It’s been about a week since the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the imposition of the Internal Emergency by the Government of India headed by Indira Gandhi started. Unfortunately, the posters and banners put up by the Bharatiya Janata Party units have already started to fade.

Newspapers in their own way tried to commemorate the dark chapter in post-Independence history by commissioning articles. These articles have been written mostly by those who were part of the movement itself and ended up being anecdotal in their write-up.

The best among the plethora of articles has been the one written by Kuldip Nayar, who was editor of The Indian Express when Emergency was imposed, and this article was published on the morning of June 26, 1975. Last week, The New Indian Express, one of the heirs to the Express legacy, reproduced the article on its editorial page.

Reels and posts on the social media handles on the atrocities of Emergency, too, have gone dry. What has really been missing are articles that could have indicated with firm references whether Emergency or the movement against it managed to change the trend of Indian politics, or was it just an aberration?

The imposition........

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