The lead-up to the Emergency was full of political and legal intrigue — with a case of electoral malpractice being brought against Indira Gandhi in the Allahabad High Court, and the wave of arrests that followed her loss. It’s not surprising then that it was extensively covered by the international media. The Chicago Tribune was determined to label this 'India's Watergate', repeatedly (and almost ironically) comparing Gandhi to Richard Nixon, though it didn't really stick. Others, like the New York Daily News, led with sarcastic editorials:

Dear, Dear Indira

We can't say how sorry we are to hear that the Indian Prime Minister may be drummed out of public life in disgrace. Who is there to replace her as a model of political virtue, a tireless promoter of universal fellowship, a conscience of mankind? How will we get along without her sermons on the evils of power and the wickedness of wealth? It would be hard getting along without Mrs. G. But we'll try. Oh boy, will we try. (New York Daily News, June ?, 1975)

As the Emergency began and its policies were implemented, the Christian Science Monitor in particular carried a large number of almost-daily condensed reports. Most other papers, ranging from the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, and the Irish Times, covered it in a rather cursory manner, mostly through editorials. Soon enough, however, it became a topic that, if covered, was brief and buried in the international section — though most did characterize it as a dictatorship, such as in the July 3^rd Boston Globe editorial titled, "Mrs. Gandhi's dictatorship".

In July, a month after Indira Gandhi declared the Emergency, Joe Elder, a sociologist, was sent by the British Quakers to examine and analyze the situation — the Quakers had been important mediators in both colonial and postcolonial India. His report ended up holding both Gandhi and Jayaprakash Narayan (JP), a popular Independence activist, responsible for creating the conditions for the Emergency. Since this was an internal report, I imagine this didn't really make the rounds outside of the Quakers' organization.

On the 15^th of August, a carefully chosen date, The Times (London) carried a full-page advertisement from the Free JP Campaign. It called for the freeing of JP, who had by then become the face of the Janata Party, a broad-range political movement that was united primarily by an opposition to Indira Gandhi and the Emergency.

A cursory look at the signatories:

• ~60 British Members of Parliament, mostly from the Labour Party, but with a number from the Liberals and Conservatives.

• The newly-founded Ecology Party in the UK

• Fritz Precthl, President of the International Transport Workers' Federation

• The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom

• A J P Taylor, historian

• Fenner Brockway, activist

• E F Schumacher, economist

• W H Morris-Jones, political scientist

• Micheal Harrington, Chairman of the US Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee

• Peggy Ashcroft, actor

Much like the Quakers (who are noticeably absent), some of these people were already connected to India or to JP (or both), and some were not. But this ad represented a collective push by prominent people to bring the Emergency into public discussion outside of India.

At the same time, Gandhi was making a case for herself too — calling the Emergency a “tragedy she faced”, a reaction to attempts by her political opposition to undermine the country. There was a basis for this, given that JP had, before his arrest, called for the police and the military to disobey ‘immoral orders’ from the government. One of the interviews she gave (by cable) was on August 9 with the US magazine Saturday Review, titled "Prime Minister Indira Gandhi Responds to Charges That Democracy in India Is Dead." The language here, with questions like "Mrs. Gandhi, what is the most effective answer your friends in the United States could give to those critics who feel your action has threatened democratic government in India?" and "Does India require a more authoritarian form of government so that it can solve its problems?" suggests that the Emergency was just another political conflict, something almost benign.

I suspect that such an understanding of the Emergency, as an internal matter, was what most people on the street would have thought if ever asked a question about it (if they were aware of it at all). This was certainly true of most political leaders, with even Pakistan's Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto saying, "We do not gloat over the predicaments of others. We take a serious and long-term view of such affairs" (Christian Science Monitor, July 14^th, 1975). The Ford Administration in the US was (unsurprisingly) much cooler towards India than Nixon had been, and did not particularly engage with the Emergency at all, only criticizing the expulsion of Washington Post reporter Lewis Simon in July 1975. The British political establishment remained one of the few that actually dealt with the Emergency directly.

Coverage of the Emergency was much more detailed in Communist nations, thanks to reports by the news agency TASS. Leaders were largely in support of Gandhi, with Pravda in the USSR and Quan Doi Nhan Dan in Vietnam (the mouthpieces of their administration) carrying positive articles on Gandhi and many of the measures carried out by her. Josip Tito, President of Yugoslavia and an important leader of the Non-Aligned Movement, sent Gandhi a message of support. China was the only dissenter, holding that with the Emergency India had discarded the "last shred of the fig leaf of democracy" (People's Daily Newspaper, June ?, 1975).

By 1977, the media coverage had become vaguer, treating the Emergency as a fait accompli (that was to be decried, of course), and shifted to discussions of Gandhi's international strategies. The censorship of the media became the primary point of critique, which became emblematic of the changes in the country. The UK still remained the most politically active, with a kerfuffle occurring with the Labour politician Michael Foot's defense of the Emergency, by building upon the arguments presented by Gandhi in 1975 — particularly conspicuous was his comparison of Gandhi with the Chilean President Salvador Allende, who had been assassinated in a coup in 1973.

Interest again peaked with the elections in March, with Gandhi's loss being front-page news in papers like the Boston Globe, the Chicago Tribune, and the Guardian in the UK. For the next few weeks, there were a number of editorials in most papers, with the Tribune emphatically declaring, "India is NOT Indira" (drawing from the infamous quote by Congress leader Devakanta Baruha in 1976, "India is Indira, and Indira is India"). The US, now under Jimmy Carter, continued to steer clear of commenting on the country, while the Soviets turned back on their earlier position, citing excesses carried out by Gandhi (Izvestia, March ?, 1977). Continuing their earlier position, and acting in opposition to the Soviets, China (through the New China News Agency) now further denounced Gandhi as a "fascist".

Throughout these years, an important factor in the public understanding of the Emergency was played by the Indian diaspora, many of whom had left during the Emergency years. A New York Times report in 1975 noted the bitterness among most Indians in the US (Mrs. Gandhi's Measures Spur Debate Among Indians in U.S., June 28^th). Similarly, a lot of the criticisms directed against Foot came from Indians in the UK (Indian exile attacks Foot, the Guardian, January 8^th, 1977).

Sources: Other than newspaper archives (available, behind a paywall, through ProQuest and Gale), Ramachandra Guha's India After Gandhi briefly discusses this.