Elsewhere on this page we carry what we believe to be a reasonably accurate analysis of the two recent by-elections in the Union Territory of Delhi. Since voting is secret and since we have not carried an extensive pre-poll or post-poll survey, we cannot and do not claim to be in a position to substantiate the conclusion that the Janata candidate has won in Narela against the much better known Congress (I) nominee mainly on the strength of the support of the Brahmins, the Jats and the Punjabi-speaking population in that constituency and that the Congress (I) candidate has romped home in Gharonda on the shoulders of the Harijans and the Muslims. But since most observers of, and commentators on, the current Indian political scene are by now convinced that this has more or less been the pattern of voting in other by-elections in the Hindi-speaking belt, we find no good reason to be unduly sceptical about the accuracy of our general impression. The pattern of voting in Narela has been slightly different in that there the Brahmin community is believed to have voted fairly solidly for the Janata candidate and not for Mrs. Gandhi’s nominee as it is said to have done in most other recent by-elections. This can perhaps be explained by the fact that while the Janata candidate was a Brahmin, the Congress (I) nominee was not.
This division of the electorate along communal and caste lines is not an altogether new phenomenon in this country. But it appears to have been accentuated since the March 1977 election. In any case, the problem has become far more serious because, unlike the Congress, the new ruling party has lost the support of the biggest minority and the weakest sections of the community and it shows no signs of being able to win it back. This has upset the delicate balance which has in the past ensured a measure of social stability and made movement, however slow and tardy, towards social progress and equity possible. The consequences of the failure to restore the balance can be quite grave. Indeed, the Janata party’s moral, as distinct from the legal-constitutional, right to rule the country can come into question if it is demonstrated again and again that it has hardly any following among the Muslims and the Harijans This is especially so because as it happens, most non-Hindi speaking states are ruled by other parties. On the other side of the political fence, Mrs. Gandhi and her party cannot feel entitled to return to office if they fail to secure a sizeable following among the middle caste Hindus. And this she cannot hope to achieve unless she reunites the two Congress parties on terms which do not amount to surrender on the part of the other Congress. That is not much of a force by itself. But it contains individuals who can facilitate considerably the task of the Congress (I) in widening its social base. Or so one hopes. For if that hope, too, is misplaced, the country is in for a polarisation, the like of which it has not witnessed since independence. The consequences need hardly be spelt out. For both Mr. Morarji Desai and Mrs. Gandhi this threat of polarisation poses the greatest challenge, for the former greater than that of preserving the unity of the Janata and for the latter greater than that of living down the infamy of the emergency. Perhaps the two challenges merge into one for both.