Overview

The gripping story of an explosive turning point in the history of modern IndiaOn the night of June 25, 1975, Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency in India, suspending constitutional rights and rounding up her political opponents in midnight raids across the country. In the twenty-one harrowing months that followed, her regime unleashed a brutal campaign of coercion and intimidation, arresting and torturing people by the tens of thousands, razing slums, and imposing compulsory sterilization on the poor. Emergency Chronicles provides the first comprehensive account of this understudied episode in India's modern history. Gyan Prakash strips away the comfortable myth that the Emergency was an isolated event brought on solely by Gandhi's desire to cling to power, arguing that it was as much the product of Indian democracy's troubled relationship with popular politics.Drawing on archival records, private papers and letters, published sources, film and literary materials, and interviews with victims and perpetrators, Prakash traces the Emergency's origins to the moment of India's independence in 1947, revealing how the unfulfilled promise of democratic transformation upset the fine balance between state power and civil rights. He vividly depicts the unfolding of a political crisis that culminated in widespread popular unrest, which Gandhi sought to crush by paradoxically using the law to suspend lawful rights. Her failure to preserve the existing political order had lasting and unforeseen repercussions, opening the door for caste politics and Hindu nationalism.Placing the Emergency within the broader global history of democracy, this gripping book offers invaluable lessons for us today as the world once again confronts the dangers of rising authoritarianism and populist nationalism.

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9780691186726

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Reviews

Gyan Prakash's lucid and astute account of India's postcolonial history and the Emergency combines readability and consummate research with a powerful central argument about the vicissitudes of political freedom devoid of social revolution. It is the essential read for anyone who wants to understand democracy's relationship with popular politics in the world today. --Zoya Hasan, professor emerita, Jawaharlal Nehru University With vivid portrayals of lesser known characters and some striking archival photographs, Gyan Prakash has given us a thoughtful and superbly readable account of one of Indian democracy's darkest episodes. --Partha Chatterjee, Columbia University A brilliant, gripping study of one of democratic India's darkest moments--the Emergency of 1975-77--that reveals the deepest lineaments of the Indian state. Bearing an important lesson for beleaguered democracies across the world today, Gyan Prakash brings the Indian experience into the global debate about democracy. --Sunil Khilnani, King's College London Prakash has written an indispensable political and narrative history of one of the most significant phases of India's democracy. Emergency Chronicles is an exceptional book. --Shruti Kapila, University of Cambridge In this lively and well-written book, Prakash makes the persuasive and important argument that the possibilities of suspending democracy are embedded in the legal and political frameworks of the Indian state, and that an awareness of this fact is essential to protecting and defending this democracy into the present day. --Yasmin Khan, author of India at War: The Subcontinent and the Second World War

In this lively and well-written book, Prakash makes the persuasive and important argument that the possibilities of suspending democracy are embedded in the legal and political frameworks of the Indian state, and that an awareness of this fact is essential to protecting and defending this democracy into the present day. -Yasmin Khan, author of India at War: The Subcontinent and the Second World War

Author Information

Gyan Prakash is the Dayton-Stockton Professor of History at Princeton University. His many books include Mumbai Fables: A History of an Enchanted City (Princeton), Bonded Histories: Genealogies of Labor Servitude in Colonial India, and Another Reason: Science and the Imagination of Modern India (Princeton). He lives in Princeton, New Jersey.

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