prime minister Indira Gandhi in 1971 when the Indo-Pakistan War broke out. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared India's third emergency on June 25, 1975, and this emergency was very different from the previous two because those two emergencies were delayed on the basis of external aggression, which means India was fighting battles with China and Pakistan, so it didn't directly affect the common people of India even though it was forced for a longer time.

It all started with the 1971 lok sabha elections when congress got a massive victory securing 352 seats out of 518 indira gandhi won from the raebareli constituency by defeating her opponent raj narain by one lakh ten thousand votes but raj narain filed an election petition in the allahabad high court challenging indira gandhi's victory an election petition is something that is filed directly in the high court questioning the election of a particular candidate and such petition has to be filed within 45 days of the declaration of the eection results secion 123 of the RP act that is the representation of the people act mentions that if a particular candidate was involved in certain corrupt practices the election of that particular candidate can be declared ivalid so raj arain rasied a list of allegations against mrs gandhi but most of them were turned down by the high court which means most of the allegations were dismissed by the court but the high court did consider two significant findings on which indira gandhi's election was invalidated.

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The use of government missionaries to set up stage and loudspeakers, the placement of stage and loudspeaker barricades, and the posting of policemen for Mrs. Gandhi's election campaign were arranged by Yaspal Kapoor, the district magistate, the superintendent of police of Raebarali, and the home secretary of the Uttar Pradesh government, and this is a violation of the law.. Use of government officers as election agents The second finding against Mrs. Gandhi was the employment of Yaspal Kapoor as an election agent. Yaspal Kapoor was a gazetted officer in the government of India. He was on special duty in the prime minister's secretariat, but he did submit his resignation and then was appointed as her election agent.

Yashpal had submitted his resignation on january 13th 1971 and his resignation was accepted the very next day sice he was working on a special duty at prime minister secretariat he also need their approval so their approval came only on january 25th 1971 then he was appointed as the election agent of mrs indira gandhi on february 4th 1971 so the problem here is he was a government officer until january 25th 1971 but he did deliver election speeches on behalf of mrs gandhi on january 7th and another speech on january 19th 1971 and this the usage of government officer as an eletion agent is a violation of law under article 123 of the rp act based on this finding on jaunuary 12th 1975 the allahabad high court has passed a judgment that indira gandhi had engaged in election fraud and banned her for six long years from holding elected positions which means she'll also be unseated as the prime minister.

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If she left the case in the future, she would step down as prime minister. There was only one thing left to do for her to escape the trial that was declared a state of emergency. She went straight to the then president, Fakharuddin Ali Ahmed, and advised him to declare a state of emergency. He then wrote a letter to the president.

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