It has been 50 years since the Emergency was imposed on June 25, 1975. It lasted all of 21 months, coming to an end on March 21, 1977. Its impact, however, has lasted longer. The Emergency era remains fresh in the minds of the public, with politicians and academics invested in the constitution and polity of the nation.
“The long 1970s were the hinge on which the contemporary history of India turned, transforming the young postcolonial country into today’s India,” author Srinath Raghavan said in a recent interview with The Hindu. His book Indira Gandhi and the Years That Transformed India is only one of many recent works aiming to demystify these years and what transpired. Only recently, Coomi Kapoor’s The Emergency: A Personal History received an uncertain Bollywood treatment in the form of Kangana Ranaut’s similarly titled film, which received a lukewarm response.
