Yubaraj Ghimire traces the political history of India leading up to the 1999 general election and explores the evolution of the parties which will continue to shape India’s multi-faceted political landscape.

Mr. Ghimire is a former Associate Editor of the Indian Express Newspaper. Currently based in London, he writes and broadcasts regularly on Indian politics)

It was an election that was expected right from the day Mr. Atal Behari Vajapyee was sworn in as India’s Prime Minister in early 1998. He was heading a mix of parties with such divergent views on domestic, economic and foreign policy issues that the coalition partners had merely agreed to set aside their differences temporarily as part of a tempting power-sharing agreement among a heterogeneous crowd that together commanded only a slight majority in the 543-member lower house of parliament (Lok Sabha). The government eventually collapsed in April 1999, completing just 13 months of a five-year term after the leader of a regional party, J. Jayalalitha deserted Mr. Vajpayee for declining to accept demands that corruption charges against her be withdrawn in her home state of Tamil Nadu. It was against this background that India faced an inevitable general election in September 1999 involving — with 600 million voters — the world’s largest exercise in electoral democracy for the third time in as many years. This was an extraordinary event in its own right. Moreover, the sheer involvement of expenditures ($25 million) and a massive military movement across the country for security purposes was noteworthy, especially considering that the country had just confronted Pakistan in a "quasi" war over alleged infiltration in Kashmir. After a month-long election activity, the 76-year old Mr. Vajpayee, leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and his 23 allies, collectively called the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), returned to power last fall. This article briefly touches on some of the issues raised by the outcome of this election against a backdrop of the country’s recent political history.

The latter half of the 1980s has witnessed two parallel phenomena in Indian politics. The first is the decline of the 114-year old Congress party, which, as an umbrella organization for the country’s independence struggle before 1947, has ruled India for over 45 years out of the 52 years since that time, most of it under Jawaharlal Nehru, his daughter Indira Gandhi, and Gandhi’s son, Rajiv. The second has been the gradual growth of the young BJP in coming of age to fill the space vacated by a shrinking Congress. The BJP came into existence in 1951 under the name Janasangh, mainly to protect the interests of Hindus when the pain of partition was still fresh. Until 1989, the party only had a minimal presence in the parliament with much of its support coming from the urban and the affluent classes. In 1989, it put the Hindu agenda at the forefront more aggressively than ever before, making the construction of a Hindu Temple in the city of Ayodhya on the exact site of a 464-year old Babri Mosque its main electoral plank. The BJP’s rise has continued since, and the party garnered 182 seats in the latest Lok Sabha which, together with the additional 114 amassed by its allies, gives it a working majority of 23, enough to run the country comfortably, but far less than the two-thirds majority required for any constitutional amendment.

When the BJP suspended some of its controversial programs, like the Hindu temple in Ayodhya, putting a ban on cow slaughter and scrapping the constitutional provision for greater autonomy in Kashmir, it was seen as evidence of the kind of compromise a durable coalition would demand. The party’s allies were informed that the BJP would not try to impose its agenda on reluctant partners, although it never promised it would never take up those issues if it ever came to power with a majority of its own. But two recent decisions by the BJP have raised some doubts over whether it will continue to stick to its pledge. The BJP-ruled government in the western state of Gujarat allowed its employees to participate in the activities of the Rastriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) —the much feared parent organization of the BJP. Further, a prominent ally —Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, M. Karunanidhi —objected to the move saying that it will open Pandora’s box. There are fears expressed by a section of the alliance that the RSS issue may prove quite ominous. India’s first non-Congress coalition in 1977, also known as the Janata experiment, had disintegrated after constituents accused Janasangh (BJP’s previous name) of playing second fiddle to the RSS. While Karunanidhi’s fear is rooted in the past, his is clearly a worry for the future. The other move involves the government’s decision to constitute a legal team to review India’s 50-year old constitution overruling widespread protest from almost all the parties outside the alliance. The fact that the RSS has never accepted some provisions of the constitution, especially those related to Kashmir and the minorities, is well known, but the review committee’s appointment defies the spirit of consensus pronounced by the government during its formation last September. India’s present constitution is the product of years of collective effort and involvement of a constituent assembly that had as members political and legal luminaries, who as freedom fighters against British colonialism wished to enshrine the objectives and the goals of the struggle. The draft committee was headed by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, widely respected as a hero by tens of millions of India’s oppressed classes. This move to review the constitution has stirred much controversy as it also coincides with the recent inclusion of Mr. Arun Shourie, a noted columnist, in the union ministry. Mr Shourie’s book, The False God, depicts Dr. Ambedkar as a collaborator with foreign rulers, so the move will be construed as part of the RSS-controlled BJP’s anti-Dalit and pro-upper caste stance. The BJP’s defeat in the recent February 2000 state assembly elections in Bihar, seems connected to that fear.

A larger tragedy for the BJP is however that its support from Hindus seems to have now come to a point of saturation. That worries the BJP much more than anything else, because this trend indicates that India is going to remain under coalition governance for years to come. Of course, the shape of Indian politics will continue to be influenced by the seemingly irreversible decline of the Congress party, simultaneously ushering in a chain reaction among other parties. Despite its share of failures, the Congress party is still perceived to be a secular party and an umbrella platform against communalism. Its gradual degeneration has thus affected India's smaller "secular parties" almost in the same manner as the collapse of the Soviet Union impacted communist countries. As a result, caste —that perennial obsession of the subcontinent through history — has ironically become an increasingly dominant factor in politics at a point in time when modernization is speeding ahead at a pace unprecedented in Indian history. While caste-based parties have significant influence in the northern states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, they have also been playing important roles in the southern and north-eastern states on a broader level. One issue has been a call for increased regional autonomy. The biggest reason for regional parties like DMK, Samata, Trinamool, and the Biju Janata Dal to align with the BJP is to carve a more prominent role for themselves in national politics, forcing bigger national parties like the BJP to become more dependent on them.

In the zero-sum game of Indian politics, what the BJP has gained has essentially been at the cost of the Congress. The Congress party’s traditional supporters—Muslims, scheduled tribes and scheduled castes—constituting nearly one-third of the total electorate remain crucial actors for any future political developments as the Congress and BJP vie for the country’s leadership. The better respected Left Front, with strong secularist credentials and a relatively clean public image has been concerned with the growth of the BJP, alleging it to be a champion of Hindu fundamentalism. While the Left Front had labeled the Congress party a synonym of "corruption" in the past, its sudden decision to ally with the Congress during the recent elections cost it dearly with a BJP ally—Trinamool Congress, in the wake of massive gains in the Left’s traditional heartland of West Bengal. The BJP’s lotus (literally, its election symbol) is however not spoke-free. Unlike the last elections when it was the most dominant party in the ruling coalition, its allies have emerged in a more consolidated form this time rallied by well known socialists like George Fernandes and Ram Bilas Paswan.

Their consolidation also resulted in the non-BJP parties receiving a higher share of tickets to contest in the elections. The BJP contested only 338 seats, 50 less than in the last elections, to accommodate these ambitious allies. There is no indication that the allies have mellowed, however, who remain as determined as ever before to oppose, or even pullout from the alliance in case the BJP tried to reintroduce some of its Hindu agenda under pressure from its hard-line supporters in the RSS. This means that in spite of the parliamentary majority, Mr. Vajpayee’s survival is not guaranteed—with risks of threat for pullouts persisting within the coalition. For all practical purposes, the present parliament, like the one it succeeded, is in a precarious balance that places the government, and its prime minister, in a very vulnerable state.

The decline of the Congress, and the rise of the BJP has also rewritten Indian political agenda in the context of federalism and center-region relations. The Congress party always advocated a stronger center, holding that emphasizing the autonomy of India’s twenty-five states was detrimental to the national interest. BJP, too, urged for a stronger grip in Delhi, but because its power came from the regional parties, it has now had to compromise. This is also a recent phenomenon of the continuity of change thrust upon Indian politics since 1996 when regional parties came to power as part of a grand-alliance, first led by H. D. Deve Gowda of Karnataka, and then by I. K. Gujaral of Punjab. This unprecedented participation of the regional parties in the federal government has effectively ended the single party rule the center hitherto exercised over provincial politics. It was common in the past, for instance, to dismiss duly elected state governments with the slightest provocation of defiance. Between 1964 and 1989 alone, the federal government dismissed local governments an astounding 120 times. What the regional parties now have is an attitudinal change in the idea of federalism. This is bound to lead to further devolution of political and economic power to the states.

The growing importance of local politics however does not indicate a growing irrelevance of the central government of India either within the region of South Asia or the world at large. Through its economic and geographic might, it continues to influence the politics and the economics of the region either directly through diplomacy or indirectly through SAARC, the regional cooperation entity. Its long border disputes with China and Pakistan remain unsolved and have led to wars in the past. The nuclear tests that India conducted last year, instigating a reciprocal response from Pakistan, have heightened the region’s risk of conflict. Mr. Vajpayee’s government’s unilateral decision to conduct the nuclear test (even without taking the entire cabinet into confidence) is believed to have been prompted by the RSS. This is perceived as a move to convey a "Hindu" message to both the "Christian West" and the "Islamic Pakistan" that it will be taken more seriously on the world stage. India is keen to see its influence grow further in the region. Exposing and isolating Pakistan is part of that strategy. It lobbied successfully to have Pakistan suspended from the Commonwealth after the military-led coup in October. India’s advocacy in the world forum to have Pakistan declared a terrorist state also continues; its move to keep President Clinton from going to Pakistan during his March trip to India and Bangladesh was also part of that effort. Despite looming problems on the domestic front, India, on this one issue, seems to have agreed to unite behind Mr. Vajpayee and remain hawkish despite widespread international condemnation.

With a middle-class population exceeding 300 million, India remains one of the biggest potential markets of the world economy. While political instability might have discouraged multinationals from investing there at a faster pace, India benefits from its decent legal system, widespread use of English, constitutional order founded on fedaralism, democratic legitimacy, and huge pool of skilled human resource. Undoubtedly, it remains an attractive area for investment. Upon joining the World Trade Organization, the West will try to get India sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The United States and India have been negotiating for a long time and had a recent round of discussion on the issue in London. While this would implicitly imply a Western endorsement of the nuclear tests by India, this "success" as the BJP government sees it may not contribute too significantly to political stability at home. The real tragedy, though, is because of the company he has been forced to keep, Mr. Vajpayee will have to continue spending his time on handling the most trivial whims, bargains and threats from his regional allies, rather than concentrating on positioning India as a mature power for the 21^st Century. Whether the September elections delivered a mandate strong enough in this regard remains to be seen.