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| 1979, July 19 |
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| Morarji Desai resigned as the Janata leader, on the eve of a no-confidence motion. | 1 |
| Pres. Reddy, unable to pull a majority coalition government together, instead dissolved Parliament and called for a new general election in Jan. 1980. | 2 |
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| 1979–80 |
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| Unrest spread across northeastern India's seven tribal states—Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, and Tripura. Starting as nonviolent responses to the mounting influx of Bengali immigrants from Bangladesh, these protests became increasingly violent, popular, and ideological. | 3 |
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| 1980s |
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| Economic policies had made it possible for the government to rely on the political support of urban populations and the rural rich. Policy emphasis on regressive indirect taxation, and refusal to levy progressive direct taxation, had encouraged the redistribution of income in favor of the rich peasants in the countryside and relatively privileged urban populations. | 4 |
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| 1980, Jan |
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| Elections to the Lok Sabha brought Indira Gandhi back to the political center. Indira's son Sanjay Gandhi entered the Lok Sabha. (Much of his political clout came from his leadership in Shiv Sena, a conservative Hindu youth organization.) | 5 |
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| June |
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| Sanjay Gandhi was killed in a plane crash. | 6 |
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