Independent India did not begin its journey in calm consensus. The Republic emerged from Partition with deep scars—communal violence, mass displacement, poverty, and fragile institutions. Governing such a vast, diverse, and traumatised society required more than electoral legitimacy. It required restraint. That is why the Constitution adopted in 1950 was deliberately anti-authoritarian: it limited state power, elevated individual liberty, and treated dissent as an essential democratic function, not a threat to order.
A Constitution shaped by fear of unchecked power
India’s founders understood that authority without limits would fracture the Republic. The Constitution was therefore designed not merely as an administrative framework, but as a moral safeguard against the state itself. Fundamental Rights, judicial review, and separation of powers were meant to ensure that political majorities could not easily convert power into domination.
No one articulated this more clearly than B R Ambedkar, who repeatedly warned that democracy could not survive on institutions alone. Without what he called “constitutional morality”—self-restraint by those in power—India risked sliding into dictatorship. His caution against hero-worship in politics was especially stark: blind devotion to leaders, he warned, was a sure road to democratic collapse.
Early decades: conflict within constitutional limits
The first two decades of the Republic were far from placid. Fierce debates erupted over land reforms, preventive detention, nationalisation, and economic planning. Yet the underlying constitutional compact held. Governments changed policies, not the rules of the game. Opposition remained legitimate, courts remained independent, and the idea that power must operate within constitutional boundaries was broadly respected.
This equilibrium began to fray by the late 1960s. Economic stress, inflation, unemployment, and corruption eroded public confidence. Electoral setbacks weakened the moral authority of the ruling establishment, while popular movements began questioning not just policies, but legitimacy itself.
JP Narayan and the moral challenge to authority
It was in this climate that “” issued his call for “Total Revolution.” This was not a bid for office, but a moral indictment of unaccountable power. His movement captured a growing fear that democracy was being hollowed out from within—that elections alone could not protect liberty if institutions were bent to serve authority.
Judiciary as arena of constitutional tension
Even amid turbulence, constitutional safeguards initially held. The Supreme Court asserted limits on Parliament in “”, ruling that Fundamental Rights could not be amended. Parliament pushed back, leading to the landmark “”, which struck a fragile but historic balance: Parliament could amend the Constitution, but not its “basic structure.”
This was constitutional democracy functioning as intended—an argument over limits, not an attempt to erase them.
The Emergency: from exception to normalised fear
That balance collapsed on June 25, 1975, with the declaration of the Emergency. Civil liberties were suspended, opposition leaders jailed, and the press censored. Initially justified as a response to “internal disturbance,” the Emergency soon shed even the language of exception. Elections were postponed, Parliament functioned without opposition, and detention without trial became routine.
What began as extraordinary governance evolved into a project of permanence. The aim was no longer to rule through emergency provisions alone, but to ensure that dissent could never again threaten authority.
ADM Jabalpur and the judicial surrender of liberty
The most devastating institutional failure came with “”. The Supreme Court held that during the Emergency, when Article 21 was suspended, citizens could not approach courts even against illegal detention. Liberty, the majority reasoned, was a gift of the Constitution and could be withdrawn by it.
Only Justice H.R. Khanna dissented, warning that this logic legitimised tyranny and reduced the rule of law to executive convenience. His dissent cost him the Chief Justiceship, but preserved constitutional conscience. The judgment told the state that liberty had no sanctuary.
What the loss of liberty meant on the ground
The consequences were brutal. The custodial death of P Rajan, a young engineering student from Kerala, became a symbol of what happens when courts are silenced. Detained, tortured, and killed for alleged dissent, his disappearance was denied by the state for years. It was only through his father’s relentless legal struggle that the truth emerged.
Rajan did not die because of excess. He died because constitutional protection had been withdrawn, and the right to life had no judicial refuge.
January 2, 1976: rewriting the Constitution itself
The gravest moment came on January 2, 1976, with the introduction of what became the 42nd Constitutional Amendment. This was not routine reform but constitutional reconstruction. Judicial review was weakened, parliamentary supremacy asserted, and Fundamental Rights subordinated to vaguely defined state goals.
Liberty ceased to be inherent. It became conditional. Courts were instructed not to strike down laws merely for violating individual freedoms if the state claimed higher objectives. The Constitution was transformed from a restraint on power into an instrument of it—an inversion of Ambedkar’s vision.
Article 31D and the architecture of permanent repression
Among the most chilling proposals was Article 31D, empowering Parliament to ban undefined “anti-national activities” and “anti-national associations,” while shielding such laws from challenge under Articles 14 and 19. The vagueness was deliberate. Political opposition, journalism, protests—even literature—could be criminalised.
Though later repealed before enforcement, its intent was unmistakable: repression was to be permanent, legal, and normalised. Democracy would survive in form, not substance.
Why January 1976 still matters
The Emergency eventually ended, elections returned, and many constitutional distortions were undone. But January 1976 remains the moment when the Constitution itself came closest to being bent into an authoritarian charter.
That project failed not because institutions stood firm—they largely did not—but because citizens did. Guided by figures like JP Narayan, sustained by courageous journalists and ordinary Indians, the Republic reclaimed its constitutional soul.
What to note for Prelims?
- 42nd Constitutional Amendment and its key features
- ADM Jabalpur case and its significance
- Doctrine of Basic Structure
What to note for Mains?
- Emergency as a constitutional breakdown, not merely political excess
- Role of judiciary during crises of liberty
- Relevance of constitutional morality in a democracy
- Lessons from the Emergency for contemporary governance
