By Satya Narayan Misra in Bhubaneswar, June 30, 2025: National emergency was invoked 50 years back on this day, to counter the enormously popular JP Movement to root out corruption in India’s political system and snuff out life and liberty. The emergency was rubberstamped by the President under the specious threat of external aggression and internal disturbances in India.

Shielded by Article 352, Late Mrs Indira Gandhi embarked upon a drastic program of population control that violated the civil rights of thousands of families and a slum demolition project, which resulted in police killings of protesting residents. This saga of human infringement was carried out by the extra-legal power of her son, Sanjoy.

Several political leaders were incarcerated, including journalists, who dared to speak against the government. There were deaths of students due to the brutal treatment of police at high levels. While the BJP gloats about it, there is a perception that the dark clouds of emergency have enveloped India for the last eleven years without formally invoking Article 352.

The SP Shukla Case

SP Shukla, an intrepid journalist, was arrested without a warrant. When his wife approached the court for issuing a habeas corpus against the state to have a fair trial of her husband, four judges of the Supreme Court decided in SP Shukla Vs ADM Jabalpur Case (1976), that the right to life and liberty stands suspended during the promulgation of the emergency. The lone dissenter was Justice H.R. Khanna, who observed, “The constitution and the laws of India don’t permit life and liberty to be at the mercy of the absolute power of the executive. What is at stake is the rule of law. “He further averred that detention without trial is an anathema to all those who love personal liberty.

The Importance of Dissent

Justice Khanna writes in his book “Making of India’s Constitution (1981): “a constitution is not a parchment of paper; it’s a way of life. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, and in the final analysis, its only keepers are the people. The imbecility of men, history teaches us, always invites the impudence ofpower.” Justice Khanna was aware that he would be superseded because of this dissenting judgment. And true to his apprehension, he was denied the post of Chief Justice of India (CJI) six months later.

It’s interesting to note that both Justice Chandrachud and Justice Bhagawati, who were part of the majority judgement, later regretted their decision. Pondering over the strange majority opinion, the eminent jurist Granville Austin metaphorically observes in his book “Working a Democratic Constitution” (1999), “the judges would have been hanged separately if they had hung together”. In defence of his dissent, Justice Khanna quoted Evan Hughes: “A dissent is an appeal to the brooding spirit of law, intelligence of a future day, when a later decision may correct the error into which the dissenting judge believes the court to have been betrayed.”

It is a small tribute to the brooding spirit of a fearless judge like Justice H R Khanna, that 42years later in the Puttaswamy case (2017),the Supreme Court in a unanimous verdict, overruled the ADM Jabalpur judgement. It’s a unique judgment where a son (Justice DY Chandrachud) overruled the father, Justice YV Chandrachud. He wrote: “when histories of nations are written and critiqued, there are judicial decisions at the forefront of liberty. Yet, others have to be consigned to the archives. ADM Jabalpur must be and is accordingly overruled”.

The Shah Commission

It was constituted in 1977 to look into the abuses during the emergency years. The Commission found widespread abuse of power, including illegal detentions of 1.11 lakh citizens, press censorship, and targeting of the intelligentsia. It was particularly critical of the role of the civil servants. To quote, “even the cream of the talent in the country in the administrative field collapsed at the slightest pressure, forging records and fabricating the ground of detention. The overall picture was that the civil servant felt that they had to show loyalty to the party in power to advance their careers.’

Disturbing Death of Rajan, a student

One of the most disturbing examples of ruthlessness was displayed by DIG Paddikal in Kerala. On 1st March 1976, P Rajan, an engineering student of REC, Calicut, was picked up from college on trumped-up charges of indulging in Naxal activities and was tortured to death in police custody. His father, Prof. Varrier, ran from pillar to post, but couldn’t save his son from the new form of torture being practised by Paddikal.

In a heart-wrenching book, “Memories of a Father”, Prof. Varrier writes ‘Why are you making my son, standing in the realm even after his death. Let my son know that his father never shut the door on him.’ For a father like Prof Warrior and his wife Radha, who died of shock, apprehending the death of their only child. No soothing word can obliterate or mollify their indescribable loss; nor can they erase the icy hands of ruthless political dictatorship, and administrative complicity during the dark years of emergency when life & dissent were passé.

Undeclared Emergency

In the book “India’s Undeclared Emergency” (2022), Arvind Narrain, an eminent lawyer, writes that in India today, there is a systematic attack on the rule of law that hits at the foundation of democracy and its Constitution. Preventive detention, lynching of minorities and attacks on journalists, and love-jihad are all manifestations of state excesses, human rights violations to promote Hindu ideology. He also writes that, unlike the Congress government of 1975, the Modi government draws on popular support and raises the dangerous possibility that today’s authoritarian regime could become tomorrow’s totalitarian state. Jairam Ramesh flags how a spate of unbridled hate speech on communal lines, and dissent, is being suppressed by harassing activists and criminalising student protests. President Obama, during Mr Modi’s US visit, has also observed that India may pull apart if the rights of religious and ethnic minorities are not upheld.

Surmounting The Dark Clouds

The civil liberty activist K. Balgopal wrote that the arrest of Binayak Sen under the sedition law was fundamentally to send a message that dissent has costs and make people afraid that they could be arrested. In a constitutional democracy, the power of the political executive is kept in check by an independent judiciary, political opposition, the media, and civil society. The Supreme Court is sadly succumbing to the political executive by agreeing to abrogation of Article 370 and allowing the construction of a Hindu temple on the site of Babri Masjid, not based on evidence but on faith.

While Justice Nariman upheld online speech in the Shreya Singhal Case (2015) by striking down the arbitrary S66A of the IT Act, Justice Surya Kant expresses displeasure over a Facebook post of Prof Mahmudabad on OP Sindoor, where he alleges targeting of the Muslim community, as a form of ‘dog whistle’. With mainstream media sub serving the interests of corporates in cahoots with the government, it is only through a vigilant civil society by reaffirming our faith in diversity and multiculturalism that the dark clouds of polarisation can be removed.