Divided We Govern Coalition Politics in Modern India
Divided We Govern Coalition Politics in Modern India
Divided We Govern Coalition Politics in Modern India
SANJAY RUPARELIA
Divided We Govern
Coalition Politics in Modern India
A
A
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Divided We Govern: Coalition Politics in Modern India.
ISBN: 9780190264918
“Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they
do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but rather under cir-
cumstances found, given and transmitted.”
Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte
“What were the arguments used by those opposed to you being Prime
Minister?
… Our argument was: this cannot last five years. If we are there, much more
than the others we can make them accept some policies, put them before the
country, whatever the limits are. You can’t remove every obstacle, that is not
possible: but we could do something for self-reliance, for the countryside, for
panchayats, all that we can push through. Anti-poverty programmes: it is there
but it does not reach the people. … But it is a political blunder. It is a histori-
cal blunder … We do not accept many of their policies, they do not accept
many of ours. But the minimum programme was there, and we could have
implemented it much better than others. Because we have the experience, noth-
ing more, nothing personal.”
Jyoti Basu, former chief minister of West Bengal
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ix
List of Tables xv
Abbreviations xvii
Glossary xxiii
Introduction 1
1. The Paradoxes of India’s Coalition Politics 15
PART I
THE GENESIS OF THE THIRD FORCE
2. The Roots of the Broader Indian Left (1934–1977) 45
3. The Janata Party (1977–1980) 67
4. The Rise of the Regions (1980–1989) 89
5. The National Front (1989–1991) 103
PART II
THE MATURATION OF THE THIRD FORCE
6. The Crystallization of the Third Force (1991–1996) 125
7. The Formation of the United Front (May 1996) 147
8. Establishing Political Authority (June–September 1996) 181
9. Exercising National Power (September–December 1996) 213
10. Reform amid Crisis (January–April 1997) 235
PART III
THE FALL OF THE THIRD FORCE
11. The Decline of the United Front (May 1997–March 1998) 257
vii
CONTENTS
Notes 345
Bibliography 419
Index 451
viii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book seeks to explain the rise and fall of the broader parliamen-
tary left, and the dynamics of national coalition governments more
widely, in modern Indian democracy since the 1970s. It has taken far
longer to finish than I ever imagined. Teaching commitments and fam-
ily obligations, routine and unexpected, demanded extra attention at
numerous junctures. Opportunities to conduct new research and pur-
sue collaborative projects also emerged, shifting my timeline. Yet after
finishing a first draft of the manuscript three years ago, which exclu-
sively focused on Indian coalition politics in the 1990s, the focus of my
Ph.D. dissertation, I realized the need to analyze the history of the
broader Indian left to assess its advances, setbacks and futures prop-
erly, which entailed much new work. Given how many years have
passed, I have accrued many debts, personal as well as intellectual,
which have left an imprint. I apologize for anyone that I may have
inadvertently missed.
My interest in modern Indian democracy emerged during my grad-
uate studies at the University of Cambridge. Unconventionally, I began
my doctoral research at Yale University, where I spent a very enjoyable
year as a Fox Visiting Fellow in 1996–97, thanks to Anthony Badger and
Brian Carter. Seminars with Benedict Anderson, Joseph LaPalombara,
Frances Rosenbluth, Alexander Wendt and Eric Worby, and numerous
conversations with Eric as well as Casiano Hacker-Cordon, John
Gould, Jeff Miley and Jonathan Rodden, exposed me to many con-
tending perspectives on the role of ideas, interests and institutions in
politics. Yet it was my years of study in Cambridge that naturally had
a far greater impact. The greatest influence was my supervisor,
ix
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
x
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
xi
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
xii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
sent me a copy of the public appeal to the Left Front made in 2004. I
must thank Marianna Assis, Lisa Bjorkman, Pete Galambos, Samarjit
Ghosh, Jennifer Terrell, Douglas Voigt and Amanda Zadorian for their
research assistance at various junctures. And I am enormously grateful
to my editor, Michael Dwyer, for taking on the manuscript enthusias-
tically from the start, encouraging me to tell a much larger story than
I had originally planned and providing ample time to do justice to the
task. I thank Jon de Peyer, Daisy Leitch, Rob Pinney and Prerana Patel
for answering my umpteen concerns, hastening the process of produc-
ing the book at crucial stages, and Mohini Gupta for highlighting per-
sistent ambiguities. The gracious criticisms of two anonymous review-
ers highlighted important limitations of the book, which I have sought
to address in the Conclusion, albeit very briefly. Needless to say,
despite the contributions of so many individuals, any remaining mis-
takes of fact and interpretation are mine alone.
It is impossible to acknowledge the debt I owe to my family with any
measure of adequacy. I doubt my parents, Indu and Vasant, and my
brother, Raju, ever fully understood what I was doing. Yet their
love, patience and belief have never wavered. Durgasankar and Tia
xiii
LIST OF TABLES
xv
LIST OF TABLES
xvi
ABBREVIATIONS
xvii
ABBREVIATIONS
xviii
ABBREVIATIONS
xix
ABBREVIATIONS
xx
ABBREVIATIONS
NTRTDP (LP)
TMC Tamil Maanila Congress
TPDS Targeted Public Distribution System
TRC Tamilaga Rajiv Congress
TRS Telangana Rashtra Samithi
UC Utkal Congress
UCC Uniform Civil Code
UCPI United Communist Party of India
UDF United Democratic Front
UGDP United Goans Democratic Party
ULF United Left Front
UMFA United Minorities Front, Assam
UNPA United National Progressive Alliance
UPA United Progressive Alliance
USSR Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
UT Union Territory
VCK Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi
VHP Vishwa Hindu Parishad
VIDS Voluntary Income Disclosure Scheme
WBTC West Bengal Trinamool Congress
xxi
GLOSSARY
xxiii
GLOSSARY
xxiv
INTRODUCTION
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2
INTRODUCTION
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INTRODUCTION
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INTRODUCTION
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sion. On the other, the readiness of many socialist leaders to join hands
with myriad forces yet not share organizational power amongst them-
selves revealed a politics of resistance, insubordination and defiance
necessary for genuine subaltern groups, but self-liquidating for its
elites. Put differently, the moralistic intentions of the communists as
well as the cynical instrumentality of the socialists undermined good
political judgment at decisive moments.
The third aim of the book, vital for understanding the dynamics of
national coalition politics in modern Indian democracy, is to provide a
fine-grained analytic narrative of the rise and decline of the third force
since the 1970s. In general, narratives elucidate the nexus between
agency, structure and process in a single coherent account. They are
exemplary for investigating temporal issues: the timing, sequence and
contingency of events, the crystallization of particular historical con-
junctures, the passage of an era.18 Hence narratives provide an excellent
technique for creating a “moving picture” of “politics in time”.19
Constructing a narrative proves very useful for demonstrating how mul-
tiparty governments actually function—something that existing schol-
arly accounts and the dominant theoretical models upon which they
rely only partly explain. Moreover, analyzing the judgments of real
political actors in proper historical context demands a prospective ori-
entation: examining their incentives, opportunities and constraints, and
assessing the foreseen, foreseeable and unforeseeable consequences of
their decisions, by reconstructing the moment of action itself. If done
well, such an approach can minimize the specter of inevitability that
beguiles so many explanations in political science today.
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INTRODUCTION
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image of coalitions from the start. Yet their failure obscured the early
regionalization of the federal party system. The centralization of power
by the Congress, culminating in the Emergency, allowed opposition
forces to coalesce.
Chapter 3 explains the formation, performance and demise of the
Janata Party, the first non-Congress government to rule the Union. The
myopic political ambitions of its leadership, and the rising power of
propertied intermediate castes in the states, ruined its avowed neo-
Gandhian ambitions to uplift the rural poor. Yet the Janata also
enhanced parliamentary democracy through constitutional reforms
and political innovations, reset Centre-state relations and pushed sub-
continental relations in positive new directions. Clashing political
ambitions and poor tactical choices in New Delhi triggered its down-
fall. Yet the collapse of the Janata Party also revealed strains between
the socialist left and Hindu right, sowing the seeds of the third force.
Chapter 4 analyzes the rise of new state-based parties and the
regions more generally during the 1980s. The Congress’ return to
power, and its massive electoral victory in 1984, suggested renewed
dominance. Indeed, the party declared its ambition to modernize the
state, castigating bureaucratic corruption and promoting economic lib-
eralization. Yet the growth of various opposition forces, from a rein-
tegrated communist Left and new regional parties in the middle to
Hindu nationalists on the right, intensified electoral competition in the
states. The failure of the Congress to grasp the nature of these devel-
opments, and its cynical tactical misjudgments, stoked growing com-
munal polarization and deteriorating Centre-state relations. Perceptions
of high political corruption, general economic mismanagement and
mounting opposition unity sealed its demise.
Lastly, Chapter 5 explains the formation, performance and demise
of the National Front, the second non-Congress government to rule the
Union. Like its predecessor, rival aspirations over the prime minister-
ship threatened the minority governing coalition from the start. Deeper
political tensions over reservations for the OBCs ruptured its ranks
towards the end. And its leadership failed, despite early signs of good-
will, to resolve growing militant insurgencies in Punjab and Kashmir.
Nonetheless, the National Front advanced the politics of the third
force in several ways. The coalition encompassed significant regional
parties within its ranks and established stronger relations with the
communist Left. It also crafted new political institutions to improve
10
INTRODUCTION
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prime minister of the United Front and the events that marked his ten-
ure. The changed political circumstances lessened the prospects of
accommodation between rival political interests in economic policy,
hampered efforts to make clear progress in Indo-Pakistan relations and
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INTRODUCTION
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1
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THE PARADOXES OF INDIA’S COALITION POLITICS
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that such posts are “fixed prizes” and that parties are fully aware of
the various bargains that others are considering,21 such theories posit
that “minimum winning coalitions” are likely to emerge according to
the “size principle”: parties will form any coalition able to secure a
working parliamentary majority with the fewest possible number of
partners (the “strategic principle”) in order to maximize their relative
share of cabinet power (the “disequilibrium principle”).22 Underlying
power-maximization theories is a Schumpeterian conception of poli-
tics: parties seek power for its own sake.23
In contrast, policy-realization theories maintain that coalition for-
mation cannot be explained solely by the will to dominate.24 Rather,
the contest for power involves substantive concerns, specific policy
goals that reflect divergent political ideologies and represent distinct
social interests, as pluralists and Marxists would contend. Typically,
policy-realization theorists claim that economic policy differences mat-
ter the most; that party ideologies differ over how much states should
intervene in markets to promote economic stability, growth and redis-
tribution; and that social cleavages reflect the nature and degree of
class-based stratification. They argue that parties seek to forge coali-
tions with other parties that share convergent, or at least indifferent,
policy goals through incremental negotiation.25 Hence policy-realiza-
tion theorists claim that either “minimum connected winning coali-
tions” or minority governments are likely to emerge.
Lastly, vote-seeking theories contend that since parties contest the
ballot in the first instance, the desire to maximize vote share dictates
their coalition strategies. Underlying such theories is a Downsian con-
ception of politics: “parties formulate policies in order to win elections,
rather than win elections in order to formulate policies”.26 Parties view
elected office as the ultimate reward, a prerequisite for maximizing
power or influencing policy, which “in turn implies that each party
seeks to receive more votes than any other”.27 Indeed, the value of the
latter increases in fractured electoral contexts since “the more votes a
party wins, the more chance it has to enter a coalition, the more power
it receives if it does enter one, and the more individuals in it hold office
in the government coalition”.28
Strikingly, virtually every observer of India’s national coalition pol-
itics agrees that constant power struggles define its key dynamics.
According to some, the absence of disciplined party organizations with
clear ideological differences and relatively stable bases of electoral sup-
19
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[All else equal], the greater the number of negotiating parties, the higher the
level of bargaining complexity. But the latter may also be a function of a lack
of unity on the part of the organizations involved or the lack of familiarity
among the leaders of the relevant parties … Numerous, disunited, or unfamil-
iar parties are likely to [have] given rise to information uncertainties among
the partners in bargaining … The more limited their information, the less likely
risk-averse party leaders are to gamble on new coalition partners or on moves
whose electoral implications are hard to foresee. Thus, in situations of highly
imperfect or incomplete information, we may see fewer policy concessions and
fewer unorthodox alliances than we might otherwise expect.40
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the Lok Sabha increased from 19 to 35, while their relative vote share
jumped from 26 to 46 per cent.57 In short, India’s party leaders face the
most difficult political bargaining environment of any modern repre-
sentative democracy.
Given these anomalies, how useful are standard institutional analyt-
ics for explaining the vicissitudes of India’s national coalition politics?
Specifically, why have national multiparty governments become the
norm since 1989, despite the persistence of its macro-democratic
regime? Given their ubiquitous power struggles, which should encour-
age “minimum winning coalitions”, what explains the fact that virtu-
ally every Union government in the post-1989 era lacked a parliamen-
tary majority? And why did national elections in India continue to
produce fractured verdicts, despite the instability of particular coali-
tion experiments, until the surprising parliamentary majority won by
the BJP in 2014?
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the number of parties increased.65 Yet specific parties still often suffered
from massive negative swings between elections. Notwithstanding 1984,
the lead party of every Union government between 1977 and 1996 lost
between 15 and 50 per cent of its vote share in the next poll.66 Party
leaders had good reason, given the persistently high electoral volatility
India witnessed after 1989, to feel insecure.
Third, parliamentary cabinet systems are strategically complex. The
timing of elections is endogenous—within a customary five-year
limit—since the legislature makes and breaks governments. The prime
minister commands greater discretion over such matters in single-party
majority governments. Power diffuses in multiparty executives, how-
ever, to other leaders. And in minority coalition governments, which
predominate in India post-1989, every member of the Opposition with
an effective parliamentary veto enjoys such influence. The fact that
only two minority coalition governments in New Delhi lasted a full
parliamentary term to date—both avatars of the United Progressive
Alliance—underscores these vulnerabilities.
A paradox emerges. The tripartite logic of India’s macro-democratic
regime, despite its relative institutional stability, generated political
uncertainty after 1989. Party leaders confronted an intensely compet-
itive federal party system where politicians, seeing the outcome simul-
taneously as close and open, “configure[d] around alternative parties
or party blocs”; where small electoral shifts significantly enhanced
their bargaining power; and where the stakes were high.67 Sustaining a
diverse multiparty government in such circumstances, especially a
minority governing coalition of diverse state-based parties seeking to
create a Third Front, became exceedingly difficult.
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Indeed, even when party leaders shared convergent goals, their percep-
tions of how to realize them often diverged. What formulas, strategies
and tactics did they employ to realize their diverse aims and wider col-
lective interests?
Few parties rivaled the strategic framework of the communist Left
in terms of theoretical articulation.76 Historically, its leading political
formations embraced two classical Leninist strategies. The “rightest”
anti-imperialist line required a coalition of workers, peasants and the
petty and national bourgeoisie against feudal institutions and monop-
oly capitalism. The “leftist” anti-capitalist approach entailed the first
three strata in battle against bourgeois nationalism. Over time Indian
communist forces entertained a possible third strategy, supporting the
progressive bourgeoisie along the lines of “people’s democracy” in
eastern Europe or “new democracy” in the People’s Republic of China.
Strategy concerned winning the war among classes. Hence choosing a
strategic line required settling larger questions: the historical stage of
capitalist development in India, the roles of different social classes in
particular stages and consequently the aim of the proletariat vis-à-vis
other strata. Whether the communists allied with non-communist par-
ties through a united-front-from-above, or infiltrated the latter through
a united-front-from-below, was a matter of tactics for its political
organizations. Crucially, the movement cast these choices in formulaic
terms, articulated well by Mao Tse-Tung: “The task of the science of
strategy is to study those laws for directing a war that govern a war sit-
uation as a whole. The task of … the science of tactics is to study those
laws for directing a war that govern a particular situation”.77
Suffice to say, most parties failed to develop such an elaborate the-
oretical discourse. But questions of strategy and tactics consumed them
nonetheless. Debates over whether to share power, with whom and to
what extent, and how often led to real schisms. The main protagonists
had to address these issues at two related junctures. First, party lead-
ers had to coordinate their electoral strategies. Joint election manifes-
toes and common programmes allowed them to strike compromises
amenable to their respective bases and steer government policy.
Collective agreements imparted a measure of coherence to several mul-
tiparty alliances, highlighted their distinctive agenda and set red lines
vis-à-vis more contested issues. The absence of such pacts and failure
to adhere to explicitly stated parameters exacerbated latent conflicts,
as comparativists find elsewhere.78 Of course, such pacts could not
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range, diversity and fluidity of interests that they had to manage and the
complex interaction effects generated by India’s democratic regime. Yet
several conjunctural factors heightened the scope for agency. The Janata
Party, National Front and United Front represented major turning
points in modern Indian politics. The Janata Party, the first non-Con-
gress government to rule the country since independence, consolidated
representative democracy. The National Front, whose tenure witnessed
the acceleration of liberal economic reform, popular democratic mobi-
lization of the lower castes and the march of Hindu nationalist forces,
ended the era of single-party majorities in New Delhi. Indeed, it consti-
tuted a critical juncture, a “major watersheds in political life … which
establish[ed] certain directions of change and foreclose[d] others in a
way that shape[d] politics for years to come”.85 The United Front, which
crystallized the idea of a third force in modern Indian democracy, deep-
ened the logic of national coalition politics. These “structurally induced
unsettled times” expanded the possibilities for “consequential purposive
action” and “visions of alternative futures”.86
To analyze party leaders’ choices, I employ the concept of political
judgment, drawing on the classical realist tradition of Thucydides,
Machiavelli and Weber and their contemporary successors.87 According
to realists, politics demands the exercise of judgment. It is a distinct
species of practical reason, which tests the capacity of actors to com-
prehend the causal relations of the world, which are only partly shaped
by their beliefs, desires and practices, with a view to action; to distin-
guish the foreseen, foreseeable and unforeseeable consequences of dif-
ferent political decisions, whatever their intentions; and to seize the
possibilities of a given historical moment:
There is no great mystery in the formidable set of qualities, personal and polit-
ical, that good political judgment demands: a clear purpose and a practical
view of what has to be done to realize it; an achievable idea of how to com-
mand the power and resources to succeed, including a sensitivity to the views
and likely strength of those who might support one and those who might not;
a sense of how and when to tell the truth, varnish it, lie or be silent; confi-
dence, courage, patience and a good sense of timing; the capacity to imagine
the next move but one and the choices that this can present; and what, all
along, might go wrong.88
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had foreseen nor could have. We can only resolve these questions
through rigorous process tracing, evaluating plausible counterfactuals
in light of general theoretical principles and specific historical knowl-
edge, a task that causal narratives generally face.119
Lastly, since good political judgment demands contextual reasoning,
wider theoretical inferences are harder to draw. For rational choice the-
orists, “[what] makes a tale compelling is that the causal mechanisms it
identifies are plausible … [which involves] demonstrating their general-
izability to other contexts …”.120 As a result, “rationalists are almost
always willing to sacrifice nuance for generalizability, detail for logic, a
forfeiture most other comparativists would decline”.121 The belief that
universal causal relations govern the world justifies the claim that valid
arguments must be general in scope. Conceptual parsimony and theo-
retical ambition produce maximum explanatory leverage.
Fortunately, narratives provide a very useful technique for address-
ing some of these problems. If done well, they supply “diverse forms
of internal evidence” that mitigate selection bias.122 A narrative offers
a critical plausibility test to examine the presuppositions underlying
competing theories, uncover new facts and develop critical redescrip-
tions of previously studied phenomena.123 Quantitatively-oriented
methodologists agree that valid causal explanations require good
descriptive inference.124 But describing events accurately, whether they
suggest larger patterns or not, is necessary too.
In addition, narratives facilitate process-tracing, linking causes,
mechanisms and effects and generating insights into possible auxiliary
outcomes.125 Such processes take various forms: linear isolated mech-
anisms that generate constant effects; the concatenation of actors, deci-
sions and structures that produce complex causal chains; path depen-
dent processes in which early contingent events mold historical
outcomes over the longue durée, to name a few. “The very act of pro-
ducing an account [of the past] … virtually requires an often counter-
factual neatness and coherence … with an air of inevitability being
given to an act that may have been highly contingent.”126 Uncovering
the complex causal chains that may have produced larger outcomes
minimizes such illusions.
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motives simply via theory, as most rationalist accounts do, skirts these
challenges while raising problems of its own.131 By granting confidenti-
ality to key protagonists, moreover, we arguably increase their likeli-
hood of imparting genuine observations. Lastly, no Archimedean van-
tage exists. We simply have to assess “diverse, complex and sometimes
conflicting” claims, judging their credibility, plausibility and trustwor-
thiness according to the best practices of empirical verification.132
Ultimately, recognizing the role of judgment in politics carries a sig-
nificant implication. It requires us to exercise good political judgment
ourselves: to ask what it was possible for the actors we study, in the
circumstances in which they found themselves, to reasonably do, ana-
lyzing the foreseeable consequences of different political decisions by
reconstructing the context of action in time, not as spectators after the
fact, as faithfully as we can.133 If done well, our explanations should
resist temptations of abstract moralizing and easy historical judgment
as well as tales of necessity and flights of fancy, demonstrating the pos-
sibilities and constraints surrounding real political events as they actu-
ally happened.
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100 100
90 90
80 80
70 70
60 60
50 50
40 40
30 30
20 20
10 10
0 0
1951 1957 1962 1967 1971 1977
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49
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1949, invoking the Russian path to socialism. Mass police arrests and
military suppression inflicted an ignominious defeat, however, compel-
ling Ranadive to resign. On the other, his successor, Rajeshwar Rao,
saw wider revolutionary potential in the agrarian revolt in Telengana
in the southern region of Hyderabad, calling for direct guerrilla action
along the Chinese path in June 1950. Yet it too was overwhelmed. The
army crushed the revolt within a year, while Congress passed the 1950
Preventative Detention Act, which targeted communists in particular.
The “fiasco” reflected a “misreading of the historical conjuncture”.25
Arguably, the cause lay deeper. The “illusionary revolutionary visions”
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the revolt of the down-graded castes has been misused to upgrade one
or another caste rather than destroy the entire edifice of caste”.52 On
the other, the PSP’s aversion to promoting social justice by expanding
caste-based reservations reflected the dominance of highly educated
upper-caste urban professionals.53 Finally, differences over the
Congress created much dissension. The SSP maintained a consistent
anti-Congress stance, in contrast to the PSP, which the Congress partly
absorbed. Indeed, this was perhaps “the basic issue” dividing the two
socialist groupings.54
The CPI exhibited far greater cohesion.55 The party enjoyed a pow-
erful organizational apparatus with clear decision-making procedures,
and a large and committed full-time cadre. Moreover, it followed the
Leninist principle of democratic centralism, enforcing party unity.
54
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55
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under the Defence of India Rules for their allegedly treasonous act. The
leading centrists of the CPI, Jyoti Basu and E.M.S. Namboodiripad,
56
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57
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and the party’s growing organizational links with the regional film
industry and reach through the countryside, catapulted the DMK into
office.73 The decision to rename the state of Madras as Tamil Nadu
symbolized its ethno-regional demands.
Every other non-Congress state-level administration, however,
required a coalition of parties. The communist parties played a major
role in two states. In Kerala, the CPI and CPI(M) temporarily overcame
their mutual hostility to form a united front government, mediated by
a coordination committee. Despite being deposed in 1959, the leftist
faction of the CPI had organized “near-continuous popular mobiliza-
tion and open class struggles”, ushering the demise of “landlordism, the
attached labor system and caste domination”.74 Following its split, the
CPI(M) and its secondary organizations captured temple festivals and
reading rooms, shaping new literary forms in “the trenches of civil soci-
ety”.75 These political struggles forced the Congress to improve wages,
working conditions and social entitlements through incremental legal
reform.76 In West Bengal, the CPI(M)-led United Left Front (ULF)
forged a second united front government with People’s United Left
Front (PULF), comprising the CPI and dissident Congress leader Ajoy
Mukherjee. The formation of two left fronts betrayed mutual suspicion.
The CPI(M) characterized the PULF as a coalition of “vested interests”
and “revisionists”. For hardliners like B.T. Ranadive, united front
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wishes of the Syndicate, effectively splitting the party into two, with
the latter now in charge of the Congress (Organization, O), pitted
against her new vehicle, the Congress (Requisitionists, R). Mrs Gandhi
also nationalized the country’s fourteen largest banks after deposing
the Syndicate’s putative leader, Moraji Desai, as the Union finance
minister. Her maneuvers won the support of the Congress’ so-called
Young Turks, who had earlier pressed Mrs Gandhi to accept their Ten
Point Programme, which sought to nationalize various economic sec-
tors, ensure public distribution of food grains, impose limits on urban
property and rural landholdings, and abolish the princes’ privy purses.
They even advocated “united action” with all “progressive” forces ver-
sus monopoly and feudal elements.97 Crucially, Mrs Gandhi’s adroit
political moves also attracted the CPI and even temporarily earned the
support of the CPI(M), fearing the Syndicate would seek to ban it.98
These realignments split the Opposition, attracting the CPI and
remaining half of the PSP to the Congress (R), as well as the DMK and
Muslim League.99 To some extent, the emergent alliance reflected con-
verging views. In Tamil Nadu, the DMK had launched its own brand
of “assertive populism”, including reservations for shudra castes as
Other Backward Classes (OBCs), food subsidies and cheap housing for
the urban poor, as well as the extension of agricultural loans, well irri-
gation and land ceilings.100 In Kerala, Mrs Gandhi’s leftist turn facili-
tated a governing coalition with the CPI, which implemented the Land
Reforms Amendment Act.101 Yet it also demonstrated her skill in
acquiring personal authority through radical pledges and exploiting
internecine rivalries for political advantage.
The prime minister quickly centralized power. She began by cancel-
ling internal elections in the Congress (R) and appointing weak chief
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ministers. Yet the process soon extended to the wider state apparatus.
Mrs Gandhi consolidated the powers of central intelligence organiza-
tions and government police forces, and of the Prime Minister’s secre-
tariat and Youth Congress, vis-à-vis the central bureaucratic appara-
tus. Moreover, she demanded that public officials display personal
loyalty to her regime. A contentious example was the idea of a “com-
mitted judiciary”, espoused by Mohan Kumaramangalam, a former
ideologue of the CPI.102 But perhaps her most notorious decision was
the passage of the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA), 1971,
which authorized law enforcement agencies to perform indefinite pre-
ventive detention, search and seizure of property without a warrant,
and other civil rights violations. In short, she sought to transform
India’s federal parliamentary democracy into a far more unitary pres-
idential system,103 undermining its checks and balances.
Mrs Gandhi’s decision to call an early general poll in March 1971
highlighted these ambitions. The Congress (R), trumpeting the slogan
garibi hatao (abolish poverty) in response to the Opposition demand-
ing Indira hatao (get rid of Indira Gandhi),104 crushed the latter. The
electorate, fearing that a hung parliament would exacerbate the poli-
tics of opportunism and extremism that had marred the SVD govern-
ments, voted for “change and stability”.105 Her newfound allies paid
dearly. The poor electoral showing of the PSP effectively sealed its
demise.106 The CPI fared better, maintaining its tally of parliamentary
seats. But the party lost votes everywhere, especially in Andhra
Pradesh, Assam and Maharashtra.107 The rest of the Opposition, com-
prising the Congress (O), Swatantra, Jan Sangh and SSP, “was in a
state of utter demoralisation.”108
Yet ramifications of the 1971 general election, and the way in which
Mrs Gandhi sought her victory, proved more complicated. Paradoxically,
her decision to centralize political authority and personalize its basis of
legitimacy undermined the power of the state.109 The Congress (R)’s
massive electoral triumph generated high expectations. But the system-
atic dismantling of the party, and by extension its influence over the
apparatus of the state, rapidly undermined the capacity of both to gov-
ern effectively. Moreover, by dividing the larger Congress party, Mrs
Gandhi allowed marginalized politicians to join opposition parties seek-
ing to mobilize social discontent towards her rule.
Indeed, her sweeping personal victory obscured the accelerating
regionalization of India’s federal party system. The reorganization of
62
THE ROOTS OF THE BROADER INDIAN LEFT (1934–1977)
63
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64
THE ROOTS OF THE BROADER INDIAN LEFT (1934–1977)
65
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astounded the country by sweeping the Janata Party into office, elect-
ing the first non-Congress Union government since independence.
66
3
67
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68
THE JANATA PARTY (1977–1980)
crested a wave against emergency rule. The election of the Janata rep-
resented a critical juncture in modern Indian democracy.
The disaggregated results yielded a complex verdict, however. First,
the Congress(R)’s vote share amongst the total eligible electorate
remained largely constant, disproving the claim that it was a critical
election in a technical sense.3 Indeed, the share of votes and seats
accentuated national parties’ dominance (see Tables 3.2 and 3.3).4
That said, a significant sociological shift had occurred in the national
political class. For the first time, upper-caste individuals comprised less
than 50 per cent of all MPs from the Hindi belt, while agriculturalists
now comprised 36 per cent of the Lok Sabha.5 The national electoral
breakthrough of intermediate proprietary castes symbolized a chang-
ing political order in New Delhi. Third, the verdict exposed a profound
north-south divide. The Congress(R) suffered a complete rout in the
northern states, losing every seat in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, and win-
ning only a single constituency apiece in Rajasthan and Madhya
Pradesh. The party dominated the south, however. It virtually swept
Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, won a legislate majority in Kerala and
held its own in Tamil Nadu. Put bluntly, the Janata Party won only six
parliamentary seats in the south, despite increasing its relative vote
share.6 Indeed, the Congress(R) won 92 parliamentary seats in these
states, improving its tally of 71 in the fifth general election.7 The worst
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70
THE JANATA PARTY (1977–1980)
struggles and detentions, there is not total mobilization of votes against the
government … there is no chance of the Emergency going out [sic].
Immediately within five minutes all people changed their views.14
The parties’ leaders, fearing that Narayan would abandon his
campaign, fell into line.15 The Janata Party, officially launched on
23 January 1977, contested under the symbol of the BLD across most
of the country.16
To consolidate its prospects, the Janata agreed tactical seat adjust-
ments with several opposition parties. The media paid greatest atten-
tion to the Congress for Democracy (CFD), led by Jagjivan Ram,
which formed in early February. Ram, a senior Congressman and the
country’s leading Dalit politician, had served as the Union minister for
agriculture and irrigation during the Emergency. But he reproached
Indira Gandhi for the civil liberties violations and decline of intra-party
democracy during its reign.17 His support carried great symbolic
weight. The party formally joined the Janata during the campaign.
In addition, the Janata entered an alliance with the two most impor-
tant regional parties, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) in Punjab and the
DMK in Tamil Nadu. The 1973 Anandpur Sahib Resolution, which
demanded greater political devolution and recognition of cultural
minority rights,18 resonated with the JP movement. Moreover, the SAD
was perhaps the only party to mount a sustained agitation against the
Emergency.19 The DMK had supported the Congress(R) in the 1971
general election. However, the party’s advocacy of caste-based reser-
vations and greater political devolution resonated with the Janata as
well. Mrs Gandhi’s imposition of President’s rule in 1975 pushed the
leading Tamil formation into the Opposition. The electoral pact
secured the SAD and DMK, which respectively won 1.26 and 1.76 per
cent of the national vote, a total of eleven seats in the Lok Sabha.
Lastly, the Janata brokered an electoral agreement with the CPI(M),
which captured 4.29 per cent of the national vote and 22 parliamen-
tary seats. The party stridently opposed the Congress(R). Moreover,
several of its leaders admired Narayan personally. The most important
was Jyoti Basu. A prominent centrist, the newly elected chief minister
of West Bengal had supported a national united-front-from-above and
the radical federal decentralization of power and resources in the late
1960s.20 Moreover, Basu had served as JP’s vice-president in the All
India Railwaymen’s Federation in the 1940s. But the CPI(M) remained
steadfastly opposed to the Hindu right. The RSS’ participation in the
JP movement made formal cooperation difficult. According to Basu,
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… JP said: “You are making a mistake. If you join, these fellows [RSS] will run
away; our party is not there, nothing is there, and they have an organisation.
So they are helping me, but if you people come they won’t be there later on.”
I said: “No, we cannot join, but please keep us informed of your programme,
where we can join, what we can do about it to make your movement a
success.”21
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THE JANATA PARTY (1977–1980)
forces to the left. The CPI(M)-led Left Front had just captured power
in West Bengal after years of repression by the Centre and proxy
Congress(R) forces. The changing of the guard in New Delhi provided
an historic opportunity to consolidate the party’s forces and test the
limits of reform.
Indeed, despite its historic election, the new Janata government faced
difficult prospects. “The Janata Party,” Narayan optimistically pro-
claimed, “is no greater hotchpotch than the Congress”. He had few
illusions, however, confessing that it consisted of “all types of vested
interests and … is seething with internal differences”.27 Its five constit-
uents had distinct ideological positions and social roots.28 The
Socialists, whose electoral base comprised the rural poor and urban
labor, championed Gandhian values. The BLD comprised Charan
Singh’s erstwhile BKD, factions of the Swatantra Party and the SSP
(Raj Narain) and several lesser organizations.29 Formed in 1974, the
BLD represented the rising agrarian power of the AJGAR coalition–
Ahirs, Jats, Gujars, and Rajputs–which Singh advanced throughout his
career.30 In contrast, the Jan Sangh espoused Hindu chauvinist
demands, supported by the high-caste urban middle classes in the
Hindi belt. The Congress(O), a conservative formation, was sympa-
thetic to the Jan Sangh. Yet it was essentially a splinter group, led by
Mrs Gandhi’s longstanding rival, Morarji Desai. Lastly, the CFD was
a Congress offshoot too. Yet it represented poor low-caste communi-
ties in the countryside, at odds with the Congress(O). Multiple cross-
cutting fissures pervaded the Janata.
The first of these involved caste. On the one hand, the CFD,
Congress(O) and BLD “broadly shared Congress ideology”. But they
had “conflicting [political] ambitions”, partly reflecting the differential
caste status of their leaders and rank-and-file.31 On the other, the
Socialists’ desire to expand reservations for OBCs in Bihar and Uttar
Pradesh caused unease in the Jan Sangh, which sought to maintain tra-
ditional social hierarchies.32 The second cleavage in the Janata con-
cerned socialist ideology. Both the BLD and the Socialists relied on
backward castes’ support. The “kisan [farmer] politics” of the former
appealed explicitly to the interests of peasantry, however, ranging from
small agricultural proprietors to dominant rural classes. The “quota
politics” of the latter, in contrast, invoked the longstanding socialist
belief that lower caste groups deserved equal self-representation
through reservations in the public sector.33 Charan Singh had com-
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74
Table 3.4: Janata Party Government
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Arif Beg BLD SSP Commerce, Civil Supplies and Cooperation Minister of State
Chand Ram BLD HSS Shipping and Transport Minister of State
Krishna Kumar Goyal BLD BJS Commerce, Civil Supplies and Cooperation Minister of State
Sardar Dhanna Singh Gulshan SAD SAD Education, Social Welfare and Culture Minister of State
Ram Kinkar BLD INC, BKD Works, Housing, Supply and Rehabilitation Minister of State
S. Kundu BLD PSP External Affairs Minister of State
Abha Maiti BLD INC Industry Minister of State
Dhanik Lal Mandal BLD SP, SSP Home Affairs Minister of State
Janeshwar Mishra BLD SP, SSP, BKD Petroleum, Chemicals and Fertilizers Minister of State
Kariya Munda BLD BJS Steel and Mines Minister of State
S.D. Patil BLD INC(O) Home Affairs Minister of State
Fazlur Rahman BLD FML Energy Minister of State
Larang Sai BLD BJS Labour and Parliamentary Affairs Minister of State
N.P.S. Sai BLD RRP, BJS Communications Minister of State
Sheo Narain BLD INC, INC(O) Railways Minister of State
Sher Singh BLD INC Defence Minister of State
Bhanu Pratap Singh BLD BKD Agriculture and Irrigation Minister of State
Jagbir Singh BLD BLD Information and Broadcasting Minister of State
Dr. Ram Kirpal Sinha BLD BJS Labour and Parliamentary Affairs Minister of State
Jagdambi Prasad Yadav BLD BJS Health & Family Welfare Minister of State
Narsingh Yadav BLD BLD Law & Justice and Company Affairs Minister of State
Zulfikar Ullah BLD BLD Finance Minister of State
THE JANATA PARTY (1977–1980)
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the socialists to present a credible rival candidate for the prime minis-
tership exposed the long-term historical cost that Gandhianism had
imposed on their political forces. The decision of Narayan, Kripalani
and others to eschew formal politics in the 1950s and 1960s in favor
of Sarvodaya had weakened their stock of strong electoral leaders.
A succession of events, many involving deeper social conflicts,
quickly exposed narrow political rivalries at the top. Severe tensions
between Dalit landless laborers and their proprietary overlords, ignit-
ing approximately 17,000 incidents, marked the Janata’s first year in
office.47 Upper-caste groups attempted to reclaim lands that had been
distributed by Mrs Gandhi’s regime during the Emergency.48 Yet many
clashes also pitted the rising agrarian bourgeoisie of the new political
order against historically subaltern groups. The failure of the Janata
government to respond quickly to a horrific attack in Belchi, Bihar, in
July 1977 allowed Indira Gandhi to visit the site first. JP responded by
meeting the former prime minister, but the Janata government was
split on how to respond, enabling her political resurrection to begin. In
May, it had appointed Justice J.C. Shah to lead a commission to inves-
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THE JANATA PARTY (1977–1980)
79
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80
THE JANATA PARTY (1977–1980)
81
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82
THE JANATA PARTY (1977–1980)
83
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84
THE JANATA PARTY (1977–1980)
motion in the Lok Sabha. Many saw the vote as pro-forma. Indeed,
Chavan himself reportedly confessed to Dandavate, a leading Socialist,
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“I thought it would be a ritual; how the hell we can win! [sic] You are
having a brute majority in the House, how can it be passed?”107 But the
motion led others from the erstwhile BLD and the Socialists to join the
JP(S). Desperate to maintain its majority, the Janata party nominated
Jagjivan Ram as its parliamentary leader. But Desai refused and, on
15 July, he resigned. On 28 July, after two weeks of frantic partisan
propose that Jagjivan Ram be given the chance to show his parliamen-
tary strength, Singh recommended the dissolution of the Lok Sabha
and resigned. Controversially, President Reddy accepted the recom-
mendation, provoking observers to speculate that he did not want to
allow his former rival, Ram, who reportedly had enough support on
the floor, to become the first Dalit prime minister.110 Instead, Reddy
requested Singh to lead a caretaker administration and called for a
mid-term general election. The fiasco highlighted Singh’s “relentless
drive to exercise power and his contempt for most of his political asso-
ciates and rivals.”111 “Human conduct is highly random”, he later
claimed: “we are all quite unpredictable.”112 Yet his readiness to accept
Mrs Gandhi’s support, despite having castigated her relentlessly, was
a remarkably myopic step for a highly seasoned politician.
The Government’s collapse unleashed immense rancor. Jagjivan
Ram accused Charan Singh of conspiring with “forces of disintegra-
tion” and “despotism and dynastic dictatorship”.113 Yet the senior
Dalit leader, denied the prime ministership twice, eventually joined the
Congress(U).114 A.B. Vajpayee cast blame more widely:
In retrospect, the responsibility for this state of affairs must be shared by all …
Group loyalties and personal ambitions marked the very first steps of the
infant party … The performance of the Janata governments, both at the Centre
as well as in the states, was better than that of the earlier Congress regime. But
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THE JANATA PARTY (1977–1980)
… factional quarrels within the party and public airing of grievances … viti-
ated the atmosphere and sullied [its] image.115
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88
4
The downfall of the Janata Party threw its forces into disarray. First,
the Jan Sangh rechristened itself the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Its
members had contested the 1980 general election with their socialist
colleagues. The national executive of the Janata had amended Article
5 of its constitution in July 1979 to read, “The concept of a religious
State is against the creed of the Janata Party and no member of an
organisation having faith in a theocratic State can be a member of the
Janata Party”, apparently settling the dual membership issue in favor
of the socialists.1 But Jan Sangh candidates performed well in the sub-
sequent polls, accounting for 16 of the 31 parliamentary seats the
Janata won, which convinced Hindu conservatives to break away.2
Second, Jagjivan Ram himself joined the Congress(U) during the cam-
paign. Yet his attempted coup led its president, the former Karnataka
chief minister Devraj Urs, to expel Ram, pitting the Congress (Jagjivan)
against the renamed Congress (S).3 Third, the JP(S)-Lok Dal itself split
the following year, with Raj Narain and H.N. Bahuguna forming the
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THE RISE OF THE REGIONS (1980–1989)
91
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I am going because of her. I do not even know how I came here.”19 Her
“abuse of power” was a decisive factor:
The TDP is basically an anti-Congress(I) party. The Congress(I) party represents
a self-seeking politics and promotes corruption … They can’t stand being out of
power, and will use any means to illegally throw out anybody who wins the sup-
port of the people … Mrs Gandhi misused the provision of Article 356.20
The TDP, declaring that Andhra Pradesh was not the “branch
office” of the Congress(I), rode to victory in the 1983 state assembly
polls. Upon capturing office, the party introduced massive food subsi-
dies, in contrast to the increasingly rightward shift of its opponent in
New Delhi.23 The Congress(I) suffered an analogous setback the same
year in neighboring Karnataka, another southern bastion, where
assembly polls catapulted the new Janata Party’s Ramakrishna Hegde
into the chief ministership. Finally, the incumbent JKN won the rela-
tively free election held in Jammu & Kashmir in 1983, which saw
Farooq Abdullah inherit the mantle of his recently deceased father.
Hence by the early 1980s most states in the Union had experienced a
spell of non-Congress rule.24
More importantly, the election of various opposition parties heralded
a substantive agenda, raising demands for greater political devolution,
economic decentralization and cultural recognition. Constitutionally, the
Union divided political authority along federal lines.25 The Centre
enjoyed overriding authority, however. Politically, New Delhi had the
power to appoint state governors, who could reserve state bills for
Presidential consideration and veto, and to dissolve legislative assem-
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THE RISE OF THE REGIONS (1980–1989)
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bolstering rivals with more sectarian agendas and giving explicit recog-
nition to various communal identities, however, Mrs Gandhi roused
extremist forces that gradually escaped her control. In the predomi-
nantly Hindu region of Jammu, the Congress(I) fanned communal anx-
ieties, engineering a coup within the JKN to punish Farooq Abdullah for
attending the conclave in Vijayawada and hosting its follow-up in
Srinagar.28 But it was in Punjab that her actions led to personal trag-
edy.29 The prime minister undermined the moderate leadership of the
SAD, which had been demanding greater political devolution, by sup-
porting the Sikh extremist Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. The increas-
ingly violent anti-Hindu campaign pursued by the latter, orchestrated
from the Golden Temple in Amritsar, generated demands for central
intervention. In June 1984, Mrs Gandhi ordered the Indian army to end
Bhindranwale’s operations by launching Operation Blue Star, causing
his death. The desecration of the revered temple instigated two of her
Sikh bodyguards to assassinate the prime minister on 31 October 1984,
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THE RISE OF THE REGIONS (1980–1989)
tions. On the one hand, the BJP and the Lok Dal overcame their ear-
lier rift, forming the National Democratic Alliance. On the other, the
Janata Party formed a United Front with the Democratic Socialist
Party, Congress(S) and several minor outfits.32 Yet the two party alli-
ances, each harboring divergent social interests, failed to cooperate.
The Opposition as a whole, moreover, had no prime minister desig-
nate. The electorate had good reason to distrust the capacity of its dis-
parate constituents to govern collectively. Their internal divisions, dis-
proportionately magnified by India’s plurality-rule electoral system,
bolstered the Congress(I).
The 1984 general election arrested neither the regionalization of the
federal party system, however, nor the increasing political assertiveness
of various backward castes and lower classes. A majority of national
parties’ supporters, especially of the Congress(I) and the BJP, cited
national unity as their most pressing concern. But the voters of leading
regional formations gave more importance to inflation, corruption and
improving federal relations.33 Moreover, various state-based parties
either withstood the Congress(I) wave in their home regions, such as the
AIADMK in Tamil Nadu, TDP in Andhra Pradesh and Left Front in
West Bengal, or quickly rebounded in assembly polls the following
year, such as the Janata Party in Karnataka.34 Indeed, the TDP emerged
as the single largest party in the Opposition, unprecedented for a genu-
inely regionalist formation. Hence Mr Gandhi faced persistent regional
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unpleasant characters that had entered the party under his mother and
brother. The prime minister, realizing that his position partly depended
upon loyal subordinates that lacked an independent political base,
eventually abandoned his proposed reforms.
Second, although the Congress(I) secured legislative majorities in
many state-level polls in 1985, several regional formations consoli-
dated their strength. The party lost heavily to the Janata Party in
Karnataka in 1985, and to the communist Left Fronts in Kerala and
West Bengal and to the Lok Dal in Haryana in 1987. Critically, all
three fronts attacked the Government’s technocratic liberalizing
reforms. In addition, the Congress(I) revised the terms of the Ninth
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THE RISE OF THE REGIONS (1980–1989)
97
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Front) with Arun Nehru, Arif Mohammad Khan and several other
Congressmen that had been expelled for dissidence. On 16 June 1988,
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THE RISE OF THE REGIONS (1980–1989)
declared that the party would seek “to bring about the unity of Left
and secular Opposition parties … to oust the Congress(I) and isolate
the communal and divisive forces”.53 The electoral pact in September
1989 between the BJP and the Shiv Sena, a nativist regional party in
Maharashtra that propagated Hindu extremism, intensified the com-
munist parties’ discomfiture: “[it is] regrettable that some elements in
the Janata Dal are pulling wool over their eyes … [which gives] the
Congress(I) the opportunity to parade as the only secular force … and
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will only push the minorities in [their] lap”.54 But the Left was unwill-
ing to oppose the National Front. Its ambivalent position, according to
some, reflected confusion.55 Yet it exposed a genuine political dilemma:
For both [the CPI and CPICM] to merge and join the Centre would represent
greater co-optation, yet would also give a more meaningful social-democratic
and populist angle to the rudder of government as it steered through various
policies … a more principled and radical mainstream left would resist … yet
allow the weight of its redoubled force to exercise pressure on government pol-
icies … [yet both parties exhibit signs of] disturbing complacency, especially
the CPI(M) … it cannot afford to stand still.56
The BJP was divided too. A section of the party sought full member-
ship in the National Front. The Left’s fierce opposition to its participa-
tion provoked L.K. Advani, the BJP president, to declare:
BJP during the formation of the National Front. But its strong electoral
showing in local elections in Uttar Pradesh in late 1988, where the
party focused attention on cancelling peasants’ debts, establishing agri-
cultural cooperatives and other Gandhian socialist programs, forced
him to acknowledge its growing power.59
Ultimately Singh pursued a delicate tactical approach, displaying a
capacity for ruthlessness, to retain the support of the communist Left
and Hindu right.60 He consistently referred to the former as his “natural
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THE RISE OF THE REGIONS (1980–1989)
lar contact with Vajpayee, the former BJP president, whom the media
portrayed as a moderate. The JD chief stressed that their electoral under-
standing was not a power-sharing agreement, while defending political
secularism and minority rights, “statements that should have driven the
BJP away, had they been possessed of a thinner hide and a weak or vac-
illating leadership”.61 Singh’s tactical ploys and the shared desire of the
communist Left and Hindu right to defeat the Congress(I) allowed them
to suspend, for the moment, their intense mutual antipathy.
The coming together of major opposition parties spelled the end of the
Congress(I). In June 1989, their respective MPs collectively resigned
from parliament, launching mass political mobilizations through August.
In November 1989, the National Front defeated Rajiv Gandhi in India’s
ninth general election, becoming only the second non-Congress forma-
tion to capture national power since independence.
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103
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BJP 85 11.36
CPI 12 2.57
CPI(M) 33 6.55
ISC(SCS) 1 0.33
INC 197 39.53
JD 143 17.79
ADK 11 1.50
FBL 3 0.42
JKN 3 0.02
MAG 1 0.04
MUL 2 0.32
RSP 4 0.62
SSP 1 0.03
TDP 2 3.29
GNLF 1 0.14
HMS 1 0.07
IPF 1 0.25
JMM 1 0.34
KCM 1 0.12
M-COR 1 0.08
MIM 1 0.21
SAD(M) 6 0.77
SHS 1 0.11
Independents 12 5.25
Indeed, the ratio of upper-caste MPs fell below 40 per cent for the first
time.3 Crucially, the party also won Muslim support in the wake of the
rising communal violence, expanding its traditional AJGAR social
base.4 Of the remainder, the party secured sixteen constituencies in
Orissa, eleven apiece in Rajasthan and Gujarat, and an equivalent
number between Haryana and Maharashtra. Significantly, it captured
only one seat in the south, in Karnataka. The second largest force sup-
porting the National Front was the BJP. The party captured 11.4 per
cent of the vote and 85 parliamentary constituencies, far above its per-
formance in 1984, when it secured 7.7 per cent and merely two seats.
Its militant Hindu posture paid rich dividends, especially in Madhya
Pradesh, where it captured 27 seats. Of equal importance, though, was
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THE NATIONAL FRONT (1989–1991)
its electoral pact with the JD. The parties agreed upon which candi-
dates to field in 231 of 252 seats in the Hindi belt, leading to thirteen
BJP victories in Rajasthan, twelve in Gujarat and eight apiece in Uttar
Pradesh and Bihar.5 The third most important force was the commu-
nist Left. The CPI and CPI(M) won 2.6 and 6.6 per cent of the vote
and 12 and 33 parliamentary seats, respectively. Several issues sepa-
rated the two. The CPI(M)’s unwillingness to distribute more tickets to
the CPI and their smaller communist allies during assembly elections,
and accusations of growing administrative corruption, generated polit-
ical conflicts in West Bengal.6 Moreover, the CPI displayed more dem-
ocratic instincts regarding the potential for reform. The party sup-
ported perestroika in the USSR, and was “saddened” by the
Tiananmen Square massacre in the PRC. The CPI(M) supported the
Rao dismiss his cabinet, cost the incumbent party dearly. Many dissi-
dents, given tickets by the Congress(I), won their constituencies.8 The
TDP, despite capturing 43.6 per cent of the vote in the 33 seats it con-
tested, managed to survive in only two. Similarly, despite capturing
office in the January 1989 state assembly elections in Tamil Nadu on
a platform of cultural nationalism and social welfare, the DMK suf-
fered a terrible rout at the hands of the Congress(I)-AIADMK.9
Nevertheless, the National Front stuck together politically.
Indeed, its formation signaled the arrival of the “third electoral sys-
tem”, or pattern of national party competition, in modern Indian
democracy.10 The ninth general election was the first normal contest in
decades. In contrast to the single overriding issues and sense of crisis
that had dominated national polls since 1971, the contestants high-
lighted everyday concerns, such as corruption, inflation and general
political mismanagement.11 Yet the verdict suggested deeper political
transformations. First, unlike the national waves of the past, states
increasingly comprised the effective units of electoral choice. Second,
distinct two-party/multi-party systems had arisen in most states, yield-
ing a complex parliamentary outcome in New Delhi. Third, the elec-
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THE NATIONAL FRONT (1989–1991)
endangered its cohesion. V.P. Singh had earned the mantle of leader-
ship by rousing public support in the Gangetic plains and bringing the
complex multiparty alliance together. Yet he was a somewhat odd
choice to lead the socialists’ latest avatar. Despite being a former sar-
vodayite Singh was the scion of a Rajput princely family, who had
risen to prominence in the Congress(I) under Indira Gandhi. Signi
ficantly, he viewed the Emergency as harsh, but never censured it.
Indeed, Singh valiantly defended Mrs Gandhi during the Shah
Commission proceedings, earning him the chief ministership of Uttar
Pradesh in 1980.17 Consequently, the newly minted president of the JD
had many competitors. Chief amongst them were Devi Lal, the chair
of its central parliamentary board and erstwhile leader of the Lok
Dal(A), and Chandra Shekhar, the original Janata Party president. The
establishment of the JD had involved “long days assuaging hurt feel-
ings, imagined slights, political differences”.18 Following its formation,
the prime minister asked several trusted colleagues in the party, Biju
Patnaik, George Fernandes and Ramakrishna Hegde, to handle inter-
personal relations. Arguably, Singh’s willingness to delegate political
responsibility showed personal humility as well as organizational acu-
men. But his main political adversaries, according to one close observer,
saw it as a sign of his weakness.19
Second, the National Front was a minority coalition government,
whose survival depended upon the Left and the BJP. Singh had man-
107
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had played a leading role in driving the conclaves’ agenda, and hosted
its forums in Calcutta. Still, several CPI(M) leaders feared that
demands for “regionalism” could lead Western “imperialists” to
threaten national sovereignty by encouraging separatism.22
National economic policy was the second potential fissure. Rheto
rically, the National Front adopted a more traditional stance regarding
industrial policy and external protection.23 Nonetheless, V.P. Singh had
108
THE NATIONAL FRONT (1989–1991)
The third major disagreement facing the National Front was its
pledge to implement the so-called Mandal Commission Report. The
demand to extend public reservations for OBCs posed greatest concern
for the BJP. The ascent of the backward castes threatened its project of
109
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since independence. His political elevation was inevitable. But the trick
humiliated Chandra Shekhar, who simply remained a member of the
central parliamentary board of the JD.
The newly elected prime minister handled the distribution of portfo-
lios in the Council of Ministers better. Several criteria influenced its
composition.34 First, the Singh ministry reflected the primacy of the
Janata Dal and its bastions in the north. More than half of its minis-
ters represented Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, the two biggest states in the
country.35 Second, Singh appointed several able hands to key economic
ministries, such as Madhu Dandavate to Finance, Ajit Singh to Industry
and Arun Nehru to Commerce. He also appointed the Kashmiri poli-
tician Mufti Mohammed Saeed as home minister, making him the first
Muslim to occupy the post. Finally, despite their disastrous electoral
performance, Singh appointed members of the TDP, AGP, Congress(S)
and DMK to his ministry. Several motivations played a role. The JD
had only one outpost in the south, Karnataka. Every regional party
had participated in the regional conclaves in the mid-1980s, moreover,
becoming full members of the National Front. Lastly, and perhaps
most importantly, it underscored the diverse regional orientation of the
latter, symbolized by its launch in Madras (see Table 5.2).
Finally, the prospective governing coalition had to coordinate its rela-
tions with the Left Front and the BJP, its two crucial parliamentary
allies. The prime minister instituted an informal political institution,
namely, a weekly dinner at his residence.36 He also proposed formal
cabinet-level panels to address critical issues, such as containing infla-
tion, implementing the right to work, empowering local government,
reforming electoral finance, and resolving the conflicts in Jammu &
Kashmir and the Punjab, amongst other concerns.37 Yet neither Singh
nor any of his colleagues tried to formulate a common minimum pro-
gramme or high-level coordination committee that could provide,
respectively, a working policy agenda or a dispute resolution mecha-
nism to unify the diverse parliamentary coalition upon which the
Government’s tenure relied. Singh’s failure to introduce formal deci-
sion-making mechanisms and durable inter-party agreements revealed,
according to one seasoned observer, a “distaste for organisation build-
ing … that made him vulnerable [to partisan conflicts]”.38 The tenure
of the National Front was likely to be short-lived and unimpressive,
according to another, unable to institutionalize the growing political
mobilization of interests and groups that had characterized the 1980s.39
110
Table 5.2: National Front Government
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Rashid Masood JD Health & Family Welfare Minister of State
Chimanbhai Mehta JD Human Resource Development Minister of State
Bhajaman Behra JD Petroleum & Chemicals Minister of State
Hari Kishore Singh JD External Affairs Minister of State
Upendra Nath Verma JD Rural Development Minister of State
Subodh Kant Sahay JD Home Affairs Minister of State
Satya Pal Malik JD Parlimentary Affairs (also Tourism) Minister of State
Bhagey Goverdhan JD Planning and Programme Implementation Minister of State
Nitish Kumar JD Agriculture and Cooperation Minister of State
Srikant Jena JD Small Scale, Agro and Rural Industries Minister of State
Arangil Sreedharan JD Commerce Minister of State
Ram Poojan Patel JD Food & Civil Supplies Minister of State
Ajay Singh JD Railways Deputy Minister
Usha Singh JD Women & Child Development Deputy Minister
Anil Shastri JD Finance Deputy Minister
Bhakt Charan Das JD Youth Affairs & Sports Deputy Minister
Jagdeep Jhankhar JD Parliamentary Affairs Deputy Minister
THE NATIONAL FRONT (1989–1991)
113
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114
THE NATIONAL FRONT (1989–1991)
115
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Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) to revise its formula for input
charges by incorporating minimum wage rates and costs of entrepre-
neurship.59 That said, the Budget sought to bolster the manufacturing
sector by reducing corporate taxation and furthering industrial dereg-
ulation. It also rewarded urban middle classes by raising the income
tax threshold. Tellingly, the finance minister stressed the need for prag-
matism and “non-doctrinaire socialism”. The Approach Paper to the
Eighth Five-Year Plan (1990–95), titled Towards Social Transformation,
reiterated a commitment to targeted employment growth, expanding
welfare services and greater political decentralization.60 In late May,
however, the Industry Minister, Ajit Singh, unveiled a new industrial
policy statement, doubling asset thresholds in the small-scale sector,
raising the ceiling for license-free investments and automatically per-
mitting foreign equity investments up to 40 per cent.61
The tensions between the 1990–91 Union budget, its related eco-
nomic policy statements and the Approach Paper to the Eighth Plan
provoked divergent reactions. Many observers agreed the National
Front had inherited a difficult economic situation.62 The previous
Congress(I) administration had bolstered aggregate economic growth
via partial liberalization and higher public spending. Yet high net
imports and greater commercial borrowing from abroad created grow-
ing pressures on the fiscal deficit and the balance of payments. Between
1984–85 and 1989–90, the share of total debt-to-GNP expanded from
17.7 to 25.5 per cent, while the ratios for debt servicing and debt-to-
export grew from 18 to 27 per cent and 210 to 265 per cent, respec-
tively. Foreign exchange reserves had fallen to two months’ worth of
imports when the National Front took office. Moreover, the average
level of current expenditure as a percentage of GDP had increased
from 18.6 per cent in the first half of the 1980s to 23 per cent in the
second, driven by the rising current expenditures on subsidies, defense
and debt interest payments. Real fixed capital formation in the public
sector suffered as a result.
The Left criticized the pro-liberalization measures introduced by the
1990–91 Union budget. Chandra Shekhar reproached the Government’s
new industrial policy statement, saying it would please the World Bank
and multinationals, exacerbate pressures on the rupee and boost waste-
ful investment in luxury goods.63 Yet these ideological-policy differ-
ences, though real, posed no danger. The communist parties had prom-
ised to support the National Front on the understanding that it would
116
THE NATIONAL FRONT (1989–1991)
To treat unequals [in terms of social advantages] as equals [to make them com-
pete on basis of merit] is to perpetuate inequality … and to hold a mock com-
petition in which the weaker partner is destined to failure right from the start.68
By increasing the representation of OBCs in government services, we have
given them an immediate feeling of participation in the governance of the
117
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118
THE NATIONAL FRONT (1989–1991)
ploy vis-à-vis Devi Lal. The deputy prime minister had opposed the
Report, which excluded several dominant proprietary castes from its
ambit, including Jats.75 Relations between the two leaders had soured
in February 1990 after Singh forced Lal’s son, Om Prakash Chautala,
to resign his chief ministership of Haryana following massive poll-
related violence and alleged vote-rigging in the Meham by-election.76
Attempts to accommodate Chautala failed. In late July, the former Lok
Dal leader attacked Singh publicly, compelling the latter to dismiss him
from the Council of Ministers on 1 August. Chandra Shekhar accused
119
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directly challenged its political agenda and social base. The Report
unleashed a fierce backlash amongst many upper castes in northern
India that increasingly supported Hindutva. “We are supporting a gov-
ernment,” remonstrated the RSS leader K.R. Malkani, “which is writ-
120
THE NATIONAL FRONT (1989–1991)
police forces under the control of Mulayam Singh Yadav, his counter-
part in Uttar Pradesh, clashed with kar sevaks in Ayodhya. The BJP
responded by withdrawing its external parliamentary support. On
7 November, the prime minister put his ministry on the line. His will-
1991, following reports that his administration had put Rajiv Gandhi’s
residence under surveillance, Chandra Shekhar resigned his prime min-
istership. Shortly thereafter, President Venkataraman accepted his rec-
ommendation to dissolve parliament, setting the state for India’s tenth
general election.
The collapse of the National Front government exposed the faultline
that had separated the socialist left and Hindu right during the origi-
nal Janata experiment. The Ramjanmabhoomi movement crystallized
the natural ideological gravity of the third force. Its leaders declared:
“The National Front, instead of bowing before communal fundamen-
talism to save its Government, took a principled stand and allowed
itself to be voted out of office”, reiterating a pledge to fulfill its man-
date “in close cooperation with the Left Parties”.93 Indeed, V.P. Singh
believed that history would repeat itself, with the BJP suffering the
same fate as the erstwhile Jan Sangh if it had not been for the politics
of Ayodhya.94 It was a moot counterfactual, however, at least in the
short term. The implementation of the Mandal Commission Report
121
divided we govern
ing for three weeks. The electorate, half of whom had not yet cast their
votes, swung to the Congress(I). Even the stalwart general secretary of
the CPI(M), E.M.S. Namboodiripad, publicly intimated the possibility
of switching political sides.96 In the end, the Congress(I) won 36.3 per
cent of the national vote and 232 parliamentary seats. The BJP
emerged as the second largest formation, capturing 120 seats. The
party contested twice as many seats as it had in 1989. Nonetheless, it
posted gains across many states, massively increasing its vote share to
20.1 per cent.97 The combined tally of the seven-party National Front-
Left Front alliance, whose ranks now included the Jharkhand Mukti
Morcha (JMM), secured just 135 parliamentary seats, eight less than
the JD had captured by itself less than two years earlier. On 21 June,
122
PART II
THE MATURATION
OF THE THIRD FORCE
6
On the one hand, the BJP castigated the Congress(I) for violating the
principle of equality amongst religions in the public domain and for
capitulating to various minority communities. Far from separating reli-
gion from politics, however, the party espoused the maxim of “one
nation, one people, one culture,” endangering India’s cultural hetero-
geneity.2 It was in the name of restoring Hindu honor that zealots
belonging to the VHP demolished the Babri masjid in Ayodhya on
6 December 1992. Senior BJP leaders sought to distance themselves to
125
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126
THE CRYSTALLIZATION OF THE THIRD FORCE (1991–1996)
127
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7.7 7.7
7.1 6.9 6.7
4.8 5.1
4.2 3.9 6.5 6.5
5.8 5.8
5.2
4.3
3.7
2.2 1.6
1980 1984 1989 1991 1996 1998 1999 2004 2009
National Parties
State/Unrecognized Parties/Independents
128
THE CRYSTALLIZATION OF THE THIRD FORCE (1991–1996)
129
divided we govern
prime minister in March 1995, allegedly to bribe the JMM during the
1993 confidence vote. The most astonishing feature of the scandal was
that many suspected Rao himself of instigating it against not only
opposition politicians but also vis-à-vis his own colleagues. According
to one senior Congress(I) official,
Many of those suspected of being guilty in the hawala charges blamed Rao
personally … They believed that he was out to get them and actually pushed
130
THE CRYSTALLIZATION OF THE THIRD FORCE (1991–1996)
the CBI to investigate them … And then by simply not intervening with the
inquiries, he allowed the perception to persist that they were in fact guilty. You
could say that judicial activism filled a vacuum created by executive inertia.19
The “single directive” principle enjoined the CBI to gain the concur-
rence of the prime minister’s office before pursuing investigations.20
Hence many surmised that Rao encouraged the investigations to
enhance his personal control over the Congress(I).21 It was difficult to
corroborate. On the one hand, Rao had attempted to revive intra-party
elections in 1992.22 On the other, the CBI only began to issue charge
sheets (formal criminal accusations) in January 1996, three years after
the Supreme Court directed it to pursue the case. The early sluggish-
ness of the investigations, compared to the subsequent bout of charge-
sheeting, prompted several observers to discern the prime minister’s
involvement. The suspicion that Rao was “out to get them” appeared
to match a wider perception:
Rao wasn’t really concerned about the party, but about his own skin … He
didn’t want to have to face any rivals and so always tried to undermine their
positions … In that sense, his strategy was paradoxical: Rao could only be
politically secure individually to the extent that Congress(I) as a party was
divided and weak.23
The prime minister’s alleged ploy encouraged key regulatory institu-
tions to exercise their formal powers, however.24 Greater scrutiny by
the Supreme Court, as well as efforts by the Election Commission (EC)
to lessen malfeasance during the 1996 campaign,25 ensnared Rao him-
self in a range of investigations: the St. Kitts’ forgery affair,26 the
Lakhubhai Pathak cheating case27 and the JMM pay-off scam.28 Rao
denied involvement. Indeed, despite growing calls within the
Congress(I) for his resignation, he refused to step down, allowing fam-
ily members of tainted party figures to contest the election as well.29
The specter of rot engulfing the party corroded public trust of the
political class more widely.30
Inept tactical decisions, which caused important factions to break
away, worsened its prospects. In 1994, Narayan Datt Tiwari, a senior
Congressman who had held several ministerial portfolios in New Delhi
and the chief ministership of Uttar Pradesh thrice, formed the All India
Indira Congress (Tiwari) (AIIC(T)):
We came together because we were opposed to Rao … He was constantly try-
ing to sideline Sonia [Gandhi]—he felt threatened by her. He simply wanted
power to himself … we were against the fact that he was both leader of the
party and the organization. The Congress(I) is a vast organization. You cannot
131
divided we govern
concentrate power in a single person’s hands … We were also upset with the
manner in which he was implementing liberalization, which wasn’t paying any
attention to the plight of the poor. So we raised our voices … The result was
that in March’93 [several of us] were suspended … But he still tried to destroy
us, by implicating us in hawala for almost two years … In the end, of course,
we were all rightly exonerated. But he tried to end our political careers.31
opposed Jayalalitha, the leader of the AIADMK. But the party high
edly perceived the AIADMK’s corrupt image to pose a lesser risk than
the “stigma attached to the DMK”.33 But he misjudged political senti-
ment on the ground. In late March, Moopanar formed the Tamil
Maanila Congress (TMC), forging a seat-sharing pact with the
AIADMK’s arch political rival, the DMK:
We had our misgivings about the DMK … But we knew she [Jayalalitha]
would lose in 1996. The stench of corruption around the AIADMK was terri-
ble … So our party workers demanded that we set up our own party … some-
thing that was well nigh impossible given the time constraints. But we did it …
and discretion dictated that we join hands with the DMK.34
132
THE CRYSTALLIZATION OF THE THIRD FORCE (1991–1996)
which the party high command was out of touch with both its own
ranks and the wider electorate.
The electoral prospects of the BJP, in contrast, were on the rise. The
party vowed to implement several controversial proposals: to adopt a
uniform civil code, abrogate Article 370 of the Constitution, and con-
struct a Ram mandir on the site of the razed mosque in Ayodhya. It
pledged to disband the Minorities Commission and amend Article 30,
which gave minority religious communities special rights in educa-
tional matters.35 The realization of Hindutva, claimed the BJP, would
“restore to our state its authority … its honor and its prestige”.36
Domestically, the party supported increasing defense expenditure and
providing a “free hand” to security forces to deal with “malcontents”
in the Northeast and Jammu & Kashmir, in addition to introducing
identity cards, deporting illegal immigrants and spurring economic
development. Internationally, it opposed the Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty (CTBT), Fissile Material Control Regime (FMCR) and the
Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), vowing to conduct a
nuclear test.37 Implementing these changes would radically alter the
character of state-society relations as well as India’s posture in interna-
tional affairs.
The BJP claimed that Hindutva distinguished its economic prescrip-
tions too. Invoking the principle of swadeshi (self-reliance), the party
pledged to create
[a] self-reliant India, asserting its national economic interests, not as autarchy,
but as a pre-requisite to meeting the challenge of globalization; of preserving
our identity without compromising our sovereignty and self-respect. We reject
unbridled consumerism and believe in adherance [sic] to sustainable consump-
tion and growth.38
133
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134
THE CRYSTALLIZATION OF THE THIRD FORCE (1991–1996)
Front consisted of the JD and the Samajwadi Party (SP). Charging the
Congress(I) with “equivocation” over its defense of secularism and
attacking the BJP for its “naked communal appeal”, the JD vowed to
protect the rights of religious minorities by bringing Wakf properties
(donated for purely religious purposes) under the Public Premises
(Eviction) Act, granting the Minority Commission full legal status, and
referring all disputes regarding religious shrines to the Supreme
Court.46 Both parties also defended the interests of intermediate- and
low-caste groups, by capturing political office, influencing policy deci-
sions and extending the policy of caste-based reservations:
In promoting social justice, democratisation of the power structure is crucial,
for that will empower the sections [of the caste order] which have been histor-
ically denied all privileges and opportunities.47
135
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industrial disputes, enforce labor laws, and index wages and benefits
to the cost of living;53 and to maintain the small-scale sector, insulate
the financial sector from foreign capital and grant more operational
autonomy to public sector units.54 It was uncertain which of these rival
political visions would prevail if the party came to power.
The other half of the Third Front comprised the Left Front, consist-
ing of the CPI, CPI(M), Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) and All-
India Forward Bloc (AIFB). Claiming that anti-communist sentiment
within the “bourgeois opposition forces” “was on the wane” due to
“conflicts and contradictions in the ruling classes”, the CPI(M) justified
forging a “people’s democratic front” on grounds of social justice and
national unity after the fall of the NF.55 The Left remained the most
powerful opponent of militant Hindu nationalism. The bloc condemned
the Congress(I) for allowing Hindu nationalist brigades to destroy the
mosque, which it depicted as “an act of medieval frenzy”, driven by
“feudal and unscientific ideas, obscurantism, mysticism, obscenity, glo-
rification of crimes and violence”.56 Indeed, it argued that
every single element of the BJP’s cultural nationalism is aimed against the
minorities, and is a denial of the pluralism and multifacetedness of Indian soci-
ety and culture, which is the basis of our secularism.57
136
THE CRYSTALLIZATION OF THE THIRD FORCE (1991–1996)
137
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138
THE CRYSTALLIZATION OF THE THIRD FORCE (1991–1996)
139
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The Left rightly contended that capturing office and distributing its
spoils would not fully redress caste-based inequalities. But its reduction
of demands for recognition to class-based struggles was deeply contest-
able. The distribution of distinction, status and prestige within a soci-
ety failed to strictly match inequalities of income and wealth.
Humiliation and exploitation comprised distinct manifestations, with
distinct yet related causes, of social injustice.84 These longstanding ide-
ological tensions within the broader Indian left persisted.
The other major difference between the two blocs was the disunity
of the National Front. This was for two principal reasons. First, the
slogan of “social justice” confronted structural barriers.85 Vertical con-
flicts divided the lower castes. In part, these concerned relations of
class, as Marxists claimed. The desire for agricultural input subsidies
and higher food prices amongst proprietary OBCs clashed with
demands by Dalit and Adivasi laborers and sharecroppers for higher
agricultural wages and greater land redistribution.86 In part, these con-
flicts involved questions of status. Many SCs and STs came to resent
the Mandal Commission Report for extending reservations to OBCs
because it discredited the argument that such measures were only for
the most disadvantaged groups.87 The implementation of the Mandal
Commission Report had briefly galvanized a broader horizontal iden-
tity. But its eventual political acceptance ironically undermined its
capacity to unite lower castes across the country.
These vertical conflicts partly explained the fall-out between the SP,
which primarily represented the OBCs, and the Bahujan Samaj Party
(BSP), which explicitly stood for dalits.88 Indeed, the respective core
base of each party, respectively Yadavs and Chamars, dominated their
castes. The two parties joined forces in the 1993 assembly election in
Uttar Pradesh, winning a majority. Despite the fact that Dalits had not
received important cabinet portfolios in the first JD administration in
140
THE CRYSTALLIZATION OF THE THIRD FORCE (1991–1996)
1989,89 the BSP leader Kanshi Ram had supported Mandal, claiming
that “Bahujan Samaj is comprised of Scheduled Caste, Scheduled
Tribe, Other Backward Classes, and converted minorities … 85 per
cent of the people of this country belong to [it].”90 The BSP won 11 of
27 cabinet posts in the SP-led 1993 state ministry, led by Mulayam
Singh Yadav, who also increased the ratio of dalits in the higher
bureaucracy.91 But the SP favored its predominantly Yadav base in dis-
trict administration, rewarding the community through favorable agri-
cultural policies, while seeking to corral the Muslim vote.92 Growing
material conflicts and social violence between dominant Yadav propri-
etors and landless dalit laborers, and efforts by the SP to split the BSP,
fractured the alliance in 1995.93
Horizontal divisions further exacerbated their disunity. Despite the
rough similarity of formal varna classifications, actual caste groups
comprised various endogamous jatis, whose roles, relations and mean-
ings remained local. The federal party system, which generated distinct
political incentives in each state, made aggregating these groups more
difficult. This was evident in the JD, which represented the distinct
interests of particular social coalitions in different states. In Orissa, the
party drew support from a diverse cross-section of groups with little
lower-caste mobilization. In Karnataka, it catered to powerful middle-
caste farmers. In Bihar, the JD represented an alliance between OBCs
and Muslims, which favored Yadavs in particular.94 A superimposition
of social and spatial cleavages, in short, tested its cohesion.
Second, internecine struggles continued to afflict with the wider
Janata parivar. In early 1992, Ajit Singh had revived his erstwhile Lok
Dal, throwing his support to the Congress(I), while Chimanbhai Patel,
fearing the surging popularity of the BJP and backlash against Mandal,
merged his Janata Dal (Gujarat) with the latter.95 Soon thereafter
Mulayam Singh Yadav broke away from the Samajwadi Janata Party
(SJP), following its disastrous performance in the 1991 general elec-
tion, to form the SP. The SJP, which had only five MPs by late 1993,
141
divided we govern
ranks of the original National Front, badly depleted, now merely com-
prised the SP and a vastly truncated JD.
To make matters worse, their relations were strained. According to
a senior JD politician, Mulayam Yadav
left the JD for entirely personal reasons … He is not a democrat, and doesn’t
want to share power at all. His ambition to rule Uttar Pradesh is the main
thing … He likes to sit in his chair.103
142
THE CRYSTALLIZATION OF THE THIRD FORCE (1991–1996)
[the] JD [had] lost its roots in UP. It was never too fruitful for us to stay so
close to them … But they wanted to maintain our unity for the sake of secu-
larism … we succumbed to their pressure.105
such a task. Yet his incapacity due to cancer, diagnosed in 1991, pre-
vented him from doing so. The sudden death of the N.T. Rama Rao in
January 1996, the former TDP chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, elim-
inated a worthy potential successor.
Lastly the AGP, TDP and DMK, the former regional members of the
National Front, decided not to rejoin its ranks formally. All three par-
ties remained opposed to the Congress(I), which continued to portray
most regional formations as antithetical to the nation. Moreover, they
continued to support the principles of non-Brahmanism and advocate
greater regional autonomy. Historically, the license-permit raj had
favored national capitalists with links to the Congress(I), at the
expense of regional business houses, whose interests influenced the
TDP and DMK.107 Economic liberalization expanded the field of play.
Yet it also convinced regional parties to engage central policy-making:
“the limitations of the reform process post-91 are because the states
are not adequately involved. We are the final executors: it is we who
must package and sell the reforms.”108 The question of redrawing the
balance of powers within the Union extended to other issues as well.
A senior DMK politician claimed:
Some people say that we have geographically limited aims. This is true, of
course. We represent the interests of Tamil Nadu … But our programme is also
more. It is about improving federalism and governing better … We wanted to
implement many of the recommendations of [the] Sarkaria [Commission
143
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144
THE CRYSTALLIZATION OF THE THIRD FORCE (1991–1996)
[the] CPI and CPI(M) sided with Chandrababu Naidu [his son-in-law] while
the JD stayed with the [TDP] faction of Lakshmi Parvati [his widow] … There
was a perception that she would gain a sympathy vote after NTR’s death. Not
everyone agreed … [Some] were against it because [they] realized that the
rank-and-file of the TDP was with Chandrababu Naidu [the other leader] …
But many in the party felt that this is what NTR would have wanted. We
wanted to respect his sentiments.117
145
7
147
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1991 1996
INC+
INC 35.50 232 28.80 140
AIADMK 1.62 11 0.60 0
IUML 0.01 0 0.04 0
KEC 0.12 0 0.10 0
BJP+
BJP 20.10 120 20.30 161
SHS 0.80 4 1.40 15
SAP N/A N/A 2.20 8
HVP 0.12 1 0.40 3
Third Front
JD 11.84 59 8.08 46
SP N/A N/A 2.86 17
CPI(M) 6.16 35 6.12 32
CPI 2.49 14 1.97 12
FBL 0.42 3 0.37 3
RSP 0.64 4 0.52 5
TDP 3.00 13 2.97 16
DMK 2.09 0 2.15 17
TMC N/A N/A 2.19 20
AGP 0.54 1 0.76 5
Further, the Congress(I)’s vote share fell dramatically since 1991 from
36 to 28 per cent. The electoral backlash was even stronger in large
states—such as Bihar, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil
Nadu and Uttar Pradesh—which saw negative swings ranging from 10
per cent in Uttar Pradesh to 24 per cent in Tamil Nadu.3 The massive
decline of its national vote share underscored the scale of defeat.
The traditional refrain of the Congress(I), of being the only genuine
national formation, was accurate.4 The party won seats in 26 of the 31
territories (comprising both states and Union Territories), out of a pos-
sible 32, it had contested. With the exception of Orissa, however, the
Congress(I) tended to dominate either very small states or single-con-
stituency UTs. The party was one of the two main parties/blocs in sev-
148
THE FORMATION OF THE UNITED FRONT (MAY 1996)
149
150
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Table 7.2: Interest in Level of Government, 1996
N I N I N I N I
None 28.5 38.0 32.7 39.1 27.2 36.2 11.7 43.6 38.4
State Gov 32.8 26.9 30.6 22.5 26.0 21.3 10.6 24.4 23.6
Both 30.1 22.2 29.9 19.8 31.8 23.5 8.2 16.9 21.3
Central Gov 19.2 7.5 35.4 12.5 35.7 14.0 9.7 10.7 11.3
Other 27.8 5.2 36.5 6.2 26.9 5.1 8.7 4.6 5.4
Total 28.8 100.0 32.1 100.0 28.8 100.0 10.3 100.0 N=8295
Note: N represents the national vote share given to each alliance. I reflects the internal vote share within each alliance.
Source: CSDS National Election Survey, 1996.
THE FORMATION OF THE UNITED FRONT (MAY 1996)
Table 7.3: Preference for Regional Party State Governments, 1996
N I N I N I N I
Disagree 23.4 16.4 59.0 37.2 48.7 34.2 15.9 31.1 20.2
Don’t Know 27.5 43.2 28.6 40.2 24.7 38.7 11.8 51.6 45.2
Agree 33.6 40.4 20.9 22.6 22.6 27.2 5.1 17.2 34.6
Total 28.8 100.0 32.1 100.0 28.8 100.0 10.3 100.0 N=8295
divided we govern
Table 7.4: Loyalty to Region before Nation, 1996
N I N I N I N I
Disagree 21.5 15.8 31.6 20.8 39.6 29.1 7.2 14.9 21.2
Don’t Know 27.6 23.7 31.8 24.5 27.3 23.4 13.4 32.2 24.8
Agree 32.2 60.5 32.4 54.6 25.3 47.5 10.1 52.9 54.1
Total 28.8 100.0 32.1 100.0 28.8 100.0 10.3 100.0 N=8295
153
divided we govern
154
Table 7.5: Social Bases of Party Alliances, 1996
Community
Upper 15.3 13.1 30.6 24.3 50.9 45.1 3.2 8.7 25.5
OBC 37.3 41.1 25.4 25.9 30.4 34.5 6.9 23.8 32.6
Dalit 28.3 18.2 36 21.3 16.2 10.7 19.4 38.9 19
Adivasi 17.8 5.4 45.4 12.9 22.6 7.2 14.1 13.5 9.1
Muslim 51.1 18.2 38.4 12.7 3.7 1.3 6.9 7.7 10.6
Other 37.4 4 29.8 2.9 10.7 1.2 22.1 7.4 3.2
Total 29.6 100.0 32.1 100.0 28.8 100.0 9.5 100.0 N=8258
Occupation
Highest 15.7 3 30.9 5.5 47 9.3 6.4 3.8 5.7
High 24.8 16.7 30.9 19.3 38.8 26.9 5.5 11.8 20
Middle 29 19.9 33.3 21 29.5 20.7 8.2 17.5 20.3
Low 32.1 35.3 32 32.5 25.1 28.3 10.9 37.7 32.6
Lowest 34.7 25.1 32.5 21.7 19.9 14.8 12.9 29.2 21.4
Total 29.6 100.0 32.1 100.0 28.8 100.0 9.5 100.0 N=8295
Education
Illiterate 30.1 42.8 33.6 44.1 24.4 35.6 11.9 53 42.1
Middle 31.1 33.7 32.7 32.6 27.4 30.5 8.9 30.2 32.1
College 28.3 19.4 29.7 18.8 35.9 25.3 6.1 13.1 20.3
Graduate 22 4.1 26.4 4.5 45.2 8.6 6.4 3.7 5.5
155
Total 29.6 100.0 32.1 100.0 28.8 100.0 9.5 100.0 N=8283
Locality
156
divided we govern
Village 31.9 82.7 32.2 77.2 25.9 69.1 10 81.7 77
Town 22.2 17.3 31.7 22.8 38.6 30.9 7.5 18.3 23
Total 29.6 100.0 32.1 100.0 28.8 100.0 9.5 100.0 N=8295
Haryana at the hands of the SAP and HVP, which now supported the
BJP. In short, the failure of the contending political leaders of the JD
157
divided we govern
CPI(M) and CPI. The former won 32 seats, the latter 12. Their electoral
stability was remarkable given the extreme volatility that marked other
parties and regions. Yet it also signified an inability to expand beyond
West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura. The CPI(M), which contested 75 seats
in 19 territories, survived in 5. It was the principal force in West Bengal,
where it won 23 seats, and in Tripura, a small bastion that had only two
parliamentary constituencies. The party was one of two main blocs in
Kerala, the other mainstay of the LF. And it won a single parliamentary
158
THE FORMATION OF THE UNITED FRONT (MAY 1996)
On 13 May, its three pre-poll allies reaffirmed their support. The SAP
159
divided we govern
incumbent. This was a virtual consensus within the party.”16 Yet the
reasons for, and implications of, its rout stirred intense debate. Several
figures insinuated that Narasimha Rao bore personal responsibility.
On 4 May, Kannoth Karunakaran, a senior member of the Congress
Defending Rao until proven guilty may have been misguided; pro-
priety suggested he step down. Yet the norms of conduct amongst
India’s political class had gravely deteriorated. Moreover, from a nar-
row political vantage, closing ranks avoided further immediate dissen-
sion. In any event, Rao consolidated his position. He pitted opponents
against each other, asking the Maharashtra party boss, Sharad Pawar,
if the latter wanted to become national president of the Congress(I),
sowing resentment amongst the rebels. Rao also postponed internal
party elections until 31 December 1996.19 He would remain in charge
160
THE FORMATION OF THE UNITED FRONT (MAY 1996)
a purely contextual possibility … [the] main enemy, the Congress, was out of
the game. And the BJP was finding it hard to find friends.23
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divided we govern
AIADMK. The TMC’s strategy was also contrasted sharply with the
The question was [sic] taking up the threads and pulling them together … Both
Chandrababu Naidu and Karunanidhi made statements, saying “our choices
are open” … The AGP was also willing to play along. They said, “We want
good relations with the Centre”… Meanwhile, the National Front and Left
Front already had a number of arrangements with the regionals … [They were
persuaded that] allowing the BJP at the Centre would allow them a doorway
into the states. And second … that their other interests were better served [by
the Third Front] … They said, “We will come together, but without participa-
tion in government”.28
mine its parliamentary leader. Many pushed for V.P. Singh. His success
162
THE FORMATION OF THE UNITED FRONT (MAY 1996)
ism within the Janata and managing its relations vis-à-vis other coali-
tion partners could easily overwhelm less experienced hands. But
Singh’s illness prevented him from taking such responsibility. Instead,
he nominated Basu, who won general approval based on his “experi-
ence, reputation and respect”.31 The venerable chief minister expressed
his readiness. He was a terrific candidate. A lifelong centrist within the
CPI(M), Basu had explored the possibilities of building a broader
Indian left, from his ties with Jayaprakash Narayan and personal oppo-
sition to the “left sectarian line” of B.T. Ranadive in the 1940s and
efforts to forge a national democratic front in the late 1960s, to his role
in the regional conclaves of the mid 1980s and negotiations with
V.P. Singh and A.B. Vajpayee during the National Front.32 Moreover,
the Left was committed from the start to supporting a Third Front gov-
ernment. But the CPI(M) Central Committee, while agreeing to estab-
lish a steering committee and provide external parliamentary support,
rejected government participation. According to Basu,
… I think by 8 or 10 votes, we lost—our general secretary and I were in the
minority. We thought … though it may be for a few months, it would be polit-
ically advantageous…. the majority thought otherwise[,] that it would be a
great risk … but we said: “Already we had worked out Common Minimum
Programme for West Bengal. Now we will have [one] at the Centre”. We said:
“As people saw in West Bengal United Front Government, similarly, on an all
India’s scale [sic] it will help our Party, it will help the Left forces, democratic
forces…. In the Centre the Prime Minister wields a lot of influence and we can
for the time being influence them [the other parties]. Other partners you see
the World Bank is there, the IMF is there; they are blindly accepting all that
advice given to them, which we shall not do. The people will have a new expe-
rience. Within these limitations so many things could be done. Then if we are
thrown out and we shall leave a new experience for the people … people will
judge who is to blame … this is how people will understand with whom lies
the responsibility.” But this argument was not accepted by the majority.33
factionalism and corruption.35 Yet the CPI(M) had taken the parliamen-
tary road long ago. A more pressing issue was its control over policy:
163
divided we govern
We knew that a [Third Front] government, with the inclusion of certain par-
ties within it … would pursue certain policies and actions representing land-
lords and kulaks … This we couldn’t support because we would then be
responsible.36
Afraid that “we could not push our views” without a parliamentary
veto, a majority of the Central Committee sought to “demarcate [its]
position within the coalition” by providing outside support.38 The fail-
ure to pursue an independent political line through grassroots mobili-
zation, it later surmised, had forced the CPI(M) to “tail behind the
bourgeois parties” at its own expense.39 Renouncing high office and
performing the role of an “honest broker” represented the party’s
“accumulated moral hegemony”.40
The resolution evoked various reactions amongst the parties. Senior
JD figures recognized genuine ideological considerations:
Their reasoning was solid on orthodox Marxian grounds … Basu and
Vajpayee have the same problem … They realize the philosophical limitations
of their parties, but lack the courage to break away from them.41
164
THE FORMATION OF THE UNITED FRONT (MAY 1996)
165
divided we govern
second meeting the following day. But he absconded before the party
leaders arrived in order to compel them to select another candidate.52
His ruse worked. Desperate to meet President Sharma’s midnight dead-
line, the assembled chiefs approved Haradanahalli Doddegowda Deve
Gowda, the JD chief minister of Karnataka, as their parliamentary
leader.
His selection was “a terrible surprise”.53 Barring his election to par-
liament in 1991, Deve Gowda, a shudra from a dominant agricultural
caste, had spent his entire political career in his home state.54 Members
of his political clique, extolling “his performance as chief minister”,
asserted that “nobody [else] was prepared to accept responsibility”.55
In truth, a variety of crosscutting factors eliminated other contenders.
Prafulla Kumar Mohanta, the AGP chief minister of Assam, lacked the
requisite stature. His party, with five seats, “was simply too small”.56
Larger considerations thwarted G.K. Moopanar of the newly formed
TMC: “a polite inquiry was made on [his] behalf and … was politely
rejected, especially by the Left”.57 Others pushed forward the candi-
dacy of the TDP Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu. But he
reportedly quashed the possibility himself, “saying that ‘I just came to
Andhra [Pradesh]. I need time to establish myself politically’”.58 Naidu
had spent his entire political career in his state. But his section of the
recently split TDP had just emerged victorious in the polls. Consolida
ting his political base was a clear imperative.
166
THE FORMATION OF THE UNITED FRONT (MAY 1996)
[scandal].59
The final contender was the SP chief, Mulayam Singh Yadav, the for-
mer chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. However, several regional leaders
found his “style” of politics “unacceptable”, while Lalu Yadav opposed
his candidature.60 The interpersonal rivalry between the two Yadav
leaders, who both sought to lead the OBCs in northern India, under-
scored the one-upmanship that bedeviled the Janata parivar. In the end,
Mulayam Yadav proposed Deve Gowda, a colleague from the Chandra
Shekhar faction in the JD in the late 1980s and early 1990s.61 The SP
chief “sold the idea to the Left, basically to Surjeet … who was for Basu
taking over but … never thought that the party would overrule them”.62
The CPI(M) Central Committee refused to change its stance.
Deve Gowda’s ascendance was a mixed personal triumph. Many
party leaders saw him as “an instrument … the weakest of possible
choices”.63 Indeed, the Karnataka chief minister’s inclinations gener-
ated suspicion. Rumors circulated that a section of the JD, which
included Deve Gowda himself, had considered supporting a Congress-
led administration:
Deve Gowda, Lalu [Yadav] and Mulayam [Yadav] were actually willing to let
Congress lead … The regionals had an inkling of it … But someone sabotaged
it, saying “some leaders within us are willing to support the Congress” …
Later they were sheepish and on the defensive.64
167
divided we govern
remained the key electoral rival of the Left in West Bengal, Kerala and
Tripura, of the TDP in Andhra Pradesh and of the AGP in Assam.
Gaining the trust of his colleagues would test Deve Gowda.
The Third Front sought to convince President Sharma that it could
muster the confidence of parliament. Deve Gowda, who reportedly
enjoyed a personal rapport with Rao, asked the Congress(I) to send a
letter of support. But it failed to reach in time.
The Congress made a statement of support … They didn’t send a formal dele-
gation to us. Margaret Alva [a Congress official] came on her own and said
that the letter had been sent to the President … But later we discovered they
didn’t send it … The excuse they gave later was that Rao signed the letter but
fell asleep and therefore did not send it.66
It was hard to credit such comic incompetence. Reportedly, Rao
feared that many of his detractors would defect if President Sharma
invited the Third Front to form a government.67 The incident foreshad-
owed Rao’s readiness to engage in machinations to ensure his political
survival, while the underlining the Congress(I)’s parliamentary veto
over the fledgling coalition.
On 15 May, President Sharma invited the BJP to form a Union gov-
ernment and prove its majority on the floor within a fortnight. Leaders
of the Third Front contended that haste, imprudence and latent com-
munal sentiments informed his decision:
[It] surprised us since he asked us before asking Vajpayee to form the govern-
ment. We lacked time … But he was also inconsistent in his positions. And he
was under the influence of [former president] Venkatraman, who was a
[Hindu] revivalist … The President is supposed to have so many eyes to
increase his ambit of discretion [sic].68
These accusations ran against the President’s secular credentials in
the eyes of the media.69 Furthermore, Sharma had restrained the
Congress(I) from exploiting its incumbency during the campaign on
several occasions, strengthening his reputation for impartiality.70 That
said, he reportedly claimed that “the Third Front was based on an
anti-BJP plank … it was simply negative”.71 Observers questioned his
political judgment. The motivations driving the Third Front were less
relevant than its viability. But its leaders protested in vain.
168
THE FORMATION OF THE UNITED FRONT (MAY 1996)
try. It faced two critical issues. The first was to win a parliamentary
majority by 31 May—a formidable task. The second issue was whether
the party would temper any of its controversial measures to lure pos-
sible allies. The most important included its pledge to construct a Ram
mandir in Ayodhya, implement a Uniform Civil Code (UCC) and abro-
gate Article 370 of the Constitution. India’s parliamentary form of
cabinet government generated strong incentives for the BJP to moder-
ate its stance, while providing many power sharing opportunities in the
Council of Ministers. Yet the party faced a dilemma. Political moder-
ation risked losing the extremists in the sangh parivar.
The BJP responded by pursuing a two-fold strategy. On the one
hand, it attacked the motives and stability of its various opponents. On
19 May, Vajpayee assailed the “unprincipled” agreement between the
Law, Justice and Company Affairs, declared that nobody, including the
former prime minister, would be spared if found guilty in the St. Kitts’
affair.74 His remark underscored the risks of aligning with such a dis-
credited leadership.
On the other, the BJP sought to mollify fears that its rule would
unleash communal violence. The President’s address to both houses of
parliament on 24 May, which customarily outlined the policies of the
169
divided we govern
the short run to secure the defeat of the BJP. Hence the United Front
170
THE FORMATION OF THE UNITED FRONT (MAY 1996)
171
divided we govern
ditionally figured into the calculus. However, the Deve Gowda minis-
try drew particular attention given the pronounced regional character
of the alliance and its diversity of personalities, groups and parties (see
Table 7.7).
Politically, it rewarded the JD. Despite capturing less than a quarter
behind the scenes, while the Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Yadav used his
clout among important backward castes to secure cabinet berths for
his nominees.80 Lastly, the disproportionate weight of the JD reflected
the refusal of the CPI(M) to join the ministry and the regional parties’
belated decision to do so.
Sociologically, the Deve Gowda ministry symbolized the historic
transfer of power at the Centre by not including a single person of
Brahmin origin. Regionally, the Council of Ministers represented six
states: Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and
Uttar Pradesh. Parties that opted for direct government participation
demonstrated a strong presence in all of them. More significantly per-
haps, the United Front boasted seven chief ministers amongst its ranks:
Jyoti Basu from West Bengal, Lalu Yadav from Bihar, M. Karunanidhi
from Andhra Pradesh, E.K. Nayanar from Kerala and J.H. Patel from
172
Table 7.7: The H. D. Deve Gowda Ministry
by the CBI, whereas Patnaik and others had.83 But seasoned journalists
also noted that installing Bommai into the Union ministry pre-empted
a possible alliance between him and Ramakrishna Hegde, Deve
Gowda’s nemesis, in their home state.84 The maneuver was the first of
many occasions in the course of this ministry when personal battles and
provincial intrigues affected political decisions in New Delhi.
That said, Deve Gowda made astute policy-related choices too. He
reappointed his JD colleague I.K. Gujral as minister of external affairs,
convinced them of the need for continuity in the reforms process. There was a
lack of confidence abroad.88
It was unlikely that Singh won over his counterparts. Simply put,
having rejected government participation, the Left could not veto the
decision. Several factors advanced Chidambaram’s elevation, nonethe-
less. Deve Gowda had campaigned against economic liberalization—
particularly against recommendations by the General Agreement on
Tariffs and Trade (GATT) to deregulate the agricultural sector—dur-
ing Rao’s prime ministership. His stance changed upon becoming the
Karnataka chief minister in 1994, however, leading him to court for-
eign private investment and weaken land ceiling laws in order to win
greater private investment, reforms which benefited the dominant rural
classes Deve Gowda represented.89 The TDP chief Chandrababu
Naidu, confronting fiscal pressures caused by generous food subsidies
and foregone alcohol taxes in Andhra Pradesh, proposed greater eco-
nomic liberalization too.90 Chidambaram enjoyed their respective sup-
174
THE FORMATION OF THE UNITED FRONT (MAY 1996)
175
divided we govern
176
THE FORMATION OF THE UNITED FRONT (MAY 1996)
177
divided we govern
178
THE FORMATION OF THE UNITED FRONT (MAY 1996)
allow the government to fall under any circumstances”.120 For only the
third time since Independence, a diverse coalition government, repre-
senting the aspirations to create a progressive third force, would
attempt to govern the Union.
179
8
The chief priority of the United Front was to establish its credibility to
govern. The new prime minister faced a complex strategic calculus: to
lengthen the political time horizon of his ministry and shift the balance
of power vis-à-vis the Congress(I) without jeopardizing its external
parliamentary support. According to one longstanding observer, Deve
Gowda was a workaholic who intuitively grasped problems, could lis-
ten well and had a penchant for detail. However, he allegedly had a
tendency “to focus too much on minutiae, on seeking short-term
advantages by forging ties with people in face-to-face dealings … at the
expense of larger strategic thinking”. Close associates feared that,
bereft of his network of informants in Karnataka, the former chief
minister “may be ‘flying blind’ in New Delhi”.1 It would prove to be
an astonishingly prescient judgment.
Relations within the United Front also demanded his attention. First,
Deve Gowda had to transform his formal institutional authority into
real political clout, as well as accommodate parties that had recently
joined his ministry. Second, the Government had to tackle economic
policy, Centre-state relations and foreign affairs in a manner that bol-
stered its standing. Finally, the governing coalition had to devise mech-
anisms for making collective decisions and resolving disputes to avert
potential disagreements and minimize their impact. The formal locus of
these functions was the Council of Ministers. In principle, its decisions
181
divided we govern
182
ESTABLISHING POLITICAL AUTHORITY (June–SEPTEMBER 1996)
183
divided we govern
Next, the prime minister altered the size and composition of the
Council of Ministers. The first round of cabinet formation established
the formal relations of power within the Government and its broad
orientation. The second aimed to satisfy party quotas, consider parties
that had recently joined its ranks and assign outstanding portfolios. On
28 June, the Deve Gowda ministry grew from 21 to 35 members, add-
ing 5 cabinet ministers and 9 ministers of state, with several of the lat-
ter enjoying independent charge over their portfolios. Two of the for-
mer, Srikant Jena of the JD and Janeshwar Mishra of the SP, had
served in the National Front. The other three included Indrajit Gupta
and Chaturanan Mishra from the CPI, and Birendra Prasad Baishya of
the AGP, all of whom received major portfolios. The expanded num-
ber of ministers of state enhanced the dominance of the JD, granted
additional posts to most of the regional parties and delegated special
portfolios to factions that had left the Congress(I) (see Table 8.1).
Observers noted the absence of members from Kerala, Madhya
Pradesh and Maharashtra. Deve Gowda remarked that Rao had influ-
enced the decision, to allow the Congress(I) to remain the dominant
rival to the BJP in these states, provoking much speculation.16 Yet the
184
First Round
Srikant Jena JD Cabinet Minister Parliamentary Affairs and Department of Tourism
Janeshwar Mishra SP Cabinet Minister Water Resources
Indrajit Gupta CPI Cabinet Minister Home
Chaturanan Mishra CPI Cabinet Minister Agriculture (excluding the Department of Animal
Husbandry and Dairying)
Birendra Prasad Baishya AGP Cabinet Minister Steel and Mines
Dilip Kumar Ray JD Minister of State Animal Husbandry and Dairying with independent charge
R.L. Jalappa JD Minister of State Textiles with independent charge
S.R. Balusubramaniam TMC Minister of State Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions and
Parliamentary Affairs
R. Dhanushkodi Athithan TMC Minister of State Human Resource Development—Department of Youth
Affairs and Sports
Bolla Buli Ramaiah TDP Minister of State Commerce with independent charge
Muhi Ram Saikia AGP Minister of State Human Resource Development—Department of Education
Ramakant D. Khalap MGP Minister of State Law, Justice and Company Affairs (excluding Department
of Company Affairs) with independent charge
Sis Ram Ola AIIC(T) Minister of State Chemicals and Fertilizers with independent charge
Yogendra K. Alagh Independent Minister of State Planning and Programme Implementation with additional
charge of Science and Technology
Second Round
Raghuvansh Prasad Singh JD Minister of State Animal Husbandry and Dairy
185
divided we govern
T.N. Baalu DMK Minister of State Petroleum and Natural Gas
Satpal Maharaj AIIC(T) Minister of State Railways
Changes
M. Arunachalam TMC Cabinet Minister Urban Affairs and Employment
Chidambaram TMC Cabinet Minister Department of Company Affairs
Dilip Kumar Ray JD Minister of State Minister of Food Processing Industries
Kanti Singh JD Minister of State Minister of State for Coal with independent charge
ESTABLISHING POLITICAL AUTHORITY (June–SEPTEMBER 1996)
187
divided we govern
MP of the JMM, testified to the CBI that Rao had bribed him and
three party colleagues to vote for the Congress(I) during the crucial
1993 no-confidence motion. The report prompted Dijvijay Singh, the
party’s chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, to call for Rao’s resignation
as president of the AICC.
A shrewdly timed announcement momentarily shifted attention. On
24 June, Rao announced a seat-sharing pact with the BSP for the state
188
ESTABLISHING POLITICAL AUTHORITY (June–SEPTEMBER 1996)
Beni Prasad Yadav from the Council of Ministers on the basis of the
Ramesh Chandra committee report, which indicted the SP leadership
for authorizing the abduction of BSP MLAs in June 1995 in a bid to
save its ministry.28 The Government rejected the demand, saying the
report was a state-level administrative inquiry. It also asked why the
subsequent BSP administration had taken no action after the report had
been submitted in July 1995. Yet the incident underscored the stakes.
The Congress(I)-BSP electoral pact created political space for Rao.
Whether the former could successfully gain a presence amongst Muslim
groups at the expense of the SP, and retrieve Dalit support without
alienating upper castes, was the question. The pronounced electoral
fragmentation in Uttar Pradesh would likely produce a hung assembly,
giving Rao leverage. Cross-cutting pressures in the United Front exac-
erbated the general difficulty of maintaining national power within a
federal party system with de-synchronized electoral battles.29
189
divided we govern
signatory to the treaty, an accord that the latter had originally pro-
posed. The Government rejected the draft under negotiation in Geneva,
disallowing its progress to the UN General Assembly. It was a momen-
tous strategic decision. The failure to corral India in Geneva forced the
five permanent Security Council members to pursue quiet diplomacy
in the following weeks.30
The rejection of the CTBT reflected an emerging national consensus:
to challenge the supremacy and legitimacy of the five declared nuclear
weapon states. The draft treaty failed to incorporate a ban on testing
within a schedule for gradual nuclear disarmament, stop the develop-
ment of existing nuclear arsenals through computer-modeling technol-
ogies or repudiate their future use.31 Many US officials had also
expressed their desire to “cap, reduce and then eliminate” the nuclear
capabilities of non-signatories to the NPT, which included India and
Pakistan.32 Thus the majority of parties in India saw the existing form
of the CTBT as a threat to its strategic nuclear doctrine.33
The United Front resisted pressure, however, to exercise India’s
nuclear option. The indefinite extension of the NPT in 1995 and evolv-
ing terms of the CTBT had united proponents of the bomb on the mil-
itant Hindu right with centrist advocates of Nehruvian non-alignment
and critics of Western imperialism on the left in India.34 Yet the ques-
tion of testing divided parties. Concerted American pressure had
stopped Rao in December 1995.35 Vajpayee had also seriously consid-
ered the option in May 1996: “the BJP was keen”, according to one
knowledgeable figure, “to demonstrate its will and India’s strength”.36
Exercising the nuclear option was integral to its militaristic conception
of India and search for great power status. Moreover, the United
States’ failure to impose sanctions on China after it sold nuclear ring
magnets to Pakistan, violating the CTBT, galvanized further pressure
to test.37 But Vajpayee hesitated:
[He] said yes when the high priests of science came. He was ready to test … But
his senior officials convinced him to wait until after the confidence motion.38
Veteran analysts contended that Vajpayee was prudent enough not
to execute such a radical policy reversal without a parliamentary
majority.39
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ESTABLISHING POLITICAL AUTHORITY (June–SEPTEMBER 1996)
191
192
divided we govern
Table 8.2: Opposition to Building an Atomic Bomb, 1996
All Alliances
N I N I N I N I
Disagree 25.5 31.8 29.1 32.5 36.0 44.8 9.4 32.9 35.9
Don’t Know 31.1 41.1 31.6 37.5 25.5 33.6 11.8 43.7 38.1
Agree 29.9 27.1 36.9 30 23.9 21.6 9.3 23.4 26
Total 28.8 100.0 32.1 100.0 28.8 100.0 10.3 100.0 N=8295
Third Front
N I N I N I
Note: N represents the national vote share given to each alliance. I reflects the internal vote share within each alliance. Source:
CSDS National Election Survey, 1996.
ESTABLISHING POLITICAL AUTHORITY (June–SEPTEMBER 1996)
193
194
divided we govern
Table 8.3: Knowledge of Economic Policy Changes, 1996
All Alliances
N I N I N I N I
Unaware 29.6 83.5 32.4 82.1 27.1 76.3 10.9 86.3 81.2
Aware 25.3 16.5 30.7 17.9 36.5 23.7 7.5 13.7 18.8
Total 28.8 100.0 32.1 100.0 28.8 100.0 10.3 100.0 N=8295
Third Front
N I N I N I
All Alliances
N I N I N I N I
Third Front
N I N I N I
ister the following day for putting the burden of adjustment on lower-
end workers and PSEs deprived of public investment, however.45
According to Chidambaram, the NDC had made similar recommenda-
tions in the past, which many chief ministers in the United Front had
endorsed, including Biju Patnaik of the JD.46 The finance minister also
claimed that the cuts protected serving employees’ positions, antici-
pated wage increases and precluded rising costs for basic public utili-
ties. Finally, he emphasized that Rs. 3,000 crore was only a fraction of
total revenue expenditure. In short, Chidambaram portrayed the aus-
terity guidelines as representing continuity in policy, a tactic used by
many politicians to implement economic liberalization after 1991.47
The incident exposed a basic tension in the CMP, which pledged to
protect workers’ interests while reducing the fiscal deficit.48 Yet the dis-
agreement also exposed differences over what constituted the political:
Chidambaram suggested it [was] a routine matter, but it wasn’t. It was a polit-
ical issue.49
196
ESTABLISHING POLITICAL AUTHORITY (June–SEPTEMBER 1996)
197
divided we govern
ment capital expenditure and total budgetary support for central plan
outlays relative to GDP: the former declined from 3.6 to 3.4 per cent,
the latter from 2.7 to 2.6 per cent, as a percentage of GDP. They also
noted the failure of the budget to tax the rich. In sum, the finance min-
ister attempted to serve various agricultural interests in the governing
coalition as well as its stated commitment to redressing social inequal-
ities, while continuing the process of liberal economic reform.
198
N I N I N I N I
Disagree 11.6 21.1 7.4 18.1 2.5 6.3 21.5 15.8 21.2
Don’t Know 12.4 26.3 8.6 24.7 6.5 19.1 27.6 23.7 24.8
Agree 11.4 52.6 9.2 57.2 11.6 74.6 32.2 60.5 54.1
Total 11.7 100.0 8.7 100.0 8.4 100.0 28.8 100.0 N=8295
That said, more than half had either not heard of the insurgency or
expressed no view. Hence the political class had considerable latitude
in determining how to respond.
The Jammu and Kashmir National Conference expressed its position
clearly:
Government of India must take the primary responsibility for what has gone
awry in Kashmir. Having done that, it has to take bold initiative and the first
step in this direction would be to treat current [sic] Kashmir situation as a
political crisis to be resolved through political instruments. Kashmiris cannot
be left to be tackled by the army and para-military forces for it is [sic] essen-
tially no law and order problem.64
The Centre held two rounds of voting in the region during the elev-
enth general election. But the JKN had boycotted the polls, demanding
political devolution first along the lines of the 1952 Delhi Agreement,
which envisioned state-level jurisdiction over all government matters
except communications, defense and foreign affairs. Evidence of signif-
icant electoral manipulation in the Valley—military personnel
“escorted” voters to the polls and “supervised” the casting of ballots—
confirmed its reservations.65 Nevertheless, commentators noted the rel-
atively high level of electoral participation, approximately 49 per cent,
which exceeded that of Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat.66 They
also noted the peaceful conduct of the polls in Jammu and Ladakh,
which rewarded the Congress(I) and JD. Aware that rising secessionist
forces had damaged his party’s standing, and persuaded by the CPI(M)
200
All Alliances
N I N I N I N I
Negotiation 29.1 33.9 31.9 33.3 29.9 34.7 9.0 29.3 33.4
Can’t Say 32.9 37.2 33.0 33.4 23.5 26.4 10.6 33.4 32.5
Suppression 18.4 7.2 27.8 9.7 45.0 17.5 8.8 9.6 11.2
Other 28.1 1.8 43.8 2.5 25.5 1.6 2.6 0.5 1.8
Not Heard 27.4 20 32.1 21 27.1 19.7 13.4 27.3 21
Total 28.8 100.0 32.1 100.0 28.8 100.0 10.3 100.0 N=8295
Third Front
N I N I N I
general secretary H.S. Surjeet to reconsider its strategy, the JKN leader
202
ESTABLISHING POLITICAL AUTHORITY (June–SEPTEMBER 1996)
Deve Gowda handled the issue extremely well … This gentleman visited the
area several times … It was a fantastic effort on his part.74
Indeed, these early high-level visits resonated with the broader polit-
ical orientation of the United Front, whose supporters were the most
averse to using repression. Their counterparts in the BJP were the least.
The effort was far from perfect. Inadequate political coordination
was partly to blame. On 24 June, prior to Gupta’s ministerial appoint-
ment, the Defense Minister, Mulayam Singh Yadav of the SP, had
declared that a bill on “maximum autonomy” was forthcoming, com-
pelling the Home Ministry to issue a clarification.75 But a more serious
rift emerged. On 29 July, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, who had been the
Union home minister during the National Front and still led the JD
parliamentary board, quit the party over its alleged “mishandling” of
the upcoming assembly polls.76 Several factors compelled his exit. It
was partly due to his well-known rivalry with Farooq Abdullah. In
mid-July, the Minister of State for Home Affairs and an ally of Sayeed,
Maqbool Dar, had attacked the complicity of the JKN in the rigged
assembly elections of 1987, which had instigated the popular insur-
gency.77 But Deve Gowda and Surjeet had decided to court Abdullah.78
Sharad Yadav, the working president of the JD, and Waseem Ahmed,
its general secretary, had precipitated Sayeed’s revolt by excluding him
from the decision.79 It was a classic failure to follow stipulated organi-
zational procedures.
Sayeed’s opposition also involved a wider political concern, how-
ever: the prudence in holding state assembly elections before the Centre
had reached an understanding with various Kashmiri forces. In partic-
ular, he claimed that only by engaging the All-Party Hurriyat
Conference (APHC), an alliance of secessionist parties, could the elec-
tions install a credible state administration.80 Sayeed had considerable
stature in the region and enjoyed good personal relations with various
APHC leaders. The Hurriyat’s indecision over whether to contest the
polls made sections of the JD nervous, weakening his position.81
Political wavering by other separatist groups such as the Awami
League, which declared a boycott of the polls on 30 July but reversed
203
divided we govern
ing participated in the regional conclaves of the 1980s. The JKN was a
safer partner to engage than secessionist forces. Lastly, the Government’s
minority parliamentary status gave it little political leeway. Its commit-
ment encouraged the JKN, which perceived the new governing coali-
tion to be a more reliable partner than the Congress(I), to re-engage
politically.85 The proposal to hold state-level elections began to reha-
bilitate India’s position internationally too. Prime Minister Bhutto,
while expressing her readiness to resolve “outstanding disputes” with
India, maintained that Pakistan would continue to support Kashmiri
self-determination.86 American diplomats praised the resumption of
elections, however, encouraging Pakistan to resume bilateral negotia-
tions.87 The more federal vision of the United Front, combined with
Deve Gowda’s desire to “make a mark”, presented an important polit-
ical opening. Everything depended on the conduct of the polls and the
political forces that emerged in their wake.
enforce the June 1991 interim award of the Cauvery Waters Disputes
Tribunal.88 The award stipulated that Karnataka, as the upper ripar-
ian state, should release 205 tmcft (thousand meter cubic feet) of
water to Tamil Nadu per annum. It prescribed monthly and weekly
tranches as well. The Tribunal could only issue a directive, however,
if Karnataka declared undue hardship in a particular year. Moreover,
the court had no powers of enforcing compliance. In general, Karnataka
had met the terms of the provisional order, sometimes releasing more
than mandated. But wrangles erupted during poor monsoons.89 In
1995, Karnataka had sought to modify the settlement, citing distress.
The Tribunal dismissed its claim. But the state released a smaller than
mandated tranche. By July 1996, the situation in Tamil Nadu had
become precarious: inadequate waters from the Cauvery, exacerbated
by a poor monsoon, had already damaged its Kuruvai paddy crop and
endangered its main Samba paddy crop.90 The 6 July resignation of
Supreme Court.
204
ESTABLISHING POLITICAL AUTHORITY (June–SEPTEMBER 1996)
His move put the prime minister in a bind. Deve Gowda had fre-
quently disregarded the interim award during his chief ministership.91
Moreover, an all-party resolution to boycott the Tribunal had passed
in the Karnataka legislature in January 1996. On 8 July, Deve Gowda
the DMK chief told his legislative assembly that “interim relief” would
be provided. Moreover, both delegations arranged to discuss a water-
sharing formula of “mutual benefit without prejudice to the interests
of farmers of both the States”.94 Substantive progress failed to materi-
alize: the second encounter between the chief ministers in Bangalore on
5 September concluded with an agreement to continue negotiations.
205
divided we govern
206
ESTABLISHING POLITICAL AUTHORITY (June–SEPTEMBER 1996)
However, apart from doubts over its end use and problems of verifica-
tion, a two-month delay in receiving the waters could impair the trans-
plantation of the paddy crop in Andhra Pradesh. Moreover, the
Bachawat Tribunal Award granted Andhra Pradesh the right to sur-
plus waters, to which Karnataka objected. The conflict pushed both
state governments, regardless of the party in office, to defend their per-
ceived regional interests.
That said, allegations that Deve Gowda had funneled central funds
to Karnataka aggravated the dispute. On 27 July, the United Front
meeting to defuse the crisis, but in vain. Denying that he had disbursed
the alleged funds, he pleaded impotence, saying
I am the prime minister of the country, not of any state. I can take action only
within the ambit of the powers I enjoy. I cannot direct anybody [in Karnataka
to stop work on the Almatti].102
ters of Assam, Bihar, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal to adjudicate the
matter, who recommended establishing a technical experts commit-
tee.104 Questions over its legal status impeded further progress, how-
ever. Chief Minister Patel, already mired in ongoing Cauvery negotia-
tions, faced a no-confidence motion in the Karnataka assembly for
agreeing to establish the committee.105 Naidu insisted on granting it
legal powers to obtain all necessary documentation. But the Steering
Committee declared that neither party had to accept the technical com-
mittee’s findings. In the end, the prime minister shelved the proposal
after the Union attorney general claimed that it would violate the exist-
ing provisions of the Bachawat award.106
207
divided we govern
208
ESTABLISHING POLITICAL AUTHORITY (June–SEPTEMBER 1996)
Uttar Pradesh at the prime minister’s behest. The former foreign secre-
tary ran unsuccessfully for the Congress(I) in the 1991 general election.
He also reportedly attempted to frame some of Rao’s opponents dur-
ing his governorship of Goa, and had connections with the controver-
sial godman Chandraswami.111 Hence many in the United Front felt
that Bhandari was “close to Rao and [Sharad] Pawar”.112 Others con-
tended that Mulayam Singh Yadav of the SP pushed Deve Gowda to
pick the new governor.113 Both sides stood to benefit. Governors had
undelineated discretionary powers to decide who to invite to form a
government, dismiss chief ministers and dissolve state assemblies.114
Expectations of an inconclusive electoral verdict in the upcoming
assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh made having a pliable governor an
asset. Indeed, Deve Gowda selected Bhandari in the middle of the night
without consulting Gupta as home minister, fuelling suspicion on the
Left.115 It showed how the CPI could be outflanked on controversial
decisions, despite its participation in government and formal political
authority over such matters, foreshadowing later tussles.
Accusations of further political malfeasance followed. On 4 August,
209
divided we govern
forgery case and many rivals within his own party. Moreover, local
political struggles neither precluded the pursuit of larger political ini-
tiatives in New Delhi nor determined their outcome. The politics of
the United Front reflected a complex balancing of multi-level games.
Nevertheless, Deve Gowda’s attempts to entrap his political oppo-
nents failed to obey a crucial Machiavellian precept: to disguise such
actions well.
In any event, the judicial process moved ahead independently. On
30 July, the Delhi High Court rejected Rao’s petition against the chief
210
ESTABLISHING POLITICAL AUTHORITY (June–SEPTEMBER 1996)
It was hard to verify the last claim. Some claimed that Sonia Gandhi
anointed Kesri, on grounds that he would be a compliant “servant”.128
Others contended that his elevation “stunned” her.129 Reportedly, the
CWC sought to appoint a figure from the north, capable of recovering
the Muslim vote and galvanizing the party’s fortunes in the crucial
Gangetic plains. Yet Kesri lacked the requisite political stature, skill or
experience in managing the cacophony of personalities, demands and
interests that plagued the Congress(I). Observers portrayed him as a
trusted insider with “a talent for subtle political manipulation”, “a
capacity to ingratiate himself with the powers-that-be” and “an ability
to keep a low profile while carrying out important tasks”.130 Partisan
rivals were far harsher, describing him as “an old servile man, a weak-
ling”.131 Subsequent events would confirm and defy both expectations.
211
9
cial, despite their periodic rhetorical threats, Deve Gowda and Rao
had very smooth relations … Deve Gowda had great respect for Rao, they
were extremely close to each other … They met twenty-five to thirty times
before Kesri came in.1
213
divided we govern
214
EXERCISING NATIONAL POWER (SEPTember–DECEMBER 1996)
chayat and municipality level in the 73rd and 74th amendments to the
Constitution in 1993. Every major party professed support. And the
United Front had pledged to introduce such a measure in the Common
Minimum Programme. Hence the prime minister planned to waive leg-
islative deliberation. But various OBC leaders on both sides of the
floor stalled proceedings, saying the proposed bill failed to include
explicit caste-based provisions, forcing the Speaker to refer it to a joint
select committee.
Various factors caused its deferment. The proximate reason was a
last-minute revision. On 10 September, the Government circulated a
draft that excluded the Rajya Sabha and state councils from its scope,
lowering its chances. However, divisions within the Council of
Ministers over the criteria for and percentage of seats to be reserved
played a much larger role. According to various OBC leaders, the draft
Women’s Bill conferred an unfair advantage to parties representing
high-caste groups as well as women belonging to SCs and STs, since
the latter two groups enjoyed reserved constituencies.
It was a contestable argument. The objection conflated the depth of
deprivation suffered by the majority of Dalits and Adivasis with the far
more diverse socio-economic opportunities of OBCs as a whole.
Moreover, by saying that female OBC candidates could not win repre-
sentation through open electoral competition, the predominantly male
leadership of the National Front ironically legitimized the widespread
social prejudice against intermediate castes. It was a strange argument
to make too, given the rising parliamentary representation of the OBCs
since the early 1990s.6 Lastly, their opposition illustrated how the
struggle for equality based on lower-caste identities had evolved by the
mid-1990s to eclipse other forms and bases of injustice—a far cry from
the mutually constitutive links between gender, caste and class that
Ram Manohar Lohia and other Indian socialists had perceived.
Indeed, most voters backed reservations for women in national polit-
ical institutions, comparable to their support for the Mandal Commi
ssion Report (see Tables 9.1 and 9.2). Supporters of the National Front
expressed less enthusiasm. None theless, more than two-thirds
approved. To be fair, parliamentary opposition to the Women’s Bill
was widespread. Its most vocal opponents comprised only 10 per cent
of the Lok Sabha, yet managed to stall debate, indicating tacit support
from their male peers.7 Simply put, the proposed legislation threatened
to diminish male privilege in the highest representative bodies of the
polity. The decision to defer its passage satisfied cross-party interests.
215
216
divided we govern
Table 9.1: Support for Backward Caste Reservations in Government, 1996
All Alliances
N I N I N I N I
Third Front
N I N I N I
Note: N represents the national vote share given to each alliance. I reflects the internal vote share within each alliance.
Source: CSDS National Election Survey, 1996.
All Alliances
N I N I N I N I
Third Front
N I N I N I
218
EXERCISING NATIONAL POWER (SEPTember–DECEMBER 1996)
219
220
divided we govern
Table 9.3: Desirability of Friendship with Pakistan, 1996
All Alliances
N I N I N I N I
Third Front
N I N I N I
chief minister. But the RSS humiliated him and his associates in the fol-
lowing months, deepening a rift based on personal rivalry and caste
differences.19 The new Gujarat Chief Minister, Suresh Mehta, sought
to consolidate his authority, expelling ministers and issuing “show-
cause” notices to MLAs that displayed sympathy with the dissident
leader. On 18 August, the BJP state unit split. Two days later, the
of the BJP claimed that a communiqué sent by Patel declared the dep-
uty speaker’s actions invalid under Article 180(2) of the Constitution.21
Yet the speaker died one week later. On 18 September, Mehta
221
divided we govern
222
EXERCISING NATIONAL POWER (SEPTember–DECEMBER 1996)
observers later credited the United Front for reopening a “small dem-
ocratic space” in Kashmiri politics.33
Allegations of rigging and coercion marred the election, however.
The Government’s decision to arrest several Hurriyat leaders—includ-
ing Syed Shah Geelani, Abdul Gani Lone, Yasin Malik and Shabir
Shah—for demanding a boycott during the final phase of polling
revealed the deep authoritarian reflexes that had characterized India’s
approach to the region for decades. The newly inducted chief minister,
who subsequently put the Hurriyat leaders under house arrest, pos-
sessed similar tendencies. Charges of corruption and neglect would
slowly tar his administration.34 The United Front displayed shortsight-
edness by marginalizing Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and ignoring his
advice to engage local separatist groups. The sweeping victory of his
People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2002 state assembly elections,
the first relatively free polls since 1983, eventually demonstrated his
superior political judgment.
Ultimately, the Centre could only bolster democratic rule in the
region by revitalizing the state bureaucracy, bringing the security appa-
ratus under single unified command and restoring economic activity
after years of repressive direct rule.35 Most importantly, it had to open
political dialogue with all parties and end the massive human rights
abuses committed by Indian troops. The situation in Kashmir was
never solely a domestic affair, however. During the campaign, Prime
Minister Bhutto had called for third-party mediation to resolve the dis-
puted status of Kashmir, without curtailing Pakistani sponsorship of
external insurgent forces. The mutual expulsion of both countries’
envoys in September and October, based on charges of espionage,
highlighted the level of mistrust.36 In addition, ongoing Chinese nuclear
assistance to Pakistan substantiated India’s longstanding security con-
cerns.37 Perhaps most importantly, a power struggle within Pakistan’s
high politics made it impossible to push the agenda. In early November,
President Farooq Leghari dismissed Bhutto, his former ally, on charges
of graft, misuse of governmental power and her alleged involvement in
extra-judicial murders.38 The resumption of high-level bilateral talks
would have to await the outcome of Pakistan’s general election in
February 1997.
The handling of the state assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, in
contrast, caused greater debate within the United Front. The govern-
ing coalition had agreed a seat-sharing pact that acknowledged the pre-
223
divided we govern
dominance of the SP.39 The latter also benefited from the failure of
negotiations within the JD over a possible tie-up with the BSP.
Reportedly, the SP chief, Mulayam Singh Yadav, agreed to ally with
the BSP as long as neither he nor Mayawati would occupy the chief
ministership.40 A section of the JD—led by Sharad Yadav and
C.M. Ibrahim and backed by Deve Gowda—pursued the proposal
given their own desire to re-establish a presence in the state. Ram Vilas
Paswan, sensing a threat to his Dalit base in Bihar, backed Mulayam
Yadav’s conditionality, however. In the event, Mayawati rejected the
offer. The SP dominated the coalition’s electoral pact through deft
negotiations. According to a senior JD leader, Mulayam Yadav’s strat-
agem was always
to limit the JD, to give them the least number of tickets … [H]e then keeps
tickets pending until the last moment so that others cannot break off. At the
last moment, he pressures the numbers down, and says take it or leave it …
and during the election, ensures your defeat. Initially Mulayam is your ally, a
friend … [but] who in his heart is a rival.41
Indeed, the SP chief allied with the Bharatiya Kisan Kamgar Party
(BKKP), led by Ajit Singh and Mahendra Singh Tikait. Doing so
increased the presence of the United Front in the Uttarakhand region
of western Uttar Pradesh. However, it was the JD, CPI and AIIC(T)
that had to accommodate the BKKP.42
In the end, no single bloc captured the 213 constituencies necessary
to form a legislative majority.43 The BJP and the SAP, its coalition part-
ner, formed the single largest formation with 177 seats. The United
Front, which captured 134 with the majority going to the SP, emerged
as the main contender.44 Lastly, the BSP and Congress(I) together
secured 100 seats. Significantly, the former won twice as many seats as
the latter. Simple electoral arithmetic granted the balance of power to
the BSP. The state legislature, which had been under Article 356,
remained suspended.
A flurry of political activity ensued.45 On 10 October, the United
Front repeated its offer to the BSP if Mayawati abandoned her claim
to the chief ministership and abandoned the BJP. She rejected both
conditions. The upper-caste faction of the BJP sought to ally with the
BSP. But Kalyan Singh, its OBC leader, balked. Finally, on 12 October,
the BSP leader Kanshi Ram urged the Congress(I) to withdraw its sup-
port to the Government unless the latter endorsed Mayawati. The
224
EXERCISING NATIONAL POWER (SEPTember–DECEMBER 1996)
This was not entirely true. The BSP continued exploring possibilities.
Its unwillingness to send a letter of support partly vindicated the
Government’s stand.48 Yet the position of the CPI(M) demonstrated,
as its general secretary H.S. Surjeet subsequently confessed, its willing-
225
divided we govern
226
EXERCISING NATIONAL POWER (SEPTember–DECEMBER 1996)
IMDT Act.63 In doing so, Deve Gowda sought to placate the AGP,
which had criticized the Congress(I)’s militarist approach under
Hiteswar Saikia, authorizing paramilitary forces to battle the United
Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA), the radical insurgency movement
that had established rival power structures across the state since the
late 1980s.
The duration and scope of the tour drew considerable attention. Few
prime ministers had spent much time in the region. A senior govern-
ment official portrayed the enterprise as
a very significant contribution … It sent a message that India can be run well
as a federal polity … there was a lot of bonhomie and goodwill, which was
important.64
227
divided we govern
his original report, which stated that Lalu Yadav had participated in a
conspiracy, stalled inquiry into the affair and failed to act on the CBI’s
recommendations.72 Purportedly, Singh removed the accusation
because of inadequate evidence.73 His explanation failed to persuade
the Patna High Court, however, which revoked his supervisory pow-
ers over the investigation and ordered all future reports to be submit-
ted without prior vetting.74
Fears of tampering and prime ministerial interference drew in the
Supreme Court, which directed the Government in mid-October to
submit all relevant documents to ascertain Biswas’ charges.75 In early
November, the apex judiciary restored to Singh full responsibility over
the investigation, but instructed him not to make controversial deci-
sions unilaterally.76 The modified order stirred debate. On the one
hand, it ensured that no agency exceeded its proper jurisdiction.
However, reports that Deve Gowda had met Chief Justice Aziz
Mushabber Ahmadi late at night on 10 October fuelled speculation of
228
EXERCISING NATIONAL POWER (SEPTember–DECEMBER 1996)
ember, Kesri revoked the suspension of M.L. Fotedar, Sheila Dixit and
K. Natwar Singh, three senior leaders of the AIIC(T).87 Sis Ram Ola
229
divided we govern
230
EXERCISING NATIONAL POWER (SEPTember–DECEMBER 1996)
231
divided we govern
232
EXERCISING NATIONAL POWER (SEPTember–DECEMBER 1996)
More serious differences within the JD, and between the Left and the
pro-liberalization lobby in the UF, had also materialized. On
11 December, the Patna High Court reprimanded the CBI director for
demand his resignation. Rao stepped down the following day. His exit
gave the Congress(I) an opportunity to adhere to the one-man-one-post
principle that ostensibly created many dissidents within its ranks. In
early January, the party endorsed Kesri, the interim president of the
AICC, as leader of the CPP. The integrity of principle had succumbed
233
10
The United Front entered the new year facing significant challenges. It
had had a relatively unsuccessful winter parliamentary session.1 The
joint select committee charged with reformulating the Women’s Bill
was unable to do so. The proposed Lok Pal bill, which excluded the
prime minister’s office from its purview, drew widespread opposition.
And the governing coalition had failed to redeem its pledge to estab-
lish review committees regarding judicial reform, freedom of informa-
tion and Centre-state relations. In addition, the formal elevation of
Sitaram Kesri introduced a new dynamic into its relations with the
Congress(I). On the one hand, certain conditions protected the Govern
ment. The former chief minister of Maharashtra, Sharad Pawar, sup-
ported Kesri in exchange for becoming the parliamentary floor leader
of the Congress(I). More significantly, the former extracted a pledge
from the latter not to topple the Government. Many regional chiefs
believed the party needed time to reintegrate former dissidents and
strengthen its organization. The Congress(I) had to face elections in
Punjab, await a resolution in Uttar Pradesh and respond to the first
major Union budget of the Government. Thus Pawar declared that it
had an interest in ensuring political stability and preparing adequately
for elections in the medium-term, presumably at least a year away, if
not more.2
Mitigating factors existed, however. The first concerned Kesri him-
self. The new Congress(I) leader, seen by many within his party as “an
235
divided we govern
old man in a hurry”, had the prerogative to decide its stance vis-à-vis
the United Front.3 His desire for greater political influence and defer-
ence complicated matters. On 16 January, the prime minister offered to
grate the party. He even claimed that a section of it sought to join the
Government.5 Both incidents emphasized Kesri’s perceived weakness.
Political self-preservation also drove him, however. On 19 January,
the CBI grilled Kesri after a former Congress(I) advisor close to Rao
petitioned the Delhi High Court to investigate his assets.6 Sources in
the CBI acknowledged the lack of evidence. Hence the Congress(I)’s
spokesperson, V.N. Gadgil, accused the prime minister’s office of
pressing the probe.7 Rumors also circulated that it had pressured the
Intelligence Bureau to implicate Kesri in a 1993 murder inquiry. The
disclosures suggested that Deve Gowda was trying to “find some dirt
under [Kesri’s] finger nails”. According to one senior investigator,
the case against Mr Kesri cannot be justified on purely professional grounds;
the one thing one can say is that the Prime Minister is being very poorly
advised to go after Mr Kesri. These advisors must be his worst enemies: they
uments from Switzerland relating to the Bofors scandal. Its prime sus-
pects included Ottavio Quattrocchi, an Italian businessman with close
ties to Rajiv and Sonia Gandhi, Win Chadha, who managed the Indian
front company for Bofors, and the Hinduja brothers, whose interna-
tional business holdings enabled their considerable political clout.9 Rao
had launched contentious litigation in 1991 to delay further investiga-
tion. But the inquiry now resumed. On 30 January, the CBI Director,
236
REFORM AMID CRISIS (January–APRIL 1997)
237
divided we govern
238
Table 10.1: Desirability of Unrestricted Foreign Investment, 1996
All Alliances
N I N I N I N I
Third Front
N I N I N I
Note: N represents the national vote share given to each alliance. I reflects the internal vote share within each alliance.
Source: CSDS National Election Survey, 1996.
239
240
divided we govern
Table 10.2 Desirability of Privatization, 1996
All Alliances
N I N I N I N I
Disagree 28.5 34.6 34.1 37.2 28.2 34.2 9.2 31.1 34.9
Don’t Know 30.8 45.5 30.4 40.2 26.3 38.7 12.5 51.6 42.5
Agree 25.4 19.9 32.1 22.6 34.7 27.2 7.8 17.2 22.6
Total 28.8 100.0 32.1 100.0 28.8 100.0 10.3 100.0 N=8295
Third Front
N I N I N I
241
divided we govern
Government increased its subsidy by Rs. 2,400 crore. But it also sought
to target the poorest of the poor, dividing those above and below the
official poverty line by introducing a dual price mechanism for rice and
wheat, and capping food provisions at ten kg per family per month.24
Supporters of the revamped PDS, called the Targeted Public
Distribution System (TPDS), claimed that cross-subsidization would
allow states to reach the most vulnerable sections of the population:
The TPDS made a conscious link between poverty and PDS lifting. It was novel
in this regard … [it would] eliminate subsidies to the 10 per cent who lived
above the poverty line.25
242
REFORM AMID CRISIS (January–APRIL 1997)
due to the presence of the BJP, stranded the party between government
and opposition.
243
divided we govern
244
REFORM AMID CRISIS (January–APRIL 1997)
lower taxes. For the most part, however, their colleagues displayed lit-
tle interest.39 High economic policy and questions of basic material
redistribution failed to excite their passions in contrast to the politics
of recognition based on status and identity.
As expected, the Left disapproved of various aspects of the 1997–98
Union budget. The CPI national secretary, D. Raja, criticized the
245
divided we govern
246
REFORM AMID CRISIS (January–APRIL 1997)
247
divided we govern
11 March, the CBI declared that it had adequate evidence against Rao
and twenty-one other suspects in the JMM pay-off case.53 Several days
later Sudhir Mahato claimed that Rao had bribed the smaller regional
party to defeat the 1993 no-confidence motion against the Congress(I).54
Simultaneously, the CBI interrogated Arjun Singh, a former Union
minister of state and associate of the Nehru-Gandhi family, regarding
his alleged role in the Bofors scandal.55 Although routine, the inquest
recast light on Sonia Gandhi, who many hoped would enter the polit-
ical fray.
The second threat concerned the party’s fortunes in key electoral
arenas. On 24 February, the home minister had stated in parliament
that Uttar Pradesh was “heading towards anarchy, chaos and destruc-
tion”.56 Gupta’s blunt declaration may have betrayed personal frustra-
tion at his relative powerlessness. It was an astonishing statement,
however, given that such matters comprised his brief. It underscored
the home minister’s tendency to speak like a member of the Opposition
as well as the breakdown in collective ministerial responsibility. The
BJP demanded an inquiry. The Speaker, P.A. Sangma, directed the
criticized Bhandari for breaking protocol. The home minister also art-
fully deflected attention, blaming the BJP for communalizing the poli-
tics of Uttar Pradesh in the wake of Ayodhya.61 Citing political dead-
lock, the Government extended President’s rule for another six months
on 13 March.62
But the impasse suddenly broke. On 19 March, the BJP and BSP
248
REFORM AMID CRISIS (January–APRIL 1997)
ter. The desire for office, and the two parties’ shared enmity towards
the SP, facilitated a seemingly incongruous alliance. Genuine differ-
ences persisted. The Sanskritic vision of the Ramjanmabhoomi move-
ment championed by the BJP clashed with the desire of the BSP to
empower the dalitbahujan. Moreover, kept out of the negotiations in
New Delhi, Kalyan Singh questioned whether Mayawati would relin-
quish the chief ministership according to schedule.64 The first attempt
by the parties to share power had failed in 1995. That said, the deal
illustrated their pragmatism and willingness to fashion a novel pact in
order to capture state office. Mayawati immediately expanded the
Ambedkar Village Program, loosening criteria for incorporating settle-
ments and raising its budget, and transferred many senior administra-
tive officials appointed by the SP. More controversially, the BSP chief
directed all state funds for school building towards the Program.65 Her
actions simultaneously revealed a profound distrust of the impartiality
of the state and yet confidence that it was the only effective agency of
social change.
Domestic events coincided with significant external developments.
In late February, the Government had agreed to resume foreign secre-
tary-level negotiations with Pakistan after a hiatus of three years. The
election in mid-February of the new prime minister, Nawaz Sharif,
who adopted a relatively conciliatory posture towards India, provided
an opening. The United Front, which stated its “willingness for wide-
ranging and comprehensive talks on all issues of mutual concern”, also
deserved credit.66 On 2 March, the Government accepted Sharif’s pro-
reporting to the police while in India, waived visa fees for artists and
students, and opened more religious sites to Pakistani tourists.68 The
circumspection of these early gestures underscored their largely sym-
bolic value.69 Still, commentators acknowledged the revival of high-
249
divided we govern
250
REFORM AMID CRISIS (January–APRIL 1997)
251
divided we govern
voluntarily.88
In sum, the prime minister had many reasons to distrust the
Congress(I) and its interim leader, who had intimated his prime minis-
terial ambitions. However, most Congressmen saw little reason to top-
ple the Government immediately. In the end, Deve Gowda became
convinced that Kesri was conspiring with others in the United Front to
oust him, only to later admit he was wrong.89
But the Congress(I) failed to grasp the reins of power. Tactical mis-
takes were partly to blame. On 29 March, K. Karunakaran publicly
declared that G.K. Moopanar of the TMC had agreed to become prime
minister with the party’s support, leading to Kesri’s gambit the next
day.90 Yet the CWC presumed he would first explore how many par-
ties would support the move. The interim president failed to initiate
the necessary discussions and weigh the odds, causing his colleagues to
protest.91 “Calculations are for intellectuals—politicians work differ-
ently”, Kesri remarked, invoking an essential feature of political judg-
ment: the need to act without precisely knowing the possibilities and
risks of various options.92 But his failure to appraise his political con-
text, dispassionately assessing his practical chances of luring sufficient
defections, betrayed an expectation that temptations of power would
suffice. The debacle exemplified the hazards of imprudence. The art of
managing an unwieldy coalition government, and deciding how to sup-
plant it, required far better political judgment.
Ultimately the United Front stood firm. On 30 March, the Steering
ment, 190 votes to 338. Not a single member of the United Front, or
faction thereof, crossed the floor. It was a striking display given the per-
ceived opportunism of many of its leaders and the manner in which pre-
252
REFORM AMID CRISIS (January–APRIL 1997)
approve the 1997–98 Union budget. The finance minister had already
secured parliamentary approval to maintain spending commitments for
the first two months of the financial year.96 Nevertheless, the decision
illustrated how parties that opposed elements of the budget prioritized
stability, even the Left. Kesri’s ill-fated ploy facilitated the passage of
Chidambaram’s controversial “dream budget” without further debate.
But the sense of instability generated by the crisis simultaneously dimin-
ished the prospects that its underlying fiscal calculus would succeed.
Unable to break the United Front, the Congress(I) demanded it
appoint a new prime minister. V.P. Singh orchestrated the governing
tary leader. Three factors informed his selection. First, most of its lead-
ers “knew the Congress would strike again … only everyone knew that
it could not go to elections right away”.100 Hence few desired such
political responsibility. Indeed, according to a senior JD leader, Gujral
“was informed in the middle of the night … [he was] overwhelmed
with concern and depression”.101 It was safe to anticipate a short ten-
ure for the country’s twelfth prime minister. Second, Gujral was rela-
tively weak. The external affairs minister was neither closely affiliated
with, nor in command of, a particular caste grouping or regional base.
Whatever political influence he enjoyed stemmed from his policy
expertise. Gujral was bound to dominant party bosses in the JD: in
particular, to Lalu Yadav, who had engineered his election to the
Rajya Sabha from Bihar. Indeed, the prime minister designate’s subor-
dination fomented speculation over how investigations into the ongo-
ing fodder scam would unfold. Third, crosscutting pressures within the
253
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254
PART III
257
divided we govern
ical ascent.7
The crisis reworked internal relations within the United Front too.
The governing coalition had stood firm against the Congress(I).
Expectations that it would strike again shortened the Government’s
time horizon, however. The likelihood of an early general election
encouraged its multiple leaders to identify and pursue their perceived
core interests with greater vigor. Circumstances now required greater
political leadership at the helm, to manage the disagreements and con-
flicts that were more likely to erupt, than when the governing coalition
formed. Misfortune had a tendency to strike in such conditions.
I.K. Gujral lacked an independent political base, making it hard to
impose political bargains. The new prime minister, despite his formal
constitutional authority, faced a very difficult job.
casting and minister of state for home, respectively, and restored the sta-
tus of the four TMC ministers after their party rejoined the Government.
According to one JD colleague, Gujral’s “first imperative was to main-
tain continuity”.8 Another claimed that Deve Gowda counseled against
expanding the Council of Ministers, saying it would generate a spiral of
demands.9 The move may have also constituted an attempt to retain
influence. Lastly, many figures concurred, saying Gujral “was not a
decisive leader temperamentally”, and lacked the “ability and the man-
date to prize open the coalition struck in May ‘96”.10
258
THE DECLINE OF THE UNITED FRONT (MAY 1997–MARCH 1998)
259
divided we govern
Minister, Indrajit Gupta, backed their calls.19 Yet the Bihar chief min-
ister disregarded their entreaties, suspending detractors within his min-
istry and provoking street demonstrations in Bihar to shore up his
position.20 The Delhi High Court appointed a retired judge,
N.C. Kochhar, to supervise the upcoming JD organizational election,
after the CBI decided to book all suspects in the case, the prime minis-
ter requested his colleague to relinquish the chief ministership.
But Yadav resisted. On 19 June, the Supreme Court instructed
Yadav, had stacked the party’s national council, persuaded the apex
court to allow Raghuvansh Prasad Singh to supervise the poll with
Dandavate instead.22 But R.P. Singh’s attempt to reopen the list of vot-
ignated Dandavate as the sole referee. Two days later, Prime Minister
Gujral discharged Joginder Singh on grounds of “incompetence” and
“exhibitionism”, appointing R.C. Sharma as his successor.23
It was hard to verify what happened. But Singh had finally pursued
the Bihar chief minister. His dismissal intensified charges of deliberate
partisan obstruction, compelling the Patna High Court to demand an
explanation.25 Indeed, the Supreme Court would eventually issue a
landmark ruling in December 1997 seeking to enhance the autonomy
of the CBI, reversing the single directive principle that placed it under
prime ministerial control.26 But changing its leadership failed to save
the JD, which proceeded to elect Sharad Yadav as its president. On
5 July, Lalu Yadav formed the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) with the
260
THE DECLINE OF THE UNITED FRONT (MAY 1997–MARCH 1998)
his wife Rabri Devi as the new chief minister of Bihar. His brazen
attempt to maintain rule by proxy succeeded. On 28 July, the new RJD
ministry secured its second confidence vote with the help of the
Congress(I).32 Indeed, despite surrendering to the police, Yadav stalled
court proceedings against him until the autumn on grounds of poor
health. The loss of his formidable political machine in Bihar, combined
with the expulsion of Ramakrishna Hegde from the Karnataka state
unit of the party in June 1996, severely truncated the reach of the JD.
The brash political ambitions that increasingly characterized the JD
damaged related policy initiatives too. On 20 May, the last day of the
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divided we govern
JD. The impasse over the Women’s Bill showed how the original
262
THE DECLINE OF THE UNITED FRONT (MAY 1997–MARCH 1998)
263
divided we govern
The economy was the last realm to witness concerted policy action. In
early June, the prime minister had reorganized the Council of Ministers,
assigning berths to recently inducted ministers, shuffling portfolios and
introducing new faces. The restructuring sought to boost critical sec-
tors, especially regarding infrastructure, suffering relative neglect.53 The
fiscal calculus of the 1997–98 Union budget banked on resurgent indus-
trial growth. Yet quarterly economic indicators had revealed a revenue
shortfall, despite the RBI cutting interest rates in April to offset short-
falls in investment, industrial production and capital market activity.54
In mid-June, the finance minister launched the Voluntary Income
Disclosure Scheme (VIDS), providing a six month amnesty to individu-
als and companies willing to pay arrears at rates of 30 and 35 per cent,
respectively, waiving interest charges.55 Gujral constituted an export
264
THE DECLINE OF THE UNITED FRONT (MAY 1997–MARCH 1998)
265
divided we govern
The BJP [had] privately agreed to the bill … Jaswant Singh [a BJP politician]
met Chidambaram [and indicated his support] … yet the party rejected it on
the floor of the house … and accused Gujral of selling out the country. It was
sheer populism.67
had surpassed Rs. 18,000 crore, by raising the prices of liquefied natu-
ral gas, diesel and petrol between 5 and 20 per cent. The Government
vowed to abolish the administered price mechanism, which cross-subsi-
dized various products, within two years.69 Proponents criticized it for
not acting sooner. Cabinet ministers and government bureaucrats
involved in the decision defended the delay, however:
We were for rational economic management … [but] extensive consultation is
part of the democratic exercise … we cannot bulldoze our partners.70
The CPI(M) gradually reconciled themselves [to the decision] since we
explained it to them.71
266
THE DECLINE OF THE UNITED FRONT (MAY 1997–MARCH 1998)
politicians attended the rallies. The Left had always held that its par-
ties could simultaneously pursue “partial participation” in coalition
governments and foment mass action.75 Yet the CPI had joined the
Council of Ministers. The prime minister appointed Indrajit Gupta to
lead the Government in negotiations with the joint consultative
machinery. It was a costly decision. On 11 September, the ministerial
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268
THE DECLINE OF THE UNITED FRONT (MAY 1997–MARCH 1998)
The prime minister, unable to resolve these differences at the full ISC
meeting on 17 July, shelved the issue until its next scheduled meeting
269
divided we govern
ganized the state ministry, reneging a vow to maintain its portfolio dis-
tribution. Singh had opposed expanding the Ambedkar Village Scheme
and implementing the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act on grounds
of samajik samarasata (social integration).94 On 18 October, BSP min-
officers from other castes and tried to enforce laws protecting Dalits
and Adivasis from upper-caste violence. Reportedly, she authorized
most of these decisions without seeking cabinet approval, exacerbating
latent conflicts with the BJP.98 The willingness of the BSP to make expe-
dient alliances over time demonstrated its belief that maneuvers to gain
short-term advantage trumped long-term agreements, and that wield-
ing government power enhanced its electoral prospects.
Nonetheless, the decision to impose Article 356 provoked dissension
within the Council of Ministers.
It was a very long Cabinet meeting. There was a lot of disagreement … recom-
mending it was a fraud on the Constitution.99
The proceedings [were] bringing shame to everyone … [the] Cabinet was unan-
imous after a prolonged session … but Gujral, Indrajit Gupta and [Murasoli]
Maran disagreed.100
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THE DECLINE OF THE UNITED FRONT (MAY 1997–MARCH 1998)
Unlike the CPI, the CPI(M) was a stalwart ally of the SP and backed
the decision, demonstrating its willingness to exploit discretionary
executive powers at the Centre to block Hindu nationalists in the
states.
The newly inducted President, Kocheril Raman Narayanan, sur-
prised everyone, however, by asking the Government to reconsider its
decision. A professional diplomat who had risen to the vice presidency
of the republic, Narayanan had been elected with overwhelming cross-
party support in July 1997.102 He would have had to abide if the
Government stuck to its position. According to a 1976 constitutional
amendment, the President could not refuse such a request twice.103 But
the Council of Ministers demurred. On 22 October, the Gujral minis-
271
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Neither a pliant governor nor central rule could stop the BJP from
crafting alliances through political horse-trading. The failure to defuse
the animosity between Mulayam Yadav and Mayawati, and address
the conflicts of interest dividing their parties’ organizational ranks and
social bases, had worked to the detriment of the third force as a whole.
272
THE DECLINE OF THE UNITED FRONT (MAY 1997–MARCH 1998)
would take fifteen years before another chief ministerial meeting would
occur.111 These public spats exposed the growing political vulnerabil-
ity of the United Front.
An external threat stiffened its unity, however. On 9 November, the
rity protection for the former prime minister. On the other, it exoner-
ated the previous Congress(I) governments of Indira and Rajiv Gandhi
as well as the prior AIADMK state government of M.G. Ramachandran
on grounds that all three administrations had engaged the LTTE “for
self-defense purposes” prior to its conflict with the IPKF. Karunanidhi
derided the interim findings as “old propaganda”.113 He had good rea-
son. Rajiv Gandhi had consistently encouraged the DMK to maintain
contact with the LTTE. The alleged difference between the parties was
a hollow distinction.
Reactions within the Congress(I) differed. The principal aim of the
party, formally adopted at its Calcutta plenary session in August 1997,
was to form a “viable and stable one-party government”.114 Signifi
cantly, Kesri had rejected the idea that “coalitions are here to stay”,
contending that “the Congress itself is the most successful coalition”.115
Yet he also reportedly concurred with Rao and Pawar that joining the
Government was in the party’s long-term interest. In mid-November,
Kesri met Gujral, confirming the Government’s stability. The prime
minister promised to table the interim Commission report at the start
of the winter parliamentary session on 19 November. An understand-
DMK. Reports later surfaced that Prasad and Singh had hired a team
273
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met Sonia Gandhi. It was unclear what transpired. But Kesri and
Pawar quickly changed their tune. On 19 November, speaking at a
TMC had left the Congress(I) in opposition to Rao and its tie-up with
the AIADMK. The prospect of Sonia Gandhi at the helm created a
274
THE DECLINE OF THE UNITED FRONT (MAY 1997–MARCH 1998)
Yadav as prime minister. Yet the United Front rejected every proposal,
belying the view of many Congressmen that it would cave in.121 On
24 November, Gujral expressed his willingness to discuss other possi-
bilities. The Speaker of the Lok Sabha, P.A. Sangma, suggested the for-
275
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dismiss two RJD ministers from the Government, at the behest of his
colleagues, provoked much displeasure. The Steering Committee even-
tually forced their expulsion on 3 January, showing that Gujral could
not lead the United Front into battle. In fact, lacking an independent
political base, he approached the SAD to support a bid to reclaim his
old Jalandhar constituency in Punjab. During his tenure, Gujral had
committed the Centre to sharing the cost that Punjab had incurred
fighting Sikh extremists in the late 1980s and early 1990s. His overture
caused much dismay: the SAD was still aligned with the BJP. But the
which he had led following the death of his father, Biju Patnaik, in
April 1997. The EC recognized the 29-member Biju Janata Dal (BJD).
Various factors, all regionally inflected, caused the split.129 Organiza
tionally, the JD had suffered from deep internal rifts in Orissa, which
the patriarch’s overwhelming presence had historically contained.
Socially, the party represented a diverse cross-section of groups, privi-
leging the aspiring intermediate Khandayats, and winning the support
of Brahmins and karans. But it encompassed few minority communi-
ties, in contrast to the JD in Karnataka and especially in Bihar.
Ideologically, Biju Patnaik was an ardent modernizer, welcoming eco-
nomic liberalization and courting foreign investment to develop basic
utilities, mineral resources and heavy industries. Indeed, he had lam-
basted V.P. Singh for notifying the Mandal Commission Report with-
out specifying economic criteria, and had only reserved 12 per cent of
government posts for OBCs in Orissa in 1993. Lastly, personal equa-
tions had soured at the top. The younger Patnaik alleged that his
father, who reportedly compared his colleagues to “a cluster of lob-
sters fighting against each other”, had been marginalized after the
United Front coalesced.130 In short, the demise of the longstanding
chief minister allowed his heir to form a distinct political formation.
The tripartite foundations of the JD had imploded during the
Government’s tenure: first with the exit of Ramakrishna Hegde in
Karnataka in June 1996, followed by Lalu Yadav in Bihar one year
later. The break-up in Orissa dealt a massive blow, questioning the
ability of the party to survive.
276
THE DECLINE OF THE UNITED FRONT (MAY 1997–MARCH 1998)
277
divided we govern
the eleventh general election. Ultimately the TMC and DMK allotted
just one seat to the CPI.
The pursuit of partisan electoral advantage inflicted greatest damage
elsewhere, however, including several decisive political arenas. In Uttar
Pradesh, the SP refused to support the JD in sixteen constituencies the
latter had fought in 1996 because it had only won two, and rejected
the CPI’s bid as well. In Bihar, the rump JD competed against the CPI,
CPI(M) and SP, as well the Communist Party of India (Marxist-
Leninist) (CPI-ML), after spurning their proposed seat adjustments.
Hence the extant allies separately contested the Jan Morcha, an expe-
dient multiparty alliance led by their former colleague, Lalu Yadav.
The JD contested virtually alone in Karnataka, while in Maharashtra
the SP joined the Congress(I) and two factions of the Republican Party
of India (RPI), sidelining the JD and the Left. Even in Rajasthan, where
they were independently weak, the constituents of the United Front
could not agree to share different seats. Finally, the MGP and UGDP
both pursued local supremacy in Goa. In sum, an exceedingly local cal-
culus of political survival undermined the cohesion of the recently
dethroned alliance. The most distinctive manifestation of the third
force in modern Indian democracy had rapidly drifted apart.
The Congress(I) faced serious obstacles as well.132 Formally, Sitaram
Kesri remained its leader. Mounting personal disaffection compelled
several MPs, including former Union ministers, to defect however. Far
more damaging, Kesri divested the authority of Mamata Banerjee to
determine whom the Congress(I) should field in West Bengal. The pop-
ulist maverick reacted by forming the All-India Trinamool Congress
(AITC) in mid-December. It was the latest example of the Congress(I)
high command attempting to micro-manage its state units from afar.
Kesri’s power rapidly ebbed away. On 28 December, it received a fur-
ther jolt: Sonia Gandhi declared she would campaign for the party.
Although a novice, her decision galvanized the rank-and-file. Reportedly,
Sonia Gandhi joined the campaign to protect her dynastic inheritance.
The interim Jain Commission Report encouraged her intervention. Her
decision to campaign marked a significant political moment for the
Congress(I).
278
THE DECLINE OF THE UNITED FRONT (MAY 1997–MARCH 1998)
279
divided we govern
280
THE DECLINE OF THE UNITED FRONT (MAY 1997–MARCH 1998)
Desperate for support, the BJP focused its campaign on Atal Bihari
Vajpayee, touting his leadership and the need for national political sta-
bility. Most importantly, the party agreed to shelve its most controver-
sial measures: the abrogation of Article 370 regarding Jammu &
Kashmir, establishment of a uniform civil code and construction of a
Ram temple in Ayodhya. The decision allowed the BJP to buttress its
position in several traditional strongholds in the north and west, while
enabling the party to enter more difficult arenas, most notably in
Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu in the south. It was a stra-
tegic political judgment decisively shaped—but not determined—by the
incentives generated by plurality-rule elections and parliamentary cab-
inet government in a deeply regionalized federal party system.
281
divided we govern
with the Congress(I), supported the proposal. The TMC, given its
severe electoral losses, expressed its amenability as well. The new elec-
282
THE DECLINE OF THE UNITED FRONT (MAY 1997–MARCH 1998)
Votes Seats
BJP+
BJP 25.47 179
AIADMK 1.84 18
SAP 1.77 12
BJD 1 9
SAD 0.82 8
WBTC 2.43 7
SHS 1.78 6
PMK 0.42 4
LS 0.69 3
MDMK 0.44 3
HVP 0.24 1
JP 0.12 1
NLP 0.04 0
NTRTDP (LP) 0.1 0
INC+
INC 25.88 141
RJD 2.71 17
RPI 0.37 4
UMFA 0.01 1
SJP(R) 0.32 1
KEC(M) 0.1 1
JMM 0.07 0
IUML 0 0
BKKP 0 0
UF
CPI(M) 5.18 32
SP 4.95 20
TDP 2.78 12
CPI 1.75 9
DMK 1.45 6
JD 3.25 6
RSP 0.55 5
TMC 1.41 3
FBL 0.33 2
JKN 0.15 2
283
divided we govern
AGP 0.29 0
MAG 0.02 0
UGDP 0.04 0
Total 22.15 97
toral scenario in Tamil Nadu even forced the DMK, despite the
Congress(I)’s ham-fisted tactics, to consider supporting the proposal.
The rapidly shifting electoral landscape pushed many leaders to con-
template an option that had seemed beyond the pale three months
earlier.
However, analogous state-level calculations and partisan resentment
pushed their associates towards the other side. The Congress(I)
remained the principal electoral opponent of the TDP in Andhra
Pradesh. Chandrababu Naidu declared its equidistance from the party
and the BJP. The AGP, having suffered a humiliating loss to the
Congress(I) in Assam, was also unsupportive. The JD, having lost two
prime ministers to the machinations of the Congress(I), resisted the
idea too. Even the JKN, which had sought since the late 1980s to
maintain good relations with and leverage greater aid from New Delhi
for Jammu & Kashmir, had opened negotiations with the BJP. In
istry a few days later.142 Critically, the TDP chief assured Narayanan
of his neutrality. Yet Naidu changed his stance. On 23 March, he suc-
“insulted” for not being invited to the meeting, despite being its offi-
284
THE DECLINE OF THE UNITED FRONT (MAY 1997–MARCH 1998)
285
12
mary focus was to contain the dangers of Hindutva and disallow the
sangh parivar from consolidating its newfound power.
The BJP faced a strategic dilemma. On the one hand, the party had
to make programmatic compromises and share power within a diver-
sity of parties in order to capture national power. Maintaining ideo-
logical purity would have ensured political defeat. Hence it conceded
several important ministries and parliamentary offices to smaller
regional allies in the governing coalition, named the National Demo
cratic Alliance (NDA) in May 1998. Moreover, its National Agenda
for Governance omitted key Hindutva proposals, including the
establishment of a Uniform Civil Code, repeal of Article 370 of the
Constitution and construction of a mandir in Ayodhya. The BJP dis-
tanced itself from the Gujral doctrine by advocating “peaceful relation-
ship [sic] with all neighbors on a reciprocal basis”. But the Agenda
failed to mention its longstanding pledge to reclaim territories lost
287
divided we govern
proclaimed:
It may be difficult for the party to go beyond the confines of the National
Agenda because a coalition government functions under many compulsions.
We have to be realistic about the situation and our workers must realise work-
ing as part of a coalition, the BJP can only do this much and no more.”3
288
THE DISSOLUTION OF THE THIRD FORCE (1998–2012)
informed of the decision after it had been approved by senior RSS fig-
ures emphasized the limits of power-sharing within the NDA. The
India and Sri Lanka in December 1999, the first ever linking both
sides, reflected similar preparatory groundwork too.12 The NDA reit-
erated its commitment to the Gujral doctrine under Jaswant Singh, its
external affairs minister, until July 2002.13
Indeed, observers praised the party for managing the governing
coalition relatively well, often justifying decisions by citing the National
Agenda for Governance. The coordination committee of the NDA met
frequently in New Delhi and in the states as well, in contrast to the
United Front. And the BJP called for greater coalition dharma (princi-
ples of discipline, order and harmony) in February 1999, establishing
a code of conduct for all party meetings, chief ministers’ conferences
and Union cabinet deliberations. In doing so, the party “attempted to
transform partners into stakeholders” of the NDA.14
Nonetheless, hardliners sought to expand Hindutva in other realms.
Some proved unsuccessful. Attempts by the Minister for Human
Resources Development, the RSS stalwart Murli Manohar Joshi, to
rewrite school textbooks, introduce new curricula and appoint educa-
tional officials sympathetic to Hindu nationalist views encountered
stiff opposition from secular opponents and smaller regional allies.15
289
divided we govern
290
THE DISSOLUTION OF THE THIRD FORCE (1998–2012)
291
divided we govern
against Deve Gowda in Karnataka, and Sharad Yadav and Ram Vilas
Paswan against Lalu Yadav in Bihar—inflicted severe damage. In July
1999, Patel, Sharad Yadav and Paswan joined hands with the Lok
Shakti and SAP to form the Janata Dal (United) (JD(U)), allying with
the NDA. The three leaders opposed Sonia Gandhi. Yet personal rival-
inability of its highest ranks to resist the entreaties of the BJP by shar-
ing power amongst themselves in the states or respond to the chal-
lenges of further economic liberalization destroyed the legatee of
India’s socialist tradition.
Second, the former regional stalwarts of the third force entered or
maintained tactical alliances with the BJP. Seeking to exploit the deba-
292
THE DISSOLUTION OF THE THIRD FORCE (1998–2012)
Votes Seats
NDA
BJP 23.75 182
TDP 3.65 29
JD(U) 3.1 21
SHS 1.56 15
DMK 1.73 12
BJD 1.2 10
AITC 2.57 8
PMK 0.65 5
INLD 0.55 5
MDMK 0.44 4
JKN 0.12 4
SAD 0.69 2
MADMK 0.11 1
MSCP 0.06 1
SDF 0.03 1
HVC 0.07 0
AC 0.02 0
INC+
INC 28.3 114
AIADMK 1.93 10
RJD 2.79 7
RLD 0.37 2
MUL 0.23 2
KCM 0.1 1
RPI(A) 0.13 1
RPI 0.13 0
Third Front
CPI(M) 5.4 33
SP 3.76 26
NCP 2.27 8
CPI 1.48 4
RSP 0.41 3
FBL 0.35 2
JD(S) 0.91 1
TMC 0.56 0
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AGP 0.32 0
RPI 0.14 0
Total 15.6 77
cle of the AIADMK, the DMK brokered a deal with the PMK and
MDMK, with all three joining the NDA. Reportedly, the Left antago-
294
THE DISSOLUTION OF THE THIRD FORCE (1998–2012)
295
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gained a higher share of central tax revenues, it had recorded the fifth
fastest rate of per capita growth in state domestic product in the 1990s;
Kerala received less, despite scoring the sixth fastest rate.44 Moreover,
the TDP had received approximately Rs. 40,000 crores in grants and
loans from New Delhi during the NDA for power, food and rural
development, exploiting national coalitions to cement its rivalry vis-à-
vis the Congress(I) in Andhra Pradesh.45 Yet while population growth
had declined in Andhra Pradesh in the 1990s, its trend economic
growth mirrored the previous decade, while state finances remained
poor and agrarian distress persisted.46 Nonetheless, the Commission
agreed to grant supplementary funds to reforming states, in contrast to
previous awards. The centrifugal tendencies stoked by economic liber-
alization reinforced the growing political clout of the states in the third
electoral system, withering the third space in the 1990s.
Indeed, further evidence mounted. Uttar Pradesh witnessed a sharp
economic deceleration, rising government expenditure and severe
financial constraints, creating a level of indebtedness similar to
Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, and levels of social under-develop-
ment akin to Bihar.47 Declining public investment compelled fierce
competition for scarce private capital, which now accounted for three-
quarters of gross fixed investment, as the states of the Union submit-
ted to regulation by the Centre and domestic and international credit
ratings agencies.48 Some cooperation occurred. A proposal to create a
uniform sales tax, first raised by the West Bengal chief minister Jyoti
Basu in 1993, lessened beggar-thy-neighbor dynamics. State finance
ministers agreed in 2002 to adopt a uniform central value added tax as
well.49 Horizontal inter-state competition remained the norm, however,
testing the compensatory mechanisms of India’s federal political econ-
omy. Growing regional inequalities strained political ties between the
former protagonists of the third force, which had only recently begun
to demand more equitable Centre-state relations against the unitary
visions of their national party rivals.
The more significant cleavage dividing the former third force, how-
ever, was the failure of its ostensibly secular forces to challenge grow-
ing communal violence. Many observers believed that federal coalition
politics, and the centrist institutional logic of India’s democratic
regime, would compel the BJP to restrain Hindu nationalist militancy.
It was a reasonable judgment to make. The anti-Muslim pogrom that
shook Gujarat in March 2002 tested it savagely, however.50 On
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THE DISSOLUTION OF THE THIRD FORCE (1998–2012)
of Godhra. Fifty-eight Hindus died. Over the next three days, Hindu
nationalist foot-soldiers rampaged across the state, wrecking Muslim
establishments, killing hundreds of civilians and displacing thousands
of citizens. The BJP state ministry, led by chief minister and stalwart
former RSS worker, Narendra Modi, failed to stop the violence. The
NDA vacillated in dispatching the army, despite evidence mounted that
his ministry abetted the carnage. Perhaps most damagingly, Prime
Minister Vajpayee appeared to justify the reprisal, invoking the threat
of pan-Islamic terrorism in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attack
on the United States:
Wherever there are Muslims, they do not want to live in peace with others.
Instead of living peacefully, they want to propagate their religion by creating
terror in the minds of others.51
297
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298
THE DISSOLUTION OF THE THIRD FORCE (1998–2012)
Votes Seats
UPA
INC 26.44 145
TRS 0.6 5
IND(INC) 0.16 1
RJD 2.39 24
LJP 0.66 4
NCP 1.78 9
JMM 0.41 4
PDP 0.07 1
MUL 0.19 1
KCM 0.05 0
JDS 0.05 0
RPI 0.04 0
RPI(A) 0.09 1
PRBP 0.06 0
DMK 1.81 16
MDMK 0.43 4
PMK 0.56 6
NDA
BJP 22.16 138
TDP 3.04 5
JD(U) 1.94 8
IND(BJP) 0.18 1
IFDP 0.07 1
SHS 1.77 12
BJD 1.3 11
SAD 0.9 8
AIADMK 2.19 0
AITC 2.06 2
MNF 0.05 1
SDF 0.04 1
NPF 0.18 1
Third Front
SP 4.31 36
RLD 0.61 3
CPI(M) 5.66 43
299
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CPI 1.32 9
RSP 0.43 3
FBL 0.35 3
KEC 0.09 1
IND(Left) 0.08 1
JD(S) 1.47 3
300
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Shimla party session in July 2003, reversing its earlier Pachmarhi dec-
laration. The party leadership had finally submitted to the logic of the
third electoral system. In addition, the Congress(I) had skillfully
refused to name Sonia Gandhi as its prime ministerial candidate dur-
ing the 2004 campaign, saying it was a decision for the UPA as a
whole. Gandhi’s subsequent endorsement of Manmohan Singh, follow-
ing xenophobic attacks against her by the BJP, adroitly undermined the
latter. Her gesture simultaneously allowed erstwhile rivals, particularly
the NCP and DMK, to join the incipient coalition government without
losing face over past imbroglios. The NCP’s poor showing in the 1999
general election, and its acquisition of the Union agricultural ministry
and anxiety over the upcoming October 2004 state assembly polls in
Maharashtra, helped of course. Promising the DMK that it would
repeal POTA and recognize Tamil as a classical language, and award-
ing the party seven cabinet berths in New Delhi, helped the Congress(I)
mend relations after the ignominious Jain Commission debacle in
1998. The party’s maneuvers revealed a new strategic outlook, greater
political skill and sober learning. In the end, its improved fortunes
evinced better political judgment.
Nonetheless, the Congress(I) could not grasp power without the
communist parties’ support, which captured a historic 61 parliamen-
tary seats. The Left Front mobilized a diverse electoral coalition to win
more than half of the popular vote in West Bengal, its highest level
since 1989, with the CPI(M) posting its best performance since 1980.64
Despite their state-level electoral agreements, the Left remained non-
committal during the campaign. Indeed, it expected the Congress(I) to
adopt the “pro-imperialist neoliberal policies” of the BJP.65 Many
prominent artists, intellectuals and activists from the broader Indian
left implored the CPI and CPI(M) to join the government:
[At this] “historical juncture, which calls for creative and constructive initia-
tive … the left can undertake the task only as part of the government and not
by supporting it from outside. The latter … is a negative approach, which the
people are likely to interpret as shirking the responsibility. To usher in changes
on secular and democratic lines the left has to use the possible access to power,
even if there are certain political risks … After all the quality of the life of the
people in West Bengal and Kerala would not have been possible without the
left wielding power.”66
Indeed, the former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda proclaimed,
there is no such concept as a third front. Now, we have the Congress-led UPA
government at the Centre and the erstwhile National Democratic Alliance
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headed by the BJP. It is time we stopped harping on the third front. We have
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THE DISSOLUTION OF THE THIRD FORCE (1998–2012)
with state-based parties oscillating between the Congress(I) and the BJP,
extinguished the possibility of radicalism. Rising socioeconomic inequal-
ities ultimately overpowered the possibilities of the second democratic
upsurge. Lower-caste, communist and regional parties had failed to con-
struct a viable third force in modern Indian democracy.
Yet several things had changed. First, unlike its heyday, the
Congress(I) could no longer easily absorb its new allies. Many of these
state-based parties, which had formed after 1989, lacked the explicit
regionalist orientation of the early third force. Still, collectively they
garnered more than 50 per cent of the national vote, determining their
national rivals’ fortunes.74 Moreover, the Congress(I) showed less
desire to destabilize rival formations and a greater willingness to
address the needs of historically subordinate groups.75 Second, the
newly appointed government endorsed the CMP, rechristening it the
National Common Minimum Programme (NCMP). The newly estab-
lished NAC, led by Sonia Gandhi, would oversee its implementation.
And the Congress(I) established a Coordination Committee between
the UPA and the Left, foreshadowing greater collective decision-mak-
ing.76 Finally, declining rates of anti-incumbency in the states partly
reflected growing state revenues and greater social expenditures, aided
by higher economic growth and tax reforms.77 The new fiscal situation
broadened programmatic opportunities. The tasks facing the UPA,
according to the newly elected prime minister Manmohan Singh, were
to “focus on the poor, the rural, the agricultural sector. We have to
provide water, schools, health facilities, jobs for the youth and a favor-
able environment for businesses and industry to flourish”.78 “[L]ife is
never free of contradictions,” he continued, “… we will have to find a
practical way”.79
The Left won many battles during the first two years of the UPA. On
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party which can rally all the left, democratic and progressive forces to
carry forward the struggle for a left and democratic alternative”.81
Despite the “steadily developing … economy … and all round progress”
of China, “the biggest socialist country”, American imperialism had
advanced with the re-election of George W. Bush. Hence the political
tactical line of the party was to “to advance the struggle against commu-
nalism, the pro-big business economic policies and imperialism”:
The Party has extended support to the UPA government with the clear under-
standing … [that] it depends on its willingness to implement the pro-people
measures in the Common Minimum Programme and how it maintains the
unity of the UPA coalition… To accomplish this, the Party will build mass
movements and conduct struggles… It should act as the sentinel of the people’s
interests.
Simultaneously, however, the CPI(M) pledged
to build a third alternative … by conducting joint movements and campaigns.
A viable alternative will emerge only if there is a common policy framework at
least on some major issues. Experience has shown that this cannot be just an
electoral alliance. Left unity and strengthening of the Left is essential if we are
to successfully rally the other democratic forces.
The ritual invocation of the party as the sole leader of the broader
Indian left, and its depiction of China as socialist, held little sway
beyond its most loyal ranks. Nonetheless, some commentators rightly
perceived a generational shift, its new leadership increasingly discom-
fited by the high coalition deal-making that Surjeet had pursued since
the mid 1990s.82 The CPI(M) sought once again to build a united-
front-from-below.
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THE DISSOLUTION OF THE THIRD FORCE (1998–2012)
The Left faced a growing quandary, however. The LDF had man-
aged to secure rising per capita incomes and lower absolute poverty in
Kerala.83 Its achievements partly reflected the lagged effects of earlier
social investments in basic human capabilities. Yet it was largely
because the alliance maintained social expenditures despite lower pub-
lic investment, declining central transfers and volatile commodity
prices. Indeed, the introduction of participatory development planning,
inaugurated in 1996, stimulated higher participation and greater pub-
lic expenditure on locally perceived needs as well as economic produc-
tivity.84 In short, the Left had radicalized the so-called Kerala model of
development against tremendous odds.
In West Bengal, however, the Left Front embraced greater economic
liberalization, especially after Buddhadeb Bhattacharya succeeded Jyoti
Basu in 2002. The state administration unveiled Agribusiness Vision
2010, drafted by the multinational consultancy McKinsey, which rec-
ommended contract farming, relaxing labor regulations and exempt-
ing prospective agribusiness from the Land Ceiling Act.85 It courted
foreign capital and public-private-partnerships in manufacturing, soft-
ware and urban industrial development, while conducting “lockouts,
retrenchments and closures” of failing public sector enterprises.86
Crucially, the promotion of industrialization through compulsory
acquisition of fertile land ignited violent conflicts between the party,
its electoral rivals and small rural landholders. The government
acquired approximately 120,000 acres between 2001 and 2006, dis-
placing more than 2.5 million landless peasants and allowing a resur-
gent Naxalite campaign to intervene, led by the Communist Party of
India (Maoist).87 Bhattacharya defended the strategy, declaring,
“Marxism is a science, not a dogma. It will have to keep pace with
changing times”.88 But the deaths of several local inhabitants fighting
attempted land acquisition in Nandigram in January 2007 galvanized
protests across the state, halting the process. In the summer of 2008,
Mamata Banerjee of the Trinamool Congress organized demonstra-
tions in Singur, accusing the Left government of acquiring poor farm-
ers’ land on behalf of Tata without adequate compensation. The ensu-
ing violence persuaded the company to relocate its plant to Gujarat.89
Finally, basic social opportunities had stagnated in relative terms.90
The middling performance of West Bengal in health and education—
especially amongst women, lower-caste groups and Muslims—put the
state behind Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Haryana,
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Pradesh, a popular front that Singh had launched in the late 1980s en
route to the prime ministership. Revolving around a new party, the Jan
Dal, Babbar and Singh targeted the “goonda raj” (rule of thugs) of the
SP, whose Special Economic Zone (SEZ) policy and “brokers and fix-
ers” exploited vulnerable women, peasants and laborers and backward
castes.96 Attracting support from eighteen political entities, including
the LJP, RJD and Left Front, the new formation contested the SP in the
May 2007 assembly elections. The BSP dethroned the SP, expanding
its social base to win 206 of 403 seats, a stunning legislative majority.
The Jan Morcha, which captured just one seat, would eventually merge
with the Congress(I).97 Similarly, in August 2007, eight parties formed
the United National Progressive Alliance (UNPA), proclaiming their
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THE DISSOLUTION OF THE THIRD FORCE (1998–2012)
equidistance from the Congress(I) and the BJP. The alliance, compris-
307
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308
THE DISSOLUTION OF THE THIRD FORCE (1998–2012)
made political sense too. Indeed, the CPI(M) had issued approximately
300 political statements during the tenure of the UPA.111 The impasse
opened the possibility of a reinvigorated third force.
Yet the CPI(M) failed to construct an alternative. Indeed, the party
found itself aligned with its existential adversary, the BJP. The SP res-
cued the Congress(I), a party that it had opposed for as long as it had
allied with the Left, enabling the Government to survive: 275 votes to
256 with ten abstentions. It was a highly controversial vote of confi-
dence. Twenty-eight MPs defied their respective party whips. Far more
significantly, the BJP alleged gross impropriety, displaying bundles of
cash on the Lok Sabha floor allegedly given by the UPA in exchange
for support.112 Refuting the allegations, Mulayam Yadav justified his
about-face by saying that former president A.P.J. Kalam rectified his
attempts to topple our government. But on each occasion his astrologers have
misled him … At his ripe old age, I do not expect Shri Advani to change his
thinking. But for his sake and India’s sake, I urge him at least to change his
astrologers so that he gets more accurate predictions of things to come….
Our friends in the Left Front should ponder over the company they are forced
to keep because of the miscalculations of their General Secretary…. Our Left
colleagues should tell us whether Shri L.K. Advani is acceptable to them as a
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The Fifteenth General Election and the fall of the Left Front,
2009–2012
Buoyed by its recent success, the Congress(I) entered the fifteenth gen-
eral election in April–May 2009, asserting greater independence.
Significantly, the party entertained discrete state-level pacts where nec-
essary, rejecting the idea of a national alliance. “Coalitions mean pos-
itive support from all sides,” declared Sonia Gandhi, “but working in
a coalition does not mean we lose our political space… Such a coali-
tion cannot be at the cost of the revival of the Congress, particularly in
states where its base has been eroded”.120 In particular, the high com-
mand focused its attention on recapturing the Hindi heartland, rebuff-
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THE DISSOLUTION OF THE THIRD FORCE (1998–2012)
ing the SP, LJP and RJD in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. The Congress(I)’s
strategic turn created the possibility of mobilizing another third force.
Despite its pledge in 2005 to build a united-front-from-below, exhib-
iting programmatic unity, the CPI(M) forged another united-front-
from-above. The alliance encompassed several leading figures from its
avatar in the mid 1990s: the Left Front in Kerala, Tripura and West
Bengal; the TDP and TRS, formed in 2001 to seek statehood for
Telangana, in Andhra Pradesh; and the BJD and JD(S) in Orissa and
Karnataka, respectively. It also fielded new members, the most impor-
tant being the BSP in Uttar Pradesh and an AIADMK-led alliance in
Tamil Nadu. Finally, former chief minister Bhajan Lal defected from
the Congress(I), forging the Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC).
Conspicuously absent from the latest manifestation of the third force,
however, were its socialist protagonists from the Gangetic plains. The
SP, LJP and RJD, which rescued the UPA during the July confidence
vote, ventured a Fourth Front.
It was a shambles. The inability of its constituents to choose a
leader, and their shifting declarations and state-level disagreements,
created a specter of instability.121 The JD(S) aligned with the Left in
Karnataka, but competed against it in West Bengal and Kerala, and
kept talking with the Congress(I). The BJP, promising to grant state-
hood to Telangana, persuaded the TRS to break from the TDP-led
“grand alliance” during the campaign.122 The BJD abandoned the
NDA on the eve of polling. Conflicting perceptions vis-à-vis the BJP
over their relative electoral strength, and anti-Christian violence by
Hindu extremists in the Kandhamal region in 2008, influenced its
volte-face. But the BJD subsequently tied up with the NCP, part of the
UPA, underscoring its exceedingly regional strategy. Even the CPI(M)
appeared tactically split: Prakash Karat intimidating that it might
accept Congress(I) support, Jyoti Basu venturing that his party might
join the government and Sitaram Yechury saying the latter depended
on the concrete situation.123 “[The] difficulty … for the Third Front,”
remarked a leading observer, “is that it is hard to know who is in and
who is out on any given day”.124
The UPA vanquished its rivals, returning to office with 262 parlia-
mentary seats and 36 per cent of the national vote, a significant
improvement against 2004. The Congress(I) captured 206 constituen-
cies, 61 more than in 2004, winning 28.6 per cent of ballots cast. In
contrast, the NDA attained 159 constituencies and 24.1 per cent, a
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massive collapse. The BJP suffered its worst defeat since 1989, taking
116 seats and 18.8 per cent of the vote. Lastly, the Third Front drew
approximately 20 per cent of the vote but just 77 parliamentary seats,
its worst tally ever (see Table 12.3).
The verdict revealed the failure of proponents of the third force to
deepen popular democratic mobilization, and recognize the long-term
nexus between economic development and social empowerment, in
their traditional regional strongholds.125 The successors of the Janata
parivar experienced momentous setbacks. In Bihar, Nitish Kumar of
the JD(U) castigated the governance failures and poor development
record of the RJD and LJP. Championing the slogan vikaas nahin,
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THE DISSOLUTION OF THE THIRD FORCE (1998–2012)
Votes Seats
UPA
INC 28.56 206
JKN 0.12 3
MUL 0.2 2
KCM 0.1 1
NCP 2.04 9
DMK 1.83 18
AITC 3.19 19
JMM 0.21 2
RPI 0.12 0
VCK 0.18 1
IND(INC) 0.11 1
NDA
BJP 18.81 116
AGP 0.43 1
JD(U) 1.42 20
INLD 0.31 0
SS 1.51 11
NPF 0.2 1
SDF 0.04 1
RLD 0.43 5
TRS 0.01 2
AD 0.96 4
Third Front
BSP 6.17 21
TDP 2.51 6
AIADMK 1.67 9
BJD 1.59 14
JD(S) 0.01 3
MDMK <0.01 1
PMK 0.01 0
HJC <0.01 1
CPI(M) 5.33 16
CPI 1.43 4
RSP 0.38 2
FBL 0.32 2
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KEC 0.08 0
IND(Left) 0.07 0
Total 19.58 79
Fourth Front
SP 3.43 23
LJP <0.01 0
RJD 1.27 4
Total 4.7 27
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THE DISSOLUTION OF THE THIRD FORCE (1998–2012)
sized social justice along narrow caste lines fared badly. Indeed, the
tenure of the UPA saw levels of anti-incumbency, which undercut
three-quarters of all state governments between 1989 and 1999, fall to
46 per cent between 2004 and 2008.136 Yet the federal party system
had not renationalized. The collective seat ratio of the Congress(I) and
BJP had substantially rebounded. Yet the combined relative vote share,
in long-term secular decline, remained less than 48 per cent.137
Conversely, state parties together accounted for approximately 29 per
cent of the overall popular vote, a constant ratio since 1999. 70 per
cent of the electorate professed loyalty to their region before the
nation.138 Moreover, the Congress(I) improved its vote share by 2 per
cent since 2004 by contesting 27 extra seats. Yet the party seized less
than 30 per cent nationally. Its improved parliamentary strength
reflected smart alliances in key states and the rise of several new
regional formations, such as the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena in
Maharashtra and Praja Rajyam Party in Andhra Pradesh, which dis-
proportionately hurt its state-level adversaries. In contrast, the BJP lost
the BJD during the campaign and failed to recover erstwhile allies such
as the TDP, Trinamool and the AIADMK. The Congress(I)’s domina-
dle classes and big bourgeoisie, which benefitted immensely from prim-
itive accumulation and external liberalization, reinforced the
Congress(I). Lastly, “[the] call for an alternative secular government
[without programmatic unity] … could not be believed by the people.”
One part of the CPI(M) leadership vowed to overcome “wrong trends”
within the party—the factional infighting in Kerala and backlash
against industrialization and social welfare deficits in West Bengal—by
pursuing a “rectification campaign” to restore organizational disci-
pline and ideological morale, while another underscored efforts to
reunify the socialists and the communists.139 Nonetheless, party intel-
lectuals stood defiant. Highlighting the resurgence of the Latin
American left, they claimed that embracing neoliberal development in
India would pauperize the countryside and push the basic classes
towards Islamic fundamentalism or Maoist nihilism, annihilating the
true modern Left. “Anti-imperialism is not a product of the Left’s
315
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Yet the end came first. In May 2011, the communist Left simultane-
ously lost elected office in the two states that had defined its trajectory.
In Kerala, the Congress(I)-led UDF defeated the LDF, the former win-
ning 72 assembly seats while the latter retained 68. It was the narrow-
est of victories: less than 1 per cent of the popular vote separated the
rival blocs.142 In West Bengal, however, the Left Front endured an
ignominious defeat.143 Led by the maverick populist Mamata Banerjee,
the Trinamool Congress swept to power, winning 39 per cent of the
popular vote and 184 of 294 state assembly seats. The Left kept just
60. To some extent, it was a misleading result. The communist parties,
retaining a plurality of support amongst the early beneficiaries of land
reform, still carried 41 per cent of ballots cast. Nevertheless, small
farmers and sharecroppers, as well as Muslims, swung to the
Trinamool in large numbers.144 Some blamed the deradicalization of
the Left, beginning in the mid-1980s and accelerating post-liberaliza-
tion.145 Many others claimed that its parties had to face new economic
dynamics. The communist Left, having persevered for an astonishing
34 years, had finally succumbed to defeat.
Purists in the CPI(M) stood firm. On the one hand, they distin-
guished “the practical policies of state governments” from the party,
which “embodie[d] a theory”. Conflating the two was an “inversion
of reason”.146 On the other, merely reforming neoliberalism amounted
to “empiricisation” and “the small change of politics”, “uninformed
by the project of transcending capitalism”. Doing so would destroy the
distinctiveness of the Left, which remained the sole custodian of basic
class interests, which “no coalition of reformist forces, no matter how
well-meaning and serious, can possibly replace”.147 In April 2012, the
CPI(M) steeled its conviction at the 20th party congress in Kozhikode,
re-electing General Secretary Prakash Karat. Renouncing future
attempts to create a third front, the party undertook to build Left unity
by focusing on peasants and workers and Dalits and Adivasis, limiting
joint action with other parties to questions of federalism and secular-
316
THE DISSOLUTION OF THE THIRD FORCE (1998–2012)
ism. The latest experiment of the third force, amidst rising inequalities
and financial crises, was a shambles. It justified the change of tack.
Yet the grounds for idealizing a future communist society, and the
strategies necessary to achieve it, provoked genuine debate. “The
CPI(M) has always believed in applying Marxism-Leninism to the con-
crete conditions of India,” proclaimed Karat, “[we] have never tried to
emulate models abroad.”148 Yet other leading Politburo members, such
as Sitaram Yechury, called for a model of socialism rooted in Indian
conditions.149 The absence of former chief minister Buddhadeb
Bhattacharya, ostensibly due to poor health, intimated further dis-
sent.150 Ultimately the smaller communist parties expressed historic res-
ignation.151 Relinquishing a post he had held since 1996, the CPI
General Secretary Ardhendu Bhushan Bardhan confessed, “I do not
claim the Left is an alternative. We too drew a blank … [the] idea of a
programmatic front is not yet clear. We will have to go through many
struggles”. He humbly acknowledged that “I could not spread the
party in the Hindi heartland. It is futile to think of any radical or social
change in Indian politics without the heartland.” Ultimately, Bardhan
revisited the pivotal years of the 1990s, culminating in the United
Front: “It was a historic blunder. The fact that India would have had
a communist prime minister, maybe for one-and-a-half or two years …
That Obama phrase, ‘Yes we can’, it is a meaningful phrase.” Many of
his comrades undoubtedly blanched. Yet Bardhan, echoing Jyoti Basu,
had it right. Imagining the possibilities of the broader Indian left meant
judging plausible futures, at a given historical moment, against the mis-
takes of the past.
317
CONCLUSION
319
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320
CONCLUSION
321
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322
CONCLUSION
323
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324
CONCLUSION
was not simply because every foreign minister enjoyed greater discre-
tion in coalition governments.16 The ‘Gujral doctrine’ represented the
broader political orientation of the third force, tempering India’s tra-
ditionally overbearing posture in the subcontinent, in contrast the
Congress(I) and even the BJP. The divergent regional perspectives that
325
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326
CONCLUSION
327
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328
CONCLUSION
political ideologies shaped the Janata Party, National Front and United
Front, not to mention the National Democratic Alliance and United
Progressive Alliance. Simply put, despite the ubiquity of manifold
power struggles during their respective tenures, only a single minimum
winning coalition emerged after 1989. Hence the premise that parties
seek office, policy and votes, and view these goals as clearly defined,
mutually exclusive and exogenously determined, overstates the polar-
ity between them. Moreover, it evades the questions of strategy and
tactics—what to prioritize, with whom and to what extent, and how—
that bedevil actual coalition bargaining. Comprehending these debates
through singular theoretical paradigms becomes very difficult.
Second, the proclivity of comparativists to study the formation and
demise of coalitions at the expense of actual government decision-mak-
ing, and to construe such moments as independent of prior events and
future expectations, makes it hard to answer such questions. Indeed,
the ontological presuppositions that underlie these methodological
choices mask real dilemmas. Parsimonious theoretical models, which
posit linear causal mechanisms to elucidate composite outcomes, max-
imize explanatory leverage. Yet they risk misconstruing significant
facts and messy realities that bear on the outcome. Studying the forma-
tion, performance and demise of coalition experiments as intercon-
nected processes, and analyzing the concatenation of actors, structures
and contingencies that produce various outcomes, frequently reveal
important configurative effects. Yet temporal contingencies and com-
plex causal chains make theoretical generalization difficult. Clear
trade-offs exist. The predominance of parsimonious theoretical mod-
els and relatively static large-N studies of coalition politics in compar-
ative scholarship, however, provides a strong incentive to pursue ana-
lytical case studies that trace causal processes to a greater degree.
Finally, despite representing an extreme case, the study of national
coalition politics in India offers potential comparative insights. Since
the 1980s, the number of single-party majority governments in advan
ced industrialized democracies in western Europe and beyond has
significantly declined, comprising less than a third of all governing
formations.27 The vast majority of these polities employ PR regimes.
Nonetheless, the conditions that historically enabled two-party domi-
nance in several Westminster-style democracies have waned too,
encouraging greater parliamentary fragmentation over the last decade.28
In Britain, the growing electoral popularity of the Liberal Democrats,
329
divided we govern
330
CONCLUSION
331
divided we govern
332
CONCLUSION
333
divided we govern
334
CONCLUSION
Jagjivan Ram during the former and Devi Lal and Chandrasekhar dur-
ing the latter—began their careers with Congress. H.D. Deve Gowda
and I.K. Gujral, who led the United Front, did as well. Narayan had
335
divided we govern
336
CONCLUSION
BJP from entering government. Yet it was partly due to pressure by the
Left. Moreover, the BJP shared power—if precariously—with the JD
in various states. The growing militancy of Hindutva, symbolized by
the Ramjanmabhoomi movement, required staunch opposition. In
short, the CPI(M) tactical line evinced good political judgment.
But preventing its chief minister of West Bengal, Jyoti Basu, from
becoming prime minister of the United Front in the late 1990s made
less sense. Sharing executive power in a large governing coalition nec-
essarily involved ambiguities, constraints and risks. The CPI(M) would
have lacked a majority of seats in the Council of Ministers. Indeed, the
national electoral popularity of the party was a shadow of what the
PCI enjoyed in Italy in the mid-1970s when the latter struck its ‘his-
337
divided we govern
toric compromise’. Yet the PCI was never offered cabinet participation,
let alone the prime ministership. Joining government, given that it
would have enjoyed sizeable representation alongside the CPI, afforded
opportunities. Prime ministers lack de facto control over ministries,
especially in large coalition governments, yet the capacity of parties to
make or break governments in parliamentary systems typically enhan
ces the benefits of office.61 Formal ministerial authority furnished the
power to set the agenda, to draft, shape and push legislative proposals
in cabinet, and to delay or veto them before parliament had a chance
to deliberate if necessary.62 Historically, many Left parties have sought
to shape government agendas through outside pressure in order to
maintain their ideological distinctiveness, especially in polities where
elections are competitive and decisive. Yet such a strategy usually pre-
sumed considerable policy influence through parliamentary oversight
and strong, decentralized and proportional legislative committees, fea-
tures that India’s parliamentary democracy lacked in the late 1990s.63
Moreover, power is a function of complex strategic behavior in large
multiparty coalitions: the greater the number of players, the more stra-
tegic action matters, diminishing the salience of simple legislative
strength.64 Being the single largest party, as the BJP and Congress(I)
respectively discovered in the National Democratic Alliance and United
Progressive Alliance, cannot determine every important outcome. And
ministerial office does not ensure real clout. Deve Gowda and Gujral
circumvented the CPI Home Minister Indrajit Gupta on key appoint-
ments under his remit, demonstrating the limits of formal executive
power. Yet de jure authority, as the Fifth Pay Commission demon-
strated, more often mattered. The longstanding complaints of discrim-
ination by the Centre towards the CPI(M) during the Congress era,
and acknowledgement that such practices lessened during other dis-
pensations, suggested as much. A Basu prime ministership would have
altered the balance of power in the Council of Ministers. The forma-
tion of the United Front constituted a political opening, creating new
pathways, amplifying the significance of agency. It demanded the exer-
cise of good political judgment, to foresee the likely consequences of
particular actions at the moment of decision, even if these uncertain-
ties made it harder to judge well.
Leading a diverse minority government, beholden to a historic rival,
posed obvious risks. The Congress(I) would have likely toppled a Basu
ministry prematurely too. Redirecting capitalist development from
338
CONCLUSION
339
divided we govern
340
CONCLUSION
341
divided we govern
342
CONCLUSION
343
divided we govern
344
pp. [1–4]
NOTES
INTRODUCTION
1. Most contemporary scholarship of the Indian left exclude its socialist parties,
given their weak organizational structures and heterodox ideological pro-
grammes, focusing solely on the parliamentary and non-parliamentary commu-
nists. However, it is important to examine both traditions, whatever their
advantages and shortcomings. A significant exception remains Paul R. Brass and
Marcus F. Franda (eds), Radical Politics in South Asia (Cambridge: MIT Press,
1973).
2. India is a federal polity: a Union of 29 states, as of today, and seven union ter-
ritories. In 1996, there were 25 states. The national government in New Delhi
is frequently called the Centre; states, with their own capitals and legislative
assemblies, are sometimes called the regions.
3. See Yogendra Yadav, “Reconfiguration in Indian politics: state assembly elec-
tions, 1993–1995,” in Partha Chatterjee (ed.), State and Politics in India (New
Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 177–208; and idem, “The third elec-
toral system,” Seminar, 480 (August 1999): 14–20.
4. Ramesh Thakur, “A changing of the guard in India,” Asian Survey, 38, 6 (June
1998), p. 616.
5. For example, see Paul R. Brass, The Politics of India since Independence, 2nd edi-
ory, comparison and recent history,” in D.D. Khanna and Gert W. Kueck (eds.),
Principles, Power and Politics (New Delhi: Macmillan India, 1999), p. 284.
7. For example, see T.V. Sathyamurthy, “Impact of Centre-state relations on
345
pp.
[4–9] NOTES
9. For example, see Baldev Raj Nayar, “Policy and performance under demo-
cratic coalitions,” Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, 37, 2
(July 1999): 22–56.
10. Important exceptions include Lloyd I. Rudolph and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph,
University Press, 1998); Doug McAdam, Political Process and the Development
of Black Insurgency, 1930–1970 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982);
and Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions: a comparative analysis of
France, Russia and China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979).
346
NOTES pp. [9–16]
1. Many early studies of European coalition politics analyzed specific cases. Their
impact on recent theoretical debates is slight, however. See Vernon Bogdanor
(ed.), Coalition Government in Western Europe (London: Heinemann
Educational Books, 1983); and Geoffrey Pridham (ed.), Coalitional Behaviour
in Theory and Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).
2. Bent Flyvbjerg, Making Social Science Matter (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2001), pp. 66–7.
3. See the articles of Paul R. Brass, “Party systems and governmental instability in
Indian states” and “Coalition politics in north India,” in Paul R. Brass, Caste,
Faction and Party in Indian Politics, Volume One: faction and party (New
Delhi: Chanakya Publications, 1984), pp. 19–62 and 97–135, respectively.;
Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Strategy, Risk and Personality in Coalition Politics:
the case of India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975); and Subrata
K. Mitra, Governmental Instability in Indian States: West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar
India: lessons from theory, comparison and recent history,” in D.D. Khanna and
Gert W. Kueck (eds), Principles, Power and Politics (New Delhi: Macmillan
347
pp.
[16–18] NOTES
coalitions in Europe and Israel (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986)
focuses on party leaders.
12. Michael Laver, “Legislatures and parliaments in comparative context,” in
Barry Weingast and Donald A. Wittman (eds), The Oxford Handbook of
348
NOTES pp. [19–22]
Routledge, 1994).
24. Seminal policy-realization theories include Robert Axelrod, Conflict of Interest:
a theory of divergent goals with applications to politics (Chicago: Markham
Publishing Company, 1970); and Abram de Swann, Coalition Theories and
Cabinet Formations: a study of formal theories of coalition formation applied
to nine European parliaments after 1918 (New York: Elsevier Scientific
Publishing Company, 1973).
25. Luebbert, “Coalition theory and government formation in multiparty democ-
racies,” p. 239.
26. Anthony Downs, An Economic Theory of Democracy (New York: Harper,
1957), p. 28.
27. Downs, An Economic Theory of Democracy, pp. 30–31.
28. Downs, An Economic Theory of Democracy, p. 159.
29. Sridharan, “Principles, power and coalition politics in India, pp. 270–291.
30. Majeed, “Coalitions as power-sharing arrangements,” pp. 10–11.
31. Paul R. Brass, “Leadership conflict and the disintegration of the Indian social-
ist movement: personal ambition, power and policy,” in Paul R. Brass, Caste,
Faction and Party in Indian Politics, Volume One: faction and party (New
Delhi: Chanakya Publications, 1984), pp. 169 and 181–186.
32. Sridharan, “Principles, power and coalition politics in India.”
33. Majeed, “Coalitions as power-sharing arrangements,” p. 25.
34. Respectively, see Kanchan Chandra, Why Ethnic Parties Succeed: patronage
and ethnic head counts in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2004), pp. 220–1; and Andrew Wyatt, “The limitations on coalition politics in
India: the case of electoral alliances in Uttar Pradesh,” Commonwealth &
Comparative Politics, 37, 2 (July 1999): 1–21.
35. Max Weber, “The profession and vocation of politics,” in Peter Lassman and
Ronald Speirs (eds), Weber: political writings (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1994), p. 353.
36. Zoya Hasan, “Introduction,” in Zoya Hasan (ed.), Parties and Party Politics
in India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 21–33.
37. Luebbert, “Coalition theory and government formation in multiparty democ-
racies,” p. 243.
38. See Luebbert, “Coalition theory and government formation in multiparty
democracies,” p. 244, and Gregory Luebbert, “A theory of government forma-
tion,” Comparative Political Studies, 17, 2 (July 1984), pp. 237–43.
39. See Wolfgang C. Müller and Kaare Strøm, “Political parties and hard choices.”
349
pp.
[23–25] NOTES
In Wolfgang C. Müller and Kaare Strøm (eds), Policy, Office or Votes? How
the importance of size and ideology for the formation of governing coalitions
in parliamentary democracies,” American Journal of Political Science, 28
(1984): 94–103, and B. Grofman, “The comparative analysis of coalition for-
350
NOTES pp. [25–30]
cleavages and the Indian party system,” British Journal of Political Science, 19,
2 (April 1989): 207.
63. See Alistair McMillan, “The BJP coalition: partisanship and power-sharing in
government,” in Katharine Adeney and Lawrence Sáez (eds), Coalition Politics
and Hindu nationalism (London: Routledge, 2005), pp. 13–35.
64. I owe this insight to E. Sridharan.
351
pp.
[30–34] NOTES
71. McMillan, “The BJP coalition,” p. 16. More generally, see Lloyd I. Rudolph
(ed.), The Historic Turn in the Human Sciences (Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press, 1996), p. 145.
76. The following paragraph summarizes Gene D. Overstreet and Marshall
80. It partly reflects the assumption that formal political institutions adequately
settle power equations within the executive. But it is also because most com-
parativists seek to explain the formation and demise of specific coalition gov-
ernments as discrete events in large-N studies, paying less attention to how
coalition governments actually work, which are hard to model using current
statistical techniques. See Strøm and Nyblade, “Coalition theory and govern-
ment formation,” p. 799.
81. Kailash, “Middle game in coalition politics,” pp. 307–317.
82. Majeed, “Coalitions as power-sharing arrangements,” p. 6.
83. In general, see Gretchen Helmke and Steven Levitsky, “Informal institutions
and comparative politics: A research agenda,” Perspectives on Politics, 2, 4
(December 2004), p. 730.
84. Kailash, “Middle game in coalition politics,” pp. 309 and 314.
85. Ruth Berins Collier and David Collier, Shaping the Political Arena: critical
junctures, the labor movement, and regime dynamics in Latin America
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), p. 27.
352
NOTES pp. [34–36]
353
pp.
[36–38] NOTES
102. M.J. Akbar, “Interview with Jyoti Basu,” The Asian Age, 2 January 1997.
human condition have failed (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998),
p. 327.
106. See Anna Gryzmala-Busse, “Time will tell? temporality and the analysis of
causal mechanisms and processes,” Comparative Political Studies, 44, 9
(December 2010): 1267–97.
107. See Edgar Kiser and Howard T. Welser, “The microfoundations of analytic
354
NOTES pp. [39–45]
Hoeber Rudolph, James C. Scott and Theda Skocpol, “The role of theory in
355
pp.
[46–50] NOTES
cleavages and the Indian party system,” British Journal of Political Science, 19,
2 (April 1989): 191–210.
9. The Congress never exercised political hegemony in West Bengal, Kerala,
Tamil Nadu and Punjab, or dominance in Orissa, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh
and Assam. See Yogendra Yadav and Suhas Palshikar, “From hegemony to
convergence: party system and electoral politics in the Indian states, 1952–
2002,” Journal of Indian School of Political Economy, XV, 1&2 (January–
June 2003): 12–13.
10. Vivek Chibber, Locked in Place: state-building and late industrialization in
India (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), pp. 110–126.
11. Kohli, The State and Poverty in India, pp. 61–64.
12. As the reader will note, the vote shares of the Hindu Right and the Socialist
Left in 1977 are missing, due to difficulties calculating reliable data. Hence the
table only provides the corresponding values of the Congress and the
Communist Left.
13. Kohli, The State and Poverty in India, p. 60. See Ronald J. Herring, Land to
the Tiller: the political economy of agrarian reform in South Asia (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1983).
14. Chatterjee, A Possible India, pp. 12–35.
15. H. M. Rajeshekara, “The nature of Indian federalism: a critique,” Asian
3. See also D.L. Sheth “Ram Manohar Lohia on caste in Indian politics,” in
356
NOTES pp. [50–53]
37. Noorani, “Communist memories,” and “Of Stalin, Telangana & Indian revo-
lution,” Frontline, 17 December 2011.
lution, 2nd edition (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 65–6.
357
pp.
[53–55] NOTES
Asian Survey, 8, 6 (June 1968), p. 490. According to Fickett, the PSP and SSP
directly contested 43 parliamentary constituencies and 299 state assembly dis-
tricts in the fourth general elections in 1967, which likely cost them 9 and 41
seats in each arena, respectively.
51. Paul Brass, “Leadership conflict and the disintegration of the Indian socialist
movement: personal ambition, power and policy,” in Paul R. Brass, Caste,
Faction and Party in Indian Politics, Volume One: faction and party (New
Delhi: Chanakya Publications, 1984), pp. 169 and 181–6. Fickett describes the
socialists’ leaders as “prima donnas, each espousing his own kind of political
salvation, each indulging in the fruitless ideological abstractions … and each
unwilling to compromise with the others.” Fickett, “The Praja Socialist Party
of India,” pp. 829–32. See also Christophe Jaffrelot, India’s Silent Revolution:
the rise of the low castes in north Indian politics (London: Hurst/New Delhi:
Permanent Black, 2003), p. 307.
52. Quoted in Guha, The Makers of Modern India, pp. 358.
53. Jaffrelot, India’s Silent Revolution, pp. 260–1. By 1967, four-fifths of the lead-
ership of the PSP was college educated, three quarters were upper caste and
more than nine-tenths were greater than 40 years old. See Fickett, “The Praja
Socialist Party of India,” pp. 827–9. Brass contends that caste was a significant
factor for the break-up of the socialists in Bihar, but less so in Uttar Pradesh.
See “Leadership conflict and the disintegration of the Indian socialist move-
ment,” pp. 171–81.
54. Fickett, “The Praja Socialist Party of India,” pp. 829–32. That said, Fickett
also agrees that the party “neglected a considerable portion of its natural
constituency”.
55. See Brass, “Political parties and the radical left in South Asia,” pp. 9–19.
56. Marcus F. Franda, Radical Politics in West Bengal (Cambridge: MIT Press,
358
NOTES pp. [56–58]
(eds), Dominance and State Power in India: decline of a social order, Volume
II (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 482–518.
67. The Congress share of seats in parliament, however, remained approximately
54 per cent. Ramachandra Guha, India after Gandhi: the history of the world’s
largest democracy (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), p. 420.
68. Myron Weiner, “The 1971 elections and the Indian party system,” Asian
Survey, 11, 12 (December 1971), p. 1156.
69. The first was the National Conference of Jammu & Kashmir. See Narendra
Subramanian, Ethnicity and Populist Mobilization: political parties, citizens
and democracy in south India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999),
p. 30.
70. Subramanian, Ethnicity and Populist Mobilization, p. 31; Guha, The Makers
of Modern India, p. 223.
71. See Jaffrelot, India’s Silent Revolution, pp. 166–71.
72. Alfred Stepan, Juan Linz and Yogendra Yadav, Crafting State-Nations: India
and other multinational democracies (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 2011), p. 124.
73. The 1950 Constitution had stipulated that English would no longer serve as
the main language across the Union after 15 years. See Stepan, Linz and Yadav,
Crafting State-Nations, pp. 127–30.
74. Heller, The Labor of Development, pp. 85 and 49.
75. Heller, The Labor of Development, pp. 174–5.
76. Heller, The Labor of Development, p. 49.
77. Paul R. Brass, “Coalition politics in north India,” in Paul R. Brass, Caste,
Faction and Party in Indian Politics, Volume One: faction and party (New
Delhi: Chanakya Publications, 1984), pp. 120–4.
78. Bidyut Chakrabarty, Forging Power: coalition politics in India (New Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 68–71.
79. Franda, Radical Politics in West Bengal, pp. 124 and 146.
359
pp.
[59–62] NOTES
Faction and Party in Indian Politics, Volume One: faction and party (New
Delhi: Chanakya Publications, 1984), pp. 19–62 and 97–135; Chakrabarty,
Forging Power, pp. 71–7.
94. Guha, India after Gandhi, pp. 427–32.
95. Brass, “Leadership conflict and the disintegration of the Indian socialist
movement,” pp. 182–5.
96. Limaye, Janata Party Experiment, p. 542.
97. Franda, Radical Politics in West Bengal, pp. 232–8.
98. Franda, Radical Politics in West Bengal, pp. 201–3.
99. Fickett, “The Praja Socialist Party of India,” p. 827; Subramanian, Ethnicity
and Populist Mobilization, p. 227.
100. Subramanian, Ethnicity and Populist Mobilization, pp. 204–21.
101. Hasan, “The prime minister and the left,” pp. 217–8.
102. Kumaramangalam also influenced the passage of the 24th, 25th and 26th
amendments to the Constitution, which granted parliament the authority to
dilute fundamental rights, restrict private property and abolish the privy
purses. Rudolph and Rudolph, In Pursuit of Lakshmi, pp. 107–8.
103. Myron Weiner, “India’s new political institutions,” Asian Survey, 16, 9
(September 1976): 898–901.
104. I thank Phil Oldenburg for pointing this out to me.
105. Weiner, “The 1971 elections and the Indian party system,” p. 1163.
106. In August 1971, the remnants of the PSP formed a new Socialist party, but it
split yet again by December 1972. See Brass, “Leadership conflict and the dis-
integration of the Indian socialist movement,” pp. 160–1.
107. Weiner, “The 1971 elections and the Indian party system,” p. 1161.
360
NOTES pp. [62–66]
tory? new dalit writings from Tamil Nadu,” in Partha Chatterjee (ed.), Wages
of Freedom: fifty years of the Indian nation-state (New Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 1998), pp. 292–310.
121. Corbridge and Harriss, Reinventing India, p. 87.
122. Chandra, In the Name of Democracy, pp. 55–6.
123. Transcript of interview with Madhu Dandavate, Acc. No. 788, Oral History
Division, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi, pp. 139–40.
124. Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics, pp. 266.
125. Chandra, In the Name of Democracy, p. 32.
126. Hasan, “The prime minister and the left,” p. 224.
127. Weiner, “India’s new political institutions,” pp. 898–901.
128. Guha, India after Gandhi, p. 484.
129. Chandra, In the Name of Democracy, p. 188.
130. His expected succession failed to happen due to a plane crash in June 1980.
After thirty years of silence, the Congress(I) blamed Sanjay for the most con-
troversial aspects of the Emergency. See Times of India, 29 December 2010.
361
pp.
[67–71] NOTES
Dominance and State Power in Modern India: decline of a social order, vol-
ume II (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 510–1.
11. Francine R. Frankel, India’s Political Economy 1947–2004: the gradual revo-
lution, 2nd edition (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 571.
12. Madhu Limaye, Janata Party Experiment: an insider’s account of opposition
politics: 1977–1980, volume two (New Delhi: B.R. Publishing, 1994), p. 544.
362
NOTES pp. [71–73]
363
pp.
[73–78] NOTES
Sharma (ed.), The Janata (People’s) Struggle: the finest hour of the Indian peo-
ple—with underground documents, resistance literature and correspondence
relating to the advent of the Janata Party (New Delhi: Sanjivan Press, 1977),
pp. 300–4.
35. Letter from Charan Singh to Ashok Mehta, 27 September 1976, in Sharma,
364
NOTES pp. [78–81]
phir se ubharne ka bhi khatra hai … uske anoorup hamein sabit hona cha-
hiye.” Letter from Jayaprakash Narayan to Chandrasekhar, 9 May 1978,
Janata Party Papers, Subject File 311, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library,
New Delhi.
53. Rudolph and Rudolph, In Pursuit of Lakshmi, pp. 164–5.
54. Guha, India after Gandhi, p. 537.
55. Nivedita Menon and Aditya Nigam, Power and Contestation: India since 1989
(Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 2008), p. 6.
56. Austin, Working a Democratic Constitution, p. 403.
57. Bidyut Chakrabarty, Forging Power: coalition politics in India (New Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 109; Stuart Corbridge and John Harriss,
Reinventing India: liberalization, Hindu nationalism and popular democracy
(Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000), p. 90.
58. Austin, Working a Democratic Constitution, pp. 571–2.
59. Guha, India after Gandhi, pp. 527–8.
60. The most prominent of these provisions include the right of Jammu & Kashmir
to concur on all national legislation barring defense, foreign affairs and com-
munications, and to promulgate a separate constitution, rules for citizenship
(necessary for holding land) and titles for its officials. However, the Congress(I)
violated many of these rights from 1953 to 1968, repeatedly imprisoning
Sheikh Abdullah and issuing 48 presidential orders. See Stepan, Linz and
Yadav, Crafting State-Nations, pp. 111–3. Several commentators have criti-
cized the Shimla Accord, saying it underscored Abdullah’s submission to
Indian rule and Congress dominance. See Sumantra Bose, The Challenge in
Kashmir: democracy, self-determination and a just peace (New Delhi: Sage,
1997), pp. 88–90.
61. Guha, India after Gandhi, p. 484.
62. See Sten Widmalm, “The rise and fall of democracy in Jammu and Kashmir:
1975–1989,” in Amrita Basu and Atul Kohli (eds), Community Conflicts and
the State (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 152.
63. Pranab Bardhan, The Political Economy of Development in India, expanded
edition with an epilogue on the political economy of reform in India (New
Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2012), p. 82.
64. Austin, Working a Democratic Constitution, p. 404.
65. See Ashis Nandy, “Federalism, the ideology of the state and cultural plural-
ism,” in Nirmal Mukherji and Balveer Arora (eds), Federalism in India: origins
and development (New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1992), pp. 27–41.
66. Ghanshyam Shah, “The prime minister and the ‘weaker sections of society’,”
in James Manor (ed.), Nehru to the Nineties: the changing office of the prime
minister of India (London: Hurst, 1994), p. 252.
67. Rekha Saxena, Situating Federalism: mechanisms of intergovernmental rela-
tions in Canada and India (New Delhi: Manohar, 2006), pp. 265–266.
68. See Jyotirindra Das Gupta, “The Janata phase: reorganization and redirection
in Indian politics,” in Zoya Hasan (ed.), Parties and Party Politics in India
(New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 357–62.
365
pp.
[81–83] NOTES
69. See Shah, “The prime minister and the ‘weaker sections of society’,” p. 252;
Chakrabarty, Forging Power, pp. 118–22.
70. Brass, “Political parties and the radical left in South Asia,” pp. 72–3.
71. A. Appadorai and M.S. Rajan, India’s Foreign Policy and Relations (New
pp. 186–7.
85. Appadorai and Rajan, India’s Foreign Policy and Relations, p. 609.
86. Atal Bihari Vajpayee, New Dimensions of India’s Foreign Policy, with a fore-
word by M.C. Chagla (New Delhi: Vision Books, 1979), p. 38.
87. Compare Sumit Ganguly, “The prime minister and foreign and defence poli-
cies,” in James Manor (ed.), Nehru to the Nineties: the changing office of the
prime minister of India (London: Hurst, 1994), p. 154; C. Raja Mohan,
Crossing the Rubicon: the shaping of India’s new foreign policy (New York:
Palgrave, 2004), p. 264; and Nalini Kant Jha, “Coalition governments,”
p. 302.
366
NOTES pp. [83–87]
1953 and tabled its report in parliament on 3 September 1956. However, par-
liament only discussed the report in November 1965. See Jaffrelot, India’s
Silent Revolution, pp. 221–229.
90. Zoya Hasan, Quest for Power: oppositional movements and post-Congress
politics in Uttar Pradesh (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 146.
91. Byres, “Charan Singh,” p. 162.
92. Ashutosh Varshney, Democracy, Development and the Countryside: urban-
rural struggles in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995),
pp. 104–5.
93. Atul Kohli, Democracy and Discontent: India’s growing crisis of ungovern-
ability (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 312.
94. For data, see Rudolph and Rudolph, In Pursuit of Lakshmi, pp. 240–2.
95. Bardhan, The Political Economy of Development in India, pp. 65–8.
96. Vijay Joshi and I.M.D. Little, India: macroeconomics and political economy,
367
pp.
[87–90] NOTES
117. “Bagh ujad gaya hai.” See transcript of interview with Madhu Dandavate,
p. 135.
118. See James Manor, “The electoral process amid awakening and decay: reflec-
tions on the Indian general election of 1980,” in Peter Lyon and James Manor
(eds), Transfer and Transformation: political institutions in the new common-
wealth (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1983), pp. 97–104.
119. See Janata Party Election Manifesto 1980.
120. See Indian National Congress(I), Election Manifesto 1980.
121. Harold A. Gould, “The second coming: the 1980 elections in India’s Hindi
ger political authority and social tension,” Asian Survey, 22, 2 (February 1982):
127.
4. Andersen, “India in 1981,” p. 127.
5. See James Manor, “Parties and the party system,” in Atul Kohli (ed.), India’s
Democracy: an analysis of changing state-society relations (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1988), pp. 62–99.
6. Myron Weiner, “Congress restored: continuities and discontinuities in Indian
politics,” Asian Survey, 22, 4 (April 1982): 339–47.
7. Deepak Nayyar, “Economic development and political democracy: interaction
of economics and politics in independent India,” Economic and Political
Weekly, 33, 49 (5 December 1998), pp. 3125–6.
9. Assam accounted for approximately 60 per cent of the timber, tea and oil har-
vested by the country. Yet its royalties were a fraction of the total revenue that
New Delhi accrued from these resources. Central resource transfers remained
368
NOTES pp. [90–92]
poor too. The reorganization of states in the northeast, which reduced the size
of “greater Assam”, intensified these grievances. See Jyotirindra Das Gupta,
“Ethnicity, democracy and development in India: Assam in a general perspec-
tive,” in Atul Kohli (ed.), India’s Democracy: an analysis of changing state-
society relations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), pp. 144–69;
and Subir Bhaumik, “North-east India: the evolution of a post-colonial
region,” in Partha Chatterjee (ed.), Wages of Freedom: fifty years of the Indian
nation-state (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 317.
10. See Sanjib Baruah, India Against Itself: Assam and the politics of nationality
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), pp. 115–38.
11. Andersen, “India in 1981,” p. 128. The CPI had rejoined the parliamentary left
and anti-Congress forces more generally after belatedly recognizing that Mrs
Gandhi’s administration was an “authoritarian, anti-democratic force”. Achin
Vanaik, The Painful Transition: bourgeois democracy in India (London: Verso,
1990), p. 180.
12. Vanaik, The Painful Transition, pp. 132–3. The following summarizes Atul
Kohli, Democracy and Discontent: India’s growing crisis of ungovernability
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 288–93.
13. Ashutosh Varshney, Democracy, Development and the Countryside: urban-
rural struggles in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995),
p. 139.
14. Transcript of interview with Shri Jyoti Basu, Acc. No. 781, Oral History
Division, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi, p. 124.
15. Kohli, Democracy and Discontent, p. 267.
16. Strike activity was twice the national average. Annual industrial growth slowed
to 1.7 per cent between 1975 and 1985. Patrick Heller, The Labor of
Development: workers and the transformation of capitalism in Kerala, India
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999), pp. 176–7.
17. See Patrick Heller, “Degrees of democracy: some comparative lessons from
India,” World Politics, 52, 4 (2000): 484–519.
18. Polly Datta, “The issue of discrimination in Indian federalism in the post-1977
politics of West Bengal,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the
Middle East, 1, 2 (2005), pp. 453–7.
19. Henry C. Hart, “Political leadership in India: dimensions and limits,” in Atul
23. In August 1984, the governor of Andhra Pradesh, acting on behalf of Mrs
Gandhi, appointed Shaskara Rao, who defected from the TDP, as chief minis-
ter without allowing Rama Rao to test his majority on the floor of the assem-
bly. A popular backlash against the ploy, combined with the widespread pop-
ularity of the TDP’s rice subsidy, helped the party win re-election in the 1985
assembly polls. Observers subsequently noted a growing personality cult and
369
pp.
[92–96] NOTES
centralization of power within the party, however. See Lloyd I. Rudolph and
and authorized the state government the right to deport those arriving after
25 March 1971. Baruah, India Against Itself, p. 139.
370
NOTES pp. [96–99]
Baruah, India Against Itself, pp. 116–7 and 141–3; and Sanjoy Hazarika,
Strangers of the Mist: tales of war and peace from India’s northeast (New
Delhi: Penguin, 1995), p. 156.
46. Yogendra Yadav and Suhas Palshikar, “From hegemony to convergence: party
system and electoral politics in the Indian states, 1952–2002,” Journal of
Indian School of Political Economy, XV, 1&2 (January–June 2003): 28.
47. Balveer Arora, “India’s federal system and the demands of pluralism: crisis and
reform in the ’80s,” in Joyotpaul Chaudhari (ed.), India’s Beleaguered
Federalism: the pluralist challenge (Tempe: Arizona State University, 1992),
pp. 13–5.
48. Seema Mustafa, The Lonely Prophet: V.P. Singh (New Delhi: New Age
1989 in India: the dawn of coalition politics?” Asian Survey, 30, 6 (June
1990): 530.
50. Mustafa, The Lonely Prophet, p. 120.
51. Mustafa, The Lonely Prophet, pp. 88–9.
52. T.J. Nossiter, Marxist State Governments in India: politics, economics and
Indian Political Parties: proceedings and fundamental texts 1989: part one
(New Delhi: Indian Institute of Applied Political Research, 1992), p. 260.
371
pp.
[100–105] NOTES
Independence India, Volume 97: Samajwadi Janata Party and other smaller
groups (New Delhi: Anmol Publications, 2001), pp. 137–9.
55. Partha Chatterjee, A Possible India: essays in political criticism (New Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 163.
56. Vanaik, The Painful Transition, p. 278.
57. L.K. Advani, “Opening speech,” BJP National Executive, Udaipur, 3–5 March
1989, in A.M. Zaidi (ed.), Annual Register of Indian Political Parties: proceed-
ings and fundamental texts 1989: part one (New Delhi: Indian Institute of
Applied Political Research, 1992), pp. 118–9.
58. Andersen, “Election 1989 in India,” p. 535.
59. Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement, pp. 378–81.
60. See Mustafa, The Lonely Prophet, pp. 88 and 119–31.
61. Mustafa, The Lonely Prophet, p. 121.
372
NOTES pp. [106–108]
12. Peter A. Hall and Rosemary Taylor, “Political science and the three new insti-
Political Parties: proceedings and fundamental texts 1990: part one (New
Delhi: Indian Institute of Applied Political Research, 1992), p. 466.
14. The last promise was the first point made by the Janata Dal, The Peoples
Charter—The Party Manifesto, in O.P. Rahlan (ed.), Encyclopedia of Political
373
pp.
[108–114] NOTES
to the Nineties: the changing office of the prime minister of India (London:
Hurst, 1994), pp. 227–8.
27. See Basu, “Parliamentary communism as a historical phenomenon.”
28. Patrick Heller, The Labor of Development: workers and the transformation of
capitalism in Kerala, India (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999),
pp. 207–27.
29. The following summarizes Jaffrelot, India’s Silent Revolution, pp. 336–40.
30. H.N. Bahuguna, its other leader, died in March 1989.
50. Sisson, “India in 1989,” p. 124; Leo E. Rose, “India’s foreign relations: reas-
India Briefing, 1990 (Boulder: Westview Press, 1990), p. 75; M.V. Bratersky
and S.I. Lunyov, “India at the end of the century: transformation into an Asian
374
NOTES pp. [115–118]
62. See Vijay Joshi and I.M.D. Little, India: macroeconomics and political econ-
omy, 1964–1991 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994), pp. 62–5 and
181–6; and Amit Bhaduri and Deepak Nayyar, The Intelligent Person’s Guide
to Liberalization (New Delhi: Penguin, 1996), pp. 22–8.
63. Chatterjee, A Possible India, p. 202.
64. Harkishan Singh Surjeet, “The present political situation and the evolution of
our tactics in perspective,” The Marxist 8, 4 (October–December 1990), p. 15.
65. See Editorial, “What is different?” Economic and Political Weekly 25, 12
(24 March 1990): 579–80; Sanjaya Baru, “A quiet coup in the fisc,” Economic
lution, 2nd edition (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 688.
68. Jaffrelot, India’s Silent Revolution, p. 321.
69. Cited by Guha, India after Gandhi, pp. 599–600.
375
pp.
[118–120] NOTES
Zoya Hasan, Rajeev Bhargava and Balveer Arora (eds), Transforming India:
social and political dynamics of democracy (New Delhi: Oxford University
Press, 2000), pp. 89–120.
74. Zoya Hasan, “Representation and redistribution: the new lower caste politics
of north India,” in Francine R. Frankel, Zoya Hasan, Rajeev Bhargava and
Nehru to the Nineties: the changing office of the prime minister of India
(London: Hurst, 1994), p. 114.
90. Rekha Saxena, Situating Federalism: mechanisms of intergovernmental rela-
tions in Canada and India (New Delhi: Manohar, 2006), pp. 271–2.
91. B.D. Dua, “The prime minister and the federal system,” in James Manor (ed.),
376
NOTES pp. [121–129]
Nehru to the Nineties: the changing office of the prime minister of India
(London: Hurst, 1994), p. 41.
92. Lewis P. Fickett, Jr., “The rise and fall of the Janata Dal,” Asian Survey, 33,
12 (December 1993): 1156–7.
93. National Front Manifesto: Lok Sabha Elections, May 1991.
94. Mustafa, The Lonely Prophet, pp. 128–129.
95. Fickett, Jr., “The rise and fall of the Janata Dal,” pp. 1157–8.
96. Chatterjee, A Possible India, pp. 219–20.
97. Walter K. Andersen, “India’s 1991 election: the uncertain verdict,” Asian
theory, comparison and recent history,” D.D. Khanna and Gert W. Kueck
(eds), Principles, Power and Politics (New Delhi: Macmillan India, 1999),
pp. 270–91.
12. Indian National Congress(I) Election Manifesto 1996, pp. 3–4.
13. Congress(I) Election Manifesto 1996, p. 20.
14. Kaviraj, “The general elections in India,” p. 13.
15. Sukumar Muralidharan, “Heat and haze,” Frontline, 3 May 1996, pp. 4–7.
377
pp.
[130–134] NOTES
pp. 4–11.
19. Interview, New Delhi, 30 January 2000.
22. See James Manor, “‘Ethnicity’ and politics in India,” International Affairs, 72,
3 (July 1996): 459–75.
23. Interview with senior Congress(I) official, New Delhi, 30 January 2000.
1996, pp. 14–5.
26. The allegations concerned a conspiracy, with Rao’s alleged involvement, to
forge documents that indicated illegal offshore funds in the name of the son of
former prime minister V.P. Singh. Prashant Bhushan, “Corruption and the
nessman living in the United Kingdom, filed a complaint against the controver-
sial godman, Chandraswami, for defrauding him of approximately US
$100,000. Chandraswami allegedly assured the former that his personal con-
tacts with Rao would enable him to secure government contracts.
28. In January 1996, four JMM leaders—Shibu Soren, Suraj Mandal, Simon
Mirandi and Shailendra Mahato—confessed to accepting bribes to vote for
Rao’s ministry in the July 1993 confidence vote.
29. Venkitesh Ramakrishnan, “Strategy slips,” Frontline, 3 May 1996, pp. 7–9.
30. Pratap Bhanu Mehta, “Reform political parties first,” Seminar, 497 (January
2001): 38–41.
31. Interview with senior AIIC(T) politician, New Delhi, 8 February 2000.
35. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Election Manifesto 1996, pp. 10 and 64.
36. BJP Election Manifesto 1996, p. 8.
37. BJP Election Manifesto 1996, pp. 34–40.
38. BJP Election Manifesto 1996, p. 18.
39. BJP Election Manifesto 1996, pp. 42–5.
40. Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics, pp. 536–9.
41. BJP Election Manifesto 1996, pp. 16–20.
378
NOTES pp. [134–138]
379
pp.
[138–140] NOTES
Chatterjee (ed.), Wages of Freedom: fifty years of the Indian nation-state (New
Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 180; Polly Datta, “The issue of dis-
crimination in Indian federalism in the post-1977 politics of West Bengal,”
Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 1, 2 (2005):
459.
68. Interview with senior regional politician, New Delhi, 12 November 1998.
69. Transcript of interview with Shri Jyoti Basu, Acc. No. 781, Oral History
Division, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi, p. 196.
70. Yogendra Yadav and Suhas Palshikar, “From hegemony to convergence: party
system and electoral politics in the Indian states, 1952–2002,” Journal of
Indian School of Political Economy, XV, 1&2 (January–June 2003): 30–2.
71. Jagdish Bhagwati, “The design of Indian development,” in Isher Judge
Ahluwalia and I.M.D. Little (eds), India’s Economic Reforms and Develop
ment: essays for Manmohan Singh (New Delhi: Oxford University Press,
1998), p. 38.
72. James Manor, “Regional parties in federal systems,” in Balveer Arora and
Douglas Verney (eds), Multiple Identities in a Single State: Indian federalism
in comparative perspective (New Delhi: Konark, 1995), p. 116.
73. Chatterjee, A Possible India: essays in political criticism (New Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 1997), pp. 223–4.
74. Kaviraj, “The general election in India,” p. 15.
75. Interview with CPI(M) Politburo member, New Delhi, 14 February 2000.
ical parties in India,” in Larry Diamond and Richard Gunther (eds), Political
Parties and Democracy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001),
pp. 231–2.
86. André Béteille, “The future of the Backward Classes: the competing demands
of status and power,” in André Béteille, Society and Politics in India: essays in
comparative perspective (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 157;
and Myron Weiner, “The struggle for equality: caste in Indian politics,” in
380
NOTES pp. [140–142]
thick of it: some recent Indian political crises viewed from Gujarat,” in Philip
Oldenburg (ed.), India Briefing: Staying the Course (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe,
1995), pp. 32–7.
96. Fickett, “The rise and fall of the Janata Dal,” p. 1152; E. Sridharan,
“Unstable parties and unstable alliances: births, splits, mergers and deaths of
parties, 1952–2000,” in Mahendra Prasad Singh and Anil Mishra (eds),
Coalition Politics in India: problems and prospects (New Delhi: Manohar,
2004), p. 51.
97. Shafiuzzaman, The Samajwadi Party: a study of its social base, ideology and
programme (New Delhi: A.P.H. Publishing Corporation, 2003), pp. 55–7.
ing limits, second edition, with a foreword by Upendra Baxi (New Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 272–5.
102. Jaffrelot, India’s Silent Revolution, pp. 187–99.
381
pp.
[142–145] NOTES
104. Pranab Bardhan, “Sharing the spoils: group equity, development and democ-
racy,” in Atul Kohli (ed.), The Success of India’s Democracy (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 227.
105. Interview, New Delhi, 16 February 2000.
Zoya Hasan, Rajeev Bhargava and Balveer Arora (eds), Transforming India:
social and political dynamics of democracy (New Delhi: Oxford University
Press, 2000), pp. 207–31; Pranab Bardhan, The Political Economy of
Development in India, expanded edition with an epilogue on the political
economy of reform in India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2012),
pp. 124–5. Starting in the mid-1990s, forward castes and upper classes
increasingly constituted the social base of the AGP, too. See Suhas Pulshikar,
“Regional and caste parties,” in Atul Kohli and Prerna Singh (eds), Routledge
Handbook of Indian Politics (New York: Routledge, 2013), p. 99.
108. Interview with senior regional official, New Delhi, 7 February 2000.
110. See Aditya Nigam, “India after the 1996 elections: nation, locality and repre-
sentation,” Asian Survey, 36, 12 (December 1996): 1157–70.
111. Mahendra Prasad Singh, “India’s National Front and United Front coalition
governments: a phase in federalized governance,” in Mahendra Prasad Singh
and Anil Mishra (eds), Coalition Politics in India: problems and prospects
(New Delhi: Manohar, 2004), pp. 90–1.
112. N. Ram, “Elections, 1996,” Frontline, 3 May 1996, p. 21.
116. Interview with senior JD official, New Delhi, 10 February 2000. The MDMK,
which championed the rights of Sri Lankan Tamils, sought to revitalize the
DMK’s assertive populism. See Narendra Subramanian, Ethnicity and
Populist Mobilization: political parties, citizens and democracy in south India
(New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 32 and 222.
117. Interview with senior JD official, New Delhi, 10 February 2000.
382
NOTES pp. [147–154]
1. Parties lost their financial deposits if they failed to secure more than one-sixth
of the total valid votes polled in a given constituency.
2. James Chiriyankandath, “‘Unity in diversity?’ coalition politics in India (with
special reference to Kerala),” Democratization 4, 4 (Winter 1997): 20.
3. Yogendra Yadav, “How India voted,” India Today, 31 May 1996, p. 22.
Societies (CSDS), Delhi. It was the largest nationwide social scientific survey of
political attitudes and opinions in India during the Eleventh General Election.
Conducted between early June and mid July after the 1996 general election,
250 trained researchers interviewed 9457 respondents from a multi-stage ran-
dom sample of 108 Lok Sabha constituencies. Each interview, translated into
fifteen national languages, took between one and two hours. Each constituency
comprised 216 state assembly segments and 432 polling booth areas. The com-
position of the interviewees included rural dwellers (75 per cent), women (49
per cent), the unlettered (42 per cent), Muslims (11 per cent), SCs/dalits (19
per cent) and STs/Adivasis (9 per cent). The failure of all respondents to
answer every question led to some variation in the total number of respondents
interviewed, but only marginally. See Yogendra Yadav, “The maturing of a
democracy,” India Today, 31 August 1996, pp. 28–43.
7. Anthony Heath and Yogendra Yadav, “The united colours of the Congress:
social profile of Congress voters, 1996 and 1998,” in Zoya Hasan (ed.), Parties
and Party Politics in India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004),
pp. 144–5.
8. Aditya Nigam, “India after the 1996 elections: nation, locality and representa-
tion,” Asian Survey, 36, 12 (December 1996), ff. 1162.
9. Election Commission Report 1996, pp. 31–40.
10. Unless otherwise noted, the following statistics are from Yadav, “How India
voted,” p. 24.
11. Sudipta Kaviraj, “The general elections in India,” Government and Opposition,
32, 1 (Winter 1997): 22.
12. The social profile of the three main formations employ bivariate, or cross-tab-
ulated, analyses of data provided by the National Election Study, 1996, Post-
Poll Survey. The limitation of such analyses—which duplicate the significance
of factors that tend to overlap in reality—is well known. Nevertheless, the data
reveals broad salient differences. See Oliver Heath, “Anatomy of BJP’s rise to
power: social, regional, and political expansion in the 1990s,” in Zoya Hasan
(ed.), Parties and Party Politics in India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press,
2002), p. 233.
383
pp.
[155–164] NOTES
13. I thank Stuart Corbridge for emphasizing this point. See also Tariq Thachil,
Elite Parties, Poor Voters: how social services win votes in India (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, forthcoming/October 2014).
14. E. Sridharan, “Unstable parties and unstable alliances: births, splits, mergers
opponent of the Rao coterie, led the KCP, which won only one of eleven con-
tested seats. Ramakant D. Khalap, who led the MAG–also known as the
pp. 4–7.
27. Aijaz Ahmad, Lineages of the Present: ideology and politics in contemporary
South Asia (London: Verso, 2000), p. 218.
28. Interview with senior JD politician, New Delhi, 18 October 1998.
32. However, Basu conceded that his opposition to Ranadive “was a sort of a neg-
ative attitude.” Transcript of interview with Shri Jyoti Basu, Acc. No. 781,
Oral History Division, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi,
pp. 58–69.
33. Transcript of interview with Jyoti Basu, pp. 151–2.
34. Sukumar Muralidharan, “An unstable set-up,” Frontline, 31 May 1996,
pp. 4–8.
35. E.M.S. Namboodiripad, The Frontline Years: selected articles (New Delhi:
384
NOTES pp. [164–168]
38. Interviews with senior CPI(M) officials, New Delhi, 14 February 2000 and
p. 8.
40. Ahmad, Lineages of the Present, p. 234.
41. Interview with senior JD politician, New Delhi, 1 December 1998.
54. His caste status reflected the relative absence of indigenous Kshatriyas and
Vaisyas in the south. James Manor, “Prologue: caste and politics in recent
times,” in Rajni Kothari (ed.), Caste in Indian Politics (New Delhi: Orient
Blackswan, 2010), xx.
55. Interview with senior JD politician, New Delhi, 6 November 1998.
67. See Venkitesh Ramakrishnan, “In the spoiler’s role,” Frontline, 31 May 1996,
p. 138.
385
pp.
[168–177] NOTES
73. See “Platform for secular democratic alternative,” New Age Weekly (21–
27 April 1996).
82. Bommai was the JD president until February 1996 when the media implicated
him in the scandal. S.K. Pande, “New face,” Frontline, 8 March 1996,
pp. 25–7.
83. Interview with senior JD politician, New Delhi, 1 December 1998.
386
NOTES pp. [177–182]
102. CMP, p. 2.
103. CMP, p. 3.
104. CMP, p. 4.
105. CMP, pp. 11–2.
106. CMP, p. 6.
107. CMP, p. 9. The other significant fiscal measure concerned tax reform.
108. CMP, p. 6.
109. CMP, p. 6.
110. CMP, p. 6.
111. Editorial, “Glib promises,” Economic and Political Weekly, 31, 24 (June 15,
1996): 1423.
112. Sukumar Muralidharan, “Getting down to work,” Frontline, 28 June 1996,
pp. 19–20.
113. Interviews with senior JD politician, New Delhi, 1 December 1998 and
118. “Interview with S. Jaipal Reddy”, Seminar, 454 (June 1997), p. 55; quoted in
former executive director of the NFL and Sambasiva Rao, Karsan’s agent in
Hyderabad. The latter told the CBI that Prabhakar Rao and Prakash
Chandra, son of former Union minister Ram Lakhan Singh Yadav, had
received kickbacks. The Statesman, 16 June 1996.
387
pp.
[182–189] NOTES
6. Unless noted, the following analysis draws on S.K. Pande, “New face,”
pp. 4–8 and 8–12, respectively; and Rasheed Kidwai, Sonia: a biography (New
Delhi: Penguin, 2011), p. 53.
7. Interview with senior JD politician, New Delhi, 10 February 2000.
10. E. Raghavan and James Manor, Broadening and Deepening Democracy: polit-
13. Environmental concerns led to calls for greater scrutiny in September 1994. But
the project received environmental clearance on 11 June 1996, one day after
Deve Gowda was sworn in as prime minister. Parvathi Menon, “A signal not
so green,” Frontline, 9 August 1996, pp. 52–4.
pp. 27–9.
17. The Hindu, 29 June 1996.
24. Kanchan Chandra, Why Ethnic Parties Succeed: patronage and ethnic head
counts in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 150–8.
25. Christophe Jaffrelot, “The Bahujan Samaj Party in north India: no longer just
a dalit party?” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East,
18, 1 (Spring 1998): 35–52.
26. The Hindu, 26 July 1996.
28. The BSP administration had appointed Ramesh Chandra, a senior civil servant,
to investigate the episode and submit a report. Hindustan Times, 26 July 1996.
388
NOTES pp. [189–197]
29. Paul R. Brass, The Politics of India since Independence, 2nd edition (Cambridge:
2 (February 1992): 215–6.
45. See Jayati Ghosh, “Tightening the wrong belts,” Frontline, 12 July 1996,
pp. 99–100.
46. The Hindu, 19 June 1996.
56. P. Sampathkumar, “Oil pricing and the consumer,” Frontline, 26 July 1996,
pp. 8–10.
57. Interviews with senior regional politician, New Delhi, 12 November 1998, and
389
pp.
[197–204] NOTES
62. Lawrence Sáez, Federalism without a Centre: the impact of political and eco-
nomic reform on India’s federal system (New Delhi: Sage, 2002), p. 93.
63. Sumantra Bose, The Challenge in Kashmir: democracy, self-determination and
a just peace (New Delhi: Sage, 1997), p. 59.
64. Jammu and Kashmir National Conference, “Political resolution adopted by the
Central Working Committee on 2 November 1994 at Jammu.”
68. The package included construction of a 290 km broad gauge railway line from
Udhampur to Baramulla, an alternative national highway and the resumption
of work on the Dulhasti power project. Hindustan Times, 24 July 1996.
390
NOTES pp. [204–210]
pp. 110–1.
89. Interviews with senior government officials, New Delhi, 24 September 1998
India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 231. The following
draws on reporting by T. Lakshmipathi, “Problems of sharing” and Ravi
pp. 21–2.
107. The Hindu, 15 August 1996.
pp. 19–20.
109. Hindustan Times, 10 and 12 July 1996.
118. Charu Lata Joshi, “The yes man,” India Today, October 31, 1996.
119. Janata Dal Election Manifesto 1996.
120. Interview, New Delhi, 14 February 2000.
391
pp.
[210–219] NOTES
Press, 2003), p. 40. Gujral encouraged this view, hanging a single portrait in
his office, of Nehru. See Nalini Kant Jha, “Coalition governments and India’s
foreign policy,” in Mahendra Prasad Singh and Anil Mishra (eds), Coalition
Politics in India: problems and prospects (New Delhi: Manohar, 2004), p. 306.
14. C. Raja Mohan, Crossing the Rubicon: the shaping of India’s new foreign pol-
392
NOTES pp. [219–224]
17. See Devesh Kapur, “Public opinion and Indian foreign policy,” India Review,
8, 3 (July–September 2009): 286–305.
18. See V. Venkatesan, “Breaking with the parivar” and Manini Chatterjee,
respectively.
19. See Ghanshyam Shah, “The BJP’s riddle in Gujarat: caste, factionalism and
Hindutva.” In Thomas Blom Hansen and Christophe Jaffrelot (eds), The BJP
and the Compulsions of Politics in India, 2nd edition (New Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 2001), pp. 243–266.
20. Hindustan Times, 19, 25 and 30 August 1996.
28. Interviews with senior CPI(M) politicians, New Delhi, 14 February 2000 and
8 February 2000; and senior CPI politician, New Delhi, 21 October 1998.
33. Rekha Chowdhury and Nagendra Rao, “Elections 2002: implications for pol-
itics of separatism,” Economic and Political Weekly, 38, 1 (4 January 2003):
16–7.
34. See the reports of Praveen Swami: “Hurriyat’s prospects,” Frontline, 18 Octo
1996, pp. 44–7. For wider analysis, see Sumantra Bose, The Challenge in
Kashmir: democracy, self-determination and a just peace (New Delhi: Sage,
1997), pp. 155–70.
35. Praveen Swami, “A vote for peace,” Frontline, 1 November 1996, pp. 17–24.
36. See the Hindustan Times, 2 October 1996, 27 October 1996, and 1 November
1996.
37. Hindustan Times, 10 October 1996.
pp. 25–28.
39. The United Front announced the number of constituencies allotted to each
party in mid-September: SP (281), JD (41), CPI (11), CPM (11), AIIC(T) (31),
Bharatiya Kisan Kamgar Party (BKKP) (41) and BSP (Raj Bahadur) (10).
Venkitesh Ramakrishnan and Sukumar Muralidharan, “Alliances and strate-
gies,” Frontline, 4 October 1996, pp. 40–43.
393
pp.
[224–227] NOTES
pp. 4–10.
45. Venkitesh Ramakrishnan, “Exploring coalition possibilities,” Frontline,
1 November 1996, pp. 10–15.
lution, 2nd edition (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 726–7.
47. Interview, New Delhi, 14 February 2000.
1996, pp. 16–21.
49. Hindustan Times, 9 November 1996.
53. Interviews with senior NF official, New Delhi, 16 February 2000, and senior
1997, pp. 17–9.
61. See Venkitesh Ramakrishnan, “A significant turn,” Frontline, 13 December
pp. 28–30.
62. The Hindu, 28 October 1996; Tapas Ray, “Building bridges,” Frontline,
68. Sanjib Baruah, India against Itself: Assam and the politics of nationality
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), p. 194.
69. Ray, “Dilemmas over the Act,” pp. 50–2.
70. Baruah, India against Itself, pp. 153–69.
394
NOTES pp. [228–231]
71. Reportedly, government officers in six districts withdrew Rs. 253 crore for ani-
mal food and fodder between 1993–94 and 1995–96 as opposed to the Rs.
10.5 crore budgeted by the state treasury. Hindustan Times, 5 October 1996.
80. Kesri removed three AICC general secretaries close to Rao: B.P. Maurya,
pp. 37–9.
84. Hindustan Times, 12 November 1996.
85. Zafar Agha and Javed Ansari, “Assertive moves,” India Today, 30 November
1996, pp. 33–4.
86. Venkitesh Ramakrishnan, “Congress-U.F. relations,” Frontline, 13 December
1996, p. 31.
87. Hindustan Times, 18 November 1996.
89. They also signed three other agreements regarding crime prevention and drug
trafficking, Indian consular services in Hong Kong and the status of vessels at
their respective ports. The Hindu, 30 November 1996.
pp. 38–42.
91. The Hindu, 2 December 1996.
doctrine and beyond,” Mimeo, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, p. 6:
http://www.idsa-india.org/an-jul9–8.html.
93. See John Cherian, “A historic accord,” Frontline, 10 January 1997, pp. 47–9;
395
pp.
[231–236] NOTES
pp. 47–9; Punam Pandey, “Revisiting the politics of the Ganga water dispute
between India and Bangladesh,” India Quarterly, 68, 3 (2012): 267–81.
103. In later years, these provisions contributed to the Ganga flooding Bihar and
forcing the Farraka power plant to close. The Hindu, September 13, 2011.
104. Interview with senior government official, New Delhi, 9 September 1998.
1996, pp. 23–5.
113. The Hindu, 30 October 1996.
pp. 101–3.
115. See Sukumar Muralidharan, “Points of divergence,” Frontline, 29 November
pp. 23–5.
116. Venkitesh Ramakrishnan, “Emerging stronger,” Frontline, 27 December
1996, pp. 26–8.
117. Venkitesh Ramakrishnan, “Exit in disgrace,” Frontline, 10 January 1997,
pp. 4–11.
pp. 25–7.
6. Venkitesh Ramakrishnan, “Conflict in the Congress,” Frontline, 13 December
1996, pp. 36–41.
7. Hindustan Times, 20 January 1997.
pp. 20–3.
396
NOTES pp. [237–243]
pp. 114–6.
14. K.K. Kailash, “Middle game in coalition politics,” Economic and Political
pp. 97–100.
17. Editorial, “All for foreign capital,” Economic and Political Weekly (11 January
1997): 3–6.
18. Francine Frankel and Sumantra Sen, Andhra Pradesh’s Long March towards
2020: electoral detours in a developmentalist state (Philadelphia: Center for the
Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania, 2005), pp. 6, 12.
19. V. Venkatesan, “Concerns beyond the budget,” Frontline, 7 March 1997,
pp. 24–6.
20. Sukumar Muralidharan, “Economic questions” and Sudha Mahalingam,
“NDC and growth,” Frontline, 7 February 1997, pp. 22 and 107–9, respec-
tively; C.P. Chandrasekhar, “On the beaten track,” Frontline, 7 March 1997,
pp. 107–9.
21. M.J. Akbar, “Interview with Jyoti Basu,” The Asian Age, 2 January 1997.
22. “A settled matter: The CPI(M)’s position on participation in the Deve Gowda
government,” in Namboodiripad, The Frontline Years: selected articles (New
Delhi: LeftWord Books, 2010), pp. 203–8.
23. Editorial, “Down the slippery slope,” Economic and Political Weekly
(1 February 1997): 183–186.
Federalism in India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 192. The
NDA passed the eightieth constitutional amendment in 2000, accepting the
Tenth Finance Commission’s recommendation, but reduced the states’ alloca-
tion by specifying their net value as opposed to gross. See Katherine Adeney,
“Hindu nationalists and federal structures in an era of regionalism,” in
Katharine Adeney and Lawrence Sáez (eds), Coalition Politics and Hindu
nationalism (London: Routledge, 2005), p. 105.
397
pp.
[244–248] NOTES
35. See James Manor, “The Congress party and the great transformation,” in
Sanjay Ruparelia, Sanjay Reddy, John Harriss and Stuart Corbridge (eds),
Understanding India’s New Political Economy: a great transformation?
(London: Routledge, 2011), p. 207.
36. Interview, New Delhi, 12 November 1998.
tively; Jayati Ghosh, “An analysis of the budget 1997–98: largesse for the rich,
phrases for the poor,” http://www.ieo.org/97anal.html; and Kamal Mitra
Chenoy, “The budget 1997–98: an analysis,” http://www.ieo.org/97anal2.
html.
48. Chenoy, “The budget 1997–98.”
49. The Hindu, 6 March 1997.
398
NOTES pp. [249–253]
72. Sumit Mitra, “Gowda’s gaffes … and Kesri’s curse,” India Today, 30 April
1997, pp. 14–21.
73. The Hindu, 31 March 1997.
74. Transcript of interview with Shri Jyoti Basu, Acc. No. 781, Oral History
Division, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi, pp. 156–7.
75. Interview with senior CPI politician, New Delhi, 23 October 1998.
86. Interviews with senior political journalist, New Delhi, 7 February 2000; senior
94. N.K. Singh, “Once bitten twice shy,” India Today, 30 April 1997, pp. 22–3.
399
pp.
[253–260] NOTES
26 October 1998.
5. Prabu Chawla and Sumit Mitra, “King Kesri,” India Today, 9 June 1997,
pp. 18–23.
6. The Hindu, 21 May 1997.
p. 23.
12. Hindustan Times, 28 April 1997.
400
NOTES pp. [260–264]
Francine R. Frankel, Zoya Hasan, Rajeev Bhargava and Balveer Arora (eds),
lution, 2nd edition (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 718.
36. Times of India, 13 June 1997.
40. Subrata K. Mitra, “War and peace in South Asia: a revisionist view of India-
43. Sangeeta Thapliyal, “India and Nepal treaty of 1950: the continuing dis-
course,” India Quarterly, 68, 2 (2012), pp. 128–129.
44. Interviews, New Delhi, 9 and 10 September 1998.
52. See George Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb: the impact of global prolifera-
tion (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), p. 399.
53. The prime minister assigned several portfolios at the level of Minister of State:
Jayanti Natarajan to Civil Aviation and Parliamentary Affairs; Kamala Sinha
401
pp.
[264–268] NOTES
Chemicals and Fertilizers; S. Maharaj from Railways to Finance; S.R. Ola from
K.P. Joseph, “Piped music and telephone attendants: report of the Fifth Pay
563–5.
74. Interview, 26 September 1998, New Delhi.
75. Paul R. Brass, “Political parties and the radical left in South Asia,” in Paul
80. Interview with senior trade union official, New Delhi, 26 September 1998.
402
NOTES pp. [268–273]
1115–25.
87. Hindustan Times, 18 June 1997.
92. The Hindu, 18 July 1997. The final ISC meeting occurred on November 28,
94. Sudha Pai, Dalit Assertion and the Unfinished Democratic Revolution: the
Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar Pradesh (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2002),
p. 17.
95. Hindustan Times, 19 October 1997.
98. Farzand Ahmed, “Maya costs a lot,” India Today, 22 September 1997, p. 16;
Christophe Jaffrelot, India’s Silent Revolution: the rise of the low castes in
north Indian politics (London: Hurst/New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2003),
p. 419.
99. Interview with senior government official, New Delhi, 26 October 1998.
enforcing limits, 2nd edition, with a foreword by Upendra Baxi (New Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 5.
104. Times of India, 23 October 1997.
403
pp.
[273–276] NOTES
pp. 4–12.
113. Hindustan Times, 10 November 1997.
Hasan, Rajeev Bhargava and Balveer Arora (eds), Transforming India: social
and political dynamics of democracy (New Delhi: Oxford University Press,
2000), p. 187.
115. Zoya Hasan, “Introduction,” in Zoya Hasan (ed.), Parties and Party Politics
in India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 30.
116. Rasheed Kidwai, Sonia: a biography (New Delhi: Penguin, 2011), pp. 90–1.
117. Hindustan Times, 20 November 1997.
126. Interview with Chandrababu Naidu, “We will get a majority on our own,”
Frontline, 26 December 1997, p. 9.
404
NOTES pp. [276–285]
electoral alliances, see the general reporting in “The phase of alignments” and
“The line-up”.
133. See Christophe Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian
Politics: 1925 to the 1990s (New Delhi: Penguin Books, 1999), p. 548.
134. See V. Venkatesan, “A nation-wide hunt for allies,” Frontline, 9 January
405
pp.
[287–290] NOTES
1. Apart from other works cited, this chapter draws on my two previous essays:
“Rethinking institutional theories of political moderations: the case of Hindu
nationalism in India, 1996–2004,” Comparative Politics, 38, 3 (April 2006):
317–37; and “Expanding Indian democracy: the paradoxes of the third force,”
in Sanjay Ruparelia, Sanjay Reddy, John Harriss and Stuart Corbridge (eds),
Understanding India’s New Political Economy: a great transformation?
(London: Routledge, 2011), pp. 186–203.
2. Nalini Kant Jha, “Coalition governments and India’s foreign policy,” in
Mahendra Prasad Singh and Anil Mishra (eds), Coalition Politics in India:
problems and prospects (New Delhi: Manohar, 2004), p. 312.
3. Deccan Herald, 4 May 1998.
and Thomas Blom Hansen and Christophe Jaffrelot, “Introduction: the rise to
power of the BJP,” in Thomas Blom Hansen and Christophe Jaffrelot (eds),
The BJP and the Compulsions of Politics in India, 2nd edition (New Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 1–22.
5. V. Ramakrishnan, “All for survival,” Frontline, 24 April 1998.
17. Philip Oldenburg, The Thirteenth General Election of India’s Lok Sabha (New
York: The Asia Society, 1999), p. 1.
18. Venkitesh Ramakrishnan, “The numbers game,” Frontline, 24 April 1999.
19. Zoya Hasan, “Introduction,” in Zoya Hasan (ed.), Parties and Party Politics
in India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 29–30.
406
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21. See Arvind Das, “The future postponed,” Economic and Political Weekly, 34,
20 (15 May 1999): 1167.
22. “Questionable shift,” Economic and Political Weekly, 34, 26 (26 June 1999):
1647–8.
23. See E. Sridharan, “Electoral coalitions in 2004 general elections: theory and
27. See Christophe Jaffrelot, “The BJP at the Centre,” in Thomas Blom Hansen
and Christophe Jaffrelot (eds), The BJP and the Compulsions of Politics in
India, 2nd edition (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 344.
28. See Yogendra Yadav, “Open contest, closed options,” Seminar, 534 (February
2004): 62–6.
29. Sudha Pai, Dalit Assertion and the Unfinished Democratic Revolution: the
Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar Pradesh (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2002),
pp. 181–6. For a general sociological analysis, see D.L. Sheth, “Secularisation
of caste and making of new middle class,” Economic and Political Weekly, 34,
34/35 (21 August 1999): 2502–10.
30. See Venkitesh Ramakrishnan and S.K. Pande, “The split and the wait,”
31. See Sukumar Muralidharan, “An incipient third force,” Frontline, 3 July 1999.
37. See Subrata K. Mitra, “”The NDA and the politics of ‘minorities’ in India,” in
Katharine Adeney and Lawrence Sáez (eds), Coalition Politics and Hindu
nationalism (London: Routledge, 2005), pp. 77–96.
38. Unless noted, the following summarizes Katherine Adeney, “Hindu national-
ists and federal structures in an era of regionalism,” in Katharine Adeney and
407
pp.
[295–297] NOTES
lution, 2nd edition (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 616–25.
46. James Manor, “Explaining political trajectories in Andhra Pradesh and
Karnataka,” in Rob Jenkins (ed.), Regional Reflections: comparing politics
across India’s states (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 264–5;
and Sen and Frankel, Andhra Pradesh’s long march towards 2020, pp. 28–9.
47. See Sudha Pai, “The problem,” Seminar, 571 (March 2007).
48. Rudolph and Rudolph, “Iconisation of Chandrababu,” p. 1545.
49. Devesh Kapur, “Explaining democratic durability and economic performance:
the role of India’s institutions,” in Devesh Kapur and Pratap Bhanu Mehta
(eds), Public Institutions in India: performance and design (New Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 2008), pp. 49–50; Rudolph and Rudolph, “Iconisation of
Chandrababu,” p. 1546.
50. See Human Rights Watch, ‘We Have No Orders to Save You’: state participa-
tion and complicity in communal violence in Gujarat (April 2002).
51. Financial Times, 16 April 2002.
2002; Achin Vanaik, “Indian foreign policy since the end of the Cold War:
domestic determinants,” in Sanjay Ruparelia, Sanjay Reddy, John Harriss and
Stuart Corbridge (eds), Understanding India’s New Political Economy: a great
transformation? (London: Routledge, 2011), p. 227.
53. Alistair McMillan, “The BJP coalition: partisanship and power-sharing in gov-
ernment,” in Katharine Adeney and Lawrence Sáez (eds), Coalition Politics
and Hindu nationalism (London: Routledge, 2005), p. 34, fn. 14.
54. Frankel, India’s Political Economy, p. 754, and McMillan, “The BJP coali-
tion,” p. 32.
408
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55. Frankel and Sen, Andhra Pradesh’s Long March towards 2020, pp. 17–8.
56. Max Weber, “The profession and vocation of politics,” in Peter Lassman and
Ronald Speirs (eds), Weber: political writings (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1994), pp. 366–7.
57. Baldev Raj Nayar, “India in 2004: regime change in a divided democracy,”
Asian Survey, 45, 1 (2005): 72.
58. See Pankaj Mishra, “India: the neglected majority wins!” New York Review of
Books, 12 August 2004.
59. Alfred Stepan, Juan Linz and Yogendra Yadav, Crafting State-Nations: India
and other multinational democracies (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 2011), pp. 81–8.
60. Christophe Jaffrelot, “The BJP and the 2004 general election: dimensions,
causes and implications of an unexpected defeat,” in Katharine Adeney and
Lawrence Sáez (eds), Coalition Politics and Hindu nationalism (London:
Routledge, 2005), pp. 237–53.
61. See Yogendra Yadav, “The elusive mandate of 2004,” Economic and Political
Weekly, 39, 51 (18 December 2004): 5383–5395.
Central Committee and Polit Bureau members of the CPM and CPI.”
Signatories included Achin Vanaik, Bipan Chandra, Irfan Habib, K.N.
Pannikar, Praful Bidwai, Sumit and Tanika Sarkar and Zoya Hasan.
67. Bidyut Chakrabarty, Forging Power: coalition politics in India (New Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 154, fn. 59.
68. Chakrabarty, Forging Power, p. 208.
69. Communist Party of India (Marxist), “Review Report of the Lok Sabha elec-
tions, 2004,” p. 19.
70. See Samuel Paul and M. Vivekananda, “Holding a mirror to the new Lok
4928–31.
71. The Hindu, 26 March 2004.
72. See Aditya Nigam, “The market is not God,” Tehelka, June 12, 2004;
Ramachandra Guha, “After the fall,” The Caravan (June 2011): http://www.
caravanmagazine.in/essay/after-fall.
73. Yadav and Palshikar, “From hegemony to convergence,” pp. 35 and 39.
74. D.L. Sheth, “The change of 2004,” Seminar, 545 (January 2005). For data
409
pp.
[303–306] NOTES
75. Mahesh Rangarajan, “Polity in transition: India after the 2004 general elec-
tions,” Economic and Political Weekly, 40, 32 (6 August 2005): 3598–605.
76. The UPA used other vehicles towards the same end, such as the Group of
Ministers. It employed all party meetings and chief ministers’ conferences rel-
atively less, however. See Kailash, “Middle game in coalition politics,” p. 312.
77. James Manor, “Prologue: caste and politics in recent times,” In Rajni Kothari
(ed.), Caste in Indian Politics, 2nd edition (New Delhi: Orient Blackswan,
2010), xviii.
78. Francine Frankel and Sumantra Sen, Ideology, Politics and Economic Reforms:
the national democratic alliance, 1999–2004 (Philadelphia: The Center for the
Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania, 2004), p. 40.
79. The Hindu, 28 May 2004.
1999): 3267–9.
87. The CPI(Maoist) formed in 2004, an amalgamation of the People’s War
Group, CPI(ML) Party Unity and Maoist Communist Centre. See Nivedita
Menon and Aditya Nigam, Power and Contestation: India since 1989
(Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 2008), p. 123.
88. Menon and Nigam, Power and Contestation, pp. 105–7.
89. Sumit Ganguly, “India in 2008: domestic turmoil and external hopes,” Asian
Survey, 49, 1 (2008): 41–2.
90. See Venkatesh Athreya, “Progress and challenges,” Frontline, 27 August 2004;
91. See T.K. Oommen, “Development policy and the nature of society: under-
standing the Kerala model,” Economic and Political Weekly, 44, 13 (28 March
2009): 25–31; John Harriss, “Do political regimes matter? poverty reduction
and regime differences across India,” in Peter R. Houtzager and Mick Moore
(eds), Changing Paths: international development and the new politics of inclu-
sion (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005), pp. 204–32.
410
NOTES pp. [306–309]
3524; Partha Sarathi Banerjee and Dayabati Roy, “Behind the present peas-
ant unrest in West Bengal,” Economic and Political Weekly, 42, 22 (2 June
2007): 2048–50.
93. Prabhat Patnaik, “In the aftermath of Nandigram,” Economic and Political
Weekly, 42, 21 (26 May 2007): 1893–5.
737–41.
95. Sumanta Banerjee, “Moral betrayal of a leftist dream,” Economic and
Political Weekly 42, 40 (7 April 2007): 1241.
98. Prakash Karat, Subordinate Ally: the nuclear deal and India-US strategic rela-
tions (New Delhi: LeftWord Books, 2007), p. 13. On the United States’ per-
spective, see Strobe Talbott, Engaging India: diplomacy, democracy, and the
bomb (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 2006).
99. Baldev Raj Nayar, “India in 2005: India rising, but uphill road ahead,” Asian
Survey, 46, 1 (2005): 96.
100. Karat, Subordinate Ally, p. 15.
101. See Peter R. Lavoy, “India in 2006: a new emphasis on engagement,” Asian
104. Achin Vanaik, “Indian foreign policy since the end of the Cold War,”
pp. 229–31.
105. Pant, The US-India Nuclear Pact, pp. 80–91.
106. See Sumit Ganguly, “India in 2007: a year of opportunities and disappoint-
ments,” Asian Survey, 48, 1 (2008): 172–4; Vipin Narang and Paul Staniland,
“Institutions and worldviews in Indian foreign security policy,” India Review,
11, 2 (2012): 89.
107. Vanaik, “Indian foreign policy since the end of the Cold War,” pp. 228–9.
108. Jo Johnson and Edward Luce, “Welcome to the club,” Financial Times,
3 August 2007.
411
pp.
[309–314] NOTES
115. See Pratap Bhanu Mehta, “18 Karat light,” Outlook, 27 October 2007; and
Vanaik, “Indian foreign policy since the end of the Cold War,” p. 235.
116. The Hindu, 5 April 2012.
119. The most notable was an $11 billion deal to supply 126 jet fighters, which
the US lost on technical grounds. Financial Times, 29 April 2011.
125. Yogendra Yadav and Suhas Palshikar, “Between fortuna and virtu: explain-
ing the Congress’ ambiguous victory in 2009,” Economic and Political
Weekly, 44, 39 (26 September 2009): 33–51.
126. Jeffrey Witsoe and Francine Frankel, Social Justice and Stalled Development:
caste empowerment and the breakdown of governance in Bihar (Philadelphia:
Center for the Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania, 2006),
pp. 9–27; Mohd Sanjeer Alam, “Bihar: can Lalu Prasad reclaim lost ground?”
Economic and Political Weekly, 44, 17 (25 April 2009): 13–4; Manor,
“Prologue,” xxxvii.
127. Saba Naqvi, “Without a one-liner,” Outlook, 11 May 2009.
128. Christophe Jaffrelot, “The BSP in 2009: still making progress, but only as a
Dalit party,” in Paul Wallace and Ramashray Roy (eds), India’s 2009
Elections: coalition politics, party competition, and Congress continuity (New
Delhi: Sage, 2011), pp. 140–62. Jaffrelot offers a more positive assessment,
however.
129. Raghavendra Keshavarao Hebsur, “The surge of saffron: some genuine and
some imitation?” in Paul Wallace and Ramashray Roy (eds), India’s 2009
Elections: coalition politics, party competition, and Congress continuity (New
Delhi: Sage, 2011), pp. 270–85.
130. Karli Srinivasulu, “Political mobilization, competitive populism, and chang-
ing party dynamics in Andhra Pradesh,” in Paul Wallace and Ramashray Roy
(eds), India’s 2009 Elections: coalition politics, party competition, and
Congress continuity (New Delhi: Sage, 2011), pp. 286–308.
131. See G. Gopa Kumar, “The LDF’s debacle: Kerala votes for national stability,”
in Paul Wallace and Ramashray Roy (eds), India’s 2009 Elections: coalition
politics, party competition, and Congress continuity (New Delhi: Sage, 2011),
pp. 234–51.
412
NOTES pp. [314–319]
132. Ashok Mitra, “The state of the CPI(M) in West Bengal,” Economic and
Political Weekly, 44, 30 (25 July 2009): 8–12; Dwaipayan Bhattacharya,
“Left in the lurch: the demise of the world’s longest elected regime?”
Economic and Political Weekly, 45, 3 (16 January 2010): 51–9.
136. Yogendra Yadav and Suhas Palshikar, “Principal state level contests and
derivative national choices: electoral trends in 2004–9,” Economic and
Political Weekly, 44, 6 (7 February 2009): 59.
139. See Prakash Karat, “On the Lok Sabha election results: reviewing the party’s
performance,” The Marxist, 25, 1–2 (January–June 2009): 3–15; and remarks
made by Sitaram Yechury in The Hindu, 5 May 2009
145. Sumanta Banerjee, “West Bengal’s next quinquennium, and the future of the
Indian left,” Economic and Political Weekly, 46, 23 (4 June 2011): 14–9.
workideas.org/news/jan2008/news30_Capitalism.htm.
147. Prabhat Patnaik, “The left in decline,” Economic and Political Weekly, 46,
29 (16 July 2011): 16.
CONCLUSION
1. Atul Kohli, The State and Poverty in India: the politics of reform (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 91.
2. Lloyd I. Rudolph and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, In Pursuit of Lakshmi: the
413
pp.
[319–325] NOTES
India,” Asian Survey, 38, 6 (June 1998): 618. Thakur concedes that some
political learning occurred, however.
6. Sunil Khilnani, “Branding India,” Seminar 533 (2004): http://www.india-sem-
inar.com/2004/533/533%20sunil%20khilnani.htm.
7. To invoke Gabriel García Márquez, Chronicle of a Death Foretold (New York:
Vintage, 2003).
8. Jyotirindra Das Gupta, “The Janata phase: reorganization and redirection in
Indian politics,” in Zoya Hasan (ed.), Parties and Party Politics in India (New
Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 369.
9. See Bidyut Chakrabarty, Forging Power: coalition politics in India (New Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 133–50; Mahendra Prasad Singh, “India’s
National Front and United Front coalition governments: a phase in federalized
governance,” in Mahendra Prasad Singh and Anil Mishra (eds), Coalition
Politics in India: problems and prospects (New Delhi: Manohar, 2004), p. 95.
10. Stuart Corbridge and John Harriss, Reinventing India: liberalization, Hindu
nationalism and popular democracy (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000), pp. 88–9.
11. See Christophe Jaffrelot, India’s Silent Revolution: the rise of the low castes in
north Indian politics (London: Hurst/New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2003).
12. E. Sridharan, “Unstable parties and unstable alliances: births, splits, mergers
414
NOTES pp. [326–331]
Stepan, Juan Linz and Yogendra Yadav, Crafting State-Nations: India and
other multinational democracies (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,
2011), pp. 17–22.
18. Yogendra Yadav, “The third electoral system,” Seminar, 480 (August 1999):
14–20.
19. Atul Kohli, Democracy and Discontent: India’s growing crisis of ungovernabil-
ity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
20. E. Sridharan, “Principles, power and coalition politics in India: lessons from
theory, comparison and recent history,” in D.D. Khanna and Gert W. Kueck
(eds), Principles, Power and Politics (New Delhi: Macmillan India, 1999),
pp. 270–91.
21. E. Sridharan, “Why are multi-party minority governments viable in India?”
pp. 784–5.
26. See Henry Hale, “Divided we stand: institutional sources of ethnofederal state
survival and collapse,” World Politics, 56, 2 (January 2004): 165–93.
27. See Sara B. Hobolt and Jeffrey A. Karp, “Voters and coalition governments,”
Electoral Studies, 29, 3 (September 2010): 299–307.
28. Unless otherwise stated, the following draws on Akash Paun, “After the age of
majority? multi-party governance and the Westminster model,” Commonwealth
& Comparative Politics, 49, 4 (November 2011): 440–456.
29. See Vernon Bogdanor, “This general election will be fought along regional
lines,” Financial Times, 4 January 2015.
30. In addition to Paun, “After the age of majority?”, and Bogdanor, “This gen-
eral election will be fought along regional lines”, see Felicity Matthews,
“Constitutional stretching: coalition governance and the Westminster model,”
Commonwealth & Comparative Politics, 49, 4 (November 2011): 486–509.
31. For an overview, see Mark P. Jones and Scott Mainwaring, “The nationalization
of parties and party systems: an empirical measure and an application to the
Americas,” Party Politics, 9, 2 (March 2003): 139-166; Dawn Brancati, “The
origins and strengths of regional parties,” British Journal of Political Science,
38, 1 (January 2008): 135-159; Imke Harbers, “Decentralization and the devel-
opment of nationalized party systems in new democracies: evidence from Latin
America,” Comparative Political Studies, 43, 5 (May 2010): 606–627.
32. See Gosta Esping-Andersen, The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), p. 30.
415
pp.
[331–334] NOTES
power,” in Atul Kohli and Prerna Singh (eds), Routledge Handbook of Indian
Politics (New York: Routledge, 2013), p. 133.
34. Gregory M. Luebbert, Liberalism, Fascism or Social Democracy: social classes
Zoya Hasan, Rajeev Bhargava and Balveer Arora (eds), Transforming India:
social and political dynamics of democracy (New Delhi: Oxford University
Press, 2000), pp. 113–4.
40. See Perry Anderson, “The antinomies of Antonio Gramsci,” New Left Review,
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33–51.
Ziegfeld, Adam. “Coalition government and party system change: explaining
the rise of regional political parties in India.” Comparative Politics, 45, 1
(October 2012): 69–87.
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aam aadmi (common man) 300 All Assam Students Union (AASU)
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) 341–2 90, 96, 227
Abdullah, Farooq 92, 94, 202, 203, All Bodo Students Union 226
222 All-India Agricultural Workers
Abdullah, Sheikh Mohammed Union 165
79–80 All-India Congress (I) Committee
Acharya, Shankar 176 (AICC) 130, 188, 211, 213, 233,
Adivasis 46, 140, 154, 157, 177, 257
215, 270, 295, 316 All-India Democratic Women’s
Advani, Lal Krishna 74, 97, 100, Association 165
120, 126, 159, 309 All-India Forward Bloc (AIFB) 136,
Agra, Uttar Pradesh 295 144, 158, 188, 290
Agribusiness Vision 2010 305 All-India Indira Congress-Tiwari
Agricultural and Rural Debt Scheme (AIIC-T) 131, 161, 187, 188,
(1990) 120 224, 229
agriculture 47, 50, 55, 59, 61, 64, All-India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) 52,
68, 69, 81, 90, 117, 127, 133, 165
135, 139, 174, 176, 187, 197, All-India Radio and Doordarshan
237, 246, 247, 305, 331 120, 272
Ahirs 59 All-India Railwaymen’s Federation
Ahluwalia, Montek Singh 176 64
Ahmadi, Aziz Mushabber 228 All-India Trade Union Congress
Ahmed, Waseem 203 (AITUC) 47
AJGAR (Ahirs, Jats, Gujars, All-India Trinamool Congress
Rajputs) 73, 104 (AITC) 278, 280, 281, 285, 297,
Akali Dal 58, 97 298, 305, 315, 316, 342
Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad All-Indian Anna Dravida Munnetra
(ABVP) 63 Kazhagam (AIADMK) 65, 95,
alcohol taxes 174 105, 132, 147, 162, 168, 273,
451
INDEX
274, 277, 279, 280, 281, 285, Approach Paper to the Fifth Five
290, 294, 297, 298, 307, 311, Year Plan (1997–2002) 238
315, 342 Archimedes 41
All-Party Hurriyat Conference Armed Forces Special Powers Act
(APHC) 203, 223 (AFSPA) 113, 227
Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh 64, 99 Arunachal Pradesh 149
Allende, Salvador 336 ASEAN (Association of Southeast
Almatti dam 206–8 Asian Nations) 272
Alva, Margaret 168 Ashok Mehta Committee 79
Ambedkar Udyan Complex 271 Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) 96,
Ambedkar Village Scheme 249, 270 98, 99, 105, 107, 110, 143, 144,
Ambedkar, Bhimrao Ramji 117, 158, 161, 162, 166, 167, 168,
270 171, 227, 277, 282, 284, 320
Amritsar, Punjab 55, 94, 114 Assam 62, 90, 96, 97, 105, 144,
Andhra Pradesh 49, 56, 59, 62, 69, 149, 153, 158, 172, 207, 227,
70, 91–3, 95, 143–4, 149, 153, 277, 282, 295
158, 166, 172, 174, 206–8, 232, Atomic Energy Act (1954) 307
238, 259, 277, 280, 284, 285, Australia 26, 308
295–6, 300, 306, 311–12, 315, Austria 307, 327
323, 342 Awadi declaration 54, 55
animal husbandry 187 Awami League 203
animal husbandry scam see fodder Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh 2, 97, 99,
scam 120–2, 125–6, 129, 133, 167,
Anjaiah, Tanguturi 91 169, 177, 248, 281, 287, 290,
anti-Americanism 21, 138, 304 291, 296, 321
anti-Brahmanism 57
anti-capitalism 31, 50, 108, 340 Babbar, Raj 306
anti-caste 53 Babri masjid 2, 97, 99, 120–2, 125–
anti-colonial movement 9, 36, 49 6, 129, 133, 177, 248, 291
anti-colonialism 129 Bachawat Tribunal Award (1976)
anti-communism 55 206, 207
Anti-Defection Law (1985) 17, 95, Backward Classes Commission 83
97, 334 Badal faction 159
anti-Hindi 57 Bahuguna, Hemvati Nandan 89
anti-imperialism 31, 50, 52–3, 108, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) 120,
138, 190, 289, 301, 304, 308–9, 140–1, 154, 188–9, 208, 224–5,
315, 340 248–50, 269–71, 279, 280, 290,
anti-Muslim pogrom (2002) 3, 13, 302, 306, 309, 311–12, 314, 332,
296–7, 342 334, 342
anti-Sikh pogrom (1984) 94, 96, Baishya, Birendra Prasad 184
114 Bajrang Dal 97
Antyodaya (food for work scheme) balance of payments 116, 121, 126
81 Balayogi, Ganti Mohana Chandra
Approach Paper to the Eighth Five- 284, 297
Year Plan (1990–95) 116 bandh (strike) 233
452
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453
INDEX
454
INDEX
1996 Jiang Zemin makes state 49–56, 58, 59–62, 65, 70, 86, 90,
visit to India 230 100, 105, 136, 145, 158, 175–6,
Chowdhury, Renuka 261 184, 187–8, 193, 196, 209, 224,
Christian Democracy (Italy) 336 238, 245, 259, 265, 272, 277,
Christianity 3, 135, 177, 290, 311 278, 282, 290–1, 301–2, 321,
Churchill, Winston 65 333, 336–8
Civil Liability for Nuclear Damages Communist Party of India–Maoist
Bill (2010) 310 305
civil rights violations 62, 70, 71 Communist Party of India–Marxist
civil society 58, 91 (CPI-M) 7, 11, 12, 13, 32, 33,
class 1, 2, 4, 9, 19, 20, 31, 53, 57, 36, 320, 322, 333, 336–42
64, 106, 109, 331; see also caste 1934–1977 56, 58, 59–61
class struggle 49, 53, 58–9, 63, 1977–1980 71–2, 77, 87
139–40, 332 1980–1989 90, 91, 99, 101
Clinton, William Jefferson “Bill” 1989–1991 105, 108, 119, 122
227 1991–1996 136–9, 144, 145,
coalition attributes model 24 158, 162–7, 172, 175–6,
coalition theory 15, 22, 23 178–9, 182, 188, 193, 196–7,
colonialism 9, 36, 49, 129 200, 210, 213, 225, 231–3
Comintern 50 1997–1998 237, 241–2, 245–6,
Commission on Agricultural Costs 250, 251, 254, 266, 267, 271,
and Prices (CACP) 115–16 272, 277, 278, 282, 284, 285,
Common Minimum Programme 287
(CMP) 163, 176–9, 196, 215, 1998–2012 289, 290–1, 301–2,
233, 301, 303 304, 308–9, 311, 314–17
communal violence 2, 3, 11, 60, Communist Party of India–Marxist-
83–4, 99, 104, 120, 290, 296– Leninist (CPI-ML) 60, 278
7, 311 Communist Party of the Soviet
communalism 64, 74, 85, 93–4, Union (CPSU) 53
125, 135, 141, 219, 248, 343 Companies Act 244
communism 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, comparativists 15, 18, 22–5, 31, 36,
13, 14, 18, 21, 27, 31, 320, 321, 39, 40, 329
331–3, 335–42 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
1934–1977 50–60, 65, 66 (CTBT) 133, 176, 190, 191, 288
1977–1980 71–2, 77, 85 Comptroller and Auditor General
1980–1989 90, 91, 99–101 (CAG) 228, 233
1989–1991 108, 116, 119–20 Congentrix 184
1991–1996 136–9, 144, 158, Congress (I) 320, 321, 324, 326,
162–7, 175–6, 178–9, 182, 331, 338, 339, 341, 342
187–8, 193, 196–7, 209, 233 1977–1980 83, 86–88
1997–1998 238, 241, 245–6, 1980–1989 89–101
250, 268, 278, 282, 285 1989–1991 103, 105–8, 114,
1998–2012 290, 301–2, 304, 116, 121–2
308–9, 314–17 1991–1996 125–31, 141, 143–5,
Communist Party of India (CPI) 11, 147–9, 153–4, 157, 159–62,
455
INDEX
456
INDEX
457
INDEX
458
INDEX
459
INDEX
460
INDEX
461
INDEX
campaign 120
gress 98 Chandra Shekhar becomes prime
launch Jan Morcha (People’s minister 121
Front) 98 financial crisis 121
1988 1990–1991
Lakhubhai Pathak files fraud Union budget 115, 116
complaint against Chandras- 1991
wami 131 resignation of Chandra Shekhar
foundation of Janata Dal (JD) 99 121, 209
Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) assassination of Rajiv Gandhi
conduct Ram shila pujans 97, 122, 130
99 constitution of Jain Commission
CPI-M party congress 99 273
462
INDEX
463
INDEX
464
INDEX
465
INDEX
466
INDEX
467
INDEX
11, 14, 17, 21, 32, 33, 34, 66, 261, 272, 274, 276, 278, 280,
67–88, 89–90, 92, 95, 96, 99, 292, 295, 306, 311–12, 323, 334
100, 106, 107, 119, 121, 141, Karnataka Congress Party (KCP)
162–3, 167, 178, 179, 253, 274, 161
280, 319–25, 328–9, 333, 335, Karnataka High Court 183
337, 341 Karunakaran, Kannoth 160, 229,
Janata Party–Secular (JP-S) 85–6, 233, 252, 273
89 Karunanidhi, Muthuvel 162, 172,
Japan 308 204–6, 254, 261, 272, 273, 294
jatis 141, 334, 335 Kashmir 10–12, 48, 79–80, 92–4,
Jats 58, 59, 118, 119, 232 98, 110, 113, 133, 157, 176–7,
Jayalalitha, Jayaram 132, 290, 294, 187, 191, 200–4, 214, 219, 222–
232 3, 228, 249, 259, 262–4, 269,
Jayawardene, Junius Richard 115 280, 284, 292, 295, 298, 300,
Jena, Srikant 184 321, 323
Jethmalani, Ram 169 Kashmiriyat (Kashmiri cultural
Jharkhand 261, 294 identity) 113
Jharkhand Area Autonomous Kerala 3, 20, 48, 51, 53, 56, 58, 59,
Council (JAAC) 261 61, 69, 70, 90–1, 96, 99, 108,
Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) 114, 137, 139, 144, 149, 157–
122, 130, 131, 188, 211, 248, 8, 165, 166, 172, 176, 184, 187,
261, 282 233, 277, 279, 300–1, 305–6,
Jharkhand Vikas Morcha 307 311, 312, 315, 316, 339, 341
Jiang Zemin 230 Kerala Congress (KEC) 147, 307
Joshi, Murli Manohar 170, 289 Kesri, Sitaram 211, 213–14, 225,
Joshi, Puran Chand 50, 51 229, 233, 235, 236, 250–3, 257–
Journal of Parliamentary Studies 8, 273–4, 278, 279
(Kumar) 127, 128 Keynesianism 339
KHAM (Kshatriyas, Harijans,
Kalam, Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Adivasis, Muslims) 63
Abdul 309 Khan, Arif Mohammad 98
Kalapani border dispute 263 Khandayats 276
Kalelkar, Kakasaheb 83 Khrushchev, Nikita 53, 55
Kammas 59 Kidwai, Akhlaqur Rahman 259–60
Kandhamal, Odisha 311 Kisan Mazdoor Praja Party (KMPP)
kar sevaks 121 49
Karachi, Pakistan 191 kisan politics 109, 320
karans 276 Kissinger, Henry 82
Karat, Prakash 304, 311, 316–17 Koeris 58, 142
Kargil war (1999) 292 Kozhikode, Kerala 316, 341
Karnataka 59, 63, 69–70, 79, 83, Kripalani, Jivatram Bhagwandas
89, 92–3, 95–6, 98, 104, 110, 49, 77, 78
114, 135, 141, 144, 148–9, 153, Krishak Samiti (Peasant’s
157, 166–7, 172, 174, 181–4, Organization) 60
187, 198, 202, 204–8, 209, 251, Krishna River 206
468
INDEX
469
INDEX
233, 279, 290, 291, 294–5, 301, Kazhagam (MDMK) 144, 278,
296, 298, 300 280, 294, 307
Madhya Pradesh Vikas Congress Marx, Karl v
(MPVC) 132, 161, 229 Marxism 19, 49, 85, 164, 305, 317,
Madras, Tamil Nadu 58, 110, 205 332, 339; see also communism
Maha Gujarat Janata Parishad mass politics 126
(MGJP) 221 Mayawati Kumari 189, 224, 226,
Mahadalits 312 249, 250, 270, 271, 272, 290,
Maham, Haryana 118 292
Mahanta, Prafulla Kumar 172 McKinsey 305
Maharaj, Satpal 229 Mehta, Ashok 54
Maharashtra 56, 62, 99, 104, 134, Mehta, Suresh 221
144, 148–9, 153, 158, 160, 170, methodology 9, 15–18, 36, 39–41
184, 191, 233, 235, 251, 274, minimum alternative tax (MAT)
277–80, 285, 295, 300, 301, 305, 197
315 minimum connected winning coali-
Maharashtra Navnirman Sena 315 tions 19, 24, 25
Maharashtravadi Gomantak minimum wage 116, 137, 238
(MAG) 161 minimum winning coalitions 24,
Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party 26, 27
(MGP) 278, 342 Minorities Commission 133, 135,
Mahato, Shailendra 211 172, 294
Mahato, Sudhir 248 minority governments 1, 2, 6, 7, 10,
Mahato, Surendra 188 13, 16, 19, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29
Maintenance of Internal Security Mishra, Chaturanan 184, 187, 272
Act (MISA) 62, 65, 67 Mishra, Janeshwar 184
majority governments 3, 7, 20, Missile Technology Control Regime
25–6, 27 (MTCR) 133
Malaysia 272 mobilization 6, 8, 11, 18, 21, 27,
Maldives 218, 262 34, 47, 51–3, 57–8, 60, 62, 65,
Malik, Yasin 223 70–2, 84, 93, 96–7, 99, 101, 106,
Malkani, Kewalram Ratanmal 120 110, 118–19, 139, 141, 149, 154,
Mandal Commission Report 109, 164, 167, 178, 225, 288, 301,
117–20, 121, 126, 138, 140, 141, 311–12, 326, 331, 332
142, 162, 167, 215, 262, 276, Modi, Narendra 3, 297, 342
321, 326 Mohanta, Prafulla Kumar 166
Mandal, Bindheshwari Prasad 83, Moily, Veerappa 206
117, 141 monsoons 84, 96, 204, 214, 298
Mandal, Suraj 211 Mookerjee, Chittatosh 204
Mao Tse-Tung 31 Moopanar, Govindaswamy
Maoism 305, 315 Karuppiah 132, 166, 229, 236,
Maran, Murasoli 214, 270, 272 252, 254, 268, 274, 278
Marandi, Simon 211 Moscow, Russia 254
Marathas 59 mosque of Babur see Babri masjid
Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Movement for Regeneration 63
470
INDEX
471
INDEX
1979 84 295
Ola, Sis Ram 229 Palkhivala, Nani 81
Operation Barga 90 Palshikar, Suhas 314
Operation Blue Star (1984) 94 panchayats 79, 90, 106, 108, 214–
Opposition 29, 46, 49, 51, 56, 61, 15, 306, 312
62, 63, 64–6, 71, 79, 94, 98, 103, Parti Communiste Français (PCF)
248, 288, 297 336
Orissa 70, 77, 104, 113, 141, 144, Partido Comunista de España (PCE)
157, 158, 172, 276, 280, 311, 336
334, 342 Partido dos Trabalhadores (Brazil)
Other Backward Classes (OBCs) 2, 340
10, 61, 63, 73, 83, 88, 106, 109, Partito Comunista Italiano (PCI)
117–20, 140–2, 154, 165, 167, 336, 337–8
177, 189, 215, 224, 228, 232, parliamentary government 1–7,
254, 259, 261, 276, 291, 292, 10–11, 13–14, 17, 19, 24–30,
312, 334 32–7
party leaders 2–3, 5–10, 12, 17–18,
Pachmarhi, Madhya Pradesh 291, 20–3, 27–34, 36, 38, 40
301 Parvati, Lakshmi 145
Pakistan 12, 81, 83, 113, 176, 190, Paswan, Ram Vilas 172, 224, 259,
191–3, 204, 219, 249, 262–4, 292, 297
288, 292, 295, 298, 307, 323, Patel, Chimanbhai 63, 141
324, 325 Patel, H.L. 221
472
INDEX
473
INDEX
474
INDEX
475
INDEX
476
INDEX
Socialist Party 54, 67, 70, 73, 74, 167, 202, 203, 225, 245, 254,
85, 86, 321 266, 282, 304
Soren, Shibu 211 surplus multiparty governments 20,
South Asian Association for 25
Regional Cooperation (SAARC) swadeshi (self-reliance) 68, 133–
262 4, 238
Southeast Asia 226, 266, 272 Swatantra Party 59, 62, 63, 219
Soviet Union 50, 51, 52, 53, 55, 81, Sweden 98
105, 324, 336, 337, 340 Switzerland 190, 236, 327
1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact Syndicate 57, 61, 93
53
1941 German invasion 53 Talbott, Strobe 289
1956 Khrushchev denounces Tamil 57
Stalin 53 Tamil Maanila Congress (TMC)
1956 invasion of Hungary 55 132, 158, 161–2, 166, 171, 174,
1948 breaking of ties with Yugo- 178, 226, 229, 232, 236, 245,
slavia 55 252, 254, 258, 261, 268, 274,
1971 Indo-Soviet Treaty of Peace, 277, 278, 282
Friendship and Cooperation 81 Tamil Nadu 57–9, 61, 65, 69, 70,
Spain 336 71, 95, 105, 114, 132, 143, 144,
Special Economic Zones (SEZs) 306 148, 149, 158, 168, 172, 204–7,
Sri Lanka 82, 115, 218, 232, 273, 214, 261, 272, 277–80, 284, 285,
289, 324 294, 295, 300, 301, 305, 306,
Srikrishna Commission 170 311, 323, 342
Srinagar, Jammu & Kashmir 93, Tamilaga Rajiv Congress (TRC)
94, 200 280
St. Kitts forgery affair (1989) 131, Targeted Public Distribution System
169, 210 (TPDS) 242
Stalin, Joseph 53, 65 Taslimuddin, M. 187
477
INDEX
478
INDEX
138, 176, 219, 289, 304, 307– 281, 284, 285, 289, 295, 297,
8, 324 298, 321
1954 Atomic Energy Act 307 varna classifications 141
1974 Henry Kissinger makes visit Vellalas 59
to India 82 Venkatraman, Ramaswamy 103,
1978 Jimmy Carter makes state 121, 159, 168
visit to India 82 Verma, Beni Prasad 187
1996 United States presses India Verma, C.P. 259
479
INDEX
World War II (1939–1945) 52–3, 65 Yadav, Sharad 142, 183, 203, 224,
Wullar Barrage 263 254, 260, 261, 292
Yadav, Yogendra 314
Yadav, Beni Prasad 189 Yadavs 59, 140–2, 334
Yadav, Dharam Pal 258 Yechury, Sitaram 178, 311
Yadav, Lalu Prasad 120, 142, 167, Yojana, Indira Awas 130
172, 182, 183, 187, 228, 233, Young Turks 61, 66, 77
253, 254, 258, 259, 260, 261, Youth Congress 62
276, 278, 279, 292, 312 Yugoslavia 55
Yadav, Mulayam Singh 109, 119,
121, 141, 142, 167, 189, 203, zamindari 47, 57, 331
209, 224–5, 248, 254, 267, 271– zero-tax companies 197
2, 274–5, 282, 291–2, 309 Zimbabwe 232
480