NEW DELHI: India said Friday it would hold an annual “Murder of the Constitution Day” from next year, commemorating a dark historical chapter tied to the family of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s chief political rival. June 25, 2025 will mark the 50th anniversary of the Emergency, when then-premier Indira Gandhi suspended the constitution in response to a court ruling that threatened her hold on power.
The following months saw thousands of activists jailed, press freedoms suspended and an abusive compulsory sterilisation campaign that forced millions of men to receive vasectomies in an abortive population control effort. Modi said on social media platform X that the new day of remembrance would “serve as a reminder of what happens when the Constitution of India was trampled over”. “It is also a day to pay homage to each and every person who suffered due to the excesses of the Emergency.”
A government notice announcing the new remembrance day said that June 25 would recommit Indians “to not support in any manner such gross abuse of power in future”. Indira was the daughter of India’s first post-independence leader Jawaharlal Nehru, whose Congress party led the successful battle against British colonial rule. Her grandson Rahul Gandhi is the leader of India’s opposition in parliament and the de facto leader of Congress.
Rahul has routinely accused Modi of not respecting India’s constitution, echoing rights groups who say the Hindu-nationalist premier’s administration has targeted critics and restricted press freedoms.
Modi in turn has invoked the Emergency along with other contentious chapters of Indian history to insist that Rahul belongs to a bloodline unfit to govern the country. Rahul has steered Congress to three successive election losses to Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
But his leadership was buoyed by a better than expected result in this year’s poll which deprived the BJP of a parliamentary majority and forced Modi to rely on coalition allies to govern.
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