Why did Indira Gandhi lift the Emergency?
score:11
The same book 'India after Gandhi' mentions various possible reason for lifting democracy. Though the real reason may remain unknown, I will list the possible reasons:
- It is said that her intelligence chief had assured her that the Congress would be re-elected with a comfortable majority. Isolated from public opinion, she was unaware of the extent to which her rule had become unpopular. By winning the election she hoped to vindicate the Emergency and also clear the way for Sanjay Gandhi to succeed her.
- Some feel that it was the consequence of competitive one-upmanship. President Bhutto had just announced elections in his usually autocratic Pakistan; so Mrs. Gandhi couldn't delay elections in her unnaturally autocratic India?
- Mary C. Carras, her biographer, has argued that throughout her life her self-image had been that of a democrat. Indeed, her self-respect derives in good part from this self-image. She was compelled to prove to the world and, above all, to herself, that she is and always has been a democrat.’ In the opinion of some other writers once Mrs Gandhi became aware of the Emergency excesses and realized that matters were getting out of her control, she decided to get out of this trap by holding elections even if it meant losing power.
- Her secretary, writing long after the event, offered yet another explanation. The emergency, he noted, had cut Mrs. Gandhi off from the public contact that previously nourished her. ‘She was nostalgic about the way people reacted to her in the 1971 campaign and she longed to hear again the applause of the multitudes.'
- Then there was international criticism. She was strongly condemned by the former German chancellor Willy Brandt and the Socialist International, by the World Council of Churches in Geneva and by the leading American trade union organization. There was also impersonal yet very public criticism, offered in newspapers.
Perhaps all these factors contributed to the final decision to uplift emergency.
Upvote:0
Ted Heath in the UK, Mrs Bandarnaike in Sri Lanka and Mujibur Rahman in Bangladesh had all declared Emergency. Heath failed in his struggle with the coal miners but Indira's Emergency was an immediate success. Foreign criticism was muted- and did not matter in any case because the Soviet Union backed Indira to the hilt. Willy Brandt was a joke figure who had to resign in 1974 because a close aide of his was discovered to be a Stasi agent.
Mujib's assassination strengthened Indira's paranoia that the CIA was out to get her by fair means or foul. She was also suspicious of the role of the R.S.S because her minions would declare that anyone they didn't like, or who was in their way, was a 'hard core Sanghi'. On the other hand, the RSS leadership itself was sending her signals that they would support her 'constructive' program. In other words, Indira believed that they could always be won over because they genuinely admired her role in liberating Bangladesh.
Why did Indira suddenly lift the Emergency? The answer is that her son, Sanjay, and his minions had taken over the party. What if they arranged an 'accident' for her so as to take over the whole country? After all, Sanjay- like the rest of Congress- needed Indira as their biggest 'vote-catcher'. They could still get those votes thanks to a 'sympathy wave' (as happened to Rajiv Gandhi after his mother's death) and once entrenched in power could use corrupt and criminal means to perpetuate their reign.
Indira needed to show Sanjay and his coterie that they could not carry the country on their own. Their power derived from her popularity. Moreover, if Indira lost and had to spend a couple of years in Opposition, then the Janata Morcha coalition would collapse- in fact this is exactly what happened- so she would return with an even firmer grip on power.
Sanjay Gandhi was useful to his mother for two reasons- firstly, he could do corrupt deals with anybody, because he had no ideology. Secondly, people would support Indira simply as a check on Sanjay. Sanjay Gandhi's death changed the equation. Indira appeared rudderless and committed some great blunders before her bodyguards finally gunned her down. Autocracy, it seems, is easily tempered by Assassination.
More post
- 📝 Was Mid-Night always considered the transition point between two days in Gregorian/Julian Calendars?
- 📝 Was There Compensation For Requisitioned / Impressed Aircraft In WW2?
- 📝 What was the cost of buying Silk in the Roman Empire
- 📝 Why did Vice President Bush hide when a reporter asked this question?
- 📝 How did Tunisia's revolution (and Arab Spring) begin?
- 📝 Are there any good books in English about the mechanics of German reunification?
- 📝 Did Russia declare war on Germany before its invasion of that country on August 7, 1914?
- 📝 Did Man Ray photograph Nimet Eloui Bey in the all together?
- 📝 Were beaches red with lobsters upon arrival of Columbus?
- 📝 Why were the Prague Spring leaders treated more leniently than Nagy and his colleagues?
- 📝 Ratio of population to military size throughout European history?
- 📝 Was hay invented only in the Middle Ages in Europe?
- 📝 What tanks/armored vehicles are in these pictures?
- 📝 Why was it "acceptable" for Prince Charles to marry a divorced woman, when Edward VIII had to abdicate for marrying divorcee Wallis Simpson?
- 📝 Was the date skip of the Gregorian calender reform understood to skip weekdays accordingly?
- 📝 What factors led to much higher US war bond sales and participation rates in WWII over that of WWI?
- 📝 Why didn't Hitler decide to wait until after winning WW2 to implement the final solution?
- 📝 Were there any developed countries that became "undeveloped" for reasons other than war?
- 📝 Can you identify these images from Revolution-era Russia?
- 📝 When did COVID-19 hit the international news?
- 📝 Why did the US, Britain, France, Denmark and Sweden vote against the UN resolution that condemned Nazism and SS glorification?
- 📝 Where did 15th century English serfs live?
- 📝 First Advert with Santa Claus
- 📝 Were the problems Fibonacci solved in his work "Flos" posed specifically for him?
- 📝 Was ever a poisoning prevented by the person accustoming themselves to poison beforehand (Mithridatism)?
- 📝 Were there U.S. weapon restrictions during 19th century?
- 📝 Was any other religion as exact in terms of genealogy as Judaism?
- 📝 Was the issue of women's suffrage debated during the drafting of the 1809 Instruments of Government?
- 📝 In exchange for forbidding strikes, did Napoleon guarantee high wages?
- 📝 Do NKVD files say that during WWII, Soviet leadership knew about the rape of Soviet women liberated from labour camps and did nothing to stop it?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 Why did Indira Gandhi lift the Emergency?
- 📝 Why did the Soviet Union lift the Berlin Blockade?
- 📝 Why did Gandhi give the violent "Do or Die" slogan to the Quit India movement?
- 📝 Why did Hitler attack the Soviet Union when he was still busy fighting the United Kingdom?
- 📝 Why did Native Americans die from European diseases while Europeans didn't catch serious diseases from the New World?
- 📝 Why did the Confederacy think they could win the American Civil War?
- 📝 Why did archery not make a comeback when armor was phased out in the 18th century?
- 📝 Why did the British scuttle the u-boats surrendered after WWII?
- 📝 Why did Canada not join the American Revolution?
- 📝 Why did Churchill order the destruction of the bombes?
- 📝 Why did the USSR give Crimea to Ukraine?
- 📝 Why did the Western Roman Empire collapse but not the Eastern Roman Empire?
- 📝 Why did stock brokers go bankrupt after the crash of 1929?
- 📝 Why did the Germans spare Allied troops trapped at Dunkirk?
- 📝 Why did Britain and France not declare war against the Soviet Union when it invaded Poland in WW2?
- 📝 Why did Columbus cross the mid-Atlantic instead of exploring from Greenland?
- 📝 Why did LBJ, a staunch segregationist, champion and sign the 1964 Civil Rights Bill?
- 📝 Why did the Roman military start to favour swords over the spear phalanx?
- 📝 Why did Hitler declare war on the USA?
- 📝 Why did Germany officially acknowledge the contents of the Zimmerman telegram?
- 📝 Why did Europe not see Roman-era numbers of men participating in battles until the 17th century?
- 📝 Why did the Germans use the Enigma machine rather than the far superior "Lorenz" cipher machine?
- 📝 Why did the Soviet Union have multiple airplane manufacturers?
- 📝 Why did the Soviet Union name their strongest bomb Tsar Bomba?
- 📝 Why did Lincoln wait to issue the Emancipation Proclamation?
- 📝 Why did the United States not resort to nuclear weapons in Vietnam?
- 📝 Why did China shut itself out of the world in the 15th century?
- 📝 Why did Hitler not order the use of poison gas in combat?
- 📝 ‘Avoid sleeping on your back’ & ‘breathe in toilet smells’ were seen as precautions against the Black Death. Why did doctors think these would work?
- 📝 Why did the German army execute so few soldiers in World War I compared to most other armies?
