Modi is making the mistakes Indira made in 1975-77 - of upsetting everyone

Narendra Modi has handed over power to mobs and bureaucrats, so everyone is feeling unsafe; you don't know who might beat you up, who might send you a tax notice, which policeman might harass you

Back in 1980, just before she sent the home secretary home without a posting, Indira Gandhi asked him his view of her 1977 defeat. He had been the home secretary in the Janata government.

They had got along well before. He had first been a joint secretary and then an additional secretary in the home ministry during 1967-75. She used to consult him frequently on political matters.

He was as frank with her in January 28, 1980, as he had been at a meeting at her house on June 28, 1975, two days after the Emergency had been declared. That