Class 12 Political Science Book 2 Chapter 6 The Crisis of Democratic Order Important Questions with Answers in English

Q. On what ground was the Emergency of June 1975 proclaimed, and under which Article?

Answer: On the ground that there was a threat of internal disturbances, under Article 352 of the Constitution.

Q. Who issued the proclamation of Emergency, and on whose recommendation?

Answer: President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed issued it, on the recommendation of the Prime Minister, on the night of 25 June 1975. He issued it immediately.

Q. By how much did food grain output decline after the monsoons failed in 1972-1973?

Answer: By 8 per cent. The failure of the monsoons resulted in a sharp decline in agricultural productivity.

Q. What is press censorship, as the chapter defines it?

Answer: Newspapers being asked to get prior approval for all material to be published.

Q. Who led the National Coordination Committee for Railwaymen’s Struggle?

Answer: George Fernandes. The Committee gave the call for a nationwide strike by all employees of the Railways in May 1974.

Q. On what slogan did the opposition fight the election of 1977?

Answer: On the slogan of ‘save democracy’.

Q. Which seats did Indira Gandhi and Sanjay Gandhi lose in the 1977 elections?

Answer: Indira Gandhi was defeated from Rae Bareli, and her son Sanjay Gandhi from Amethi.

Q. Name the party formed under the leadership of Jagjivan Ram in 1977, and say what became of it.

Answer: The Congress for Democracy, formed by some Congress leaders who came out of the party. It later merged with the Janata Party.

Q. In R. K. Laxman’s cartoon of 26 June 1975, who is the man behind the chair?

Answer: D. K. Barooah, the Congress President. The chapter’s caption says the cartoon appeared a few days before the declaration of Emergency and captures the sense of impending political crisis.

Q. Name the Kannada writer and the Hindi writer who returned their awards in protest against the suspension of democracy during the Emergency.

Answer: Kannada writer Shivarama Karanth (awarded the Padma Bhushan) and Hindi writer Fanishwarnath Renu (awarded the Padma Shri).

Q. What position did the Congress take on the Supreme Court in the years before the Emergency?

Answer: The Congress party took the position that the Court’s stand was against the principles of democracy and parliamentary supremacy. It also alleged that the Court was a conservative institution and was becoming an obstacle in the way of implementing pro-poor welfare programmes. Both of these are positions the chapter attributes to the Congress, not conclusions of its own.

Q. On what conditions did Jayaprakash Narayan agree to lead the students’ movement in Bihar, and what followed from them?

Answer: He agreed on the condition that the movement would remain non-violent and would not limit itself to Bihar. Because of the second condition the students’ movement assumed a political character and had a national appeal, and people from all walks of life entered it.

Q. How did the government respond to the railway strike of 1974, and how did the strike end?

Answer: The government declared the strike illegal, refused to concede the demands of the striking workers, arrested many of their leaders and deployed the territorial army to protect railway tracks. The strike had to be called off after twenty days, without any settlement.

Q. What did the Allahabad High Court judgment of 12 June 1975 mean for Indira Gandhi, and what did the Supreme Court’s order of 24 June change?

Answer: The High Court judgment meant that legally she was no more an MP, and therefore could not remain the Prime Minister unless she was once again elected as an MP within six months. On 24 June the Supreme Court granted her a partial stay: till her appeal was decided she could remain an MP, but could not take part in the proceedings of the Lok Sabha.

Q. What is preventive detention, and how was it used during the Emergency?

Answer: Under preventive detention, people are arrested and detained not because they have committed any offence, but on the apprehension that they may commit an offence. Using preventive detention acts, the government made large scale arrests during the Emergency, and the arrested political workers could not challenge their arrest through habeas corpus petitions.

Q. How did newspapers and magazines respond to press censorship during the Emergency?

Answer: Newspapers like the Indian Express and the Statesman protested against censorship by leaving blank spaces where news items had been censored. Magazines like the Seminar and the Mainstream chose to close down rather than submit to censorship. Many journalists were arrested for writing against the Emergency, and many underground newsletters and leaflets were published to bypass censorship.

Q. What change did the forty-second amendment make to the duration of legislatures, and was the change temporary?

Answer: It extended the duration of the legislatures in the country from five to six years. The change was not only for the Emergency period: it was intended to be of a permanent nature. Besides this, during an Emergency elections can be postponed by one year, so that after 1971 elections needed to be held only in 1978 instead of 1976.

Q. What two changes have been made since the Emergency to the constitutional provision on proclaiming an ‘internal’ Emergency?

Answer: First, an ‘internal’ Emergency can now be proclaimed only on the grounds of ‘armed rebellion’. Second, it is now necessary that the advice to the President to proclaim an Emergency be given in writing by the Union Cabinet. The chapter presents both as ambiguities in the original provision that have been rectified since.

Q. Describe the economic context in which the Emergency was imposed.

Answer: The Congress had given the slogan of garibi hatao in the elections of 1971, but the social and economic condition in the country did not improve much after 1971-72.
1. The Bangladesh crisis. It put a heavy strain on India’s economy; about eight million people crossed over the East Pakistan border into India.
2. War, and the loss of aid. The crisis was followed by war with Pakistan, and after the war the U.S. government stopped all aid to India.
3. Prices. Oil prices in the international market increased manifold, leading to an all-round increase in the prices of commodities. Prices increased by 23 per cent in 1973 and 30 per cent in 1974, and such a high level of inflation caused much hardship to the people.
4. Jobs and salaries. Industrial growth was low and unemployment was very high, particularly in the rural areas. To reduce expenditure the government froze the salaries of its employees, which caused further dissatisfaction among them.
5. Agriculture. Monsoons failed in 1972-1973, which resulted in a sharp decline in agricultural productivity, and food grain output declined by 8 per cent.
In this context there was a general atmosphere of dissatisfaction all over the country, and the non-Congress opposition parties were able to organise popular protests effectively.

Q. Describe the students’ movements in Gujarat and Bihar in 1974, and explain why they mattered to national politics.

Answer: Both Gujarat and Bihar were Congress ruled States, and the protests in them had a far reaching impact on the politics of the two States and on national politics.
Gujarat. In January 1974 students started an agitation against rising prices of food grains, cooking oil and other essential commodities, and against corruption in high places. Major opposition parties joined it and it became widespread, leading to the imposition of President’s rule in the state. The opposition parties demanded fresh elections to the state legislature, and Morarji Desai announced that he would go on an indefinite fast if they were not held. Under intense pressure, assembly elections were held in Gujarat in June 1975, and the Congress was defeated.
Bihar. In March 1974 students came together to protest against rising prices, food scarcity, unemployment and corruption. They invited Jayaprakash Narayan to lead them, and he accepted on the condition that the movement would remain non-violent and would not limit itself to Bihar. He demanded the dismissal of the Congress government in Bihar and gave a call for total revolution in the social, economic and political spheres. A series of bandhs, gehraos and strikes followed, but the government refused to resign.
Why they mattered. The movement took on a national character, and in 1975 Jayaprakash Narayan led a peoples’ march to Parliament, one of the largest political rallies ever held in the capital, supported by the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the Congress (O), the Bharatiya Lok Dal, the Socialist Party and others, which projected him as an alternative to Indira Gandhi. Both agitations were seen as protests against her leadership rather than against the two State governments, and she believed that the movement was motivated by personal opposition to her. There were also many criticisms about his ideas and about the politics of mass agitations that he was employing.

Q. What did the government do in the hours immediately after the Emergency was recommended on the night of 25 June 1975?

Answer: The chapter gives the sequence in order.
1. On the night of 25 June 1975 the Prime Minister recommended the imposition of Emergency to President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, and he issued the proclamation immediately.
2. After midnight, the electricity to all the major newspaper offices was disconnected.
3. In the early morning, a large number of leaders and workers of the opposition parties were arrested.
4. The Cabinet was informed about it at a special meeting at 6 a.m. on 26 June, after all this had taken place.
The chapter sets a question of its own beside this sequence, in the margin: should the President have declared Emergency without any recommendation from the Cabinet?

Q. What acts of dissent and resistance to the Emergency does the chapter record?

Answer: 1. Going underground. Many political workers who were not arrested in the first wave went ‘underground’ and organised protests against the government.
2. Blank spaces. Newspapers like the Indian Express and the Statesman protested against censorship by leaving blank spaces where news items had been censored. The editorial page of Nai Dunia of 27 June 1975 carried such a blank space, and later leaving blank space was itself banned.
3. Closing down. Magazines like the Seminar and the Mainstream chose to close down rather than submit to censorship.
4. Arrests of journalists. Many journalists were arrested for writing against the Emergency.
5. Underground publications. Many underground newsletters and leaflets were published to bypass censorship.
6. Returning awards. The Kannada writer Shivarama Karanth, awarded with the Padma Bhushan, and the Hindi writer Fanishwarnath Renu, awarded with the Padma Shri, returned their awards in protest against the suspension of democracy.
7. Advertisements. An anonymous advertisement in the Times of India announced the death of “D. E. M. O’Cracy, mourned by his wife T. Ruth, his son L. I. Bertie, and his daughters Faith, Hope and Justice”, and the ‘Free JP Campaign’ placed an advertisement in The Times, London on 15 August 1975 reading “Today is India’s Independence Day…Don’t Let the Lights Go Out on India’s Democracy”.
The chapter is careful to add its own qualifier to this list: “By and large, though, such open acts of defiance and resistance were rare.”

Q. Why did the Congress do much better outside north India in the 1977 elections than within it?

Answer: The chapter notes first that the Congress did not lose elections all over the country: it retained many seats in Maharashtra, Gujarat and Orissa and virtually swept through the southern States. It gives two reasons.
1. The Emergency was not felt equally everywhere. The impact of the Emergency was not felt equally in all the States. The forced relocation and displacements, and the forced sterilisations, were mostly concentrated in the northern States.
2. A longer term change in the north. More importantly, north India had experienced some long term changes in the nature of political competition. The middle castes from north India were beginning to move away from the Congress, and the Janata party became a platform for many of these sections to come together.
The chapter draws the conclusion itself: “In this sense, the elections of 1977 were not merely about the Emergency.”

Q. Why did the Janata Party government fail to last, and what lesson does the chapter draw from the experience of 1977-79?

Answer: 1. It was never cohesive. The Janata Party government that came to power after the 1977 elections was far from cohesive. After the election there was stiff competition among three leaders for the post of Prime Minister: Morarji Desai, Charan Singh and Jagjivan Ram. Morarji Desai became the Prime Minister, but that did not bring the power struggle within the party to an end.
2. Opposition to the Emergency was all that held it together. The opposition to emergency could keep the Janata Party together only for a while. Its critics felt that the Janata Party lacked direction, leadership, and a common programme.
3. It changed little. The Janata Party government could not bring about a fundamental change in policies from those pursued by the Congress.
4. The split. The Janata Party split and the government led by Morarji Desai lost its majority in less than 28 months. Another government headed by Charan Singh was formed on the assurance of the support of the Congress party, but the Congress later withdrew its support, so that government could remain in power for just about 4 months.
The lesson. Fresh Lok Sabha elections were held in January 1980, in which the Janata Party suffered a comprehensive defeat and the Congress won 353 seats. The experience of 1977-79 taught another lesson in democratic politics: governments that are seen to be unstable and quarrelsome are severely punished by the voters.

Q. Trace the conflict between the government and the judiciary that formed part of the background to the Emergency.

Answer: 1. Three constitutional issues. Can the Parliament abridge Fundamental Rights? The Supreme Court said it cannot. Can the Parliament curtail the right to property by making an amendment? Again the Court said that Parliament cannot amend the Constitution in such a manner that rights are curtailed. Thirdly, the Parliament amended the Constitution saying that it can abridge Fundamental Rights for giving effect to Directive Principles, and the Supreme Court rejected this provision also.
2. The Kesavananda Bharati case. This crisis culminated in the famous Kesavananda Bharati Case, in which the Court gave a decision that there are some basic features of the Constitution and the Parliament cannot amend these features.
3. The appointment of the Chief Justice. Immediately after the Supreme Court’s decision in 1973, a vacancy arose for the post of Chief Justice of India. It had been a practice to appoint the senior-most judge of the Supreme Court, but in 1973 the government set aside the seniority of three judges and appointed Justice A. N. Ray as the Chief Justice. The appointment became politically controversial because all the three judges who were superseded had given rulings against the stand of the government.
4. A ‘committed’ judiciary. Constitutional interpretations and political ideologies were getting mixed up rapidly, and people close to the Prime Minister started talking of the need for a judiciary and a bureaucracy ‘committed’ to the vision of the executive and the legislature.
5. The climax. The climax of the confrontation was the ruling of the High Court declaring Indira Gandhi’s election invalid, on 12 June 1975.
6. The other side of the argument. The chapter also records the Congress’s own position, that the Court’s stand was against the principles of democracy and parliamentary supremacy and that the Court was a conservative institution obstructing pro-poor welfare programmes. Both positions are reported by the chapter as positions held at the time.

Q. Discuss the effects of the Emergency on civil liberties, on the relationship between the executive and the judiciary, on the working of the mass media, and on the police and the bureaucracy.

Answer: 1. Civil liberties. Under the provisions of Emergency the various Fundamental Rights of citizens stood suspended, including the right of citizens to move the Court for restoring their Fundamental Rights. The government made extensive use of preventive detention, under which people are arrested and detained not because they have committed any offence but on the apprehension that they may commit an offence, and large scale arrests followed. Strikes were banned, and protests and public agitations were disallowed. The chapter notes that afterwards the Emergency made everyone more aware of the value of civil liberties, and that many civil liberties organisations came up after this experience.
2. The executive and the judiciary. Arrested political workers could not challenge their arrest through habeas corpus petitions, and the government claimed that it was not even necessary to inform arrested persons of the reasons and grounds of their arrest. Several High Courts held that the courts could still entertain a writ of habeas corpus, but in April 1976 the constitution bench of the Supreme Court over-ruled the High Courts and accepted the government’s plea. This meant that during Emergency the government could take away the citizen’s right to life and liberty; the chapter says the judgment closed the doors of judiciary for the citizens and is regarded as one of the most controversial judgments of the Supreme Court. The chapter also notes that the Courts have taken an active role after the Emergency in protecting civil liberties, in response to the inability of the judiciary to protect them effectively during it.
3. The mass media. The government suspended the freedom of the Press, and newspapers were asked to get prior approval for all material to be published, which is press censorship. Newspapers such as the Indian Express and the Statesman left blank spaces where news items had been censored, magazines such as the Seminar and the Mainstream closed down rather than submit, many journalists were arrested for writing against the Emergency, and underground newsletters and leaflets were published to bypass censorship.
4. The police and the bureaucracy. The actual implementation of the Emergency rule took place through the police and the administration. These institutions could not function independently; they were turned into political instruments of the ruling party, and according to the Shah Commission Report the administration and the police became vulnerable to political pressures. The chapter adds that this problem did not vanish after the Emergency.

Q. The 1977 elections saw the Opposition come to power at the Centre for the first time. What reasons does the chapter give for this?

Answer: 1. A referendum on the Emergency. The 1977 elections turned into a referendum on the experience of the Emergency, at least in north India where the impact of the Emergency was felt most strongly. The opposition fought the election on the slogan of ‘save democracy’, and the people’s verdict was decisively against the Emergency.
2. A united opposition. The major opposition parties had already been coming closer in the pre-Emergency period. They came together on the eve of the elections and formed the Janata Party, which accepted the leadership of Jayaprakash Narayan; some Congress leaders opposed to the Emergency joined it, and others formed the Congress for Democracy under Jagjivan Ram, which later merged with it.
3. Undivided non-Congress votes. The formation of the Janata Party ensured that non-Congress votes would not be divided.
4. The campaign. The Janata Party made this election into a referendum on the Emergency; its campaign was focused on the non-democratic character of the rule and on the various excesses that took place during this period.
5. Public opinion. In the backdrop of arrests of thousands of persons and the censorship of the Press, public opinion was against the Congress, and Jayaprakash Narayan became the popular symbol of restoration of democracy.
6. A longer term shift. The chapter adds a reason that is not about the Emergency at all: the middle castes from north India were beginning to move away from the Congress, and the Janata party became a platform for many of these sections to come together. In this sense the elections of 1977 were not merely about the Emergency.
The result. The Congress won only 154 seats, with less than 35 per cent of the popular vote; the Janata Party and its allies won 330 of the 542 seats, and the Janata Party itself won 295.

Q. What lessons does the chapter draw from the Emergency, and what questions does it leave open?

Answer: The chapter’s own framing sentence is that the Emergency at once brought out both the weaknesses and the strengths of India’s democracy.
Lesson 1. Though there are many observers who think that India ceased to be democratic during the Emergency, normal democratic functioning resumed within a short span of time. One lesson of the Emergency is therefore that it is extremely difficult to do away with democracy in India.
Lesson 2. It brought out some ambiguities regarding the Emergency provision in the Constitution that have been rectified since. An ‘internal’ Emergency can now be proclaimed only on the grounds of ‘armed rebellion’, and the advice to the President to proclaim an Emergency must be given in writing by the Union Cabinet.
Lesson 3. The Emergency made everyone more aware of the value of civil liberties. The Courts too have taken an active role after the Emergency in protecting the civil liberties of individuals, a response to the inability of the judiciary to protect them effectively during the Emergency, and many civil liberties organisations came up after this experience.
Lesson 4, from what followed. The 1977 verdict, reiterated in many state level elections thereafter, was that governments that are perceived to be anti-democratic are severely punished by the voters. The experience of 1977-79 added that governments that are seen to be unstable and quarrelsome are punished in the same way.
The questions the chapter leaves open. It says there is a tension between the routine functioning of a democratic government and the continuous political protests by parties and groups, and then asks, without answering: what is the correct balance between the two? Should the citizens have full freedom to engage in protest activity, or should they have no such right at all? What are the limits to such a protest? It also notes a problem that did not go away: the police and the administration were turned into political instruments of the ruling party, and became vulnerable to political pressures.

Q. In what way did the Emergency and the elections around it change the party system in India? Support your answer with examples.

Answer: 1. The Congress had already changed. Since 1969 the Congress party had been shedding its character as an umbrella party which accommodated leaders and workers of different ideological dispensations and view points. It now identified itself with a particular ideology, claiming to be the only socialist and pro-poor party, so that from the early nineteen seventies its political success depended on attracting people on the basis of sharp social and ideological divisions and the appeal of one leader, Indira Gandhi.
2. Non-Congressism. With that change, the other opposition parties relied more and more on what is known in Indian politics as ‘non-Congressism’. They also realised the need to avoid a division of non-Congress votes in the election, and this factor played a major role in the elections of 1977.
3. Opposition unity became a party. The major opposition parties formed the Janata Party on the eve of the 1977 elections, and the Congress for Democracy merged into it. For the first time since Independence the Congress was defeated in a Lok Sabha election, and for the first time the Opposition came to power at the Centre.
4. But it did not become a two-party system. The Janata Party split and lost its majority in less than 28 months, the Charan Singh government lasted about four months, and in January 1980 the Congress returned with 353 seats.
5. The backward castes entered the centre of politics. In an indirect manner the issue of the welfare of the backward castes began to dominate politics since 1977; the results of the 1977 elections were at least partly due to a shift among the backward castes of north India. In the Assembly elections held in many states in 1977, the northern States elected non-Congress governments in which the leaders of the backward castes played an important role. The issue of reservations for ‘other backward classes’ became very controversial in Bihar, and following this the Mandal Commission was appointed by the Janata party government at the centre.
The chapter concludes that the elections after the Emergency set off the process of this change in the party system.

Q. Why does the chapter describe this period as both a constitutional crisis and a political crisis, and which of the two does it consider more serious?

Answer: 1. A constitutional crisis. The Emergency and the period around it can be described as a period of constitutional crisis because it had its origins in the constitutional battle over the jurisdiction of the Parliament and the judiciary. That battle ran through the three questions the chapter sets out, through the Kesavananda Bharati case and its doctrine of basic features, through the supersession of three judges in the appointment of the Chief Justice, and finally through the Allahabad High Court’s ruling on Indira Gandhi’s election.
2. A political crisis. On the other hand it was also a period of political crisis: the party in power had an absolute majority and yet its leadership decided to suspend the democratic process.
3. Why the political crisis was the graver one. The makers of India’s Constitution trusted that all political parties would basically abide by the democratic norm, and that even during an Emergency the government’s use of extraordinary powers would be within the norms of the rule of law. This expectation is what led to the wide and open ended powers given to the government in times of Emergency. These were abused during the Emergency. The chapter therefore states plainly: “This political crisis was more serious than the constitutional crisis.”
4. The issue that remained. The chapter adds a further critical issue that emerged in this period, the role and extent of mass protests in a parliamentary democracy. There was clearly a tension between institution-based democracy and democracy based on spontaneous popular participation, and this tension may be attributed to the inability of the party system to incorporate the aspirations of the people.