MoC: Emergency /on the wall
| << Pamphlets showcasing the involvment of student activists during the Emergency. This specific selection engages with the crackdown of the Indira Gandhi administration on Jawahalal Nehru University student activism in 1975. This material is exhibited on a wall panel as part of the Memories of Change exhibition. |
The Emergency Rule (1975-77) imposed on the country by the Congress Prime Minister Indira Gandhi not only briefly suspended individual freedoms and democratic rights, it also cast a tenacious shadow of autocratic possibility on the discourse of Indian contemporary history. In the wake of the student-led movement in Bihar and Gujarat shaping under the leadership of the veteran freedom fighter Jayaprakash Narayan many student activists and teachers, both from the Hindu Nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the non-CPI (Communist Party of India) Left experienced arrest and expulsion while non-aligned student groups were suspended. Later in the year, after staying underground for several months, the president of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union was arrested in November 1975. While politicising campuses and bringing youth student figures to the forefront, the Emergency accelerated the erasure of the pro-establishment leanings of key educational institutions. The politics they sheltered contributed to the introspection on the excesses of the Emergency and articulated a strong anti-Indira stand. This episode became a key metaphor in Indian politics, convoked whenever the events of the day threaten the exercise of civil liberties.
Section of the Shah commission report on the excesses committed against students during the Emergency. 1978.
Section of the Shah commission report on the excesses committed against students during the Emergency. 1978.
Section of the Shah commission report on the excesses committed against students during the Emergency. 1978.
Poster commemorating 35 years of imposition of Emergency. Organised by a consortium of student organisations, civil-rights groups and NGOs. Jawaharlal Nehru University. 2010.
Poster commemorating 35 years of imposition of Emergency. Organised by a consortium of student organisations, civil-rights groups and NGOs. Jawaharlal Nehru University. 2010.
Circular inviting professors to denounce students who boycotted classes to oppose the Emergency. Jawaharlal Nehru University. 1975.
Call by anti-Emergency students to boycott classes as a sign of protest. 1975.
Anonymous pamphlet denouncing the police crackdown on anti-emergency protesters in Jawaharlal Nehru University. 1975.
Newspaper cutting reporting the demand by the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union to remove Prime Minister Indira Gandhi as the Chancellor of the university. 1977.
Cover of a commemorative brochure of the first decade of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union. 1981.
R. K. Laxman cartoon depicting Indira Gandhi defying the Shah Commission. 1978.