In the Name of Democracy JP Movement and the Emergency

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The Emergency of 1975-77 was a dark chapter of India's democracy. Leading up to it was the JP movement, named after its leader Jayaprakash Narayan, which paralysed much of northern India and directly challenged Prime Minister Indira Gandhi at the Centre. This book, unlike earlier studies, looks at these happenings sequentially, seeking to understand their character and the nature of the challenge they posed to our democracy.

Tracking the events of the period, Bipan Chandra finds that instead of pressing for Mrs Gandhi's resignation, JP could have waited for the law to take its course or asked for immediate elections. Similarly, Indira Gandhi could have preponed elections on grounds of political instability and sought a popular mandate rather than impose Internal Emergency. Both sides seemed to have been prisoners to immediate circumstances and had the potential for leading to a totalitarian dictatorship though they did not. Yet, despite the authoritarianism inherent in the Emergency, particularly with the rice to power of Sanjay Gandhi and his Youth Congress brigade, Indira Gandhi ended it and called for elections. Likewise, the JP movement ran out of steam, through the danger of it turning fascist was real, given the fuzzy ideology of Total Revolution, confused leadership, and dependence on the RSS for its organization.

Bipan Chandra was born in Kangra, Himachal Pradesh. He was educated at Forman Christian College, Lahore, and at Stanford University, California. He was Professor of Modern History at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, where he is currently Professor Emeritus. Prof Chandra is the author of several books on nationalism, colonialism, and communalism in modern India.

Two crises of an unprecedented magnitude rocked India during the years 1974 to 1977. From January 1974 to June 1975 the country went through a turbulent period marked by a series of agitations-bandhs and gheraos, strikes and shutdowns, closures of colleges and universities, two massive popular movements in Gujarat and Bihar, that demanded resignations of the state governments and dissolution of the state assemblies. While the movement in Gujarat was successful in achieving these twin objectives, that in Bihar, popularly known as the JP movement (after its leader Jayaprakash Narayan, popularly known as JP) failed to do so. The latter, however, soon spread, especially in North India, and developed into a movement for the ouster of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. This was followed by the second 'watershed' in India's recent history: the imposition of the Emergency by Mrs Gandhi on 26 June 1975. The step sent shock waves across the nation and the trauma continued for nearly nineteen months. Political observers, both at home and abroad, talked of a crisis of India's political system and its democracy, with many predicting that the dark night of a long-term dictatorship had descended on the country. This book attempts to make sense of these two connected happenings and their consequences for the people and the polity.

Many journalists and a few scholars have written about the JP movement and the Emergency separately, but very few have studied them in tandem with each other. While the functioning of the Emergency may be seen in isolation, any analysis of its causes, its historical significance, as well as consequences, has to be in the context of the JP movement. Likewise, the JP movement cannot be understood except with reference to the role of opposition parties and organizations such as the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) in it, besides JP's ideas and personality.