“When Freedom Faded: A Citizen’s Memory of 1975”

The Night the Lights Went Out I still remember that night — June 25, 1975. Delhi was wrapped in its usual summer heaviness, the kind that sticks to your skin and makes the air feel thick. I had just finished dinner and was sitting by the radio, trying to catch the evening news. My neighbour’s son burst into our courtyard, breathless. “They’ve arrested JP!” he blurted out. “And Vajpayee… Advani… all of them!” At first, I didn’t believe him. Arrested? All of them? But when I tuned in again, there was no mention of protests, no mention of the court verdict against Indira Gandhi — just calm, scripted announcements. It was eerie, like the news itself had been scrubbed clean. I didn’t know it yet, but the government had clamped down on the press. Overnight, the country had changed. The weeks before that had been tense. I’d gone to hear Jayaprakash Narayan speak at Ramlila Maidan — a peaceful sea of students, workers, women in colourful saris, all demanding “Total Revolution.” I’d never seen such unity. But I’d also never seen the police looking so restless, their hands twitching near their lathis. We knew something was coming, we just didn’t know it would be this. The morning after the arrests, Delhi woke to whispers. The word “Emergency” was on everyone’s lips, though no one really knew what it meant yet. Then we found out — the Constitution allowed the Prime Minister to declare it if the country’s security was threatened. But we weren’t at war. The threat, they said, was “internal disturbance.” Life began to feel… smaller. You spoke less, especially in public. Friends who had always argued about politics over tea now just nodded politely and changed the subject. We heard of people being arrested under something called MISA — no trial, no bail. I saw the headlines in the newspapers grow softer, blander. Then one morning, a whole column was replaced with a blank white space. That’s when I realised — they weren’t even allowed to print the truth anymore. The radio became a strange kind of theatre. All India Radio spoke in a sing-song cheerfulness about progress — new schools, housing projects, trains running on time. They called it the “20-Point Program.” My father joked that maybe the government should also issue a “20-Point Program” for what we could say without getting arrested. We laughed, but quietly. Then came the sterilisation camps. My cousin in Haryana was taken to one. They told him it was voluntary, but when he refused, they threatened to cut his ration card. He was twenty-three. I heard stories of men being herded into trucks, of entire villages rounded up. In Delhi, the slums near Turkman Gate were demolished overnight. Families we knew disappeared — some to the outskirts of the city, some who knows where. Even the courts didn’t feel like a refuge anymore. When I read that the Supreme Court had said we had no right to challenge the government’s actions during the Emergency, it felt like a betrayal. Only one judge, H.R. Khanna, disagreed — and he lost his chance to be Chief Justice because of it. Two years passed like that — a strange mixture of order and fear. Trains did run on time. Streets were cleaner. But it was the quiet that haunted me. A democracy isn’t meant to be that quiet. In January 1977, we were stunned again — Indira Gandhi announced elections. Some thought it was a trick, others that she wanted to prove her popularity. I went to vote in March. I’ll never forget the feeling in the polling booth — it was like we were finally being allowed to speak after two years of silence. And speak we did. The Congress was swept out. Indira lost Rae Bareli. Her son Sanjay lost Amethi. The Janata Party took over. When the results came in, people celebrated in the streets like it was Diwali. Firecrackers, songs, dancing — but also relief. The Emergency was over. I thought we’d learned our lesson, that such a thing could never happen again. Even now, decades later, when I hear the word “Emergency,” I don’t think of laws or constitutional clauses. I think of that night in 1975, the sudden hush over the city, the blank spaces in the newspapers, and the feeling that the very air had become dangerous to breathe. ---