India's Authoritarian Turn: Understanding the Emergency (1975–1977) and Its Afterlife

IF 1.4 4区社会学 Q1 AREA STUDIES

Pacific Affairs Pub Date : 2023-03-01 DOI:10.5509/2023961119

Himanshu Jha

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Abstract

On June 25, 1975, Prime Minister (PM) Indira Gandhi imposed a national emergency (the Emergency) in India, suspending civil and political rights. Lasting for 21 months, the Emergency was the only dictatorial turn in India's democratic history. The authoritarian rule was in response to an assertive citizens' protest against Prime Minister Gandhi, which demanded her resignation on the grounds of the centralization of power, corruption, rising prices, and in the name of fair wages for workers and unemployment. The higher courts had also debarred her from contesting elections. Since then, the dominant accounts of this period have tried to ascertain answers to three questions: Why was the Emergency imposed? What did the Emergency entail? And finally, why was it lifted? The books in this review essay together comprise a tour de force on these three aspects, while also seeking to go beyond these questions. Christophe Ja relot and Pratinav Anil's India's First Dictatorship: The Emergency, 1975–77 shows how the Emergency has cast a long shadow and is also a window into understanding some of the present trends in Indian politics. Gyan Prakash's Emergency Chronicles: Indira Gandhi and Democracy's Turning Point claims that the Emergency had both a "before" and "afterlife"; the origins of excessive state power are inherent in the Constitution. Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr.'s The Emergency: An Unpopular History provides a revisionist account of the Emergency through the lenses of parliamentary discussions. While engaging with these important books, this review essay suggests an alternate "afterlife" of the Emergency that is untreated in the works discussed here.

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印度的威权转向:理解紧急状态(1975-1977)及其后续

1975年6月25日，印度总理英迪拉·甘地宣布全国进入紧急状态，暂停公民权利和政治权利。紧急状态持续了21个月，是印度民主历史上唯一的一次独裁转向。印度的独裁统治是为了应对民众对甘地总理的抗议。民众以权力集中、腐败、物价上涨、工人工资公平和失业为由，要求甘地总理辞职。高等法院也禁止她参加选举。从那以后，关于这一时期的主流报道试图找出三个问题的答案:为什么实行紧急状态?紧急情况带来了什么?最后，为什么它被解除了?这篇评论文章中的书共同构成了这三个方面的杰作，同时也试图超越这些问题。Christophe Ja relot和Pratinav Anil的《印度第一次独裁:紧急状态，1975-77》展示了紧急状态是如何投下长长的阴影的，也是了解印度政治当前趋势的一扇窗。吉安·普拉卡什的《紧急事件编年史:英迪拉·甘地与民主的转折点》声称，紧急事件既有“前”，也有“后”;过度国家权力的根源是宪法所固有的。Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr.的《紧急状态:一段不受欢迎的历史》通过议会讨论的镜头对紧急状态进行了修正主义的描述。在与这些重要书籍接触的同时，这篇评论文章提出了另一种紧急情况的“来世”，这在这里讨论的作品中是未被处理的。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Pacific Affairs AREA STUDIES-

CiteScore

1.60

自引率

12.50%

发文量

期刊介绍： Pacific Affairs has, over the years, celebrated and fostered a community of scholars and people active in the life of Asia and the Pacific. It has published scholarly articles of contemporary significance on Asia and the Pacific since 1928. Its initial incarnation from 1926 to 1928 was as a newsletter for the Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR), but since May 1928, it has been published continuously as a quarterly under the same name. The IPR was a collaborative organization established in 1925 by leaders from several YMCA branches in the Asia Pacific, to “study the conditions of the Pacific people with a view to the improvement of their mutual relations.”