Complete solutions to all ten exercise questions printed at the end of NCERT Class 12
Political Science, Politics in India Since Independence, Chapter 6 The Crisis of Democratic
Order, followed by answers to every question the chapter asks inside the text. The questions are reproduced in the English edition’s own wording, option order and
numbering, and each answer is written the way it should be written in the exam.
Two things about this exercise are worth knowing before you use it.
1. Three of these questions ask about material your book no longer contains. This chapter
has been shortened, and the exercise was not shortened with it.
- Question 1(e) asks about the CPI and the Emergency. The words CPI and Communist
do not appear anywhere in the chapter you have, from the first page to the last. - Question 2(e) and the whole of Question 5 ask about the Shah Commission.
Your chapter mentions it exactly once, in a single clause near the end, and never says why it was
appointed or what it found. - The excesses of the Emergency, which Questions 7 and 8 lean on, survive only as a
fragment: one phrase about “the various excesses that took place during this period”, and one
sentence naming forced relocation, displacements and forced sterilisations in the northern
States.
Every one of these questions is answered in full below, because these are the questions printed in
your book. Wherever an answer rests on material that is no longer printed in the chapter, it
says so in plain words, so you never waste time hunting for a page you have not lost. Learn
those parts as bare facts.
2. Question 3’s second column is numbered i, ii, iii, iv in your book, not a, b, c, d.
Write those answers as roman numerals.
Where the marks are. Questions 7, 8 and 9 are the long ones, and all three are answered
entirely from the text you actually have.
1 Question 1
Q. State whether the following statements regarding the Emergency are correct or
incorrect.
(a) It was declared in 1975 by Indira Gandhi.
(b) It led to the suspension of all fundamental rights.
(c) It was proclaimed due to the deteriorating economic conditions.
(d) Many Opposition leaders were arrested during the emergency.
(e) CPI supported the proclamation of the Emergency.
Answer: (a) Correct · (b) Incorrect · (c) Incorrect ·
(d) Correct · (e) Correct
(a) Correct. On the night of 25 June 1975 the Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, recommended
the imposition of Emergency to President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, and he issued the proclamation
immediately. Be precise about the two roles: the Prime Minister recommended it, the President
proclaimed it.
(b) Incorrect. The chapter’s wording is careful and you should copy it: 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”. It says
various, not all. What the Constitution gives the government is the power “to curtail
or restrict all or any of the Fundamental Rights”, which is a power to choose, not an automatic
suspension of every right.
(c) Incorrect. The economic conditions were bad, and the chapter devotes a whole section to
them, but they were not the ground of the proclamation. The government “declared that there was a
threat of internal disturbances and therefore, it invoked Article 352 of the Constitution”. The
economic situation is background; internal disturbance is the stated ground.
(d) Correct. In the early morning of 26 June 1975 “a large number of leaders and workers
of the opposition parties were arrested”, and the chapter later refers to the arrests of thousands
of persons.
(e) Correct. The CPI did support the proclamation of the Emergency.
Search your book for CPI or Communist and you will not find either word. The
discussion of the CPI’s position was removed when the chapter was shortened, but this
exercise question was left in place.
So learn (e) as a bare fact: the answer is Correct. You cannot support it from the
chapter, and you are not expected to. If the question comes in the exam, answer “Correct” and, if
reasons are asked for, write what your chapter does support: that the opposition to the
Emergency came from the non-Congress parties named in the chapter, the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the
Congress (O), the Bharatiya Lok Dal and the Socialist Party, and that these are the parties that
later formed the Janata Party.
Careful. (b) is the trap in this question, and it catches students every year.
The word that decides it is all. Underline it before you answer.
2 Question 2
Q. Find the odd one out in the context of proclamation of Emergency
(a) The call for ‘Total Revolution.
(b) The Railway Strike of 1974
(c) The Naxalite Movement
(d) The Allahbad High Court verdict
(e) The findings of the Shah Commission Report
Answer: (e) The findings of the Shah Commission Report.
Why (e) is the odd one out. The other four all belong to the period before the
Emergency and all four contributed to the situation in which it was proclaimed on 25 June 1975. The
Shah Commission belongs to the period after: the chapter says it was appointed in 1977, by
the Janata Party Government, which came to power only once the Emergency was over. A body that was
set up to look back at the Emergency cannot be among the causes of it. This is a question about
sequence, not about importance.
Why the other four are not odd.
- (a) The call for Total Revolution. Jayaprakash Narayan gave the call for total
revolution in the social, economic and political spheres while leading the Bihar movement of 1974,
and the movement became the focus of national opposition to Indira Gandhi. - (b) The Railway Strike of 1974. Called in May 1974 by the National Coordination
Committee for Railwaymen’s Struggle under George Fernandes, it threatened to paralyse the country
and added to the atmosphere of labour unrest. - (c) The Naxalite Movement. The chapter records an increase in the activities of the
Marxist-Leninist (now Maoist) groups, or Naxalites, who had taken to arms and insurgent techniques
and were particularly strong in West Bengal. They are part of the disorder of the period. - (d) The Allahbad High Court verdict. On 12 June 1975 Justice Jagmohan Lal Sinha declared
Indira Gandhi’s election to the Lok Sabha invalid. The chapter calls the High Court’s ruling
“The climax of the confrontation”, and the Emergency followed thirteen days later.
Your chapter mentions the Shah Commission once, in a single clause, and it is not about
the Commission’s appointment or its findings. See Question 5 below for what has been removed and
what survives. You do not need any of that to answer this question: you can pick (e)
correctly on the sequence alone, because the chapter itself tells you the Commission was appointed
in 1977 and the Emergency was proclaimed in 1975.
Note the spelling. Your book prints “Allahbad” in option (d) and an
opening quotation mark with no closing one in option (a). Both are exactly as printed in the NCERT
English edition and are reproduced here unchanged.
3 Question 3
Q. Match the following
(a) Total Revolution i. Indira Gandhi
(b) Garibi hatao ii. Jayaprakash Narayan
(c) Students’ Protest iii. Bihar Movement
(d) Railway Strike iv. George Fernandes
Answer: (a) ii · (b) i · (c) iii · (d) iv
- (a) Total Revolution → ii. Jayaprakash Narayan. Leading the Bihar movement, he
“gave a call for total revolution in the social, economic and political spheres in order to
establish what he considered to be true democracy”. - (b) Garibi hatao → i. Indira Gandhi. “In the elections of 1971, Congress had
given the slogan of garibi hatao (remove poverty)”, and the chapter’s opening question about
it is aimed squarely at her government’s record. - (c) Students’ Protest → iii. Bihar Movement. “In March 1974 students came
together in Bihar to protest against rising prices, food scarcity, unemployment and
corruption”, and it was those students who invited Jayaprakash Narayan to lead them, which is
how the Bihar Movement began. - (d) Railway Strike → iv. George Fernandes. “The National Coordination Committee
for Railwaymen’s Struggle led by George Fernandes gave a call for nationwide strike by all
employees of the Railways”.
Careful with (a) and (c). Both involve Jayaprakash Narayan and both involve
Bihar, so it is easy to cross them over. Fix it this way: Total Revolution is the man’s slogan,
so it pairs with the man; Students’ Protest is where the movement started, so it pairs with
the movement.
4 Question 4
Q. What were the reasons which led to the mid-term elections in 1980?
Answer. The mid-term elections of January 1980 were caused by the collapse of the Janata
Party government, which had come to power only in March 1977. The chapter gives four reasons.
- 1. The government was never cohesive. “The Janata Party government that came to
power after the 1977 elections was far from cohesive.” Immediately 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 got the office, “but that did not bring the power struggle
within the party to an end”. - 2. Opposition to the Emergency was the only thing holding it together. “The
opposition to emergency could keep the Janata Party together only for a while.” Once that
common enemy was gone, its critics felt that the party “lacked direction, leadership, and a
common programme”. - 3. It offered no change of policy. “The Janata Party government could not bring
about a fundamental change in policies from those pursued by the Congress.” - 4. The split, and then two collapses. The Janata Party split, and the government led by
Morarji Desai lost its majority in less than 28 months. A second government headed by Charan
Singh was then formed “on the assurance of the support of the Congress party”, but the
Congress later withdrew that support, so the Charan Singh government could remain in power for
just about 4 months. With no government able to command a majority, fresh Lok Sabha elections
had to be held in January 1980.
What happened in them. The Janata Party suffered a comprehensive defeat, especially in
north India where it had swept the polls in 1977, and the Congress led by Indira Gandhi won 353
seats and came back to power. The chapter draws its lesson from this: “governments that are
seen to be unstable and quarrelsome are severely punished by the voters”.
Exam tip. The two numbers, 28 months and 4 months, are what turn a
general answer into a full-mark one. Do not swap them: 28 months is Morarji Desai, 4 months is Charan
Singh.
5 Question 5
Q. The Shah Commission was appointed in 1977 by the Janata Party Government. Why was it
appointed and what were its findings?
This is the question most affected by the shortening of the chapter. Your book mentions the Shah
Commission in one clause, in the section “Lessons of the Emergency”, and that clause is
about its findings on the police and the administration. The chapter does not tell you why
the Commission was appointed, when it reported, or what else it found. The question was left in the
exercise anyway.
The answer below is in two parts: what your chapter actually supports, which is where you
should spend your words, and a short background note, clearly labelled, that is not part of your
current book.
Answer, part 1: what the chapter supports.
Why it was appointed. The chapter tells you that the Janata Party won the 1977 election by
making it “a referendum on the Emergency”, with a campaign “focused on the non-democratic
character of the rule and on the various excesses that took place during this period”. A
government elected on that promise needed an official inquiry into those excesses, and the Shah
Commission was it: a commission of inquiry appointed in 1977 by the Janata Party Government to
investigate the excesses committed during the Emergency of 1975 to 1977.
The finding your chapter does give you. This is the one sentence, and it should be quoted
in full: 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 a
sentence of its own that is worth a mark: “This problem did not vanish after the Emergency.”
Background only (not printed in your current book).
The Commission inquired into the excesses of the Emergency period, the kind of excesses the chapter itself
describes: arrests under preventive detention, press censorship, and the forced relocation and sterilisation
drives. Its full report is not part of your book, so do not build the answer on outside detail; use part 1.
Note carefully: the last of those three is partly supported by your chapter, in a
different section. When it explains why the Congress did better outside north India in 1977, the
chapter says: “The forced relocation and displacements, the forced sterilisations, were mostly
concentrated in the northern States.” That sentence is the only place the excesses are named in
the book you have, so use it.
How to write this in the exam. Open with the appointment: 1977, by the Janata
Party Government, to inquire into the excesses of the Emergency. Then give the finding your book
actually carries, on the police and the administration becoming political instruments and vulnerable
to political pressures, and quote the line. Then add the forced relocation and forced sterilisation
sentence from the later section. That is a complete answer built almost entirely on your own
chapter.
6 Question 6
Q. What reasons did the Government give for declaring a National Emergency in 1975?
Answer. Note what the question asks: not why the Emergency happened, but what reasons the
Government itself gave. Answer in the government’s own terms.
- 1. A threat of internal disturbances. This is the stated ground. “On 25 June 1975,
the government declared that there was a threat of internal disturbances and therefore, it invoked
Article 352 of the Constitution.” Article 352 allowed a state of emergency to be declared
“on grounds of external threat or a threat of internal disturbances”, and it was the second
of those two that was used. - 2. A grave crisis had arisen. “The government decided that a grave crisis had arisen
which made the proclamation of a state of emergency necessary.” - 3. The call to the army, the police and government employees to disobey. Jayaprakash
Narayan had announced a nationwide satyagraha for Indira Gandhi’s resignation and had asked the
army, the police and government employees not to obey “illegal and immoral orders”. The
chapter notes that this “threatened to bring the activities of the government to a
standstill”. - 4. The agitations were paralysing the country. The railway employees’ call for a
nationwide strike “threatened to paralyse the country”, and the movement led by Jayaprakash
Narayan had spread from Bihar into national politics through bandhs, gehraos and strikes.
Add the chapter’s own comment on all this. “Technically speaking this was within the
powers of the government, for our Constitution provides for some special powers to the government
once an emergency is declared.” The chapter also records the view of the other side: the
opposition parties felt that politics was becoming too personalised and that governmental authority
was being converted into personal authority, while Indira Gandhi “believed that the movement was
motivated by personal opposition to her”. Both are positions the chapter reports as positions
held at the time.
Careful. Do not write “deteriorating economic conditions” as a reason the
government gave. The economy was in a bad way and the chapter says so at length, but the ground
actually stated in the proclamation was the threat of internal disturbance. This is the same trap as
Question 1(c).
7 Question 7
Q. The 1977 elections for the first time saw the Opposition coming into power at the
Centre. What would you consider as the reasons for this development?
Answer. The chapter gives six reasons, and the last of them is the one most students
miss.
- 1. The election became 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 on the slogan of ‘save
democracy’, and “The people’s verdict was decisively against the Emergency.” - 2. The opposition united into a single party. The major opposition parties had already
been coming closer before the Emergency. In January 1977, after eighteen months, the government
decided to hold elections and released the leaders and activists from jail; the parties 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. - 3. A second Congress breakaway joined them. Other Congress leaders formed the
Congress for Democracy under Jagjivan Ram, which later merged with the Janata Party. - 4. Non-Congress votes were not divided. “The formation of the Janata Party also
ensured that non-Congress votes would not be divided.” This is the mechanical reason, and it is
the one the chapter returns to in its final section under the name ‘non-Congressism’. - 5. Public opinion had turned. The Janata Party’s campaign was focused on the
non-democratic character of the rule and on the various excesses of the period, and “In the
backdrop of arrests of thousands of persons and the censorship of the Press, the public opinion was
against the Congress.” Jayaprakash Narayan “became the popular symbol of restoration of
democracy”. - 6. A longer term social shift, which had nothing to do with the Emergency. “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.”
The result, in figures. For the first time since Independence the Congress was defeated in
a Lok Sabha election. It won only 154 seats, and its share of popular votes fell to less
than 35 per cent. The Janata Party and its allies won 330 out of the 542 seats, and the
Janata Party itself won 295, a clear majority. The Congress lost every constituency in Bihar,
Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana and the Punjab, and won only one seat each in Rajasthan and Madhya
Pradesh. Indira Gandhi was defeated from Rae Bareli and Sanjay Gandhi from Amethi.
And the qualification. The Congress did not lose everywhere: “It retained many seats in
Maharashtra, Gujarat and Orissa and virtually swept through the southern States.” The reason the
chapter gives is that the impact of the Emergency was not felt equally in all the States, the forced
relocation and displacements and the forced sterilisations having been mostly concentrated in the
northern States.
Exam tip. Reason 6 and the qualification about the south are what separate a
four-mark answer from a six-mark one. Anyone can write “people were angry about the Emergency”;
fewer can explain why the anger did not show up in the south.
8 Question 8
Q. Discuss the effects of Emergency on the following aspects of our polity.
• Effects on civil liberties for citizens.
• Impact on relationship between the Executive and Judiciary
• Functioning of Mass Media
• Working of the Police and Bureaucracy.
Answer. Take the four heads in the order the question gives them, and give each its own
paragraph.
1. Civil liberties for citizens. 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”. Strikes were banned, and protests and public agitations were
disallowed. 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. Two things
changed afterwards: the Emergency “made everyone more aware of the value of civil liberties”,
and “Many civil liberties organisations came up after this experience.”
2. The Executive and the Judiciary. This relationship was already strained before the
Emergency, through the three constitutional questions on Parliament’s power to abridge Fundamental
Rights, the Kesavananda Bharati case and its doctrine of basic features, and the appointment of
Justice A. N. Ray as Chief Justice over the seniority of three judges. During the Emergency the
balance moved decisively to the executive. Arrested political workers could not challenge their
arrest through habeas corpus petitions, and the government claimed “that it was not even necessary
to inform the 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.” That meant the government could take away the citizen’s right to life and liberty, and the
chapter’s verdict on it is severe: the judgment “closed the doors of judiciary for the citizens
and is regarded as one of the most controversial judgments of the Supreme Court”. Afterwards the
Courts “have taken an active role after the Emergency in protecting the civil liberties of the
individuals”, which the chapter calls a response to their own inability to protect them during
it.
3. The functioning of 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. This is known
as press censorship.” On the night of the proclamation, “the electricity to all the major
newspaper offices was disconnected”. The press responded in several ways: the Indian Express and
the Statesman left blank spaces where news items had been censored, and the editorial page of
Nai Dunia of 27 June 1975 carried such a blank space, though later leaving blank space was
itself banned. 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. The chapter’s own qualifier
should be included: “By and large, though, such open acts of defiance and resistance were
rare.”
4. The working of 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.” The
background to this is the talk, before the Emergency, among people close to the Prime Minister,
“of the need for a judiciary and the bureaucracy ‘committed’ to the vision of the executive and
the legislature”.
Exam tip. Four heads, four paragraphs, and one quoted line in each. The single
most quotable sentence in the whole answer is the one about the police and the administration being
turned into political instruments of the ruling party, because it is the chapter’s only sentence
that names the Shah Commission.
9 Question 9
Q. In what way did the imposition of Emergency affect the party system in India? Elaborate
your answer with examples.
Answer. The chapter says that “Between the elections of 1977 and 1980 the party system
had changed dramatically.” Five changes, with the chapter’s own examples.
- 1. The Congress had stopped being an umbrella party. “Since 1969, the Congress party
had starting 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 success depended “on attracting people on the basis of sharp social
and ideological divisions and the appeal of one leader, Indira Gandhi”. - 2. The opposition organised itself around ‘non-Congressism’. As the Congress changed,
“other opposition parties relied more and more on what is known in Indian politics as
‘non-Congressism'”, and they “also realised the need to avoid a division of non-Congress
votes in the election. This factor played a major role in the elections of 1977.”
Example: the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the Congress (O), the Bharatiya Lok Dal and the Socialist
Party, which had supported Jayaprakash Narayan separately before the Emergency, merged into the
single Janata Party on the eve of the 1977 election. - 3. A one-party-dominant system briefly looked like a two-party contest. For the first
time since Independence the Congress was defeated at the Centre, and an opposition party formed the
government. Example: the Janata Party and its allies won 330 of the 542 seats, the Janata
Party itself 295, while the Congress fell to 154 seats and under 35 per cent of the vote. - 4. But the new formation did not hold. The Janata Party split, the Morarji Desai
government 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. So the change was not a stable
two-party system. - 5. The backward castes entered the centre of party politics. “In an indirect manner
the issue of welfare of the backward castes also began to dominate politics since 1977”, and
the 1977 result was at least partly due to a shift among the backward castes of north India.
Examples: 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”; and the issue of reservations for ‘other backward classes’ became very controversial in
Bihar, following which the Mandal Commission was appointed by the Janata party government at the
centre.
Close with the chapter’s own sentence: “The elections after the Emergency set off the
process of this change in the party system.”
Exam tip. The question says “Elaborate your answer with examples”, so an answer
without named parties, named states and figures cannot get full marks. Put at least one example under
each change.
10 Question 10
Q. Read the passage and answer the questions below:
1977 elections. However, the next few years saw a complete change. Soon after its defeat, the Indian
National Congress split into two groups… The Janata Party also went through major
convulsions… David Butler, Ashok Lahiri and Prannoy Roy.
Partha Chatterjee
(a) What made the party system in India look like a two-party system in 1977?
Three things came together in that one election.
- The opposition merged into one party. The major opposition parties, which had been
separate, came together on the eve of the elections and formed the Janata Party, and the Congress
for Democracy under Jagjivan Ram later merged into it as well. That left essentially two national
contenders instead of many. - The contest was reduced to a single question. The election “turned into a referendum
on the experience of the Emergency”, fought on the slogan of ‘save democracy’. A referendum has
only two sides, so the party system took the shape of the question. - Non-Congress votes were not split. “The formation of the Janata Party also ensured
that non-Congress votes would not be divided.” Where the anti-Congress vote is not divided,
the result looks like a straight two-way fight, and it produced one: 330 seats of 542 for the
Janata Party and its allies, against 154 for the Congress.
(b) Many more than two parties existed in 1977. Why then are the authors describing this
period as close to a two-party system?
Because a two-party system is about how the contest works, not about how many parties are
registered. The authors are describing a situation, not counting organisations.
- The many parties did not fight each other; they fought on one side. The Bharatiya Jana
Sangh, the Congress (O), the Bharatiya Lok Dal and the Socialist Party did not put up rival
candidates against one another, they dissolved their separate contests into the Janata Party. - So although many parties existed, a voter in most constituencies faced two real choices:
the Congress, or the Janata Party and its allies. That is what makes a system function as a
two-party system. - The chapter’s own term for the logic behind this is ‘non-Congressism’: opposition
parties organising themselves by their common opposition to the Congress, and deliberately avoiding
a division of non-Congress votes.
(c) What caused splits in Congress and the Janata parties?
In the Janata Party. The chapter is direct about this. The party was “far from
cohesive” from the start: there was stiff competition among Morarji Desai, Charan Singh and
Jagjivan Ram for the post of Prime Minister, and Morarji Desai’s appointment “did not bring the
power struggle within the party to an end”. Beyond the personal rivalry, “The opposition to
emergency could keep the Janata Party together only for a while”, its critics felt it
“lacked direction, leadership, and a common programme”, and it “could not bring about a
fundamental change in policies from those pursued by the Congress”. A party held together only by
what it was against could not survive the disappearance of what it was against.
In the Congress. The chapter does not describe the post-1977 Congress split itself, but it
gives you the underlying cause in its final section. From 1969 the Congress had been shedding its
character as an umbrella party accommodating different ideological dispensations and view points, and
had come to depend instead on sharp social and ideological divisions and the appeal of one
leader. A party organised around one leader rather than around a broad accommodation has nothing
to hold its factions together when that leader is defeated, which is what happened after 1977.
Note. The passage in your book prints long rows of dots where text has been cut
out, and the attribution runs the researchers’ names into the quotation. Both are exactly as printed
in the NCERT edition. Answer from the sentences that are there.
11 In-text Questions
The chapter also asks questions inside the text: in its margin notes, in the Railway Strike box and beside the 1977 election map. They are answered below in the order in which they appear in the book, in the book’s own wording.
Q. Poor people must have had a tough time. What happened to the promise of garibi hatao?
Answer. The promise could not be kept in these years. The chapter says the social and economic condition in the country did not improve much after 1971-72: the Bangladesh crisis, with about eight million people crossing over the East Pakistan border into India, and the war with Pakistan put a heavy strain on the economy; after the war the U.S. government stopped all aid to India; oil prices increased manifold, and prices rose by 23 per cent in 1973 and 30 per cent in 1974. Industrial growth was low, unemployment was very high, particularly in the rural areas, the government froze the salaries of its employees, and after the monsoons failed in 1972-1973 food grain output declined by 8 per cent. The poor bore the worst of this high inflation, and the general dissatisfaction helped the opposition parties organise popular protests.
Q. What would happen when the railways stop running? Not for one or two days, but for more than a week?
Answer. As the box itself says, many people would be inconvenienced, but more than that the economy of the country would come to a halt, because goods are transported from one part of the country to another by trains. That is exactly what was threatened in May 1974, when the National Coordination Committee for Railwaymen’s Struggle led by George Fernandes called a nationwide strike over bonus and service conditions. The government declared the strike illegal, arrested many leaders and deployed the territorial army to protect railway tracks, and the strike was called off after twenty days without any settlement. It also raised the question whether employees of essential services should adopt measures like strikes.
Q. Do ‘committed judiciary’ and ‘committed bureaucracy’ mean that the judges and government officials should be loyal to the ruling party?
Answer. In practice that is what the idea came to mean, and that is why it was dangerous. People close to the Prime Minister spoke of a judiciary and bureaucracy ‘committed’ to the vision of the executive and the legislature, at the very time the government superseded three senior judges, all of whom had ruled against it, to appoint Justice A. N. Ray as Chief Justice in 1973. In a democracy judges must be loyal to the Constitution and decide independently, and civil servants must serve whichever government is in office neutrally. The chapter shows the cost of ‘commitment’: during the Emergency the police and the administration were turned into political instruments of the ruling party, and according to the Shah Commission Report they became vulnerable to political pressures.
Q. That is like asking the army to disobey the government! Is that democratic?
Answer. This is a discussion question, and the chapter gives you both sides. Jayaprakash Narayan asked the army, the police and government employees not to obey “illegal and immoral orders”, and the chapter notes that this threatened to bring the activities of the government to a standstill; the government cited the threat of internal disturbance when it declared the Emergency. Asking the armed forces to defy an elected government is generally seen as going beyond democratic protest, because in a democracy the army must stay under civilian control. On the other side, JP’s call was limited to orders he considered illegal and immoral, and was part of a non-violent satyagraha. The chapter’s own conclusion is that the period showed a real tension between institution-based democracy and democracy based on spontaneous popular participation, and it asks what the correct balance and the limits of protest should be. (Give your view with reasons.)
Q. Should the President have declared Emergency without any recommendation from the Cabinet?
Answer. No. On the night of 25 June 1975 the Prime Minister recommended the imposition of Emergency to President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, who issued the proclamation immediately; the Cabinet was informed only at a special meeting at 6 a.m. on 26 June, after the arrests had taken place. A decision of this size should come from the whole Council of Ministers, not from one person. The chapter records that this ambiguity has since been rectified: now the advice to the President to proclaim Emergency must be given in writing by the Union Cabinet, and an ‘internal’ Emergency can be proclaimed only on the ground of ‘armed rebellion’.
Q. Now, even the Supreme Court gave in! What was happening to everyone in those days?
Answer. Several High Courts had held that even during the Emergency the courts could entertain a writ of habeas corpus, but in April 1976 the constitution bench of the Supreme Court over-ruled them and accepted the government’s plea, which meant the government could take away the citizen’s right to life and liberty. The chapter calls it one of the most controversial judgments of the Supreme Court. What was happening to everyone was fear and pressure: Fundamental Rights stood suspended, thousands were arrested under preventive detention, the press was censored, and the police and administration worked under political pressure, so most institutions and people chose not to resist. That is why the courts took an active role in protecting civil liberties after the Emergency, as a response to their inability to do so during it.
Q. Let us not talk about the few who protested. What about the rest? All the big officials, intellectuals, social and religious leaders, citizens… What were they doing?
Answer. The chapter answers it in one sentence: “By and large, though, such open acts of defiance and resistance were rare.” There were some: political workers went underground, the Indian Express and the Statesman left blank spaces, the Seminar and the Mainstream closed down, journalists were arrested, and Shivarama Karanth and Fanishwarnath Renu returned their Padma awards. But most officials carried out orders, and most of the rest kept quiet out of fear of arrest under preventive detention, or because the courts themselves could not protect them. The lesson the chapter draws is that the Emergency made everyone more aware of the value of civil liberties, and many civil liberties organisations came up after it.
Q. How can we talk about a mandate or verdict in 1977 when the north and the south voted so differently?
Answer. The verdict was clear in the north and much weaker in the south, and the chapter explains why. The election turned into a referendum on the Emergency “at least in north India where the impact of the Emergency was felt most strongly”; the forced relocations, displacements and forced sterilisations were mostly concentrated in the northern States, and the middle castes of north India were already moving away from the Congress. In the south, where the impact was felt less, the Congress virtually swept the polls. So it is fairer to say there was a national verdict against the Emergency that was strongest where people had suffered most, and that the 1977 elections “were not merely about the Emergency”.
Q. Read this map and identify the states where Congress lost, Congress lost very badly, and those states where Congress and its allies nearly swept the polls. Which are the constituencies in north India that the Congress managed to win?
Answer (from the chapter’s own text).
- Lost very badly: Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana and the Punjab, where the Congress lost every constituency, and Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, where it won only one seat each.
- Lost, but kept many seats: Maharashtra, Gujarat and Orissa.
- Nearly swept with its allies: the southern States, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
- Constituencies won in north India: only one seat each in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh (the chapter gives only the count; the two seats were Nagaur in Rajasthan and Chhindwara in Madhya Pradesh).