CHAPTER 3 (B): Into The COLD-WAR ( Emergency 1975)

- by Ritweek Singh
IIT(BHU) Varanasi , India

"Darkest hour of Democracy "

After the victory in 1971, Indira Gandhi's stature was incomparable to any other leader. She did the unthinkable task of breaking a US-backed Pakistan into two parts. The early 1970s were a good period for India as a country. The Green Revolution and new HYV seeds were very successful.

By this time Sanjay Gandhi came into mainstream politics. 

Indira Gandhi dismissed many state governments and elections were conducted. Indira Gandhi was at the peak of her popularity. Congress(I/R) secured victory in all. Till 1973 all states but Tamil Nadu had congress(I)'s government.

Sanjay Gandhi

I won't go into conspiracies such as Sanjay not being Feroze Gandhi's son, instead was the result of a love affair between Indira and Mohammad Yunus, as there is no fact or valid evidence for that. But there's no iota of doubt that he was a womanizer and behaved like a thug many times. 

He was a very capable administrator though. He was one of the persons that KGB could not manipulate. His wife Maneka Gandhi now a BJP MP was then a model. Meneka Gandhi had sour relation with her mother in law i.e. Indira Gandhi. Indira Gandhi took no decision without Sanjay's advice. I am briefing you about Sanjay as understanding his character is crucial for understanding the geopolitics of India at that time because he was the actual person who was making the decisions. 

EVENTS LEADING TO EMERGENCY 

This period of 1971-1975 had many series of events going on parallelly, therefore, its difficult to understand the chronology. For the sake of ease of understanding, I have made thee separate timelines which end at the same event, EMERGENCY.

Political Reasons:

Gujrat Movement

Everything started with an increase in hostel and mess fees in a college in Gujarat. Students from other colleges also joined and complete Gujrat University went on strike. Soon the middle class of Gujrat joined the strike as there was very high inflation in prices of all commodities due to OIL crisis. 

A small issue of mess fee increase had now turned into a massive protest all over Gujarat. Morarji Desai was leading this movement and went on indefinite hunger strike. The movement was renamed as Navnirman Andolan. Protesters demanded CM's resignation. 

For the first and only time perhaps, a protest led to a CM's resignation. Many MLAs followed and resigned, thus the assembly was dissolved. Elections were conducted and an opposition Janta Morcha came into power and history was made. This was considered an impossible event. Students Unions all across India became active and organised protests for their demands. Though it's insignificant for this chapter but one of the students in this protest was going to become India's PM in 2014. I believe you know, who. 

Railway workers Strike

Railway workers organised a strike against long working hours and low wages. This is the largest strike to date. Over 70 Lakh employees( 70% of railway workers)  participated in this strike. The leader of this strike, George Fernandes would later become the Defense Minister in NDA government.

As per statistics, 1974 was the year with the maximum number of strikes in India. Many other private and public industries small scale strikes were going on. Indira Gandhi suppressed the railway workers strike brutally. She expelled many employees and their families were also thrown out of their railway quarters. This further increased the anger in public. Her actions turned a simple industrial labour dispute into a war-like situation.

JP Movement

All major politicians we know today like Lalu Prasad Yadav, Ram Vilas Paswan, Nitish Kumar, etc were active student leaders at that time. Following the events in Gujarat, they also started their own movement mainly for similar reasons of hostel and mess.

Note: Students not getting proper food in mess may lead to National Emergency. I know bad joke.

Bihar is unique in many ways, and so are its students and movements. Students sieged the assembly building and started turning violent. This provocation led to police firing resulting in the death of few students. This further intensified the situation. Students requested Jayaprakash Narayan(JP) to lead their movement. Analysing the situation JP agreed on the condition that students won't indulge in violence. I won't go into Jayaprakash Narayan(JP)'s past as it's insignificant in relation to this chapter.

JP gave the slogan of sampoorna kranti or Total Revolution. The country was amidst a global OIL crisis, prices of all commodities were high, thus frustrated middle class also joined the movement. All these conditions were favourable for a Perfect Storm. This movement spread to neighbouring states and the demand of resignation of CM had now turned into a demand for resignation of Indira Gandhi. She had many charges of corruption along with that of turning into a tyrant. 

The opposition, students, trade unions and railway & PSU workers all united against the Indira government under JP's leadership. Indira was worried and was considering the idea of resigning. Sanjay Gandhi convinced her not to do so. After a meeting between Indira and JP, Indira Gandhi made clear that she would not dissolve Bihar Legislative Assembly. She could have dismissed Bihar Legislative Assembly but it would lead to similar demands from other states and was not feasible.

An enormous rally was organised in Ram Leela Ground. Here in his famous speech, JP requested all the IAS and IPS officers to do their duty but if they feel any order is against their moral conduct then they should disobey it. This statement of his would later be used by Mrs Gandhi to justify Emergency.

Did Indira Gandhi impose emergency just because of fear from the JP movement?

 ANS: NO.

All this political instability was a contributing factor but not the main reason. The real battle was not even being fought in Ram Leela Ground or the parliament or any Vidhan Sabha. The government can easily cope with such uprisings. 

This wasn't a simple fight between the government and the opposition. The real battle was between PMO and Supreme Court of India about who is superior. Our constitution defines that the executive is answerable to the legislature with Judiciary being autonomous and above all. Indira Gandhi tried to challenge this basic structure of our constitution. As soon as the executive is above the Judiciary, democracy is lost hence I say the darkest period of democracy.

JUDICIAL REASONS

 

Golaknath Vs State of Punjab Case, 1967

The state of Punjab passes a law that limits the amount of land to 30 acres, that an individual can hold. At that time Right to property was a fundamental right. The family of Henry and William Golak Nath held over 500 acres of farmland in Jalandhar, Punjab. Thus to save his land he filed the case.

 To explain the situation I am giving the summary of some articles( these are my interpretation, not exact words if someone wants he may read it from https://www.india.gov.in/sites/upload_files/npi/files/coi_part_full.pdf  )

Article 13: It states that any legislation that violates Part-III of the constitution will be declared Null & void by the Supreme court of India. i.e. Part-III cannot be amended.

PART-III: Article 12-35 | contains all the Fundamental Rights 

Article 368: The parliament can amend by way of addition, variation or repeal any provision of the Constitution in accordance with the procedure laid down in this article. i.e. empowers parliament to do constitutional amendments.

*If possible memorise this, I will not explain it every time.

****If you dont want to go into technical details please directly go to "For The Layman" section.

So these two articles 13 and 368 became the reason for the fight between the executive i.e PMO and SC. Art 13 says part 3 cannot be amended but Art 368 contains the word Any provision which includes part 3. Thus these two are contradicting each other.  

When the Punjab government passed this legislation it violated the fundamental right to property(now non-existent). The case was fought and SC gave its verdict overruling its own previous judgements of Shankari Prasad vs. Union of India case 1951 and Sajjan Singh vs the State Of Rajasthan case 1964, that Article 368 cannot touch Part III of the constitution.

For the layman: SC told Punjab Government's Act is unconstitutional and no amendment can touch fundamental rights.

Mrs Gandhi was angry by this judgement and determined to show her power over SC. Thus 24th Constitutional Amendment Act(CAA)  was passed in 1971.

INDIRA 0 | JUDICIARY 1

24th Constitutional Amendment Act(CAA)

As in 1971, Mrs Gandhi was enjoying 2/3 majority. So, she amended article 13 itself and added clause 4 to it. She changed article 368 making it furthermore powerful thus easy to misuse.

Article 13 clause 4: Nothing in this article shall apply to any amendment of this Constitution made under article 368.

For the layman: this made article 13(which protects fundamental rights) useless and gave Parliament power to amend even Part-III, that is fundamental rights.

Thus she gave herself the power to change anything in the constitution. Practically she could rewrite the constitution which she actually did in the infamous 42nd CAA.

This was a serious threat to democracy.

INDIRA 1 | JUDICIARY 1

Kesavananda Bharati vs State of Kerala 1973

Kesavananda was the head of a Math( religious institution) which had 100s of acres of land which it acquired from donations. Kerala Government passed a Land reforms Act. This empowered the Kerala government to take Math's unused land for public use. Kesavananda challenged this act in SC under Article 26: Right to manage religious affairs. 

SC gave its historic judgement which gave the idea as well as coined the term of Basic Structure of Constitution. SC could not protect the fundamental rights using Article 13 (the reason is explained in 24th CAA).

SC said that parliament has a wide range of powers but not unlimited. This verdict said that parliament can amend Fundamental Rights when needed in the public interest but cannot change the basic structure of the constitution i.e. the core ideas of founding fathers. Example Democracy, right to equality before the law, judicial review, timely elections, etc.

For the layman: SC said parliament cannot amend everything it pleases. Though it gave permission to amend fundamental rights but said parliament cannot amend core ideas like democracy, elections etc.

INDIRA 1 | JUDICIARY 2

 Chief Justice of India & the 39th CAA

A day after the  Kesavananda Bharati case the CJI retired. According to convention the next senior-most judge of the SC shall be the next CJI. Indira Gandhi superseded 3 senior judges and made A. N. Ray(*theres a mistake in the Timeline photo above. There I have written A. N. Rai instead of A.N. Ray. In UP/ Bihar its Rai but he is a Bengali. In Bengal its Ray. 😅 . I am pointing this out because if you do Google search A N Rai is a totally different person.) The other 3 judges resigned in protest. Its allegedly said that A.N. Ray took advice from the PMO before giving judgements on major decisions.

 Democracy was now in grave danger. It's written that SC is the custodian of the constitution. Imagine a situation in which the custodian is taking orders from the thief. That's exactly what the situation was.

39th CAA:

This amendment was to safeguard the PMO from the SC. Its main feature relevant to us was that the office of PM and the office of the speaker will not come under judicial review. You may wonder why the speaker. If you read the constitution thoroughly or are aware of the parliamentary proceedings you will notice the speaker is the most powerful office regarding the conduct of business and procedures of the parliament. 

These two moves combined gave India Gandhi unprecedented powers. The executive(through PMO), the legislature(through the speaker) and the judiciary( through CJI), all the three pillars of Democracy were under Indira Gandhi's control.

INDIRA 2 | JUDICIARY 2

Now the final nail in the coffin.

Raj Narain vs State of Uttar Pradesh 1975

In 1971 Loksabha elections Mrs Gandhi fought from the Raebareli constituency in UP. While campaigning she used local police, electric board, the district administration for her rallies. As per guidelines of Election Commission of India, the ruling party cannot use government machinery of election purposes. When the results came Mrs Gandhi had a landslide victory.

Raj Narain was the opposing candidate from Raebareli. He filed a case against Mrs Gandhi charging her of bribery and use of government machinery. By the way, the lawyer fighting this case for Raj Narain was Shanti Bhushan, father of Prashant Bhushan.  Justice Jagmohan Lal Sinha of Allahabad HC was hearing this case. Justice Sinha was offered a promotion to SC if he gives the verdict in favour of Mrs Gandhi. 

On 12 June 1975, Justice Jagmohan Lal Sinha found Gandhi guilty of electoral malpractices. Sinha declared the election verdict in the Rae Bareilly constituency "null and void", and barred Gandhi from holding elected office for six years. While Sinha had dismissed charges of bribery, he had found Indira guilty of misusing government machinery as a government employee herself.  

This judgement also defined that judicial review is a part of the Basic Structure of the constitution, thus 39th CAA is unconstitutional. 

For the layman: Indira Gandhi's victory in 1971 election was declared illegal and she was barred from contesting election for the next 6 years.

No one was expecting such a harsh verdict from an HC judge against Mrs Gandhi. This verdict could end her political career. The verdict was challenged in SC. SC upheld HC's verdict of Mrs Gandhi being guilty of electoral malpractices but allowed her to remain PM for 6 months. She had to become MP of any house within 6 months to remain PM.

INDIRA 2 | JUDICIARY 4

KO : Judiciary Won

Back to Political Arena

These judgements backed by public support and political crisis scared Mrs Gandhi. Sanjay Gandhi advised Mrs Gandhi to declare a National Emergency. By imposing emergency she could put down the political opposition, remain in power as long as she wants.

One more contributing factor was the time. This last verdict, Gujrat election results( in which Janta Morcha won) and large rally in Ram Leela ground by JP, all occurred on the same day of 25 June 1975. These 2 Narains ( JP and Raj Narain) had made Mrs Gandhi's life hell.

Scared and angry Mrs Gandhi started discussing the legality of Emergency provision.
Article 352 has provisions for National Emergency. It contains the provision for imposing a national emergency in case of "Internal Disturbances". This is a vague word. Anything can be considered as internal disturbance, an all India strike, any peaceful but large protest, etc. Therefore this would be amended to Armed Rebellion in 44th CAA 1978. I will explain that later.

Considering the JP movement as an internal disturbance, Mrs Gandhi imposed the National Emergency. JP's statement requesting disobeying by IAS/IPS officers was misinterpreted by Mrs Gandhi as a provocation for a military coup.

At 11:20 PM on 25 June 1975, R. K. Dhawan, Mrs Gandhi's personal assistant took the official letter of Emergency to Rashtrapati Bhavan. As soon as Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed signed the letter and added it to the official gazette of India, our democracy was in the hands of Mrs Gandhi.

We got our democracy at midnight and almost lost it on another. At some places, you can read Emergency started on 26 June as President signed on it around midnight, but the official letter has the date 25 June.

The electricity of most media houses was cut so that papers could not be printed. Mrs Gandhi didn't even consult the cabinet. The cabinet was informed the next day in the morning but no one in cabinet protested.
But don't blame Mrs Gandhi for these actions, by this time all decisions were being taken by Sanjay Gandhi. JP, Lal Krishna Advani, Atal Bihari Vajpayee along with 100s of other leaders of opposition as well as congress leaders who opposed Indira or Sanjay were arrested before sunrize of 26 June.

Technically its called purge. Satlin had conducted many such purges in which anyone who opposes the government is arrested.

The story of how Sikkim joined the Indian Union and India's first nuclear program Smiling Buddha is also very interesting. I will cover that after Emergency because it will break the flow.

EMERGENCY (25 Jun 1975 – 21 Mar 1977)

This is were Sanjay Gandhi's role is visible. He was the one running the country during the emergency.
I have not mentioned KGB in this chapter yet. It's because as long as Indira's government was in power in the centre and almost all states, they had no motive to invest in mainstream politics. But as I say they are always there in the background. They helped India make its first nuclear bomb. They infiltrated our bureaucracy and major institution in the country like universities and media. They were selling weapons to India. By this time India had become the largest trading partner of Russia outside the Soviet block. Indira Gandhi was bribed many times for inserting socialist policies into the constitution. She made 20 amendments in the Indian constitution between 1971-76, last being 42nd.

I have told earlier that KGB could not influence Sanjay. Thus they had little to no say in the policies during Emergency as it was Sanjay Gandhi who was controlling the country. Instead, KGB was more focused in rewriting the constitution of India through a draft, today we know this draft as the 42nd constitutional amendment Act 1976. Therefore it is also called Mini Constitution.

Sanjay Gandhi had a close group of friends/advisors called his coterie. All the decisions were taken by them and most prominent of their decisions are called 5 Point Program. In Turkman area of Delhi slums were brought down using bulldozers. When the people protested police open fired on them. ( For Turkman massacre details - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkman_gate_demolition_and_rioting ). Many forced sterilization of men was done all across India under Sanjay Gandhi's nusbandi yojna (Vasectomy programme). In 1976–1977, the programme led to 8.3 million sterilisations, most of them forced, up from 2.7 million the previous year.
Around 1.4 Lakh people were arrested and then tortured. Many students were beaten and some even died in police custody. Many of leaders who went into hiding started movements still themselves being underground.

Wondering what our current Leaders were doing.

This is a famous photo of our current PM Narendra Modi. During the emergency, he disguised as a Sikh. Many others like him were constantly working against the oppressive regime of Sanjay Gandhi. When the government tried to arrest Subramanian Swamy, he escaped to the USA.
 All these arrests took place under M.I.S.A 1971. Lalu Prasad Yadav told Mrs Gandhi he would never forget how Mrs Gandhi arrested him. Therefore he named one of his daughters Misa on this Act. This is a rather funny but true incident.


Meanwhile, the 42nd constitutional amendment was passed in the parliament with almost no opposition.

42nd CAA

Preamble:  this was the 1st and only time our preamble was amended. You may wonder why is that even significant, preamble contains no law. The preamble was written at last when the constitution was ready. Many people misunderstand preamble as a preface or introduction but in reality, it is the summary of our constitution. The preamble is the very identity of our constitution.

 Addition of the words socialist & secular was the announcement for the world, declaring India is now a socialist country by law. Kind of victory celebration of KGB. You may wonder why secular was not there originally. During the 1950s the western definition of secular was a divorce between the state and religion, whereas our definition was the equal treatment of all religions. Thus our founding fathers avoided any misinterpretation of the word.
As for socialist, Dr B R Ambedkar said that socialism could be the policy of any political party of government but not the state. The state shall remain neutral with its policies.

Article 31C & 31D: In short they gave tremendous powers to the government regarding legislation and arrests. Article 31D first time officially coined the term Anti-National( basically anyone who opposed the government) and gave powers to discriminate against them, even violating fundamental Rights.

I won't go much into other technical details. Most of the other provisions added socialistic directives and articles to the constitution. In short, changing India from a democratic welfare state to a Socialist Police state.

Sanjay and Indira Gandhi had false information that public support is with them. This mistake came as a blessing for our Democracy. On 21 Mar 1977 emergency was lifted and General elections were declared. I will continue this further in the next chapter- Chapter 3(C).

Sikkim joining Indian Union

Sikkim, Goa and Kashmir, all three have a very unique story of their own.
Originally people from Tibet settled in Sikkim. With time Nepalis started migrating into Sikkim. Circa 1800s British wanted to defeat the kingdom of Nepal. The kingdom of Sikkim was the enemy of Nepal at that time. Thus British allied with Sikkim and defeated Nepal. This system continued for a while.

Later Sikkim became a protectorate of British. Things soured when Britishers asked for Darjeeling( for Tea Plantation). King of Sikkim (King is called Chogyal in their language) agreed and a deal was signed where the East India Company would timely pay around 6000 Rupees at that time. East India Company stopped paying this amount after a brief period of time. Approx 1850s Sikkim's king and landlords started attacking Darjeeling. British sent an army and defeated them but now their status was reduced to a princely state. Though Britishers resumed the payment but their relationship had soured.

Around the 1940s parties started forming in Sikkim also. They asked the King to form a constitutional monarchy. Around 1950 Sikkim became a protectorate of India( almost similar to Kashmir). They had their own flag and the head was Chogyal- King. Tashi Namgyal was the king at that time. His relation was very good with Nehru. There was a legislative assembly at that time but had limited powers, King still enjoyed most of the powers.

The problem began when Tashi's son Palden Thondup Namgyal became the King. He had a more anti-India stance. His second wife Hope Cook( who is believed to be a CIA agent) had more control on Sikkim then the King himself. She also wrote provoking magazines against India.

After the Chinese annexation of Tibet and Indo-China War of 1962, India was sure that China would try to annex Sikkim.

Cho La Incident 1967( sometimes called as 2nd Indo-China war)

Chinese army attacked Sikkim but this time the Indian Army defended Sikkim. After a 10-day battle ceasefire was established. After this incident, India was determined to join Sikkim into India. Our present National Security Advisor(NSA) Ajit Doval was sent in Sikkim. RAW was given the task to organise wide-scale protest between the majority Nepali and ruling Bhutia people. Finally, the situation becomes so violent that the King had to call the Indian government for help.

India made the King sign a pact which makes Sikkim an associate state and takes away most of King's power and the administrative power goes to India's Political agent in Sikkim. Elections are held and pro-India Sikkim congress secures all the seats.

By September of 1974, Indian parliament started drafting the 36th Amendment Bill( Bill that would make Sikkim part of India). Media was criticising this Bill as this was discrimination between Kashmir and Sikkim. By April 1975, law and order situation was once again disturbed in Sikkim. 

This time all of a sudden India sents its army into Gangtok. Within 30 minutes King's army consisting of around 300 men was overpowered. The office of Chogyal was dissolved. On 16 May 1975, 36th constitutional amendment bill was passed and thus Sikkim became a part of India. Due to international pressure, a referendum was conducted within 5 days. The majority wanted to join India. The validity of the referendum was questioned but the issue cooled down within a year.

Bad joke incoming: People of Sikkim were like, yeh we joined India. Now we are free, #democracy #freedom. And then within two months Emergency was imposed.

Smiling Buddha

Dr Homi J. Bhabha( who was allegedly killed by CIA) had convinced Indian leaders right from the independence that India should focus towards nuclear energy, if not weapons then at least for electricity. In the early 1950s and 60s, most of our civil nuclear reactors were set up with the help of USA and Canada. Till then only the USA, USSR, UK & France had nuclear weapons. When in 1964 China tested its nuclear Bomb, India started acting seriously toward its own nuclear programme.

We used nuclear fuel which we were getting for our Power Plants. On 18 May 1974, India tested its first fission device in Pokhran. I am calling it a device because officially India claim it was a peaceful detonation and not a weapon. ( Hypocritic from our side, I know)

As soon as the test was successful a senior scientist called PMO and said: " Buddha is smiling".

India was a closed economy at that time with USSR as the major trading partner. Thus US sanctions didn't have an economical effect on us but the western world stopped the nuclear supply to India. This stagnated our nuclear program for around 25 years.