June 25, The Day Emergency Was Imposed In 1975, Declared As 'Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas'

The central government has declared June 25 as the “Samvidhaan Hatya Divas”, in remembrance of what it described as the “inhuman pain” suffered by those who were jailed during the Emergency that was imposed on this date in 1975.

“Then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi throttled the soul of Indian democracy by imposing the Emergency on June 25, 1975, exhibiting her dictatorial mindset. Lakhs of people were jailed without any reason and the media was silenced. The Indian government has decided to observe June 25 as Samvidhaan Hatya Divas. This day will be dedicated to the sacrifice of all those who suffered inhuman pain during the 1975 Emergency,” Union Home Minister Amit Shah announced in an X post on Friday.

“Samvidhaan Hatya Divas” loosely translates to “the day the Constitution was murdered”.

His post was endorsed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who reiterated that June 25 would pay homage to those “who suffered due to the excesses of the Emergency, a Congress unleashed dark phase of Indian history”.

“To observe 25th June as Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas will serve as a reminder of what happens when the Constitution of India was trampled over,” he added in his post.

The announcement by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government came in the backdrop of a raging debate over the Constitution. In the campaign for the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections, the Congress told voters PM Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) did not respect the Indian Constitution and would change it if it got an outright majority for the third straight term, while the BJP strongly rejected the charge.

In the end, the BJP got 240 of the 543 Lok Sabha seats — 32 short of the majority mark. But the NDA, of which the BJP is a part, got a comfortable majority with 293 seats, paving the road for a historic third term for PM Modi. The Congress improved its tally to 99 (from 52 in 2019).

Buoyed, the Congress has been harping on its Constitution pitch. In the very first session of the 18th Lok Sabha in June, members of the party and some of its allies took oath holding the Constitution.

In a sharp comeback, PM Modi said during the session that the Congress party that once imposed the Emergency had no right to profess love for the Constitution. In the Lok Sabha, as India marked the 49th anniversary of the imposition of the Emergency, Speaker Om Birla termed it the darkest chapter in India’s history, drawing protests by the Congress and some of its allies.

Indira Gandhi imposed the 21-month Emergency citing external and internal threats, while withholding basic freedoms and silencing the media. Several top politicians in the Opposition — including BJP stalwarts AB Vajpayee and LK Advani, Samajwadi Party’s Mulayam Singh Yadav and Janata Party’s JP Narayan — were among those detained. Even Congress dissenters were thrown behind the bars.

Opposition Reacts To ‘Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas’

Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh called it a “headline-grabbing exercise”. He also accused PM Modi of subjecting the Constitution of India and its principles, values, and institutions to “systematic assault”.

“Yet another headline-grabbing exercise in hypocrisy by the non-biological PM who had imposed an undeclared Emergency for ten long years before the people of India handed him a decisive personal, political, and moral defeat on June 4, 2024 – which will go down in history as ModiMukti Diwas. This is a non-biological PM who has subjected the Constitution of India and its principles, values, and institutions to systematic assault. This is a non-biological PM whose ideological parivar had rejected the Constitution of India in Nov 1949 on the grounds that it did not derive inspiration from Manusmriti. This is a non-biological PM for whom democracy means only ‘demo-kursi’,” Ramesh wrote in an X post.