India Briefing, 1987

Marshall M. Bouton

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9780429718373
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

This annual review of major events, issues, and trends in Indian affairs presents an authoritative and insightful assessment of India in 1986. Interpretive essays illuminate the causes and consequences of a tumultuous year, as leading specialists discuss Indian politics, economy, society, culture, and foreign relations. The contributors examine such important developments as the breakdown of the Punjab accord, the resurgence of militant communalism, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's faltering leadership, the dramatic heightening of Indo-Pakistan tensions, the growing resistance to economic reforms, and the impact of the video revolution on Indian culture. Filling an important gap in the literature on contemporary Indian affairs, this book will be invaluable for students and scholars of South Asia as well as for journalists, policymakers, businesspeople, and serious travelers who wish to understand current and future developments in India.

1
Rajiv Gandhi: A Mid-Term Assessment

Myron Weiner

To the acclaim of India's middle class and much of the world's media, Rajiv Gandhi in his first year as prime minister set forth a new agenda for India: to embark on a new economic policy that would accelerate India's industrialization and economic modernization, to reconcile the concerns of India's restive linguistic, religious and tribal communities with the need for national integration, and to improve relations with India's regional neighbors. By his second year in office the economic reforms, though accompanied by signs of economic growth, were faltering, conflicts among ethnic communities showed no signs of abating and India's relations with her neighbors had deteriorated. Worse yet for a political leader, the governing Congress party, which had triumphed in parliamentary elections in December 1984 and state assembly elections a few months later, had lost assembly elections in five states, Assam, Kerala, Mizoram, Punjab and West Bengal, and had maintained a foothold in state elections in Kashmir and Jammu only by allying itself with a popular regional leader. Rajiv Gandhi's hold on his own party, on the bureaucracy, on the middle class that had initially embraced him and on the electorate had plummeted; his own future and that of his party for the parliamentary elections in 1989 were now clouded, and the agenda he had set for the nation seemed to be going nowhere.

To what extent this rapid political descent was the result of Rajiv Gandhi's failure to demonstrate leadership skills, or whether the Indian situation and system makes leadership initiative increasingly difficult and uncertain is a central issue in assessing whether a political recovery is possible and, more broadly, whether major reforms in the near future are likely. To answer this question we need to examine how Rajiv Gandhi became prime minister, how he set about seeking to carry through his agenda, what were the challenges to his leadership and what qualities he brought to bear to deal with these challenges.

The Path to Power

Before June 1980 Rajiv Gandhi was completely outside of politics. The eldest son of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, and older brother to Sanjay Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi led a quiet, private life as a pilot for Indian Airlines. His major ambition, it was said, was to pass the examinations that would enable him to fly 747s. Though both brothers, with their families, lived in the private residence of the prime minister, it was Sanjay Gandhi who regarded himself and was regarded by others as the heir apparent to the prime ministership. With Sanjay's death in a daredevil plane crash in June 1980, Congress party leaders pressed Rajiv to step into his brother's political shoes. For nearly a year Rajiv resisted entering politics, supported, it is said, by his Italian wife Soma. He "helped" his mother but remained out of public life. With some of Sanjay's supporters pressing Sanjay's wife, Menaka, to stand for his seat in Parliament, Rajiv came under growing pressure from opponents of Sanjay's faction to stand on the Congress ticket. In June 1981 Rajiv ran for Sanjay's vacant parliamentary seat; with his victory he was widely regarded as the most likely successor to Mrs. Gandhi as leader of the Congress party and as her successor as prime minister.

The dynastic character of the succession process was a consequence of the transformation of the Congress party after the split of 1969 when the Congress (I) (I for Indira) emerged as the victorious heir of the old Indian National Congress, which had dominated the country's politics for most of the twentieth century. After having successfully defeated the leading Congressmen in the country in a struggle for national power, Mrs. Gandhi created a new Congress organization that was personalized and centralized, where there would be no danger that independent provincial party leaders could threaten her position. No internal elections for party officers were held. State party leaders and Congress chief ministers were not elected by local rank and file, but chosen by the prime minister. Loyalty, not local support, became the basis for party leadership at the state level. This new pattern of party organization—so different from the federal/electoral structure of the old Congress—had two consequences for national governance. One was that since state Congress leaders were appointed by and therefore dependent upon the center they had no independent capacity to deal with local political conflicts, with the result that conflicts within states necessitated intervention by the central leadership. The second consequence was that since the state Congress parties could no longer produce politicians of local popular standing, the prime minister's cabinet soon consisted of politicians without a political base of their own. No one could threaten the prime minister, but there was also no one in a position to be her successor. In the 1970s a few senior Congress politicians remained with Mrs. Gandhi, but even these drifted away when the Emergency was ended and Mrs. Gandhi, her son Sanjay and the Congress party were rebuked by the electorate in the parliamentary elections of 1977.

The Congress (I) that was returned to power in 1980 was the party, as one wag put it, of one and a half leaders. Sanjay was the chosen successor simply because there was no alternative leader, and the rank and file of the party and the members of Parliament consisted of careerists and loyalists—loyalists not to the party but to its leader. With Sanjay's death, Mrs. Gandhi and the party needed Rajiv Gandhi.

For a little over three years Rajiv Gandhi was tutored by his mother. In February 1983 Indira appointed Rajiv as secretary of the Congress (I). As party secretary his style was hardly different from that of his mother. Under his mother's guidance he sought to bring down the handful of opposition party state governments. By providing support to dissident elements he attempted to undermine the Janata government in Karnataka, the Telugu Desam government in Andhra, the Sikkim Sangram Parishad government in Sikkim, and the National Conference government of Farooq Abdullah in Kashmir. It was also reported that Rajiv encouraged Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, the militant Sikh priest whose call for the creation of an independent Sikh state, a Khalistan, was dividing the Akali Dal, the political party of the Sikhs in Punjab. Rajiv's major political contribution as Congress party secretary was thus to support the prime minister's efforts to weaken those opposition parties that had strong local support in the states. Nonetheless, Rajiv retained a reputation for personal integrity; he was not tainted by any financial scandals nor was he regarded as an aggressive and domineering person as was his younger brother. His close friends were not politicians but classmates from the Doon School, an elite private school located in the hill station of Dehra Dun. They were private businessmen, managers in multinational corporations, advertising executives, people with managerial and (like himself) technical training (Rajiv studied engineering at Cambridge University, though he did not earn a degree).

On 31 October 1984 Mrs. Gandhi was gunned down at her residence by Sikh members of her own personal bodyguard. The assassination was in retribution for her decision to send troops to storm the Golden Temple in Amritsar, the holy shrine of the Sikhs, then occupied by armed supporters of Bhindranwale. Within hours after her death the Congress leadership chose Rajiv Gandhi as her successor. At the age of forty he had become the prime minister of the world's largest democracy. On 12 November he was unanimously named president of the Congress (I), and the following day he announced that parliamentary elections would be held in late December, Whereas garibi hatao ("abolish poverty") was Mrs. Gandhi's theme in the parliamentary elections of 1971, "restore democracy" was the election theme of the victorious Janata party in 1977 and "elect a government that works" was Mrs. Gandhi's theme in 1980, Rajiv's theme was "national unity," a slogan translated by many Hindu nationalists into desk bachao ("save the motherland"). In the campaign that ensued Rajiv warned that the country was in danger, that national unity was threatened not only by the Sikh militants and the Akali Dal but by the opposition parties that, he asserted, had endorsed the secessionist Anandpur Sahib resolution of the Akali Dal. (The opposition parties, it should be noted, had not endorsed the resolution, nor was the resolution secessionist.) Rajiv thus tarnished the opposition with the brush of antinationalism. His much quoted comment that "when the tree falls the ground will tremble" seemed to provide a justification for the Hindu attacks against Sikhs in New Delhi in the days following his mother's assassination.

The Congress (I) was reelected with a record 401 seats out of the 515 for which polling took place, the largest parliamentary victory in India's history. In the months following his victory Rajiv Gandhi seemed to do everything right, winning support from the press, the business community, Congress party workers and even grudgingly from opposition leaders who were earlier offended by his campaign tactics. He took on the two major political problems left unsolved by his mother: Sikh militancy in Punjab, and the agitation in Assam against illegal migrants fom Bangladesh. He signed "accords" with the leaders of the two movements. In Punjab the prime minister agreed to transfer Chandigarh, the joint capital of Punjab and Haryana, to the exclusive control of Punjab in return for the transfer of a number of Hindi-speaking villages to Haryana. That, along with a commitment to adjudicate the dispute over the sharing of river waters between Punjab and Haryana and the rehabilitation of Sikhs who had been discharged from the military after the government's attack against the Golden Temple, led the Akali Dal to renounce the demand for a Khalistan and agree to take part in new state elections.

In Assam an agreement was reached to close the international borders, to grant citizenship to those who illegally entered the state before 1967, to delete from the electoral rolls those who had entered between 1967 and 1971 and to expel those who entered after March 1971. The Assam leadership in return agreed to end their agitation and to take part in state elections. For appearing to bring about a settlement on these two issues where his mother had failed, Rajiv Gandhi was hailed by the press, by his own party and even by most opposition leaders for his healing skills. When the two states elected opposition parties which then became responsible for restoring order within the states, Rajiv was praised for putting the needs of the country over those of his own party.

Rajiv was also admired for his new economic policies. Within months after taking office the prime minister announced new policies to accelerate India's slow industrial growth—liberalizing imports, providing new incentives for exports, permitting the import of technologies, encouraging foreign investment through joint ventures, reducing taxes and deregulating the economy so as to make it more competitive. Liberally oriented economists and administrators were placed in charge of the Planning Commission, the Finance Ministry, and in other key economic positions.

Rajiv also promised to restructure the Congress (I), to hold party elections for the first time in fifteen years and to encourage a new, younger leadership to take responsibility in the states and in the central government. He appointed a number of young MPs as junior ministers. An Anti-Defection Bill was introduced to discourage elected members of Parliament and state assemblies from threatening to bring down governments in order to improve their own chances of becoming ministers. At the Congress party's centenary celebration in 1985 he criticized the party for its corruption, for its self-seeking leadership and for its failure to attract new talent. The prime minister's style was decidedly antipolitical and managerial. He spoke of making the Indian government "work faster" and in an uncharacteristic rhetorical flourish, Rajiv promised to lead India into the twenty-first century.

Rajiv Gandhi's new approach, his willingness to take a fresh look at old problems, aroused the hopes of India's large middle class and received enthusiastic support from India's business community and from the press. His youthfulness, his managerial style, his modern attitude toward technology as manifest by his eagerness to expand India's computer industry, his reputation for personal integrity ("Mr. Clean") and his contempt for old-style politicians resonated with India's large modern urban middle class, disheartened by the slow pace of change, the rising tide of violence, the inefficiency of government and the absence of political leadership. Expectations were so high that in early 1986 Rajiv Gandhi warned an interviewer with the influential magazine India Today that "the euphoria has to stop."

It did. Rajiv Gandhi's second year as prime minister was marked by disillusionment. His effort to work with the moderate Sikh leadership in the Akali Dal against the militants did not bring an end to terrorism, and the Punjab Accord itself was not implemented as a result of a controversy over the issue of what territory should be transferred from Haryana to Punjab in return for Chandigarh. There was also much criticism in Punjab of the government's failure to take action against individuals accused of killing Sikhs during the Delhi riots that followed Mrs. Gandhi's assassination. Terrorist attacks were resumed in Punjab, followed by retaliation against innocent Sikhs in Delhi by Hindu militants. In Assam, state government leaders expressed their anger at what they regarded as the failure of the central government to remove illegal migrants. By the end of 1986 there were threats of renewed agitations against the central government. In both Assam and Punjab it was clear that Rajiv could not rely upon his subordinates or upon local leaders to take the necessary next steps to implement the agreements.

Elsewhere in the country, violence erupted among a number of linguistic, caste and religious communities. In Gujarat and in Andhra Pradesh "backward" castes (government-designated low castes that are regarded as one rung up from the ex-untouchable castes) demanded reservations comparable to those given to the ex-untouchable castes for admission into colleges and into government employment and were opposed by the upper or "forward" castes; in Gujarat there were communal clashes between Hindus and Muslims; in northern West Bengal a militant party of Nepalis demanded a separate state of Gurkhaland; in Goa a demand was raised for the creation of a Konkoni-speaking state; in Tripura militant tribals clashed with Bengalis; and throughout northern India Muslims agitated against two court decisions, one to subject Muslim divorcees to the civil law of alimony rather than to Muslim law, and another to give Hindus repossession of a shrine regarded by Muslims as a mosque.

Not only had the prime minister not fared well in reducing the level of violence in the country, but, noted his critics, his new economic policy was faltering. Deficit financing increased, the trade deficit worsened, exports failed to grow, many industries were threatened by import liberalization, there was a drop in the output of capital goods industries and industrial growth was slower than anticipated. The business community itself was divided in its assessment of the new policy, and with few exceptions the country's economists were critical.

The prime minister, initially praised for his openness, was now criticized for his lack of accessibility. Although he appeared daily on national television, giving the appearance of accessibility, the reality was that he rarely met with senior Congress politicians, cabinet positions were frequently reshuffled, signifying his lack of confidence in his own party, and for advice he fell back upon a small number of bureaucrats and personal friends. The result was that all too often the prime minister made hasty and politically unwise decisions or issued statements that were politically inept. A decision in early 1986, for example, to increase sharply petroleum and kerosene prices—at a time when international prices were declining—simultaneously antagonized the middle classes and the poor. After a sharp popular reaction and opposition from senior figures in the Congress party, the prime minister hastily reversed the decision.

Some of the criticism of Rajiv Gandhi can be regarded as the inevitable aftermath of a period of excessive euphoria and unrealistic expectations. But some of the criticism represented greater articulateness on the part of Rajiv Gandhi's leftist critics opposed to economic liberalization and by rightist critics opposed to his accommodative attitude toward linguistic and religious demands. Both sets of critics are advocates of a stronger state, the former to manage the economy and to give the government a stronger role over the private sector, and the latter to strengthen state authority against what Indian nationalists call "fissiparous" forces. To the critics of both the left and right, the Indian state is under siege and the prime minister has either failed to meet the challenge or, worse, pursued policies that weaken the Indian state.

Rajiv Gandhi and the Crisis of the Indian State

Rajiv Gandhi assumed the office of prime minister at a time when the capacity of the Indian state to perform three tasks had seriously eroded: to maintain law and order in a sharply divided society; to play a positive role in facilitating economic growth in an economy with a high saving rate, skilled managerial and technical personnel and promising entrepreneurial talent; and to cope with an uncertain international security environment.

Indira Gandhi's assassination was part of a larger pattern of growing violence directed by various groups against one another and against the Indian state. Many of the policies adopted earlier by the Indian government for managing social conflict that had worked reasonably well in the past no longer worked, and the coercive institutions of the state—the police, the paramilitary, the intelligence services and the military—were themselves weakened. The pace of industrial growth, low from the mid-1960s till the late 1970s—especially when compared with the dynamic economies of East Asia—picked up after 1980, but the state sector remained a drag on the economy. Power and transport, both public sector industries, had failed to keep pace with the needs of the economy. Public sector steel was inefficient and overpriced. The staterun capital goods industry was not competitive, and its high cost reduced the efficiency of the consumer goods sector.

India's security environment had also deteriorated. Pakistan's acquisition of new military equipment from the United States, the growing possibility that Pakistan was developing nuclear capabilities, the continued border conflict with China, the strained relationship with Sri Lanka over that country's ethnic conflicts and the presence of Soviet forces in Afghanistan presented new security challenges to the Indian government. Moreover, India's relationship with its neighbors now spilled over into India's domestic politics. The ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka affected India's own Tamil population and the central government's relationship with Tamil Nadu. The decision of the government of India to grant statehood to the union territory of Arunachal Pradesh was denounced by the People's Republic of China since the territory was disputed. The Indian government charged the government of Pakistan with abetting Sikh terrorists and found itself faced with illegal migrants from Bangladesh in Assam, refugees from the Chittagong Hill Tracts and armed tribals in Tripura using Bangladesh as their sanctuary.

Then there was the crisis of the Congress party. Though Congress won an overwhelming majority in the parliamentary elections in late 1984, the party itself remained organizationally weak in the states. In 1985 Congress lost the state assembly elections in Punjab to the Akali Dal, in Assam to the Asom Gana Parishad, in Sikkim to the Sikkim Sangram Parishad, in Karnataka to the Janata party and in Andhra Pradesh to the Telugu Desam. Since Congress had been defeated earlier in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, by the end of 1985 Congress was largely in control only in the states of central and northern India: Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. In assembly elections in early 1987, a Congress-coalition government in Kerala was defeated, and Congress failed to defeat the governing Communist party (Marxist) government in West Bengal. Congress had become the party of the Hindi heartland and its nearby neighbors, while the opposition parties were in control of most of the states in the geographic periphery.

A review of Rajiv Gandhi's attempts to deal with the problems of internal order, to rejuvenate the economy, to shape the country's foreign policy and to restructure the party not only provides an opportunity to assess Rajiv Gandhi's personal leadership but also enables us to consider the kinds of constraints upon the prime minister and the pressures he faces to accommodate to the realities of the Indian state, polity and society.

Confronting Violent Social Conflict

Not since the mid-1950s has any prime minister of India been faced with such geographically diverse and acutely violent social conflicts as those faced by Rajiv Gandhi: the Sikhs in Punjab, conflicts in the tribal areas of Mizoram, Tripura and elsewhere in the northeast, caste conflicts in Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat, language conflicts in Goa and Tamil Nadu, unrest in Assam, demands by Nepalis in north Bengal and Hindu-Muslim clashes in Uttar Pradesh and in other states of northern India. If similar social conflicts were managed more effectively in the 1950s it was because Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru could rely upon several well-regarded national and regional Congress party leaders to serve as mediators, the police were more disciplined and less politicized than now, and conflicts within states and between the states and the central government could often be accommodated within the Congress party itself. In addition, conflicts were farther away from the borders and thus were less affected by the policies of neighboring states, and arms for militants were not so ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• About the Book and Editor
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Map of South Asia
• Map of India
• 1 Rajiv Gandhi: A Mid-Term Assessment
• 2 Politics: The Failure to Rebuild Consensus
• 3 Religion and Politics
• 4 The Economy
• 5 Society
• 6 Culture
• 7 Foreign Relations: Elusive Regional Security
• Suggestions for Further Reading
• 1986: A Chronology
• Glossary
• About the Contributors
• Index