It is said that the highs (and the lows) are especially pronounced for teenagers because of the extreme nature of their hormonal swings. This is why teenaged experiences are often recalled with great joy. That first orgasm; the first time a favourite team won; college parties; life was never so good again.
Sadly, the 1970s were such a grey period that even teenagers don’t remember those years with much joy. The economy stagnated. We were told that a “foreign hand” was trying to destroy India. Income tax rates were hiked to 97 per cent. The import of gold was forbidden (in fact, all imports were forbidden). Indians travelling abroad were allowed to take out only $50 per year.
It took about a year to get a passport. Everything was manufactured on licence (accompanied by loud cries of Swadeshi). There was a waiting list of six months for a Bajaj scooter and two years for a telephone connection. There were daily raids by excise men on factories. Customs officers confiscated what they pleased at airports. Nobody wore decent clothes, or painted their houses for fear that the income tax inspector might come calling.
Gold smuggling became the profession of choice for the aspirational. On screen, Amitabh Bachchan alternated between playing incorruptible Inspector Vijay (who married gharelu Jaya Bhaduri) and the flashy smuggler (who hung out with slinky Parveen Babi).
There were multiple insurgencies, across the Northeast, in Bengal, in Andhra Pradesh and in Bihar.
Dacoits turned Madhya Pradesh (including what is now the state of Chhattisgarh) into a minefield where the largest industry was kidnapping for ransom. A firebrand Sikh preacher started lobbying for larger quotas for Sikhs in the Indian army, while also advocating secession from India at the same time! Many smart businessmen (and women as well) turned themselves into spiritual leaders and amassed huge fortunes.
Everyone queued for everything. We queued for rations at the ration shop. We queued for tickets at railway counters. Nobody could afford to travel by plane except in the Northeast where fares were subsidised. Northeasterners queued up for those flights. We queued at banks to deposit our cash. We queued to withdraw our money.
We were told all this queuing would, in some mysterious fashion, strengthen the nation. We were told only anti-nationals questioned the government’s methods and policies. The prime minister personified the nation and the nation was personified by the prime minister.
Some of those who did complain were jailed. Others were “shot while trying to escape”, or “after they had escaped”. The chief minister of West Bengal was hailed as a magician because he had a remarkable facility for making bodies disappear.
Well, the regime changed and the prime minister ceased to personify the nation. The new PM drank his own urine and ate only nuts and dried fruit. But he drank from the same well, in metaphorical terms, when it came to policy.
In 1978, he demonetised several currency notes, including the Rs 1,000, the Rs 5,000 and the Rs 10,000 ones.
At that time, a Supreme Court judge was paid about Rs 3,500. There was an upper limit of Rs 10,000 on the salary of a private sector CEO. (They used to get lavish cash allowances). Very few people had ever seen one of those notes.
Adjusting for inflation, the Rs 1,000 note of 1978 bought the equivalent of Rs 12,330 in 2016. If you do the math, a Rs 500 note buys a little less than what Rs 50 did in 1978. But the ban is all to the good. It has inculcated the useful habit of queuing in a generation that had almost forgotten about that character-building habit. It has also put some josh back into the “inspector raj”. It will, in some mysterious fashion, make the nation strong again. And, it allows elderly uncles like me to wallow in nostalgia, as we stand in queues hoping to withdraw our own cash from the bank.
Twitter: @devangshudatta
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