June 2026
In short: India's historical anniversaries, discoveries and heritage news this month — distilled for SI/Constable Prelims.
Current Affairs — India › History · 11 min read · Free to read · English & Telugu
Bilingual study notes for the Andhra Pradesh Police SI & Constable exams (SLPRB AP) by AP Police Hub, a product of Anvil Academy.
51 years since the 1975 Emergency and 'Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas', the Chapekar brothers' 129th assassination anniversary and Tilak's landmark sedition trial, and the Mughal-to-princely wildlife history behind President Murmu's visit to Kuno National Park.
June 2026 — At a Glance
June 2026's History thread ran through three landmark dates rather than fresh archaeology. On 25 June, the government's year-long commemoration of the 1975 Emergency's 50th anniversary culminated in its 51st — observed since 2024 as 'Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas' (Constitution Murder Day). On 22 June, the 129th anniversary of the Chapekar brothers' assassination of plague-era official W.C. Rand fell — an episode inseparable from Bal Gangadhar Tilak's own landmark 1897 sedition trial, colonial India's first-ever sedition conviction. And on 21-22 June, President Droupadi Murmu's visit to Kuno National Park to review Project Cheetah surfaced a much older wildlife history — from Akbar's elephant hunts in 1564 to the last Asiatic lion shot near Guna in 1872 and Gwalior's forgotten attempt to import African lions in 1905.
1. Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas — 51 Years Since the Emergency
How the Emergency began
- The trigger — On 12 June 1975, the Allahabad High Court, in *Indira Nehru Gandhi v. Raj Narain*, found Prime Minister Indira Gandhi guilty of electoral malpractice in her 1971 Lok Sabha election and invalidated her election, barring her from holding elected office for six years.
- The declaration — On 25 June 1975, a National Emergency was proclaimed under Article 352 of the Constitution on the ground of 'internal disturbance' — one of the three grounds (with war and external aggression) the Article then permitted; it lasted 21 months, until 21 March 1977.
Life under the Emergency
- Detentions & censorship — Roughly 1.1 lakh people were detained without trial under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA); the press was placed under pre-publication censorship; the Union Cabinet was informed of the proclamation only after the President had already signed it.
- Aftermath — A Commission of Inquiry under Justice J.C. Shah (the Shah Commission, 1977) was later set up to examine excesses committed during the Emergency, including forced sterilisation drives carried out as part of population-control efforts.
The constitutional course-correction
Amendments that responded directly to the Emergency| Amendment | Key change |
|---|
| 42nd Amendment (1976) | Gave the Directive Principles primacy over Fundamental Rights in certain respects, curtailed judicial review of constitutional amendments, and let the President confine a National Emergency to a specified part of India. |
| 44th Amendment (1978) | Replaced 'internal disturbance' with 'armed rebellion' as a ground for Emergency; required the President to act only on written Cabinet advice; made Articles 20 and 21 non-suspendable even during Emergency; required a special parliamentary majority to proclaim one. |
Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas — commemorating 51 years
- The observance — The Government of India notified 'Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas' ('Constitution Murder Day') to be observed annually on 25 June, marking the Emergency's proclamation; the Ministry of Culture ran an extended, year-long commemoration around the Emergency's 50th anniversary, through essay competitions, seminars, debates and street plays reaching every district — culminating in 25 June 2026, 51 years after 1975.
2. The Chapekar Brothers — 129 Years, and Tilak's Landmark Sedition Trial
Pune's plague crisis and Rand's repression
- The background — During the 1896-97 bubonic plague in Pune, Walter Charles Rand, chairman of the Special Plague Committee, enforced harsh, culturally insensitive containment measures — forcible house searches, segregation of the sick, and disregard for religious sentiment — that provoked widespread public anger.
The assassination — 22 June 1897
- What happened — On 22 June 1897 — the day of celebrations for Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee — brothers Damodar (28), Balkrishna (24) and Vasudeo Chapekar (18) shot Rand and his military escort, Lt. Charles Ayerst, as their carriage left Government House, Pune. Ayerst died instantly; Rand died of his wounds on 3 July 1897.
- Aftermath — All three brothers were tried and sentenced to death — Damodar hanged on 18 April 1898, Vasudeo on 8 May, and Balkrishna on 12 May 1898 — marking one of the earliest instances of armed revolutionary resistance to British rule, nearly a decade before Bengal's better-known revolutionary movement.
Tilak's sedition trial — the criminalisation of dissent
- The connection — Shortly before the killing, Bal Gangadhar Tilak's newspaper *Kesari* had carried articles invoking the Bhagavad Gita to argue that no blame attached to killing an oppressor. Though no direct link to the assassination was ever proved, the colonial government charged Tilak under Section 124A (sedition) of the IPC.
- Why it matters — Tilak was convicted by a jury verdict of 6-3 and sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment — colonial India's first-ever conviction for sedition, a case that defined the terms of legal engagement between the colonial state and the emerging nationalist press for decades to come.
3. Kuno's Layered Wildlife History — From Akbar to Project Cheetah
President Droupadi Murmu's visit to Kuno National Park, Sheopur (Madhya Pradesh) on 21-22 June 2026 — where she toured the Cheetah Management Area and Command Control Centre and reviewed Project Cheetah — surfaced a much older layered history of the landscape.
From Mughal hunting grounds to the last Asiatic lion
Kuno's wildlife history, layer by layer| Period | Episode |
|---|
| Mughal era, 1564 | Mughal records mention Akbar capturing elephants in the Kuno region. |
| Colonial era, 1872 | The last Asiatic lion in this part of central India was shot near Guna, marking the species' local extinction outside the Gir forests of Gujarat. |
| Princely era, 1905 | Gwalior's Maharaja Madhavrao Scindia imported 10 lions from Ethiopia in an attempt to re-establish a lion population; the experiment failed after several of the lions turned man-eaters. |
Project Cheetah — a modern experiment on the same landscape
- Three international batches — Cheetahs were brought to Kuno from Namibia (September 2022, 8 cheetahs), South Africa (February 2023, 12 cheetahs) and, most recently, Botswana — 8 cheetahs symbolically handed over during President Murmu's November 2025 state visit to Botswana, flown to Kuno in February 2026.
- Community role — The President interacted with 'Cheetah Mitras' and members of the Sahariya tribal community, trained local volunteers who help protect the cheetahs and build awareness among villages around the park.