Cultural notes

1. The thief’s widow. Creating this character Salman Rushdie had in mind a very controversial figure of Indira Ghandi. The daughter of the first Prime Minister of independent India Jawarharalal Nehru, she was Prime Minister for 3 consecutive terms, and after a three-year break became Prime Minister again. Rushdie’s attitude towards her was utterly negative, whish is explicitly described in his novel ‘Midnight’s Children’ which won the Booker Prize in 1981. This novel deals with India's transition from British colonialism to independence and the partition of India. Indira Ghandi was an outstanding political figure which inevitably brought a lot of criticism from her political opponents home and abroad. For example, American President Richard Nixon called her ‘an old witch’ not being able to make her back off from war with Pakistan. After uprising of opposition in 1975 was suppressed Gandhi moved to restore order by the arrest of most of the opposition participating in the unrest. Her Cabinet and government then recommended that President declare a state of emergency. During the time of the Emergency (1975-1977) the basic rights and freedoms were taken away from the people. Gandhi also publicly initiated a widespread family planning programme to limit population growth. But this resulted in government officials and police officers forcibly performing vasectomies in order to meet quotas and in some cases, sterilizing women as well. Officially, men with two children or more had to submit to sterilisation, but many unmarried young men, political opponents and ignorant, poor men were also sterilised. This programme is sometimes blamed for creating a public aversion to family planning. Ramani who did this voluntarily showed that the lower caste society would do anything for a little money or satisfaction. This proves that Indira Gandhi was trying to destroy the lower caste society since they weren't of much use. To emphasize this point in ‘Midnight’s Children’ Rushdie makes his protagonist victim of Indira Gandhi-proclaimed Emergency and her son Sanjay's "cleansing" of the Jama Masjid slum. In the attempt to cleanse Delhi of slums and force their residents to leave the capital city, officials of Delhi Development Authority destroyed the heavily populated, mostly Muslim slum. This forced resettlement of more than 250,000 people, killed at least a dozen people, and became a touchstone for the opposition. Gandhi's Emergency rule lasted 21 months, and its legacy remains intensely controversial. On 26 June 1975, a the day after emergency was imposed, the Bombay edition of The Times of India in its obituary column carried an entry that read "D.E.M O'Cracy beloved husband of T.Ruth, father of L.I.Bertie, brother of Faith, Hope and Justica expired on 26 June"

2. Compulsory sterilisation, also known as forced sterilisation, programmes are government policies which attempt to force people to undergo surgical sterilization. Widespread or systematic forced sterilization has been recognized as a crime against humanity.

3. I will become a bigger film star than Shashi Kapoor or Amitabh Bachchan even Shashi Kapoor or Amitabh Bachchan. This refers to two major Bollywood stars. (left and right respectively)

4. Widow-burning. Sati - was a social funeral practice among some Indian communities in which a recently widowed woman would immolate herself (самосожжение) on her husband’s funeral pyre (погребальный костёр).

5. Ashram - a secluded building, often the residence of a guru, used for religious retreat or instruction in Hinduism. (приют, убежище, монастырь)

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