 "President Droupadi Murmu with Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Union Minister Kiren Rijiju at the Parliament House complex before her address to the joint sitting of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, in New Delhi on June 27. PTI")
The Emergency imposed by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1975 has become a daily discourse in Indian politics these days. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been raising the spectre of the 21-month controversial period during which civil liberties were curtailed and press freedom repressed.
India marked the 49th anniversary of this “dark chapter in India’s democracy” on Tuesday, June 25. From Prime Minister Narendra Modi to President Droupadi Murmu, top leaders have invoked the Emergency in Parliament.
Addressing both Houses of Parliament on Thursday (June 27) in the first session after the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls, Murmu called the Emergency “the biggest and darkest chapter of direct attack on the Constitution”.
PM Modi and other BJP leaders have brought up the Emergency to target the Congress this week. But why?
Emergency comes up in Parliament
President Murmu said in her address to a joint sitting of Parliament that India’s Constitution has “stood up to every challenge and every test in the past decades.”
“Today is 27th June. The imposition of Emergency on 25th June, 1975, was the biggest and darkest chapter of direct attack on the Constitution. The entire country felt outraged. But the country emerged victorious over such unconstitutional forces as the traditions of the Republic lie at the core of India,” she said.
Her remarks drew cheers from Treasury benches and protests by the opposition.
Echoing Murmu’s comments, Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar said imposing the Emergency had “attacked the Constitution”.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsA day back, after being re-elected as the Lok Sabha Speaker, Om Birla had termed the 1975 Emergency a “dark chapter in India’s democracy” while addressing the lower house.
“Awareness towards the Constitution will only strengthen when the young generation knows about democracy. The Emergency is a dark chapter in India’s democracy,” Birla said, as per NDTV.
Targeting Indira Gandhi, he said the Emergency was an assault on “democratic values” enshrined in the Constitution.
Kickstarting the Lok Sabha session on Monday, PM Modi hit out at the Congress in a series of posts on X, saying the “mindset which led to the imposition of the Emergency is very much alive among the same Party which imposed it.”
Why BJP is talking about Emergency now
On June 25, the BJP organised programmes across the country to mark the Emegrency and its leaders targeted the Congress over the issue.
The saffron party’s attack on the Congress over the Emergency comes in the wake of the opposition’s allegations that the saffron party would “change the Constitution”.
The opposition INDIA bloc, particularly the Congress, led a sustained campaign against the BJP during the Lok Sabha elections, claiming its ‘400 paar’ slogan indicated it wants to ‘change the Constitution’. The BJP has reportedly borne the brunt of this in the elections.
The MPs from the strengthened opposition, including Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav, flaunted copies of the Constitution on the first day of the Parliament session this week.
While the Congress accuses the BJP’s ideologue the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) of not playing a crucial role in the freedom struggle, the Emergency serves as the saffron party’s retort to those charges.
As per Indian Express, several leaders linked to the Sangh Parivar, Jana Sangh or the ABVP, including LK Advani, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Arun Jaitley, had actively opposed the Emergency.
One of the factors that was behind the Emergency was the JP Movement of 1974-75 against Indira Gandhi. Led by freedom fighter Jayaprakash Narayan, the student agitation that began in Bihar led to a call for “total revolution”. Gandhi denounced the JP Movement, challenging Narayan to face her in the 1976 general elections. She later imposed the Emergency.
The 21-month period witnessed a suspension of constitutional rights and suppression of freedom of speech and the press.
As Indian Express noted, the “BJP has continued to wield the Emergency as one of its strongest weapons against the Congress”.
Congress hits back
The Congress has slammed the BJP for invoking the Emergency 49 years later, accusing it of playing “unnecessary divisive politics”.
“A lot of water has flown in the Ganga since 1975. Indira Gandhi had expressed regret over it. She was defeated in the 1977 election. The BJP must stop driving a car only by looking at the rearview mirror… The issue of the Emergency is done and dusted. We should talk about the strangulation of institutions today. These are the things we should be talking about instead of always looking at something which happened about 45-48 years ago,” Congress MP Karti Chidambaram was quoted as saying by NDTV.
The Congress has countered the BJP’s attacks, claiming there is an “undeclared Emergency” under PM Modi.
In a post in Hindi on X Tuesday, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge wrote, “Narendra Modi ji, the country is looking forward to the future but you keep scratching the past to hide your failures. In the last 10 years, you made 140 crore Indians realise what ‘undeclared emergency’ is, which caused deep trauma to democracy and the Constitution.”
With inputs from agencies