Mr. Charan Singh has given the call to arms and his battalions are ready to go into battle. His strategy too, is reasonably clear. He will fight the Janata leadership from within the party, charging it with having failed to live up to its promises on three key issues – punishing quickly and adequately those responsible for excesses during the emergency, especially Mrs. Indira Gandhi, fighting corruption in high places, and giving the economy a distinctly rural bias. Simultaneously, he will be mobilizing the support of middle and the so-called backward castes of peasant proprietors in the north whose cause he has always championed. It is possible, indeed highly likely, that he and his supporters will spare no effort to capture the party organization in the three states where they think they are well entrenched – Haryana, UP and Bihar – in the proposed elections if they are held as now scheduled. But irrespective of whether the party elections are held or not, Mr. Charan Singh’s main effort will be to embarrass and discredit the leadership and dare it to expel him and his lieutenants. If, to begin with, he can compel the Prime Minister to set up, against his better judgment, a special tribunal to try Mrs. Gandhi immediately and thereby precipitate an open conflict between the government and Congress (I), he will legitimately regard it as a bonus.
The situation now facing the Janata leadership has three major components which need to be clearly identified and kept in view in any meaningful discussion. Once Mr. Charan Singh had thrown the gauntlet as he had done in his statement last Wednesday, it could have refused to pick it up only at the risk of undermining its credibility. But the short-term and long-term consequences of the Union cabinet’s and the Prime Minister’s’ action are a different proposition. Arithmetic exercises in Parliament are irrelevant in this regard. If Mr. Charan Singh’s health holds, he will pose a challenge to the Janata leadership not in New Delhi but in the countryside of Haryana, U.P. and Bihar which is where, as it happens, Mrs. Gandhi, too, has made deep inroads into the party’s social base. It follows almost automatically that Mr. Desai must do all in his power to ensure political stability in these three states and ease the atmosphere of crisis. In specific terms, this means postponement of action against Mrs. Gandhi and avoidance of provocation to Mr. Charan Singh on the one hand and attempt to wean away from him those among his followers who are interested in preserving the status quo. The difficulties are obvious enough and they are truly frightening. The spirit of partisanship and vendetta can easily run riot in the party; panic can lead to an intensification of pressure for quick action against Mrs. Gandhi and the desire for a neat solution can promote the demand for disciplinary action against Mr. Charan Singh as well. But all that will need to be resisted. Having demonstrated its capacity for firmness, the Janata leadership will now need to display patience and tactical skill.