Mr. Jayaprakash Narayan has reason to be specially perturbed over the increasingly bitter factional struggles in the Janata. Unless one takes a rather cynical, though not a wholly unjustified, view that the party is a product of the emergency, he more than any other single individual must be recognised as its architect. He was not only deeply involved, as he has put it with his characteristic modesty, in the “historic process which led to its formation” but he led that historic process. It is, therefore, only natural that he should be anxious lest the party tears itself apart. Three other facts must add to his anxiety. First, the Janata has already lost much of its popularity and the process is bound to be accelerated if it continues to make an exhibition of the divisions in it. For that would strengthen the widespread impression that it is just not capable of managing the country’s affairs. Secondly, Mrs. Gandhi is now more or less ready to seize the opportunity that a continuing disarray in the ruling Janata must inevitably present her. And this time her party is even more of a one-woman show than the Congress was at the time of the emergency when she had no difficulty at all in bending the Constitution, the cabinet and the state apparatus to her will. Finally, even those individuals and groups who have no appetite for Mrs. Gandhi’s authoritarian ways and who fear that once in office she will seek to ensure Mr. Sanjay Gandhi’s succession, are beginning to turn to her out of desperation.
Mr. Narayan cannot be blamed if in effect he is advocating little more than a patch-up between the contending groups and leaders. A patch-up is certainly better than burst-up if only because it buys time. In the present case the conflict has been pushed much farther than it need have been by any reckoning. Mr. Chandra Shekhar and his supporters had, for example, no good reason to ask the UP chief minister to seek a fresh vote of confidence when his majority was not in doubt. Similarly, Mr. Raj Narain could have pressed for organizational elections without calling into question the right of Mr. Chandra Shekhar to continue to function as the party chief. It should, therefore, not be impossible to defuse the crisis. The parliamentary board can, for example, content itself with making a fresh appeal for avoidance of discussion of party affairs in public. But such an expedient can at best work for a while. The Janata must either break into its old constituents and function openly as a coalition in Parliament and state legislatures or move towards genuine integration even if it leads to a domination over it of a group or an alliance of two or more groups. It cannot continue to mark time as it has done since May 1 last year when the party formally came into existence. Mr. Narayan has not publicly raised the issue. He has spoken more frequently about the Janata’s performance which he has found unsatisfactory. But however important, this is not the central issue which right now is the future of the party. Both courses open to the Janata leaders call for the highest courage. But clearly they cannot avoid a decision for long except at the risk of aggravating the crisis.