India was Indira, Indira was India

This June marked the 25th anniversary of the declaration of national emergency by Indira Gandhi. One might have expected solemn and cautionary remembrance. Instead, recent events suggest that the Indian political class may be revising its views of the Emergency. The ruling coalition in Delhi is dominated by men who were once jailed by Mrs. Gandhi. Yet, this past January,   the  Government  of  India awarded the Padma Vibhushan — the   country's   second   highest honour — to one man who was Cabinet Secretary during the Emergency, and to another who, as High Commissioner to the United Kingdom between 1975 and 1977, enthusiastically spread false information about the situation at home. When the person who had been Indira Gandhi's Ambassador to the United States died in March, the obituaries respectfully marked the important milestones in his career without so much as mentioning his energies spent justifying the Emergency, in Washington. Service to the state, it seems, shall ultimately be rewarded regardless of the kind of service or, indeed, the kind of state.

Between June 1975 and January 1977, Indian democracy took an extended leave of absence. Under directions from prime minister Indira Gandhi, political opponents were jailed, human rights extinguished, news censored, and a personality cult of the Leader promoted. The "Emergency", as it is known, was once regarded as a defining moment in the history of independent India. After it was lifted, and Mrs. Gandhi dethroned, the Emergency experience was viewed as a "near miss", when India had narrowly failed to permanently join the well-subscribed ranks of the world's dictatorships. Political commentators alerted the citizenry to its lessons — not to allow bureaucrats and judges to ally with political parties, never to justify curbs on freedom of expression and, above all, to always put faith in process rather than personality.