✎ The Shah Commission report documented Emergency excesses, was 'missing' post-1980, and later rediscovered for historical and academic reference.
Relevance for Banking, SSC & RBI Grade B exams: Economy/Governance
The Shah Commission report, which documented the excesses during the 1975-77 Emergency, went missing after Indira Gandhi returned to power in 1980, as she allegedly sought to suppress its findings. The report, submitted in 1978, exposed arbitrary arrests, media censorship, and civil liberties violations under the Emergency regime. Its disappearance for decades highlights the challenges in preserving historical records of governance failures, a theme relevant for exams like RBI Grade B and SSC, where questions on constitutional history, emergency provisions, and governance lapses often appear. The eventual rediscovery of the report in 2010 by Rajagopal ‘Era’ Sezhiyan underscores the importance of archival integrity and public access to official documents, a concept tested in banking exams like IBPS PO and SBI Clerk, where questions on transparency and accountability in governance are common.
The report’s rediscovery also serves as a case study in how authoritarian regimes manipulate records to evade accountability, a topic that aligns with the syllabus for RBI Grade B’s Economic and Social Issues section. For SSC aspirants, the episode illustrates the fragility of democratic institutions during crises, a recurring theme in polity and governance questions. The fact that the National Library of Australia also held a copy of the report further emphasizes the need for robust national archival systems, a point that could feature in descriptive answers in banking and SSC exams, where governance and institutional weaknesses are often discussed.
Source: The Hindu
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