India After Independence: 1947-2000 (39 page)

In South India, class and caste structure or configuration was different from that in the North and the large presence of Communists kept the rural landowners tied to Congress. Moreover, alternative rich peasant parties were non-existent. In Bihar, U.P. and Punjab, on the other hand, alternative parties in the form of SSP, BKD, and Akali Dal were available to act as vehicles of rich peasant interests.

In reality, Congress was nowhere anti-rich peasant but it was so perceived in North India because of its radical rhetoric. It is also true that Congress, could not agree to fully satisfy rich peasant demands without alienating the rural poor or endangering the path of economic development and industrialization it had adopted.

The rich peasants also had the advantage of carrying with them large segments of the middle and even small peasants. They shared a common ideology of peasant proprietorship and common aspirations to own and control land. To some extent, they shared common interests in terms of the prices of agricultural products and relationship with agricultural labourers. They also belonged to the same intermediate or backward castes. The rich peasants also increasingly controlled rural vote-banks and therefore the vote of the marginal farmers and agricultural labourers, having gradually displaced feudal and semi-feudal landlords from that role. They also had the necessary muscle power to prevent the agricultural labourers, the large number of them being Dalits (Scheduled Castes), from going to the polling booths.

The 1967 elections heralded the era of the greater importance of rich and middle peasants in Indian politics, their hegemony over the rural social, economic and political scene, and their dislike of Congress and Communists which persists till this day. Only a coalition of small peasants and agricultural labourers could challenge this hegemony. And this is what Indira Gandhi tried to accomplish electorally in 1971 without attacking the interests of the rich peasantry.

The 1967 elections also initiated the dual era of short-lived coalition governments and politics of defection. Though the elections broke Congress’s monopoly of power in the states, Congress was replaced not by a single party in any of the states but by a multiplicity of parties and groups and independents. Coalition governments were formed in all opposition-ruled states except in Tamil Nadu. In Punjab, Bihar and U.P., opposition governments included Swatantra, Jan Sangh, BKD, Socialists and CPI. Though CPM did not join these governments, it, too, actively supported them. Thus, these governments were ideologically heterogeneous; and the left-right or secular-communal divides were almost completely bridged in them.

Congress too formed coalition governments in some of the states where it had been reduced to a minority, allying with independents and breakaway groups from the opposition parties.

Except the DMK government in Tamil Nadu and the Swatantra-led government in Orissa, the coalition governments in all the other states, whether formed by Congress or the opposition, proved to be highly unstable and could not stay in power for long. All the coalition governments suffered from constant tensions and internal strains because of the heterogeneity of the partners. Most often, except in West Bengal and Kerala, the continuous bargaining among the partners was not on policies but on ministerial berths, patronage, and interest groups. This also led to bloated cabinets. These governments would get formed, break up as a result of changing loyalties of MLAs and then get re-formed again.
Parties, including Congress, would topple existing governments, change partners and form new governments. In between governments, a state would sometimes undergo a period of President’s Rule or even mid-term polls, which seldom changed the pattern of seats in the assembly. Thus, from the 1967 general elections to the end of 1970, Bihar had seven governments, U.P. four, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and West Bengal three each and Kerala two governmental changes, with a total of eight spells of President’s Rule in the seven states. In the toppling and fresh government formation game, small parties and independents came to play an important role.

The other important feature of the coalition governments of the period was the beginning of the politics of defection. Many of the governmental changes in the northern states were the result of defections or floor crossings by individual legislators, both party members and independents. Corrupt legislators indulged in horse-trading and freely changed sides, attracted mainly by lure of office or money. In Haryana, where the defection phenomenon was first initiated, defecting legislators began to be called
Aya Ram
and
Gaya Ram
(in-coming Ram and out-going Ram). Consequently, except in the case of the two Communist parties and Jan Sangh, party discipline tended to break down. Between 1967 and 1970 nearly 800 assembly members crossed the floor, and nearly 155 of them were rewarded with ministerial offices.

The problem of defections was to become long term and perpetual because defectors, who changed sides and toppled governments for purely personal and often corrupt reasons, were seldom punished by the voters and were elected again and again. It was only with the passage of the anti-defection law by the Rajiv Gandhi government in 1986 that a check was placed on the defection phenomenon.

Interestingly, throughout this rise and fall of many state governments, the central government remained stable despite the small majority enjoyed by the ruling party. Nor did defections take place at the Centre despite the absence of an anti-defection law. Similarly, despite at one time nearly half the states being ruled by the Opposition, the federal system continued to function more or less as before. Also, even in the states the instability of governments did not lead to the breakdown of administration.

Anti-Congressism gained ground with these elections both among the opposition parties and a large section of the intelligentsia. Anti-Congressism as a political phenomenon is, of course, to be distinguished from opposition to Congress, which was based on differences in ideology, policies or programme. On the other hand, anti-Congressism represented ‘a weariness with Congress and a hankering after almost anything else.’
⁷
The anti-Congress intellectuals and the Socialists were willing to back any party from CPM to BKD to Jan Sangh in order to weaken Congress. CPM and CPI also increasingly adopted such a position. The high-priest of anti-Congressism was Rammanohar Lohia who, in the words of the political scientist Rajni Kothari, devoted himself ‘to the mission of destroying the Congress monopoly of power by uniting all anti-Congress forces in the
country.’
⁸
Lohia did succeed in polarizing the polity in 1967 along Congress versus anti-Congress lines but the results were not, and have not been, either positive or enduring.

Anti-Congressism also ignored the fact that most opposition parties were closer to some wing or the other of Congress than to another opposition party. The Communists and Socialists were, for example, closer to the Congress left and Swatantra to the Congress right, while Jan Sangh was, because of its communal ideology, opposed both to Congress and other secular parties in the Opposition.

The serious Congress reverses led many commentators to predict that it was the beginning of the end of Congress domination of Indian politics. But, in fact, this was not so. Congress was still not only the largest party in the country with a majority in the parliament but also the only nation-wide party with a nation-wide organization and following. Also, there was no cohesive Opposition, and the opposition parties had failed to keep power in the states where Congress had become a minority. At the same time, there is no doubt that Congress would now have to look for fresh political ways of attracting people, who had had enough of promises and wanted concrete results. It could no longer get support on the basis of its role in the freedom struggle or its achievements during the Nehru era; it would have to renew itself.

The 1967 elections drastically changed the balance of power inside Congress. Its dominant leadership in the form of the Syndicate received a major blow as several Syndicate stalwarts, including Kamaraj (its President), Atulya Ghosh (West Bengal) and S.K. Patil (Bombay), bit the dust. Most of the loyal followers of the Syndicate failed to get elected to the parliament and the state assemblies, leaving them in no position to control the process of government-formation at the Centre as they had done in 1964 and 1966.

Paradoxically, despite the shock to Congress, Indira Gandhi’s position in the party and the government was not weakened. On the contrary, it further strengthened as Kamaraj and the Syndicate, having been cut down to size, were no longer in a position to challenge her. Moreover, though not yet a popular or towering leader like Jawaharlal Nehru, she had been the star and the only all-India campaigner and vote-catcher for Congress.

Indira Gandhi’s independent and strong position in the party was demonstrated by her unchallenged leadership of the Congress parliamentary party and her relative independence in the formation of her Cabinet and distribution of portfolios. The only challenge to her, that from Morarji Desai, soon petered out as he shied away from a contest and, instead, bargained for a position in the cabinet as deputy prime minister. Given the party’s fragile majority in the parliament, Indira Gandhi agreed to Desai’s demand. The designation of deputy prime minister was, however, a mere formality—it gave status but no special powers in the Cabinet except those of his position as the finance minister.

The years 1967-1969 proved to be a mere transitional stage or interregnum. The government marked time as Congress moved towards a
split in 1969, which marked a new stage in Indian political development. There was, however, a major development on the left to which we will briefly turn below.

The CPM had originally split from the united CPI in 1964 on grounds of differences over revolutionary politics (often equated with armed struggle) and reformist parliamentary politics. In practice, however, heeding the existing political realities, the CPM participated actively in parliamentary politics, postponing armed struggle to the day when a revolutionary situation prevailed in the country. Consequently, it participated in the 1967 elections and formed a coalition government in West Bengal with the Bangla Congress, with Jyoti Basu, the CPM leader, becoming the home minister. This led to a schism in the party.

A section of the party, consisting largely of its younger cadres and inspired by the Cultural Revolution then going on in China, accused the party leadership of falling prey to reformism and parliamentarianism and, therefore, of betraying the revolution. They argued that the party must instead immediately initiate armed peasant insurrections in rural areas, leading to the formation of liberated areas and the gradual extension of the armed struggle to the entire country. To implement their political line, the rebel CPM leaders launched a peasant uprising in the small Naxalbari area of northern West Bengal. The CPM leadership immediately expelled the rebel leaders, accusing them of left-wing adventurism, and used the party organization and government machinery to suppress the Naxalbari insurrection. The breakaway CPM Jeaders came to be known as Naxalites and were soon joined by other similar groups from CPM in the rest of the country. The Naxalite movement drew many young people, especially college and university students, who were dissatisfied with existing politics and angry at the prevailing social condition and were attracted by radical Naxalite slogans.

In 1969, the Conununist Party Marxist-Leninist (ML) was formed under the leadership of Charu Majumdar. Similar parties and groups were formed in Andhra, Orissa, Bihar, U.P., Punjab and Kerala. The CP(ML) and other Naxalite groups argued that democracy in India was a sham, the Indian state was fascist, agrarian relations in India were still basically feudal, the Indian big bourgeoisie was comprador, India was politically and economically dominated by U.S., British and Soviet imperialisms, Indian polity and economy were still colonial, the Indian revolution was still in its anti-imperialist, anti-feudal stage, and protracted guerrilla warfare on the Chinese model was the form revolution would take in India. The Naxalite groups got political and ideological support from the Chinese government which, however, frowned upon the CP(ML) slogan of ‘China’s Chairman (Mao Ze-Dong) is our Chairman.’

CP(ML) and other Naxalite groups succeeded in organizing armed
peasant bands in some rural areas and in attacking policemen and rival communists as agents of the ruling classes. The government, however, succeeded in suppressing them and limiting their influence to a few pockets in the country. Not able to face state repression, the Naxalites soon split into several splinter groups and factions. But the real reason for their failure lay in their inability to root their radicalism in Indian reality, to grasp the character of Indian society and polity as also the evolving agrarian structure and to widen their social base among the peasants and radical middle class youth. The disavowal of the Cultural Revolution and Maoism of the sixties and early seventies by the post-Mao Chinese leadership in the late seventies contributed further to the collapse of the Naxalite movement as a significant trend in Indian politics.

Congress split in 1969. The event was the outcome of a multiplicity of factors. We have already discussed in the previous chapter the decay of the Congress party which was reflected in the electoral debacle of 1967. Discerning Congressmen realized that substantial steps had to be taken to reverse the process and rejuvenate the party and the government and that mere manipulation would not work. This also became evident when Congress fared quite badly in the mid-term elections in four states in February 1969. The split of 1969 was in part an answer to people’s thinking of what should be done in these circumstances.

The deterioration in the socio-economic situation, discussed in the previous chapter, continued. The rate of economic growth had been slowing down since 1962 and planning was in a crisis. Domestic savings and the rate of investment were stagnating or even falling. US aid had shrunk in 1968 to half of what it was in 1964-65. Corruption, the black economy and black money had grown by leaps and bounds. Consequently, there was widespread unrest in the countryside and growth of discontent in the urban areas among the lower-middle classes, students and the working class. Moreover, there was a growing tendency among the discontented to take recourse to extra-constitutional and even violent means as exemplified by the growth of the Naxalite movements in different parts of the country. The emergence of a new form of industrial action called gherao under which workers’ besieged the factory managers in their offices for hours or even days till their demands were met was another such example. The gherao tactic spread later to other spheres of life such as educational institutions.

The political tension inside Congress over the unsettled question of relations between its ministerial and organization wings, referred to in the last chapter, became more pronounced. Though Indira Gandhi had acquired a certain control over the government after the blow suffered by the Syndicate in 1967 elections, she had hardly any organizational base in the party. Moreover, after the re-election of Kamaraj and S.K. Patil to the parliament in by-elections, the Syndicate members, joined by Morarji Desai, their old foe, once again asserted that the party and its Working
Committee should formulate policies and the government should be accountable to the party organs for their implementation. They would also not let Indira Gandhi ‘meddle’ in party affairs. On Kamaraj’s retirement as party president at the end of 1967, they foiled Indira Gandhi’s attempt to have a friendly person elected to succeed him. Instead, the post went to the conservative Nijalingappa, an original member of the Syndicate. Indira Gandhi was also not able to have some of her people elected to the new Working Committee.

During 1968-69, the Syndicate members, following the logic of their approach, began to actively plot to dislodge Indira Gandhi from the office of the prime minister. On 12 March 1969, Nijalingappa wrote in his diary: ‘I am not sure if she (Mrs Gandhi) deserves to continue as P.M. Possibly soon there may be a show down.’ And on 25 April he wrote that Desai ‘discussed the necessity of the P.M. being removed.’
¹

Indira Gandhi’s response to the Syndicate’s assertion was quite cautious and calculated. She did not want to jeopardize the unity of the party and the existence of her government by precipitating a conflict with the organizational wing, especially as the party enjoyed only a small majority in the Lok Sabha. She also realized that she had hardly any organizational base in the party. Thereupon, she tried hard to avoid an open conflict and a split and to accommodate the Syndicate and Desai in both cabinet-making and policies. But she would not compromise in regard to the supreme position and powers of the prime minister or of the government over its policies and administration. The government, she said, derived its authority from the parliament and the people through elections and not from the party organization. Therefore, when faced with a direct challenge to her position, she took the plunge and fought back with unexpected strength and ruthlessness. She, too, decided to acquire a preponderant position in the party.

The inner-party struggle in Congress also acquired an ideological complexion. Very soon after the 1967 elections, two interlinked questions became significant. Firstly, how were the growing popular protests and the accompanying violence to be handled? Secondly, how was the party to reverse its decline and recover its popular appeal? The party was soon divided on broadly right-left lines in addressing these questions, as also regarding the future orientation of its economic and political policies.

Though Congress had always been ideologically heterogeneous, accommodating diverse ideological strands and sectional interests, it had always leaned towards a vague radicalism, nurturing a left-of-centre image. The initial response of most Congressmen to the rubbing their party had received in 1967 elections was to tilt to the left. Thus, in May 1967, the Congress Working Committee adopted a radical Ten-Point Programme which included social control of banks, nationalization of general insurance, state trading in import and export trade, ceilings on urban property and income, curb on business monopolies and concentration of economic power, public distribution of foodgrains, rapid implementation of land reforms, provision of house-sites to the rural poor, and abolition of princely privileges.

But the Congress right, though always there but earlier subdued by Nehru, now grew more assertive and was willing to openly advocate more right-wing policies. Represented by Morarji Desai and Nijalingappa, the new Congress president, and other members of the Syndicate, excluding Kamaraj, it had only formally accepted the Ten-Point Programme and was determined to stall its implementation. The right wing instead advocated, (a) in the economic field, further dilution of planning, lesser emphasis on public sector, and greater encouragement to and reliance on private enterprise and foreign capital, (b) in foreign policy, strengthening of political and economic relations with the West in general and the United States in particular and (c) in the political field, suppression of the left and protest movements, especially those of the rural poor in order to get back the support of rich peasants and large landowners.

The Congress left, on the other hand, argued for a new political and economic strategy that would go back to and further develop Nehru’s socialistic agenda and further deepen the political process. It wanted that Congress should immediately implement the Ten-Point Programme and enhance its appeal to the urban and rural poor and the disadvantaged social groups such as Harijans, tribals, minorities and women on the basis of a programme of radical reforms. The Congress should neutralize working-class militancy via economic concessions rather than through administrative suppression. In general, it wished Congress should once again become the vehicle for social change and economic development. Vigorous planning and rapid industrialization, and reduced dependence on foreign collaboration should be resumed. The left put emphasis on the reconstruction of the party on the basis of democratic functioning and its reactivation at the grassroots to put an end to bossism. In foreign policy, the left advocated closer relations with the Soviet bloc and Yugoslavia, Egypt and other nonaligned countries.

As conflict between the right and the left developed within the Congress party, the right also advocated greater party discipline and reigning in of the Young Turks and other leftists. The left, on the other hand, openly attacked Morarji Desai as the representative of big business and pressed for the full nationalization of banks, abolition of the privy purses of the ex-rulers, and a complete ban on company donations to political parties.

Interestingly, as the struggle between the Congress right and left intensified, both started relying on the outside support of the opposition parties closer to them ideologically. In the words of Zareer Masani, ‘the “Young Turks” . . . favoured cooperation with the Communists and other Left parties, the Syndicate leaned towards an understanding with the Right-wing Swatantra and Jan Sangh. Both sides saw “like-minded” Opposition parties as potential allies in a coalition government at the Centre in the event of the Congress splitting.’
²

Initially, with a view to avoid organizational and ideological polarization and a split in the party, Indira Gandhi adopted a cautious, non-partisan attitude in the heated debate between the right and the left in the party.
But being quite sensitive both to people’s needs and to their moods, she became convinced that the party as well as the country could flourish only under left-of-centre radical programmes and policies. Gradually, over time, she began, hesitatingly and cautiously, to opt for the left’s approach and economic policies.

It was the death of President Zakir Husain in May 1969 that precipitated the events leading to the long-awaited split in Congress. While the President’s position in the Indian Constitution is that of a formal head of the state, in case of a hung parliament, where no party enjoyed a majority, he could play a decisive political role by inviting one of the contenders for the prime minister’s office. The Syndicate was therefore determined to have their own man occupy the President’s office. In the party conclave at Bangalore from 11 to 13 July, the Syndicate, enjoying a majority in the Congress parliamentary board, and despite Indira Gandhi’s opposition, nominated Sanjiva Reddy, a prominent member of the Syndicate, as the Congress candidate for presidentship.

Feeling driven to the wall and aware of the Syndicate’s ultimate design to oust her from office by using Sanjiva Reddy’s presidency, Indira Gandhi decided to fight with no holds barred, risk all, and carry the battle to the opponents’ camp with radical ideology as her main weapon. Within days of the Bangalore meeting, on 18 July, she took away the Finance portfolio from Desai on the grounds that as a conservative he was incapable of implementing her radical programme. Morarji was left with no option but to resign from the Cabinet. Assuming the Finance portfolio herself, Indira Gandhi immediately, on 21 July, announced the nationalization of fourteen major banks through a presidential ordinance. She also announced her plan to withdraw the special privileges of the princes. The common people welcomed her announcements enthusiastically, as did the entire left. Her popularity soared as she was seen as a champion of the masses.

The Syndicate and Desai, however, decided to swallow the humiliation, and wait for Reddy to be elected as the President. But Indira Gandhi was beginning to play her cards well. Reddy was opposed by the senior statesman, CD. Deshmukh, as the candidate of Swatantrata and Jan Sangh, and V.V. Giri, the Vice-President, who had decided to stand as an independent, supported by the two Communist parties, SSP, DMK, Muslim League and a section of the Akali Dal.

Indira Gandhi wanted to support Giri, but did not know how she could go against her party’s candidate whose nomination papers she had filed. At this stage the Syndicate made a major blunder. To assure Reddy’s election, Nijalingappa met the leaders of Jan Sangh and Swatantra and persuaded them to cast their second preference votes, once C.D. Deshmukh had been eliminated in the first round, in favour of Reddy. Indira Gandhi immediately accused the Syndicate of having struck a secret deal with communal and reactionary forces in order to oust her from power. She now, more or less openly, supported Giri by refusing to issue a party whip in favour of Reddy and by asking Congress MPs and MLAs to vote freely
according to their ‘conscience’. In the election, nearly one-third of them defied the organizational leadership and voted for Giri, who was declared elected by a narrow margin on 20 August.

The two sides sparred for some time, with Indira Gandhi occupying the high ground of socialism and democracy. On 8 November, in an open letter to all Congressmen, she declared: ‘What we witness today is not a mere clash of personalities and certainly not a fight for power . . . It is a conflict between those who are for socialism, for change and for the fullest internal democracy and debate in the organization . . . and those who are for the status quo, for conformism . . . The Congress stands for democracy, secularism, socialism and non-alignment in international relations.’
³
The Syndicate in turn accused Indira Gandhi of hypocrisy, desiring to concentrate all power in her hands, and trying to establish a Communist dictatorship.

In the end, on 12 November, the defeated and humiliated Syndicate took disciplinary action against Indira Gandhi and expelled her from the party for having violated party discipline. The party had finally split with Indira Gandhi setting up a rival organization, which came to be known as Congress (R)—R for Requisitionists. The Syndicate-dominated Congress came to be known as Congress (O)—O for Organization. In the final countdown, 220 of the party’s Lok Sabha MPs went with Indira Gandhi and 68 with the Syndicate. In the All India Congress Committee too 446 of its 705 members walked over to Indira’s side.

The Congress (R) was by no means a leftist party for, like the old Congress, it still contained the entire spectrum of political, social and economic opinion. But there was one big difference. It now clearly occupied the left-of-centre position in Indian politics just as the Congress (O) did the right-of-centre. Further, Indira Gandhi was now the unchallenged leader of both the government and the new party, which soon became the real Congress. She also had the mass of the people, both the middle classes and the poor, and a large section of the intelligentsia behind her. In fact, the extent of her political power far surpassed anything that her father had ever enjoyed.

Despite her immense popularity and clear victory over the Syndicate, Indira Gandhi was still politically vulnerable for her party did not command a majority in the parliament. She was dependent on issue-based support by the two Communist parties, some Socialists, DMK, Akali Dal, and some independents. In spite of this, carrying on with her left-of-centre stance, she undertook several radical steps. When, in February 1970, the Supreme Court invalidated bank nationalization on the grounds that it was discriminatory and the compensation paid was inadequate, the government used a presidential ordinance to renationalize them after overcoming the legal lacunae. It also initiated several schemes for the nationalized banks
to grant loans to small-scale entrepreneurs, farmers, rickshaw and taxi drivers. etc.