On the occasion of the first Republic Day after the end of the emergency, it may be worthwhile to take a fresh look at the nature of the chance that took place last March. For that may help place developments since in a somewhat clearer perspective.
What happened last March was not a revolution. Not to speak of a change in what the Marxists appropriately call the relations of production, or relations among various classes of people, the new government has not brought about even a minor shift in the attitude of the vast bureaucracy.
Mercifully, little is heard these days of “total revolution”, mercifully because this can only add to the prevailing confusion in view of Mr Jayaprakash Narayan’s refusal either to define its contents or name the agency which is to serve as its instrument a la Marx’s working class and Herbert Marcuse’s alienated youth. And if the campaign against corruption was to mark the beginning of the process which was to develop into “total revolution” in course of time, it had petered out long before the proclamation of the emergency.
Hardly any politician who had joined JP’s movement in 1974 shared his moral passion for clean politics. In fact, some of them had had quite a shady past. They had climbed on to his bandwagon either because Mrs Gandhi had pushed them out of hers or because it looked like being capable of taking them to their goal – political power. They were alien as much to Marxian socialism and Gandhianism (both intensely moral doctrines) as to that strange amalgam called Gandhian Socialism, that is, to all major concepts which influenced and inspired JP.
By the time Mrs Gandhi proclaimed the emergency, JP’s movement had become wholly political in character, the removal of Mrs Gandhi from the office of Prime Minister being its primary, if not sole, objective. The incarceration of its supporters inevitably confirmed it in its partisan character. Indeed, since Mrs Gandhi had set up an authoritarian regime and began projecting her son, Mr Sanjay Gandhi, as her successor in what looked like an attempt to establish dynastic rule, corruption ceased to be a major issue.
Successor
The Janata party is not quite a product of the JP movement inasmuch as some of its leading lights were not part of it. At any rate, their association with it was far from intimate. Indeed, it is the product, above all, of the emergency. But it is a successor to the movement and fear and hatred of Mrs Gandhi remains, apart from the desire to stay in power, the strongest bond among its constituents.
In the process of overthrowing Mrs Gandhi, the party has doubtless restored democracy – it has already annulled some of the emergency legislation and is trying to annul or modify the remaining laws. But it could not have, and it has not, helped to restore either the consensus or the alliance system which Mr Nehru had built and which had sustained democracy in the country. On the contrary, it has won not only at the cost of Mrs Gandhi but also of the Congress party which can be said to have embodied that consensus and alliance system before the emergency.
This issue has not received any attention at all, partly because it has been assumed that the Janata party is no different from the Congress. Both have been described as umbrella parties which shelter a vast spectrum of political opinions. But if this comparison is valid, which it is not, it ends there.
The Janata is not another Congress party under a different name. The presence in it of a number of former Congress leaders cannot detract from the fact that it is by and large a conglomeration of organisations and men who had been opposed to Mr Nehru and what he stood for. As such, it is not an accident that the Janata leaders swear by Gandhiji and Sardar Patel.
Some commentators have poured ridicule on the Janata leaders’ claim to be the inheritors of the Gandhian legacy. This is understandable for a variety of reasons. Some of the Janata leaders have not been particularly kind in their references to Gandhiji in the past. Many others do not share his austere view of life. Despite all their talk of decentralisation of economic and political power, their behaviour does not suggest that they are any more solicitous of the autonomy of either the states or of their party’s state units.
Backwoodsmen
But the Janata leadership’s talk of reverting to the Gandhian approach to socio-economic problems is not altogether fake or the product of tactical considerations. No one can, for instance, doubt that Mr Charan Singh is sincere in his opposition to big industry or that the Janata leadership is more passionately for Hindi and against the English language than the Congress leadership. And that inevitably influences its attitude towards modernity, science and technology.
There is no dearth of backwoodsmen in either party, but they are more vocal and effective in the Janata than in the Congress. This incidentally has a bearing on their attitude towards the minorities and weaker sections of society – the scheduled castes and tribes – and the response of these communities to the two (now three) parties, the Janata and the two Congresses.
Since the Janata is a federal party in the sense the Congress has not been since independence when the socialists left it, it not only does not possess but cannot possess an unquestioned leader as the Congress has since Gandhiji arrived on the scene in 1919. This is a vital difference. For while Mr Nehru could, on the strength of his personality and his pull with the people, impress on the Congress a fairly consistent outlook however loosely defined, there is no one in the Janata who can perform the same role for it.
It will not be an exaggeration to say that it was by virtue of being a unitary party and of having a central leader (Mr Nehru from 1947 to 1964 and Mrs Gandhi from 1969 to 1977) whose authority would not be challenged that the Congress was able to undertake the task of nation-building. Since, in the Indian context, this has meant, above all, the establishment of a state which is not unduly influenced by caste or communal or provincial considerations and the spread of secular (non-traditional) attitude, it follows that a federal party led by what is called a collective leadership could not have attempted it.
It will be ridiculous to suggest either that Gandhiji favoured a federal party – he exercised what were virtually dictatorial powers wherever he led a struggle and whenever he chose – or that Mr Nehru did not recognise the need for a fair amount of devolution of authority. But a polity of Gandhiji’s prescription must be federal, if not confederal, and it must be dominated by caste considerations. Both the liberal and equalitarian impulses in our country emanate from the top elite – the truly modernised.
Fatal Flaw
Judging by the public record, there is little to show that Gandhiji was aware of this fatal flaw in his model – that a polity which does not provide a strong Centre would tend to perpetuate the age-old inequities and economic and social stagnation. Indeed, even in Mr Nehru’s case, it is difficult to cite much evidence to show that he was cognisant of this awesome danger. But it cannot be denied that he acted as if he was.
This inevitably raises the question of how the Congress under Mr Nehru and Mrs Gandhi was able to rise above caste, communal and provincial divisions in our society even to the extent it did. The answer clearly lies in the support the Congress was able to get from the Muslim community and the scheduled castes and tribes. Surprising though it may appear, the Muslims, the Harijans and the tribals have a stake in a strong Centre precisely because they do not expect justice and fair play from lower centres of authority.
This support did not absolve the Congress of the need to woo voters divided along caste lines. But that support gave it a measure of independence which was reinforced by the fact that the Muslims and the scheduled castes and tribes asked for very little – physical protection and elimination of blatant discrimination in the first case, and continuation of the safeguards and reservation in the services in the second.
Mr Sanjay Gandhi disrupted this alliance system because his forcible family planning drive alienated the Muslims and the scheduled castes from the Congress. This is one reason why the party was virtually wiped out in the March election in the northern states. But after its victory, the Janata has not been able to revive and stabilise that alliance under its auspices.
It is trying desperately to reassure the Muslims and the Harijans. But essentially its two main constituents – the Jana Sangh and the BLD – represent a different alliance system centred on middle Hindu castes. As it happens, the split in the Congress will make it difficult for that party, too, to win back the support of the minorities and the Harijans. Therein lies Mrs Gandhi’s long-term hope of staging a comeback.
The Times of India, 26 January 1978