New Delhi. Today is the anniversary of Emergency. During her tenure as PM, Indira Gandhi had imposed emergency in the country at midnight of 25 June 1975. BJP calls the imposition of Emergency a day of murder of the Constitution and its leaders keep having a war of words with Congress on this issue. Why was the Emergency imposed, for how long was the Emergency, which leaders had to go to jail during the Emergency and what types of atrocities took place during the Emergency? BJP has been cornering Congress on all these issues. However, the new generation does not know much about the Emergency. Now children will be given complete information about emergency during their school studies.
The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has included a chapter on Emergency in the new social science book for class nine. Till now emergency has been taught in classes 11th and 12th. In NCEIT’s new book ‘Understanding Society: India and Beyond’, Emergency has been discussed in the chapter ‘Challenges before Democracy’. Emergency has been mentioned in the book on page number 155. In this lesson it is told when the emergency was imposed and for how long it was in force. NCERT has also given information in the lesson about how the fundamental rights of the common people were abolished during the Emergency. It also tells about Jaiprakash Narayan’s movement.
Indira Gandhi had imposed emergency for 21 months. In fact, Allahabad High Court had canceled Indira Gandhi’s parliamentary election from Rae Bareli seat and declared socialist leader Rajnarayan the winner from there. After this a movement broke out to remove Indira Gandhi from power. Students also started a movement in Gujarat. At the same time, wherever Jayaprakash Narayan went across the country, huge crowds supported him and raised slogans of ‘Remove Indira’. In such a situation, Indira Gandhi, on the advice of the then CM of West Bengal and lawyer Siddharth Shankar Roy, imposed emergency from midnight of 25 June 1975. It is said that the then President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed was taking a bath in the bathtub when he was made to sign the emergency notification. There is also an allegation that Indira imposed emergency without consulting the cabinet. All the big leaders remained in jail during the Emergency. Besides, there was resentment among the public due to forced sterilization.
