The Emergency was a period of Indian history when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency and effectively ruled by decree for nineteen months in 1975-1977.

Opponents had long made allegations that Indira's party, Congress (I), had practiced electoral fraud to win the 1971 elections. The Gandhian socialist Jayaprakash Narayan had been agitating in Bihar for a change in provincial government, and increasingly sought to direct popular action against the government at the Centre through satyagrahas. JP and his supporters sought to unify students', peasants', and labour organisations in a 'Total Revolution' to nonviolently transform Indian society. Indira's party was defeated in Gujarat by a coalition of parties calling itself the Janata Morcha (People's Front), and even faced an all-party, no-confidence motion in Parliament. In June 1975 the High Court of Allahabad found the Prime Minister guilty of election fraud, and ordered her to be removed from her seat in Parliament and banned from running for an additional six years. Rather than face the charges, Indira declared a State of Emergency, and in her own words brought democracy "to a grinding halt". Invoking article 352 of the Indian Constitution, she granted herself extraordinary powers and launched a massive crackdown on civil liberties and political opposition. This move was endorsed by Mother Teresa.

Indira attempted to re-write the nation's laws with the help of the parliament, thus protecting herself from legal prosecution once emergency rule was revoked. As massive as these reforms were, Indira did not feel her powers were amassing quickly enough, so she utilized President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed to issue "extraordinary laws" that bypassed parliament altogether, allowing her to rule by decree.

Indira had little trouble in pushing through amendments to the constitution that exonerated her from any culpability in her election fraud case, declaring President's Rule in Gujarat and Tamil Nadu where anti-Indira parties ruled (state legislatures were thereby dissolved and suspended indefinitely), and jailing thousands of her opponents. In her need to trust and confide in someone during this extremely trying period, she turned to her younger son, Sanjay, who became an enthusiastic advocate of the Emergency. Under his watchful eyes, forced sterilisation as a means of family planning was imposed on the poor, increased numbers of urban squatters and slum dwellers in Delhi were evicted in the name of beautification projects, and disgruntled workers were either disciplined or their wages frozen.

Indira's emergency rule lasted nineteen months. In spite of the controversy involved, India made significant strides in economic and industrial progress during this period. India was badly in need of economic recovery after the strain of the 1971 Indo-Pak war on the exchequer. Also communal Hindu-Muslim riots, which had been surfacing again in the 1960s and 70s virtually ceased, and during the initial stages of the Emergency the government seemed to be working with vigor. However with the stringent measures imposed during Emergency, the Indian public and opposition grew increasingly resentful. The Reign of Terror, as some called it, continued until 18 January 1977, when Indira Gandhi suddenly relaxed the Emergency, announced the next general election in March, and released her opponents from prison.

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