India After Independence: 1947-2000 (38 page)

The one decisive step taken by the government to deal with the deteriorating economic situation and to bolster food imports boomeranged and proved to be the most controversial of Mrs Gandhi’s early decisions. As already mentioned, Indian exports were not growing and even the existing ones were being heavily subsidized by the central exchequer. Indira Gandhi’s advisers argued that this was due to the rupee being grossly over-valued. If it were devalued, there would be a greater inflow of the much-needed foreign capital. India was heavily dependent for its food security on imports of wheat from the US under the PL-480 aid programme. Also there was an urgent need for economic aid by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), stopped during the Indo-Pak war, to be resumed. The US, the World Bank and the IMF however, insisted on devaluation of the rupee. Consequently, the Government of India devalued the rupee by 35.5 per cent on 6 June, barely four months after Mrs Gandhi assumed power.

There were angry country-wide outbursts against the decision. All sections of political opinion opposed the step, the most voluble critics being the left groups and parties, the majority of intellectuals and Kamaraj, who also resented the fact that he was not consulted before the decision was taken. The critics within the Congress party also felt that such a controversial and unpopular decision should not have been taken in an election year. There was also the widespread resentment against the government for acting under foreign pressure. The devaluation, ironically, failed in its stated objectives of increasing exports and attracting foreign capital. Nor was there a significant increase in the flow of food and other foreign aid. Many years later, in 1980, Mrs Gandhi was to confess that the devaluation ‘was the wrong thing to do and it harmed us greatly.’
³

A few months after coming to power, Mrs Gandhi took major initiatives in the field of foreign affairs. Urgently needing American wheat, financial aid and capital investment, she initially tried to build bridges with the United States, especially during her visit to Washington in March 1966. President Johnson promised to send 3.5 million tons of foodgrains to India under PL-480 and give 900 million dollars in aid. But actual despatches to India were irregular and came in small instalments. Moreover, the President took charge of the dispatches in order to control their amount and timing on a ‘ton by ton’ basis and thus to ensure that ‘India changed its farm policy’ as also its position on Vietnam.
⁴
Indira Gandhi felt humiliated by this ‘ship-to-mouth’ approach by the United States, and refused to bow before such ham-handed and open pressure. She also decided to get out of this vulnerable position as soon as possible. In fact, India was never again to try to come close to the US on onerous terms.

Indira Gandhi’s disappointment with the US found expression in the sphere of foreign policy. She started distancing herself from that country.
During her visit to Washington, in March-April 1966 she had remained silent on Vietnam. Now, in July 1966, she issued a statement deploring US bombing of North Vietnam and its capital Hanoi. In the latter part of July, in Moscow, she signed a joint statement with the Soviet Union demanding an immediate and unconditional end to the US bombing and branding US action in Vietnam as ‘imperialist aggression’.

In Washington, Mrs Gandhi had agreed to the US proposal for an Indo-American Educational Foundation to be funded by PL-480 rupee funds to the extent of 300 million dollars. She now abandoned the proposal, partially because it had been vehemently criticized by a large number of Indian intellectuals and those of leftist opinion, both inside and outside Congress, as an American effort to penetrate and control higher education and research in India.

Mrs Gandhi developed close links with Nasser of Egypt and Tito of Yugoslavia and began to stress the need for non-aligned countries to cooperate politically and economically in order to counter the danger of neo-colonialism emanating from the US and West European countries. Worried by the Soviet efforts to build bridges with Pakistan and to occupy a position of equidistance from both India and Pakistan, Mrs Gandhi assured the Soviet leaders of India’s continuing friendship. She also expressed a desire to open a dialogue with China but there was no thaw in Sino-Indian relations at the time. In general, after the Washington fiasco, she followed a policy of sturdy independence in foreign affairs.

The 1966 was one of continuous popular turmoil, of mass economic discontent and political agitations provoked by spiralling prices, food scarcity, growing unemployment, and, in general, deteriorating economic conditions. Adding to this unrest were the rising and often unfulfilled aspirations of different sections of society, especially the lower middle classes. Many were able to satisfy them but many more were not. Moreover, the capitalist pattern of development was increasing economic disparity between different social classes, strata and groups.

A wave of popular agitations—demonstrations, student strikes and riots, agitations by government servants—commenced at about the same time Mrs Gandhi was being sworn in as prime minister. These agitations often turned violent. A new feature was the bandhs which meant closure of a town, city, or entire state. Law and order often broke down as the agitating crowds clashed with lathi-wielding police. Sometimes the army had to be called in. Lathi-charges and police firings brought the administration into further disrepute. Teachers and other middle class professionals such as doctors and engineers also now began to join the ranks of strikers and agitators demanding higher pay and dearness allowances to offset the sharp rise in prices. There was growing loss of public confidence in the administration and the ruling political leadership.

Opposition political parties, especially, CPM, Socialists and Jan Sangh, took full advantage of the popular mood to continually embarrass the government and took the lead in organizing bandhs and other agitations. Some of them believed that administrative breakdown would
create conditions for them to come to power through elections or through non-parliamentary, extra-constitutional means. Consequently, they often did not observe democratic boundaries or constitutional proprieties.

Jan Sangh and other communal forces also organized a fierce country-wide agitation demanding a total ban on cow-slaughter, hoping to cash in on the religious feelings of many Hindus in the coming elections. But the government stood firm against the demand because of its communal character and because many of the minorities and low-caste groups among Hindus ate beef because of its low price. Mrs Gandhi told the parliament: ‘This is not an attack on the Government. It is an attack on our way of life, our values and the traditions which we cherished.’
⁵
On 7 November, a mob of hundreds of thousands, led by naked sadhus, carrying swords, spears and
trishuls
(tridents), virtually tried to invade the Parliament House, trying to destabilise constitutional government and burning buses and cars, looting shops, attacking government buildings on the way. They also surrounded Kamaraj’s house with the intent to assault him. A clash with the police occurred leading to the death of one policeman and six sadhus. Blaming the Home Minister, Gulzari Lal Nanda, for inept handling of the situation she demanded his resignation. The movement soon fizzled out and cow-slaughter became a non-issue even in the elections that followed.

The year 1966 also witnessed the beginning of the downslide of the parliament as an institution. There were constant disturbances and indiscipline in the parliament with some members of the opposition showing complete disregard for parliamentary decorum and niceties. Many a time the young prime minister was not extended the courtesy in keeping with her office. She was often subjected to heckling and harassment, vicious and vulgar personal attacks, male chauvinist and sexist references and unfounded allegations. Dr Rammanohar Lohia, in particular, missed no opportunity of ridiculing her, and described her as
‘goongi gudiya
’ (dumb doll).

Even in the party, Indira Gandhi had to face a rather troublesome situation. For one, there was the erosion of popular support for Congress. The party had been declining, becoming dysfunctional and losing political initiative since Nehru’s time. It was increasingly ridden with groupism and factional rivalries at every level, leading to the formation of dissident groups in almost every state. Mrs Gandhi’s own position in the party had remained weak and insecure. On becoming the prime minister, she had not been able to form a cabinet of her own choice, having had to leave all important portfolios—Home, Defence, Finance, External Affairs, and Food—undisturbed. Kamaraj, the party president, and the Syndicate consistently tried to reassert the party organization’s position
vis-a-vis
the prime minister, and to restrict her freedom of action in framing and implementing policies. They also did not let her have much of a say in the party’s internal affairs or in the selection of candidates for the parliamentary elections. Indira Gandhi had to tolerate all this because of 1967 being an election year. Also, as a political leader, she suffered at this time from two major weaknesses: she was ineffective as a leader—

her opponents quite often succeeded in isolating her in the parliamentary party and even in the cabinet—and she lacked ‘ideological moorings’.

The fourth general elections to the Lok Sabha and the state assemblies, held in February 1967, had a radical impact on Indian politics. The run-up to the elections and the elections themselves were marked by several features.

The Congress party had exhausted its mandate and lost its character and motivation as a party of social and institutional change. There was large-scale disenchantment, especially with its top leaders, because of corruption and the lavish lifestyle of many of them. Many of the regional and local Congress bosses were perceived by the people as being devoted to loaves and fishes of office, political wheeling dealing and factional infighting. At the same time people felt frustrated because there was no other party which could replace Congress. The opposition parties did not raise any basic social issues during the election campaign. They campaigned mainly on the question of defeating Congress. There was, however, a great political awakening among the people; in 1967 the turnout of the eligible voters was, at 61.1 per cent, the highest witnessed so far.

Congress had been declining since 1964. It now went into elections, under the leadership of the Syndicate, weakened, divided and faction-ridden, with the leadership showing little awareness of the party’s decline in public support and estimation. Earlier factionalism had been confined to the states, now it also engulfed the Centre. Earlier, the central leadership moderated conflicts at the state level, so that the dissidents did not feel isolated. Now the central leadership supported the dominant groups in the states in order to secure its own position at the Centre. As pointed out by Zareer Masani, ‘The result was a continuous power-struggle at all levels of Congress leadership and the rapid erosion of such party discipline, confidence and comradeship as Congress had built up during the Independence movement, and without which it could not hope to remain united.’
⁶

Factionalism in Congress was fully reflected in the selection of party candidates. The ticket distribution was dominated by the Syndicate members who acted in a highly partisan manner. Nearly a thousand Congressmen, who had been denied tickets, now chose to stand against the official Congress candidates as independents or as members of new state-level dissident groups.

An important feature of the 1967 elections was the coming together of the opposition parties; some of them formed anti-Congress fronts in some states. In other cases, they entered into a series of electoral adjustments by sharing seats and avoiding contests. Quite often, the dissident Congress parties and groups also joined this process. But the coalescing parties were in almost all cases ideologically and
programmatically disparate, their only cement, being the desire to defeat Congress. Lohia Socialists were the most promiscuous—they did not hesitate to join the communal Jan Sangh and the rightist Swatantra. Similarly, in many states the secular Swatantra and the communal Jan Sangh joined forces. In a few states, the Communist-right-wing divide was also bridged. In Tamil Nadu, Swatantra, CPM, Muslim League and the chauvinist DMK were partners. CPM and Muslim League were allies in Kerala, as were Jan Sangh, Akalis and CPM in Punjab.

The election results were dramatic and Congress suffered a serious setback. Though it succeeded in retaining control of the Lok Sabha—it won 284 out of 520 seats—its majority was drastically reduced from 228 in 1962 to 48. Except in West Bengal and Kerala, where the left parties gained, the beneficiaries of the Congress decline were the communal, feudal, right-wing and regional parties. Congress also lost its majority in the assemblies of eight states—Bihar, U.P., Rajasthan, Punjab, West Bengal, Orissa, Madras and Kerala. Jan Sangh emerged as the main opposition party in U.P., Madhya Pradesh and Haryana, Swatantra in Orissa, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat, SSP in Bihar, and the Communists in West Bengal and Kerala.

The 1967 elections revealed certain long-term trends and also had certain long-term consequences. Apart from general disenchantment with Congress because of the various factors mentioned in the previous section, defection by the rich and middle peasants from the Congress camp played a major role in the Congress debacle in the northern states.

As a result of the land reforms of the early fifties, land ownership and social power had gradually shifted to the rich peasants. They felt that their newly acquired economic position and social status, associated with control of land, was threatened by the projected foodgrains procurement policies, the land reforms and other populist rhetoric of Congress, especially of Indira Gandhi and the Congress leftists. There was also growing class cleavage in the countryside, and any political awakening or increase in the bargaining power of landless labour would endanger rich peasant domination of the village. The rich peasants wanted to play a far greater, in fact, the hegemonic role, in the class alliances that Congress had forged and to get the government policies changed directly in their favour.