Chapter – 6

The Crisis of Democratic Order

In this post we have given the detailed notes of class 12 Political Science Chapter 6 (The Crisis of Democratic Order) in English. These notes are useful for the students who are going to appear in class 12 board exams.

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After the 1971 election 

As we read in the previous lesson that in the 1971 elections, Indira Gandhi’s congress returned with a strong performance and the congress was re-established, but the future was full of problems for both congress and India.

Economic condition

• India’s economy hit due to Bangladesh war
• About 8 million refugees came to India, which put pressure on the Indian economy.
• America completely stopped helping India.
• Growth slowed down
• Oil prices increased in the international market, due to which inflation in the country increased.
• Unemployment increased
• To reduce the expenditure, the government stopped the salary of government employees.

Student movement

• In view of the rising prices of essential commodities in the country and the increasing corruption in the country, students started the movement in January 1974.
• In march 1974, due to all these reasons the movement started in Bihar as well.
• Jai Prakash Narayan (JP Narayan) was called to lead the movement. He put two conditions for the leadership of the movement.
  • The movement will be completely non-violent
  • The movement will not be limited to Bihar only, but it will be done all over the country.
• Through this movement, it was said to establish true democracy.

Naxalite Movement

• During this time some Marxist people who did not believe in parliamentary politics also started coming forward.
• These people wanted to end the political system and the capitalist system.
• To end this system, they adopted the path of violence and used to do guerrilla warfare.
• These people were called Naxalites
• They snatched the land by force from the rich landlords and started giving it to the poor farmers.
• Violence was committed by these people at many places in the country.

Railway Strike (1974)

• In 1974, the National Committee formed under the leadership of George Fernandez started a railway strike in the country.
• This strike was done on issues related to service and bonus.
• Due to this, the traffic system of the country came to a complete halt.
• The government called their demands wrong and refused to accept the demands.
• Due to this the discontent in the country increased even more.

Conflict with the judiciary

• Meanwhile, there were many conflicts between the government and the judiciary as well.
• The government made three changes in the constitution
• Fundamental rights curtailed
• Slight change in property rights
• Tried to give more power to directive principles than fundamental rights
• But these three changes were rejected by the court.
• This led to 2 issues
  • Can the government curtail fundamental rights?
  • Can the government change the right to property?
• Meanwhile, it was the turn of the election of the chief justice of the supreme court.
• Always the senior most judge was made the chief justice.
• This time the government ignored three senior judges (JM Shelat, KS Hegde and AN Grover) and made AN Ray a supreme court judge.
• The three judges who were ignored were the same judges who gave the verdict against the government.
• Due to all these reasons, the conflict between the government and the judiciary increased further.

Other problems

Indira’s Election

• Meanwhile, a petition was filed by the socialist leader Rajnarayan against the election of Indira Gandhi in the Allahabad high court.
• This petition was related to the election of Indira Gandhi.
• On 12 June 1975, judge Jagmohan Lal Sinha of Allahabad high court gave his verdict on the petition.
• In this decision, he said that the 1971 election of Indira Gandhi was unconstitutional because she had misused government power.
• This decision was stayed by the supreme court and it was said that Indira Gandhi would continue to be an MP until the decision on the appeal, but she could not participate in the meetings of the cabinet.

Demand resignation

• In view of this whole incident, on 25 June 1975, JP Narayan started demanding the resignation of Indira Gandhi.
• He demanded nationwide satyagraha at Ramlila maidan in Delhi
• He told the army, police and government employees to not to follow the government instructions

Declaration of Emergency

• In view of all these problems, Indira Gandhi recommended the president to implement article 352 (emergency) of the constitution in the midnight of 25 June due to internal disturbances.

What is an emergency?

• Whenever there is a possibility of any major external, internal or economic problem in the country, article 352 of the constitution is invoked by the government.
• During this time all the power goes into the hands of the central government.
• Emergency was declared by the president.
• With this step, the situation in the country completely changed.

During Emergency

• Opposition leaders were put in jail.
• Censorship imposed on the press
• Rashtra Swayam Sevak Sangh and Jamaat-E-Islami banned
• Pickets, demonstrations and strikes were banned.
• Fundamental rights of the people of the country were taken away
• The people were arrested under the preventive detention act.
  • Under the preventive detention act, the police can arrest any person on suspicion and that person cannot even oppose the arrest.
• Constitutional amendment 42 (1976)
  • The constitution was amended in 1976 during the emergency and two major changes were made.
    • The election of prime minister, president and vice president cannot be challenged by the court.
    • The term of the legislature was increased from 5 years to 6 years.
  • This was the most controversial amendment ever

Opinion on Emergency

Favor (emergency was necessary because)

• Due to repeated rellies and strikes, the government has problems in working.
• Opponents took non-parliamentary route to remove Indira
• Due to the rellies, the attention of the government was being diverted from the development works.
• International conspiracy to break the country
• Emergency was supported by the CPI.

Opposition (it was wrong to impose emergency because)

• It is wrong to suppress the protest of the people because in a democracy the people have the right to protest.
• There was no violence of any kind in the protest movements, so it is not right to stop the protests in this way.
• The ministry of home affairs (which looks after the law and order in the country), did not say that the law and order situation has deteriorated. So imposing emergency by telling internal disturbances is wrong.
• Emergency was used by Indira Gandhi to her advantage.

After Emergency

• Emergency ended in 1977 and elections were declared in the country.
• The opposition parties formed the Janata party and fought the elections by making issues of the problems and injustices faced during the emergency.
• Almost all the opposition parties joined the Janata party and Jai Prakash Narayan was made its leader.

1977 Elections (Sixth general election)

• The sixth general election was held in the country in march 1977.
• The people of the country were against the congress because of the emergency and this was clearly visible in the results of the elections.
• For the first time after independence, congress lost the Lok Sabha elections and could not form the central government.
• Congress got only 154 seats
• On the other hand, Janata party got 330 seats along with its allies and Janata party alone got 295 seats.
• Because the emergency had more influence in north India, the congress got almost negligible seats in north India.
• The condition of the congress became so bad that even Indira Gandhi lost the election from Raebareli.
• In this way, after independence, a non-congress government was formed at the center.

Janata Party Government

• After winning the elections in 1977, the Janata party formed the government at the center.
• Morarji Desai became the prime minister and Charan Singh and Jagjivan Ram were made the prime ministers.

Work of Janata party government

Shah commission

• Shah commission was constituted by the Janata party government immediately after winning the elections in 1977 to investigate the emergency.
  • President
    • JC shah (former chief justice of supreme court)
  • Work
    • Overseeing the actions taken in times of emergency
    • The shah commission investigated all the incidents, took the statements of thousands of witnesses and presented a report.

Report was given by shah commission

• The decision to impose emergency was only that of the prime minister, for this no advice was taken from anyone and it was wrong.
• Immediately after the imposition of emergency, the electricity of newspaper offices was cut off, which was completely wrong.
• The opposition leaders were arrested at the behest of the prime minister.
• MISA was used incorrectly.
• Government work was influenced by some people (Sanjay Gandhi) despite not having any government post.

Mandal Commission

• At the time of 1977, a big issue was the development of the backward classes, in view of this, the Mandal commission was constituted by the government.
  • President
    • Bindeshwari Prasad Mandal
  • Work
    • Describe the methods of identification and development of backward castes (reservation)

Position of Government

• Now the government was formed, but due to a lack of ideologies, problems remained and the government could not function properly.
• Morarji Desai’s government fell after ruling for 18 months
• Then the government was formed with the support of congress and Charan Singh became the prime minister.
• But after 4 months congress withdrew support and this government also fell.

Seventh General Election (1980)

• In 1980, the seventh general elections were held in the country.
• This time the Janata party government was badly defeated.
• Congress came back to power with 353 seats
• Again the congress formed the government at the center and Indira Gandhi became the prime minister of the country.

Lessons of Emergency

• Democracy remained in the country and the system of elections remained normal even after the imposition of emergency in the country and misuse of its powers by the government. This made one thing clear that it is not so easy to remove democracy from India.
• During the emergency, the judiciary could not protect the rights of the people. Because of this, after the emergency, the judiciary became more serious about the rights of the people.
• During the emergency, many of their essential rights were taken away from the people, due to which people realized the need of their rights after the emergency and many organizations were also formed to protect the rights in the country.
• By amending the constitution, armed rebellion was added by removing the word internal disturbance in the provision of emergency.
• Simultaneously, it was made necessary to give in writing to the president by the council of ministers to impose emergency. So, emergency can be imposed in the country only when the council of ministers writes to the government to impose emergency.

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