The Shah Commission's observation that 'censorship was utilised for suppressing news unfavourable to the government, to play up news favourable to the government and to suppress news unfavourable to the supporters of the Congress party' also applies to the current dispensation, except for the fact that there is no official censorship as during 1975-77.
Published Jun 24, 2025 | 5:09 PM ⚊ Updated Jun 24, 2025 | 5:09 PM
President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmad declared a state of Emergency on the advice of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on 25 June 1975. (Creative Commons)
Synopsis: One wonders whether Shah was writing fifty years ago or right now. The Shah Commission’s prophetic and prescient recommendations, made five decades ago, reverberate in the country even now.
Wednesday, 25 June, marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Emergency, imposed by President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmad on the recommendation of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1975.
The scars of the midnight shock that continued for the next 21 months are so long-lasting that some of them are still remembered after half a century. The bitter experiences of suspension of fundamental rights, ridiculous pre-censorship regime on the press, widespread detentions without trial, forcible sterilisations, ruthless demolitions in the name of beautification, and extra-judicial killings made the Emergency a horrendous nightmare in the history of modern India.
It is not that people of India were witnessing this kind of enormous onslaught for the first time in history. Throughout the feudal and colonial periods, this sort of suppression of the rights of people existed in different degrees of severity. Even during the post-colonial period, people in general, and those who were opposing the ruling dispensation in particular, were subjected to much more stringent restrictions on their fundamental rights several times.
Starting from the police action on Hyderabad state in 1948, in which the Union army killed at least 2,000 activists and people, to the suppression of Naxalbari and Srikakulam revolts during 1967-72, where hundreds were killed and thousands imprisoned, the Indian state is always known for its iron heel against poor and powerless. Violation of fundamental rights guaranteed in the Constitution was a daily affair.
But then, the fact that the iron heel turned towards middle-class articulate sections for the first time during the Emergency gave it a particular significance, and that’s how a lot has been written and spoken about it. For the first time in the post-colonial phase, the opposition politicians, middle-class intellectuals, journalists, social activists, and all kinds of dissenters were targeted and imprisoned for prolonged periods.
At least one lakh people were arrested, tortured, and harassed. Unlike the previous bouts of repression on common people and activists of particular mass movements, this time round it was against the white-collared, upper-class, elite sections, including from the ranks of the parliamentary opposition. Since these articulate, opinion-making sections had considerable clout in the mass media, their opposition to the Emergency was in the limelight, if not during the dark days, but during the post-Emergency euphoria of the revival of democracy.
The Emergency excesses have also become an essential element of common sense knowledge during the 1977-1979 Janata period, and the investigations and findings of the Shah Commission played a major role in disseminating the Indira-bashing propaganda.
The Shah Commission, appointed by the Janata government on 28 May 1977, submitted its three reports on 11 March, 26 April, and 6 August 1978. Given its time constraints as well as non-availability of much-needed information, the 543 (105+151+287) page report may not present a complete list of excesses, but it stands as a stark reminder of the misuse of power by authoritarian forces.
The report began with the question of whether there was any justification for imposing the Emergency and concluded that it was the sole decision of Indira Gandhi, without even consulting her cabinet colleagues, and it was not justified at all. Of course, the report recognised the role of the coterie, including extra extra-constitutional authority of Sanjay Gandhi. The report dealt with questions of illegal detentions under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA) and the Defence of India Rules, misuse of power, sterilizations, and demolitions.
Now, after 50 years, the Shah Commission reports make very interesting reading, but enough of Indira and Congress bashing. Her Emergency is long dead, and under the present rulers undeclared Emergency is at its height. That’s why, reading the Shah Commission reports, at times, one wonders whether one is stuck in a Time Machine and feels reading an indictment on the current times.
“In practice, censorship was utilised for suppressing news unfavourable to the government, to play up news favourable to the government and to suppress news unfavourable to the supporters of the Congress party,” said the Shah Commission. But it also applies to the current dispensation, except for the fact that there is no official censorship as during 1975-77.
“Misuse of media, misuse of authority in the Income Tax department, misuse of laws and procedures to help Dhirendra Brahmachari, misuse of power under the preventive sections of Cr PC such as sections 108 and 151, initially to secure the presence of the persons who were subsequently detained under the MISA,” observed the Shah Commission.
Just replace that infamous godman’s name with whoever you know and the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA) with the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), and the observation transcends the time and settles well in 2014-2025!
The Shah Commission then stated that “the circumstances in which the Emergency was declared and the ease with which it was accomplished should be a warning to the citizens of the country” and fifty years later, one should rewrite it as the circumstances in which even without formally declaring Emergency, the ease with which the excesses are accomplished should be a warning to the citizens of the country.
Indeed, one wonders whether Shah was writing fifty years ago or right now, when one reads, “with the press gagged and a resultant blackout of authentic information, arbitrary arrests and detentions went on apace. Effective dissent was smothered, followed by a general erosion of democratic values. High-handed and arbitrary actions were carried out with impunity…”
The Shah Commission’s prophetic and prescient recommendations, made five decades ago, reverberate in the country even now: “The nation owes it to the present and the succeeding generations to ensure that the administrative set up is not subverted in future in the manner it was done to serve the personal ends of any one individual or a group of individuals in on near the government.”
“Censorship of news and how the media was manipulated should be a lesson to the government and to the people that in a vast country like ours, blanketing of news in the way it was done has serious repercussions on the lives and the thoughts of the people.”
“The state owes it to the nation to assure that the judiciary will not be subjected to strains which might even indirectly operate as punitive merely because of a pronouncement not to the liking of the executive authority.”
“Departments like the Income Tax department, Intelligence Bureau, CBI, Enforcement Directorate, etc., should be led by strong, competent, and self-respecting individuals who are known for their appreciation of values and their concern for the interests of the country and its citizens. Lesser men as heads of such organisations, which play a vital role in the life of the nation, would only be a disaster.”
Yes, that disaster happened during 1975-77, and a judicial commission did warn the nation about the impending disaster, and the country is going through that disaster, fifty years later.
What a surreal world we are living in!
(Views are personal. Edited by Majnu Babu).
