Hindustan Times

Srinath Raghavan

The 1967 election showed a widening of the electorate and a deepening of Indian democracy. Voter turnout had risen from just under 45% in the first general election, in 1952, to 61% in 1967. The opposition was uniting and, at the same time, the Congress was divided from within.

A new landscape evolves

The fourth general election, held in 1967, was highly significant in the history of Indian electoral politics. For one thing, it marked a sharp rise in electoral participation. Voter turnout had steadily risen from just under 45% of registered voters in the first general election (1952) to 55% in the third election (1962) and touched 61% in 1967. In absolute numbers, voter turnout in 1967 stood at 152.7 million, nearly double that in 1952. This remarkable expansion of electoral participation underscored a rising awareness among people of the importance of politics and of elections as a mode of influencing it.The 1967 election also showed that the widening of the electorate was accompanied by a deepening of Indian democracy. Notable among the sections of Indian society that now flocked to polling booths were peasants from the middle castes, ranking below the “twice-born” upper castes in hierarchy but above the Scheduled Castes to which most landless labourers belonged. These communities of peasant proprietors had been dominant actors in the rural economy, especially since the land reforms of the 1950s, and were now reaching for a share in political power. The departure from the Uttar Pradesh Congress of the stalwart Jat leader Charan Singh, to form the Bharatiya Kranti Dal (BKD) after the 1967 election, illustrated this dynamic. As did the formation of the Vishal Haryana Party by Rao Birender Singh. Above all, there was the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), which stormed to power in Tamil Nadu in 1967 and decisively displaced the Congress party from its commanding heights in that state.In a third shift, the polls highlighted the importance of opposition unity in determining electoral outcomes. The Congress’s ability to dominate Indian politics at all levels over the previous 15 years had owed much to its reputation as the legatee of the nationalist movement, its formidable party organisation, and its ability to corral the landed and business elites. Equally important was the working of the first past the post electoral system. Although the Congress had never garnered an absolute majority in vote share in any of the previous general elections, it had commanded enormous majorities in parliament. In 1952, its 45% vote share had translated into 364 of 479 seats in the Lok Sabha; in 1957, a 47.8% vote share had yielded 371 of 494 seats; in 1962, 44.7% of votes gave it 361 of 494 seats. Clearly, the Congress’s ability to secure such parliamentary majorities stemmed from the absence of any semblance of unity among the parties opposed to it too.India’s humiliating defeat in the war with China in late 1962 opened a window for the opposition parties. Ram Manohar Lohia, the chief ideologue of the North Indian socialists, sought at once to unite the socialist parties and to reach an understanding with the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (the forerunner of the BJP), to field united opposition candidates in the by-elections of 1963. This strategy paid some dividends, though the durability of such a marriage of convenience seemed dubious.In 1966, Lohia and his Samyukta Socialist Party made strenuous efforts for pre-poll arrangements with the Jana Sangh. The Jana Sangh, for its part, entered an electoral pact with the Swatantra Party, which ensured that the latter would field its own candidates only in a fourth of the seats where the Jana Sangh was also in contest. Ideological differences were slimmer here. The upshot of it all was a significant degree of opposition unity, especially in the north Indian states.The results of the 1967 election bore out the importance of opposition unity. The Congress’s vote share dropped 4 percentage points from the 1962 tally, to 40.8%, and its share of seats in parliament plunged from 73% to 54.4% — leaving it with a slender majority; a total of 283 seats in a house of 520. The outcome of the state elections was even more damaging to the Congress. In addition to Tamil Nadu, the party lost its stranglehold on Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Orissa and West Bengal.

The coalition governments that came to power in these states were sewn together by the thread of antipathy to the Congress, but consisted of ideologically incompatible parties — socialists, communists, Jana Sangh, Swatantra, Congress splinters, regional outfits — and inordinately ambitious individuals. In consequence, the coalitions careened into crises and barely lasted a couple of years. Yet, their failure should not obscure the importance of the 1967 election in inaugurating a pattern of bipolar contests with the Congress in key states.The Jana Sangh was the beneficiary of the consolidation of non-Congress votes in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh, while coalitions centred on the Communist Party of India (Marxist) gained ground in Kerala and West Bengal.The most immediately significant consequence of the 1967 election was the crevasse it opened within the Congress party. Prime minister Indira Gandhi was already at loggerheads with the party bosses — a group of five regional heavyweights, collectively known as The Syndicate — who had piloted her candidature a year earlier, erroneously assuming she would be amenable to them. The party’s poor showing at the hustings was an undeniable setback for her. The main consolation for Gandhi was that several stalwarts of the Syndicate had been trounced in their own constituencies. Sensing that the party was at its weakest, Gandhi decided to undertake a complete organisational makeover.On the one hand, she decided to force a showdown with the party elders and cut them to size. A series of face-offs ensued, culminating in the prime minister’s extraordinary opposition to her own party’s candidate for election as President of the republic. On the other hand, she sought to project a strong ideological divide with the old guard by tacking to the left. A series of populist measures was rolled out to drum up her socialist credentials: control and the nationalisation of banks, the abolition of constitutionally guaranteed privy purses for India’s former princely rulers, restrictions on big businesses, and so forth.In late 1969, Gandhi made bold to split the Congress party. Not only did she secure the loyalty of her senior cabinet ministers, she carried a majority of Congress members of parliament too: 220 from the lower house and 90 from the upper, leaving only 119 of 429 MPs with the Syndicate and the former deputy prime minister, Morarji Desai.

Indira Gandhi’s Congress (R – Requisionist) was clearly stronger than the Congress (O – Organisation). Still, the Congress (R) was 45 seats short of a majority in the lower house. In addition to wooing assorted independents, Gandhi reached out to the DMK and the Communist Party of India (Marxist).The Congress split also complicated politics in the states. Consider Uttar Pradesh. In the mid-term elections of February 1969, the Congress finished with 211 of 424 seats in the state legislature; just three shy of a majority. Charan Singh’s BKD soared to 98 seats from 21. In the event, a Congress ministry led by CB Gupta took office. After the Congress split, Gupta threw his lot in with the Congress (O), while the other senior leader, Kamalapati Tripathi, took his followers — over 120 legislators, including 16 ministers — to Gandhi’s Congress (R). As Congressmen floated back and forth between the two factions, Gupta clung to power by his fingernails. By February 1970, he could see the writing on the wall.Gandhi now offered to support Charan Singh in his bid to become chief minister, hoping to subsume him in her new party. Unsurprisingly, the arrangement lasted just over six months. When Gandhi pulled her support, Gupta’s Congress (O) and the Jana Sangh came forward to prop up Charan Singh. Gandhi retaliated by getting the President to temporarily suspend the assembly, but wasn’t able further to manoeuvre the situation to her advantage. Eventually, all her rivals came together to form a new coalition government under the leadership of a non-entity acceptable to everyone: TN Singh. This coalition government would function for a mere six months.On December 27, 1970, Indira Gandhi announced an early general election, a year ahead of schedule. Hitherto, national and state elections had always been held together. Gandhi broke the synchronicity, thus fixing the electorate’s attention on national as opposed to local issues. Pitted against her Congress (R) was a hastily-cobbled-together coalition of the Congress (O), Jana Sangh, Swatantra Party, the socialists and a smattering of regional parties. Although strong on paper, it had none of the new Congress’s frisson. The Congress (O)’s manifesto blandly declared: “We Will Master The Crisis”. The solution on offer was more of the same.By contrast, the Congress (R) manifesto held out a “genuine radical programme of social and economic development”. As with most populist politics, it sought to construct a line dividing the marginalised masses from the powerful elites. In a remarkable political manoeuvre, the incumbent prime minister presented herself as an insurgent candidate up against a battery of entrenched elites: the conservative Congress old guard; “the alliance of reaction”; the socialists who had joined this “unprincipled alliance”; and shadowy “vested interests”.

Gandhi was keen to present the campaign as a referendum on her. The opposition alliance helped her by coining the campaign slogan “Indira Hatao (Remove Indira)”. Gandhi responded by avowing her radical credentials with the catchy retort “Garibi Hatao (Remove Poverty)”.In the event, Indira Gandhi pulled off a spectacular electoral victory. With a vote share of 43.7%, the Congress (R) finished with 352 of 518 seats in the lower house. The next-largest party, the CPI (M), garnered just 25. Notwithstanding greater opposition unity, including elements of the old Congress, Gandhi had coasted to a massive win. This was principally owing to her ability to deploy a fresh political narrative with considerable appeal to groups on the margins of Indian society — Dalits, tribals, religious minorities — while continuing to tend to the upper castes, especially in north India.Over the following year, Gandhi’s political standing and nationalist credentials received a massive boost, with her adroit handling of the crisis and war that led to the creation of Bangladesh. The opposition parties were cut adrift. The “Grand Alliance” melted after the debacle of 1971. Ahead of the state elections in 1972, the opposition parties sought to strike out on their own in particular states, to little avail. The Congress (R) swept everything before it, confirming Gandhi’s political dominance.In the next couple of years, plans to resuscitate opposition unity were periodically aired; ironically, by the socialists who could barely get on with their each other. Charan Singh, who had emerged as a key player, felt that all political parties opposed to the Congress — barring the communists — ought to dissolve and amalgamate into a single national opposition party. Neither the Jana Sangh nor the socialists would dream of it, for Charan Singh’s party had already eaten into their electoral bases since 1967.The challenge confronting the opposition parties was starkly underlined in Uttar Pradesh.In the wake of the mutiny in 1973 by battalions of the UP Provincial Armed Constabulary, Gandhi replaced chief minister Kamalapati Tripathi with HN Bahuguna. When state assembly elections were called the following year, the principal opposition parties — Jana Sangh, Congress (O), Socialist Party and BKD — decided to go it alone. In the event, the tarnished incumbent, the Congress (R), took 32.29% of votes and ended with 215 of 424 seats. The BKD and its minor allies had a vote share of 21.22% but finished with 106 seats. In fact, the parties comprising the former “Grand Alliance” had polled almost 50% of the vote. In short, opposition unity was indispensable but also insufficient to dislodge Indira Gandhi’s Congress (R).Eventually, the opening came not from the electoral arena but from popular politics. Student protests in Gujarat against inflation and corruption swiftly transmuted into a wider campaign for reform. Under the leadership of Jayaprakash Narayan (JP), the movement spread to Bihar and elsewhere, drawing in diverse social groups and an unlikely assortment of political parties. As the protests gathered considerable momentum, Gandhi and her advisors began contemplating invocation of the Emergency provisions laid out in the Constitution. In the event, an adverse verdict from the Allahabad High Court, setting aside her election to parliament, triggered her move to impose Emergency on June 25, 1975.The 21-month spell of authoritarian rule with practically all key opposition leaders in prison concentrated their minds on the question of unity as never before. When Gandhi announced elections in January 1977, opposition leaders were convinced that the polls would be rigged. After toying briefly with the idea of a boycott, they decided to take the plunge. Soon after their release from prison, the top leaders of the four largest opposition parties — the BKD, Jana Sangh, Congress (O) and Socialist Party — announced their merger and the Janata Party was born. Soon, key regional parties including the DMK, Akali Dal and CPI(M) entered into electoral arrangements with the new entity. Senior Congress leaders too peeled away from Gandhi: erstwhile party president Jagjivan Ram, former chief ministers of UP and Orissa HN Bahuguna and Nandini Satpathy. Their party, Congress for Democracy, also entered into a seat-sharing pact with the Janata Party.The results announced on March 22, 1977, marked a sharp repudiation of Gandhi’s authoritarianism, especially by north Indian voters. With a turnout of 60.49% of registered voters, 194.3 million Indians had queued at polling stations. In percentage terms the figure was a shade lower than in the 1967 elections (61.04%), but in absolute numbers it amounted to an increase of 41.6 million voters. Much of this growth in voter numbers came from northern India, which had experienced the brutal edge of the Emergency regime more viscerally than the rest of the country. The rejection of Gandhi’s Congress in the Hindi belt was unequivocal. The prime minister and her son, Sanjay Gandhi, were defeated in their own constituencies in Uttar Pradesh. Her party lost all but two of 226 parliamentary seats in the Hindi heartland.While the political mood was against the Emergency, the logic of opposition unity also kicked in. The Congress’s vote share dropped from 43.7% in 1971 to 34.5%, but its tally seats went from 352 to 154. By contrast, the Janata Party polled 41.32% of the votes and took 295 of 544 seats. A decade after the elections of 1967, the non-Congress opposition had eventually found the right combination of political unity and political narrative to sweep Indira Gandhi’s Congress out of power.The first transfer of power in national politics was a momentous event, one that did much to restore enthusiasm for the electoral system in the wake of the Emergency. That it proved to be less than enduring as political change is another matter.(Srinath Raghavan is professor of international relations and history at Ashoka University. He is writing a history of India in the “Long 1970s” to be published by Penguin Random House India)The views expressed are personal