ABSTRACT

This chapter investigates three issues: the extent to which the State of Emergency changed the basic institutional structure of the Indian regime, the social causes of the Emergency, and the factors underlying the March 1977 shifts. The State of Emergency was declared by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on June 26, 1975, in reaction to a "grave emergency threatened by internal disturbances." The State of Emergency was a dramatic change in the direction of a more personal and monistic, and less pluralistic, governmental approach. The State of Emergency can be explained by a combination of several major factors which increased structural divergence. After approximately eighteen months of the Emergency, general elections were held in the middle of March 1977. Despite the fact that the country was almost fully controlled by Mrs. Gandhi's government and the ruling Congress Party, both the Prime Minister in her own constituency and the Congress Party were defeated.