India's Democracy at Crossroads: Remembering the Dark Day of Emergency

June 25, 1975 is the darkest chapter in the history of Indian democracy, when power dealt the biggest blow to the soul of the Constitution. Emergency was not just a political decision but a calculated attempt to crush democracy, freedom of expression and the voice of the opposition. Today, 51 years later, on this day, the country's two largest regional parties, the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party, stand together with two different political legacies. The history of the BSP is not directly linked to the politics of the Emergency, but the entire political DNA of the Samajwadi Party derives from the same democratic struggle. So the biggest question being asked of the SP itself is whether it has mortgaged its ideological legacy to the politics of power. Mulayam Singh Yadav was in jail for about 19 months during the Emergency. He was among the leaders of that generation who sacrificed even personal freedom to protect democracy. The movement inspired by the ideology of Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia and Lok Jayaprakash Narayan was the most vocal against the centralized power of the Samajwadi Congress. The Congress was not only a political opponent in that period, but was seen as the closest ally of the Samajwadi Party in the struggle for power.