The Emergency (India)

The Emergency in India was a 21 month period from 1975 to 1977 when prime minister Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency across India by citing internal and external threats to the country.

Officially issued by president Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed under Article 352 of the Constitution of India because of a prevailing "Internal Disturbance", the Emergency were in effect from 25 June 1975 and ended on 21 March 1977. The order bestowed upon the prime minister the authority to rule by decree, allowing elections to be cancelled and civil liberties to be suspended. For much of the Emergency, most of Gandhi's political opponents were imprisoned and the press was censored. More than 100,000 political opponents, journalists and dissenters were imprisoned. During this time, a mass campaign for vasectomy was spearheaded by her son Sanjay Gandhi.

The final decision to impose an emergency was proposed by Indira Gandhi, agreed upon by the President of India, and ratified by the Cabinet and the Parliament from July to August 1975. It was based on the rationale that there were imminent internal and external threats to the Indian state.

Prelude

Rise of Indira Gandhi

Between 1967 and 1971, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi came to obtain near-absolute control over the government and the Indian National Congress party, as well as a huge majority in Parliament. The first was achieved by concentrating the central government's power within the Prime Minister's Secretariat, rather than the Cabinet, whose elected members she saw as a threat and distrusted.