India After Independence: 1947-2000 (23 page)

The main argument put forward for reservation in employment and education for the local persons has been that in the states concerned they are socially, economically and educationally backward and are not able to compete with the more advanced migrant communities. Also, in technical colleges and universities, the more backward local students would be overwhelmed by the more advanced students from other states. It is because of this, in the post-Nehru era, even the central government has tended to support preference for residents of a state in employment in central public sector enterprises below the level of a certain technical expertise and in colleges and universities. Reservations on grounds of residence have also been approved by the courts. However, as brought out earlier, reservations for the tribal people are in a separate category.

While reservation of jobs in state administrations and seats in
institutions of higher education for the backward local residents was undesirable from the point of view of national integration, some justification could be found for it. However, there was none for the anti-migrant movements of the sixties which tried to restrict the flow of migrants from other states and which openly proclaimed antagonism and generated hostility against them. These militant anti-migrant and ‘sons of the soil’ movements were mainly centered in the urban areas of Assam, Telengana in Andhra, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Orissa.

The worst case was that of the movement led by the Shiv Sena which appealed to extreme regional chauvinism and assumed fascist proportions. Founded in 1966, under the leadership of Bal Thackeray, the Shiv Sena demanded that preference in jobs and small businesses should be given to Maharashtrians, who were defined as those whose mother tongue was Marathi. Raising the slogan of ‘Maharashtra for the Maharashtrians’, the Shiv Sena organized a militant,, and often violent movement against the South Indians, especially the Tamils, who were declared to have a disproportionate share of office jobs such as clerks and typists in private firms and small businesses such as tea shops and eating places. In 1969, the Sena gave the Bombay city a taste of fascist violence when it organized arson and terror against South Indians, looted and destroyed their tea-stalls and eating places, overturned cars of Tamils and tore off Tamil signs from shops. The Shiv Sena could not, however, sustain its hate-South Indian campaign or become a major political force outside Bombay city or get the support of any all-India political party. It, therefore, soon shifted its ideological base to Hindu communalism. Gaining a wider political constituency, it was then able to ally itself with the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The ‘sons of the soil’ movements in Assam and Telengana, which also assumed serious proportions and were quite complex, had some additional and distinctive features. Both these movements will therefore be discussed elsewhere in the chapters on state politics.

While protective and preferential regulations have been widespread since the late sixties, antagonism, hostility and violence against migrants have abated in recent years. The problem posed by ‘the sons of the soil’ doctrine is still somewhat a minor one and there is no ground for pessimism on that score. Even at its height, only a few cities and states were affected in a virulent form, and at no stage did it threaten the unity of the country or the process of nation-in-the-making. Besides, its effects on the Indian economy have been negligible: migration within the country has not been checked; inter-state mobility is in fact growing. But the problem is likely to linger till economic development is able to deal effectively with unemployment, especially among the middle classes, and regional inequality.

Looking back at the divisive issues of the post-independence period, the linguistic reorganization of the states, the integration of the tribals, and regional inequality and regionalism, it is to be observed that the prophets of ‘gloom and doom’ have been disproved. Linguistic states have strengthened not weakened Indian unity, even while permitting full
cultural autonomy to different linguistic areas. Hindi and English are growing as all-India languages. Regional movements like the DMK have been doused after 1967 and are content to rename Madras state, Tamil Nadu and Madras as Chennai. Tribals feel secure in the Indian union regarding their cultural and economic autonomy, have also gained greater strength themselves, as also political support in the country over time. The process of nation-in-the-making is being pushed forward. A national identity, that of being Indian, has come to be accepted by all on the subcontinent, and the fact of Indian unity is irreversible.

This should not suggest that all problems related to these issues have been resolved for all time. Further social and economic development, spread of education, deepening of democracy and politicization, as has been seen elsewhere, could create new sources of tension and conflict leading to disrupture tendencies. Optimism is to be tempered with a continuing concern for threats to Indian unity. Yet, India’s past experience in overcoming disruptive forces may be instructive for the future. The role and legacy of the freedom struggle, the quality and wisdom of the leaders, the leadership’s correct understanding of India’s diversity, the leadership’s rejection of secessionist demands, while respecting those within the constitutional framework, the democratic political structure, and the acceptance of the need for a strong national government within a federal structure have all contributed to promote Indian unity. Here, it must be added that a strong state should not be mistaken for an authoritarian one. A strong national government does not entail weak state governments or a national government that rides roughshod over the federal provisions of the Constitution. Federalism does not mean a weak national government, rather a non-dominating national government which observes the federal features of the polity. A strong but democratic nation state is a necessity for a developing country with strong federal features. What it does with its strength depends on the political nature of the government and the ruling party of the day.

The years from 1951 to 1964, were those of maturity and achievement. They were also years marked by high hopes and aspirations, optimism and confidence. Jawaharlal Nehru could declare in April 1953:

I shall not rest content unless every man, woman and child in the country has a fair deal and has a minimum standard of living . . . Five or six years is too short a time for judging a nation. Wait for another ten years and you will see that our Plans will change the entire picture of the country so completely that the world will be amazed.
¹

And reflecting the mood of the country, he wrote in June 1955:

Even though we have a multitude of problems, and difficulties surround us and often appear to overwhelm, mere is the air of hope in this country, a faith in our future and a certain reliance on the basic principles that have guided us thus far. There is the breath of the dawn, the feeling of the beginning of a new era in the long and chequered history of India.
²

These were also the years when India was more or less stable, when its political system took on its distinct form, the country began to progress in all directions, and above all there was the beginning of the massive reconstruction of the polity and the economy. People experienced an advance towards the basic objectives of democracy, civil liberties, secularism, a scientific and international outlook, economic development and planning, with socialism at the end of the road. There was, of course, some discontent among the intelligentsia regarding the slow pace of development, especially with regard to the problems of poverty and employment, and the slow and unsatisfactory progress of land reforms. Among the several areas of progress and achievement, though marked by certain weaknesses and limitations, were, (a) the consolidation of the nation and the solution of the language and tribal problems, (b) the
initiation of the process of independent and planned economic development, (c) the evolution of an independent and innovative foreign policy, (d) the initiation of the electoral process, (e) the rooting of democracy, (f) the setting in place of an administrative structure, (g) the development of science and technology, and (h) the beginnings of the welfare state. The first three aspects are discussed in separate chapters in this volume; the last five aspects are discussed below in this chapter.

First of all came the entrenchment of democracy—an achievement which has endured so that it is now taken for granted. The process had begun with the framing of the Constitution after 1947 and its promulgation on 26 January 1950. Democracy took a giant step forward with the first general election held in 1951-52 over a four month period. These elections were the biggest experiment in democracy anywhere in the world. The elections were held on the basis of universal adult franchise, with all those twenty-one years of age or older having the right to vote. There were over 173 million voters, most of them poor, illiterate, and rural, and having had no experience of elections. The big question at the time was how would the people respond to this opportunity.

Many were skeptical about such an electorate being able to exercise its right to vote in a politically mature and responsible manner. Some said that democratic elections were not suited to a caste-ridden, multi-religious, illiterate and backward society like India’s and that only a benevolent dictatorship could be effective politically in such a society. The coming elections were described by some as ‘a leap in the dark’ and by others as ‘fantastic’ and as ‘an act of faith.’

India’s electoral system was developed according to the directives of the Constitution. The Constitution created an Election Commission, headed by a Chief Election Commissioner, to conduct elections. It was to be independent of the executive or the parliament or the party in power.

Organization of the elections was a wondrous task. There was a house-to-house survey to register the voters. With over 70 per cent of the voters being illiterate, the candidates were to be identified by symbols, assigned to each major party and independent candidates, painted on the ballot-boxes (this was later changed to symbols on the ballot papers). The voters were to place the ballot papers in the box assigned to a particular candidate, and ballot was secret. Over 224,000 polling booths, one for almost every 1000 voters, were constructed and equipped with over 2½ million steel ballot-boxes, one box for every candidate. Nearly 620,000,000 ballot papers were printed. About a million officials supervised the conduct of the polls. Of the many candidates, whoever got the plurality, or the largest number of votes would get elected. It was not necessary for the winning candidate to have a majority.

In all, candidates of over fourteen national and sixty-three regional or
local parties and a large number of independents contested 489 seats for the Lok Sabha and 3,283 seats for the state assemblies. Of these, 98 seats for the former and 669 for the latter were reserved for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes. Nearly 17,500 candidates in all stood for the seats to the Lok Sabha and the state legislatures. The elections were spread out over nearly four months from 25 October 1951 to 21 February 1952. (Later this period was reduced to nineteen days in 1957 and seven to ten days in subsequent elections).

Suitable conditions were created for the free participation of the opposition parties in the elections, including Jan Sangh and CPI. This was despite the fact that Jan Sangh was communal and the moving force behind it, namely the RSS, had been banned only three years earlier for spreading communal hatred which had led to the assassination of Gandhiji. CPI had adopted an insurrectionary policy till a few months before the elections and even at the time was firmly opposed to the constitutional structure. The Opposition was, however, quite fragmented. Neither the communal parties nor the left-wing parties could come together to form electoral alliances or even arrive at adjustments among themselves.

The first general elections were marked by a vigorous election campaign by Jawaharlal Nehru. Showing remarkable energy, he covered nearly 40,000 kilometers and addressed thirty-five million people or a tenth of India’s population during his election tour. As Nehru’s biographer, S. Gopal, has pointed out, ‘As before 1947, all the speeches of Nehru were part of a process of adult education, of teaching the masses that they had minds which they should use.’ In fact, Nehru was at the centre-stage of the election campaign. The opposition parties too recognized his importance, and all of them, to again quote Gopal, ‘joined in attacking him from every possible view point.’
³
Nehru too recognized his own centrality and wrote: ‘It is true that without me in the Congress, there would have been no stable government in any State or in the Centre, and a process of disruption would have set in.’
⁴

In particular, he made communalism the central issue of his campaign. The basic struggle at the time, he said, was between the secular and the communal forces, for the main danger to India’s integrity came from the latter. ‘If allowed’ free play’, he warned, communalism ‘would break up India’.
⁵
And he declared: ‘Let us be clear about it without a shadow of doubt . . . we stand till death for a secular State.’
⁶

The elections were conducted in a fair, free, impartial and orderly manner with very little violence. This was widely acknowledged when Sukumar Sen, the first Chief Election Commissioner, was invited as an expert adviser on elections by several Asian and African countries. The election process was completed in May 1950 when Rajendra Prasad was elected as the President of the Republic and Dr S. Radhakrishnan as its Vice-President.

People’s response to the new political order was tremendous. They participated in the polls fully aware that their vote was a prized possession. In many places, people treated polling as a festival, as a public
celebration, with many decking themselves for the occasion in festive clothing, the women wearing their silver jewellery. They also demonstrated their ability to exercise their right to vote carefully despite their poverty and illiteracy and the complicated voting procedures. For example, the number of invalid votes cast was as low as 3 to 4 per cent. There was a large turnout of voters not only in the urban areas but also in the rural areas and among the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. A remarkable feature was the wide participation of women; at least 40 per cent of women eligible to vote did so. Thus, the faith of the leadership in the people was fully justified.

When the election results were declared, it was found that nearly 46.6 per cent of the eligible voters had cast their votes. Since then this percentage has been going up and has been comparable to the voting percentages in the United States. Party-wise the elections results for the Lok Sabha and the state assemblies were as given in the table below:

Note: KMPP
=
Kisan Mazdoor Praja Party; RRP—Ram Rajya Parishad.

The major features of this election which characterized subsequent elections till 1962 and even later were:

i) The Congress swept the polls bagging nearly 75 per cent of the seats in the Lok Sabha and 68.5 per cent of those in the state legislatures. But in both cases it got less than 50 per cent of the votes cast. This was because of the plurality or first-past-the-post principle followed in deciding the winner. The elections represented a triumph for the Congress organization, which reached down to the village level, for the ideology of secularism, democracy and national, unity, and, above all, for the inspiring
leadership of Nehru. The Congress formed the government at the Centre and in all the states. It did not get a majority on its own in four states—Madras, Travancore-Cochin, Orissa and PEPSU—but formed governments even there with the help of independents and smaller, local parties which then merged with it.

ii) Both the parties of the left and the communal right performed poorly. The poor performance of the Socialist Party and the KMPP (the two together won only 21 seats in the Lok Sabha) was, in fact, quite a surprise in view of their high hopes and optimistic projections. The Socialist party won only 19 seats in the assembly in U.P., its strongest unit. Similarly, the three communal parties the Jan Sangh, the Hindu Mahasabha and the Ram Rajya Parishad, won only 10 Lok Sabha seats and 6 per cent of the votes cast.

iii) The Communist performance was better than expected. The CPI along with its allies, most of them Communists or fellow travellers in reality, emerged as the second largest group in the Lok Sabha. It was to retain this position in most of the later elections till 1977. The CPI also won a sizeable number of seats in Madras, Travancore-Cochin and Hyderabad.

iv) The elections showed that the princes and big landlords still wielded a great deal of influence in some parts of the country. Their party, the Ganatantra Parishad, won 22.1 per cent (31 seats) of the assembly seats in Orissa. Similarly, the three communal parties won 64 of their 85 assembly seats in the formerly princely states.

v) The independents and the small regional and local parties got a large number of the votes and seats both in the Lok Sabha and the state assemblies. However, the role of the independents in elections both at the Centre and in the states, started declining since 1962.

The political system that was initiated by the elections of 1951-52 has been described by many political scientists as the beginning of the one-party dominant system. But, in fact, it represented the beginning of a multi-party system with the Congress enjoying the special status of forming the core or the focus of the system as also its stabilizing force. Despite the numerically dominant position of the Congress, the Opposition was quite effective in the parliament. It used the Question Hour to great effect and maintained a high level of debate in the parliament. The effectivity of the Opposition owed a great deal to the high calibre of the few but capable opposition members on the one hand, and Nehru’s respect for the opposition opinion on the other.

Noteworthy is the fact that though other forms of political participation, such as trade unions, Kisan Sabhas, strikes, hartals, bandhs and demonstrations, were available to the middle classes, organized working class, and sections of the rich and middle peasantry, elections were the main form of direct political participation for the vast mass of the rural and urban poor.

A few embryonic, negative features—pointers to the future—also surfaced during the first general elections. There was a scramble for
tickets in the Congress and the squabbles among leaders for getting safe seats for their followers. Many of the independent candidates were those rejected by the Congress and other political parties. Factionalism also made its appearance in a big way in nearly all the parties. Villages were often divided into factions irrespective of party or ideology. Vote-banks also began to emerge so that some people voted according to the dictates of the influential persons on whom they were dependent economically. Of course, more legitimately, local notables such as freedom fighters, doctors, lawyers, school teachers also guided and decided the local voters’ preferences. Caste and kinship ties also began to influence the voters significantly from this election onwards.