![\"Photo](\"https:\/\/vindhyasatta.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/vs-d4f1871e-inline.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\u2018I didn\u2019t,\u2019 he said. He had been against it from the start, but his mother did not agree. \u2018Ask her,\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n
How could such a system have functioned given the Constitution and fundamental rights? I asked. He said the Emergency would never have been lifted and fundamental rights would have stayed suspended.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the first time during the Emergency, Indira did not surrender to Sanjay\u2019s obstinacy. She knew she was riding a tiger, and perhaps feared where her son\u2019s wicked coterie might lead the country.<\/p>\n
Nayar wrote that Indira was impressed by an official intelligence report that her popularity was at its peak. Sanjay was furious when he heard she was thinking of elections; he wanted none for many years. There were heated exchanges, but Indira was Indira: what she resolved she did, and Sanjay relented.<\/p>\n
Sanjay had become not a parallel centre of power but its axis, and reminded people that the PMO ran at his behest. P.N. Haksar and A.N. Dhar, who resisted his influence, were taught a lesson; Haksar was removed from the PMO and his relatives raided.<\/p>\n
Sanjay took the reins as soon as the Emergency was declared. Within 24 hours he told Information and Broadcasting Minister I.K. Gujral to \u201cfix the press\u201d. Gujral replied bluntly that he was his mother\u2019s colleague, not his slave, and was out of the cabinet in under twelve hours. On June 28, Vidya Charan Shukla became minister. Another favourite, Bansi Lal, was brought from Haryana and given the defence ministry he wanted, while Banarsi Das was made Haryana chief minister with the message that Bansi Lal\u2019s directions would prevail.<\/p>\n
Brahmananda Reddy was Home Minister, but Om Mehta, Minister of State in the same ministry, held real sway. Senior officers were interviewed by R.K. Dhawan and Sanjay himself and placed in key posts according to their loyalty. Yashpal Kapoor, Indira\u2019s OSD, reined in chief ministers. Sanjay, Shukla, Bansi Lal, Mehta, Dhawan and Kapoor ruled the country, with Mohammed Younus tracking Indira\u2019s personal enemies.<\/p>\n
Other ministers were so frightened that their arrest seemed imminent. The 80-year-old Uma Shankar Dikshit had been humiliated and ejected from the cabinet. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister P.C. Sethi incurred Sanjay\u2019s wrath and was removed overnight, with Shyama Charan Shukla replacing him. All were afraid of Sanjay and knew Indira was helpless before him.<\/p>\n
Had the Constitution been a living person, it would surely have jumped from Parliament House and killed itself at what was done to democratic institutions. The legislature, executive and judiciary behaved like retainers at a feudal lord\u2019s door.<\/p>\n
The press did not just bow but crawled. The Indian Express and Ramnath Goenka stood firm for some days, but the Birla-owned Hindustan Times group became a mouthpiece of the Emergency, and the Times of India and the Statesman filled the hookah for Sanjay\u2019s coterie. Vidya Charan Shukla decided who would be editor. The four news agencies, PTI, UNI, Samachar Bharati and Hindustan Samachar, were merged into the government-controlled \u201cSamachar\u201d. Big newspaper groups had fallen at its feet, and those still standing were slated for takeover. The Press Council of India was dissolved. All went according to Sanjay\u2019s plan, with Indira\u2019s full consent. After the Janata government came, Information Minister L.K. Advani rightly rebuked the press: when asked to bend, you began to crawl.<\/p>\n
Through the 42nd Amendment, the High Courts\u2019 power to issue writs was curtailed, and changes to Article 368 placed constitutional amendments beyond judicial review. Indira met the President at 5 pm on June 25, and the Emergency was declared at 11.30 pm. A letter told President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed there had been no time to convene the cabinet, though that was not the real reason. On June 26, the cabinet was summoned at 90 minutes\u2019 notice and approved it; no one dared object.<\/p>\n
In the preceding years there had been bitter debate over politics influencing the judiciary: four Supreme Court judges\u2019 press conference, the Congress push to impeach CJI Dipak Misra, talk of politically convenient appointments. Yet during the Emergency almost the entire judiciary was held hostage, with transfers, appointments and promotions manipulated.<\/p>\n
On June 12, 1975, Allahabad High Court judge Jagmohanlal Sinha ruled against Indira\u2019s election, allowing 15 days for appeal. Nayar wrote that when he met Justice Sinha months later, the judge said a Congress MP had offered him a bribe to rule in Indira\u2019s favour, and a court colleague had tempted him with a Supreme Court judgeship.<\/p>\n
To prove his loyalty to Indira, a local Delhi lawyer, V.N. Khare, himself appealed in the Supreme Court against the Allahabad ruling, and Justice Krishna Iyer granted a stay. Khare later became Chief Justice of India.<\/p>\n
Nayar, himself arrested, wrote that Justice Rangarajan of the Delhi High Court bench that declared his arrest illegal was transferred to Gauhati, and Justice R.N. Aggarwal demoted to sessions judge, which Nayar saw as punishment for defying the establishment.<\/p>\n
The question of the Emergency\u2019s validity reached the Supreme Court, where CJI A.N. Ray formed a bench of H.R. Khanna, M.H. Beg, Y.V. Chandrachud and P.N. Bhagwati. Except Khanna, all ruled in favour of the Emergency. Khanna was later superseded and Beg became Chief Justice; the others also became chief justices in turn. Eleven judges who stood in the way were transferred.<\/p>\n
The party whose arbitrary government treated democratic institutions this way hardly had the right to preach propriety. The Emergency\u2019s black stains were so deep that, as long as democracy lived in India, they would hang like a scarecrow. It was truly a second slavery, and its story had to be kept alive so that future governments never dared repeat it.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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