![]() Indira Gandhi challenged the High Court's decision in the Supreme Court. The persistent efforts of Narain were praised worldwide as it took over four years for Justice Sinha to pass judgement against the prime minister. Her supporters organised mass pro-Indira demonstrations in the streets of Delhi close to the Prime Minister's residence. Serious charges such as bribing voters and election malpractices were dropped and she was held responsible for misusing government machinery and found guilty on charges such as using the state police to build a dais, availing herself of the services of a government officer, Yashpal Kapoor, during the elections before he had resigned from his position, and use of electricity from the state electricity department.īecause the court unseated her on comparatively frivolous charges, while she was acquitted on more serious charges, The Times described it as "firing the Prime Minister for a traffic ticket". The court also banned her from contesting any election for an additional six years. The court declared her election null and void and unseated her from her seat in the Lok Sabha. On 12 June 1975, Justice Jagmohanlal Sinha of the Allahabad High Court found the prime minister guilty on the charge of misuse of government machinery for her election campaign. Indira Gandhi was also cross-examined in the High Court which was the first such instance for an Indian Prime Minister. Shanti Bhushan fought the case for Narain. Raj Narain, who had been defeated in the 1971 parliamentary election by Indira Gandhi, lodged cases of election fraud and use of state machinery for election purposes against her in the Allahabad High Court.The strike was brutally suppressed by the Indira Gandhi government, which arrested thousands of employees and drove their families out of their quarters. He was also the President of the Socialist Party. This strike which was led by the firebrand trade union leader George Fernandes who was the President of the All India Railwaymen's Federation. A month later, the railway-employees union, the largest union in the country, went on a nationwide railways strike. He also demanded the dissolution of the state government, but this was not accepted by the Centre.In April 1974, in Patna, JP called for "total revolution," asking students, peasants, and labour unions to non-violently transform Indian society. In March–April 1974, a student agitation by the Bihar Chatra Sangharsh Samiti received the support of Gandhian socialist Jayaprakash Narayan, referred to as JP, against the Bihar government.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 there were imminent internal and external threats to India.The Emergency lasted for 21 months and was revoked on 21 March 1977.The Emergency was imposed on June 25, 1975.So here are 45 facts to take you back to Independent India's darkest hour. Atrocities were committed on the poor and downtrodden. The press, courts, free speech.all were trampled over. Overnight the nation was turned into a prison. If we go by Home Minister Amit Shah's word, "On this day, 45 years ago one family’s greed for power led to the imposition of the Emergency. Several human rights violations were reported in that time, including a forced mass-sterlisation campaign spearheaded by Indira's son Sanjay Gandhi. Freedom of Press was curtailed, elections were suspended. Then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had imposed an emergency, with the help of an order officially issued by the then President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed under the Article 352 of the Indian Constitution, to "control the internal disturbance." She had no opposition left since most of the opposition leaders were put behind bars. It has been 45 years since that day, while the emergency might not exist anymore, neither the prime minister who imposed it, if you speak to those who lived through it, you would realise that the scars of The Emergency linger fresh both in the nation's DNA as well as those who experienced the horrors. An hour that will live long in infamy as one of grave consequences. It was on this day (June 25), in 1975, that Independent India experienced it's darkest hour. 45 Years of Emergency: 45 facts to look back at independent India's darkest hour
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