Introduction
The Consequences of Ahmedabad and Allahabad Making Sense of the Emergency

PART I
THE VARIETIES OF AUTHORITARIANISM: WHAT KIND OF REGIME WAS THE EMERGENCY?
1. A Constitutional Dictatorship
Disciplining Democracy
A Decimated Opposition: Imprisonment and Torture
The Media: Prior Restraint and Propaganda
2. The Political Economy of the Emergency: Looking for an Ideology The Twenty-Point Programme and its Contradictions
What Land Reform?
In the Name of the Poor
Dirigiste Corporatism
3. Subverting Institutions: Remnants of Democracy
The Façade of Parliamentarism What Rule of Law? The Decline of the Judiciary and the Making of a Police State
Nepotism, Arbitrariness, and State Capture
4. An Era of Sultans: Sanjay's Emergency
The Making of a Parallel Power Structure
Family Planning and Gentrification; or, Sterilisations and Deportations
From Family Planning to Man-Hunt Bulldozing the Poor
5. The Uneven Geography of Tyranny
Another North-South Divide The Hindi Epicentre Gujarat and Tamil Nadu: The Holdout States The Southern Satrapies Hold Their Own
Conclusion to Part I

PART II
CAUSES AND BEYOND: WHAT MADE THE EMERGENCY "NECESSARY" AND POSSIBLE?
6. Immediate Causes: The JP Movement and the Allahabad Judgment in Perspective
The JP Movement: A Symptom of Larger Threats
Gujarat: The Crucible of Protest
Bihar Takes Over: The Rise of JP
The Sangh Parivar: The Subtext of the JP Movement?
A National Movement
The Political Economy of the JP Movement
The Social Crisis of the 1970s
The Limits of Promissory Politics
Indira Gandhi's War on the Judiciary and the Judges' Response
7. Mrs Gandhi's Personalisation of Power, 1966-1975
Indira Gandhi: Predisposed to Tyranny or Working Towards Survival?
Facets of an Authoritarian Personality The Uncertain Making of a Dynast Born to Rule
The Deinstitutionalisation of the Congress and the Centralisation of Power
The Consequences of 1967
The Leftist Card
The Making of an All-Powerful Executive
An Authoritarian Personality under Threat
From Populism to Authoritarianism
Mrs Gandhi's Calculus in 1975
8. An Incongruous Coalition
The Initial Phase: For the Emergency or Against the JP Movement?
Communists and the Congress: A Contingent Alliance
Maharashtrian Partners: The Shiv Sena and the RPIs
Businessmen and the Congress: A Convergence of Interests
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie The Janus-like Intelligentsia
The Bureaucracy: The Primacy of Institutional Survival
Conclusion to Part II

PART III
RESISTANCE AND ENDGAME
9. An Uneven Resistance
The Media: A Landscape of Contrasts
The Judiciary: Ambivalent to the Core
The RSS and the LSS: Between Resistance and Compromise
The CPI(M): Underground and in Parliament Mainstream Politicians, Fence-sitters and the Making of the Janata Party
Direct Action Underground: The Limits of Limited Violence
10. Lifting the Emergency: What Return to Democracy? Elections as an Antidote to Escalation: A Return to Normal Political Life?
What International Pressures? Fighting to Win-At Any Cost The 1977 Polls
The Unmaking of the Emergency-How to Punish the Culprits?
Conclusion: Interpreting the Emergency
The What and Why of the Emergency A Parenthesis? A Turning Point? Or More of the Same?
Differences of Degree-and Nature
Select Bibliography
Index
About the Author

In June 1975 Prime Minister Indira Gandhi imposed a state of emergency, resulting in a 21-month suspension of democracy across India. Christophe Jaffrelot and Pratinav Anil explore this black page in India's history, a constitutional dictatorship of unequal impact, with South India largely spared thanks to the resilience of Indian federalism.India's First Dictatorship focuses on Mrs Gandhi and her son, Sanjay, who was largely responsible for the mass sterilisation programmes and deportation of urban slum-dwellers. However, it equally exposes the facilitation of authoritarian rule by Congressmen, Communists, trade unions, businessmen and the urban middle class, as well as the complacency of the judiciary and media. Those who resisted the Emergency, in the media or on the streets, were few in number.This episode was an acid test for India's political culture. While a tiny minority of citizens fought for democracy during the Emergency, in large numbers the people bowed to the strong leader in power, even worshipped her. Equally importantly, Hindu nationalists were endowed with a new legitimacy. Yet, the Emergency was neither a parenthesis, nor so much a turning point: but a concentrate of a style of rule that is very much alive today.

English