Abstract: Indian national consciousness, ever since the freedom struggle of the early 20th century, has been defined partly by the principles of democracy and the idea of tolerance. However, the Indian colonial past and the neo-colonial era under the emergency of the 1970s have been instances of de-democratization of the nation and governance. Subsequently, cultural texts, both in Indian English and regional languages, were produced as challenges to anti-democratic discourse and as vehicles for re-democratization and healthy national consciousness. In these texts, both the literary devices and Indian English are seen deployed to challenge the anti-democratic and totalitarian discourse of the national politics of the Emergency era. Ranjit Lal’s The Crow Chronicles is a text that negotiates the national consciousness by using animal allegory and satirical anthropomorphism. This paper tries to explain how Lal rallies public awareness towards the anti-democratic and anti-Indian measures which were implemented in the Emergency era. Also, within the scope of this paper is the analysis of Lal’s plea for freedom of expression and free media as the evident traces of a literary tolerant national consciousness. Keywords – national consciousness, democracy, de-democratization, national discourse.