The declaration of the Emergency on the night of June 24–25, 1975, by the Indira Gandhi government was triggered by a sudden existential crisis following the landmark Allahabad High Court judgment, which had disqualified the sitting Prime Minister for electoral malpractices.
In a swift move to consolidate absolute power, silence political dissent, and suspend fundamental rights, the authoritarian government plunged India into a 21-month-long period of dictatorship lasting until March 21, 1977. Central to this crackdown was the formal ban imposed on the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) on July 4, 1975, as the ruling government viewed the organisation as a highly disciplined, deeply rooted countrywide network capable of sustaining decentralized, peaceful resistance across the nation.
Instead of folding under state pressure, the RSS initiated a massive, multi-layered struggle against the dictatorship. Tens of thousands of RSS Swayamsevaks (RSS volunteers) participated in open, non-violent protests, while an intricate, highly organised underground network kept the momentum going by publishing clandestine newsletters, supporting the families of detained workers, and coordinating nationwide resistance under the umbrella of the Lok Sangharsh Samiti.
The prisons of the Emergency became unexpected social equalizers where the government’s crackdown swept up a literal cross-section of Indian society into crowded barracks. Prominent lawyers, doctors, teachers, and artists were stripped of their liberty and placed right beside small traders, labourers, farmers, young athletes, painters, and actors. This diverse gathering proved that the resistance was a massive, collective refusal by ordinary citizens to surrender their fundamental freedoms rather than an elite political game.
While official histories often treat political prisoners as mere statistical footnotes, the reality is far more sombre. According to recorded accounts, at least 107 RSS volunteers (Swayamsevaks) lost their lives directly due to the fight against the dictatorship. Although the Shah Commission later investigated these horrific excesses, complete data from remote corners and various states could never fully be compiled. The tragedy of these losses lies in the sheer variety of ways the state broke human bodies through systemic cruelty and medical negligence inside the prisons.
The resistance drew the youngest minds into its fold, driven by pure idealism. Ramdas, a 13-year-old student satyagrahi (non-violent protester), threw himself back into dangerous underground work immediately after being released from custody. While climbing an electric pole to paste a protest poster for the Lok Sangharsh Samiti, he suffered a fatal electric shock. Similarly, Muralidharan, a 17-year-old Swayamsevak from Vadakancheri, Kerala, died of an electric shock on April 26, 1976, while setting up arrangements for a mass fasting and prayer protest against the government. Rajan, a bright engineering student from Calicut Engineering College, was dragged out of his hostel room by police on March 1, 1976, taken directly into the notorious torture chambers of the Crime Branch, and simply vanished, never to return alive.
Older leaders who served as regional anchors for society were treated with a terrifying lack of dignity. Daulatram, an 80-year-old resident of Atrauli, Aligarh (in Uttar Pradesh) and a pillar of strength for regional RSS work, succumbed to injuries from brutal police beating and torture just as he reached the jail gates. Lala Bishan Lal Mittal, the 71-year-old Saharanpur District Sanghchalak (non-executive head), was arrested immediately after the ban on July 4, 1975. After spurning local politicians who pressured him to sign a humiliating apology, he began vomiting with a high fever and experiencing severe internal burning sensations. Denied outside medical attention and isolated from his family, he passed away on July 17, the exact day he was scheduled to appear in court. Dr Satyavrat Sinha, the Prayagraj District in-charge of RSS (Zila Karyavah) and an intellectual of international repute, was arrested late at night in his study and kept in harsh prison conditions that ensured his eventual death.
Across the country, prisons were effectively transformed into containment camps where healthy citizens contracted lifelong chronic diseases. For many, the administration waited until they were on their deathbeds before releasing them, solely to manipulate custody death statistics. Bauli Singh, a 60-year-old small farmer and labourer from Aligarh, offered satyagraha on December 17, 1975, and was beaten so severely by police that he ran a high fever. Denied a mattress in the dead of winter and forced onto an iron-strip cot, he suffered acute internal pain and passed away on December 26, 1975, after jail doctors callously refused to attend to him on Christmas night. Dr Sadashiv Bobde, a Sanghchalak (non-executive Head) from Vidarbha (in Maharashtra) and a known heart patient, suffered a heart attack in custody, but authorities refused to place him in an Intensive Care Unit, claiming that guarding political prisoners there was impossible. He died on January 30, 1976, after oxygen was administered too late.
Pandurangant Kshirsagar, another senior RSS functionary suffering from severe hypertension and diabetes, was deliberately transferred from Nagpur to a wet cell in Thane despite authorities knowing the dampness would be fatal to his condition, resulting in his death on September 23, 1976. Prof. Dr Ramchandra Prasad Sahi, Head of Chemistry at Mithila College and an RSS functionary, died in his cell after continuous requests from fellow prisoners for basic medical care went unanswered. Harivadan Bhatt, a 60-year-old worker from the Surat unit of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (an ideological mentee of the RSS), was confined to Sabarmati jail while already ill and was moved to the Civil Hospital in Ahmedabad only when death was imminent. He passed away on April 13, 1976.
The prison administration frequently exhibited a complete lack of empathy. Parashuram Rajak, a humble bidi worker and dedicated Swayamsevak from Jabalpur who was asthmatic and physically weak, was routinely forced by police to walk handcuffed for over two miles from the jail to the local transport stand just to be produced in court. When he fell critically ill within the Jabalpur Central Jail on August 17, 1975, Rajak was made to crawl to the window of the hospital barrack and push his body against the iron bars to receive an injection through the iron grill. He was found dead in his bed the next morning. Similarly, Baijnath Kapil, the 56-year-old President of the Shahdara (Delhi) unit of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, was left unattended for hours after a massive heart attack on February 1, 1976. He died five days later at GB Pant Hospital in Central Delhi.
The government’s heavy-handed approach extended to hiding the very memory of these sacrifices. The tragedy of 20-year-old RSS worker Somnath Hedau of Seoni (Madhya Pradesh) remains a stark example. Arrested under the draconian Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA), he suffered a debilitating stroke in the middle of the night but had to lie in agony until morning because the barracks were locked. When the administration finally realised he would die, they forced his father to sign release papers under threat of arrest to avoid the political stigma of a custody death. Somnath died on April 9, 1976, with the release order that wasn’t executed under his pillow, yet the Congress Chief minister of the state later claimed in the state legislature that no MISA detenu had died in jail.
In another instance, Dr Indrajit Singh, the 74-year-old Sanghchalak of Bulandshahr Tehsil (in Uttar Pradesh), fell terminally ill due to jail neglect and was quickly released on parole so he would pass away at home. Before his death, he requested his family to place his full RSS uniform by his pillow. When news of his passing reached his incarcerated comrades, they launched an unyielding demand that his body be brought to the prison gates for a final viewing. Fearing a full-scale protest from the thousands of citizens assembling outside, the administration capitulated, allowing those inside and outside the prison to join hands in a final, solemn salute.
In the end, the Emergency collapsed because the quiet resilience of RSS volunteers made dictatorship untenable. Their legacy is not defined by victimhood, but by courage; when democratic institutions fell silent, these everyday heroes—the farmers, doctors, and students—held the line. By building India’s restored freedom on the foundation of their suffering, they have earned a permanent place in our collective memory.
Note: The specific biographical details, prison testimonies, and accounts of the Swayamsevaks featured in this article are documented in the definitive historical chronicle, “The People Versus Emergency: A Saga of Struggle”, authored by P.G. Sahasrabuddhe and Manik Chandra Vajpayee, second edition June 2022, published by Suruchi Prakashan.
(The writer is an author and columnist)