An Indian Remembers By T A Achuth Kumar The year was 1977. After eighteen months of the infamous emergency, Mrs Indira Gandhi called for elections to the Lok Sabha. The newly formed Janata party which was an amalgam of initially three parties and later five had swept the polls – literally wiping out the ruling Congress party in the India north of the Vindhyas. Mrs Gandhi lost in Rae Bareilly and so did her son Sanjay. I was then in Calcutta (now Kolkota) having come on transfer a year back in the height of the emergency. I can recall with pride and joy the first item in the BBC World News: “ Most of Mrs Gandhi’s cabinet colleagues are trailing behind in the world’s largest parliamentary elections.” For a large number of Indians in the length and breadth of this vast country, this was a second independence and the significance of the number ‘7’ in the year 1977 was not lost. In 1757, the Batlle of Plassey formalized British rule in India. The Great National Resurgence in 1857 was the first attempt to get rid of the British. The British called it the Sepoy Mutiny. And finally India became independent in 1947. The Janata government assumed office with a fair amount of controversy as to how the prime minister was chosen.Instead of asking the elected Janata MPs to elect a leader to head the government, the Janata members of parliament gathered in Ram Lila grounds and asked two elder statesmen, the venerable Jayaprakash Narayan Iand the saintly J.P. Kripalani to name the leader. And they chose Morarji Desai who did not have any political following worth mentioning. The council of ministers with Morarji Desai as the prime minister had an abundance of talent and administrative acumen – Charan Singh-Home, Atal Behari Vajpaye-External Affairs, L.K. Advani-I & B, H.M. Patel-Finance, George Fernandes-Industry and later on some more stalwarts were inducted viz Babu Jagjivan Ram anBd H.N. Bahuguna. A veteran journalist and an India lover James Cameron after visiting Indira Gandhi in her Willingdon Crescent residence after her defeat in the elections of 1977 wrote inter alia “ . . . . . . she looked like a broken boxer waiting for a miracle. But there will be no miracle for her . . . . . . Most of her cabinet colleagues her late cabal have been indicted on one charge or the other.” But Cameron was wrong as time will tell. Elsewhere in that write-up he had written “ . . . . . Rarely in the history of the world have a simple and largely unlettered people voted themselves back to a sort of freedom . . . . “ That was 1977 and it was a silent revolution. There was no noise, no acrimony, no histrionics, no 3D images, no Rs 10,500 crore campaign and the internet was not even conceived. And in that great revolution that took place, the four southern states were not part of it. The first non-congress government at bethe centre came with so much of good will and spontaneous support from all corners of the country. Many felt that true democracy had finally arrived. The excitement then was far more wholesome and the process of change of government was smooth and seamless. Unlike what has been made out to be, the Janata government had many achievements to their credit. The economy was well managed and inflation was contained effectively. New industrial policies to encourage small and medium enterprises were ushered in. District Industries Centres (DIC) were set up to provide a host of service and assistance to small industries. But then the infighting began. The Janata party split vertically and the splinter group was called Janata(Secular) by Raj Nanarain. Charan Singh also left the Janata ship and re-christened the splinter group as Lok Dal. He staked a claim to form a government with the support of the Congress from the outside. The President Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy invited him to form a government and seek a vote of confidence from the Lok Sabha. Incidentally there is no such thing as vote of confidence in he Westminster model. If the opposition feels that the government of the day does not enjoy the confidence of the house, they should move a no-confidence motion. In any case Charan Singh did not face parliament as prime minister. On the twenty third day, he entered parlitament and immediately left for the Rashtrapathy Bhavan and submitted his and his governmnent’s resignation. In the elections that followed, Mrs Gandhi was back in power in 1980 and then came the problems in Punjab, Operation Blue Star and the assassination of Indira Gandhi by her own Security police in October 1984. Rajiv Gandhi was the next prime minister and in the elections held then he swept the polls with more than 400 seats, a little more than what Nehru had in the first general elections held in 1952. Like John F Kennedy in the 60’s, Rajiv Gandhi wanted to clean up everything in public life, the centre, the states, the Congress party. In an AICC session in Bombay(now Mumbai), he lashed out at congressmen accusing them of being power brokers looking only for personal interests and gains. But then there seemed to be a metamorphosis. The the prime minister no longer spoke of cleaning up the system, Bofors and the IPKF misadventure followed. In the elections held in 1989, the Congress did not get the required majority and Rajiv Gandhi did not stake a claim to form the government. Viswanath Pratab Singh the charismatic Finance Minister and later Defence Minister in Rajiv Gandhi’s cabinet and later his bitter critic became the next P.M. The controversial Mandal report led to large scale protests and violent demonstrations in Delhi and elsewhere. A change of guard brought Chandra Shekhar as the next P.M. And in 1991 Rajiv Gaby ndhi was assassinated by a human bomb in Sriperambadur in Tamilnadu. What followed was of historical significance to the nation and the Congress party. P.V. Narasimha Rao assumed the mantle of congress chief and formed a coalition government with himself as prime minister and Manmohan Singh as finance minister. Far reaching economic reforms were carried out by this duo of Rao and Manmohan leading to the virtual abandonment of the permit licence raj and the ushering in of a liberalized business environment. Foreign Direct Investment and Foreign Institutional Investors were invited to participate in India’s new growth model. However the achievements in the economic front were were over shadowed by the unfortunate happenings in Ayodhya. The simmering dispute of the Ram Mandir and the Babri Masjid in the sby ame premises culminated in the demoition of the Babri Masjid by overactive kar sevaks as the BJP led government in UP and the central government led by Narasimha Rao were mute spectators to what was happening. As his term came to an end, there were rumblings of cash for vote his government from collaspsing. After Narasimha Rao came the Third Front governments of H D Deva Gowda and later that of I.K. Gujeral. Many political analysts dismiss these experiments as of no consequence. But in effect this highlights the vibrance and innovative genius of our political system. Our democratic process is sound with no restrictive features unlike the guided democracies of Singapore or Malayasia. As we look back and scan the last sixty seven years of independent India, we must be objective enough to keep our individual beliefs and prejudices aside. We have had great prime ministers like Jawaharlal Nehru, Lab Bahadur Sastry and Atal Behari Vajpaye. Every one of our prime ministers of whatever hue or tag have contributed in their own way to the development of this country. The country has forgotten a great leader K.Kamaraj who chose two prime ministers – Lal Bahadur Sastry and Indira Gandhi. The emergence of regional parties and regional leaders are the strength of Indian democracy. We have evolved our own model which has some of the features of the Westminster parliamentary system and some of the aspects of the U.S federal structure. We have blended this with an ever evolving Indian ingredient which provides both substance and flavor. India is far greater than its leaders or its political dispensations. The message is clear, the people of India have emerged as the clear player who will call the shots and Indian ethos would evolve slowly but surely. The constitution of India is not a static document but a sacrosanct guiding light which may itself need to ne suitably changed in keeping with the changed times and the needs of a pluralistic society. India can and will evolve a system which is uniquely inclusive and growth oriented. The twin evils of pampering minorities and tyranny of majorities will be laid to rest in the altar of a vibrant, progressive and inclusive India.
Posted on: Sat, 26 Jul 2014 04:56:16 +0000
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