The year 1989 was a momentous one. Civic opposition to Soviet rule culminated in the fall of the Berlin Wall. Historic elections in Argentina, Chile and Brazil underscored the demise of dictatorships in the Southern Cone, and meetings between FW de Klerk and Nelson Mandela, subsequently released, presaged the end of apartheid in South Africa.
The ninth general election in India, in comparison, was a relatively normal affair. Yet it inaugurated a new era: Women, Dalits and Adivasis voted as often as socially privileged groups, if not more often; especially in rural settings and northern states.
The relative decline of the Congress, the rise of state-based parties and the ascendance of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) defined the 1990s.
A nation in social, political flux
Tight races and marginal swings would determine the balance of power in this era, creating a bargaining environment of unparalleled complexity. This would test the strategies, tactics and judgment of competing party leaders. And foster precedents that compelled scholars to analyse India’s electoral politics afresh.
Meanwhile, liberalisation restored growth but exacerbated inequalities. The implementation of the Mandal Commission report alienated some. And the challenge posed by militant Hindutva, as evidenced by the destruction of the Babri Masjid in 1992, began to reconfigure polity.
Advani, Narasimha Rao, Jayalalithaa: 5 key leaders
Who defined the decade? VP Singh, who separated himself from Rajiv Gandhi in the wake of the Bofors scandal and became prime minister in 1989. PV Narasimha Rao, who with finance minister Manmohan Singh liberalised the economy. HD Deve Gowda, the accidental-prime-minister-of-sorts who ascended in extraordinary circumstances. LK Advani, the aggressive architect of the controversial Ram Janmabhoomi movement. And J Jayalalithaa, the iron lady of Tamil Nadu.
Bofors, Janmabhoomi, an assassination: 5 key moments
What defined this decade in politics: The Bofors scandal, which made an overnight star of then defence minister VP Singh, who would go on to join the Janata Dal and become prime minister in 1989; the dispute between Hindu and Muslim groups over the Babri Masjid site in Ayodhya; the Mandal Commission report that sparked violent protests by upper-caste students and activists; the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991; and the fall of the first Atal Bihari Vajpayee government in 1996.
A time of shaky victories, changing equations
The Congress slumped from the biggest victory in India’s parliamentary history in 1984 to less than the majority mark just five years later. Then the governments of VP Singh and Chandra Shekhar fell within two years. After Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in 1991, a wave of sympathy helped PV Narasimha Rao form a minority government. The following election, 1996, saw three prime ministers – Atal Bihari Vajpayee, HD Deve Gowda and IK Gujral – take charge, over just two years.
The decade of Mandal versus Kamandal
These years would see the logical culmination of contradictions within the anti-Congress camp, in ways that would give rise to a new kind of political faultline in the country — the resurrection of the Hindu right, the atrophying of the Congress as a pan-India party, and the rise of Mandal as a counter to Kamandal.
