It will be a highly premature and harsh judgment to say that in acting against Mr. Charan Singh and Mr. Raj Narain the Prime Minister and the Union cabinet have taken a step which may help salvage the Janata government and party. But this may well turn out to be the case, though the risk of a serious split in the party is obvious enough. Mr. Raj Narain has been an obvious embarrassment to his colleagues from the day he was sworn in as a Cabinet Minister. His behaviour at the swearing in ceremony itself, though characteristic of him, was unworthy of a Cabinet Minister. It attracted adverse comment, especially among those who wished the government well, and so have his many later utterances and actions. Unlike him, Mr. Charan Singh has not invited ridicule. But whatever his self-image – he has clearly thought of himself as the strongest Home Minister after Sardar Patel and one of the few truly honest politicians in the country who owes it to himself and the people to lead a crusade against corruption in public life – his actual performance has done little credit to the government. The fiasco in connection with Mrs. Indira Gandhi’s arrest on October 3 last year and her unconditional release by the magistrate the very next day is too well known and remembered to need to be recalled. But it may be pertinent to recall that he acted irresponsibly when in an interview last year he named two embassies in New Delhi in connection with his charge that some foreign missions were holding for Mrs. Gandhi the wealth which, according to him, she had illegally accumulated during her tenure of office as Prime Minister. This was truly extraordinary behavior on the part of the Home Minister of India. The Prime Minister would have been within his rights if he had called for Mr. Charan Singh’s explanation then.
It will be unfair to blame Mr. Charan Singh alone either for the alleged deterioration in the general law and order situation or for the alleged increase in the harassment of the Harijans in the countryside in north India. Indeed, the accuracy of the two charges may itself be open to question, though it is self-evident that Mrs. Gandhi would not have recovered so much ground so quickly if the Harijans were not aggrieved against the Janata government and if the impression had not spread that life and property had become less secure under the present dispensation than they were under the previous one. But justified or not, it was Mr. Charan Singh’s business as the Union Home Minister to dispel this impression and do all in his power to reassure the Harijans. Instead he has refused to recognise that the problem exists and needs to be tackled. At a fairly early stage he convinced himself that certain individuals and groups not well disposed towards him had organised the campaign whereby it was sought to be made out that the peasant castes were tyrannizing over the Harijans and he has stuck to this view ever since. The evidence that the Harijans were beginning to vote solidly for the Congress (I) has not persuaded him to modify his position. Needless to add, the alienation of the Harijans (and the Muslims) is the greatest cause of anxiety for the Janata leaders.
His colleagues have clearly been willing to live with this strange approach of Mr. Charan Singh despite the obvious cost, if only because they have not been wanting to risk a split in the party. But he has not been equally keen to preserve the party’s unity. Else he would not have resigned from the Janata parliamentary board and national executive, encouraged Mr. Raj Narain to ask for the replacement of Mr. Chandra Shekhar and question the right of the Parliamentary board to continue to exist, and finally made a public issue of the manner in which Mrs. Gandhi is to be tried. It is obvious that Mr. Charan Singh resigned from the party bodies last April in protest against the leadership’s decision to ask Mr. Devi Lai and Mr. Ram Naresh Yadav to seek votes of confidence from the Haryana and UP Janata legislative parties. But Mr. Devi Lal’s position was clearly precarious and Mr. Yadav had agreed to seek a fresh mandate because he felt that he could thereby demonstrate that he had a clear and impressive majority. It is, however, not so much in actual political developments as in Mr. Charan Singh’s psychological state that an explanation for the resignation has to be sought. He has nursed a strong sense of grievance against Mr. Morarji Desai and Mr. Chandra Shekhar. He has believed that they owed their offices to him, the first because he blocked Mr. Jagjivan Ram by making it known that he would not serve under Mr. Ram, and the second because he accepted Mr. Shekhar in preference to his own possible nominees, and that they should, therefore, defer to him and his views more than to other colleagues. This feeling of having been denied his due has gradually hardened and, indeed, developed into what might be called a persecution complex.
On the face of it, it does not appear that Mr. Charan Singh had decided to push things as far as he has in fact done when he sent his resignation from the party bodies from his sick bed in the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi. On the contrary, it appears to be a reasonable inference that he felt compelled to take the next step – encourage Mr. Raj Narain to challenge the position of Mr. Chandra Shekhar – because the other leaders did not rush to him as he had expected with appeals to withdraw his resignation and the third step – accuse the Prime Minister and other Cabinet colleague of being soft towards Mrs. Gandhi – because the second strategy had virtually collapsed. But if events have taken the course they have, he has no one else to blame. He has tried to impose his will on others and he cannot be surprised that they have finally decided to stand up to him. They have been patient and in all probability they would have found a way out of the crisis provoked by Mr. Raj Narain’s utterances if suddenly last Wednesday he had not decided to call their honour and courage into question and dared them debate publicly the issue of the method of Mrs. Gandhi’s trial with him. The Prime Minister and his other Cabinet colleagues could have shirked the challenge only at the risk of undermining their authority. They had to pick up the gauntlet whatever the consequences.
Mr. Charan Singh is desperate and he will fight to the bitter end. With what results, it is difficult to say at this stage when it is far from clear how many of his erstwhile BLD colleagues are willing to follow him, if necessary, into the political wilderness. Among the three chief ministers who are supposed to be his nominees only Mr. Devi Lal has said that “whatever may be the situation, we will face it through”. But all that is less pertinent than the impact of the Union Cabinet’s decision on the Janata party itself. As indicated earlier, despite the risks involved it may be wrong to take an unduly pessimistic view. A comparison with the Congress split is obviously not justified. Mr. Desai has not chosen deliberately to split the Janata as Mrs. Gandhi had decided to split the Congress. Mr. Desai had not challenged her as Mr. Charan Singh has challenged him. But the demonstration of the capacity to act firmly and decisively enhanced Mrs. Gandhi’s stature and it is bound to enhance Mr. Desai’s. The discipline in the government and the party too, may improve. Above all, the Janata has now an opportunity to project a different image of itself, specially among the Harijans. But all that is contingent on the leadership being able to prove that the party is far more firmly united than ever before. The difficulties are obvious. There was a certain balance in the party which has been upset. But it should not be impossible to establish a new balance and in the process produce greater cohesion.