ABSTRACT
The emergency measures did lead to a certain improvement in the economic situation: no strikes were allowed, inflation was curbed and general discipline greatly improved. But all this was at the cost of the loss of civil liberties, which were, after all, the most cherished heritage of the Indian freedom movement. In addition to all this, Indira Gandhi’s son Sanjay increased the political power of his Youth Congress, an organisation which contained many unscrupulous elements whose loyalty and solidarity were mostly based on the lust for power. Sanjay also sponsored a campaign of mass sterilisation in northern India as a shortcut to the solution of India’s population problem. Although there is no fundamental opposition to birth control and family planning in India, the radical infringement of individual liberty in the course of the sterilisation campaign was deeply resented by the people. This campaign was not pursued with equal vigour in southern India and, consequently, there was less resentment against it here.
