>> guest: indira gandhi strikes me as a tragic figure because, yes, she is the descendant of one of the great dynasties of the end -- indian independenceno movement. her father was at the heart of the independence movement. she was a flawed figure. was very able in many ways, very brilliant woman in manyan ways, but the only time in the 63 years of indian independent history that there's been an attempt to is suspend democracy was when she was prime minister. she had been found guilty ofbeen electoral malpractice. she had been asked to step down, and instead she declared what was called emergency rule. there was this period known as the emergency in the mid '730ss when she -- '70s when she suspended democracy, arrested people, jailed political o opponents, and there were various puces, forced sterile sterilizations, things like that. so there was a period for people like me who, as i was saying earlier, admire india for itsy f project of democracy and for it support of that project. those years, those authoritariae years were a terrible shock, ann they play an important part in the stor

. >> reporter: bose, one of india's leading demographers, says the government of indira gandhi launched family planning programs in the 1970s that were widely perceived as coercive, leading to the government's defeat at the ballot box. it was a huge setback to any concerted government family planning program. and yet, even as the growing population makes life harder and harder, bose says the problem is rarely tackled head on. >> they concede that there are too many people and that everywhere you go, there is a long queue. if you go for a free health, for example, if you have an emergency, they say, you come after three days because there are so many people in line. >> reporter: come after three days in an emergency? >> yes! so then he has to go to a private doctor, shell out money, borrow money from a friend and go to a private doctor. so they realize but then they say government should have done enough for us by developing good hospitals for the poor. they blame the government for slow development. >> reporter: and he says india's only option is development. improving people's economic

and it was more in sorrow than anger, really, because in many ways indira gandhi was a remarkable woman. but a remarkable woman with this flaw. and then, of course, was tragically murdered, and that was something i wrote about too. i said, it doesn't matter how one might have opposed her politically in the past, but that murder was a catastrophe for india and a calamity, and one we should mourn it, and i did. >> host: we have about 40 minutes left with our "in depth" guest, salman rushdie. 202 is the area code, 737-000 is in the east and central time zones, 737-0002 mountain and pacific time zones. you can send an e-mail, booktv@cspan.org, or a tweet. twitter.com/booktv. justin in travers city, michigan. good afternoon. >> caller: hello. honored to speak with you, mr. rushdie. and, peter, the interview with michio kaku was excellent. i watched it about three times, and that leads me into a question for sal man. when you listen to mitch cho or, you know, read about physics, what are your inner thoughts about how you would apply your somewhat mystical mind to, you know, philosophy and the