Emergency rule: detention, censorship and resistance

Detail

1. Background in brief

• Proclamation: President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed proclaimed a national emergency on 25 June 1975. It used Art. 352, on the ground of "internal disturbance" [7].
• Duration: about 21 months, from June 1975 to March 1977 [7].
• Emergency powers let the Union government gather almost all power into its own hands. The steps below followed within days.

2. Immediate effects

• Protests ended: agitations stopped, strikes were banned and all public protests were disallowed.
• Opposition leaders were jailed. They included:
• Jayaprakash Narayan (JP), Morarji Desai, A.B. Vajpayee, L.K. Advani and Charan Singh;
• dissident Congressmen such as Chandra Shekhar;

• Raj Narain and the trade-union leader George Fernandes [7].

• Almost every opposition leader was jailed or kept under house arrest for nearly two years. Leading journalists, lawyers, teachers and activists were silenced or jailed [7].

• Organisations banned: the government said it feared "social and communal disharmony". On that ground it banned the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Jamaat-e-Islami.

3. Fundamental Rights during the Emergency: what exactly was lost

Provision	What it does	What happened in 1975
Art. 358	During a national emergency, the Art. 19 freedoms (speech, assembly, association, movement and others) are suspended automatically. No separate order is needed.	Art. 19 freedoms lapsed as soon as the emergency was proclaimed.
Art. 359	The President, by order, can stop people from going to court to enforce the Fundamental Rights named in the order.	The Presidential Order of 27 June 1975 stopped court cases to enforce Arts. 14, 21 and 22.

• What this meant in practice:
• Art. 14 (equality before law), Art. 21 (life and personal liberty) and Art. 22 (safeguards against arrest and detention) could not be enforced in court.

• So a detained person could not ask a court for a writ of habeas corpus (a court order to produce a detained person and show a lawful reason for the detention).

• Later safeguard: the 44th Amendment (1978) changed Art. 359(1). Now the President cannot suspend the enforcement of Arts. 20 and 21, even during an emergency [6].

4. Preventive detention and MISA

• Preventive detention means arresting someone because the government fears they might commit an offence. They have not been charged with one they have committed. The person is held without trial.
• Maintenance of Internal Security Act, 1971 (MISA) was a preventive detention law. During the Emergency it was the main tool used to jail opponents without trial.
• MISA was amended during the Emergency so that the government did not have to disclose the grounds of detention (verify the exact amendment).
• The government argued in court that detainees need not be told why they were arrested.

• The Janata government repealed MISA in 1978.

• Other laws used:

• Defence of India Act and its rules (DISIR): used together with MISA for mass arrests.

• COFEPOSA, 1974 (Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act): a preventive detention law for smugglers and foreign-exchange offenders.

• Scale of arrests: the Shah Commission (a commission of inquiry set up in 1977 to look into the excesses of the Emergency [7]) gave a figure of about 1.1 lakh people detained under MISA and DISIR. Verify this figure before using it in an answer.

5. Press censorship

• Pre-censorship: under emergency rules, newspapers had to get prior approval from the government for everything they printed.
• Protests by the press:
• The Indian Express and the Statesman left blank spaces where items had been censored. This showed readers that news was being cut.

• The magazines Seminar and Mainstream chose to close down rather than accept censorship.

• Many journalists were arrested. Underground newsletters and leaflets spread news that the censors blocked.

• Films were censored too. Films such as Aandhi (1975) and Kissa Kursi Ka were banned [7].
• Laws passed against the press:
• Prevention of Publication of Objectionable Matter Act, 1976: gave the government power to act against material it called "objectionable".
• The Press Council was dissolved (1976). The Press Council is a self-regulating body for newspapers. A new council was set up under the Press Council Act, 1978, "for the purpose of preserving the freedom of the Press and of maintaining and improving the standards of newspapers and news agencies in India" [4][5].

• Feroze Gandhi Act repealed (1976). This was the Parliamentary Proceedings (Protection of Publication) Act, 1956. It protected newspapers that reported what was said in Parliament.

• How press freedom was restored:

• 1977: the Parliamentary Proceedings (Protection of Publication) Act, 1977 brought back the protection [3].

• 1978: the 44th Amendment added Art. 361A to the Constitution. Under Art. 361A, no civil or criminal case can be brought for publishing a substantially true report of the proceedings of Parliament or a State Legislature, unless the report was made with malice (an intention to harm) [2].

  • Art. 361A does not cover reports of a secret sitting of a House [2].
  • It also covers broadcasts (radio and TV), not only newspapers [2].

• L.K. Advani's later verdict on the press: "When asked to bend, it crawled." It sums up how meekly most newspapers obeyed.

6. Resistance and its limits

• Going underground: party workers who escaped the first wave of arrests went into hiding and organised protests in secret.
• Writers returned their awards:
• Shivarama Karanth (Kannada writer) returned his Padma Bhushan.

• Phanishwarnath Renu (Hindi writer) returned his Padma Shri.

• Protest through advertisements:

• "D.E.M. O'Cracy" obituary: an unsigned notice in the Times of India that mourned the "death" of democracy. It slipped past the censors.

• "Free JP" advertisement: published in The Times, London, on 15 August 1975. It demanded JP's release.

• NCERT's assessment: open defiance was rare. Most people, officials and institutions went along with the Emergency. NCERT asks what officials, intellectuals and religious leaders were doing at the time. Exercise Q8 connects the Emergency to the media, civil liberties and the police.

Prelims Hooks

• Art. 358 → Art. 19 freedoms are suspended automatically in a national emergency. Art. 359 → enforcement of other rights is suspended only by a Presidential Order.
• Presidential Order of 27 June 1975 (Art. 359) → people could not go to court to enforce Arts. 14, 21 and 22.
• 44th Amendment (1978) → Arts. 20 and 21 cannot be suspended under Art. 359, even during an emergency [6].
• Art. 361A (added by the 44th Amendment, 1978) → protects true reports of legislative proceedings unless they are malicious. It does not cover secret sittings [2].
• Order of press-related laws: Feroze Gandhi Act (1956) → repealed 1976 → new Act 1977 [3] → Art. 361A in 1978 [2].
• Press Council: dissolved in 1976 and set up again under the Press Council Act, 1978 [4].
• MISA (1971) was a preventive detention law repealed in 1978. COFEPOSA (1974) targets smuggling and foreign-exchange offences. Do not mix up the two.
• Trap: the RSS and the Jamaat-e-Islami were banned during the Emergency.
• Award returns: Shivarama Karanth returned a Padma Bhushan; Phanishwarnath Renu returned a Padma Shri.
• "Free JP" advertisement → The Times, London, 15 August 1975.

Mains Points

• Preventive detention and liberty (GS-II): MISA showed how detention without trial and without stated grounds could become a political weapon. The 44th Amendment's protection of Arts. 20 and 21 [6] is the main safeguard. Preventive detention laws such as COFEPOSA still exist, so the debate continues: national security versus Art. 21 liberty.
• Press freedom as a democratic safeguard (GS-II): censorship, the 1976 Act and the dissolution of the Press Council showed how fragile press freedom is when it rests only on ordinary law. The fix was to put it in the Constitution (Art. 361A) [2] and set up an independent regulator again (Press Council Act, 1978) [4].
• Institutions versus individuals (GS-I/GS-II): open resistance was rare. Officials, the police and much of the press obeyed. Advani's line "asked to bend, it crawled" captures this. The lesson is that democracy depends on an independent civil service, police and media, not only on written rights.
• Constitutional learning (GS-II): the 44th Amendment reforms to Art. 359 [6] and Art. 361A [2] show the Constitution correcting itself after the Emergency. This is useful in answers on "safeguards against misuse of emergency powers".