Burying the Ghost of Emergency: Incumbency Haunts Institutions
Former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi (Image INC India)
Political Cult Worship Remains a Threat to Democratic Functioning
By MANISH ANAND
NEW DELHI, June 25, 2025 – Each year, India marks the anniversary of the Emergency imposed by former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in a near-ritualistic fashion. The commemorations serve more as a political project than public memory—especially for a generation that never lived through it.
The excesses of the Emergency have been well documented. The Congress, the party that imposed it, continues to face criticism and has long paid the political price.
“I’m president of the party, and unless they throw me out, I remain president,” Indira Gandhi declared in 1978, defiant in the face of her critics. At the time, Congress had strong leaders capable of checking her power. To sideline them, she clung tightly to the party presidency.
Fast-forward to today—almost five decades later—and India’s political landscape shows uncomfortable similarities to that era.
The BJP has not named a successor to party president J.P. Nadda, who has exceeded his three-year term and served over five years. The RJD is set to re-elect Lalu Prasad Yadav for a 13th term, continuing his 28-year reign. In Congress, the Gandhi family handpicked Mallikarjun Kharge to hold the post of president, but leadership still resides elsewhere.
Other parties follow the same pattern. The TMC and BSP have promoted nephews—Abhishek Banerjee and Akash Anand—as heirs apparent. The Telugu Desam Party, DMK, Bharat Rashtra Samithi, Shiv Sena, National Conference, and NCP function more like family-run enterprises than democratic institutions.
There are a few exceptions. The BJD in Odisha and JD(U) in Bihar stand apart. But even here, insiders know that loyal bureaucrats, not party cadres, wield real control under Naveen Patnaik and Nitish Kumar.
The absence of internal democracy produces fertile ground for sycophants. These loyalists fuel the cult of personality, elevating political figures beyond scrutiny. It was this culture that once enabled the imposition of Emergency—justified on flimsy grounds—and could easily do so again.
The Emergency may be history, but the spirit of unchecked incumbency and political idol worship still lingers in India’s institutions. That remains a danger to the health of a truly functional democracy.
Political parties, barring the exception of the Left to some extent, sustain in their efforts to deprive the Election Commission to enforce internal democracy in political outfits. Leaders of such outfits indeed have been eloquent on needs of internal democracy in political parties. But the case rests there only.
(This is an opinion piece; views expressed solely belong to the author)
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