In the Larger Personal interest : An Investigation in to India Politics Since 1947.

Mrs Indira Gandhi imposed Emergency in India on 26th June
1975, and edged out the country away from the orbit of democracy.
The nation slid into the clutches of authoritarian rule. Human
rights were trampled upon. The judiciary was browbeaten, tamed
and brought to its knees. The Press lay spread-eagled, forced to toe
the line defined by the rulers, muffled and silenced, allowed only to
sing songs of praise of the regime. The Constitution was trimmed
and shorn of many of its democratic regulations, rewritten by
hurriedly sponsored amendments to suit the demands of authori-
tarianism that went under the name of democracy. Covertly and
overtly, democracy was undermined, bound and fettered and
chained, forced to be the mask for dictatorship.
The blame, therefore, for the 19 months of Emergency and
its excesses has been placed on Mrs Indira Gandhi and her close
a Ssociates. But, this is too simplisitic a view.
The Emergency which pushed the nation into the mire of
terror was not something that came out of nowhere. It was the
natural culmination of the gradual erosion of human values and
democratic virtues. The nation's path, from the day we began
our tryst with destiny, had followed devious routes. It was paved
with excessive zeal for power.
It
was strengthened by excep-
tional zest for amassing fortunes by fair means and foul. It was
bound by extreme indifference to the needs of the masses.
marked by a complete negation of the concept of nationalism.
The Emergency was the outward expression of the rot that
had set in in the national body politic. It was a tragedy whose
scenario was prepared and developed over many years since 1947.
We lulled ourselves with the belief that all was well with
the nation. We had rolled up in cocoons, spun out of a false
sense of security. We tagged blinkers on to our
ourselves with the chains forged out of our mistakes. We hope-
eyes. We bound lessly entangled ourselves with the threads of sycophancy, nepotism,
economic imbalances, political chicanery and broken promises.
It was