I can never forget June 12, 1975. It was the usual, hot, summer vacation day in my village. The mid-day bulletin of Akashvani brought news of Justice Sinha’s judgement unseating Indira Gandhi. I noticed, perhaps for the first time, a hint of excitement on my father’s otherwise expressionless face as he explained the significance of the event. By the afternoon, the transistor was reporting the defeat of the Congress in the Gujarat assembly elections held in the wake of the Navnirman movement.

As we waited for our family ritual of dinner with the BBC Hindi bulletin, my village was already discussing India after Indira. Looking back 30 years later, I can see that my initiation in politics began that day. I never got to meet Justice Jagmohan Lal Sinha, but he was certainly one of my early living heroes.

What did that day mean in the biography of Indian politics? It is true but trite to say that it was a glorious day in the history of Indian democracy, for the glory lasted less than two weeks. Indira Gandhi imposed Emergency on the midnight of June 25-26 and most of our democratic institutions did not display an iota of the courage shown by Justice Sinha. It is, of course, easy to hold this judgement responsible for all the political consequences of the Emergency, or to say that it signaled the decline of Congress dominance. But that is not what the judgement was all about. In any case, a careful reading of history will show that the Congress scored some of its most spectacular victories after 1980 and that the long-term decline had begun much earlier.

... contd.