India Since Independence

XI

The Janata Party

A mixed sense of relief and apprehension marked the Indian political scene in early 1977 when the … Congress rule was broken by a stunning electoral verdict. It was a unity of resentment, obviously stronger in intensity and wider in extension in Northern India, which transformed disparate opposition parties into a working coalition eager to offer an alternative to the Emergency regime of the preceding two years.

—Jyotirendra Das Gupta, The Janata Phase: Reorganisation and Redirection in Indian Politics, Asian Survey, Volume 19, No. 4, April 1979

Late in the night on 20 March 1977, listeners to the All India Radio (AIR) were in for a surprise. The television had not arrived across the country then. They got to hear Kishore ...