An undeclared Emergency today ? Not quite

THE “internal Emergency", imposed by Indira Gandhi on the country after she was found guilty of violation of electoral laws, is widely reckoned to be one of the darkest periods in Indian history. Large-scale political repression and jailing of opponents shocked the nation. And, with Indira’s son Sanjay Gandhi singling out high population as one of the country’s biggest challenges, it was not long before a pliant bureaucracy was given sterilisation quotas.

They, in turn, forced some groups of men in north India to get themselves sterilised. If we want to trace the roots of our current north-south divide on the delimitation of Lok Sabha constituencies, that is the period to look back to. For, that was when it was decided that delimitation would be frozen for a quarter century in order to avoid penalising states which were more successful in bringing down their birth rates. That was also when the normal sequence of falling birth rates — resulting from reducing poverty and women’s empowerment — was interrupted in the north.

Second, if today, our SC is intervening in matters that are best left to the executive or parliament — like vaccine policy, taxes on cars entering Delhi or creating unconventional institutions like the collegium system to appoint judges — it is partly because of the judiciary’s guilt in not doing enough to thwart the executive during the Emergency.

One can list many such things done during the Emergency (or just before that) for which we are still paying a price, including the legislation of draconian preventive detention laws like the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA), which was enacted well before the Emergency, but has been succeeded by more such laws, including Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s POTA (Prevention of Terrorism Act), and Manmohan Singh’s Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. Once an illiberal law makes it to the statute book, it seldom goes out, even if some provisions get tinkered with.

Tomes have been written on the Emergency for us to regurgitate what happened 50 years ago. The question really worth discussing is whether there is an unstated “mini-Emergency" right now, with many members of the Opposition alleging that under Modi there is one. It is worth examining, but it suffers from a fundamental problem: it is only being made by Modi’s critics in the Opposition and some elites miffed over their loss of voice at the Centre after Modi came to power. Nobody asks whether there is less of an Emergency, or greater freedom, in states ruled by the Opposition. Media remains muted in its criticism of powerful regional leaders like Mamata Banerjee, MK Stalin, or other politicians like J Jayalalithaa or Mayawati, when they were in power.

Let us look for evidence that either supports or contradicts the claim that we are in an undeclared Emergency.

The actions of the Modi government that smack of Emergency include the extensive use of the Enforcement Directorate or the CBI largely to target “corrupt" Opposition politicians. Then, there is the use of governors to hold back legislation in Opposition-ruled states, a media that is largely seen as pro-Modi, the so-called “godi media", and suspicion that the courts and the Election Commission may be kowtowing to the government. The use of an iron hand in UP — ‘bulldozer justice’ — to bring criminal gangs to heel is cited as a piece backing this claim. Social media posts get taken down for the flimsiest of reasons.

On the other hand, there is no sense of any widespread climate of fear, and elections are largely free and fair, with both the BJP and Opposition parties being voted in and out of power. While governors and the ED may be used to unsettle the Opposition, consider what used to happen before. Both under Indira Gandhi and successor governments, Opposition governments were often removed from power using Article 356. Under Modi, no Opposition government has been replaced by President’s rule, and, in fact, the only case in which this happened involved a BJP government in Manipur.

While ‘godi media’ may, indeed, be a fact of life, it is a moot point whether this is because media is over-dependent on government advertising for survival or pro-government out of fear of the executive. And even if this were to be true to some extent, it would apply equally to discordant voices in Opposition-ruled states. When has a Tamil Nadu newspaper or a West Bengal channel openly taken on MK Stalin or Mamata Banerjee? Mayawati and Jayalalithaa were treated with kid gloves by the media when they were CMs of Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Ditto for Jyoti Basu in West Bengal.

As for court judgments, while many have gone the way the government wanted — on Article 370, Rafale, Ram Janmabhoomi — others have gone against the government (electoral bonds, governors’ powers), etc. No judge has ever been superseded during the Modi era, unlike during Indira Gandhi’s time.

‘Bulldozer justice’ is shrinking, under pressure from the courts, but one must point out that the Indian state uses draconian and arbitrary powers when its writ is challenged, whether in insurgencies or when criminals create a climate of fear and the courts are impotent. This was how KPS Gill dealt with the Khalistan movement, and this is how Yogi Adityanath is trying to rein in the mafia. The jury is out on whether this can continue, but when powerful non-state actors can intimidate the state, India does not seem to have easier options.

Now contrast Indira Gandhi’s rule versus Modi’s. While an Indira could send the army to the Golden Temple — her biggest mistake that ultimately cost her her life — Modi has seldom used brute force to get his way politically. Consider how softly the government dealt with the farmers’ protests in 2019, and Shaheen Bagh, though both warranted tougher action by the state.

What gives observers a sense of “Emergency" may partly be an optical illusion. The concentration of power in the PMO under Modi is reminiscent of what it was like under Indira Gandhi. Second, unlike earlier, the Indian state has become more competent in handling crime and criminals. Today, technology, intelligence and surveillance capabilities are much better than they were in the 20th century and terrorism is rare, Pahalgam notwithstanding (ie, compared to the first decade of this century, or the 1980s and 1990s). Corruption of the kind that used to happen earlier — which prompted Rajiv Gandhi to say that for every rupee spent, barely 15 per cent reached the right hands — is now largely gone, thanks to Aadhaar-based direct benefits transfers.

Last, governments in general have given themselves more power over citizens after 9/11 and 26/11 and various such terror incidents in Europe. This is not an India-specific problem.

The evidence available does not suggest that there is an undeclared Emergency, but there is clearly a greater concentration of power at the Centre, and misuse of the anti-corruption agencies. The truth is in shades of grey.

R Jagannathan is a senior journalist.

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