Indira Gandhi

  The voting pattern did indeed reveal that, in the states where assembly elections had been held at the same time and where, in accordance with past election procedure, there was no time lag between polling and counting, the Opposition had done well. In Tamil Nadu, where the Congress did not contest, the DMK swept the assembly poll. In West Bengal the CPI-M did better than the New Congress,* and in Orissa the Swatantra Party made a good showing. Losing candidates lost with fairly narrow margins in these states. As against this, in other states Congress candidates won by uniformly high margins of about 1,00,000 votes.

  Madhok did not get his party’s support in his charges and was expelled from it on differences of ideology after the election. He was considered a diehard and the Jan Sangh was anxious to relax its conservative image to combat the ‘Indira wave’. A fierce critic of Nehru, whose policies the Jan Sangh had adamantly opposed, Madhok makes observations in his book about Nehru and Mrs Gandhi that are interesting for their contrast:

  Pandit Nehru’s greatest contribution for which his memory will be cherished by every democrat was that he gave respect to democratic institutions and kept the structure of democracy alive when he was in a position to destroy them if he so wanted… by showing due respect to fundamental rights, particularly to freedom of thought and expression, and by preserving the independence of the judiciary and sanctity and fairness of elections… .

  Of the midterm election and Mrs Gandhi he concludes:

  The allegation was not about any electoral malpractice but about rigging of the election on a large scale… . The plan to rig the elections must have been a closely guarded secret, and no non-Communist colleague of Mrs. Gandhi, including her Party president and Defence Minister, Jagjivan Ram, was privy to it.

  Madhok’s account is painstaking and pedestrian, and carries no breath of the sensational. The handling of his charge makes strange reading, with its inexplicable reversal of the stand taken both by the high court and the Supreme Court after a sample inspection of ballots had been ordered and carried out, the results found revealing enough to merit a chemical examination and that examination ordered. If the whole issue was a crank’s fixation, thorough scrutiny would have shown it up for what it was. Instead, the legal process was suddenly halted and reversed. A tradition of investigative reporting might have served India well at this time, but if any newspaper thought it worthwhile to pursue this line of inquiry, it did not do so in the glitter of Mrs Gandhi’s victory and her well-known intolerance of opposing opinion. Madhok’s charge, moreover, had the ring of fantasy about it. Though two Supreme Court judges were on record as saying that not even the most fanciful possibility could be lightly dismissed in this age of sophisticated technology, most people did so dismiss it. Four general elections had already taken place since 1952, and the public believed in the fairness of elections. Even those politicians who, according to Madhok’s account, received information about a ‘conspiracy’ beforehand, did not imagine so brazen a scheme could be perpetrated, though they were opponents of the regime. It is perhaps a strain on the imagination to suggest that a familiar process is going to be subverted under one’s gaze while the sun shines. The average person, who has come and gone in freedom, spoken, written and voted as he pleased, does not recognize the alien chord struck on just such an ordinary day.

  If one were to give credence to the possibility of a coup through a certain number of spurious ballots, the election of 1971 could become a link in the chain starting with Mrs Gandhi’s charge of the home ministry, and the unorthodox manner of change in election procedure. One question would still remain: Why was a ‘coup’ necessary, if indeed it took place? The New Congress was, in the general assessment, more than likely to win. The element of chance hung only on its majority. Yet Mrs Gandhi needed a two-thirds majority to control Parliament and to carry through her amendments to the Constitution. Anything less would have put a continued brake on her functioning. She had gambled for high stakes when she broke with her party on the question of unfettered command, a meaningless gamble if lack of majority at the polls were to render her ineffective once again. That the stakes in the power game became higher, until in June 1975 she wiped all elements of chance off the scene, imprisoning her opponents within and outside her party, seems to suggest that the 1971 election might have been a stage in a process.

  The character of this election may also explain the subservience of Parliament in accepting and consolidating the dictatorship after June 1975. If many MPs—‘lamp posts’—were her creatures rather than known and accepted personalities in their constituencies, they would have a vital interest in prolonging their tenure and displaying the perfect obedience that would keep them in the leader’s favour.

  *In the West Bengal state assembly election in 1971 the New Congress won 105 seats (29.8 per cent votes) and the CPI-M won 111 seats (33.8 per cent votes).

  SEVEN

  ‘The New Dawn’

  The National Herald commented on the election result on March 12, 1971, ‘It is a mandate for carrying on the socialist processes to the climax of a social revolution with vigour and speed… . It is not a mere mandate, it is a strong wind of change that has swept the country… .’ The Patriot called it ‘a forceful assertion of popular opinion in favour of radical change that … will provide equality of opportunity for all and enable equitable sharing of the fruit of economic development’.

  These comments represented the general enthusiasm that marks the beginning of a political era promising great new momentum. If the methods by which Mrs Gandhi had routed the old guard of the Congress had created a thrill of apprehension in neutral observers, if the controversy over ‘commitment’ and the rousing vocabulary of class war during the past eighteen months had raised a wild wind of speculation about the government’s intentions and direction, there was now an expectation of concrete programmes and efficient administration. Mrs Gandhi’s landslide victory gave her an uncluttered opportunity with virtually no opposition in Parliament to hinder it. The New Congress had won 350 out of 518 seats in the Lok Sabha. What remained of the Opposition consisted chiefly of the CPI-M, followed closely by the CPI and, in Tamil Nadu, the DMK. Such pressure as could now be exerted on the government in Parliament would come from the Left. A leftward trend began to be noticeable in the right-wing parties, too, in whom the ‘Indira wave’ had produced some rethinking. Since its founding in 1952, the Jan Sangh had been linked in sympathy with the Hindu Mahasabha, which it had substantially replaced, but it had moved steadily away from orthodoxy after 1957 in wooing a wider electorate. The midterm election accelerated this trend towards a moderate, liberal approach. The Swantantra Party, later further reduced by a split, debated at its 1973 convention the need to shed some of its antipathy towards socialism and not condemn it outright. Region-based parties of varying hues had to take note of the ‘wind of change’. A clamour for ‘socio-economic’ innovation and drive filled the air.

  Not all was enthusiasm for Mrs Gandhi’s victory. The

  Statesman treated it with frank foreboding:

  What distinguished the present poll from any other is the degree in which it has been dominated, as a matter of deliberate calculation, by a cult which subordinates all considerations of principle, party programmes and manifestos to the image of a single leader. That it has yielded dividends is not too surprising. The simplistic message of Mrs. Gandhi as the guardian of the underprivileged and as the only genuine advocate of socialism was an incomparably more efficient gatherer of votes than anything the Opposition was able to produce. The latter suffered from the initial disadvantage of being burdened by a heavily intellectualized and argumentative thesis, unsupported by the charisma of an all-India personality. Whether such charisma exploited with ruthless determination is in the long run compatible with a healthy democratic system is something on which some thought is clearly overdue … Congress-R candidates from whom little was expected have blossomed into successful competitors under the general benediction of a leader with a masterly
grip on the techniques of the emotional appeal … the line between an election and a referendum can no longer be seen… .

  From this point of view, the nature of the election and the events preceding it boded ill for the future. Moral example, expected of those who lead, had been flamboyantly deserted by Mrs Gandhi during the Congress crisis. The performance had been exciting and inflaming, creating a leader image bound by no rules or restraints. The election was proof that the performance had succeeded. A roused and restless student population, trade unions, taxi and transport operators—these and other elements, potential fuel for the fires of a growing lawlessness—had now to be persuaded into channels of work. Yet the election triumph had released a fresh militancy in the ruling party. In New Delhi a crowd led by its officebearers marched on the disputed Congress headquarters at Jantar Mantar Road and took forcible possession while the police remained spectators on the scene. The Supreme Court had earlier decreed that ownership was for the courts to decide, and until such time the headquarters remained by law with the Old Congress. A Congress election majority was no novelty. There had been no effective challenge to the government in Nehru’s time. But the framework for challenge had been strong. In the present political environment, its main pillars had been under attack. The fundamental rights, an independent judiciary and the freedom of the press clearly did not carry the same meaning for Mrs Gandhi they had had for her father.

  The government began its fulfilment of election pledges by a presidential ordinance nationalizing general insurance on May 13, 1971. Its programme in Parliament centred on amendments to the Constitution. These went through during the year amid cheers and applause in both Houses. The 24th Amendment (August 1971) gave Parliament the sovereign right to alter the Constitution, including the fundamental rights. The 25th Amendment (December 1971) provided that compensation for nationalized properties would no longer be based on market value. The word ‘compensation’ was replaced by ‘amount’, to be fixed by Parliament and not challengeable in a court of law. The Articles of the Constitution, giving the citizen the right to acquire, hold and dispose of property, and to protect it against arbitrary seizure, were no longer valid. The 26th Amendment (December 1971) ended the privy purse and extinguished all rights, liabilities and obligations in respect of the princes.

  In the pursuit of social justice, the Government of India had earlier set limits on the right to property with the first constitutional amendment in 1951. The right to property could not be invoked at all against specified acts passed by state governments relating to land reform, while the government could interfere in a specified area of property rights, where these conflicted with the general public interest. Compensation for nationalized property could not be challenged in a court of law, but it was based on market value. The 1971 amendment avoided a definition of government’s powers altogether, making government subject to no principle and no responsibility regarding its incursions into property rights and the compensation payable in cases of takeover. A meticulously defined procedure was thus abrogated. The word ‘amount’ in place of ‘compensation’ made compensation a matter of government’s whim. Nationalization, in these circumstances, amounted to confiscation and expropriation, as the takeover of general insurance companies and coal companies soon afterwards demonstrated:

  Some companies found that the amounts they received were less than the value of their government securities and the amounts of their currency notes and bank balances after providing for all liabilities… . One insurance company was paid Rs. 10,000 for acquisition of its net assets worth more than Rs. 2,300,000… . All assets of nationalised coal companies are taken over by government but none of their liabilities… .1

  It was this lack of definition and responsibility, with no limits placed on government’s powers, that sent a spasm of doubt and fear through the public. The amendments, including government’s power to axe the fundamental rights—free speech, press, occupation, worship and assembly—reflected a wide-ranging unaccountability that was the chief feature of the new era. Instead of concrete proposals for change, even considered changes within the political system, it was the checks and balances within the system that were being demolished, leaving it unprotected against the dictatorial designs of this or any future government. Mrs Gandhi’s grandfather, Motilal Nehru, had, during the struggle for freedom, defended the inviolability of fundamental rights. Thirteen out of nineteen fundamental rights listed in the (Motilal) Nehru Report had been included in the Indian Constitution in 1950. With reference to the future Constitution of free India, Motilal Nehru had said in the Central Assembly in 1928, ‘It is obvious that our first care should be to have our fundamental rights guaranteed in a manner which will not permit their withdrawal under any circumstances.’ The statement, quoted by an Opposition MP during the Lok Sabha debate on the 24th Amendment, represented a philosophy closer to the moderate Opposition than to New Congress thinking. The government spoke another language. Mohan Kumaramangalam, piloting the bill along with the law minister, H.R. Gokhale, said it would ‘clear the road blocks’ to progress ‘erected by the Supreme Court’ (by an earlier judgement). Supreme Court judges, he said, had ‘an inbuilt conservatism born out of the class from which they come… . Judges in our country come from the class of men with property.’ K.D. Malaviya, New Congress MP, defined democratic socialism as state control of all sources of production and distribution. The prime minister presented no argument. She merely condemned the scare created about the bill as another of the unending attempts by vested interests to divide the people and mislead the minorities.

  The notable fact about the amendments and the debate accompanying them was their communist inspiration. The effect was of an unexpected transplant, set up on the body politic without the groundwork, and certainly without the political system, to ensure its acceptance and success. The transplant had, as it were, sprung up noiselessly overnight, and now ruled the political daylight, yet Mrs Gandhi firmly denied communist influence or direction. With no clarification available from her, only guesses could try to explain this anomaly. With her election majority she no longer needed CPI support. The CPI’s presence at the power feast indicated a larger political bargain, a friendly price paid in return for hemispheric considerations, a pointer to the assiduously cultivated and steadily growing Soviet alliance. There was, too, Mrs Gandhi’s own leftist posture, which had been her reason for the Congress split, but this appeared, as time went on, vague, romantic and adolescent, without the hard supporting structure of thought or programme.

  While thought was not her strength or style, Mrs Gandhi’s thorough grasp of the nuts and bolts of politics was. Philosophy, i.e., a clear statement of what she stood for, drifted cloudlike, iridescent and insubstantial above her hard-headed, businesslike strategy in the control room. In his admiring Profile of Courage, Trevor Drieberg says of the post-election period, ‘[Mrs Gandhi is] on a political pinnacle, holds absolute power… . She speaks direct to the people today, over the heads of her own party men, who need her much more than she needs them.’ The ‘pinnacle’ was ensured by the control she established over the bowels of the Congress machine, indispensable to effective, centralized power. The apparatus for choosing candidates for the State Legislative Assembly (SLA) elections due in early 1972 was replaced by groups appointed by the Working Committee. The prime minister herself decided which of the state ministers would get party tickets. Four veteran chief ministers, Mohanlal Sukhadia of Rajasthan, Brahmananda Reddy of Andhra Pradesh, M.M. Chaudhury of Assam and S.C. Shukla of Madhya Pradesh, each powerfully backed in his state, were replaced by her nominees, respectively Barkatullah, P.V. Narasimha Rao, S.C. Sinha and P.C. Sethi. Political lightweights in their states, and dependent on her favour, their chief qualification was their allegiance to her. Drieberg writes:

  This set the stage of things to come. When Congress candidates were chosen for seats in the State legislatures, the heads of six more Chief Ministers rolled. In drawing up lists of candidates, only thre
e Congress Chief Ministers, in addition to the four whom Mrs. Gandhi had chosen in the months preceding the [assembly] elections survived… .

  Posts for the party’s state units were similarly operated by Mrs Gandhi. The Congress constitution empowered state units to name and elect their own office-bearers. Nominations and election had been the responsibility of a returning officer chosen by the state Congress. Returning officers were now selected or approved by Mrs Gandhi and lists decided by her. Elections were a foregone conclusion. Office-bearers thus ‘elected’ could be as easily unseated without reference to the state units they represented. Pradesh Congress Committees, District Congress Committees and lower down party units upon which rested the party’s local base and strength were shorn of their rights under its constitution, and could be appointed or superseded at Mrs Gandhi’s pleasure.

  An atmosphere of fealty, feudal in texture, descended on the Congress. Her colleagues and associates, with few exceptions, had no political bases of their own and were dependent on her for their positions. Nehru had been surrounded by an aura of deference, even reverence, but his ministers had been personalities in their own right, some of them powerful and impressive men. The contrast extended to the secretariat. Nehru, often impatient and short-tempered, tended, all the same, to support his civil servants, and they were sure of the ground beneath their feet. The government’s intentions and objectives were known. Mrs Gandhi’s lack of a defined philosophy left those working with her in uncertainty. There was no clear-cut framework within whose rhythm and logic they could take decisions without getting clearance from her, no orchestration of men and ideas to produce teamwork. There was an ad hocism, a compartmentalization of subjects and long delays in making senior appointments that often lay vacant for months. And with Mrs Gandhi’s instinctive antagonism to criticism, known or suspected, only a show of loyalty guaranteed a career.