Hindustan Times

Dhrubo Jyoti

Dipankar Ghose

These five Indians will be remembered for their role in this era.

Indira, Kamaraj, Jayaprakash Narayan: 5 key leaders

<h2 style="text-align:center;">Indira Gandhi</h2>

<p>In many ways, the three elections in the decade between 1967 and 1977 traced the rise of Indira Gandhi as political colossus, but underlined her deepest flaws and mistakes too, leading India into and through turbulence. In 1966, Gandhi took over as prime minister at a time when the country had been hit by the deaths of two prime ministers in three years, as well as rising inflation and unemployment. She was the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, but was yet to earn her political credibility. Some of that was earned by an electoral victory in 1967, her first as PM. Two years later, the Congress party split, and India had its first minority government. Gandhi was a tough administrator and showed political deftness by cobbling together a coalition with the communists and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK). When the 1971 general election arrived, she swept the polls. The next few months would be among India's most tumultuous, as a war with Pakistan saw the liberation of Bangladesh. It was a legacy-making period. But from that high came a precipitous fall. In the four years that followed, Gandhi was accused of electoral malpractice, imposed Emergency, jailed opposition leaders and, in 1977, called for a general election confident that her measures were popular. The Congress lost, and India’s first non-Congress government was sworn in.</p><h2 style="text-align:center;">Morarji Desai</h2>

<p>For decades, Morarji Desai was one of the almost-men of Indian politics. He was chief minister of Bombay Presidency, union home minister and finance minister, but until 1977, India's top job eluded him. He had come close, in 1964, after prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru died, but was outflanked by Lal Bahadur Shastri. When Shastri died two years later, Desai was in the running again, but lost the leadership battle to Nehru's daughter Indira Gandhi. Three years later, when the Congress split, Desai joined the faction opposed to Gandhi. Then, in 1977, came Desai's moment; in India's political history, perhaps one of the most crucial. Until then, for 30 years, the Congress had ruled undefeated. But India was angered by a draconian Emergency, enthused by an anti-corruption movement lead by Jayaprakash Narayan; that year, Indira Gandhi called for elections and lost. Morarji Desai became India's first non-Congress PM, an early sign of the competitive political space that India would become. He had other important milestones too, including a resumption of talks with China, the first since the 1962 war.</p><h2 style="text-align:center;">K Kamaraj</h2>

<p>For a while in the 1960s, K Kamaraj was one of the most powerful men in Indian politics. By 1963, he had served as chief minister of the Madras Presidency for nine years. Worried by the dwindling popularity of the Congress, particularly in the face of challenges from regional outfits such as the DMK in his native Tamil Nadu, he proposed the Kamaraj Plan, a radical idea that encouraged senior Congress leaders and ministers to give up their posts and build the organisation on the ground. It was applied nationally, and six union ministers and six chief ministers tendered their resignations. His heft growing amid the rollout of this plan, Kamaraj was made Congress president by prime minister Nehru, and it was he who navigated the choppy waters after Nehru’s death. Then again in 1966, when Shastri died, it was Kamaraj who backed Indira Gandhi for the post. Differences between Gandhi and the Congress old guard grew, and when the Congress split in 1969, Kamaraj, along with Morarji Desai, became leaders of the Indian National Congress (Organisation).</p><p>In 1971, Kamraj attempted to stitch together a formidable coalition, perhaps the first exercise of such scale across states, to take on Indira Gandhi. He brought the INC(O), Samyukta Socialist Party, Swatantra Party, Bharatiya Jana Sangh and other regional outfits together in a pre-poll alliance. Indira Gandhi stormed to power nonetheless. But in terms of what was to follow, particularly in the years after 1989, Kamaraj had shown India the ropes on building political coalitions.</p><h2 style="text-align:center;">Jayaprakash Narayan</h2>

<p>Through the 1970s, two political figures defined Indian politics: Indira Gandhi and Jayaprakash Narayan. The latter, a powerful politician and activist from Bihar, had gradually grown disenchanted with the Congress, and when the Allahabad high court found the prime minister guilty of violating electoral laws, led the call for her to resign. Narayan's popularity grew amid his call for “sampoorna kranti (complete revolution)” against what he saw as a culture of corruption, stagnation and nepotism. He called on government agencies to disobey orders and, by 1975, Gandhi had imposed Emergency. Narayan didn’t stop. At the Ramlila Grounds, he memorably sang Ramdhari Singh Dinkar’s Singhasan Khali Karo (Vacate The Throne), as a large crowd sang along; he was eventually arrested.</p><p>By 1977, Gandhi had revoked Emergency, called for elections and was confident of victory, even as she faced the Janata Party, a broad spectrum of opposition parties that stood against her rule. A key architect of that coalition was Jayaprakash Narayan. Apart from his political engineering, he led mass outreach rallies, exhorting the youth to rise against the excesses of Gandhi’s rule. Indira and the Congress were defeated, the Janata Party came to power, and India had its first non-Congress government, headed by Morarji Desai.</p><h2 style="text-align:center;">C Rajagopalachari</h2>

<p>In 1947, C Rajagopalachari was entrusted with two of the most important responsibilities in a free but young and volatile nation. He was appointed the first governor of West Bengal, which was aflame amid Partition in the east. And he was appointed governor-general of India from June 1948 to January 26, 1950, when India’s constitution would come into effect.</p><p>By 1959, however, Rajagopalachari’s disillusionment with the Congress and Nehru was complete, and he announced the formation of the Swatantra Party. Over the next eight years, Rajagopalachari worked to grow the party, particularly in Tamil Nadu, where he built a relationship with onetime-foe CN Annadurai of the DMK. In 1967, the DMK-led coalition came to power in Tamil Nadu and Annadurai rose to chief minister, the first time the Congress was defeated in that state.</p><p>Importantly, the Swatantra Party also did well in the Lok Sabha election, and though the Congress swept to victory again, Rajagopalachari’s eight-year-old outfit emerged the single largest opposition party, with 45 seats. They were also the principal opposition in states such as Rajasthan and Gujarat. It was the first time a party other than from the Left had gained such a position, particularly in the Lok Sabha, and this would lay the foundations for non-Congress formations to rise to power in the years to come.</p>