In a signed article which was then misunderstood in some circles as an indirect endorsement of the emergency, I wrote on July 30, 1975: “Most educated persons in the big cities had become so used to demonstrations, strikes and attacks on public property before June 26 that not many of them sat back to think either of the long-term consequences on the country’s economy and polity or of the fact that no democracy has ever had to cope with so many agitations over so prolonged a period.”
In that article I had commended Mr Nehru’s stand that civil disobedience, not to speak of acts of violence leading to loss of life and property, “could no longer have a place in free India” broadly on two grounds. First, since the “laws were being made by democratically elected legislatures, these should be obeyed and those opposed to them should work for changing them through the well-known democratic procedures.” Secondly, “the country needed a reasonably stable and strong structure of authority to deal with immediate problems as well as long-term ones of ending economic and social stagnation of several hundred years and ensuring the country’s security.”
CONSEQUENCES
I had then traced the development of extra-parliamentary politics: “This combination of electoral and agitational politics became such a heady brew in independent India that even the beneficiaries of the system did not care to reflect on the consequences… It is ironical that these dangerous trends should have found their consummation in Gujarat where the people are among the most disciplined and performance oriented in India … in retrospect there can be no doubt that the forcible dissolution of the Gujarat state legislature in March 1974 was a disastrous development … (it) represented the triumph of disruptive and agitational politics over electoral politics…”
Clearly I would not have recalled this if I was not convinced that once again the country is heading towards a situation very similar to the one in 1974. And in view of growing incidence of violence – witness the speed with which minor incidents in Andhra, Tamil Nadu, UP and Punjab have led to major flare-ups resulting in the death of scores of persons – unrest on campuses leading to the closure of one university after another, labour restlessness and indiscipline, the caste conflicts in UP and Bihar, it cannot be said that the picture is being overdrawn.
The parallel is not exact. Unlike its Congress predecessor headed by Mrs Indira Gandhi, the Janata government is well placed in certain matters. While the country had faced widespread droughts in 1972 and 1973 leading to the shortage of food and an unparalleled rise in prices in 1973 and 1974, in the last three years it has produced more food than it could consume with the result that by and large the inflationary pressure has been contained.
Simultaneously, thanks to remittances by Indians settled abroad, an impressive growth in exports and a drop in imports for a variety of reasons, especially the absence of the need to buy foodgrains abroad, the country has accumulated substantial foreign exchange reserves. All in all Mr Morarji Desai has at his disposal economic assets which were not available to Mrs Gandhi and is, therefore, in a much better position to cope with a contingency like a drought or rise in oil prices.
WILDERNESS
There is another notable difference between the national scene then and now. Most of the political parties which had been in the wilderness for long years and had therefore developed a strong tendency towards utopianism on the one hand and irresponsibility on the other, now hold office – the Jana Sangh and the various socialist groups as part of the Janata, the Akali Dal in Punjab, the CPM in West Bengal and Tripura, the National Conference in Jammu and Kashmir – and are beginning to recognise the limitations and compulsions of power in a democratic polity, the irrelevance of utopianism and the dangers of irresponsibility.
Mr Morarji Desai has, for instance, come out strongly against further devolution of authority from the Centre to the states and his cabinet colleagues have endorsed his view despite their earlier talk of decentralisation of political as well as economic power. Even the irrepressible Mr Raj Narain, Mr George Fernandes and Mr Madhu Limaye have not in recent months even mentioned Mr Jayaprakash Narayan’s favourite theme of the right of recall and among the senior Janata leaders Mr Charan Singh alone continues to think that corruption is the most important issue in the country’s public life. They will resent the suggestion that they are no longer referring to Gandhiji as frequently as they used to some months ago and that it is only a matter of time before they stop doing so except in a ritualistic manner as Mr Nehru used to. But responsibility which goes with power is a relentless teacher.
The importance of politicians in the wilderness for years and decades coming to power and therefore to grips with the heart-breaking problems of modernising an economy which had stagnated for centuries, and of reducing the inequities and the cruelties that are built into the Hindu society, cannot be over-emphasised. But there is one proviso to it. It is that the Janata should not only be able to hold together but also begin to move towards genuine integration.
But all these favourable developments notwithstanding, democratic polity in India remains a tender plant. It is comforting to believe that the emergency in June 1975 was solely the result of Mrs Gandhi’s personal dilemma and passionate attachment to power, that the country was not facing anything like a crisis of authority in which political management with the help of normal laws and procedures had become virtually impossible and that if there was a crisis of authority, it was wholly the result of the growth of corruption among men close to her. The truth was more complicated.
Even if it was not evident then, it should be now. For one thing, the same signs of social tension and restlessness have appeared once again. For another, Mrs Gandhi could not have re-emerged as a formidable political force so quickly and that, too, after having broken away from the so-called heavyweights in the Congress, if she, indeed, stood in the public mind only for corruption, arbitrary rule and dynastic ambitions. To say all this is not to accept her democratic credentials but to suggest that in the public mind she may well stand for something else as well.
AUTHORITY
The sources of her appeal are doubtless many. Millions of Harijans, Muslims and Adivasis have once again come to trust her despite what happened to many of them under the family planning drive during the emergency. But she is not without support among other sections of society. A more pertinent point is that her present appeal may partly be the result of the feeling that she alone possesses the capacity to restore the respect for authority. The feeling may not be justified in view of her pre-emergency record and the calibre of her present lieutenants. But if it exists, it has to be taken note of by the Janata leaders who have still to face up to the reality that democracy cannot survive without a respect for authority.
The respect for authority, it is hardly necessary to emphasise, depends above all on the performance of the government, the moral stature of its top men and the ability of the system as a whole to respond quickly and effectively to problems as they arise. It would also be superfluous to add that social tensions are to a certain extent unavoidable in a society undergoing rapid change. But it is precisely because the objective situation is perilous that the need for consensus among major political parties, as emphasised by the President of the Republic and the Janata Party chief among others, is most acute.
In plain terms they have to agree on the primacy of elections over the politics of agitations and demonstrations. These are doubtless part of the democratic process. But those who lead them have to observe certain norms and restraints. No one has a solution for India’s problems and the country will have to grope its way forward as best it can under uncertain and difficult conditions. But a measure of restraint on all sides can perhaps avoid major mishaps and catastrophes.
The Times of India, 19 April 1978