Hyderabad, June 26 -- As India marks the Golden Jubilee of the Emergency, it is time to revisit the oft-maligned decision through a different lens, one that examines the threats Indira Gandhi faced and the constitutional measures she invoked.

As 2,000 aerial photographs poured in on the desk of the then United States President John F Kennedy in 1962, no one else was aware of the grave threat to US security posed by the Soviet ballistic missiles positioned in Cuba. On October 22, 1962, US President Kennedy announced the Naval blockade of Cuba, a decision that startled the world. He was dubbed as rash and immature, but Kennedy alone was privy to the enormity of the threat confronting the United States.

Similar was the situation for the th...