It is premature to speculate on the consequences of the decision of the old Congress to go ahead with its plan to make electoral adjustments with the Jana Sangh, the Swatantra and others who may be willing to make common cause with it against the Prime Minister and her party.
Whatever its consequences for the future of the party, the decision is important for two reasons. First, though it will not pave the way for a Left-Right polarisation in view of the multiplicity of forces at work in Indian politics, it will facilitate adjustments on a vague ideological basis. Secondly, the move demonstrates that the party’s desire to remain an all-India entity is so strong that it is prepared to run the risk of splits in, and even disaffiliation by, its Mysore and Gujarat units.
The significance of the second point cannot be over-emphasised because it shows that in spite of caste and linguistic divisions India is becoming a well-knit political community to the point where hard-headed men do not mind jeopardising their position in their own States if this improves their prospects, however slightly, for getting into power at the Centre.
It is true that men like Mr Morarji Desai and Mr Nijalingappa are obsessed with the desire to unseat the Prime Minister and that this has influenced their judgment and vitiated the political debate in the country. But in the long-term perspective the more pertinent point is that instead of trying to dig themselves in where the local bosses have been reasonably loyal to them and challenging the Centre’s authority from there, they have chosen to stake their claim to power in New Delhi. This shows that local and regional loyalties are being steadily eroded.
Obvious
If the decision of the old Congress was an isolated event not much importance need have been attached to it. But it is not. In fact the behaviour of all other major parties can be explained in terms of the same pulls. The DMK, which was an avowedly secessionist party not many years ago, has for instance, moved closer to the new Congress and the Jana Sangh is trying to pass off as a non-communal party with a view to increasing its respectability.
It is only too obvious that the DMK and the Sangh leaders speak with two voices. The DMK is still keen to exploit Tamil Nadu’s linguistic identity and the Sangh the surviving elements of Hindu communalism. But even so neither is able to resist the pull of the larger national entity.
This is not to suggest that the country is already out of the woods. The transition period in which linguistic, caste and communal affiliations are sufficiently subordinated to larger loyalties is bound to be fairly prolonged – it may be spread over several decades – and unless there is a strong central authority in this period, the process of nation-building can be seriously retarded.
In plain words this means that while the very struggle of the small parties for a share in power at the Centre can serve as a kind of apprenticeship in new responsibilities, its premature success can have very adverse consequences. Since the new Congress alone can promise and provide a reasonable measure of stability and continuity in New Delhi, it will be a tragedy if it loses its grip. A UP-type SVD is neither feasible nor desirable in New Delhi. At worst it will crack up and at best it will reduce to naught the Centre’s capacity to act with any degree of coherence and firmness.
It also needs to be said that some of the issues on which the old Congress, the Swatantra and the Jana Sangh have chosen to fight the ruling party are unreal. The cry of democracy in danger is, for example, a false alarm.
Absurd
The charge of an advance towards dictatorship can make any sense only if the ruling party makes a move to subvert the rule of law, terrorise and ban opposition groups and institute a reign of terror. As things are the Supreme Court remains zealous of its rights, the opposition parties proliferate and newspapers are free to express any point of view. If anything the Central Government is not sufficiently strong even now to provide the country with the kind of decisive leadership it needs desperately to master the problems of economic development and social change.
It is equally absurd for anyone to suggest that Mrs Gandhi is paving the way for communism or subordinating the country’s foreign policy to that of the Soviet Union. The CPI is too small a party to dominate the new Congress and has for all practical purposes given up its revolutionary ideology. In the absence of some encouragement from the Prime Minister its present moderate posture will lose credibility and a sizable section of its rank and file will go over to the CPM which still swears by the programme of wrecking the Constitution from within. An undivided communist movement under the CPM’s leadership will pose in that case a much more serious problem in this period of rapid social change and growing discontent.
While India cannot afford to alienate the Soviet Union, it has by no means closed its options. It maintains reasonably good relations with the West including the United States and it has repeatedly affirmed its desire to normalise ties with China. The Prime Minister has not made improvement of relations with Peking dependent on a prior settlement of the border dispute and a change in China’s stance over Kashmir. It is difficult to believe that the Soviet Union and the CPI view with equanimity her desire for a Sino-Indian rapprochement.
It is obvious that Russia’s influence in India will be reduced to proper proportions as soon as this country is able to open a meaningful dialogue with China and that the United States can no longer serve as an effective counterweight against the Soviet Union in view of the dangerously misguided policies it has followed in Asia in the past two decades. It is also notable that the United States has consistently denied this country the military hardware it needs for ensuring its security vis-a-vis China and Pakistan.
But the leaders of the old Congress, the Jana Sangh and the Swatantra Party have repeatedly advocated recognition of Formosa which will close forever the possibility of reconciliation with China. They have also espoused policies which will involve a level of dependence on the United States which the latter itself is not willing to accept.
It is a pity that the language of the cold war has become fashionable in some quarters in this country at a time when the Russo-US detente is being expanded and when the Soviet Union is busy resolving the problem of West Berlin which has occupied a central place in the East-West conflict in Europe. Whatever her other failings Mrs Gandhi has been refreshingly free from this hangover of the past. She recognises that Russia is a status quo power, that it does not have the capacity to dominate this country and that it is interested not in revolution but stability in India provided that New Delhi is reasonably friendly.
The fact has to be faced that in the new phase the country can be governed from a left-of-the-centre position. The concept is not easy to define. But it is obvious that the rapidly expanding intelligentsia thinks in radical terms and that it is too influential to be ignored by the ruling elite. That is why even the Jana Sangh finds it necessary to speak in terms of full employment, unemployment benefits and “need-based wage,” whatever that might mean.
Distorted
Mrs Gandhi realised the need for a left-of-the-centre stance last year when most other politicians in her party were still thinking in terms of public sector versus the private sector. This gave her an immense advantage over them. She has since increased her lead over them.
All in all the ideological debate in the country is distorted. Party leaders have imported outdated concepts which do not have much relevance to the Indian reality. But in a strange way they are also performing a useful function in that they are facilitating the process of overcoming linguistic, regional and caste identities.
In the transition period even ideologically inclined individuals and groups are influenced to some extent by parochial considerations. Even the CPM cannot, for example, claim to be impervious to these influences. But the parochialism of people who think in ideological terms cannot be as strident as that of others and gradually their perspective becomes broader. The ideology of nationalism performed a unifying role before independence but it cannot accomplish the task of national consolidation by itself today when the country has to come to grips with difficult socio-economic problems.
The Times of India, 9 December 1970