Emergency
During the emergency, he worked closely with Jayaprakash Narayan, providing leadership to the NGOs Citizens for Democracy and People's Union for Civil Liberties, of which he was the founding president. He also worked on the Citizen's Justice Committee and played a principal part in resisting and investigating the excesses of the period, including the 1984 Anti-Sikh riots, and human rights violations in the Punjab, Kashmir, and the North-East. His refusal to consider kashmiri pandits who had fled valley in 1990 as human right victims caused much controversy and led to his dubbing as " Terrorists' defender in chief" as he regularly attacked Indian army for fake encounters and extra judicial killings.In 1995, he departed from his earlier stand of considering firing by police as human rights violation and defended UP government in Muzaffarnagar police firing and rape on Uttarakhand state demand activists on 2 October 1994 in Supreme Court.His volte face was noted by honourable bench with humour and he won the case with court ruling that there was not adequate evidence of wilful human rights violation by State government.But it led to his breaking ranks with radical humanists.
Tarkunde was a Board Member for the International Humanist and Ethical Union(IHEU), the world union of Humanist organizations for over 40 years.
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