Two anecdotes are told about Dhirubhai's confident, even brazen, approach to the muttered denigration of his success that inevitably sprang up. On one occasion, a rival yarn trader allegedly spread the rumour that Dhirubhai was going bust. He was indeed short of cash, but went to a public noticeboard in the yarn market and put up a sign inviting anyone he owed money to come and have their advances repaid. No one did.
Another story is attributed to D. N. Shroff, president of the Silk and Art Silk Mills Research Association in the 1970s. Market gossip accused Dhirubhai of black marketeering. Dhirubhai asked Shroff to convene a meeting of the association's executive committee, which included many of his critics, and then turned up to face it. 'You accuse me of black marketing,' he challenged, 'but which one of you has not slept with me?' All present had bought or sold yarn to Dhirubhai at some stage.
In March 1977, however, Indira and Congress were swept from power in the elections called after her two years' rule under Emergency powers was lifted. But her government gave Dhirubhai a parting gift. Over the 1976-77 fiscal year (April-March) Dhirubhai had accumulated REP licences both from its own exports and from purchases in the market, worth some Rs 30 million. On 7 February, about three weeks after the elections were announced, the government was persuaded to exempt all polyester yarn imports under REP licences issued since April 1976 from customs duty, which was then 125 per cent. It was a gift of Rs 37.5 million to Dhirubhai.
Indira's replacement was the Janata [People's] Government, a coalition of anti-Congress parties under Morarji Desai, the austere and self-righteous former finance minister Indira had driven from Congress because he had opposed her nationalisation policies in the late 1960s.
But, at least to begin with, Dhirubhai fared well under Janata, helped by the good offices of the prime minister's son, Kantilal Desai. On 22 August 1977, the janata minister for commerce, Mohan Dharia, abruptly cancelled the High Unit Value Scheme, and allowed any REP licence holder-not just exporters of nylon fabric-to import a specific quantity of