After 1972 Indira Gandhi was facing many crucial problems. At the ground level the abnormal rise in prices, shortage of essential commudities and other problems facing the economy had driven the common men to desperation. There were violent agitations and breahdown of civil administration in some parts of the country. Jayaprakash Narayan came out of his 20 year retirement from active politics and led a silent marh on 8 April 1975. Owing to his charisma and moral stature, a mere local agitation was raised to the level of a state wide movement in Bihar. Jayaprakash visited various states and addressed huge rallies. The burden of his theme was that Indira Gandhi was destroying democracy and promoting corruption, she must be thrown out to save the country. It was during this period of 1972-75 that Sanjay’s [Indira Gandhi’s younger son] influence gradually rose and a new style of governance emerged.
On 12 June 1975, Indira Gandhi’s election as a member of parliament from Rae Bareilly had been set aside by Allahabad High Court. On 24 June the Supreme court passed an order granting her only a conditional stay. Jayaprakash and his followers were ecstatic and started planning their final shape of struggle to dislodge Indira Gandhi. With all these turbulence around her Indira Gandhi was not sitting idle. Accompanied by S.S.Ray she went to the Prtesident of India on the night of 25 June and obtained his approval for the proclamation of internal emergency under Article 352 of the Indian Constitution.
Soon after the declaration of emergency, the government suspended constitutional rights regarding equality before law, right of life and liberty, and protection against arrest and detention through a Presidential ordinance. The Maintenance of Internal Security Act [MISA] was amended to provide for the detention of a person up to two years without disclosing the grounds for doing so. The landmark legislation was the 42 amendment of removing all checks on the parliament’s power to amend the constitution including its basic structure. The words ‘Secular’ and ‘Socialist’ were affixed to Democratic Republic in the preamble. All these changes made Prime Minister the supreme ruler of the country without any check on her power.
Economic measures: The performance of the Congress party in the electins of 1967 was very poor. In order to gain people’s confidence Indira Gandhi introduced a 10 point programme. The main features of this were social control of banking, nationalization of General Insurance, Public distribution of food grains through official agencies, curb on monopolies and removal of privileges of former rulers. At the AICC session of June 1967, the radical group within the Congress got the clause for the removal of privileges to include abolition of privy purses. The right wing members [termed as Syndicate members] condemned this change. Aware of the need of a progressive image Indira Gandhi government nationalized 14 of the largest banks on 21 July 1969 by a Presidential ordinance.
Economic measures during Emergency: Within 5 days of emergency a comprehensive 20 point programme was launched by Indira Gandhi government. It covered pro-poor and social reform schemes contained in the five year plans. Highest priority was given to bringing down prices of essential commodities. Other items included land reforms, removal of rural indebtedness, abolition of bonded labour, provision of house sites to the landless, development of handloom sector and tax relief to middle class.
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