After 1975 Indira Gandhi too could not resort to populist politics for a variety of reasons. It had produced a virtual economic crisis in 1973 when, under leftist advice, she had taken over trade in foodgrains, she had to contain the left, especially the former communists, in her party if she had to protect her position in the long run and advance Sanjay Gandhi’s cause as her successor; and Sanjay Gandhi hated the left and made no bones about it.
So when she returned to office in January 1980, after almost three years in opposition, she tried to sell a nationalist platform which emphasised the threat to the country’s unity and integrity both from within and without, perhaps she was genuinely persuaded that such a threat had, in fact, arisen with substantial US military aid to Pakistan and the beginning of the Akali agitation in 1981. But her personal conviction is as irrelevant for the purpose of our present discussion as to try and find out whether or not she was justified in taking such a view.
The pertinent point for us is to assess whether Indira Gandhi had succeeded in selling this platform to a significant section of the intelligentsia who are more concerned with such problems than the common people. For on that will depend, to an extent, our answer to the question whether Rajiv Gandhi can take up a nationalist platform, if he feels so inclined, and drop the populist one. I am inclined to answer this question in the negative, though I cannot be too sure because the issue was not tested, which it could have been only if the poll to the Lok Sabha had taken place when Indira Gandhi was still around.
It is almost universally assumed that her assassination by two Sikh members of her own security guards clinched the matter and convinced a significant section of the Indian people that the Akalis, aided and abetted by external forces, especially Pakistan, had emerged as a serious threat to the nation s unity and integrity. So it can well be argued that she achieved in her death what she might not have achieved alive. But this proposition needs to be carefully examined.
Wave Of Anger
The people were certainly stunned by Indira Gandhi’s assassination. A wave of indignation and concern swept the nation. She had provided an assurance of stability and order even for many of those who disagreed with her policies and Indians as a rule hate such brutal assassinations. The anti-Sikh riots in a number of towns were symptomatic of the ugly popular mood, regardless of whether or not there was an element of organisation behind them. This helped produce a substantial shift of the vote in favour of the Congress party, especially in Hindi-speaking states in north India. But does that clinch the issue regarding the nationalist platform?
There has been a lot of talk of a Hindu backlash. Perhaps there was. But to move from that to the talk of the triumph of Hindu India calls for a very big jump of imagination. I do not quite know what the phrase Hindu India implies since, unlike Christianity and Islam, Hinduism is not a religion; it can at best be called a way of life indeed, even that would be an exaggeration, for Hinduism shelters within its fold several ways of life. And I can say with confidence that the Hindus are not the kind of people who can take to xenophobia, without which it is impossible to sell a nationalist platform.
The Indians distrust Pakistan, but since its breakup in 1971 they do not fear it enough to be obsessed with it. This is one reason why, in my opinion, Indira Gandhi could not convince the intelligentsia that the country had been besieged by hostile forces and faced a grave peril. And if Indira Gandhi could not stir up a kind of mass sentiment against Pakistan, Rajiv Gandhi certainly cannot do it even if he were so inclined which apparently he is not.
Lest I have created the impression that Indira Gandhi resorted either to a populist or to a nationalist platform at one time, let me hasten to add that during her first tenure of office as Prime Minister she occasionally used both, the connecting link being the thinly disguised references to the CIA. As I see it, the underground nuclear explosion in May, 1974, was part of a nationalist response on her part to Jayaprakash Narayan’s populist attack on her.
Rajiv Gandhi is plugging a combination of Indira Gandhi’s nationalist and Jayaprakash Narayan’s populist platform. He is criticising US military assistance to Pakistan and he is emphasising his commitment to clean politics and administration. He also appears to have given up the hope of an early resolution of the Akali problem. But it remains to be seen whether these add up to a viable platform in the long run. The weaknesses are obvious. Criticism of US military assistance to Pakistan cannot constitute a nationalist platform and there are limits, as already stated, beyond which the talk of clean politics and administration cannot be pushed. This too is a form of Brahminism which can hurt the plan for promoting the country’s economic growth.
The nationalist platform is bedevilled by two difficulties. First, while a nationalist India must emphasise its ancient Hindu heritage if only because the Hindus constitute over 80 per cent of the population it is bound to offend the minorities who are only too quick to cry wolf. With his secular-socialist stance, Nehru bypassed the problem of defining India’s identity. Indira Gandhi was not so evasive. But she could not and perhaps did not even wish to clinch the issue.
Groups’ Struggle
Secondly, since independence, the main political battle-lines have been drawn within the Hindu community to the extent they have been drawn because they criss-cross in a manner which would be most confusing to an outside observer. Various groups have struggled for primacy and power, the minorities playing a supportive role in favour of one group led essentially by the Brahmins. This struggle cannot end whatever else might happen in India.
Beyond this, the situation is far from clear. In the wake of the poll to the Lok Sabha, it appeared as if the Indian people had vanquished national parties in intent if not spread, elected Rajiv Gandhi as their king-emperor and as it were, wiped the Indian political slate clean. Such a view would have been ill-founded. For in the country as a whole the Congress party under Rajiv Gandhi had secured only around 50 per cent of the votes polled and that too, in a highly abnormal situation which just could not have lasted. The elections to the state legislatures that followed just 10 weeks later in the first week of March confirmed that the political scene had not changed all that much. Opposition parties not only staged a comeback but significantly improved on their positions in several states. Two implications are reasonably clear.
First, the mandate for Rajiv Gandhi is not unconditional. His room for manoeuvre is y no means unlimited. He has, of course, to take the country forward but gradually. India under a democratic system cannot be pushed from one extreme to another as China can be. Rajiv Gandhi cannot play Deng Xiaoping.
Secondly, the gap between the political order as it obtains in New Delhi and that in the states has widened. This means that Rajiv Gandhi will need to deploy considerable skills to keep the two in alignment. He has been astute enough to have enacted an anti-defection law which will make it difficult for discontented Congress legislators to cross the floor and bring down party governments in the states. But to ensure their stability is anther proposition and efficient working still another.
And as I speak to you, Rajiv Gandhi and his aides are busy giving final touches to the national budget. This will be the first concrete expression of the economic philosophy of India’s new rulers. This adds to my difficulty in summing up the Indian scene and trying to speculate on the likely course of developments in the near future. So I am inclined to end with the familiar statement that, in India, the forces of continuity generally triumph over those pushing for change.
(Concluded)
This is the fourth and last part of the text of an address to the Asia Society, New York, on March 13
The Times of India, 22 March 1985