In the story, the main character, at one point, falls in with a bunch of traveling street performers and magicians, all of whom are figures in the Indian communist movement. Later, during the Emergency declared by prime minister Indira Ghandi after she lost an election, a campaign to eliminate blight is started, and bulldozers are sent to level the shanty town in the street that the magicians have erected. When the magicians resist, soldiers are sent in, armed with AK-47's from Indira Ghandi's pact with the Soviet Union. Thus, Socialist rifles, Communist wizards. It all makes sense, you see?
