1977 PEOPLE’S VICTORY

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With international criticism of the Emergency mounting and its author, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi under increasing pressure, she advised the President to dissolve the Lok Sabha and order fresh elections. The resulting poll in 1977 saw her Congress party badly mauled and the country got its first non-Congress government in 30 years, led by Morarji Desai of the Janata Party. Mrs Gandhi lost her own seat in her stronghold of Rai Bareily and the Congress strength in the Lok Sabha shrunk from 350 to 153. The party failed to win a single seat in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Punjab, Haryana and Delhi. The new government set up the Shah Commission to probe into Emergency excesses, indicting many senior Congress leaders.

FIRST CUT

• Meher Moos became the first woman to reach Antarctica.
• Michael Ferreira became the first Indian to win both the World Amateur and the Open Billiards Championship held in Melbourne.
• Saudi Arabia extended its first ever loan to India. The loan, meant for two power projects, totaled Rs 10 crore.

SOUTHERN RUIN

A cyclone in Andhra Pradesh killed over 35,000 people and two to three lakh animals. Lakhs were left homeless.

DRAMA OF DECADENCE

Satyajit Ray’s first step into Hindi films, Shatranj Ke Khiladi, with its star cast of Sanjeev Kumar, Saeed Jaffrey, Amjad Khan and Shabana Azmi, was also one of his most expensive. Based on a story by Premchand that revolves around two chess players, and set in 19^th-century aristocratic Lucknow, it mocked the apathy of the upper class.

Two hundred and fifty “notorious smugglers” like Yusuf Patel, Haji Mastan and Sukarnarain Bakhia took a pledge before Jayaprakash Narayan in Bombay to renounce smuggling.

BREAKAWAY BABU Jagjivan Ram

It is said that when Babu Jagjivan Ram campaigning in the Ram Lila Grounds in Delhi for the 1977 elections, Doordarshan was showing the hit film Bobby, in spite of which his address drew huge crowds, eliciting the headline “Babu beats Bobby” from the newspapers. Ram and five other Cabinet ministers deserted the Congress to form the Congress for Democracy, launching an attack on the ruling party—though he had moved the resolution in the Lok Sabha endorsing the Emergency. He became deputy prime minister in the new Janata Party government.

“AS A NEWCOMER TO THE UN, I FEEL A SPECIAL SENSE OF EXHILARATION.”

ATAL BIHARI VAJPAYEE at the UN General Assembly

As minister of external affairs, Atal Bihari Vajpayee addressed the United Nations General Assembly in Hindi. This was the first-ever United Nations address in the language.

ELSEWHERE…

• In Pakistan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was overthrown in a coup by General Zia ul-Haq. Martial law was imposed.
• The Vietnam-Cambodia border conflict escalated and Cambodia accused Vietnam of aggression, even as it was criticized for the gruesome. Khmer Rouge atrocities (above).
• Rock and roll king Elvis Presley died of a heart attack in Memphis.
• The tomb of King Philip II, Alexander the Great’s father, was discovered in Greece.

893 cars could be accommodated in the world’s largest open-air theatre opened in Bombay.

112 million horse-powers was needed to cultivate 140 million hectares, but only 37 million was available

Courtesy By India Today