Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0169/01693.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 26KB | 437 lines

$Unique_ID{COW01693}
$Pretitle{221}
$Title{India
Chapter 8G.   Electoral Performance, 1952-84}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Donald M. Seekins}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{party
congress
opposition
parties
india
national
support
political
janata
seats}
$Date{1985}
$Log{Table B.*0169301.tab
}
Country:     India
Book:        India, A Country Study
Author:      Donald M. Seekins
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1985

Chapter 8G.   Electoral Performance, 1952-84

     Examination of electoral performance between 1952, when the first
general election was held, and 1984 shows that Congress was the only
political party with a genuinely nationwide constituency. Support varied
from state to state and over time, but no other party, with the notable
exception of the Janata Party in 1977, could claim anything approaching
an equally broad electoral base. Opposition parties were either expressions
of regional sentiment-such as the DMK or the Telugu Desam, possessing little
or no nationwide appeal-or groups with national aspirations that could not
extend their support beyond regional power bases, such as the CPI(M) in
West Bengal. Congress' share of the popular vote in the general elections
held between 1952 and 1980 ranged between 41 and 48 percent, the exception
being the 1977 election when it dipped to 35 percent. Absolute majorities
of between 54 and 80 percent of the seats in the Lok Sabha were achieved
by the "multiplier effect" of single-member, winner-take-all constituencies.
(In 1977 Congress won only 28 percent of the total seats.) Overall, there has
been stability in Congress' share of the popular vote (see fig. 17).

     The March 1977 election marked the low point in Congress' fortunes.
This was a special case because opposition forces were successful in
forming a united front and challenging a government whose Emergency measures
were extremely unpopular among key groups.

     In the December 1984 general election, Congress (I) gained 49 percent of
the popular vote and 401 out of 514 of the lower house seats contested
(polling for seats in Assam, Punjab, and some seats in other states-a total of
34-was postponed) (see table B). Observers in early 1985 were unsure whether
this represented the beginning of an era of undisputed Congress (I) dominance
or whether the consensus prompted by a sympathy vote for Indira Gandhi would
be an ephemeral phenomenon.

     Congress performance in the states has followed no clear-cut trends.
Traditonally, the states of Gujarat and Maharashtra in the west and Andhra
Pradesh and Karnataka in the south have been party strongholds, while support
has declined over the years in the Hindi Belt (though the defeat of Congress
(I) state governments in the two southern states in January 1983 signaled
a new trend). Generally, state-level issues have preoccupied voters. There
was limited "spillover," Congress successes or failures in one state not being
a particularly significant factor in its performance in other states. This
reinforces the notion that, given the strong regional orientation of Indian
politics, "horizontal" alliances between political forces in different
states are slow in developing.

Minorities in the 1977 and 1980 General Elections

     One essential element in Congress' success as a national party has
been the loyalty of disadvantaged minorities (harijans, tribals, and
Muslims, together forming 33 percent of the total population). Unlike the
caste Hindu majority, these groups have not been able to gain significant
political power on the local or state levels and have historically had
to depend on the top-down initiatives of Congress to protect their interests.
Their support became vital as opposition parties began making inroads into
Congress' caste Hindu following, especially in the Hindi Belt. It was to
these groups that Gandhi addressed her themes of social justice and an
end to caste discrimination and broke with the older party establishment.

     Several factors prompted widespread harijan and Muslim desertion from
Congress in March 1977. One was the effect of Emergency policies, especially
Sanjay's notorious Five-Point Programme, which caused considerable suffering
among minority groups. A second was the forging of an antigovernment alliance
of sorts between Muslims, whose most vocal spokesman was the imam of the Jama
Masjid, and Hindu communalist organizations, such as the RSS and the Jana
Sangh (one of the four parties that formed the Janata Party in early 1977),
perhaps the strangest bedfellows in Indian politics. Because police personnel
in the Hindi Belt were commonly Rajputs, a caste group with strong anti-Muslim
sentiments, Muslims were often singled out for Emergency police actions.
Harijan antigovernment sentiment was crystallized in February 1977, when
Jagjivan Ram, their most prominent national leader, resigned from Gandhi's
cabinet to form his own party, the Congress for Democracy (CFD), and pledged
support for Janata in the March elections.

[See Table B.: Results of the Lok Sabha Election, December 1984]

     In January 1980 Congress (I) was successful in regaining minority
support, largely because of the growing sense of unease among the minorities
with the caste Hindu-dominated Janata Party and a serious increase in communal
and caste violence during the 1977-79 period. Apparently, large numbers
concluded that their long-term interests lay with Congress (I) despite past
abuses. They were probably the largest single factor in the 1980 election
victory. In that year, according to political scientist Myron Weiner, they
contributed an estimated 32.4 million votes to the party, compared with around
17 million in 1977.

The December 1984 General Election

     A wave of popular sympathy in the wake of Gandhi's assassination
virtually guaranteed victory in the December 1984 general election (one
opposition leader noted cynically that "Indira Gandhi dead is more powerful
than Indira Gandhi alive") but Congress (I) launched the most expensive and
sophisticated campaign in India's history. Ample use was made of a newly
installed network of television broadcasting stations, controlled by the
government, to promote Rajiv's image as his mother's rightful successor.
Video tape recordings of mother and son were shown nationwide. The party
engaged a Bombay advertising firm to design the campaign; one of its
brainstorms was the distribution of millions of shiny, metallic bindi-the dots
Hindu women wear on their foreheads-engraved with a hand, the campaign symbol
of Congress (I). Although spending by individual candidates was limited to
Rs20,000 (for value of the rupee-see Glossary), more than Rs 110 million was
spent nationwide on newspaper advertisements, pamphlets, posters, and banners.
Celebrities such as matinee idol Amitabh Bachchan and the former maharaja of
Gwalior were recruited to run against well-known opposition figures. Rajiv
himself traveled over 50,000 kilometers in 25 days of hard campaigning,
reaching as many as 20 million people.

     Despite the party's immense advantage (it was estimated that it could
outspend the opposition by a factor of nine or 10), a tone of negativism
and fear sometimes crept into the campaign. Some of Rajiv's speeches were
interpreted as appeals to Hindu chauvinism and anti-Sikh sentiment. One
observer noted that for the first time in independent India's history,
a national leader had spoken of badla (revenge), apparently referring
to Sikhs. He also refused to bar three Delhi politicians who allegedly
had been involved in anti-Sikh violence from running on the party ticket.
In many localities, the Hindu communalist RSS switched its support from the
right-wing BJP to Congress (I), an unprecedented development. Since the
early 1980s the ruling party had implemented a strategy of gaining caste
Hindu support, which threatened to leave its traditional minority
constituencies dangerously exposed. During the campaign Rajiv also accused
opposition leaders of having links with Paki