It was the best of times, to quote the author who wrote of another troubled era. And, indeed, it was the worst of times. A state of Emergency had been imposed on the country, triggering dark days for most, and sunshine for some. But June 25, 1975, didn't just cause political upheavals. It also led to an avalanche of books.

Forty years later, the Emergency continues to rule. Undoubtedly, in the history of independent India, the Emergency (1975-77) is the most written of event. Indira Gandhi's decision to stifle political freedom still stirs the author's - and reader's - imagination.

The events that led to the Emergency figure in President Pranab Mukherjee's The Dramatic Decade: The Indira Gandhi Years, published late last year. Mukherjee holds that Gandhi was not aware of the Emergency provision in the Constitution and acted on the advice of Congress leader Siddhartha Shankar Ray. Journalist Vir Sanghvi's Mandate: Will of the People, released earlier this year, also looks at the unfurling of events, and behind-the-door machinations.

Indeed, the stories of the Emergency - the widespread youth movement led by Jayaprakash Narayan which troubled Gandhi and her government, imprisonment of political leaders, media censorship, sycophancy and the rise of the Opposition - have all been recorded in the books that it spawned. While a few tomes, such as one called Thank You, Mrs Gandhi, were released during the Emergency lauding its role, most others - sharply critical - entered the market once the regulations had been lifted in 1977.

"We gave a first-hand account of how the authorities tried to instill fear in the people and rule by force," recalls journalist Ajoy Bose, who wrote For Reasons of State: Delhi Under Emergency with John Dayal. The two - then city reporters of Patriot newspaper - had seen the Emergency from close quarters, witnessing arrests, demolitions, forced sterilisations and public anger.

Now, years later, another reporter of the time is ready with her book. Journalist Coomi Kapoor's The Emergency: A Personal History (Penguin/Viking), to be released on June 26, argues that the Emergency was not a "knee-jerk reaction" but a well thought out plan that took shape over months.

The fact that few spoke of the Emergency - and fewer still could write about it - led to a deluge of books after it was lifted. "We were rushed into publishing that book, but all the details were there," Bose adds.

The man who rushed them, Kapil Malhotra, the founder of Vision Books in Delhi, had been waiting for an opportunity to come out with political books.

"We were all excited. And many of us were still very angry. I went about commissioning book after book on the Emergency," Malhotra recalls. Among the more well-known ones from Orient Paperbacks (a part of Vision Books) and Vision Books were Decline and Fall of Indira Gandhi: 19 Months of Emergency By D.R. Mankekar and Kamla Mankekar and The People Betrayed by L.K. Advani.

The books deal with different aspects. Janardan Thakur's All the Prime Minister's Men (1977) profiled Emergency backers such as Sanjay Gandhi, Bansi Lal and Vidya Charan Shukla. Uma Vasudev came out with Two Faces of Indira Gandhi.

Then there were first-hand accounts of leaders who had faced the administration's wrath. Prison tales followed, including JP's Prison Diary, Advani's Prisoner's Scrap Book and journalist Kuldip Nayar's In Jail.

Yet, despite the spate of books, not every tale was told. Looking back Nayar, 91, rues that authors in the post-Emergency era haven't done enough in these 40 years to lay bare all the facts related to what is considered the "darkest chapter" of independent India.

"My book - The Judgement: Inside Story of the Emergency in India - was written as an insider. I had a bit of knowledge as to what was happening at the government level and I knew the Opposition well. But I was in such a hurry to publish a book that today I feel it was an inadequate work," he says. His book has been republished as Emergency Retold by Konark Publishers.

Nayar stresses that there were several first-hand accounts, but not many zeroed in on the details of what actually transpired.

And that is perhaps why journalist Kapoor decided to write her book. "I realised that there were many gaps to be filled. For instance, it was not an overnight decision as it has been made out by Congress supporters. Indira's tendencies were becoming more authoritarian. She tried in January 1975 to impose an Emergency, but was dissuaded from doing so," she says. Liège University research fellow Diego Maiorano's Autumn of the Matriarch: Indira Gandhi's Final Term in Office, to be released soon, also contends that Gandhi had always sought to "subject every single institution in the country to her will".

Some of the backroom operations do figure in the PMO Diaries by B.N. Tandon, who was a joint secretary in the PMO. Yet another perspective can be found in Indira Gandhi, the Emergency, and Indian Democracy, by Gandhi's adviser P.N. Dhar, published in 2000. Gandhi's defeat in 1977 but return to power within three years was possibly a reason why the Emergency went on the backburner in the 1980s, political thinker Ashis Nandy reasons.

"In the late Seventies, there were quite a few books by journalists. But the real work by historians, sociologists, authors and publishers in the 80s came to a standstill. Rather than researching and bringing new facts, they simply surrendered to the forces that wanted the Emergency to be given a quiet burial," he says.

Bose cites other reasons. "The death of Sanjay Gandhi resulted in the waning of interest as he was in many ways the face of the Emergency. Then Indira Gandhi was assassinated, followed by other events," he says. Terrorism in Punjab and Kashmir followed, along with the rise and fall of coalitions and much else.

Some believe that the blanks in non-fiction were filled in by the fiction that followed. "Some of the fiction set in or inspired by those times, such as Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children and Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance have obviously gone on to become modern classics and continue to sell strongly all over the world," says Caroline Newbury, VP, marketing and corporate communications, Penguin Random House.

The Emergency, the publishers hold, is not a forgotten chapter. "For those who lived through the period, it was something frighteningly unforgettable; for a new generation, it is probably fascinating to imagine a political scenario like that," says Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri, managing editor, HarperCollins. "It is quite unthinkable in today's social media-driven world to subdue dissent like that."

He cites Vinod Mehta's revised edition of The Sanjay Story (2012), written way back in 1978, as a case in point. It has been a bestseller for HarperCollins.

Some contend that the best books on the Emergency have come years after the event, a gap that is essential for a fresh perspective. Rukun Advani, editor of Permanent Black and the publisher of Emma Tarlo's Unsettling Memories: Narratives of the Emergency in Delhi, stresses that an "elapse of time" helps authors.

Historian Ramachandra Guha agrees: "I think three or four decades is the right time to profile historical events as one can study the nuances better."

Tarlo's 2003 book, for instance, has produced "some genuinely new insights", points out Arvind Rajagopal, professor of media studies, New York University. It looks at how ordinary people negotiated with a regime that demanded sterilisation in return for housing allotments, or just a table fan, he adds.

Guha contends that since India continues to bear the consequences of the Emergency even after so many years, it needs an in-depth study. "Centralisation of power in one individual happened during that time. She obliterated the boundaries between the government and party. Personality cults built around people like Mamata Banerjee, J. Jayalalithaa and even Narendra Modi have their origins in the Emergency." He has discussed some of these issues in India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy (2012).

Going against the tide of anti-Emergency books, former Governor Jagmohan, an important figure during the Emergency, wrote in Island of Truth (1978) that over a period of time, it would be viewed in a good light and "the true faces" of those guilty of "falsifying history" would stand exposed. "But what will be the verdict of history?" he asks.

The verdict, so far though, has been guilty.

Aye sayers

Books in support of the Emergency

Freedom is Not Free by Srikanta Ghosh (1975)
Era of Discipline by D.V. Gandhi and Krishna Kant (1976) 
Emergency —  Its Needs and Gains by Kanwar Lal (1976)
The Changing Image of India by Santwana Kumar Das (1977)
Thank you, Mrs Gandhi by Kanwar Lal (1977)

Who cares?

Certainly not the youth, says Ashwin Sanghi

Frankly speaking, the youth of today does not even know about the Emergency years. The period after 1947 is rarely given any importance in history textbooks. Even my generation (I was six years old during the Emergency) has understood the trauma and anguish of that period only through hearsay.

But it is true that the Emergency reinforced the importance of freedom of expression. How many newspapers had their electricity cut off so that they would be unable to print? How many chose not to print articles that had been “sanitised” by the establishment?

In our world of Twitter, Facebook and 24x7 television news channels, it is easy to forget those dark days.
Also, the fact that constitutional norms could be set aside in the quest for absolute power is something that should remind us to appreciate our messy democracy at present.

(The author’s next book, Sialkot Saga, devotes several chapters to the Emergency) 

NOVEL IDEA

The Emergency figured in fiction, too. Some prominent books

Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
The Great Indian Novel by Shashi Tharoor
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry 
Rich Like Us by Nayantara Sahgal
The Crow Chronicles by Ranjit Lal