The AIDEM, a YouTube-based news portal, interviewed me on June 25, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the imposition of the Emergency. I narrated a personal experience that brought home the harshness of that period.

One evening, a few days after the Emergency came into force, I borrowed ?10 from the cashier at the India Press Agency (IPA), where I worked at the time. I boarded a Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) bus to reach Sector 5, RK Puram, where I lived. I paid a fare of 30 paise and received the balance of ?9.70.

The bus stopped at the signal near Sector 5. Many passengers got down, and I joined them. As soon as I stepped out, a police officer detained me — along with the others. I had no idea what crime I had committed. After a while, we were taken to a stationary bus converted into a makeshift court. The officer told the magistrate that I had alighted at a signal, not a bus stop.

The magistrate asked what I had to say. I said, "Sorry." He asked me to pay a fine of ?10 or face jail. But before I could speak further, he turned to the next case. I offered the police officer ?9.70 — all I had — but he refused to accept it, saying it wasn't the full amount. Those who had ?10 paid and left. The rest of us were taken to a police vehicle, headed, supposedly, to jail.

I approached the officer and said I would pay 30 paise the next day at his police station. He noticed my watch — an old Favre-Leuba gifted by my cousin, who had inherited it from his grandfather. I didn't want to part with it. Then he asked for my pen — a gift from my father and my companion through all my board exams. I refused again. He said I would have to go to jail. By the way, the pen was originally gifted to my father by his cousin, an Orthodox priest who was posted in Malaysia.

The vehicle kept moving along the Ring Road. Finally, in a deserted stretch, the officer stopped it and asked me to hand over the ?9.70 and get off. As I alighted, I received a thunderous slap on my buttocks. I turned around and stared, but the vehicle had already started moving.

I didn't know where I was. Hungry and thirsty — I hadn't eaten lunch — I walked back to my room for three or four hours at night. The restaurant I frequented was closed. Nonetheless, I slept as soon as I hit the bed. I felt so ashamed I didn't tell anyone about this episode. In a way, I experienced the Emergency first-hand.

While I was "enjoying" a free ride in a police van in New Delhi, a certain gentleman was enjoying the hospitality of his country cousins in the USA during the entire 21-month Emergency. I saw a picture of him — bearded, sitting on a public bench in Hollywood, the name emblazoned across the hill behind.

Surprisingly, if not annoyingly, this same gentleman today waxes eloquent about the Emergency, calling it a "dark chapter in Indian history." Worse, he has declared June 25 as Samvidhan Hatya Diwas — the Day the Constitution was Murdered. The BJP government has drawn up a year-long programme to highlight the atrocities of that era.

The purpose is clear: paint the Congress Party in the darkest possible colours and extract maximum political mileage. No one denies that the Emergency was draconian. It curtailed democratic rights, imposed censorship (though only briefly, as self-censorship took over), and suspended the habeas corpus rights of citizens.

Yet, let it be acknowledged that there was no protest against the Emergency — except in the minds of a few. There was no mass uprising. In fact, a large section of the middle class welcomed it, citing the return of "discipline." They proudly noted that trains and buses ran on time and government employees showed new punctuality. It was around this time that my wife secured a job, first at the State Bank of India and later at Oriental Insurance. She recalls with horror the strictness in the office at that time.

As Harish Khare, a friend and former editor of The Tribune, has written, the real villain of the piece was JP — Jayaprakash Narayan. The RSS had kept a low profile after Nathuram Godse killed Mahatma Gandhi. Though it is claimed that Godse had left the RSS, Sardar Patel did not spare the organisation. He banned it. An irony of irony, Narendra Modi built a statue of Patel, which is taller than the Statue of Liberty in New York.

I remember the RSS inviting JP to one of its jamborees, where he gave a speech that delighted the knicker-clad, lathi-wielding volunteers. As Khare notes, an RSS leader soon began wielding more power than any other Opposition leader. JP didn't realise that he had willy-nilly become a tool in the hands of the RSS.

The greatest disservice of the Emergency was that it gave legitimacy to an organisation that had been considered a pariah until then. The RSS, which believes in restoring the imaginary glory of a mythical Hindu nation-state, finally tasted power — even controlling the External Affairs portfolio and the powerful Information and Broadcasting Ministry. Though they merged into the Janata Party, their heart remained in Nagpur.

During the Emergency, socialists, communists, old Congressmen, and revolutionaries shared jail cells and meals, forming bonds. That solidarity gave them a certain respectability. Since then, the RSS has only grown stronger. Today, its chief enjoys Z-plus security, and its people occupy Raj Bhavans and many key posts of power. Recently, I heard Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu thunder about how only strength ensures peace. Minutes later, our own Mohan Bhagwat echoed the same sentiment — though in Sanskritised Hindi, that could give even Kalidasa a headache.

Apparently, that's the new language of power: half warrior, half priest, all confusing. What tickled me more was the irony — the RSS, which prides itself on being a khaki-clad, lathi-wielding paramilitary powerhouse, needs Z-plus security for its supremo. Yes, the organisation that claims to produce the bravest of the brave needs armed commandos to protect its top man from… what? Whatever the case, it is a bit like Superman hiring a bodyguard!

To return to the Emergency — as BJP leader LK Advani famously said, "When asked to bend, people crawled." No wonder a tiny British population of under a lakh ruled India for two centuries and an even smaller Mughal population for several more.

Indira Gandhi learnt that people could be easily controlled through fear and authority. Narendra Modi, on the other hand, has mastered the art of using them — not through coercion but through rhetoric, religion, and grandiose claims. He wraps nationalism in spectacle, sells dreams of glory, and adds just a pinch of hatred for "the other" to keep passions high.

Where Indira sought obedience, Modi seeks devotion. Both understood the crowd, but while she ruled through silence, he rules through noise — loud, relentless, and carefully orchestrated to keep the spotlight shining on him and the blame fixed elsewhere.

Some journalists like Kuldip Nayar were arrested, but most simply sucked up to the regime. Essentially a democrat, Indira Gandhi wanted to regain her credibility. That's why she ordered elections. She did not rewrite or sabotage the Constitution. Her advisors told her that the Emergency was a great success. She believed them and misjudged her popularity.

Once elections were announced, newspapers began reporting on the excesses. The architect of these was her younger son, Sanjay Gandhi. Jagmohan, then DDA vice-chairman, helped execute his slum "beautification" drive — a euphemism for evictions. These demolitions antagonised the poor. Another of Sanjay's pet projects was sterilisation. Doctors were given targets. Many poor men were sterilised under duress. Of course, they were given a plastic bucket and some cash.

Sanjay later died in an air crash. His wife joined the BJP and became a minister. So did Jagmohan, who served under Vajpayee. However, there was one Edatata Narayanan, Editor of The Patriot, who stood out for his courage during the Emergency. He refused to publish Sanjay Gandhi's name, always referring to him as the "Extra-Constitutional Authority." It was his subtle yet powerful form of protest. In an era when most editors bent over backwards to please the powerful, Narayanan remained steadfast and unflinching. There was truly no one like him in the journalistic fraternity of those days.

I was in Bhopal reporting for The Hitavada during the 1977 election. The Congress candidate in the city of lakes and hills was Dr Shankar Dayal Sharma, later President. Dr Sharma's election meetings were lacklustre affairs, with only a handful of loyal Congress workers in attendance. In stark contrast, his rival, Arif Beg, a relatively unknown candidate at the time, drew massive crowds wherever he went.

The writing was on the wall. The public outrage over forced sterilisation drives and the brutal demolition of slums in the name of "beautification" had turned the tide decisively against Congress. These two issues alone sealed the fate of many Congress candidates across North India.

Though the Congress was decimated in the North, it swept the South. Three years later, Indira Gandhi was back in power. She accepted her defeat and never again justified the Emergency. The party, too, has since been apologetic.

Now, things are different. No Emergency is in force. No formal censorship exists. But when a major Hindi newspaper published photos of bodies floating in the Ganga during the second wave of COVID-19, the government cracked down on its management. The BBC's documentary on the Gujarat riots drew similar wrath. The media, both electronic and print, is now virtually under government control.

I recall asking Indira Gandhi a question during a press conference in Bhopal. I was later told I shouldn't have. Yet, she answered. Has the current Prime Minister ever held a press conference? His first interview wasn't even with a journalist — it was with a film star of Canadian citizenship.

People often cite the custodial death of Rajan, an engineering student in Kerala, as an example of Emergency-era brutality. But what about Stan Swamy, an 84-year-old Jesuit priest who died in jail — denied a straw and a sipper? Or former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt, who continues to languish in prison?

For all its horrors, the Emergency wasn't the only low point. The 2002 Gujarat riots were equally, if not more, appalling. The demolition of the Babri Masjid, done in broad daylight under the state's watch, shook the secular fabric of India. Today, the same voices that cry foul over a 50-year-old aberration remain silent on mob lynchings, the harassment of Christian pastors, the vilification of human rights defenders as "urban naxals," and the barring of Muslim vendors from selling water at the Kumbh Mela.

The Emergency must be remembered, not as a tool to target a political party but as a lesson against authoritarian excess. Yet, we cannot ignore that worse violations of democratic norms and human rights have occurred — without any Emergency in force. When power is unchecked, and dissent is demonised, the Constitution suffers silently, with or without an official proclamation.

The Emergency lasted 21 months. The climate of fear we see today has lasted much longer — and shows no signs of lifting. In that sense, what we face now is not the memory of an Emergency but the shadow of one — unspoken, unannounced, but unmistakably real.