A SPONTANEOUS UPSURGE OF DISSENT IN INDIA
Judd, Henry
One man alone has taken it upon himself to reverse India's decline toward some form of authoritarian rule by Indira Gandhi, head of government, in the name of the Congress, India's ruling...
...Its leader does not desire political power for himself, he is not running for prime minister, he has no political party of his own, he covets nothing...
...These gave rise to a feeling of frustration and alienation on the part of the people...
...The mass of Indian people are neither "communist" nor basically sympathetic to the Soviet state...
...In the now famous March 6, 1975 New Delhi demonstration in which 500,000 people marched in exemplary nonviolent procession, a "Charter of Demands" was presented to the Indian parliament...
...How prophetic Mahatma Gandhi was when he foresaw as far back as 1930 that if he survived the freedom struggle, he would have to fight many a non-violent battle as stubbornly as the one in which he was engaged against the British...
...In the absence of other effective channels of articulation it burst open in the form of popular agitations...
...But the J.P...
...has opened a new and probably decisive chapter in his nation's long history, at least insofar as the future of its democracy is concerned...
...resistance movement has many characteristics of spontaneity about it that must be taken into account...
...In an introduction to a collection of his writings and speeches, Towards Revolution, Narayan offers this comment on his position...
...One joins Congress to seek a career in politics, in obtaining government contracts, or favors for relatives...
...With the people and for the people, or in spite of them and against them...
...but the trends are there...
...this is a movement heavily obliged to improvise and develop its goals and program as it grows apace...
...It is evident that correctives are necessary which would make it morally compelling that the preconditions of the democratic system obtain in practice...
...thus his recent bold appeal to the armed forces and the police to refuse to carry out orders they consider to be "immoral" and against the people...
...at the moment the center of the stage is occupied by a frail but determined freedom fighter who articulates the voice of the people...
...Further, what is exercising the Opposition at this moment is the danger that emergency rule will be used by the government to get Parliament to extend its life, without holding the general election scheduled for 1976—by virtue of the proviso to Article 83 (2) of the Constitution, which permits such an extension for a period of one year at a time...
...In the struggle to reach such a solution, a great drama is unfolding step by step...
...we were rather naive in our belief that State policies would, as a matter of course, follow the path we had blazed for them, for, after all, a democratic State had to resonate to impulses of voluntary mass action...
...Speaking of the need "for a government of the Left and democratic forces," the CPI dreams 224 COMMENTS AND OPINIONS of sharing power with the Congress, first in individual states, then at the center...
...The closest parallel to the emergency provisions of the Indian Constitution can be found in the famous Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution of Germany's Third Republic...
...Known familiarly as J.P...
...What has mattered to me is how that power is being exercised and for what purpose...
...The Congress party today is comparable to the Institutional Revolutionary party of Mexico, the party that holds all the strings of power and has ruled Mexico since the Revolution...
...The present challenge— more on the level of mass protest and emotional reaction than organized political struggle— has developed especially since the end of the two weeks' war with Pakistan over Bangladesh...
...Of course, India is not Bangladesh, and the burial of democracy in India would be a far more difficult and complex task...
...The ideological framework which I have set out and the nature of the challenge as I perceive it should leave none in doubt about the central purpose of my intervention...
...Who is in power has not been of any great consequence to me...
...It is no secret from any one...
...One joins Congress to advance one's career, academic, govemCOMMENTS AND OPINIONS 223 mental, or business...
...In the little over nine years that she has been prime minister, Indira Gandhi has ruled under emergency legislation for almost six years...
...Gandhi, his principal opponent, are clear...
...That one man through strength of character and integrity has opened the floodgates is remarkable...
...What has increasingly come under question is Congress's right to rule the country, a rule that began with independence in 1947...
...His struggle, which may well end with his martyrdom, is largely ignored throughout the world, but in India itself he has wrested political initiative away from Mrs...
...Side by side with this failure and partly related to it was the growing corruption at political and administrative levels, the use of big money in elections and the growing insensitivity on the part of the operators of the system to the mounting hardships of the people and their scant regard for the rules of the democratic game...
...With one hand J.P...
...responsible for the crisis, but the growing conviction that the structure and orientation of Indian society itself (its quasi-Westernized form of parliamentary rule, its pluralist party system, its form of government and constitution) have become open to question—hence, subject to change and drastic reorganization...
...This is a movement not yet two years old, which came out of a relatively minor agitation for student rights in an obscure provincial city of Bihar (Buddh-Gaya), and which is still largely dependent upon the skill, sophistication, and integrity of an elderly and ill man...
...How doubtful these assumptions are in a society of gross inequalities, wherein the few who own the means of production control the State, has been borne out in the political situation in the country as it has emerged after the five general elections that have taken place...
...they want an Indian solution to their poverty problem, along democratic lines...
...Worse, there is no time limit to the continuation of the emergency, and no provision for judicial review in the courts...
...In the words of a sensitive Indian political commentator, Ram Joshi, (Asian Survey, April 1975), The subsequent failure to live up to the promises and effectively implement the announced politices created a credibility problem...
...All this, of course, would be dependent on a massive reordering of developmental priorities to shift from emphasis on heavy industry toward the encouragement of agriculture and village economy by large-scale subsidies...
...Gandhi or the Congress leadership...
...The differences between J.P.'s situation and that of Mrs...
...A steady erosion of Indian democracy has taken place...
...It consists of two pages of specific demands ranging from fresh elections in the states (an All-India General Election is scheduled for February 1976) to proposals for decentralization of central powers and the creation of a number of new states, to a series of economic demands constituting a "New Deal" for the unemployed, the unskilled worker, and the landless laborer...
...The CPI has become the leading political force in the assault upon J.P...
...Ominously enough, the recent constitutional changes in Bangladesh—which dissolved all but the ruling party of Sheik Mujib and made him into the nation's virtual dictator—did not evoke any criticism, protest, or expression of regret from Mrs...
...All four countries of the South Asian subcontinent (India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh) are now under emergency rule...
...and his movement...
...India today lives under the emergency rule proclaimed at the beginning of the Indo-Pakistani War, although that war came to an end in 14 days...
...the average Indian citizen is in despair over his government...
...That we were wrong in this assumption and that the State system was subservient to a variety of forces with their interests entrenched in keeping it a closed shop is glaringly apparent now...
...It is maintained that these ends are sought to be secured through the institutional devices in parliamentary democracy...
...This article was written early in June, before the constitutional crisis...
...It has been argued that adult franchise would be so compelling a political factor that no party or group would dare exploit State power for its own ends...
...since 1962, the country has known only a brief respite (1968-71) from the state of emergency...
...At the same time, he must count upon natural leaders from younger generations to step forward and assume their place...
...Under Article 352—not yet invoked, but reserved for a major crisis—individual freedoms of the citizens can be suspended and a virtual dictatorship of the Central Executive established...
...It is not simply the failure of independent India to "feed the hungry and clothe the naked" that is *For another comment on Jayaprakash Narayan and his nonviolent movement, see "Gandhian Revolt Against Indira Gandhi," by Umashanker Phadnis, in our Spring 1975 issue...
...Further, many discredited and bypassed politicians of the older parties are trying to latch on to the movement...
...It has endeavored to create a lynch atmosphere in the country, which has led to three assaults upon J.P., including one beating by hoodlums...
...Congress is one vast sink of corruption and cynicism...
...J.P.'s PROGRAM, then, is on two levels: immediate proposals regarding the economic condition of the millions, and long-range, more controversial proposals regarding the structure of Indian society...
...Gandhi, in addition to being handicapped by her responsibility for the country's operation (although she, of course, has all the instruments of state power in her hands), has been forced to lean more heavily than ever before upon the CPI (Communist Party of India, the pro-Moscow, Stalinist-drenched movement...
...This, in general terms, is the background against which the movement of Narayan began...
...While the Prime Minister is counting upon the movement faltering because it cannot concretize its concepts and goals, nor fashion an instrument capable of achieving its ends, J.P...
...to tens of millions of Indians, Jayaprakash Narayan,* now 72 years old, is a veteran revolutionary, socialist, and now practitioner of nonviolent Gandhianism...
...If we know what he does not want, then what does he want...
...One man alone has taken it upon himself to reverse India's decline toward some form of authoritarian rule by Indira Gandhi, head of government, in the name of the Congress, India's ruling party...
...Elections to the state legislatures in Orissa and Uttar Pradesh (particularly the latter where the Congress secured 51 percent of the seats with less than 32 percent of the votes) further deepened popular suspicion about the fairness of elections...
...The Indian state, even under the rule of a corrupt and incompetent party such as Congress, has steadily grown in concentration of power...
...The long-range proposals for setting up self-sufficient village republics and the devolution of democratic functions down to the state, regional, and local level are matters demanding far more study and discussion than they have received up to this point...
...COMMENTS AND OPINIONS 225...
...must ward off their attempts to narrowly "politicize" the movement, to tame it and discredit it...
...can afford some daring and risks...
Vol. 22 • July 1975 • No. 3
