India After Independence: 1947-2000 (48 page)

It is to Rajiv’s great credit that, in the midst of scandals and conspiracies, he personally handled with great elan, from all accounts, the crisis arising out of one of the severest droughts of the twentieth century. The South-west monsoon failed in 1987 (June-September), affecting one-fourth of the population of the country, living in one-third of all districts located in eleven states. A massive effort was launched to move food and drinking water, and to start employment schemes, in affected areas. It was claimed by Rajiv with justifiable pride that not a single life was lost. This, in a country where millions died in a man-made famine as recently as 1943, four years before independence.

But Bofors and the stink of corruption would not go away, and resurfaced in 1989, the election year. The Joint Parliamentary Committee Report had given a more or less clean chit, but the Comptroller and Auditor-General’s Report cast doubts on the procedure for selection of guns and raised other issues as well. Though it said nothing of the kind, the Opposition insisted it was proof of Rajiv’s guilt and demanded his resignation. They followed it up with
en masse
resignation from the Lok Sabha, which was no great sacrifice since elections were round the corner anyway, but were nonetheless an embarassment for the government. And Rajiv went to his second general elections with the country in a mood very different from the one in his first round.

A little older and much wiser, Rajiv had much to look back upon with pride. Except for Sri Lanka, his handling of foreign affairs had met with considerable approval. India’s standing in the world had been enhanced, not declined, and relations with superpowers and neighbours were on an even keel, somewhat better, certainly no worse than before. The economy had done well, registering the highest rates of growth to date, though the deficit and debt was piling up. The security and defence policy had been a sound one with the overdue modernization of the armed forces set in motion. Computerization was given a big push, a necessity if India was to remain in the reckoning in the world system. Anti-poverty programmes in general and the literacy, drinking water, immunization, and Panchayati Raj initiatives in particular, had the poor, and the rural areas as their main focus, thus giving a lie to charges of elitism.

There were several weaknesses, no doubt. Among them was Rajiv’s tendency to change his mind too often. He shuffled his Cabinet once every two months on an average, for example. He was also given to flashes of temper, and sometimes spoke without having thought through the consequences, as in the famous incident when he dismissed the Foreign Secretary in a press conference. Charges of inaccessability also began to be made, and some thought that he was also becoming arrogant, but these are the usual problems of high office. The biggest problem, in fact, was his relative lack of political experience, unfamiliarity with the nuances of grassroots mobilization, party organization, etc. But most observers were agreed that he was learning fast, and that he was no more the awkward
leader, that he had begun to enjoy the rough and tumble of Indian politics. Also, by 1989 he had passed a crucial test of political leadership: of having the nerves for it. He withstood Bofors, in which the most vicious personal allegations were made about him, and he was ready to endure the gruelling election campaign for a second time. Whether he won or lost, he had decided beyond doubt that he was going to be a player in the great Indian game.

Rajiv Gandhi had succeeded in placing the idea of preparing for the twenty-first century—the first century of the new millennium—in the minds of thinking Indians. When he asked for a mandate for the second time in November 1989, there was just a decade to go for the ambitious targets he had set before the nation, and which he hoped to have the opportunity to pursue. But running a government and winning an election are two different propositions and success in one is no guarantee of the other. Despite unprecedented economic growth, averaging around 5.5 per cent per annum, the highest expenditure ever on anti-poverty programmes, an almost flawless handling of the drought of 1987, significant foreign policy achievements, the ‘hava’ or wind blew in the opposite direction. V. P. Singh’s single-minded crusade against corruption, which he had carried on unremittingly since his expulsion from the Congress in 1987, had touched a sensitive chord. Corruption at the lower levels of the bureaucracy was an issue of everyday concern for all citizens, rich or poor, and it was widely felt that high level corruption created conditions of legitimacy for the lower level variety. V. P. Singh courted and won the support of a wide range of forces, which included Sarvodaya workers, trade unionists such as Datta Samant, the farmers’ movement led by Sharad Joshi in Maharashtra, and some sections of radical anti-Congress intellectuals.

Apart from choosing an emotive issue, V. P. Singh also fashioned a consummate political strategy for isolating Rajiv and Congress. He first joined together with all those Congressmen who had become estranged with Rajiv for one reason or another. Among these was Arif Mohammad Khan, a young secular Muslim leader considered close to Rajiv. Arif had achieved instant fame by resigning on the issue of the Shah Bano case. This case (see
chapter 35
) in which the Supreme Court granted maintenance to a Muslim woman divorced by her husband became controversial because it was opposed by orthodox Muslims on the grounds that it interfered with the Muslim personal law. Arif, encouraged by Rajiv, had put up a brilliant defence of the judgement in the parliament, but was dismayed and resigned his ministership when Rajiv, coming under enormous pressure from a powerful agitation and close advisers, agreed
to introduce a bill to negate the judgement. Rajiv’s stand on the Shah Bano case had first cost him Muslim support and, once he changed his mind, Hindu support as well, since he was seen as appeasing Muslims. In many ways, Arif’s resignation was the beginning of the turnaround in Rajiv’s fortunes. Arif was joined in the wilderness by Arun Nehru, the estranged cousin whom Rajiv had edged out when he seemed to be becoming too powerful and inquisitive as Minister of State for Home. V. P. Singh, Arif, and Arun Nehru, joined by Ram Dhan, V. C. Shukla, Satpal Malik and other Congress dissidents, formed the Jan Morcha, or People’s Front on 2 October 1987. With this as the core, V. P. Singh began to build an anti-Rajiv political bloc.

He placated the left parties by calling them his natural allies and issuing statements against communalism, but made sure he had the BJP on his side by speaking from their platform and maintaining close links with Vajpayee and Advani. However, more than V. P. Singh’s strategy, it was the inherent anti-Congressism of the left and the BJP that brought them to support V. P. Singh. His resounding victory in the Allahabad by-election in June 1988 against Congress, in which the Bofors gun had become the unofficial campaign symbol, had convinced them that he was the answer to their anti-Congress prayers. And though the left parties were always quick to deny any truck with BJP, especially when it became clear later that BJP was the main beneficiary of the electoral understanding in the 1989 elections, it is a fact that they were fully aware of V. P. Singh’s dealings with BJP. Citing Jyoti Basu’s presence at a public rally held to felicitate V. P. Singh for his victory in the Allahabad by-election, in which he shared the dias with Atal Behari Vajpayee of the BJP, V. P. Singh’s biographer, Seema Mustafa, says: ‘That V. P. Singh alone was not responsible for the “understanding” reached with the BJP and that it had the covert support of the Left becomes clear from this move. Indeed, eventually the Left parties told VP that they would not make an issue of any electoral agreement with the BJP, although they would not be able to support it openly.’
¹

The feeling among the left and V. P. Singh was that, as in 1977-79, BJP would not be able to gain much as it did not have any independent strength. BJP, on the other hand, went along, often swallowing insults that a party with less discipline would have found impossible to get its cadre to tolerate, in the conviction that the dislodging of Congress was a necessary step on its road to power. The association with left and secular forces gave it the credibility it lacked by removing the stigma of communalism that had ensured it remained on the fringes of Indian politics—a stigma that had been attached to it by the efforts of secular nationalists since the days of the freedom struggle. BJP increased its tally from 2 in 1984 to 86 in 1989, and this jump put it on the path to power, which it achieved in 1998. To quote, ‘The broad alliance [formed in 1989] was definitely one of the factors responsible for the rise of the BJP.’
²

The strategy for opposition unity was conceived as a three-stage process. The first stage was the unity of centrist non-Congress secular
national parties, the second the formation of a National Front of all non-left secular parties, regional and national, and the third the seat adjustments with left parties and BJP. The second stage was completed first, with the National Front of seven parties being formed on 6 August 1988. On 11 October 1988, the birthday of Jayaprakash Narayan, Janata Dal was formed with the merger of the Jan Morcha, Congress(S), Janata and Lok Dal. The third stage was reached when the Janata Dal-led National Front and BJP agreed not to contest against each other in around 85 per cent of the seats where the two would have otherwise nominated candidates, and a similar arrangement for a smaller number of seats was reached between the National Front and the Communist parties.

The election results were a blow to Congress even if it was still the single largest party with 197 seats and 39.5 per cent vote share. Rajiv made it clear that Congress was not interested in trying to form a government. With the left parties and the BJP quickly declaring that they would support a National Front government from the outside, the stage was set for the second non-Congress government in post-independence India to take office. The National Front had won 146 seats and was supported by the BJP with 86 and the left parties with 52 seats.

The beginnings were not smooth, however, with Chandra Shekhar totally opposed to V. P. Singh as prime minister, and Devi Lal insisting he be made deputy prime minister at least. With elections over, all the differences caused by clashing ambitions, oversized egos, ideological preferences, came to the fore and it was with some difficulty that V. P. Singh took oath as prime minister on 2 December 1989 accompanied only by Devi Lal as deputy prime minister. The lack of trust that was to become more open later was evident even at the swearing-in ceremony where Devi Lal made a joke of himself by insisting on inserting the term deputy prime minister into the oath despite the President’s gentle admonition that he should only say ‘minister’, as if he was not sure that the prime minister would stick to his promise!

Though V. P. Singh started out with a high-profile visit to Punjab in which he visited the Golden Temple and drove around in an open jeep, as if to heighten the contrast with the heavily guarded Rajiv, and made many noises about reversing Congress policies, it was typical of his administration that the high-sounding words did not lead anywhere. Punjab was as bad as ever at the end of his term, and Kashmir was much worse. He made George Fernandes head of the Kashmir Affairs Committee, but allowed Arun Nehru and Mufti Mohammed Sayeed to continue to interfere, and then, without consulting anybody, appointed Jagmohan the Governor of Kashmir! Sure enough, Farooq Abdullah, the chief minister of Kashmir, resigned in protest, since Jagmohan was the man who had cost him his chief ministership in 1983 by encouraging defections against him. True to form, Jagmohan dissolved the assembly, and, again without
consulting anyone, V. P. Singh recalled him, and made him a Rajya Sabha member to mollify him. In fact, apart from completing the withdrawal of Indian troops from Sri Lanka, and settling the trade and transit dispute with Nepal, there was little that the National Front government had to show for itself. It was also unable to use its clout with BJP and the Muslim leaders to bring them to a resolution of the Ayodhya dispute. On the contrary, Advani’s rath yatra, which is discussed below, inflamed communal passions to fever pitch, just as Mandal aroused caste feelings as never before.

Perhaps the main reason for the inability of the government to get its act together was the enormous amount of time and energy spent on trying to resolve internal differences. Chandra Shekhar made no secret of his antipathy to the prime minister. He lost no time in supporting Farooq Abdullah when he resigned. Ajit Singh was disliked by Devi Lal, and Devi Lal by almost everybody else but Chandra Shekhar. Devi Lal disliked Ajit Singh, the son of Charan Singh, who first articulated peasant interests in North India in 1967, but he loved his own son, Om Prakash Chautala, so much that he made him chief minister of Haryana in his place once he became deputy prime minister. A scandal followed Chautala’s attempt to seek election from Meham, as enquiries established that large-scale rigging and physical intimidation of voters had occurred, and the election was countermanded by the Election Commision. Chautala resigned as chief minister only to be reinstated two months later. This proved too much for at least Arif and Arun Nehru’ and they resigned from the government. As if on cue, V. P. Singh also resigned, but was persuaded to continue after assurances of Chautala stepping down. But that was not the last trick the ‘Elder Uncle’ or ‘Tau’, as Devi Lal was called, had up his sleeve. He now accused Arif and Arun Nehru of corruption, and produced a letter purportedly written by V. P. Singh to the President of India in 1987, accusing them of involvement in the Bofors deal. V. P. Singh, declaring that the letter was a badly disguised forgery, dismissed Devi Lal on 1 August 1990.

Never one to take things lying down, Devi Lal gave a call for a big peasants’ rally in New Delhi on 9 August to show V. P. Singh his true strength. Though V. P. Singh denies this, it is widely believed that, rattled by this threat, and wanting to divert attention, he made the most controversial decision of his rule. On 7 August, he announced in the parliament that the report of the Mandal Commission, appointed by the Janata government (1977-79) and quietly ignored by Mrs Gandhi, would be implemented. The recommendations were that 27 per cent of jobs in the government services and public undertakings be reserved for candidates belonging to the ‘backward castes’, thus bringing the total in the reserved category to 49.5 per cent, as 22.5 per cent was already reserved for the Scheduled Castes or dalits and the Scheduled Tribes.
³
The recommendations included, as a second stage, to be implemented later, reservations in educational institutions and promotions.

The announcement was greeted with widespread dismay and anger.
Even those who did not disagree with the decision in principle were upset at the sudden and arbitrary manner in which it was taken. In what was becoming an increasingly familiar pattern, V. P. Singh did not consult even close associates before making the announcement. Biju Patnaik, R.K. Hegde, Yashwant Sinha, and Arun Nehru were among those unhappy with the decision for one reason or another. The left parties and BJP were upset that they had no clue about the decision. Devi Lal and Chandra Shekhar came out in strong condemnation. The criticisms ranged from the move’s timing and lack of effort to build up a consensus, to the divisive nature of the move and the faulty criteria used for identifying backward castes. CPM wanted economic criteria to be used as the basis of reservation, and many others, including Hegde, agreed with that view. Eminent sociologists pointed out that the method of identification of backward castes was outdated and changes in social structure since independence had not been taken into account. Among those who were called ‘backward castes’ in the report were the sections who were the major beneficiaries of land reforms and the Green Revolution and they could hardly claim special treatment on grounds of backwardness. There were, no doubt, some sections among those identified as backward castes who were in fact not very different from Scheduled Castes in their economic and social status, and deserved special treatment, but they needed to be identified carefully and separately, for, if they were lumped together with castes who were backward only in name, they were unlikely to be able to compete for benefits.
⁴
,

The worst aspect of the Mandal decision was that it was socially divisive; it pitted caste against caste in the name of social justice; it made no effort to convince those who would stand to lose that they should accept it in the larger interest; it encouraged the potential beneficiaries to treat all those who opposed the decision as representing upper-caste interests, and re-introduced caste as a concept and identity even in those sectors of society from where it had virtually disappeared. Further, one would have expected that forty years after reservations were first introduced for Scheduled Castes in the Constitution, a serious debate and empirical examination of their efficacy as a strategy for social justice would be in order before they were extended to new sections. The arguments that reservations were perpetuated not because they served the interests of the really disadvantaged but of the elites among the castes benefiting from reservation, that the focus on reservation as the preferred and often sole strategy for social justice prevented consideration of other equally if not more effective strategies,
⁵
that politics of caste identity benefited leaders rather than the victims of the caste system—all these needed to be seriously debated and the case for extension of reservation established and public opinion built around it before such major social engineering was attempted.