Emergency 1975: In terms of democracy in India, the date of 25 June is considered as a black day. Emergency was imposed in the country for a period of 21 months from 25 June 1975 to 21 March 1977. The then President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed had declared emergency in the country under Article 352 of the Indian Constitution on the recommendation of the government led by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
Even before imposing the Emergency, a list was prepared of all the opposition leaders, including Jai Prakash Narayan, Lal Krishna Advani, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, George Fernandes, who were to be arrested.
After the imposition of emergency, JP was arrested from Delhi in the early hours of 26 June. As the day progressed, many more opposition leaders were arrested. After the arrest of big leaders in Delhi, there was a stir in Patna as well.
A book written by author Udaykant on Nitish Kumar ‘Nitish Kumar through the eyes of close friends’ It also mentions the incident of that night, when Nitish Kumar and Lalu Yadav had to run away to escape from the police during the Emergency.
In the book, Nitish writes about the incident of that night, on 26 June 1975, he was in his friend’s room in Patna Engineering College hostel. Then his friend came and told him that emergency has been imposed. On this Nitish Kumar tells him that emergency has already been imposed. On this Nitish’s friend tells him that emergency has been declared and police will definitely come to arrest you. You should leave from here.
Nitish says, after this many of us gathered around JP’s house. But he had been arrested in Delhi. We started demonstrations regarding this. According to Nitish, after this they went underground to avoid arrest and kept making and distributing pamphlets while staying underground.
Nitish further says, in July we were holding a meeting on the banks of river Falgu in Gaya. Here JP had established Khadi Gramodyog Sangh. Lalu Yadav and Jagdish Sharma were also with me. Then the police raided. Police arrested 16-17 leaders present in the meeting. I, Lalu Yadav and 12-13 people managed to escape from there. We climbed the 10-12 feet high boundary wall. On the other side was the dry Falgu river. However, it was quite deep.
Nitish says, at that time he and Lalu Yadav were 25 years old, but 50 year old Ram Sundar ji also had to jump with them. We kept running to escape from the police. After running for a long time, Lalu fell down breathless on the ground. During this time I lost my coral studded gold ring. After this we kept running to many places. However, later Lalu Yadav and Nitish were arrested separately by the police.
