On 25 June 1975, the government declared a National Emergency by citing ‘internal disturbances’, and thus invoked Article 352 of the Indian Constitution, which gives the President the right to declare Emergency under threats of external aggression, war or armed rebellion. The then President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed imposed Emergency on the recommendation of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi without prior consultation with the Cabinet after which there were significant changes.

• Once an Emergency is declared, the federal distribution of powers remains practically suspended, and all powers stay concentrated in the hands of the  government. The government also gets the authority to curtail any or all of the Fundamental Rights, which includes basic rights like freedom of speech. 
• Thus, after the midnight of 25 June 1975, electricity to all major newspaper offices was disconnected, while leaders and workers of opposition parties and several journalists and students were arrested. Along with that, all protests were banned, and press censorship was imposed. 
• Preventive detention was also a step taken by the government in which any person under suspicion was arrested and imprisoned, without following any normal protocol of arrests. Judicial rights too, were suspended. 

This was regarded as one of the most controversial decisions taken in an Independent India, with controversial cases like forced sterilizations and demolition of slums in Delhi along with the overall suspension of basic rights of life and liberty as an Indian citizen makes the period of Internal Emergency in India (1975-1977) the ‘dark age of Indian democracy’.