Preface
The one constant feedback about this blog is that its posts are too long. Unfortunately the very purpose of this blog is to express my opinions on complicated issues, where brevity is a luxury I can't afford. However this particular post had become just too long and so I have decided to split it into three posts, one for each distinct era of Indian modern politics.
There was a time when great leaders like Subash Chandra Bose were affectionately called "Netaji", but now the word has a definite negative connotation attached to it. Politicians are the favorite punching bags all over the world, but there is something more sinister happening in India. Politicians are not just ridiculed in jokes, cartoons and movies but they are openly equated with criminals in the media, social networking sites, discussions, debates and small talks in every nook and corner of this country. This tendency of slamming the whole political class has unprecedented hidden public support behind it. Recently there have even been huge apolitical agitations where such sentiments were openly expressed. Unlike others who see this as a very dangerous, destabilizing trend, I view the public expression of it, as an element of change and transformation for the better.
This degradation of Indian politics did not happen overnight and nor has the situation been like this from the beginning. In fact Indian politics was perhaps the only thing that was right at the time of independence; everything else was in tatters. How ironic is it, that today Indian politicians are the biggest bottleneck to our growth, prosperity and creation of a just society. So how did it happen? What went wrong and when? What were the critical mistakes and lost opportunities? Why couldn't our society arrest the falling moral standards in politics? Also, are things currently improving or worsening in India with time? Let us try to delve into history and try to find an answer to these questions.
 |
| Mahatama Gandhi |
At the time of independence, India had some of the most honest, honorable and respected politicians. The Congress party was run by the sweat of dedicated volunteers, who did not work for money. The same was almost true (though not to the same degree) of rival political entities like BR Ambedkar, MS Golwarkar or E.V. Ramaswami. The differences were mostly ideological and not personal.
Perhaps the seed was born in partition itself. Throughout the 1940s the Muslim league and other communal parties like RSS and Hindu Mahasabha kept gaining ground. The violence accompanied with the partition further strengthened these religious fanatics. The result being that, the Congress party was at its weakest and the popularity of Mahatama Gandhi at its lowest, at the time of the partition. The Indian state was very vulnerable during the early years, battling on a number of fronts. The first government under Nehru did the most remarkable job in strengthening the state. Defying all logic, reasoning and every contemporary prediction, the Indian state did not collapse. However in this firefighting, some of the very critical trends and fault-lines, that appeared very early on, got ignored, leading to the present mess.
 |
Mahatama Gandhi, Subash Chandra Bose and
Vallabhbhai Patel in a Congress meeting. |
Congress was never a political party before independence. It was a congregation of all great patriotic people who wanted to rid the country of the barbaric colonial rule. However there was very little unity among the top leadership on many important issues, like economic policies, governance structures, Kashmir etc. Congress had both left-winged and right-winged, liberals as well as conservatives, within its ranks. Many of the most dedicated volunteers of the Congress thought that with the achievement of independence their objective was realized and so they slowly sidelined themselves, especially now that Congress was associated with power. As expected wrong people started getting associated with Congress and a proper pruning was never done. Gandhi's early death was another big factor. His Ashrams were the factories where future leaders were born. He was not just the symbol of honesty and austerity but had the unique gift of spreading these to other people. It was entirely due to his efforts that the Congress had an army of selfless volunteers and mid-level leadership, that were its backbone. Good people were already scarce due to 1942 Quit India Movement and the communal riots (Honest courageous people are the first ones who get killed during any riots). Gandhi's death ensured that there was no replacement coming.
Right after independence, Gandhi suggested that Congress should be disbanded. It was a very sensible and far-sighted suggestion. However not many people paid heed to the suggestion at that time, especially since there were rioting, instability and more pressing concerns all around the country. However over the years it has been proved without a doubt that not disbanding the Congress was one of the biggest mistake made, and the country suffers because of it even today.
 |
| Jawaharlal Nehru |
The Congress was now in power and instead of discussion, it was the time of implementation of ideas. The government had to choose a particular path on economic policy, centralization, foreign policy and everything else. It was purely Nehru's ideas that got preference over everything else. Gandhi's economic ideas got sidelined stating that they were impractical. His vision of a thousand village republics was replaced by a very centralized power structure at the center and the states. Nehru's left-winged policies, his love of centralization and nationalization, became the official policy of the Congress and the Government. Anyone who did not agree was slowly sidelined. The differences between Nehru and Patel were all too apparent. Unfortunately Sardar Patel died even before the first election. After the death of Sardar Patel, there was none in the Congress who matched the stature of Nehru or had a reasonable chance of success in opposing him.
A division of old Congress into two equal sized parties capable of forming a strong government and opposition respectively, would have been the ideal solution but that never materialized. Of course a lot of people broke away from the Congress to make separate parties but they were neither united nor any match to Nehru. Neither did any such division had the sanction of someone like Gandhi.
 |
J B Kripalani
(Kisan Mazdoor Praja Party) |
|
All those opposing Congress were either those who wanted similar things like Congress, in greater degree, like the Socialist Party, Kisan Mazdoor Praja Party and Communist Party or fanatic communal elements wanting to convert India into "Hindu Pakistan" or parties catering to only certain sections of the society. Naturally Nehru prevailed over all of them with a thumping majority. But what made his victory even more astounding was the tag of "Congress" and the goodwill due to Gandhi's association. For the next three elections the same trend continued. Without any credible opposition and the absolute guarantee of being in power, irrespective of personal performance, degraded the Congress Party greatly.
Swatantra Party
 |
C Rajagopalachari
(Swatantra Party) |
Swatantra party was the only party which should have been the alternate to the Congress party. It was a right winged party opposed to the Nehruvian socialist outlook of the Congress Party. It advocated free enterprise and free trade and opposed the licence-permit raj. Despite initial success and the party becoming the main opposition party in the mid-60s, this grand endeavor failed miserably. The basic reason was again the fact that the grassroot strength of the Congress was immense and it was almost impossible to get over that, especially in a country which had idolized Gandhi and Congress for more than thirty years.
Letter exchanges between Jayaprakash Narayanan and Nehru right after the second general elections are a very interesting read. Narayan suggested that Nehru should function as a “national rather than a party leader”; that, even while he ran the government, he should “encourage the growth of an Opposition”, so as to “soundly lay the foundations of parliamentary democracy” in India. Nehru's reply is very interesting -
 |
Jayaprakash Narayanan
(Socialist Party) |
“So far as I understand parliamentary democracy, it means that every opportunity should be given for an opposition to function, to express its views by word or writing, to contest elections in fair conditions, and to try to convert the people to its views. The moment an opposition is given some kind of a protected position, it becomes rather a bogus opposition and cannot even carry weight with the people. I am not aware of any pattern of parliamentary democracy in which it has ever been suggested that the opposition should be encouraged, except in the ways I have mentioned above."
Unfortunately Nehru couldn't understand that JP was asking Nehru to become another Gandhi and not just an effective Prime Minister. He wanted Nehru to leave behind a working two-party parliamentary democracy.
 |
| Purushottam Das Tandon |
One of the major reasons of the moral decline of the Congress Party was the emergence of personality cult and hero worship in the Congress party. Nehru was almost completely responsible for it. Unlike in pre-independence era, when there was true internal democracy in the Congress, Nehru made sure that people opposing him, like Dr. Rajendra Prasad, Rajagopalachari, Purushottam Das Tandon and other were slowly sidelined. It became a sort of an unwritten norm for the leader of the government to also be the party president or at the least, have a pliable candidate in the post.
 |
| Krishna Menon |
The socialistic policies of Nehru created far too much centralization and concentration of power. The license-permit-raj became the breeding ground of corruption. Running any political entity requires a lot of money. Before independence the party had ample resources from voluntary donations, but later the finances started drying off and election campaign just got costlier and costlier. Jawaharlal Nehru, though honest personally, started turning a blind eye to the corruption in the party. The most brazen example was the staunch defense of Krishna Menon by Nehru.
 |
Vinobha Bave
(spiritual successor of
Mahatma Gandhi) |
One of the reasons why Congress was able to maintain such high moral status prior to independence was its participation and leadership in social work and cultural reforms. However over the years the social work became less and less important and the complete Congress machinery was dedicated for just campaigning and winning elections. The major social works done during this period were led by the Gandhians like Vinobha Bave (Bhoodan movement) and were completely apolitical. Social reforms meet a lot of resistance from the society initially, whereas the benefits are long term. Unfortunately it goes against short term goal of gathering votes and the Congress continued making that mistake. The goal of winning elections at any cost led to a development of appeasement policy and vote bank politics by the Congress.
Instead of fighting the caste system, party tickets were given on the basis of caste considerations. Behind the smokes screen of reservation, the more crucial programs of untouchability removal and efforts to annihilate caste were abandoned completely. No effort was made to reform the Muslim community, to liberalize the Muslim civil code or to introduce the Uniform Civil Code. Ironically these appeasement policies had the most harmful effect on these respective communities themselves. This growing timidness of Congress cost the nation dearly.
 |
| K. Kamraj |
In 1963 K. Kamraj came up with a plan to revamp the Congress from the 'lure for power' that had in-gripped it. He proposed that all senior Congress leaders should resign from their posts and devote all their energy to the re-vitalization of the Congress. Six Union Ministers and six State Chief Ministers resigned from their posts. However it was too little too late. Moreover with the death of Nehru shortly afterward, the plan was quickly abandoned.
 |
| Lal Bahadur Shastri |
Nehru was succeeded by Lal Bahadur Shastri, arguably the best Prime Minister India ever had. Shastriji was no match for the intellectual prowess of Nehru. He was neither a great/original thinker nor an excellent orator or writer. However he was a true Gandhian, possessing great strength of character and will-power. He was instrumental in ushering both the green revolution as well as the white revolution in the country besides winning the war of 1965. When the country faced a food shortage, he gave the call to all Indians to observe weekly fast and convert all available land for agricultural activities. Lakhs of Indians followed suit and in my own family, our garden was converted into a potato field. Today we can't even imagine any politician having the moral authority to give such a call.
However Shastriji died just too early to be able to change much in the system. With him ended the first era of Indian politics. After him, things went downhill pretty rapidly. The seeds for the same had already been sown in the first era and the stage was all set for Indira Gandhi, to destroy the Gandhian moral legacy in India politics completely and forever. I will continue with the second era of Indian politics in the next post.
