Completed Indian Elections Bring No Major Surprises

by M.M. Ali

As the votes were counted after the final stage of India’s nationwide 1996 parliamentary elections, it became clear that no single political party had won a clear majority, as predicted in the May/June issue of the Washington Report. The right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 194 seats in the 545-seat Lokh Sabha, India’s lower house of parliament; the Congress Party won 136 seats; and the remaining 215 seats were won by 14 regional parties. These included extreme left-wing communists, moderate socialists like the Janata Dal, and parties representing the “scheduled” classes. These are the remnants of those at the bottom of the former caste system, for whom a form of affirmative action reserves places in government, universities, and other bastions of the former privileged castes.

In accordance with the Constitution, President Shankar Dayal Sharma invited the head of the party that won the most seats, BJP leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee, 72, to form the government within two weeks. In the meantime, the defeated Congress Party elected former Prime Minister Narasimha Rao as its party leader.

Ignoring a gang-up against his winning BJP, Bihari Vajpayee accepted the president’s offer and became the new prime minister. He announced a cabinet formed from within the BJP, and sought in vain to attract other parties to join him. When they did not, Vajpayee opted against seeking a confidence vote from the Lokh Sabha and tendered his resignation within 12 days.

It was apparent, at least to others, that despite BJP’s phenomenal climb from 2 seats in 1984 to 194 today, the Brahmins and other upper castes from which the BJP draws its support are a microscopic 2 to 3 percent minority of the electorate. More than 70 percent of the population consists of what used to be described as the lower castes, the untouchables and the Dalits and also the Muslims who now are allied with these scheduled classes.

In fact, much of the BJP campaign had been based on injecting religious hatred into Indian politics. In 1993, BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi, who was named interior minister in Vajpayee’s cabinet, deprecatingly asserted: “They [BJP’s opponents] should refer to themselves as ‘Hindu-Muslims’ and ‘Hindu-Christians,’ as that is the main culture of the country.” (The Washington Post, May 17, 1996.)

Speaking in the same vein, BJP spokesman K. R. Malkani described India’s 130 million Muslims as “deracinated.” Remarked BJP General Secretary Pramaod Mahajan, “It’s true all over the world, Muslims are a tyrant majority and an intolerant minority.”

“In other democracies, people cast their vote. In India, they vote their caste.”

Besides such vituperative pronouncements, BJP’s destruction of the Muslim mosque in Ayodhya in 1992, with the subsequent tragic events that left 3,000 Muslims dead across the country, still are ripe in the memories of the electorate. Nor are 5,000 years of history laden with caste prejudices easily forgotten. Lower caste Hindus still cannot marry members of the upper caste and, until recently, could not drink from the same water fountains. BJPsymbolizes this system, which it calls “Hindutva” and “Ram Rajya.”

According to Indian press reports, by rushing to form a government, BJPmay have committed a major political blunder. It stimulated the Congress Party and other non-BJP groups to form an alliance under the leadership of unassuming Chief Minister H.D. Deve Gowda of the southern state of Karnataka. Now the king is the king-maker. Former Congress Party Prime Minister Narasimha Rao, as newly reaffirmed leader of the Congress Party with 136 seats, has helped the United Front to form its government.

Its leader, Deve Gowda, is neither a high caste Brahmin nor a low-caste Chamar, and therefore meets the caste criteria. Since he is widely known only in the southern region, he is unlikely to pose a threat to Rao or other old-timers waiting in the wings. Although India’s president invited Deve Gowda to form a government, before that he consulted with Rao. That gave a clear signal about who will pull the strings from behind the Deve Gowda regime.

How strong and how stable the new Gowda government will be will depend upon how well he works with Rao. That Rao has agreed to stay on the sidelines for the next five years is not true. The leading news magazine India Today said: “He [Rao] may be down but he is certainly not out.” The way he manipulated his election as the Congress Party chief, especially in the face of strong opposition from within, shows the political acumen of the man and his will and capability to survive even while losing the prime ministership. The only thing against him is his age, 73. That factor could sooner than later cause him to reduce Gowda’s tenure, unless Gowda as prime minister out-maneuvers him.

Conditional Support

Gowda, who is 63, knows he was not the first choice of the United Front and that his name emerged only after two others withdrew their nominations. He also knows that Congress Party support is conditional: He will have to continue with the free market economy that was initiated by Rao and he will not bring any charges of corruption against Rao. Even after he meets these conditions, Gowda will recall how the Congress Party withdrew its support in 1991 and caused the premature fall of Chandra Shekar’s government.

In any case, as things stand today, Narasimha Rao will be holding the winning cards for the forseeable future. No wonder the Congress Party has extended its support to the United Front but has declined to join the cabinet.

It is a fact that the just-concluded India-wide elections were the largest in the history of mankind. In an electorate of more than 550 million, over 60 percent voted.

Such awesome numbers do not necessarily connote change. Aside from the figures, there is another India where elections do not touch the lives of a vast majority that lives on the fringes economically, and under centuries of prejudice socially, and in physical fear politically.

“In other democracies, people cast their vote. In India, they vote their caste,” observed no less a man than V. N. Gadgil, the official spokesman for the Congress Party.

“What people seemed to be voting was their dismay and disgust that their local Congress Party lawmaker had done so little for them. It was almost palpable across the country,” said L. N. Rao of the Center for Media Studies in New Delhi. In an editorial on May 8, 1996, the Christian Science Monitor wrote, “In India, the political stage is incredibly large, and the religious and ethnic fissures deep.”

The Boston Globe wrote: “The Bharatiya Janata Party…stirs mob violence and advocates not only extreme Hindu nationalism at the expense of 100 million Muslims, but also nuclear weapons and increased confrontation with Pakistan. This is not the sort of thing the world needs in a country with a long history of communal violence and in a continent that is everybody’s odds-on favorite as the most likely place to see another atom bomb dropped in anger.”

The 1996 elections have brought to the fore two major factors that are likely to be of great significance in coming years in India. One is a noticeable degree of political awakening among the lower-caste Hindus who make up the majority and a realization among India’s 130 million Muslims that they have a common cause with the depressed communities. In several constituencies they joined hands and defeated BJP candidates who stood for communalism and casteism. However, there still is no coherent national leadership within these two huge potential allies. They continue to be drawn either toward the Congress Party or to others opposed to the BJP.

Second, regionalism has become the most potent force in the politics of India today. In the absence of national charismatic figures, regional leaders like Jyoti Basu of West Bengal, Mulayem Singh and Mayawati of Uttar Pradesh, Laloo Prasad Yadav of Bihar, Jayalalita and Karunanidhi of Tamil Nadu, A. K. Anthony of Kerala, and Chandrababu Naidu of Andhra Pradesh are the current power brokers. However, each one of them literally speaks a different language and often times has an individual mindset and agenda.

The political hegemony that was perpetuated by the Brahmins, Jats and the Thakurs of Uttar Pradesh and tolerated by leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru now is being challenged. The notorious Hindi belt is slowly but surely loosening up. The developments of today hark to 1956 when Nehru unwittingly divided India on linguistic lines.

There is a school of thought that views regionalism as a sign of strength. There is another group that shudders at the prospect, looking at the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Perhaps India needs another Nehru to keep it together. Until then, the country will have to reconcile itself to being run by weak coalition governments.

Political pundits will continue to analyse the 1996 election results. While conclusions will differ on many aspects, there is unity on one point. The two winners in these elections were the Supreme Court of India, which went after graft and political corruption, and the Election Commission that professionally managed and completed a stupendous and thankless task. The ultimate salvation of Indian democracy may depend on the sagacity shown by the man in the president’s office and the political disinterestedness of India’s military commander-in-chief.