India's General Elections
Naratajan, S. & P., S.
To judge by the American press, one would think the third general election of independent India began and ended with the story of Krishna Menon! The moment his victory became clear, the...
...Apparently, they did not project a clear or counter image to the Congress on a national scale, and were unable to profit from wide dissatisfactions which influenced local voting...
...In what other newly independent great nation today have elections of such significance, and so democratic in character, been conducted...
...The results of the elections have been widely commented on and attempts to analyze continue...
...A great democratically held election has been concluded...
...A long tail of regional groupings, Marxist offshoots, Hindu extremism, and Muslim and Sikh parties make up the rest with 26 independent candidates...
...As a result, the future of such movements is open to serious question and, headed by the Praja Socialists of Asoka Mehta, they are to reexamine their position and their role in Indian political life...
...none registered important gains...
...Nationally, the Indian people endorsed the over-all policies of Nehru and his government...
...Given the issue of Chinese aggression, how were such gains possible...
...A further consideration is the loss by the Congress of its hitherto unassailable position as the secular Right party to the Swatantra party, and the emergence of a religious Right party as well...
...All these have merely raised their heads in their regions but the event has caused more perturbation in Congress ranks than the successes of the Communists in West Bengal and Andhra, Red militancy in Kerala, and Communist infiltration into the Congress party throughout the country—specially in the Punjab and in Western India...
...The most significant of these are the Dravida Munnetra Kazagham advocating the secession of the South Indian States and hailing from Madras (7), and the Punjab Sikhs (3) representing the militant Akali Sikhs whose leader, the aged Tara Singh, staged a fast for the achievement of a separate State for the Punjabi-speaking people...
...and that seasoned parliamentarians on the opposition side— the Praja Socialist chief Asoka Mehta, the Swatantra Party Chairman N. G. Ranga, the Communist S. Dange who may well prove more troublesome outside, the Chairmen of the Hindu Mahasabha and the old Jan Sangh—have toppled in the elections...
...Where the tendency of the first two general elections was simply to return Congress party-endorsed candidates, this time the voters apparently examined the choices before them in a deliberate way...
...Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister's daughter, is widely spoken of as the next party president who will take over very soon from the colorless Sanjiva Reddy who resumes the Chief Ministership of Andhra—suggests that these policies will be put through more unpleasantly...
...And the Praja Socialists who stand for democratic socialism, have dropped from third place to fifth with 11 members...
...Incidents there are bound to be in an effort of such a magnitude...
...It is surprising that—with 30 Communists returned to parliament and 166 to all state assemblies when Communist China is pursuing aggression against India territorially and diplomatically, with Communist theoreticians openly urging that the "Congress wild elephant" needs a Red mahout to guide it, and Communists burrowing into the Congress—the Congress party should be more concerned with the threat to democracy from the Right than from the Left...
...To complete the parliamentary picture, one must mention that Defense Minister V. K. Krishna Menon inflicted a crushing defeat on his opponent J. B. Kripalani, surviving charges of being Communist-supported...
...Such movements at best held their own or slipped backwards...
...I think the answer is that these gains accrued to the Khrushchev, pro-Russia (major...
...2) On the Right, a differentiated, but significant movement of conservatives, traditionalists, and reactionaries has stepped forward, particularly in the states...
...But the strengthening of the left wing in the Congress — organizationally too, Mrs...
...Its future, of course, depends on the country's economic growth...
...The Congress party has returned to power in the federal Center and in the states...
...On all sides, the efficiency, smoothness and impartiality of the election office are admitted...
...and pride at the ability to handle detail that, in other matters, is conspicuously absent among Indians...
...This linking up of "radical nationalists" of the Menon type with the Communists is a major source of worry for socialist and democratic India...
...The first is required because over 70 per cent of the electorate is illiterate...
...This is true nationally, in terms of elections to the Lok Sabha, or parliament...
...The anticipation is that the Congress at the Center will tend to emphasize more powerfully the objectives of the Third Plan, adopt more restrictive measures, and incline more Left in its international non-alignment...
...And there is admiration for the successful operation of the biggest election enterprise in the world...
...We have just finished our third general elections, a bigger and better managed one than the first two had been...
...And the Punjab, it should be noted, has all the turbulence of a frontier state...
...It will be analyzed in closer detail for whatever indications such analysis will yield...
...The Letter from Bombay which follows gives many details of the campaign and the results...
...In parliament, it commands a majority with over 350 of the 500 seats...
...the second is a precaution against multiple voting by one individual...
...On the "Left," and of major importance, we have the considerable progress of the Communists...
...The Jan Sangh, a party devoted to Hindu interests, comes fourth with 14 seats...
...ity) faction of the Indian C. P...
...It is one of the few disturbing factors—the other is the fraudulent elections held in the highIy sensitive Kashmir area and described by our Bombay correspondent—in an election marked by its democratic pro cedure, its sense of responsibility, and the active participation of tens of millions...
...and the sealed ballot boxes used in Kashmir have been found to be neither fool-proof nor knave-proof...
...The arrangements owe much to the breaking down of the huge task by the Election Commission...
...This right wing represents important semifeudal, communalist and disintegrative forces...
...and its taking over this role from the regional Ganatantra party in Oriisa by negotiating its merger...
...Here we shall only in a general way indicate some conclusions which may be drawn from the material already in, but far from complete: 1) In general, the election results indicated a slight, but not major polarization of votes drawn from the great mass Congress vote, and moving toward the Right and the Communistcontrolled "Left...
...The Swatantra party, formed in 1959 to voice vested interests, holds third place with 25 seats...
...it is more true in the state-wide elections to the state legislative bodies, where the Congress lost a substantial number of places...
...In the meantime, India has resolved to go forward along the road of democracy and social and economic growth...
...T. T. Krishnamachari whose finance ministership was signalized by heavy taxation and whose resignation followed an unsavory deal in the Life Insurance Corporation four years ago has been returned uncontested to parliament and is confident of returning to a prominent position in the new Nehru Cabinet...
...In the Punjab, for instance, the election of Chief Minister Kairon on a narrow majority of 34 dubious votes, and the declaration of the result without heeding his opponent's objections, have evoked wide comment...
...that Mr...
...The Communists, returning the same number of members as they had before the elections-30—take second place again...
...The moment his victory became clear, the press lost further interest and to this day has not published the final or complete results or given any statistical breakdown of the popular voting...
...By holding on to their strength in the parliament, by increasing their representation in the states, by adding a few points to their percentage of the popular vote (over 10 per cent), the Indian Communists are in a much better position to pursue their major tactic of the moment: a deep infiltration and penetration of the Congress party ranks on all levels...
...and the similar success of the Dravida Munnetra Kazagham and the Punjab Akalis in Madras and the Punjab...
...Nehru's fears, expressed six months before the elections, of religious and regional prejudices assuming serious proportions would seem to have been borne out by the rise of the Swatantra party to the second party place in three State Assemblies—Gujarat, Bihar, and Rajasthan...
...Some 210 million persons were entitled to record their vote, and over 130 million did...
...This would have been the natural trend in any case because the next elections are five years ahead, and the five years of the Third Plan, the middle span of the 25-year program of purposive industrialization, call for special effort—especially when the first year has been allowed to slip by...
...To judge by the American press, one would think the third general election of independent India began and ended with the story of Krishna Menon...
...3) Most disappointing of all, of course, were the other meager results obtained by the Praja Socialists and other democratic-socialist groups in the country...
...This would indicate the electorate is far more critical of the Congress leadership locally, that is, on the immediate level of social and economic problems and their (unsatisfactory) solution...
...Whether such movements shall continue to lead an independent existence or shall dissolve into the Congress is, of course, the uppermost question...
...Even ministers in the present Congress government were rejected by the voters on grounds of inefficiency or ineptitude or unpopularity...
...But this is election results this would be a miscalevidently the current thinking of the culation more harmful to India and to Congress leadership...
...by the rise of the religious Hindu Right, the Jan Sangh, in Madhya Pradesh and in Uttar Pradesh, to the same distinctions...
...In fact, I would say that the principal mandate given Nehru and the Congress was clearly one of getting on with and continuing the country's economic progress...
...In Indian elections candidates are identified by a symbol and the voter marks his left index finger with an indelible stain...
...there have been two recounts ordered in Uttar Pradesh...
...in fact, the "hards," the pro-Chinese leaders went down to defeat, sabotaged by their own comrades in the elections...
...Polling booths of a thousand voters each were set up and, barring movements of residents, most voters were within a stone's throw of their booths...
...But Kashmir has just this year come within the jurisdiction of the Indian Election Commission, and with its crop of 32 uncontested elections Kashmir cannot be considered seriously as measuring up to the standard of other State administrations...
...Judging from the democracy than to the Congress itself...
...by the threat of the Swatantra party and the Jan Sangh evolving a common program...
...If I find this concentration on Menon a narrow view of the election, it is not because I underestimate its importance, particularly in view of Nehru's involvement in the North Bombay campaign...
...Further, the fairly insubstantial reports received thus far indicate a growing sophistication and discernment among the voters in their choice of representatives...
Vol. 9 • April 1962 • No. 2
