To expose ills of Emergency: Centre declares June 25 as ‘Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas’

New Delhi: June 25, the day when the Emergency was imposed on the nation by the late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's regime in 1975, will now be observed as the 'Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas', every year, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said on Friday.

Home Minister Shah made the announcement on social media platform X and also shared a gazette notification.

"The Government of India has declared June 25th as Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas to pay tribute to all those who suffered and fought against the gross abuse of power during the period of Emergency and to recommit the people of India to not support in any manner such gross abuse of power, in future," read the notification. Notably, it was on June 25, 1975, that the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, in a brazen display of a dictatorship, decimated democracy and imposed a national emergency. The nearly two-year period saw lakhs of being put behind bars and the voice of the media silenced.

The Home Minister said that the 'Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas' will commemorate the massive contributions of all those who endured the inhuman pains of the 1975 Emergency. "The observance of 'Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas' will help keep the eternal flame of individual freedom and the defence of our democracy alive in every Indian. Thus preventing dictatorial forces like the Congress from repeating those horrors," he said.