The Abysmal Decline of the Indian Political system - Part 1

The abysmal decline of the Indian political system – part 1

                                                                                                                              Lalit K Kaul

Every political party in our country claims to have an ideology distinct from the other ones and that within the paradigm of their respective ideologies they strive to serve the people with the sole intention of facilitating their growth ensuring prosperity and peaceful co-existence without discriminating on the basis of cast, religion and gender. It implies that in order to ensure prosperity and development of a society and to arrange a peaceful dispensation, the methods employed by each one should be different from others. Post independence, new political parties were born gradually, whose aim was to challenge the Congress because they believed that the system that was put in place by the Congress was not in the interest of ordinary people. So they went to the people and presented to them their perceptions of what was ailing Indian societies and how they intended to address their problems and come up with viable solutions. In spite of their spirited campaign against the ruling Congress party’s policies they failed to displace Congress governments both at the center and in the states, but they believed that with their incessant campaign they would one day succeed in overthrowing the Congress regime. In the year 1977, they got this opportunity to form the government at center because the people and the leaders of different political parties were put to unprecedented hardships in independent India due to the state of emergency declared by the then Congress leadership in 1975. 

Therefore to defeat the Congress party in 1977 General Elections had become the common goal of all the political outfits, and rightly so. In order to achieve their common goal, a new political outfit came in to being and was named the Janta Party. Its strength was that it truly represented the combined will of the people. A historical event occurred during the formation of the Janta party and that was that a well known political outfit Jan Sangh dissolved its identity and its leadership and followers whole stock joined it. Such of those Congress leaders and its cadre who had opposed the emergence rule also joined it. In fact, all those who had been a part of the struggle against emergency rule during 1975 to 1977 joined the newly formed Janta party. It would be appropriate to say that the Janta party manifested the atrocities committed by the Congress regime during the declared state of emergency. The most important characteristics of this party was that it was not formed on the basis of religion and various casts prevalent in our country, but was born to fight the autocratic rule of the Congress. It was not formed with the intention of dividing Indian society on the basis of religion, cast and gender. 

 This phase of the Indian politics was not divisive and it reflected the resolve of the people to fight autocracy and injustice. The formation of Janta party kindled lot many hopes among the masses because it was conglomeration of such political ideologies that had opposed the Congress all through. Janta party won the elections and came to power at the center, but it could last only for two years not because of ideological clashes but that of personality clashes; the fact that the Jan Sangh had dissolved its identity, there could not have been any ideological clashes and also because the other political outfits were only the splinter groups of the Congress monolith. For their own political aspirations they individually and collectively ignored the interests and aspirations of the masses that had elected them to power and they did in fact truly represent. If ever there was a betrayal of the people, it was the fall of Janta party government and its subsequent disintegration, as it turned out to be an event that was to change unrecognisably the face of Indian politics; its ethics and reverence for various ideologies.

Formation of Janta party cannot be termed as an act of opportunism, but the kind of political discourse that followed its disintegration was nothing but based on political opportunism that was only about capturing power at center and in states. After the fall of Janta government, the Congress leadership knowing that Chaudhary Charan Singh had been nurturing ambitions of becoming the Prime Minister of India offered him unconditional support. He accepted Congress support and became the Prime Minister only to be disgraced by the Congress party. Charan Singh accepting the support of the party he had been opposing for its policies and having been at the fore front of the struggle against emergency rule, was a brazen act of political opportunism that in one go made all the talk of ideology irrelevant and meaningless. It was a first most significant step taken on the road that was to lead the Indian politics to its abysmal degeneration.

 The general elections of 1980 saw Congress party returning to power and in the year 1984 Smt. Indira Gandhi was assassinated. The Congress party claiming destabilising internal situation immediately announced Sri Rajiv Gandhi as the Prime Minister, without even summoning the Congress Working Committee. The 1984 general elections gave such a huge mandate to Congress that the party had not got even during Indira Gandhi’s time and Rajiv Gandhi became the Prime Minister of India. What more can be said about the degenerate politics of the Congress than what it manifested in the act of making a novice in politics the PM while there was not any dearth of seasoned politicians within the party. The main reason for this level of degeneration within the party was the way Smt. Indira Gandhi had run the party. However it was a second step taken on the road that was to lead Indian politics to its abysmal degeneration. 

 During the tenure of Sri Rajiv Gandhi as PM many scandals came to the fore and his inability to run the government  became very obvious and the only thing he earned was a defamed reputation. 

Congress lost 1988 general elections very badly and the splinter groups of the erstwhile Janta party decided to come together to form the government. It is pertinent to mention that issue for the fall of Janta government was made out to be the dual membership of those who had dissolved Jan Sangh and joined the Janta party. This ‘dual membership’ splinter group formed its own party and named it the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) – the political untouchables! However, post 1988 general elections a conglomerate of parties collectively formed the government and Sri V P Singh was declared its Prime Minister under whose leadership the elections had been fought. The BJP supported this government and nobody objected to their gesture. The Communists were always there for support from outside.

Up to this moment in time, in spite of personal ambitions gaining precedence over people’s interests, the politics based on religion and cast had not yet taken birth though every political analyst would claim to know which party is drawing political support from which sections of the Indian society. There was no overt attempt to seek votes in the name of cast and religion.

Sri V P Singh was known to be a man of integrity and hence was a mutually agreed candidate for Prime Minister's job and perhaps his biggest qualification was that he had revolted against corrupt practices of the congress government and the big business. People had lots of expectations from him in that he would provide corruption free dispensation that would ultimately go to help the people. Unfortunately he had some different game plan. Instead of providing clean governance, he proposed implementation of the Mandal Commission Report. Politically it implied that the then on wards very overtly the destiny of the country; its governance and management of its various institutions would now be decided on the basis of casts. His government fell without any debate on the Mandal Commission Report in the Parliament because no political outfit had the courage to oppose the report in a parliamentary session. This step was in the direction of brazenly dividing the Indian society on the basis of cast.  

 What remained was to divide the society on the basis of religion. BJP feeling politically isolated all along chose to play with the emotions of the people by invoking the idea of constructing Ram Mandir at the place where a Masjid existed. Both these anti people ploys engineered by the leaders of different political outfits were, indeed, bold and loud proclamations that thenceforth the political discourse will be on the basis of religion and cast. The immediate repercussions were not only suicides by the protesting students, but also a beginning made towards dangerous and sharp polarisation of Indian society only for the sake of some individual’s political aspirations to rule this country one day.

 The ‘Mandal & Kamandal’ based politics was the third most significant step taken on the road that was to lead the Indian politics to its abysmal degeneration.

(to be continued)