January 2, 1976: When India’s Constitution Came Closest to Being Unmade

Independent India was not born into calm or cohesion. It emerged from Partition, mass violence, displacement, and economic exhaustion — a society fractured along lines of language, religion, caste and memory. It was precisely this fragility that led India’s founders to craft a Constitution anchored not in majoritarian will, but in restraint. Power was to be limited, liberty protected, and dissent treated not as disorder, but as democracy’s safeguard.

The Constitution as a moral restraint, not a power manual

Adopted in 1950, the Constitution was envisioned as more than a governance framework. It was a moral compact — premised on the belief that unchecked authority would fracture the Republic. Fundamental Rights were designed not as gifts from the state, but as shields against it.

In the first two decades, India witnessed fierce debates over land reforms, nationalisation, preventive detention and economic planning. Yet a core principle endured: political power would operate within constitutional limits, and opposition would remain legitimate.

It was “B R Ambedkar”, the chief architect of the Constitution, who warned Parliament against “hero-worship” in politics, calling it “a sure road to degradation and eventual dictatorship”. Democracy, he insisted, required “constitutional morality” — self-restraint by those who wield power.

Restlessness before rupture: the late 1960s and early 1970s

By the late 1960s, this delicate equilibrium was under strain. Corruption scandals, inflation, unemployment and political centralisation eroded public confidence. Electoral setbacks weakened the moral authority of the ruling establishment.

It was in this climate that “Jayaprakash Narayan” issued his call for “Total Revolution” — not a bid for office, but a moral indictment of unaccountable authority. His movement articulated a growing fear: that democracy was being hollowed out from within.

Courts hold the line — briefly

Even amid turbulence, constitutional institutions initially asserted themselves. In “Golaknath” (1967), the Supreme Court held that Parliament could not amend Fundamental Rights. Parliament responded by asserting its amending power, leading to “Kesavananda Bharati” (1973).

In that landmark judgment, the Court struck a historic compromise: Parliament could amend the Constitution, but not its “basic structure” — which included judicial review, separation of powers, and fundamental freedoms. It was a functioning constitutional tension — a debate over limits, not an attempt to erase them.

June 25, 1975: From constitutional debate to constitutional fear

That balance collapsed with the declaration of the Emergency on June 25, 1975. Civil liberties were suspended, opposition leaders jailed, and the press censored. The Emergency was justified as a response to “internal disturbance” — invoking constitutional exception.

But by the end of 1975, even the language of exception faded. Parliament functioned without opposition. Elections were postponed. Preventive detention became routine. What began as extraordinary governance morphed into a project of permanence.

ADM Jabalpur: when liberty lost judicial refuge

The constitutional collapse found its most chilling expression in “ADM Jabalpur v Shivkant Shukla”. The Supreme Court held that during the Emergency, when Article 21 was suspended, citizens could not approach courts even against illegal detention.

Justice “H R Khanna” alone dissented, warning that such reasoning legitimised tyranny and reduced the rule of law to executive convenience. His dissent cost him the Chief Justiceship — but preserved constitutional conscience.

ADM Jabalpur did not merely reflect judicial submission. It institutionalised fear, signalling that liberty had no sanctuary when the executive so decided.

P Rajan: what constitutional silence meant on the ground

No episode illustrates this more starkly than the custodial death of “P Rajan”, a young engineering student arrested in 1976 and tortured to death in police custody. For years, the state denied even his detention — made possible by a judicial climate where courts could not demand accountability.

It was Rajan’s father, “T V Eachara Warrier”, who forced the truth into the open through relentless legal struggle. Rajan did not die because of excess; he died because constitutional protection had been suspended.

January 2, 1976: the attempt to remake the Constitution

The gravest moment arrived on January 2, 1976, with the introduction of what became the “42nd Amendment of the Indian Constitution”. This was not routine amendment — it was constitutional reconstruction.

Judicial review was weakened. Parliamentary supremacy asserted. Fundamental Rights subordinated to state-defined goals. Courts were instructed not to strike down laws merely because they violated individual freedoms. Liberty ceased to be inherent; it became conditional.

Article 31D and the architecture of permanent repression

The most chilling proposal was Article 31D, empowering Parliament to ban vaguely defined “anti-national activities” and “anti-national associations”, while shielding such laws from challenge under Articles 14 and 19. The term “anti-national” was left deliberately undefined.

Opposition politics, journalism, trade unions, protest — even poetry — could have been criminalised. Although Article 31D was later repealed before enforcement, its intent was unmistakable: repression was to be normalised, legalised, and permanent.

Why January 1976 still matters

The Emergency ended. Elections returned. Many constitutional distortions were rolled back. But January 1976 marks the moment when the Constitution itself came closest to being transformed from a restraint on power into an instrument of it.

That project failed not because institutions stood firm, but because citizens did — guided by figures like JP Narayan, fearless journalists, and ordinary Indians who refused to forget freedom.

In today’s debates about constitutional assault, historical honesty matters. The most explicit, systematic attempt to bend India’s Constitution towards dictatorship did not occur incrementally or ambiguously. It occurred openly — culminating on January 2, 1976.