Continuation of excerpts from my Delhi diary.

4 th December 1975.

The other day when i had been to the documentation centre at Indian social institute i was taken aback to learn that nearly 4 cores of Indians are living on 27 paise as income per day.I felt sick and also frustrated, at me being an educated person and though not rich but also not that poor ,is doing nothing to alleviate this.At least i am aware, whereas there are millions of educated Indians who are either not aware of all these gruesome facts or they are all shutting their eyes to such misery by consoling themselves that it is fate that ' I am rich and they are poor'!

When will this awakening come in educated elite?Finally when it does come will it be too late?That is will it be so late that their very existence may be threatened by the poverty stricken masses that would no longer bear its poverty and misery ?Will the terror of French revolution

be repeated here?

18 th January 1977.Tuesday.

At night heard on radio that we are going to have general elections to loksabha ,in March.

I said that it was a stupid move of I.G and that she ought to continue as PM with emergency and all.But dad said that congress was sure to win and that she'll return to rule for yet another 5 years. If i become the ruler of India i'll become a dictator.

26 th Jan Wednesday 1977.

We thought that my chithi -[-aunt], would take part in the coming elections but she isn't saying that she had no funds.

21 st March 1977 Monday.

It is 6 am and i am awake although i went to sleep only at midnight.Not only am i awake but also my entire family.

We were all woken up by father who had tuned in to the 6 am news the radio and broad casted in a loud and excited voice that I.G and Sanjay Ghandi have been defeated in their constituencies and that janata party was leading .

We are waiting for the 6.30 news on TV.I don't know what to write.We are all generally excited.It was shocking news to us that Indira.G had been defeated and that Janata was in the lead.Although i had predicted 2 months back when I.G announced elections that she was digging her own grave and compared her to Napolean III about whom i was studying then ,.He was popular as a dictator but lost when he became a liberal,I soon came under father's and others confident assurance that IG would win with a thumping majority as she had done so in 1970 ,in the crisis against the old congress.

Now the q on every one's lips is would Indira.g declare some thing more than emergency like martial law or would, let it be and the disunity amongst the janata party would lead to anarchy and chaos?

If latter happens i would be relieved. there would be no BA final exams ,for which i have prepared .scantily..

How selfish i am .

March 22 1977 Tuesday.

News follows news with regular bulletins that Janata party is securing massive votes in north and is way ahead of Cong.Even the Janata party leaders are surprised at this overwhelming support of the people for them.They at the most thought of forming a strong opposition to the Cong in parliament .Now they have to form the govt.

Dailies have splashed the election news from front to back page telling how democracy has such a strong foot hold in India.

On TV i no longer see IG ,for the past 2 days , instead only Jagjivan ram , Vajpayee and others.

I sit glued to the TV from 6 am to 12 pm due to the latest movies and very many lovely programmes shown on the TV to keep us all awake for the election news.

Finally the organisation that assassinated Gandhiji is to become the rulers of India. At home all are predicting that the new govt would usher in an era of communalism.

I am still in dilemma. Do i like democracy or dictatorship? But the important q is what do the masses like?I wish some one or me would evolve a nice new economic programme to revolutionise India.

I am not even studying for my final exams .most probably I'll land with a 3 rd division .Who cares?

23 rd march 1977.Wednesday.

Bhutto has won a thumping majority in Pakistan.Poor IG .Why didn't she rig the elections like her counter part in Pakistan?Once she has used absurd and unconstitutional methods to stay in power why in the hell wouldn't she do such a small thing?mad female.! Being incorruptible where she ought not to be.

The Aggarwals, our next door neighbours who are here till 11.30 pm watching the movies being shown on TV told us that IG was losing in north due to the compulsory sterilisation programme.Any male 7 --70 years of age was caught and sterilised and that villagers would abandon their homes and runaway from their village when ever a govt van turned up in the vicinity.

These excesses may be the work of govt machinery who only wanted to fulfill the specific quota and get rewards ,but the ultimate responsibility does fall on IG and SG for terrorising the common people.

South India which hasn't felt these excesses and hasn't been subject to so much brainwashing on TV and radio has returned Cong in several states.

What do i feel? Whom do i want to rule India?Nothing.No interest.I would like to rule myself.

2nd April 1977 Saturday.

Although i heard a lot about the tortures meted out in the prisons owing to the ''misa' during emergency,it never touched me.But today i read an article in blitz paper.Snehalatha a young actress of 'Samaskara' fame was severely tortured in prison because she was friendly withGeorge fernandes ,who is a minister in Janata govt now,

She was so horribly tortured that her asthma became acute which resulted in the weakening of her heart and she died of a massive heart attack within a few days of her release ,on the eve of announcement of the elections. at an age of 28 .

Blitz had published pieces of her diary. The 1 st one was on 26 th July 1976in which she had written that her asthma had increased ,but there were no doctors to attend on her and none to talk to.My thoughts switched to my life on that day. I had celebrated my 19 th birthday and was generally happy with life. OhI feel so awful!

Till today i had felt that I.G and S.G did a good thing by bringing discipline by imposing emergency,sterilisation etc. But after reading these incidents i hated her like mad.It reminded me of the tortures of Jews under German Nazi's. It is horrible that such a thing should take place in India itself.

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PS.My father a bureaucrat met Indira .g often in the discharge of his official duties.He had the greatest admiration for her as well as for Nehru.

PPS.My maternal grand father M.A Ayengar however was livid at IG's meddling in the internal democracy of his much cherished Cong party and was further greatly infuriated and incensed at the imposition of the Emergency.[he was a member of the constituent assembly]His strictures on IG were so severe even at the age of 85, then, that i cannot reproduce them in print!

PPPS.My anger at IG evaporated as soon as the effect of that article wore off.

Regarding commies i have long held them to be incorruptible .[the real one's,like my father was]

Regarding Janata party ,over a period of time i stopped viewing them as communal and started viewing them as the unapologetic spoke persons ,of brow beaten, Hindu sentiments in the only country in the world that practises the unique and ancient religon called Sanatanadharma orHinduism..