Back to the villages

INDIA KULDIP NAYAR

New Delhi—Against the backdrop of agitation across the border in Pakistan for the restora- tion of parliamentary democracy, the fact that an electorate of one hundred million went to the polls last week in four of the most popu- lous Indian states to return new governments is a tribute to India's democratic traditions. But that is all. Politically, the voters were far from mature, and they have essentially polled for region, caste or community.

West Bengal, the province of Calcutta, with a population of about 40 million, which has re- turned a pro-left alliance, the United Front (which has secured 214 seats in a legislative assembly of 280), is jingoistically Bengali. The people there resent a distant North Indian rule from New Delhi. In fact, they have never re- conciled themselves to the transfer of the country's capital from Calcutta to Delhi in 1911 during British rule. Their rejection of the Congress party, the real opponent of the UF, represents the humbling of the central govern- ment which the Congress controls.

It is true that 110 of the UF members are communists, eighty of them pro-Peking. But ideology has not been a decisive factor. If Calcutta is festering with poverty and squalor, it is allegedly because of the capital's neglect. If there are more men than jobs available, it is New Delhi's parsimonious treatment in not establishing more public-sector undertakings in West Bengal. If there is economic stagnation, the Congress party is to blame for not having put 'pressure' on the state's industrialists to 'loosen their purse-strings.' By defeating the Congress party, the West Bengal electorate be- lieves it has returned a purely native grouping which will fight the centre to get a 'due share' for the state. 'Had we had our own govern- ment, New Delhi's help during the recent floods in North Bengal would have been generous,' was a common remark heard in tea shops and university campuses at electioneering time. The communists only exploited this situation, they did not create it.

Two years ago, when the UF was in power, its reputation had begun to erode because of its bungling interference with industrial pro- duction and mismanagement on the food front. But the central government obliged the UF by dismissing it. Had it been allowed to face the state legislature and be defeated, as would have happened but for New Delhi's impetuous dis- missal, the image of this seemingly leftist group would have been different. The majority of the legislature at that time were willing to throw it out. Its dismissal only helped it go out with a halo of martyrdom. Since then the electorate has remembered not the United Front's mis- deeds but the fact of its dismissal by the Con- gress government at the centre. Hence resent- ment and a landslide victory for the opposition.

Of course, some hard-boiled communists have come into the new legislature, and this should be a warning to the democratic forces in West Bengal. A spark has been ignited, and only vigilance and patience can prevent the haystack of discontent, always present in the state, from catching fire. Just as some pro- Peking supporters fomented an abortive peasant revolt in Naxalbari, near the Tibet- West Bengal border, some time ago, they may attempt a repeat performance under the benign eyes of the UF government. Even so, the Home Ministry in New Delhi prefers the communists in government rather than outside. As a ministry official put it, 'Inside the government the communists are more disciplined.'

In Bihar, adjacent to West Bengal, with a population of some 52 million, and Uttar Pra- desh, in northern India (pop. 82 million), too, the Congress party has not won an absolute majority. But in these states caste has come back with a vengeance. High-caste Brahmins and the large landowners, called Bhomiars, catered to the chauvinistic sentiment of the voters to get elected. This is what the Congress party itself used to do, but others have learned the trick as well. The question now is who out- does whom. An added disadvantage from which the Congress party suffered was that it had annoyed some of its own members, who bolted the party and contested the elections from the opposite side. The result is that, in Bihar, it now has only 118 members in a house of 318.

I Uttar Pradesh the Jat separatists won about one hundred seats in the 425-member legislature, leaving the Congress party not far short of a majority with 208 seats out of the 420 declared results. The Jats' party, the Bhartiya Kranti Dal, appealed to the voters essentially in the name of 'a government of villagers, by villagers and for villagers.' The Congress party, with its leadership drawn from the urban areas, could not match the slogan. The BPD went to the length of appealing in the name of sub-castes, where it was unbeat- able.

The unsavoury reputation of the Congress party in Uttar Pradesh proved its Achilles' heel. None of the state's Congress leaders was known for probity. The ex-Congressmen who essentially constitute the BKD, could con-

vincingly tell the electorate that they left the Congress party because of its corruption and nepotism. The reason why the Congress party has slightly improved its position over 1967, when it won 199 seats, is because it was able to convince many religious Hindu voters that it was second to none in safeguarding their_ interests. In the process, the strength of the Jana Sangh, the pro-Hindu party, has been re- duced from ninety-six to forty-eight. This defeat has jolted it, and the party leadership is seri- ously considering whether it should go com- pletely Hindu instead of maintaining the facade of secularism it tried to present in the recent polls.

The Muslim votes, too, largely went to the Congress party. Once again the Muslims pinned their faith on the party which at least has a secular image and which, being in power at the centre, can look after their community nationally.

In the Punjab (pop. 15 million) the Akali Dal, the party of the Sikhs, made the demand for a Sikh 'homeland' its election plank and won

forty-three seats in a house of 104. Its strength last time was only eighteen. The Sikh candi- dates put up by the Congress party were gener-

ally defeated because a Sikh party was considered 'more trustworthy than the Hindu- dominated Congress.'

The moral of the election is that the ruling Congress party has not been able to stem the tide of parochialism in the provinces. The slogan of being a Bengali, Bihari or Punjabi goes down better with the electorate than being an Indian. In fact, the sectarian trend has been on the increase. Take Bombay's recent disturb- ances, which have already cost about fifty lives. Begun as a demonstration in favour of amalgamating with Maharashtra some Marathi- speaking areas of the neighbouring state of

Mysore, mob violence was soon turned against the South Indians. In another state, Andhra, the Telegana region has been agitating—rather violently—to turn out from jobs and busi- nesses people who are not domiciled there.

The Congress leaders, however, are them- selves to blame for this unhappy state of affairs, because they encouraged parochialism when it suited them. After sowing the wind they can- not but reap the whirlwind. So far no top Congress leader has come out openly to con- demn the agitation in Bombay. Each election has only intensified regional and communal propensities and the result is that the states are moving further and further away from New Delhi. Relations between the Congress- dominated centre and the non-Congress state governments are becoming steadily more diffi- cult. The pace of economic development in the country as a whole will slow down still more because the non-Congress governments have been blaming the centre for being too niggardly towards them. Now New Delhi will have to be more accommodating and patient.

But the impression here is that the central government has been over-indulgent to two Southern states, anti-Hindi Madras and pro- communist Kerala, and there have been many occasions. when they have defied government directives. But New Delhi's belief that dis- cretion is the better part of valour has averted an open clash so far.

With another pro-communist government in West Bengal. and a pro-Sikh regime in Punjab, the centre's difficulties will only increase. These two governments have had a 'sad experience' of working with New Delhi when they were last in power in 1967. Now they—and other non-Congress state governments—will insist that the spheres of the centre and the states should be delineated clearly. The Indian con- stitution is not very specific on this subject, and where the spirit of compromise used to deter- mine things, the rule-book will now be invoked. Mrs Gandhi should know from past experience that she cannot be too strict with the states lest they become more intransigent. She cannot be too indulgent lest her own party members accuse her of softness. But she will not even be able to take a middle path, since the non- Congress states are likely to provoke the centre to an unbearable limit.

The Congress ddbacle has made Mrs Gandhi's position as Prime Minister vulnerable. A whispering campaign has already started in

New Delhi that her inept leadership has been responsible for the reverse. From her side it is asserted that nobody, not even her father, Mr Nehru, drew such large audiences as she did in her pre-election campaigns. Whether this can satisfy the Congress party remains to be seen, but one thing is clear: opposition to her is bound to increase among those Con- gressmen who have never been reconciled to her leadership. The only resources she com- mands to stave off this challenge is to reshuffle her cabinet—which she did soon after the elec- tion results were known—and the threat to dissolve parliament so that the Congress MPS face the electorate at a time when the party's prestige has reached a new low. This has worked in the past; it may do so again.