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
- 📝 Can you identify these images from Revolution-era Russia?
- 📝 Was the Volga really Russia's last line of defense before the Urals?
- 📝 What is this Soviet Uniform? Made in 1975
- 📝 How were medieval guilds formed?
- 📝 What buildings could be found in the inner ward of a castle?
- 📝 How many digits of Pi did the old Egyptians know?
- 📝 Why was Folke Bernadotte assassinated by Zionist Jews, when he had helped many Jews to escape holocaust?
- 📝 How was Ivaylo's Bulgarian peasant army able to repel the Mongols?
- 📝 Why did Nepal and Bhutan not become a part of India like other princely states when colonial rule ended?
- 📝 What did education look like in occupied countries during WW2?
- 📝 Hotel de Ville during Women's March on Versailles
- 📝 When was the earliest recorded battle with the usage of gunpowder as an offensive weapon?
- 📝 Why was Italy unified under the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia and not under a stronger state?
- 📝 What was the meaning behind these lip make-ups in Ancient China?
- 📝 The history of rivalry between US and Britain in late 19th Century and early 20th Century
- 📝 Were Mongol or Chinese cavalry charges among the largest in history?
- 📝 Did Alexander the Great win or lose against Porus (before the eventual 'fleeing')?
- 📝 Why were bloody religious wars so incredibly frequent in Europe in the century following the Reformation?
- 📝 Could the Russian fleet go via northern route to Port Arthur instead of via Cape of Good Hope?
- 📝 Was Carausius the grandfather of Magnus Maximus?
- 📝 Did the ancients or other pre-industrial civilisations engage in unsustainable practices?
- 📝 Did the US provide oil assistance to Germany during WW2?
- 📝 Was there an increased interest in 'the spirit world' in the aftermath of the First World War?
- 📝 What does "Brown-Bread Eater" mean when used as an insult?
- 📝 What was it like for a coastal village to experience a Viking raid in around the tenth century?
- 📝 What was Canada's policy on immigrants who served in the Wehrmacht, after WW2?
- 📝 How effective were archers/ slingers / skirmishers in Greek, Roman and Medieval Period?
- 📝 Why did the Chinese Nationalist party members go to the island of Taiwan and not to any other island?
- 📝 Was the Reichspropaganda-Leitung (RPL) known to the Germany public?
- 📝 How did Yugoslavia economically survive the Cold War
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?