Conclusion
Key constitutional developments as well as crises in the first three decades after independence can be explained as a legacy of the institution of justice as equity as a legislative category in the Indian Constitution.
At an institutional level, the crucial question of who had the constitutional right to interpret the content of justice came to be at the centre of a long and enduring conflict between the Parliament and the Supreme Court in this period.The most important constitutional crisis occurring within 30 years of independence was the declaration of Emergency in 1975 by Indira Gandhi, the daughter and successor of Jawaharlal Nehru. This declaration suspended the fundamental rights of citizens, while giving the Prime Minister absolute power as the head of the state. In many ways, the Emergency was the culmination of the imperial legacy of justice as equity as the discourse of governance. It is critical to note that when Indira Gandhi decided to suspend the fundamental rights of the people, she justified it in the name of justice as equity. Her claim was that it would give the Congress Government the power to do justice to the poorer sections of the population. It is also striking that the mass resistance that she faced during the Emergency was led by men like Jayaprakash Narayan and Morarji Desai, bearers of Mahatma Gandhi's anti-colonial legacy of non-violent mass resistance.
Thus, what was evident in this event was the dramatic confrontation of the two legacies of anti-colonial movements - one represented by Indira Gandhi and the Congress Party as the bearers of the imperial legacy of justice as equity as the discourse of governance, and the other by followers and associates of Mahatma Gandhi bearing the democratic legacy of mass resistance. The enormous public response that the Emergency provoked ultimately compelled the Congress to concede power to a new party, the Janata Party, led by Gandhians in 1977, proving the crucial importance of Gandhian mass resistance to the preservation of India's constitutional democracy in the post-colonial period. While Indian constitutional democracy has grown and evolved over time, the cycle of opposing political legacies has played a critical role in determining the nature of the Indian polity through much of its history after independence.
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