Since coming to power in 2014, Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India, has assiduously centralized and personalized power. His critics often refer to his term in office as an “undeclared emergency.”

The phrase evokes comparison with the period between June 1975 and March 1977 when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi suspended constitutional rights and imposed her authoritarian will on the polity after claiming that India needed the “shock treatment” to combat its enemies. That dark period, which saw Mrs. Gandhi assume extraordinary powers, jail opposition leaders and silence the press, is known in India as the Emergency.

Mr. Modi has ruled India with the iron will reminiscent of Mrs. Gandhi. He brooks no dissent and projects the personality cult of a strong Hindu nationalist warrior combating the nation’s internal and external enemies with “surgical strikes.” His supporters vociferously endorse this cult and throng his campaign events wearing Modi masks. The results of the continuing Indian elections on May 23 will reveal whether India will endorse Mr. Modi or spurn him as they did Mrs. Gandhi in the 1977 elections after the Emergency.

Mrs. Gandhi was the last leader who even remotely achieved the popularity and authority in Indian politics presently enjoyed by Mr. Modi. She came to power two years after the death of her father, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, who led India from its independence in 1947 until his death in 1964. As Mr. Nehru’s only child and confidante during his 17 years in office, Mrs. Gandhi came to know leaders and intellectuals around the world. Unlike Mr. Modi, she was secular, cosmopolitan, spoke several languages and took a keen interest in the arts.