Indira Gandhi: Moment of Truth

FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS

The situation in the country has turned grave in the wake of the threats being issued by certain influential Ministers and Congress politicians to Anna Hazare that he would be given the same treatment that was meted out to Baba Ramdev at the Capital’s Ramlila Maidan in the early hours of June 5, 2011. And the threats have come just before and during the observance of the 36th anniversary of proclamation of Emergency on June 25-26, 1975. It is against this backdrop that we are reproducing the following editorial that appeared in Mainstream (June 21, 1975), a few days prior to Indira Gandhi’s momentous decision to impose Emergency. It was Indira Gandhi’s ‘Moment of Truth’ then, it could very well be Sonia Gandhi’s ‘Moment of Truth’ now as the fear of imposition of a second Emergency continues to mount across the nation.

Serious issues demand serious effort at tackling them. Nothing in the world is acheived through enthusiasm let loose. It is no doubt important to demonstrate to the adversary the unity of one’s own ranks, but a battle is not won by effusion of enthusiasm; for, this does not on its own bring about unity in one’s ranks, nor does it help to work out the plan of action in meeting the challenge.

This is what comes to mind as one watches the performance of Congress leadership in the first week since the verdict of the Allahabad High Court on June 12 unseating Smt Indira Gandhi from Lok Sabha and imposing the six-year disqualification on her. There has been a non-stop relay of jathas and morchas in front of her house, organised largely by cronies around her.

The element of spontaneity of support to her, genuinely felt by the multitude in this country, is submerged in the tamasha that the Chief Ministers from nearby States have been helping the organisers to put up. In fact, a virtual competition in collecting trucks and buses has been going on, and the factions gunning for any Chief Minister would be counting how many truckloads of villagers he may have unloaded in front of the Prime Minister’s residence at 1 Safdarjung Road.

The strange idea of getting State-owned bus drivers and conductors in the Capital to stay away from work for the day of solidarity with Smt Gandhi did more harm than good, with thousands of commuters stranded all over the city cursing the organisers of such an absurd demonstration. One has only to thank them for not spreading this demonstration mania to other essential services.

While the Opposition demand for her immediate resignation is untenable so long as Smt Gandhi enjoys the Court’s stay order withholding the nullifying of her election, it is understandable that the Congress leadership should try to ensure the continuity of her tenure as Prime Minister, there is no doubt that it needs Smt Indira Gandhi. It is not that all the bigwigs of the party hold this view in private, but even the most ambitious among them realise that any devaluation of Smt Gandhi at this stage would damage the Congress itself, and thereby harm their own chances as well. It was this realisation that was amply evident at the meeting of the Congress Party in Parliament in which full confidence in Smt Gandhi’s leadership was exuberantly reiterated.

There might be good reason for holding the mammoth rally in New Delhi on June 20. What seems to be missing is the awareness that the frontiers of this vast land of ours are not confined to the roundabout in front of the Prime Minister’s residence nor to the open space along the Rajpath. Such extravaganza in bringing thousands upon thousands to the Capital might be necessary to demonstrate the solidarity of the nation—as was done on August 9, 1971 in the midst of the Bangladesh crisis—but any seasoned political party leadership has to agree that the law of diminishing returns is bound to play havoc if it is repeated over and over again.

It has almost become a truism to say that the real India is to be found in the villages in which 82 per cent of the population lives. The cascade of speeches in adulation of the Prime Minister literally within her earshot can by no means be a substitute for the urgent task of fanning out all over the far-flung country, in its myriad of villages and convey to them through sustained explanatory campaign not only the implications of the Allahabad verdict but of the wider issues at stake.

It would be self-deception for any Congress-man to think today that the village poor could any longer be deluded by promises. It was the village poor who turned up in millions in support of the Congress in all the poll battles in 1971-1974, although little has been done to better his lot.

But the Gujarat election results have shown that the Congress can no longer take the bulk of the rural electorate for granted. And this is not surprising because his stake in the very set-up presided over by Smt Gandhi is getting eroded. The police barbarities on militant landless peasantry, as recently perpetrated in Bihar, will antagonise it further from the Congress. What is indeed surprising is that in such a situation, a section of the Central leadership of the Congress should be interested in toppling a Ministry like the one in Uttar Pradesh which has taken steps towards improving the lot of the rural poor.

Now in the midst of the crisis created by the grim prospect opened up for Smt Gandhi by the Allahabd verdict, the Congress leadership is reported to be thinking of going in for emergency measures ranging from the Narora programme to electoral reforms. Theoretically, one can have no objection to such steps being taken.

But the peasant does not live by bread alone, although he has to struggle for it: even the famished, famine-stricken millions have the record of sturdy political consciousness. They would have little difficulty in seeing through gimmicks: even if one dismisses the cynic’s view that Justice Sinha of the Allahabad High Court could then be unwittingly responsible for bringing about land reforms, the peasant’s shrewd suspicion that the Congress leadership could be made to move only in the face of a political crisis is neither wholesome for the nation nor would it help to reinforce the confidence of the millions in the countryside in the bona fides of the Congress.

What can still help the Congress to recover its squandered asset is the determination of every one of its members to actively identify themselves with the day-to-day struggle of the have-nots, both in the rural and the urban sectors. If the Congress MPs and MLAs instead of converging upon New Delhi to pay their tribute to Smt Gandhi—reminding the irreverant about the traditions of the Moghul Court—go out in right earnest to their respective constituencies, visiting every village and actively organising the poorer strata for the actual enforcement of laws that are already on the statue book, for generating into them the strength to fight the hoarders and resist the rapacious farmer, they will not only be building their own bases but also strengthening the Congress.

Similarly, in the urban area, the Congressman has a lot to do. The public distribution system for the essential commodities is still a paper project. It is for the Congress organisation, particularly its youth wing, to organise the setting up of such a system itself. The current pastime of leaving the job to the government machinery and blaming the bureaucracy for it not having done it, may be conscience-soothing, but it does not enhance its standing in the eyes of the masses.

It is a welcome development that the Congress leadership should think seriously about electoral reforms, although it would be hard put to ward off the charge that it could wake up only when its own leader has become a victim of anomalies in the entire electoral process. Every political party in the country has been demanding such reforms for a long time, but the Congress did not bother so long as it could manage to run its poll campaign with the help of Money Bags.

Today, the irony of the situation is that Smt Gandhi has been indicted of corrupt electoral practices by a court of law on the petition of a person whose record in polluting public life is undisputed. If the charges against Smt Gandhi are of a technical nature—as a layman would look at it—the fact that she has in the eyes of the law been found guilty of corrupt practices has provided a godsend for her opponents to accuse her of corruption.

Such a charge can certainly be met not only by appealing to the Supreme Court but also by taking concrete steps here and now that would convince the people at large of her determination to weed out corruption from public life. This is not a difficult task for her if she is ready to take the initiative in turning out all those placed around her—whether by ties of blood or sycopancy—and thereby display the courage to rise above petty considerations and proclaim by her action that she would permit not even the semblance of corruption around the seat of power. There are instances in history in which sycophants’ sins have visited upon those who harbour them and out of such stuff, it may also be noted that CIA operators are often born.

Today more than ever before the Prime Minister of India has to be like the Caesar’s wife. She can ill afford the luxury of hangers-on whose names stink of corruption and who need extra security to save themselves even from the crowds that came to great her.

Whether one likes it or not, the cohesion and progress of the country depend on the unity and determination of the Congress. There are thousands upon thousands of Congressmen and women who figure neither in the speeches and statements nor in lobbying and money-making operations, and yet they constitute the silent backbone of this vast organisation. Those who talk big or mouth radicalism can never thrive unless and until they actively identify themselves with this silent, unpolluted majority inside their own party. This massive force has come to look upon Indira Gandhi as a symbol of both cohesion of the nation and the well-being of the millions.

It is therefore all the more incumbent upon Indira Gandhi to win back this confidence by taking steps that will convince the masses that neither corruption nor vested interests shall get any reprieve from her even if this demands personal sacrifice. And upon all her followers, those who claim to run the Congress, the consciousness must dawn that there is no short-cut to any difficult situation. Those who are found to be talking glibly of the Mujib way are either living in a fool’s paradise utterly ignorant of the realities of India or are playing into the hands of agent-provocateurs. There is no escape from paying for the wages of drift.

Drastic steps are no doubt called for, but they cannot succeed without going deep among the masses that constitute this nation: Gandhi did it, let it be noted by the feather-weight hothouse politicos that strut about in the corridors of power in New Delhi.

This, indeed, is the moment of truth for Indira Gandhi and of the Congress as a whole.

(Mainstream, June 21, 1975)