India's Politics of Realignment

...This decision has created an almost unprecedented furor, especially in Janata circles...

...Despite the prevailing atmosphere of opportunism here, it should be noted, the political crisis has had some important positive effects...

...But it took Singh, who emerged as head of Janata S, all of 23 days to fail the vote of confidence ordered by Indian President Sanjiva Reddy...

...AS THE ELECTION APPROACHES India's Politics of Realignment darryl dmonte Bombay The split this summer in the ruling Janata (People's) Party and the subsequent collapse of the government has plunged India into political chaos...

...It alone was able to muster the anti-Jana Sangh vote, which at one stage included the "Left and democratic" forces led by the independent Marxist Communist Party (CPM) plus the Congress faction known as the Congress (I...

...No single party can obtain the 270 seats needed for a majority in the Lok Sabha...

...the Janata for only as many months...

...Although the RSS claims to be nothing more than a nonpolitical "social service" organization, it actually sees its mission as establishing a Hindu rashtra, or kingdom, in India, a vision that has little room for minorities...

...That she has sailed through the period of Janata rule unscathed (she is also unrepentant for the crimes she committed in the emergency) is bound to win her votes...

...A former Janata minister has gone over to Janata S. Meanwhile, the caretaker Charan Singh government has launched an inquiry into allegations that Ram, who also held the Defense portfolio under Desai, accepted kickbacks from the British manufacturers of Jaguar aircraft...

...No other group—not even the CPM, ruler of the key West Bengal State and strong in Karala—is as large or disciplined as the coalition's dominant member, the Jana Sangh, and its supposedly non-political associate, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), or National Self-Service Society...

...Indira Gandhi, 62, who was all but written off as a political force only a couple of months ago, is now back in the arena with a bang...

...One has merely to look at developments in neighboring Pakistan and Afghanistan to rcali/e that against all odds, the Indian political system is still bearing up...

...yet on the whole, through a network of schools and hospitals, they have modernized the most backward sections of society...

...First, since the Janata split was triggered by a confrontation over the true role of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, this has now been brought into public focus...

...A second positive effect of the political crisis here is that genuine issues are playing a part in it, appearances notwithstanding...

...Gandhi is making overtures to him...

...The strongest, as matters stand now anyway, is 71-year-old Ram, leader of the Janata Party...

...About a year ago, he precipitated the Janata's first major crisis by resigning from the government—ostensibly because the party would not shortcut India's legal procedures to put Indira Gandhi behind bars, but actually because he wanted to rule...

...Gandhi is continuing...

...But whatever the rights and wrongs of Reddy's action —he could have argued, for instance, that the Janata Party had forfeited the right to rule under Desai and there was no question of another chance—its practical consequences are of greater significance at the moment than the fine points of constitutional law...

...The result has been not only the Janata breakdown, but a flood of public criticism from all parties...

...In recent years the RSS has maintained a low profile, appearing in public only to perform its daily drill or to render relief in floods...

...And Ram will have to face an electorate bitterly disenchanted with two and a half years of what can at best be described as Janata nonrule, characterized by furious internal squabbling and petty intrigue...

...Shrewd woman that she is, she may be planning to ally herself with Janata in the election and then withdraw to form a government with Charan Singh...

...For a poor country trying to sustain its democratic facade, that is no small gain...

...This was a thinly-disguised attempt to crack down on Christian missionaries, both Indian and foreign, who have been convening tribals and Harijans—and in the process educating them to resist the oppression of Hindu upper caste landlords, traders and other vested interests...

...She complained about the appointment of the Charan Singh caretaker government, for example, and declared she would prefer Ram...

...A southern regional party, the ADMK, rewarded with two Cabinet seats in Delhi for aiding Singh in his initial push to oust Desai, is reportedly having second thoughts about its stand...

...At that time, he was accompanied by his lieutenant, the ebullient former health minister, Raj Narain, who had defeated Mrs...

...The Left parties, for instance, have successfully insisted that Charan Singh consider paying a bonus to railwaymen and withdraw some anti-labor laws as the price for their backing...

...Singh's victory proved short-lived, however...

...A typical example was a bill making conversions to a faith other than Hindu punishable by imprisonment...

...Indira Gandhi was able to stem the rot by splitting the Congress in 1969, by rallying the country around the popular "End Poverty" slogan, and by intervening in Bangladesh two years later...

...Current estimates have her winding up with over 140 seats—and according to recent reports, she herself may contest the Chikmagalur seat in Karnataka State, where she lost a year ago on a technical objection...

...Realizing that he could not survive a vote of confidence on the floor of the Lok Sabha (lower house), Desai resigned...

...This is why Mrs...

...Singh, 76, is a second major contender as the leader of Janata S. He enjoys a solid following in northern India, especially among the jat community, consisting of rich farmers who have benefited from the "new agriculture" that has boosted yields by use of hybrid wheat strains...

...For the midterm poll may well exacerbate, rather than eliminate, the political turmoil that has plagued India for over a decade, since the end of what was in effect one-party rule...

...Whoever comes out on top, though, for the foreseeable future India's government will surely be a loose, ever-changing coalition...

...Deputy Prime Minister Y.B...

...The Congress Party ran this nation for 28 long years...

...In the confusion, three contenders for power are clearly emerging...

...The basic problem that Prime Minister Morarji R. Desai faced was the hostility of Deputy Prime Minister Charan Singh, who could never accept playing second fiddle...

...In the general election that year, the party suffered heavy reverses as a consequence of its misrule...

...Finally, although President Reddy's decision to hold elections in December and keep Singh on until then did raise a hornet's nest, it was within the bounds of constitutional practice, if not of propriety...

...His main base is Uttar Pradesh State—India's most populous, with around one-eighth of the citizenry, and also its most backward...

...Even if the RSS remains a potent force in Indian politics, its hands are bound to be tied in the face of such comparatively virulent disapproval...

...But the flood of rising expectations that she unleashed proved her undoing: Faced with popular movements against rapidly increasing prices and government corruption, she imposed the state of emergency...

...Gandhi in the Rae Bareli constituency in the 1977 general elections...

...Indeed, it can be argued that she toppled Desai by aligning with Charan Singh, and then repeated the performance by dropping him like a hot potato when he had to face the vote of confidence...

...The fanaticism it is capable of becomes apparent when it is recalled that an RSS member, Nathuram Godse, assassinated Mahatma Gandhi because the Mahatma's attempts to build a secular nation were considered a threat to Hindu chauvinism...

...But through its close association with the Jana Sangh it promoted several detested moves by the Desai government...

...Mrs...

...Then, rather than give Jagjivan Ram, another deputy prime minister under Desai and the new head of the depleted Janata, an opportunity to form a government, Reddy dramatically announced that midterm elections will be held in December...

...The Muslims, the largest minority in India, are particularly fearful of the RSS...

...Parties and individuals are changing sides with an alacrity that would make a chameleon blush...

...The party, with 203 MPs, believes it has been denied its rightful opportunity to prove that it has enough allies to win a majority in the 558-member Lok Sabha...

...In a country where two out of every three people live in villages, this is a serious handicap...

...Gandhi's most serious problem is the erosion of her Harijan (untouchable) base, comprising no fewer than 100 million of the most downtrodden people scattered throughout the country...

...And no less controversial than the election announcement was Red-dy's tapping Charan Singh to remain as caretaker prime minister until the balloting, on the understanding that he would not make any major decisions or sanction sizable sums for projects...

...With Singh behind the scenes, the same Narain triggered the crisis of last July 15 by quitting the government and forming the Janata S—the S stands for secular—to oppose the Hindu revivalist Jana Sangh Party, the largest and best organized of the five-member Janata coalition...

...In the ensuing parliamentary free-for-all, Charan Singh's Bharatiya Lok Dal, or Indian People's Party, emerged victorious...

...For after years of infiltrating the police and paramilitary forces, it was able to use the legitimacy it gained under Janata rule to launch vicious attacks on Muslims in cities like Aligarh and Jamshed-pur...

...This reflects the rise of regional social and economic groups—like the rich peasants of the northwest and the aspirant middle castes in Bihar—which have only just begun tasting political blood and are thirsty for power in Delhi to safeguard their interests...

...Janata chairman Chandra Shek-har has even threatened to impeach the President for allegedly asking the parDarryl D'Monte, a frequent New Leader contributor, is the assistant editor of the Times of India...

...Atal Behari Vajpayee, a Jana Sangh member and former foreign minster, has written an important article in a national daily calling upon the RSS to exercise restraint...

...Within the very first week of Reddy's announcement, Indira's Congress (I), holder of 70 seats in the Lok Sabha, began shifting its allegiance from Charan Singh to Jagjivan Ram (the latter, who is backed by the chauvinistic Jana Sangh, still does not know on what terms, if any, he ought to accept the support...

...His best bet, therefore, would be to link the 60-70 seats he is likely to win in next December's election to another party in the hope of acquiring a junior partnership in a coalition government...

...Chavan has suggested that its drills ought to be banned...

...Opponents of the move have demanded a "national" interim government, comprising representatives of all the major parties...

...Such heated debates are something new in this country that prides itself on its commitment to a democratic framework where the President occupies the preeminent position and is customarily above reproach...

...ty to submit a list of supporters, yet declaring a midterm poll before it could do so...

...Ultimately, secular-minded Janata politicians, including Charan Singh, Raj Narain, George Fernandes, and Madhu Limaye forced a showdown with RSS supporters...

...If she does take such a course, she might ask Singh to become prime minister, for she still faces prosecution and it could be better strategy to rule from behind...

...Today, the process of realignment that got underway when five disparate political groups joined to form Janata and unseat Mrs...

...At the same time, Janata has a primarily urban following, consisting of traders, office workers and students—the segments of the population that rose against Indira...

...The trouble began in 1967, when the Congress monolith that had led the nation from the day it achieved independence on January 26, 1950, started to show deep and extensive cracks...

...True, some missionaries have subverted the national loyalties of their new adherents...

...At the state level, several non-Congress governments were formed, giving rise to short-lived ministries, "floor-crossing" or open defections in Parliament, and endless horse-trading...

...Ram, an untouchable himself and a respected politician (he has been a Cabinet member almost without interruption for 30 years), will get a big chunk of this vital segment, especially since he now wears the halo of being refused a prime ministership...

...Outside of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana, and particularly in the south, Singh is virtually without appeal...

...While Reddy has stoically defended his decision, leading constitutional experts like India's former ambassador to the U.S., Nani Palkhivala, have joined the chorus of criticism...

...In the general election of March 1977, the people booted her out unceremoniously...