He recalls Justice Sinha of the Allahabad High Court had ruled Indira Gandhi guilty on the count of two corrupt practices during her election. In the book, Nayar recounts how the Emer-gency came about and freely takes names in his characteristic, courageous, signature style.

In other words, the very idea of India was derailed. The power came to rest in the then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, and her son, Sanjay Gandhi, an extra-constitutional authority.” He also writes that the institutions never got back their original vigour and sanctity. He goes on to write: “More than one lakh Opposition leaders and critics were detained without trial. Nayar asks in his new preface: how does one explain the Emergency, imposed in 1975, to a new generation? It does not know what it meant. The book is a valuable document of the times and is an account by a prisoner of conscience of what actually happened. He then toured the country and kept an account of the darkest chapter of India’s democratic life. Kuldip Nayar was arrested under MISA (Maintenance Of Internal Security Act), kept in Tihar Jail, and only released on a writ of habeous corpus filed by his family. The book published by Konark Publications was released on June 26, the 38th anniversary of the Emergency, to an audience of journalists, authors and democratic rights activists at New Delhi’s India International Centre. Since the contemporary history is so significant for us to understand our present, check out the 1 0 Must-Read Books on India’s contemporary history:- 1.Emergency Retold by Kuldip Nayar Konark Publishers, New Delhi, Seattle first published: 1977 paperback edition: 2013, pages: 320.Įmergency Retold is a new edition of a book on the Emergency by the distinguished journalist and human rights activist, Kuldip Nayar. Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce believed that even if contemporary history is recorded from mid 20th century, we must study history from the day it started to understand the current social and political developments properly. “All history is contemporary history.” Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce India’s contemporary history has been written to determine how the past is responsible for the present political catastrophe, wars, protests etc. It shows the social, cultural, political, and economic aspects of the history of the respective place.

India’s contemporary history can be defined as the successive events that occurred in the second half of the 20th century or have happened from the start of the 21st century until the present.Ĭontemporary history aims to explain the current trends and events by providing the historical contexts related to them.

Emergency retold by kuldip nayar pdf