Bulldozers demolishing homes, restrictions on the media, repeated changes to the Constitution — these are not the highlights of current affairs in India, but the Centre's display of what happened during the Emergency.

The University Grants Commission has sent all educational institutions a template for an exhibition with pre-designed display panels and a short film about a teacher emotionally narrating the story of the Emergency to schoolchildren.

These creations of the Union culture ministry and information and broadcasting ministry, respectively, are to be displayed and screened throughout the year to mark 50 years of the Emergency on June 25, 1975.

"Mrs Gandhi never wanted to let go of power," the teacher tells his students as he shows them a film on the Emergency on his laptop.

In the seven-minute film titled India-The Mother of Democracy, a student asks what happened during the Emergency. The teacher explains: "If one morning someone snatches your phone. If your TV doesn't run and you don’t get news on the radio; if you can’t make a post or story on social media...."

FIRs on social media posts — even those mildly digressing from the government line — are so common now that they don’t even make news. Bulldozers — which have now turned into a symbol of government action on its critics — also feature in the short film. The teacher explains the arbitrary demolitions at Delhi’s Turkman Gate.

"Not just once, PM Indira Gandhi mocked the Constitution repeatedly, made changes again and again, just to save her position,” the teacher tells his students.