Click to play videoOver the last two months, CNN-IBN has brought you 60 moments that we believe have defined India in the last 60 years. Now, based on your views posted on ibnlive.com, we have chosen 10 Defining Moments. Here’s the sixth in the series: the story of one of the darkest moments for Indian democracy - the Emergency.
New Delhi: Nineteen-seventy-four was a cruel year. The Congress party appeared to be withering away amid rising prices, student protests, trade union strikes and public rallies.
Leaders like J P Narayan toured India with one slogan to restructure India's democracy - total revolution.
On June 12 1975, the Allahabad High Court – acting on an election petition filed by Raj Narain - ruled that Indira Gandhi's election was invalid.
Crowds surrounded Parliament demanding her resignation. President Fakruddin Ali Ahmed, under Indira Gandhi's instructions, imposed the Emergency on June 26, 1975.
India, the proud democracy, was transformed overnight into a tinpot dictatorship and was brought, in Indira's own words, to a grinding halt.
Political leaders were thrown in jail. The infamous 20-point programme was declared to revive the Indian economy.
Courts were gagged and the press was muzzled. The Indian Express comes out with its famous editorial: it is simply blank.
Then in January 23 1977, Indira Gandhi called fresh elections. The combined Opposition won more than a two-third majoritya and Indira lost her own constituency. Morarjee Desai became Prime Minister on March 20 1977.
While the Emergency was over, for thousands it became a catalyst to political activism, a reminder of how frail our freedom still was.
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