The Politics of Bobby

Another gem from Guha:

“The elections [of 1977] had been scheduled for the third week of March. The opposition campaign [against Indira Gandhi] kicked off with a mass rally at the Ramlila Grounds in New Delhi on Sunday, 6 March. In a desperate measure to reduce the size of the crowd, the government chose to show a popular romantic film, Bobby, on television at the same time as the rally was being held. In 1977 there was only one television channel, run by the state, and in normal circumstances half of Delhi’s adult population would have been huddled around the screen. But, as one pro-Janata paper gleefully reported, on this day Babuji won over Bobby. A million people heard JP and Jagjivan Ram [“Babuji”] speak, along with the leaders of the other opposition parties, all now pledged to a common fight against Indira Gandhi and the Congress.”