50 Years of the Indian Emergency: Lessons for Democracy

Peter Ronald deSouza was the Director Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla from 2007-2013. He was also a Professor at CSDS, Delhi. He works on issues of democracy, with particular interest on the conundrums of Indian democracy, on which he has published many books and journal articles, and also writes an occasional op-ed article in The Hindu, The Indian Express and Frontline. His recent books are on diverse themes, 'Keywords for India' (with Rukmini Bhaya Nair, 2020); 'The River Mhadei' (with Solano da Silva and Lakshmi Subramanian, 2025) and '50 Years of the Indian Emergency: Lessons for Democracy, 2025'. He is a Visiting Senior Fellow at ACEPS, University of Johannesburg.

 

Gyan Prakash is the Dayton-Stockton Professor of History at Princeton University where he directed the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies from 2003 to 2008. He was a member of the influential Subaltern Studies Collective until its dissolution in 2006 and has been a recipient of Guggenheim and the National Endowment of Humanities fellowships. He is the author of several books, including the widely acclaimed Mumbai Fables (2010), which was adapted for the film Bombay Velvet (2015), and for which he wrote the story and co-wrote the screenplay. His latest book is Emergency Chronicles: Indira Gandhi and Democracy’s Turning Point (2019). He is currently working on a book tentatively titled, After Empire: Culture in Postcolonial India.