Today the central government has decided to celebrate “25 June” as “Constitution Hatya Divas”. Let us try to know what happened on 25th June 1975 on behalf of, why the Indian government declared that day.
Indira Gandhi made many good decisions and contributed to the development of the country but one of her black decisions is still considered a black decision in democracy.
It would not be wrong to call 25 June 1975 the darkest day in the history of independent India. On 25 June 1975, the emergency was declared by keeping the constitution aside. This decision was taken by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and with this the people of independent India became slaves of the government. The freedom of common people was abolished and the government started deciding how many children they would have, what they would say, and what they would watch. Leave aside the common people, for 21 months all the leaders of the opposition were either imprisoned or were absconding. Indira Gandhi had become very powerful by imposing an emergency. Parliament, court, media, no one had the power to speak against her.
Why was emergency imposed?
In 1975, the Allahabad High Court, in a decision, found Indira Gandhi guilty of rigging the elections and banned her from holding any post for six years. The case was related to the Lok Sabha elections held in 1971. In this, Indira had defeated her main rival Raj Narayan, but four years after the election results were announced, Raj Narayan challenged the election results in the High Court. His argument was that Indira Gandhi misused the government machinery in the elections, spent more money than the prescribed limit and used unfair means to influence the voters. The court upheld these allegations. Indira Gandhi refused to accept this decision and announced to appeal in the Supreme Court and on June 25, the imposition of emergency was announced.
In her message broadcast on All India Radio, Indira Gandhi said, “Ever since I have taken some progressive steps for the benefit of the common man and the women of the country, a deep conspiracy was being hatched against me.”
Those stories of emergency which are still fresh in the mind
- Political opponents were arrested under the Internal Security Act (MISA).
- To stop the population from increasing, forced sterilization was started. Due to this, there were reports of sterilization of many unmarried people.
If anyone was caught speaking against the government, he was immediately arrested. Also, the police had got so much power that it could arrest anyone at any time. It had a simple excuse that this person was speaking against the government.
How did Indira become so powerful?
In between 1967 and 1971, Indira Gandhi had taken control of the Congress and the government. The Prime Minister’s Office started taking all the decisions instead of the Union Cabinet. In the coming years, Indira’s influence grew so much that she encouraged her loyalists to contest elections as Chief Ministers of states instead of contesting elections through the Congress Legislative Party. She nationalized major banks in July 1969 and abolished royal allowances in September 1970. These royal allowances were given to the kings. These decisions were taken suddenly. This tarnished her image. In the 1971 general elections, Indira’s slogan of Garibi Hatao was so popular that she won 352 out of 518 seats. In December 1971, India got freedom from Pakistan to East Pakistan (Bangladesh). The resistance also could not fail due to this step of hers. The very next month, Indira Gandhi honored herself with Bharat Ratna. Know More