Intimations from the Emergency

The most interesting aspect of the book is that readers are invited to be flies on the wall as dodgy decisions are taken by the high and mighty of the Emergency days

For Reasons of State 

Delhi under Emergency 

John Dayal & Ajay Bose

Penguin Viking

320 pages; Rs 599

India is a young nation. Three-fourths of us probably have no recollection of the ravages of the Emergency period from January 1975 to March 1977.

The book was first published in 1977, just after the national elections, called by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in a bout of self-delusion as a referendum on the Emergency, swept out the Congress and brought in the lightly glued together Janata Party. The ruling party lost all seven parliamentary seats in Delhi.

The authors, both veteran journalists, describe their work as an “investigation into