The Emergency (1975-1977) was one of independent India's darkest hours. Over 150,000 people were imprisoned without trial; as many as eleven million forcibly sterilized; and countless killed in police firings or otherwise eliminated.Told through the experiences of 'Arjun' - author Ashok Chakravarti's alias during his time as part of an underground movement against the Emergency - the memoir begins with his return to India from Oxford in 1973, when he joins a group of left-wing activists seeking revolutionary change. It covers, among other things, his efforts to mobilize Delhi's textile workers and safai karamcharis to fight for their economic and political rights; the Turkman Gate clashes; and his eventual rejection of communist ideas and involvement in the 1977 elections, in which democratic forces were victorious.