India's Emergency: A Geopolitical Retrospective Through Modi's Rule

Narendra Modi's 12-year rule provides a retrospective lens through which to examine India's tumultuous 21-month Emergency period, imposed by Indira Gandhi from 1975 to 1977. The article suggests that the geopolitical landscape of the 1970s was highly dynamic, marked by significant global events that influenced India's internal politics.

Key international developments of that decade included the 1973 CIA-sponsored military coup in Chile that overthrew Salvador Allende, and the Arab oil embargo of the same year, which targeted US sympathizers. In India, 1973 saw the beginnings of a significant protest movement, the 'Navnirman Andolan' in Gujarat, led by RSS-backed students. This movement soon found resonance with students in Bihar, including future political figures Lalu Yadav and Nitish Kumar, coalescing into a broader campaign under Jaiprakash Narayan.

Narayan's call for the military and police to disobey Indira Gandhi's orders was not entirely unexpected, given her earlier defiance of Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon during the 1971 standoff with Pakistan. Firmly aligned with the Soviet Union and increasingly criticized by Western media, Gandhi faced a critical juncture. This came to a head on June 12, 1975, when a high court judge ordered her removal from power over a charge related to the use of government resources for an election rally podium.

This period of political upheaval in India coincided with other significant global events. Mujibur Rahman's assassination by Bangladesh military officers occurred the same year Gandhi was to deliver her Independence Day speech. In April 1975, Vietnam's victory over the US culminated in the chaotic evacuation of Americans from Saigon. Following Gandhi's loss in the April 1977 election, Gen Ziaul Haq staged a coup in Pakistan on July 5, 1977, against a populist leader, mirroring aspects of the political shifts seen in India. Notably, Indian leaders who succeeded Gandhi, some with RSS affiliations, did not intervene to spare Z.A. Bhutto's life, a decision that later saw Prime Minister Morarji Desai honored by Zia.