India's First Dictatorship

by Christophe Jaffrelot, Pratinav Anil

Overview

In June 1975 Prime Minister Indira Gandhi imposed a 'State of Emergency', resulting in a 21-month suspension of democracy. Jaffrelot and Anil explore this black page in India's history, a constitutional dictatorship of unequal impact, with South India largely spared thanks to the resilience of Indian federalism.

India's First Dictatorship focuses on Mrs Gandhi and her son, Sanjay, who was largely responsible for the mass sterilisation programmes and deportation of urban slum-dwellers. However, it equally exposes the facilitation of authoritarian rule by Congressmen, Communists, trade unions, businessmen and the urban middle class, as well as the complacency of the judiciary and media. While opposition leaders eventually closed ranks in jail, many of them collaborated with the new regime—including the RSS. Those who resisted the Emergency, in the media or on the streets, were few in number.

This episode was an acid test for India's political culture. While a tiny minority of citizens fought for democracy during the Emergency, in large numbers the people bowed to a strong woman, even worshipped her. Equally importantly, Hindu nationalists were endowed with a new legitimacy. The Emergency was not a parenthesis, but a turning point; its legacy is very much alive today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780197577820
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	04/01/2021
Pages:	600
Product dimensions:	8.40(w) x 5.40(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Christophe Jaffrelot is Research Director at CNRS, Sciences Po and Professor of Indian Politics and Sociology at the King's India Institute. Hurst has published nine of his books, most recently the co-edited Majoritarian State.

Pratinav Anil, a Clarendon scholar, is a DPhil candidate at St John's College, University of Oxford.

Table of Contents

List of Tables xi

Abbreviations xiii

Glossary xvii

Preface xxi

Introduction 1

The Consequences of Ahmedabad and Allahabad 6

Making Sense of the Emergency 17

Part I The Varieties of Authoritarianism: What Kind of Regime was the Emergency?

1 A Constitutional Dictatorship 23

Disciplining Democracy 24

A Decimated Opposition: Imprisonment and Torture 28

The Media: Prior Restraint and Propaganda 52

2 The Political Economy of the Emergency: Looking for an Ideology 67

The Twenty-Point Programme and its Contradictions 69

What Land Reform? 70

In the Name of the Poor 75

Dirigiste Corporatism 87

3 Subverting Institutions: Remnants of Democracy 97

The Façade of Parliamentarism 98

What Rule of Law? The Decline of the Judiciary and the Making of a Police State 107

Nepotism, Arbitrariness, and State Capture 116

4 An Era of Sultans: Sanjay's Emergency 125

The Making of a Parallel Power Structure 128

Family Planning and Gentrification; or, Sterilisations and Deportations 145

From Family Planning to Man-Hunt 145

Bulldozing the Poor 165

5 The Uneven Geography of Tyranny 185

Another North-South Divide 187

The Hindi Epicentre 196

Gujarat and Tamil Nadu: The Holdout States 202

The Southern Satrapies Hold Their Own 210

Conclusion to Part I 225

Part II Causes and Beyond: What Made the Emergency "Necessary" and Possible?

6 Immediate Causes: The JP Movement and the Allahabad Judgment in Perspective 231

The JP Movement: A Symptom of Larger Threats 232

Gujarat: The Crucible of Protest 233

Bihar Takes Over: The Rise of JP 237

The Sangh Parivar: The Subtext of the JP Movement? 243

A National Movement 245

The Political Economy of the JP Movement 249

The Social Crisis of the 1970s 249

The Limits of Promissory Politics 257

Indira Gandhi's War on the Judiciary and the Judges' Response 264

7 Mrs Gandhi's Personalisation of Power, 1966-1975 275

Indira Gandhi: Predisposed to Tyranny or Working Towards Survival? 275

Facets of an Authoritarian Personality 277

The Uncertain Making of a Dynast Born to Rule 284

The Deinstitutionalisation of the Congress and the Centralisation of Power 288

The Consequences of 1967 289

The Leftist Card 291

The Making of an All-Powerful Executive 293

An Authoritarian Personality under Threat 303

From Populism to Authoritarianism 303

Mrs Gandhi's Calculus in 1975 305

8 An Incongruous Coalition 313

The Initial Phase: For the Emergency or Against the JP Movement? 314

Communists and the Congress: A Contingent Alliance 316

Maharashtrian Partners: The Shiv Sena and the RPIs 323

Businessmen and the Congress: A Convergence of Interests 325

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie 333

The Janus-like Intelligentsia 336

The Bureaucracy: The Primacy of Institutional Survival 341

Conclusion to Part II 349

Part III Resistance and Endgame

9 An Uneven Resistance 355

The Media: A Landscape of Contrasts 356

The Judiciary: Ambivalent to the Core 362

The RSS and the LSS: Between Resistance and Compromise 367

The CPI(M): Underground and in Parliament 384

Mainstream Politicians, Fence-sitters and the Making of the Janata Party 387

Direct Action Underground: The Limits of Limited Violence 396

10 Lifting the Emergency: What Return to Democracy? 403

Elections as an Antidote to Escalation: A Return to Normal Political Life? 406

What International Pressures? 410

Fighting to Win-At Any Cost 421

The 1977 Polls 424

The Unmaking of the Emergency-How to Punish the Culprits? 431

Conclusion: Interpreting the Emergency 439

The What and Why of the Emergency 440

A Parenthesis? A Turning Point? Or More of the Same? 443

Differences of Degree-and Nature 447

Select Bibliography 457

Index 479

Editorial Reviews

"Jaffrelot and Anil present a comprehensive account of the suspension of formal democracy in India. A sharp analytical assessment of the Emergency, it is bold, original and well-researched. This promises to be a landmark work in Indian politics."— Uday Chandra, Assistant Professor of Government, Georgetown University, Qatar, and co-editor of Staking Claims: The Politics of Social Movements in Contemporary Rural India

"The best and most wide-ranging account of the Emergency in India. It is a ground-breaking contribution to the study of Indian politics and political history. Widely and deeply researched, comprehensive and analytical.'"— Srinath Raghavan, Professor of International Relations and History, Ashoka University, and Senior Fellow, Carnegie India

"Jaffrelot and Anil's meticulously researched account of India's brief period of authoritarian Emergency rule in 1975-77 rightly approaches it not as an aberration, but as a product of the ambiguity of Indian democracy. Engaging and authoritative—it could prove definitive."— James Chiriyankandath, Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London

"Jaffrelot and Anil bring a rare depth of scholarship and nuanced analysis to their remarkable account of India's Emergency. Drawing upon an unparalleled range of sources, this book is indispensable for anyone seeking to understand global authoritarianism and Indian politics today."— Rochana Bajpai, Associate Professor in Politics, SOAS University of London, and author of Debating Difference: Group Rights and Liberal Democracy in India

"The best and most comprehensive book on the Emergency."— Business Standard India

"To be commended, not just for [its] extensive research and intellectual sweep, but because of [its] contemporary relevance... Indeed, [its] studied analysis that the world's largest democracy is fundamentally vulnerable to despotic rule will no doubt provide fresh insights on the current Indian political landscape, which many believe is under an undeclared Emergency."— India Today

"This book rightly claims that this specific study of Emergency helps looking at Indian history through different lenses where the subordinated and oppressed citizenry are always at loggerheads. 'This is the history of a constant struggle between the people on the one hand and the Republic's rulers on the other.' Indeed, this excellent volume does live up to this claim very well."— The Book Review

"Offers a meticulous and convincing analysis of the Emergency, but also does more than that. The suspension of democracy in India is used as a lens to understand the maladies and weaknesses of India's democracy and to remind the contemporary reader that the brief authoritarian interlude of the 1970s might not have been India's first and last dictatorship."— The Bookshelf

"Detailed and fascinating." — The Wire

"A timely reminder that India's hard-won democratic ethos cannot be taken for granted. ... [ India's First Dictatorship] is a compelling account, which displays an extraordinary grasp of the political milieu that led to the state of emergency and provides a level of detail about its consequences never before attempted." — Foreign Policy

"Represents a yet unmatched attempt to convey the elements of the Emergency in their many-sided complexity." — Los Angeles Review of Books

"[Christophe Jaffrelot and Pratinav Anil] must be complimented for pointing out among other things that democracy had not then, and still has not, become as deep-rooted in India as is necessary for it to strengthen the institutions of the state and benefit all sections of the people... [India's First Dictatorship] is a welcome ... addition to the existing material, most of which either tends to glorify the emergency and play down its excesses, or to vilify the principal participants in that sorry episode of Indian history." — The Commonwealth Lawyer

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