India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy

by Ramachandra Guha

  IV

  In the winter of 1978/9 the Swiss economist Gilbert Etienne travelled through the Indian countryside, visiting villages he had studied a decade and a half previously. He found a marked contrast between, on the one hand, ‘dynamic’ areas such as western Uttar Pradesh and the Cauvery delta of Tamil Nadu and, on the other, ‘slow or no growth’ areas such as eastern Uttar Pradesh and Orissa. What seemed crucial to rural prosperity was water management. Where irrigation facilities had been extended, productivity had risen, and incomes and lifestyles with it. Apart from water, a key input was chemical fertilizers, the consumption of which had increased fourfold in the ‘Green Revolution’ districts.

  The gains from agricultural growth, discovered Etienne, had accrued chiefly to the rising ‘backward’ castes – such as the jats in UP, the Kurmis and Yadavs in Bihar, the Marathas in Maharashtra and the Vellalas in Tamil Nadu. The upperor ‘forward’ castes, who once owned much land, had relocated to the cities. It was their space that these backward castes sought to fill. However, the position of those below them remained lamentable. The Scheduled Castes, who were at the bottom of the ritual hierarchy, had gained little from such rural development as had taken place in the 1960s and 70s. Representative here were the Musahars of Bihar. Etienne found that ‘their children were malnourished and the caste generated an air of acute misery’.28

  Etienne reported that one of the most dynamic schemes’ in rural India sought to increase the production of milk by producers’ cooperatives. This had its origins in a project started in the 1940s in the village of Anand, in central Gujarat. In the 1950s the co-operatives came to cover the whole of the Kaira district in which Anand fell. The milk they produced went to the city of Bombay, five hours away by express train. The success of this scheme (known as ‘AMUL’, with the first letter standing for the village where it began) prompted a country wide extension, given the evocative name Operation Flood. At the beginning of the decade there were 1,000 co-operatives involving 240,000 farmers and producing 176 million litres of milk each year; by its end, 9,000 cooperatives with a million members all told were producing and selling nearly 500 million litres of milk annually.

  These figures led some enthusiasts to speak of a White Revolution that had complemented the Green one. In truth, like that other revolution the gains from this one were very unevenly distributed. The scheme worked well in Tamil Nadu, a state with good rail and road facilities and a large urban population. In states with poorer infrastructure the results were disappointing. And everywhere it was the middle and rich farmers who had gained most; that is, those who had access to more fodder (in the shape of crop residues from their lands), more space to keep cows and buffaloes, and better access to credit.29

  The commercialization of agriculture and milk production had benefited a significant section of farmers in rural India. Crucially, economic gains had converted themselves into political ambition. In the 1960s it was these rising rural castes who came to dominate the state governments in northern India. By the 1970s they had made their presence felt in national politics. In the Janata dispensation the force of rural assertion was ‘dramatically represented in the personality and ideology of Charan Singh’. But it ran deeper than that of one man. After the 1977 Lok Sabha elections, 36 per cent of all members of Parliament came from farming backgrounds, up from 22 per cent in 1952. Their impact was felt in the rural orientation of the government’s economic policies, as in the ever higher procurement price paid by the state for wheat and rice.30

  V

  Some commentators interpreted this rising rural power in class terms. They saw ‘urban-rural struggles’ and a sharpening of the conflict between factory owners and farmers. The terms of trade between industry and agriculture, once so heavily weighted in favour of the former, were now tilting towards the latter.31 But this was also, and perhaps more significantly, a conflict that ran along the lines of caste.

  In fact, when viewed in terms of caste rather than class, one could identify two distinct axes of conflict. The first was in the sphere of politics and administration, where the backwards sought to contest the pre-eminence previously enjoyed by the forward castes such as Brahmins, Rajputs, Kayasths and Banias, who had historically enjoyed a monopoly over literacy, scholarship, commerce and the exercise of political power.

  The national movement had been dominated by the forward castes so, when Independence came, government both at the centre and in the states was dominated by them too. Slowly the pressures of representative democracy pushed forward the claims of those lower in status but more substantial in numbers. More chief ministers in the states came now from the backward castes. So did an increasing number of Cabinet ministers at the centre. One citadel remained unconquered: the office of prime minister. Like Nehru and Indira before him, Morarji Desai was from the highest-ranked Brahmin caste. (Although not a Brahmin, Lal Bahadur Shastri was a Kayasth, from an elite caste of scribes.)

  In south India, a system of affirmative action, first instituted under colonial rule, had restricted the proportion of state jobs that the forwards castes could fill. Now the Janata regime sought to extend this system to their own strongholds in the north. In Bihar a commission set up in the early 1970s had recommended that 26 per cent of all posts in the administration be reserved for the backward castes. The report had been buried during the emergency. After the victory of the Janata Party in Bihar in 1977, the new chief minister, Karpoori Thakur, disinterred the report and decided to implement its recommendations.

  Thakur’s decision led to a storm of protest from the forward castes. Rajput and Bhumihar students burnt buses and trains and vandalized government buildings. The backward caste leaders were unyielding. Their resolve was strengthened by their strong representation in the state legislature, where nearly 40 per cent of the members came from castes that would benefit from the extension of reservation. As one politician put it, ‘our movement is not only for reservation, it is for capturing political power in north India and in Delhi’. Indeed, under pressure from the backward-caste lobby within Janata, Morarji Desai had appointed a commission to examine whether reservation should be extended to central government jobs too. As mandated by the constitution, 15 per cent of these jobs went to Scheduled Castes and 7.5 per cent to Scheduled Tribes; now the backwards wanted a share as well. The commission that would look into this matter was headed by a Bihar politician, B. P. Mandal.32

  Beyond the backward/forward divide, Bihar had become a metaphor for all that was wrong in India. Leading articles complained about the ‘deteriorating law and order in the districts’, of the corruption and inefficiency of government officials, of the instability of the state’s politics (as many as nine chief ministers had been sworn in since 1967), all of which made Bihar ‘a pitifully poor state’. Its present condition was contrasted with the halcyon days of yore, when Bihar had produced the Buddha, the emperor Ashoka and the great Mauryan Empire. Now, alas, ‘the only time Bihar ever manages to hit the headlines is either when it is devastated by floods and famine or, when nature takes a respite, there are reports about coalmine tragedies, atrocities on Harijans, and corruption’.33

  VI

  Those atrocities were a consequence of the sharpening of a second kind of caste conflict – that between the backwards on the one side and the Scheduled Castes or Harijans on the other. This conflict too had a material basis; it was the former who mostly owned the land, and the latter who mostly laboured on it. Beyond disputes about wages and working conditions, this was also a dispute about dignity. The backwards slipped easily into the shoes of the forwards whose land they had gained. Like them, they treated the Harijans with disdain and often violated their women. At one time the lowest castes had had no option but to suffer in silence. However, the expansion of education, and the spaces opened up by political representation, meant that the younger Harijans were ‘no longer ready to put up with contempt, abuse, beating and other forms of insult which were accepted by earlier generations as a matter of course�
�.34

  There had been a dramatic increase in the number of attacks on Harijans since the new government assumed power in New Delhi. In the ten years that Mrs Gandhi was in power the number of reported incidents was 40,000. Between April 1977, when Janata assumed office, and September 1978, 17,775 cases of ‘atrocities against Harijans’ were reported. It was estimated that two-thirds of these reports were from the north, in states where Janata regimes were in power.35

  The most serious conflict, however, took place in Marathwada, the arid, interior districts of Maharashtra that had once formed part of the Nizam’s dominions. Here the Scheduled Castes were deeply influenced by the example of Dr B. R. Ambedkar. Many had converted to Buddhism, and many others had chosen to replace Gandhi’s name for them – Harijan, meaning ‘children of God’ – with the more assertive Dalit, meaning ‘oppressed’. A group of writers and poets calling themselves the Dalit Panthers demanded that the university in the region’s main town of Aurangabad be named after their great leader. It was on 27 July 1978 that this request was finally acceded to, with the state government passing are solution to rename Marathwada University as Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar University.

  The renaming was bitterly opposed by the dominant Maratha caste. Students declared a bandh in the region’s towns, closing schools, colleges, shops and offices. Then they spread into the villages, attacking and sometimes burning Dalit hamlets. An estimated 5,000 people, almost all low caste, were rendered homeless. The order to rename the university was withdrawn.36

  Three months before the Marathwada riots there had been a violent clash between Dalits and upper castes in the UP town of Agra. Once again it was public admiration of Dr Ambedkar that sparked the trouble. Agra had a strong community of Jatavs, cobblers who had made money in the shoe trade. On 14 April 1978, Ambedkar’s birthday, they held a procession, led by an elephant with a garlanded portrait of their hero atop it. That a means of transport traditionally associated with Hindu kings was being used by Dalits was too much for the upper castes to abide. The procession was attacked. In retaliation, the Jatavs stormed into shops owned by the upper castes. Two weeks of sporadic fighting ensued. Finally, the army was called in to restore order.37

  VII

  Of the 10,000 and more episodes of caste violence reported in the first year of Janata rule, one was to have an impact far beyond its place of origin. This was the incident at Belchi, a village in Bihar where, on 27 May 1977, nine Harijans were burnt to death by an upper-caste mob. Y. B. Chavan, leader of the opposition in Parliament, announced that he would go to the spot to conduct an inquiry. When Chavan failed to honour his promise, his party colleague and erstwhile prime minister chose to go instead.

  In the months between her defeat in the elections and her visit to Belchi Mrs Gandhi had been very depressed. She (and Sanjay) both contemplated retirement from politics; settling in a cottage in the Himalaya was an option being considered. But the killings in Bihar drove her into action. Her political instinct told her that this might be the start of a possible comeback. So, while Chavan prevaricated, Mrs Gandhi flew to Patna and proceeded to Belchi. The roads had been washed away in the rains; she had to exchange her car for a jeep, then this for a tractor, then – when the mud got too deep – that for an elephant. It was via this mode of transport that the former prime minister reached Belchi to console the families of those killed in the violence.38

  This dramatic gesture brought Indira Gandhi decisively back to the centre of the political stage. As one of her opponents later recalled, her visit to Belchi served several purposes. It helped damn the Janata Government as being indifferent to the fate of the poor and the Harijans. The ride refurbished Indira Gandhi’s image as a friend of the poor and the lowly. It also showed to the average member of the Congress Party that Indira Gandhi was a woman of action and she alone could be trusted to lead the fight back to power.’39

  The visit to Belchi was her own initiative, but Mrs Gandhi’s revival was also helped by a less inspired initiative of the government in power. In the first week of October 1977 the home minister, Charan Singh, decided that he must arrest the former prime minister. Acting on his instructions, the Central Bureau of Intelligence prepared a charge sheet accusing her of corruption. Armed with this piece of paper, the police went to Mrs Gandhi’s house and took her into custody. Their plan was to drive her to a rest house in the neighbouring state of Haryana. On the way they were forced to stop at a railway crossing. Mrs Gandhi got out and sat down on a culvert. Her lawyers, meanwhile, told the police their warrant did not permit them to take their client out of Delhi. An argument ensued, conducted in the presence of many interested bystanders. Eventually the police conceded the point, and the party drove back to the capital.

  Mrs Gandhi was kept overnight by the police, but when they produced her before a magistrate the next morning, he threw out the charge sheet as flimsy and insubstantial. The bungled ‘arrest’ redounded badly on the Janata government, and helped redeem the reputation of their hated opponent. She began making combative speeches against the new regime, singling out the increase in crime and inflation (running at double-digit levels), and the profiteering of hoarders and black-marketeers. The deposed prime minister, commented the New York Times in the last week of October, ‘has been speaking more and more boldly lately, trying to assume once more the posture of anationalleader’.40

  Mrs Gandhi’s resurgence alarmed Janata, as well as many leaders in her own party. Some Congress ministers had already testified against her before the Shah Commission. In January 1978 the Congress formally split into two factions, those who stayed with Mrs Gandhi forming the ‘Congress (Indira)’. The next month this party easily won state elections in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. The former prime minister had been the chief campaigner; as the results showed, at least in the south her image as a saviour of the poor, the adivasi, the Scheduled Castes and women was firmly intact.41

  Mrs Gandhi now began looking around for a safe seat via which to re-enter Parliament. Eventually she chose the constituency of Chikmaglur, in the coffee belt of Karnataka. The state’s chief minister, Devaraj Urs, had a high reputation for efficiency; among his achievements was the bestowing of ownership rights to hundreds of thousands of tenant-cultivators. The work of Urs and her own, largely unimpaired, standing in south India persuaded Mrs Gandhi to seek election at the other end of the country from her native Uttar Pradesh.42

  Standing against the former prime minister was a former (and much respected) chief minister of Karnataka, Veerendra Patil. Leading Patil’s campaign was Mrs Gandhi’s old emergency-era adversary George Fernandes, now minister for industries in the Janata government. ‘I will not stir out of the constituency till the polling is over,’ declared Fernandes to a reporter. ‘We must defeat her.’ Mrs Gandhi took the challenge seriously; as the same journalist reported, she ‘smiles graciously at the women and children, accepts garlands at hundreds of roadside meetings, makes detours to visit numerous places of worship, calls on saints of all denominations’.43

  In the event, Mrs Gandhi won easily. No sooner had she re-entered the Lok Sabha than she had to face a ‘privilege motion’ against her. A Parliamentary Committee, stacked with Janata members, reported that back in 1974, when she was prime minister, Mrs Gandhi had obstructed an inquiry into Sanjay’s Maruti factory, and deliberately misled Parliament while doing so. Her punishment was left to the ‘wisdom of the House’. The Janata majority decided that she must be sent to jail for a week. The spell in prison, ruled the election commissioner, meant that she would have to resign her seat. This precipitated another by-election in Chikmaglur; once again Mrs Gandhi contested, and won.44

  VIII

  Janata’s attempts to humiliate the former prime minister were seriously misjudged. The stoicism with which Mrs Gandhi bore her sufferings was much admired, and the two brief arrests allowed her to acquire a halo of martyrdom. Admittedly, the men now in power had been victimized during the emergency, but that they chose to focus on taking revenge a
gainst an individual when they should really have been running a government spoke of a certain narrowness of vision.

  Behind the attempts to arrest the former prime minister lay personal rivalries within the Janata camp. The home minister, Charan Singh, was not reconciled to being number two in the Cabinet. His move against Mrs Gandhi was a move to steal the thunder from Morarji Desai. He opened another flank in the same battle when he wrote to the prime minister complaining about the growing influence of Desai’s son Kanti. Kanti lived with his father, and handled his appointments. Unflattering comparisons were made with the role once played by Sanjay Gandhi.

  Through the first half of 1978 Charan Singh and Morarji Desai, home minister and prime minister respectively, exchanged a series of angry letters. Eventually, in June 1978, Desai was compelled to sack Singh from the Cabinet, along withhis chief lieutenant Raj Narain. Others within Janata tried to broker a peace, but to no avail. In December, Singh emerged from months of seclusion to organize a massive farmers’ rally in the capital. Some 200,000 peasants, mostly from northern India, and many from Charan Singh’s own Jat caste, came to Delhi in their tractors and lorries to hear their leader speak.

  This show of strength forced Desai to recall Charan Singh to the Cabinet. In February 1979 he was appointed finance minister. He was now also one of two deputy prime ministers, the other being Jagjivan Ram. Singh’s first budget offered sops to farmers, as in an increased fertilizer and irrigation subsidy. But the patch-up proved short lived. One important Janata constituent, the Socialist Party, mostly sided with Singh; another, the Jana Sangh, decided to back Desai. Deepening the rift was the question of ‘dual membership’, the growing feeling that the Jana Sangh members of the Janata Party owed their primary allegiance to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Back in March 1977, Atal Behari Vajpayee had proclaimed that his old party was ‘dead and buried’. But the feeling persisted that it was the RSS that directed the actions of Janata MPs and ministers who had a Jana Sangh background. They were asked to disavow their ties with the RSS, which they refused to do on the grounds that the Sangh was merely a ‘cultural’ body.