Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0169/01692.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 29KB | 454 lines

$Unique_ID{COW01692}
$Pretitle{221}
$Title{India
Chapter 8F.   The Indian National Congress and National Leadership}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Donald M. Seekins}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{congress
party
political
gandhi
government
minister
state
prime
national
opposition}
$Date{1985}
$Log{}
Country:     India
Book:        India, A Country Study
Author:      Donald M. Seekins
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1985

Chapter 8F.   The Indian National Congress and National Leadership

     On the eve of its centenary in 1985, the Indian National
Congress-specifically that branch known as Congress (I)-demonstrated that it
remained the country's only truly national political party. In India's eighth
general election, held December 24-27, 1984, it won an unprecedented 401 seats
in the Lok Sabha out of 508 contested; two more seats were won in balloting,
held in five constituencies on January 28, 1985. In part, the success of
Congress (I) represented a sympathy vote for its fallen leader and widespread
popular belief that Rajiv Gandhi-by virtue of being her son, the grandson of
India's first prime minister, Nehru, and the grandson of an early nationalist,
Motilal Nehru-was entitled to assume the position of national leadership.
Dynastic appeal was not the only factor, however. The opposition was deeply
divided and incapable of presenting the people with a viable alternative.
The major opposition parties suffered debilitating losses (see Opposition
Parties, this ch.). In the new Lok Sabha the largest opposition group was
not a party with a national focus but the Telugu Desama Party (see
Regionalism and Regional Political Crises, this ch.).

     Yet past experience had taught Rajiv Gandhi and party notables that
electoral victories could not be taken for granted. In the March 1977
general election, Congress (I) had been forced out of power by a united
opposition. Before Gandhi's assassination some observers believed that
nationwide popular dissatisfaction and a spirit of greater cooperation among
opposition leaders might cause this to happen again or that Congress (I) would
win only a slim legislative majority.

     Congress (I) was only a fragment of the original Indian National Congress
that had led the country to independence and dominated its political system
during the 1974-67 period. As the initial indicates, it was organized around
Indira Gandhi, created by her after she was expelled from the "Ruling"
Congress (R), in January 1978. But as her fortunes rose through 1978 and 1979,
the party grew as defectors joined it, and she led it to victory in the
January 1980 general election.

     The party's most serious problem in the mid-1980s was internal-the
demoralization that resulted from her having monopolized power at the top
and the atrophy of party institutions at the lower levels. Under Nehru,
Congress had been a major factor in political stability because it served
as an effective instrument for the mediation of caste, communal, and regional
interests. Although a stern and patrician leader, Nehru valued intraparty
democracy and sought to incorporate diverse points of view into party
programs. According to political scientist Stanley A. Kochanek, the Congress
"high command" served as "an appellate structure to arbitrate and mediate
state level conflicts, ensure fair procedures, and confirm newly emerged state
leaders in office. It could not impose leaders on a reluctant party, nor
could it sustain leaders in power who had lost the confidence of the majority
of the state legislative party." Critics accused Nehru's daughter of
converting the party into an instrument of personalist and authoritarian rule.
Most symptomatic of this were her attacks on such institutions as the
judiciary; her plans to make her younger son, Sanjay, and after his death in
1980 her older son, Rajiv, her successor; and her awarding of top party and
government posts not to the most qualified and experienced persons but to
those most loyal to her. She was perennially suspicious of any politician
having an independent base of popular support.

     Nevertheless, changes in the character of national leadership could not
be explained entirely in terms of the prime minister's ambition to establish
a family dynasty. Indian society had become increasingly politicized since
independence. During the Nehru years (1947-64), the political system was still
largely under the control of regional and local elites, many of whom were
Western-educated. These were people who spoke the language of
parliamentarianism and believed in the rule of law. The rise of new
classes-such as the capitalist farmers of the Hindi Belt and Punjab, militant
harijans and other disadvantaged minorities, and regionalist and "sons of the
soil" movements throughout the country-gave politics a new populist flavor
during the 1960s and 1970s. National integration and the breakdown of
society's caste-defined "compartments" brought previously isolated groups
into a competitive relationship. Increased conflict resulted as popular
demands focused on government as a major distributor of social and economic
goods in a society of scarcity.

     Gandhi believed that a strongly centralized party and government were
necessary in order to respond to these new challenges and to preserve national
unity. She bypassed the old Congress leadership and appealed directly to the
voters, particularly the least fortunate sections of the population. Yet the
growth of Congress as an instrument of one-woman rule also reflected that
political system's endemic weaknesses: corruption, inertia, and the political
immaturity of the electorate. In early 1985 it remained unclear whether her
successor could reverse the trends of two decades and restore life to the
party's institutions.

Indira Gandhi as a National Leader, 1966-80

     Before being designated prime minister after the death of Lal Bahadur
Shastri in January 1966, Gandhi had served as hostess, confidante, and
troubleshooter for her father and had gained valuable political experience
after he chose her to be Congress president in 1959. She also served as
minister of information and broadcasting in the government of Shastri
(1964-66), an experience that may have confirmed her chronic suspicion and
dislike of an independent press. Although it is unclear whether Nehru wanted
his daughter to be prime minister, the "Syndicate," a group of bosses who had
assumed control of the party after his death, backed her candidacy in the
belief that she, a relative unknown in the public eye, would be easy to
manipulate. This proved to be a serious miscalculation. Her political
instincts were astute, and she toppled older and more experienced opponents in
Congress with ruthless determination.

     The struggle between Gandhi and the Syndicate took place within the party
and on the national electoral stage between 1966 and 1972. General and state
legislative assembly elections in 1967 resulted in a severe setback for
Congress, marking the end of its unquestioned dominance of the political
system. It lost 78 seats in the Lok Sabha, barely retaining a majority of
about 40 seats, and lost its majority in eight of the 16 states voting in
state elections. By-elections in 1969 for the state legislatures resulted in
losses in four states, including West Bengal where leftist groups, led by the
CPI(M), formed a United Front government.

     The losses depleted the ranks of Gandhi's opponents, and an ostensibly
ideological confrontation took shape after she criticized the Syndicate for
being excessively conservative and for betraying the party's socialist
principles. A final break occurred in 1969 over the choice of a new president
of India. The incumbent, Zakir Husain, had died in May. When the Syndicate
designated the conservative speaker of the Lok Sabha as the Congress
presidential candidate in July, the prime minister decided to assert her
authority in a series of decisive steps. She dismissed from the cabinet
Finance Ministe