HUMAN RIGHTS

VIOLATION DURING
EMERGENCY

26.03.2021
PSCI-115
ANIRUDDHA
GANGULY
AMITY INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL
 SCIENCES

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
It gives me immense pleasure to present the project on
PSCI-115 titled Human Rights Violation during
National Emergency in India. I would like to express
my gratitude towards my professor in charge, Prof.
Rukmini Bhattacharjee, under whose guidance and
constant supervision the project has been completed. The
instructions and suggestions given by her have been a
major contributor towards the completion of the project.

I would also like to thank my parents for their constant

encouragement and support towards the completion of
this project work. I am thankful to Amity University
Kolkata for giving me this opportunity to understand how
the National Emergency violated human rights as well as
media rights in the country.

I would like to thank my friends for sharing necessary

information and web links which helped me in preparing
of the project.

Name: Aniruddha Ganguly

Enrolment Number: A90357420024

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INTRODUCTION
The meaning of emergency under the constitution is different
from its meaning in dictionary. Emergency in constitution means
abnormal situation which calls for urgent remedial action,
whereas the dictionary meaning of emergency that it is a
situation when it poses of immediate risk. It is a responsibility of
government to prepare for all the crisis with all the measures
require to safeguard its people. As India being a democratic
nation, the president is given the authority to proclaim
emergency at the time of severe crisis.

The president proclaim emergency after he is satisfied after

advice and discussion with the council ministers. Article 352 to
360 of the constitution deals with the emergency. The India had
faced national emergency three times. Whenever there is a threat
in the constitutional machinery or threat to the nation or financial
creditability of India is threatened then the president of India can
proclaim emergency in any part of India.

The emergency in nation is declared in procedures. During

emergency all the fundamental right of a citizen or a individual
are suspended except Article 20 and 21, where article 20 talks
about the protection in respect of convection in certain offences
and article 21 talks about the right to life and personal liberty in
which every individual from its birth had a right to live
meaningful and dignified life.

If we talk about the national emergencies in India, third national

emergency was not declared at right time and declared not for
the right purpose. Except the third national emergency the other
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two were declared at right and for the right purpose. Emergency
declared by Indira Gandhi in 1975 has resultant as the darkest
period in Indian history from 1975 to 1977 of 21 months.

THE EMERGENCY (1975-1977)

In India, "The Emergency" refers to a 21-month period
from 1975 to 1977 when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi
had a state of emergency declared across the country.
Officially issued by President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed under
Article 352 of the Constitution because of the prevailing
"internal disturbance", the Emergency was in effect from
25 June 1975 until its withdrawal on 21 March 1977. The
order bestowed upon the Prime Minister the authority to
rule by decree, allowing elections to be suspended and
civil liberties to be curbed. For much of the Emergency,
most of Indira Gandhi's political opponents were
imprisoned and the press was censored. Several other
human rights violations were reported from the time,
including a mass forced sterilization campaign
spearheaded by Sanjay Gandhi, the Prime Minister's son.
The Emergency is one of the most controversial periods of
independent India's history.

The final decision to impose an emergency was proposed

by Indira Gandhi, agreed upon by the president of India,
and thereafter ratified by the cabinet and the parliament
(from July to August 1975), based on the rationale that

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there were imminent internal and external threats to the
Indian state.

HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATION

 Mass Sterilization:

It was also the time when media was under massive

threat and was used to propagate the forced
sterilization propaganda which was initiated by Sanjay
Gandhi, son of Indira Gandhi, in 1976. Under this
program, it was made necessary for the Indian men to
undergo sterilization in order to limit population in the
country. The campaign left people fuming over the
authorities as there were men who were unwilling to
undergo vasectomy under any circumstances.

 Threat over Media/Press:

Free press, presence of a strong opposition and

independent judiciary, all of them were missing during
the ongoing emergency period and it was evident that
democracy was crumbling at the behest of the then
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 prime minister Indira Gandhi. During the emergency
censorship over the media was on top priority and
many newspapers and magazines were banned during
that period. Within three hours from taking the
decision to impose emergency in India, electricity
supplies to all the major newspapers were cut. Indian
Express and Times of India were some of the major
newspapers that spoke against the censorship and
carried blank editorials and headlines with bold
letters criticizing the emergency.

ACTS THAT WERE PASSED DURING

EMERGENCY THAT PROMOTED HUMAN
RIGHTS VIOLATION

 MISA (Maintenance of Internal Security Act) 1971-1977:

Indian Parliament passed a controversial law named MISA on
July 2, 1971 during the regime. The Act allowed the Indian
law enforcement agencies to search and detain individuals
and seizure their properties without any warrants.

 COFEPOSA (Conservation of Foreign Exchange and

Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act, 1974): The Act was
enacted in order to prevent smuggling and black-marketing
in the foreign exchange and retain foreign currency, on
December 13, 1974, before the emergency was announced.
The Act is still functioning and has been criticized by civil
authorities and human rights activists on the grounds that it
is an economic adjunct to that of MISA and should be
repealed.
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  AFSPA (Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1958): The Act
was passed by the Parliament of India on 11 September
1958, which persists. The law has six sections that grants
special powers to the Indian Armed Forces in “disturbed
areas” or the areas in which there is political turmoil or
unrest of any kind.

Case Study I – Mass Sterilization:

Kartar, a cobbler, was taken to a Block Development

Officer (BDO) by six policemen, where he was asked how
many children he had. He was forcefully taken for
sterilization in a jeep. En-route, the police forced a man
on the bicycle into the jeep because he was not sterilized.
Kartar had an infection and pain because of the procedure
and could not work for months. Shahu Ghalake, a peasant
from Barsi in Maharashtra, was taken for sterilization.
After mentioning that he was already sterilized, he was
beaten. A sterilization procedure was undertaken on him
for a second time. Hawa Singh, a young widower, from
Pipli was taken from the bus against his will and
sterilized. The ensuing infection took his life. Harijan, a
70-year-old with no teeth and bad eyesight, was sterilized
forcefully. Ottawa, a village 80 kilometers south of Delhi,
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woke up to the police loudspeakers at 03:00. Police
gathered 400 men at the bus stop. In the process of
finding more villagers, police broke into homes and
looted. A total of 800 forced sterilizations were done. In
Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh, on 18 October 1976, police
picked up 17 people, nine Hindus, and eight Muslims, of
which two were over 75 and two under 18. Hundreds of
people surrounded the police station demanding they free
captives. The police refused to release them and used tear
gas shells. The crowd retaliated by throwing stones and to
control the situation, the police fired on the crowd. 30
people died as a result.

Case Study II – Media:

Most of the mainstream media newspapers and magazines

were under the wrath of Emergency. The scissors of
censors cut through big publishers like Himmat, Janata,
Frontier, Sadhana, Swarajya among many others. Some
were threatened to be thrown out of publications and
others were put in jail. The Indian Express and the
Stateman were first ones to protest through their editions.
As a revolt, The Indian Express and the Statesman left
their editorial pages empty. This move was soon followed
by other publications too. According to IE, journalists
from The Times of London, The Washington Post, The Los
Angeles Times were expelled. The Guardian and The
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Economists correspondents flew back to the United
Kingdom after receiving threats. Mark Tully, the voice of
BBC, was also withdrawn by the channel. According to the
Home Ministry, in May of 1976, almost 7,000 journalists
and media personnel were arrested. Journalist Kuldip
Nayar was arrested by the police for protesting against
the emergency with other scribes in Delhi. The Opposition
leaders were also fighting the same cause across the
country. One of them was a veteran Bharatiya Janata
Party, the then Janata Party leader LK Advani, who spent
months in jail during the Emergency. Advani’s words ring
in the ears of every Indian after the Emergency was lifted.
He addressed the media and said: “You were asked only to
bend, but you crawled.”

CONCLUSION
Criticism and accusations from the Emergency era may be
grouped as:

 Detention of people by police without charge or

notification of families
 Abuse and torture of detainees and political prisoners

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  Use of public and private media institutions, like the
national television network Doordarshan, for government
propaganda
 During the Emergency, Sanjay Gandhi asked the popular
singer Kishore Kumar to sing for a Congress party rally in
Bombay, but he refused. As a result, Information and
broadcasting minister Vidya Charan Shukla put an
unofficial ban on playing Kishore Kumar songs on state
broadcasters All India Radio and Doordarshan from 4
May 1976 till the end of Emergency.
 Forced sterilisation.
 Destruction of the slum and low-income housing in the
Turkmen Gate and Jama Masjid area of old Delhi.
 Large-scale and illegal enactment of new laws (including
modifications to the Constitution).

The Emergency lasted 21 months, and its legacy remains

intensely controversial. A few days after the Emergency was
imposed, the Bombay edition of The Times of India carried an
obituary that read - "Democracy, beloved husband of Truth,
loving father of Liberty, brother of Faith, Hope and Justice,
expired on June 26." A few days later censorship was imposed
on newspapers. The Delhi edition of the Indian Express on 28
June, carried a blank editorial, while the Financial Express
reproduced in large type Rabindranath Tagore's poem
"Where the mind is without fear".

BIBLIOGRAPHY
 www.asianstudies.org/publications/eaa/archives/india-the-
emergency

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  timesnownews.com/india/article/emergency-in-india-how-the-
press-was-affected-in-1975
 www.india.com/education/emergency-in-india-during-1975-
atrocities-and-acts-during-emergency
 economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/
democracy-interrupted-some-lesser-known-facts-about-
emergency-1975-77
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emergency_(India)
 NCERT - Politics in India since Independence
 caluniv/archives

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