The general mood in the country is not one of hope and confidence in the future. On the contrary, there is apathy, cynicism, fatalism and even despair and despondency.
The state of the economy accounts for this pall of gloom to a large extent. The worst drought in almost a century has played havoc with the lives of millions of people. In vast stretches of the land it has dried up even drinking water wells. While there have been no grave shortages of essential commodities, the prices have continued to rise remorselessly. Industrial production remains more or less stagnant on account of the shortages of coal and power.
So long as the Janata was in power, it was easy enough to push the blame for the economic malaise on the permanent factional struggle within it. The Janata leaders fought like cats and they were inept rulers. There was then also a centre of hope. Even those sections of the intelligentsia, which were otherwise critical of Mrs. Gandhi, felt that she could check the price rise, restore labour discipline, ensure greater efficiency and production. This hope too, has begun to fade away.
Factors beyond Mrs. Gandhi’s or anyone else’s control are seriously complicating the task of curbing inflation and promoting production. Thanks to the rise in the prices of oil, industrial raw materials, machinery and the other goods India imports, there has, for example, been a 3-5 per cent deterioration in its terms of trade in the past one year. This is equivalent to a two per cent decline in the gross national product, quite a blow at our level of national income. As our trade deficit has shot up to Rs. 3,000 crores, the worldwide recession is threatening to make it increasingly difficult for us to raise our exports and to secure adequate assistance.
There is not much general awareness of these adverse factors. There cannot be, in a country where the vast majority is illiterate. As it happens, the government, too, has done precious little to draw attention to them. On coming to office last January amidst serious and growing economic difficulties, Mrs. Gandhi could have given a call for all-round austerity and tried to enforce drastic cuts in wasteful expenditure. But she has done nothing of the kind.
Faith
A lot of people have been trying to convince themselves that the government will act firmly and decisively after the vidhan sabha elections are over at the end of this month. Perhaps their faith will not turn out to be misplaced. But it is difficult to explain why the government has been marking time during the last four months. While it is possible to argue that it is wanting to reveal a brand new strategy of development which may not be popular with a lot of people brought up on a diet of populism, it is not easy to be convinced by it. The Congress (I) will be voted to power not because it is supposed to stand for a certain ideology but because Mrs. Gandhi is its leader and the rival parties are in total disarray.
Mrs. Gandhi knows the national scene too well to be unaware that such ideological passions as have existed in our society have lost their thrust. Indeed, there is evidence that she is aware of this reality. There can be no other reason why she has not sought to use the nationalisation of six banks to refurbish her radical image. In 1969 she reversed her previous stand on the issue of the nationalisation of banks and took over 14 of them precisely because she knew that this would win her a lot of public acclaim and help her defeat her adversaries in the Congress party. The calculation turned out to be fully justified.
Predominantly Hindu India is not suited to the rise and growth of ideologies as we understand the term. Indians are not as pragmatic a people as the Chinese. They are inclined to theorise and to indulge in abstractions in preference to detailed investigation. But as a rule they do not think in black-and-white terms. They provide for enormous gray areas. That is one reason why we have not had one outstanding exponent of any one of the ideologies we have imported from the West.
But a passionate acceptance and adherence to an ideology is also a sign of optimism. Tired, cynical and pessimistic individuals do not think in terms of remaking the country and the world, which is what all secular ideologies are about. The political class in India seems to have despaired of remaking the country in the images it had borrowed from the West – nationalism, socialism, democracy and communism – or produced at home — Gandhism. It looks as if the adherents of all these ideologies in the political class have found Indian society too intransigent and hence have almost given up.
J.P. Movement
The fifties represent the high watermark of optimism in India. Mr. Nehru had then produced an ideological amalgam which was congenial to the Indian political class. He was able to convince it that the country could master the problems of abject poverty and gross inequalities in a decade or two and carve for itself a place of honour in the comity of nations. It could be secular without losing its cultural identity or identities. If the rate of growth was not particularly impressive, prices were reasonably stable. Most ministers at the Centre and in the states were known to be men and women of probity. This era ended with the Chinese attack in 1962.
Even at the height of her popularity in 1969-72, Mrs. Gandhi could not win the acceptance of the political class to the same extent as Mr. Nehru could. A section of the liberal intelligentsia was, for instance, appalled at the ruthlessness she displayed in dealing with her opponents in the Congress party in 1969 and her decision to nationalise 14 banks for essentially political reasons. But in that period she was able to create the impression that it was possible to end poverty and gross inequalities in the foreseeable future. This optimism begun to peter out by the middle of 1973 as shortages continued to grow and prices to rise partly as a result of the drought in 1971, 1972 and 1973. As the economic situation deteriorated, corruption in high places became an important issue in the country’s public life. This was an exercise in escapism and scapegoatism. But there it was, irresistible in its sweep.
The J.P. movement in 1974 and 1975 was chaotic, perhaps the most chaotic the country has known since the great mutiny in 1857. Its only identifiable objective was to remove Mrs. Gandhi from the office of Prime Minister. Its leader had no specific programme of action in case he succeeded in toppling her. Also, Mr. Narayan did not quite succeed in bringing together all ideological strands on one platform. The Marxists, for instance, were too demoralised to make common cause with him against Mrs. Gandhi. Mr. Charan Singh, too, kept his distance from him. But they were all sympathetic to his movement. No one else has succeeded in attracting that much support in opposition to the government since independence.
Dismay
The J.P. movement was inspired by such vague, ill-thought-out and contradictory ideas and impulses that it was not quite accurate to call it even populist and to compare its supporters with Russia’s Narodniks, as I did then. But it did represent some kind of hope – the hope that it was possible to cleanse public life of corruption and to avoid undue concentration of power in one person. While the emergency dashed these hopes, it also gave the movement its raison d’etre – struggle against authoritarianism.
It is pointless to speculate on the likely course of events either if Mrs. Gandhi had not ordered the election to the Lok Sabha in January 1977 or if she had won it in March that year. As it happened, the Janata coalition, an offshoot of the J.P. movement and the emergency, won it by a comfortable majority. On a surface view, this marked the return of the liberal order. In reality, the coalition began to flounder in a sea of bitter personal recriminations even before it assumed office on March 22, 1977. It finally collapsed in July 1979 when Mr. Charan Singh walked out of the government with his 90-odd followers, and parties like the Congress (S), the CPM and CPI behaved as if they were possessed by a death-wish. They under-estimated Mrs. Gandhi’s skill, determination and popular appeal and cheerfully played her game by creating conditions which led to dissolution of the Lok Sabha and a fresh poll last January.
Mrs. Gandhi’s return to power has naturally caused dismay among the pristine liberals and political pluralists who believe that India can be run on the Westminster model and have convinced themselves that she is authoritarian at heart. Her actions in recent months have only confirmed them in their fears. The Left, too, is apprehensive. It fears that she is investing too much power in her son, Mr. Sanjay Gandhi, who it believes is at once anti-left and anti-liberal. This weakens the possibility of a new national consensus. But that would not be cause for undue concern if those who rallied to her banner last January were to remain hopeful that she will deliver the goods. But their confidence is beginning to wilt.
The Times of India, 21 May 1980