Congress (I) and the endemic instability of the political system given day and confirm the obvious -India is one of the most violent societies in the world. Yet democracy and governance of a sort prevail. The American economist John Kenneth Galbraith, former ambassador to India, called it an example of "functioning anarchy'. An apt description if not analysis.
There have been any number of predictions about the inevitable collapse of Indian bourgeois democracy and the
General elections in India are not scheduled until the end of this year.
But there is the possibility that Mrs Gandhi will change her mind and call a snap election - in any event the Indian political scene is dominated by the prospect of the election.
This article looks at the overall political situation in India as it has developed since Independence and the particular role of Mrs Gandhi and her party, the Congress (Indira), in that.
closely at the possible outcome of the election.
The Indian bourgeoisie needs a Congress (I) victory in the next elections.
These are scheduled for December 1984/
January 1985. However, they could still be held earlier than that, despite all Mrs.
Gandhi's protestations to the contrary.
For the bourgeoisie, the bigger.
the
Congress (I) majority the better, but this will not resolve the central problem of the Indian state - the endemic instability of political rule and the crisis of bourgeois political leadership. But the Indira
Congress is still the only 'national party of sorts in the country. Its victory offers the best chance of limiting the impact of this continuing problem.
But there are crises and crises. There are qualitatively different sorts of pressures on the Indian bourgeois democratic
First there is the increase in confrontations between the oppressed classes — the workers and landless peasants — and their class enemies. These have taken the form of both direct confrontations in society and conflicts with the state. Both the depth and frequency of such struggles has increased since the late 1960s.
For example, between 1967-72 there was the Naxalite upsurge, followed by the all-India railway strike in 1974. The organised urban proletariat flexed their muscles in the 77-day strike by 125,000
Bangalore public sector workers and the strike by 225,000 textile workers in Bombay that lasted for more than one year.
Conflicts in the ruling bloc
The growing army of landless in the countryside - around 30 per cent of the population - have become ever more militant.
This has very often taken the form of caste conflicts between the 'untouchables' who form a majority of the and the landless
'middle or backward caste' kulaks, or forward caste' farmers.
These conflicts however have not been the greatest source of pressure on the
International Viewpoint 13 February 1984
A future article will look more Indian bourgeois democracy. The crucial weakness has been the bourgeois political leadership's inability to deal with the conflicts within the ruling bloc: The conflicts between fractions of capital, the demands imposed by the educated unemployed in the ranks of the lower petty bourgeoisie, the activity of the emerging "intermediate' classes and castes.
These intermediate classes comprise on the one hand the millions of aspiring capitalist farmers. There is no precise estimate of their numbers but this category probably includes anything from 10 to 15 million families who belong to the "backward' or 'middle' castes. On the other hand are the even greater numbers of traders and self-employed in the urban areas, including the small towns. Both these 'intermediate categories have grown and prospered, relatively speaking, because of the specific form of capitalist development in India which has allowed rentier and commercial profits to be generated. (1)
These have been the dominant forces at work in a context where the rising expectations and growing politicisation -partly due to the institutionalisation of the electoral process at all levels - of every section of Indian society has led to an enormous increase in conflicting de mands and pressures on the structure of the Indian-state. The operation of these forces has been expressed in one way or another in all the 'high points' of endemic instability dating from the mid to late sixties - the break up of the old postNehru undivided Congress in 1969, the Nav Nirman Gujarat movement of 197374, the JP movement of 1974-75, the declaration of the Emergency in June 1975, Mrs Gandhi's search for electoral legitimacy in 1977, the rise and fall of the Janata Party and government, the second of Congress 1978, the emergence of Congress (I) in 1980, the institutionalisation of kulak power espec ially at the level of state governments, the various struggles between the states and the Centre [central government] equally inevitable drift towards an authoritarian form of bourgeois democratic state rule. There is enough evidence of the decay of bourgeois democratic institutions, shown for example in the institutionalisation of corrup tion, to lend weight to these gloomy fore-
Nonetheless, a bourgeois democratic framework survives every sign of continuing to do so, however mutated or mutilated its organs
Even the 'Emergency' is best seen as an aberration. Not in the sense that it was accidental - although the timing was. Mrs Gandhi was forced, after the decision of the Allahabad High Court that she was guilty of electoral malpractice, to declare the Emergency in June 1975 to avoid carrying out the clear implication of the court decision, that she should step
But the coming of the state of emergency was also a logical culmination of deeply rooted trends in the body politic. The role of the Congress party
It was an 'aberration' because it failed to solve the problem of endemic political instability. The Emergency was not only directed against the working class, as was soon revealed in anti-working-class legislation. It also attempted to freeze the relationship of forces within the ruling bloc, and deny the emerging intermediate castes and classes an effective voice. This is why the Emergency also seemed to be 1. The Polish Marxist economist Michae Kalecki first coined the term intermediate classes' in his 1964 paper published in Selected Essays on the Economic Growth of the Socialist and Mixed Economy (Cambridge University Press 1972). The Kalecki thesis as adapted to India by K. N. Raj and others emphasised the importance of the lower middle class and rich peasantry which performed the role of the rul ing class i in intermediate regimes', which use the public sector (state capitalism) as the main instrument for economic development. Given the vast bulk of the population in India is be tween the proletariat and bourgeoisie, the concept of 'intermediate classes' who derive their income from property and their own working of the means of production is obviously very relevant.
India as an 'intermediate' regime is a much weaker and frankly dubious thesis. The Indian state does not represent an alliance of the lower middle class with the rich peasantry, attempts to form such an alliance have been unsuccessful. Even before Independence India had a sig nificant and economically powerful industrial bourgeoisie.
11
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INDIA
directed against the so-called right such as the RSS, opponents like Morarji Desai and others belonging to those Congress factions opposed to Mrs Gandhi, and the representative of the Northern kulak lobby Charan Singh. The hostility of these forces to the Emergency was therefore genuine.
The difficulty of resolving the problem of political instability through the introduction of a long-term authoritarian system was, in fact, recognised by Mrs Gandhi herself. Apart from the drastic decision to enforce compulsory sterilisation in the northern states, the Emergency period was relatively mild, and bears no comparison to the usual variants found in the Third World. In the southern states Mrs Gandhi's popularity was undimmed.
What is more, Mrs Gandhi not only held genuinely free general elections in 1977, but accepted their verdiet quietly. The spectacle of a purely electoral transition from an authoritarian form of bourgeois rule, however mild, to a democratic form has no historical parallel.
No sense can therefore be made of India's recent past or its future evolution without grasping the specificity of Indian bourgeois democracy. doing so, the site of the central crisis cannot be even approximately located. While parliament is the central democratic institution in Britain the centre of gravity of the Indian political system since Independence has been the Congress party. The crisis of bourgeois political leadership expresses above all the collapse
Neither Congress (I) nor the Janata party can solve India's economic problems (DR) of the old Congress, and the inability, indeed impossibility, of finding a replace- The piecemeal character of the pro- ment, the implementation of government ment capable of fulfilling its historically independent role.
To understand the old Congress requires understanding the nature of the national movement that overthrew the British Raj.
The Congress that lasted in some essential forms until the mid-1960s and the death of Nehru was a massive coalition of interests of different classes, castes, religions, regions, etc., that recognised that their specific needs could not be fulfilled unless the stultifying structure of the colonial state was dismantled. The prolonged character of the Indian national movement (bearing comparison with those of Vietnam or China) and the steadily increasing hegemonisation of it by the Congress party made that party and its leadership the primary instrument of mediation not only externally with respect to the British but also internally among the different constituent parts.
Its successful mediation with the British led to a peaceful transfer of political power which disguised the dramatic shift in class power from the imperialist bourgeoisie to the Indian industrial bourgeoisie. This shift was all the more disguised by the considerable autonomy of the Congress itself from this class. Successful mediation within the Congress ensured relatively harmonious political rule for just under two decades after 1947. 12 longed transition from colonial rule to full independence involved periodic compromises over a series of escalating demands, which systematically shifted more and more administrative power to the Congress. (2) By the time of Independence in 1947 Congress had virtually become a parallel government. The formal transfer of power at the apex of these two structures thus caused no serious administrative upheavals in the immediate post-Independence period.
The long timespan involved in this gradual accumulation of powers also allowed Congress to constantly test and develop a complex and sophisticated organisation with an established hierarchy of leadeas, most of whom had gained some measure of respect and authority from their participation in the national in general ensured that central decisions were carried out as well as allowing for local representation and initiative for grievances and information to filter
Thus, in the post-Independence period, Congress naturally enough became the instrument of mediation par excelparty and state administration gave enormous powers of patronage to the Congress with which to carry out its mediating role. Without such a close relationship originating in the national movepolicies in the countryside would have been impossible in the pre-plan period, or in the first three five-year plan periods. Other parties, such as the Swatantra party of the monopoly bourgeoisie, were seen even by the class interests they represented as, at best, secondary vehicles for putting on the pressure for concessions in the real arena of battle: Congress. The eventual demise of formations like the Swatantra party did not therefore occasion any surprise.
Another crucial factor in sustaining Congress hegemony and the stability of the political order was the relationship between the dominant classes of the countryside and the Congress.
A thin layer at the top were wedded to the Congress which, despite all its rhetoric and struggle for partial reforms, was careful never to encourage rural class antagonism. It sought instead to dewherever possible through limited distribution of largesse. However, the dynamic of capitalist transformation of Indian agriculture, which the Indian state found itself obliged to support through the abolition of the Zamindari Act and the promotion of the 'green revo2. Professor Bipan Chandra, Marxist historian of the national movement at the Centre for Historical Studies Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, called this a strategy of P-C-P: Pressure-Compromise-Pressure.
International Viewpoint 13 February 1984
Within the Congress party the 'respected' Gandhi and the new Congress that they lution', had its own dynamic which inundermined Congress hege-
It did this by aiding the development of a rural elite layer — the kulaks — with much more well-defined aims and a much oppressed whose expectations were also
The kulak farmers who were producing more and more of a marketable surplus on essentially family-sized farms were increasing their economic power in a society becoming increasingly dependent on food markets.
This layer, particularly in the north where the 'green revolution' first took hold, began to turn away from the Congress and look for other vehicles of political expression. The Bharatiya Kranti Dal and Bharatiya Lok Dal were the forerunners of Charan Singh's Lok Dal of today. In Punjab the Akali party today is the primary political instrument of the emergent Jat peasantry, (see International Viewpoint No 35, August 1, 1983). Changing social base
While the rise of the kulaks was one important factor in the decline of Congress there were others. Once Independence was achieved nationalism was no longer a unifying ideology. else had to replace it. The Congress credo of 'democratic socialism' attempted to fill the ideological vacuum. only for a limited period. With 'patriotic sacrifice' no longer a restraint and electoral politics institutionalised there was bound to be a tremendous rise in the expectations of all sections of society.
Since the electoral support of Congress also rested substantially on some of the poorest sections of society, their aspirations were bound to increase. As long as a reasonable level of growth was maintained - for example in the first two five-year plan periods - the demands could be met. But, by the mid1960s, expectations had passed beyond the critical point where they could realistically be met, and a decline in overall economic growth rates set in. The economic cake was not growing fast enough and its divisions and distribution were becoming increasingly difficult.
As long as the public sector was expanding at a fast rate, jobs were being created in the bureaucracy. When this expansion tapered off in the mid-1960s an explosive new ingredient was added to the social stew - an increasing reservoir of urban semi-literates (the products of Indian mass education do not by and large deserve any other label). The integration of this strata into various political parties was inevitable as was its growing significance. This layer joined the Communist Party of India-Marxist in West Bengal, the AIADMK and DMK
Nadu or the communalist Bharatiya Janata Party and its parent body the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh primarily based in the urban petty bourgeoisie, as well as the Congress party and its various breakaway rump groups. International Viewpoint 13 February 1984 leaders of a bygone era succumbed to their mortal fate and the post-Indepen dence social and economic developments systematically undermined the position of the English speaking upper middle class, which had played a disproportionately influential role in the political life of the country. They were the principal standard bearers of the liberal democratic ethos that accompanied the foundation of Indian bourgeois democracy. gress politics were increasingly vitiated by the commercialisation of all values and the open struggle for the spoils of office
Already by the last few years of Nehru's life - he died in 1964 - the character of the Congress party had changed substantially although no one seemed to recognise it at the time. People like Pratap Singh Kairon from the Punjab, Bakshi Ghulam Ahmed of Kasmir and Biji Patnaik of Orissa were appointed chief ministers in their respective states. They were generally contemptuous western liberal norms or the old 'Congress culture. Though much was made of Mrs Gandhi's style of functioning at the time that she split the party in 1969 over the question of who should be the presidential nominee - and it is true that she is not of the national movement generation - it is wrong to blame her for the collapse of the old Congress so starkly sym-
Her emergence in a sense parallels the emergence of the Labour left in Britain. It is essentially the decline of Labourism that explains the rise of the left and not the other way
Similarly, it was the decline of the old Congress that explained the rise of Mrs. Gandhi, and not the other way around as her opponents have argued. She also set out to establish, because she had to, a new kind of Congress party with a much more clearly defined social base.
The Nehru Congress had also relied to a large extent on the support of the 'core minorities'; the scheduled castes/ scheduled tribes (some 22 per cent of the population, now around 110 and 45 million respectively) and India's Muslims around 85 million or 12-13 per cent of the population). These groups tended to vote en bloc for the Congress. With some support from other sections of the electorate, a minority vote was sufficient to ensure Congress domination in the Lok Sabha (People's Chamber) and therefore at the Centre.
After the 1967 elections when Congress rule was overturned in a number of states as a result of the growing power of the emerging 'intermediate classes, Mrs Gandhi based her support much more consciously within the 'core minorities' threatened by the 'intermediate' castes
Although she made subsequent attempts to win the support of the kulaks and urban traders - the caste Hindu vote - this was, by comparison, always an unstable source of support. The electoral configuration may have been sufficient to generally assure Mrs would be governing from the Centre. What it could not do was assure her an easy passage while in power.
The outline can be sketched. The capitalisation of Indian agriculture had enormous consequences for the political sys-
The establishment of the public sector in the essential infrastructure of heavy industry, power and transport, provided jobs for those churned out by the mass education system. This functioned like an inverted pyramid. Weak at the primary level, disproportionately and progressively larger at secondary and college level, the general quality of such mass education factories was and is abysmal.
On the industrial front large, small and middle capital have prospered. not in fundamental conflict with each
The operations of small and middle-sized firms are often ancillary to the big ones. They all depend on the public sector for input and to purchase their
The backwardness of Indian capitalist development has been reflected in the growth rather than the decline of a rentier and trading class. The emergence of a black market was unavoidable given the massive dependence of private capital on the state, and on regulations to protect the home market from outside competition and to balance the various claims of different sections of capital. The black economy is generally estimated to be around one quarter of the size of the real, accountable economy. And the unevenness of Indian economic growth has ensured that unemployment and inflation remain permanent problems. Economic demands central
The new 'intermediate' classes in the urban and rural areas have emerged as a result of these economic developments. A link between black money and the financing of political parties has been established. There is also a growth of the lumpen proletariat and their increasing participation in politics. The ideological vacuum created by the decline of the old liberal ethos associated with the Congress of Nehru and Gandhi and the establishment of Westminster-style parliamentary democracy with American additions, has been filled by an increasing commercialisation of values. This shift in Congress ideology, indeed of political values in general, goes along with the decline in the economic and social standing of the English-speaking professionals and intelligentsia who staffed parliament and the middle and upper levels of the civilian bureaucracy and education system. Two-thirds of all MPs are now members of the rural elite, unlike the time when by and large professionals like lawyers and teachers represented even rural interests. The Indian political environment is vastly different from what it was a decade and a half ago.
Almost every social movement since the Naxalite upsurge has been related in
13
its initial stages directly or indirectly to tion of the pressures and demands created economic grievances, in particular the problem of unemployment and infla-
Some, like the Gujarat-JP movement, starting from the issue of high prices, developed a dynamic that led to the raising of directly political demands such as the dissolution of the Gujurat state legislature and the replacement of the Indian regime at the Centre. Others, like the struggle over the reservation of job and educational opportunities - a crucial issue for the scheduled castes and Muslims and from the opposite point of view for the growing ranks of the urban petty bourgeoisie - are obviously motivated by the fear of unemployment. (3) Even the prolonged Assam agitation against the influx of foreigners' from Bangladesh is only comprehensible in the context of recognition of the regime's social and economic exploitation by nonAssamese Indians such as the Marwaris and Punjabis, the limited employment opportunities for the Assamese petty bourgeoisie - including the students who are spearheading the agitation, the pressure on the land of the Assamese subsistence farmers created by the influx, and the background of cultural chauvinism established by the earlier Bengali migrants who have been settled in Assam for a long Can Congress (I) deliver the goods?
The agitation by farmers and kulaks in various states of India - Lok Dal in the
Sharad Joshi non-party ('Bharat' vs. India or country vs. town) movement for higher milk and prices in Maharashtra — i.e. focusing on the unequal exchange between prices of agricultural products and manufactured goods obscuring rural class divisions -the struggle for cheaper governmentsupplied inputs (water rates for irrigation) in Karnataka, the Narainswamy Naidu cotton lobby in Tamil Nadu. These have all been inspired by the search for higher profits through lower input costs and higher prices for their marketable output.
In a situation where inflation continues unabated, wage claims and the demand for a higher Dearness Allowance (i.e. price-indexed wage rises) have been the overwhelmingly most frequent cause of strikes, go-slows, and stoppages by the the workers demanded recognition of their own union, the Maharashtra Girni Kamgar Union led by Datta Samant, instead of the deeply hated and thoroughly discredited employers union the Congress-dominated Rashtriya Mill Mazdoor Sabha (see International Viewpoint 21 January 1983). This was a profoundly political demand for the first time challenging state legislation and the power of the state to impose it. Nevertheless, this demand was raised because it was an essential precondition to securing the high wage increase that was the workers main concern.
Even caste and communal conflicts in the rural areas are invariably a reflecby social and economic changes which are unacceptable to some dominant group or
For example, the influx of Gulf money, and the heavy demand for the skills and products of Muslim artisanal classes has transformed their relationship to the local Hindu elite. and ostentatious displays of new found wealth, often taking religious forms, lead to communal anger and clashes
The Akali party agitation in Punjab is in substantial measure the struggle of the Sikh Jat peasantry (30 per cent of the population in Punjab) for political power to secure further state and national government largesse. Sikhs comprise 52 per cent and Hindus 48 per cent of the
Thus the struggle can only be generalised to include the urban and non-Jat Sikhs by playing upon certain genuinely felt and legitimate cultural, religious and political grievances.
There are two important lessons to be drawn from the history of such move-
Indian economic growth in the future will bring such movements again. Unemployment and periods of high inflation cannot be eliminated. economic grievances will remain. What is surprising is that social movements have not developed around the question of corruption itself, although it has certainly led to electoral disenchantment and has been a major factor in the internal decay of the bourgeois democratic insti-
The second point to note is that even where many of these movements have been satisfied in the end, this has not strengthened the mediating role of the ruling Congress. Indeed, the methods of pacifying and struggle have further delegitimised the ruling Congress (I).
It has become increasingly clear to activists that only by raising the stakes, increasing the scope of the movement and threatening political alliances with opposition parties or rival factions within Congress (I) do they stand a chance of achieving some of their demands. Structural decline of the system
Struggles, thus, far from being contained within the Congress party, have moved outside its framework. In the last two years there has been a growth of organisations outside the traditional party framework, which have spearheaded these sorts of social movements. Joshi movement the student-led Assam movement are two examples. However, it is still too early to describe this tendency as a definite trend. But, the central point remains — it is fighting against the Congress (I) rather than merely within it that best ensures some degree of success - although of course factional divisions can also be utilised. Should the Centre prove intransigent, as in the case of Assam, the price that Congress (I) has to pay for its partial victories is a decline in its popularity.
While Congress is the central institution of the bourgeois democratic system the other structures like the legislature, the judiciary, the press, the administra tive bureaucracy and the coercive apparatus, etc. have not been unimportant. Being imported structures their implantation is weak. But they have functioned and survived for 36 years. alone has given them certain roots. But, while the early period of post-Independence harmony was a factor in aiding their consolidation, the subsequent period of instability has been both the cause and effect of their decay and transfor
The rate of decline and trans formation has been uneven in the different structures. With no parliamentary tradition to speak of, the legislatures have become bodies for rubber-stamping the directives of the executive at both state and central level. Serious debate of any quality is non-existent, the antics of the legislators without a parallel in the whole
The capacity of parliamentary committees to play a watchdog role is very low, and sinking lower as parlia mentarians and parliamentary skills become increasingly defunct.
The civilian bureaucracy, once the pride of the Indian state, has become a hotbed of intrigue. Political interference in promotions and transfers (particularly during Sanjay Gandhi's reign) has played havoc with the morale of civil servants. Its much vaunted 'independence' and self-confidence vis-a-vis the ruling party and its leaders is a thing of the past, although it still compares favourably to the administrative apparatuses of most other Third World countries.
The judiciary and the English-language 'national' press have, in contrast, suffered less from the depredations wrought by political manoeuvring, corruption and the general commercialisation of values. They have certainly not been immune from these forces but, in a situation where selective erosion of democratic rights has been more frequent, they have played more of a front line role in the preservation of the liberal democratic ethos and the norms of public conduct associated with it, and in sustaining the 'desirable' relationship between the various branches of the state. But their battle is, in important respects, a losing one.
In the case of the judiciary the status of the Indian constitution as one of the most remarkably liberal documents of its kind has afforded jurists and lawyers the scope to use it as a reference for preserving and extending the content and application of 'democratic rights'. With a weak legislature, the courts have played more of a role in checking the unbridled accumulation of power by the executive. Increasing this accumulation of power would require a modification of the constitution. This would lay the foundation for a battle with the judiciary over 3. The reservation of 20 per cent of the places in the education system and public sector jobs for the 'scheduled castes and tribes' -the Untouchables in the Hindu caste system -IV.
International Viewpoint 13 February 1984
the validity of constitutio omically dependent on government adverments and interpretations.
tising revenues and financial handouts,
Supreme
Court that has they are much more susceptible to direct soug structure' lish the
'basic of political manipulation and repression. It tution.
is true that during the Emergency the larger English-language press, with a few notable exceptions, did not acquit itself honourably.
But that experience of generalised censorship, which press caught most papers by surprise, has left its mark.
Thus, when the Bihar state government sought to pass its infamous press bill in late 1982, ostensibly to guard against the
'yellow press', with powers draconian enough to curb basic press freedoms, there was a nationwide agitation by all sections of the press in which the big
English-language monopoly-owned papers played a leading role. It was successful writ petition.
in eventually getting the government to scrap the bill.
Police revolts world.
To
But no aspirtruism.
Grassroots activist are
A within the lawyers (three security forces.
original directives.
transformation of
The of
English-speaking, the persuasion.
and vernacular papers are of greater import. Being small, weak, and often econ-
International Viewpoint 13 February 1984 was in power.
state of the police.
available.
black badges in the government:
ances.
stables live.
ent.
These fac-
The call for police
They are largely
But concern over their strike, already
15
ing and violence. The responsibility for this was unjustly pinned on the textile workers and policemen.
It took three days and nights for the army to establish an uneasy calm. Official estimates of the number of dead (ten) and injured were very much on the low side. Close to one hundred people were killed, and more injured. In due course the essential demands of the police were granted, but the root causes of their discontent were left untouched.
A strong bourgeois democratic set up should be able to rely on its coercive apparatus. One of the dangers of endemic political instability is most expressed here. Attempts by one fraction of capital or one section of the ruling class to alter the relationship of forces in its favour must be made within the rules of the
These rules specify that intergame. bourgeois conflicts must not be resolved in a manner which threatens the whole structure itself. Yet this is precisely what
Charan Singh (left) represents the newly-strong peasantry in the north (DR) Jayaprakash Narayan did in his famous movement in 1974-75. One of Mrs Gandhi's bitterest complaints was that J. P. called on the army to intervene in his favour and oust her. It did not respond, but the fact that J. P. should even make such a call constituted, in her view, an extremely dangerous and unacceptable departure from the rules of the game. In her own mind at least, it was one of the principal factors justifying the establishment of the Emergency to 'save the country from chaos and total breakdown'.
The decline of the old Congress and of consensus politics has also meant the elevation of Mrs Gandhi as an individual. The 'national' character of Congress (1) no longer lies in it being the inheritor of old Congress traditions or of the aura associated with the past and the national movement. It is above all the mass and genuinely national character of Mrs Gandhi's personal electoral popularity. This is a reality clearly recognised by Mrs Gandhi herself.
Although the Election Commission ruled that only the Congress (1) among the welter of different Congress parties, (O), (S), (J, etc, could lay claim to the title of Indian National Congress, Mrs Gandhi has preferred to keep her party's name as Congress (1).
Whatever her own predilections for concentration of authority in her own hands, her major problem for the last decade has been to sustain the 'national' character of the party, to assure a more stable foundation for such an all-India party than her own much publicised and played up 'charisma'. The dangers of the present situation are quite obvious. The absence of an accepted leadership structure and representative elections at various levels (there have been no organisational elections in Congress (1) for over ten years) means that the top team of the party, Mrs Gandhi, her son Rajiv and a handful, if that many, of her closest cronies, have no real control over the regional and local units of the party.
Given her undisputed role as the only 16 cement and only national asset of the party, no faction or individual dares to challenge Mrs Gandhi openly. They do not need to. While paying formal respeet to her in the most abjectly cringing manner - a widespread practice in the party - they can bypass or ignore her directives
While Mrs Gandhi possesses powers of ultimate sanction and discipline, and can dismiss chief ministers at her bidding, it is impossible for her to directly intervene at every level within the party. Facflourishes as never before the grab for the spoils of power becomes the paramount objective of political ac-
This inability to control the Congress means that Mrs Gandhi's own personal popularity is rendered somewhat more tenuous. She can do little to check the behaviour of the party, Congress state governments, the district committee or Congress (I)-dominated village panchayats, although she dominates the party and is seen to do so. The absence of a cohesive structure also means that there are no buffers between herself and local discontents in the party.
The need for a stable, coherently orwidely dispersed and deeply political organisation is strongly felt by the most perceptive defenders of
Indian state and bourgeois rule. Though the Congress (I) is far from besuch an organisation, the industrial bourgeoisie is loyal to it for two reasons.
Any party at the Centre enjoys enormous respect and authority because of the great financial dependence of the industrial bourgeoisie on centrally-controlled credit organised through the nationalised banking system, the government controls on trade and public sector supplies and the same bourgeoisie which gency, swung en bloc to the Janata party when it came to power at the Centre, as levers of financial and administrative power. Admittedly, the Janata's bias in favour of the 'intermediate classes' was more pronounced than in the case of the Congress (I) because of the presence of the Lok Dal and Jana Sangh parties within its ranks, but this was not a marked difference. Professor Raj Krishna, a senior member of the planning commission under the Janata party government, has already pointed out the remarkable similarity in the plan proposals and budgets of both the post-Emergency and the Congress government formed after the 1980 elections. (4)
But, only a year after the Janata govvery important sections of the industrial bourgeoisie began to swing over to support for Mrs
It was becoming increasingly clear that the infighting in the Janata party was reaching dangerous proportions, and that Mrs Gandhi represented better prospects for a more stable poliical order and had a greater capacity to strike compromises and bargains between different sections of the ruling bloc which could be accepted. A genuine unification of the Janata party to make it more than a loose coalition of interests would have required the peasant castes represented in the party to accept a non-peasant central leadership, which Charan Sangh, the leader of Lok Dal, was reluctant to do.
Those sectors of the industrial bour geoisie that turned back to Mrs Gandhi were vindicated when the Janata collapsed and the Congress (I) swept back to power in January 1980 with over two-thirds majority in the Lok Sabha, and just as impressive victories in the state legislative assembly elections that followed shortly afterwards.
Thus it is not the economic or social programme of the Congress (I) or its foreign policies that distinguish it from its bourgeois opponents when banded together in a coalition. Indeed, there is now an ideological consensus about the Indian economy - it is clearly capitalist.
The Budget and the Plan', Indian Express, August 7, 1980.
International Viewpoint 13 February 1984
The days of much noise about the 'mix- clue as to why it has become so necesed economy' are over and such voices have become increasingly irrelevant since the industrial infrastructure of state-
'core industries It was not the presumably more pro-Western Janata but the supposedly more pro-Soviet Congress (I) that negotiated a 5.8 billion dollar loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and sought to modify its foreign policy consuch as the much-vaunted state visit by
Today different parties may have differences about the degree to which government controls should be lifted, or the extent to which the private sector should be encouraged or about the increase in procurement prices that should be offered to the kulak peasants. But the essential economic perspective is common: To encourage market forces; increase • the strength of the private restrict the power of the unions; encourage greater production market through offers of higher procurement prices and lower input prices and through credit support for greater mechanisation, capitalisation and commercialisation of agriculture; reduce corporate taxes; encourage the growth of the share market; maintain the strength of the public sector and modernise parts of it; provide higher renumeration to the managerial and technical professions and limit the growth of the black economy but also learn to live with it.
Where the Congress (I) scores over the opposition is that there quite simply sary for the survival of Congress as a 'national' entity that it must promise a person of similar stature as an eventual replacement for Mrs Gandhi. The cult of Sanjay Gandhi previously and now of his brother Rajiv has been deliberately fosimpossible to revive the old-style Congress this seems the only way to retain a 'national' party. Can Congress last without Mrs Gandhi?
No effort has been spared to build up gress Committee (AICC) conference in Bombay in October 1983 was partly to prepare the ground for Rajiv's rise to national status. He is nominally one of the general secretaries of Congress (1) but is in actual fact the second most powerful person in India today.
The more perceptive defenders of a powerful and stable Indian state are prepared to go along with the development of the Rajiv cult. The question is not the 'anti-democratic' and 'dynastic' or 'immoral' nature of the exercise, but whether Rajiv can succeed in becoming a second Mrs Gandhi, and thus help to preserve a stable or, more accurately, less unstable than otherwise bourgeois democratic order. When all is said and done, some form of functioning system remains a far better arrangement than an authoritarian set up for the Indian bourgeoisie to tackle the non-econclashes and differences that exist.
survive the death of its leader, Sanjay Gandhi, in an aeroplane crash in June
It is now Rajiv Gandhi's turn. He is set up a new structure using the Youth Congress (I),
Congress-controlled National dents Union of India, and its social work organisation the Seva Dal. His aim is the same as his brother's but the approach and inclinations are different. He wants to professionalise the workings of the Youth Congress and Seva Dal end he has recruited 434 Youth Congress co-ordinators aged between 25 and 28, all of whom are university graduates. (5) They go through a rigorous six-week training schedule and then are sent in pairs to Congress (I) districts, on a pay of 500 rupees a month, where local Congress members of parliament or state legislatures are expected to put them up and provide transport. Their job is to provide information on the actual state of affairs in the district and the degree to which the 20 Point Programme has been applied. This programme of unexceptionable and mainly unattainable populist demands is what serves as ideology for this new force whose trade mark is 'comand 'professional
Similarly 372 Seva Dal instructors were trained in a two-week session and each of them is supposed to raise a force of 20,000 people which in turn will raise 700,000 people who can act as vote mobilers for the elections.
This gigantic effort to bypass the official parent body rather than transform it is exists no 'national' alternative to it, nor The difficulty of 'reorganising' the a charade doomed to failure. any party or combination of parties that can secure the electoral allegiance of such a cross section of the Indian public, Mr Chandrasekhar, leader of the Janata party and one of the few politicians with a 'clean' image, started in mid-1983 on a 4,000 kilometre padyatra (journey on foot) from the southern tip of India to the capital, covering thousands of vilconsiderable enthusiasm with which he was generally received testified to the strength of the personal factor in Indian politics. It temporarily raised the stock of Chandrasekhar as a politican who could have a 'national' following like Mrs Gandhi. While he has this potential he is far from attaining the stature of the Congress (I) leader. The effect of the headline-catching walk has worn off.
The Congress (I) advantage is rooted, above all, in the personal popularity of Mrs Gandhi and what counts in the Congress (I) is loyalty to a person not to an
It is difficult to explain the source of her appeal. A 'towering individual' is perhaps a symbol of overcoming the fragmentation and divisions of Indian society. The Hindu psyche, the desire for order and subordination to a single source of authority, may be as plausible an explanation as more explicitly social or economic ones.
This is not Bonapartism. ficult to say what it is. But it provides a International Viewpoint 13 February 1984
Congress (I) in any meaningful sense has led Mrs Gandhi to ask in a well publicised aside, Where is the. Congress party that 1 should reorganise..why do I need the party? I can depend on the administrative machinery for managing the affairs of the country? She is so wary of promoting the power of local Congress chieftans that the only 'reorganisation' she would accept is that carried out by those she trusts most first Sanjay and now Rajiv Gandhi.
It was during the Emergency that Sanjay Gandhi first took up the task of creating a new kind of mass-based Congress organisation.
Using the Youth Congress (I) as his main instaument, he introduced at the top level a coterie of prep school-type idlers who had neither integrity nor ideological commitment of any kind. Motivated by contempt for the old Convalues, this coterie was complemented by an even larger layer of middle level organisers who were lumpens from a less affluent and educated background. They certainly showed themselves to be loyal to their leader and ruthless as they pursued schemes like razing the slums to the
Efficient, dynamic or revitalising, they were not. In fact, outside the urban areas their influence was limited The existence of this much-vaunted 'new brigade' was so fragile that it did not grassroots support that exists is channelled through the local Congress (I) stal-
The kind of mobilisation that Rajiv Gandhi wants to institutionalise, like his brother before him, is not possible without the help of the pradesh, district and panchayat Congress committees, where the lumpens reign supreme. The same holds for the Youth Congress committees at this level, and no amount of flirting with 'co-ordinators' at the top
Gandhi's version of a 'new brigade' is at best only superimposed onto a system of links and alliances that carries on as usual. A system that works on patronage and monied favours. As long as he continues on such lines and does not directly challenge the power of 17 Congress (I) chief ministers and over 400 state ministers, each with their own vested interest groups and lobbies,
But, for the existing party structure to be genuinely revamped, these forces would have to die a political death. The chance of such a confrontation - which would push these forces to fight back in every way they could, including joining up with the opposition - is frankly very remote. problem of endemic political instability remains unresolvable.
India Today, September 15, 1983.
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