Early in 1977, I attended a mammoth meeting at the Ram Lila
(ground) in Delhi celebrating the end of the Emergency. Jagjivan Ram had joined the opposition. Jayaprakash Narayan, Acharya Kripalani and the Imam of Jama Masjid were present. Amid lusty cheers, Jagjivan Ram hailed Indian democracy, wherein a princess was equal to a sweeper woman. Sick of authoritarianism, the public voted the Indira Gandhi regime out of power.
Three years later, I spoke to a tea vendor in Patna, eking out a living on the roadside. I asked whom he was voting for. He replied, “
Indira
(I will vote for Indira Gandhi).” When I reminded him about the Emergency, he said Morarji Desai and the Janata Party had been given power for five years but had disintegrated in three. “
(They just ran away from it all),” was his colourful description. What was the point of asking such people to govern again?