Prof. Ujjwal K Chowdhury
A Comparative study between stalwarts of Indian politics and prolific PMs Indira Gandhi and Narendra Modi
Love her or hate her, you can never ignore the former Indian Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi. And same you cannot do for the current PM, Narendra Modi, love or hate. It is good to remember them during the recently concluded Anniversary of Emergency of 1975.
Pliant Governors & President
Indira Gandhi used and abused the position of the Governor of states to put her favourites, and use the Governors to break state governments on flimsy grounds, as seen in cases of Ajay Mukherjee’s Bengal government, NT Rama Rao’s Andhra government or Namboodiripad’s Kerala government.
Modi is using the Governors to first deny the single largest parties in several states to come to power, as seen in Goa, Manipur, Meghalaya and Nagaland. And then he used the Governor again to ensure the single largest party, BJP, to come to power in Karnataka now. Diametrically opposite,no public morality, and interpretation of the Constitution changing at will.
Indira chose pliant party leaders as Presidents, be in GianiZail Singh who infamously used to open the car door of Indira, or in Fakhuruddin Ali Ahmed who was used to endorse the 19 months long emergency invoking Article 352. Modi has got two RSS pracharaks as President and Vice President who are known to be Modi loyalists.
Scant Regard for Parliament & Constitution
Indira brought in maximum amendments to the Indian Constitution and changed several aspects of the same to consolidate her position and ideology, strengthen the Centre at the cost of federalism, and curtail freedoms of citizens. She had limited presence in the Parliament and even cabinet knew about many decisions (emergency and bank nationalization being two important ones) after they were taken.
Modi has even less regards for the Parliament, got more than 40 bills passed including the budget in the last session without a discussion, and many decisions including demonetization etc are taken first by PM and his coterie and then shared with the cabinet and legislature.
Compromised RBI, Banking System& Crony Capitalism
Indira nationalized banks, kept Reserve Bank of India Governor at her beck and call. She made currency related decisions unilaterally. Crony capitalists in Birlas, Tatas and Mafatlals ruled the roost in late 1960s and early 1970s.
Modi demonetized 86% of currency in circulation on the plea of stopping black money, breaking the backbone of terror finance, bringing in digital economy and killing fake currency. None of these have been achieved wholly or majorly, and equal or more cash is back in the economy with no end to cross border or internal terror. Crony capitalists in Ambanis, Adanis, Piramals and the Ruias rule the roost today and are dictating terms.
Pakistan Bogey
Indira used the bogey of Pakistan to keep hold on power, and even after a successful battle for the independence of Bangladesh, which was highly admired domestically, she kept the bogey of Pakistan alive. She used hatred towards Pakistan to win elections in India, and called names for the Pak dictators and army top guns.
Modi has used the Pakistan fear psychosis throughout in spite of visiting Nawaz Sharif in his home and calling ISI to Pathankot for an investigation on ground. The surgical strikes are told to have been done with aplomb, with no decline in cross border attacks though, and Pakistan is mentioned in every election campaign to the extent of a ludicrous allegation that former PM Manmohan Singh had sought Pak help to win Gujarat polls. Needless to say, the wild allegation died its natural death the day polls were over.
Pliant Judiciary & Loyal Army Top Guns
Indira ensured a pliant Supreme Court putting Justice AN Roy as the Chief Justice superceding three others, and put favourite army generals at the top positions out of turn. Her regime ensured higher court postings based on history of the judges.
At least nine high courts pronounced that even after the declaration of an emergency a person could challenge his detention.The Supreme Court, then under the Indira Gandhi-appointed Chief Justice AN Ray, over-ruled all of them upholding the state’s plea for power to detain a person without the necessity of informing him of the reasons/grounds of his arrest or, to suspend his personal liberties or, to deprive him of his right to life, in an absolute manner (the ‘habeas corpuscase’).
Today a pliant Chief Justice of India Deepak Justice Deepak Misra is being accused to carry favours for the ruling dispensation seen through erratic allocation of sensitive cases resented by the next top four Justices of Supreme Court, and through refusal to open investigation in Justice Loya’s death. More sensitive cases decisions are expected soon.
Judges’ recruitment has hit a new low and CJI Thakur was in tears earlier, and Justice Joseph missed the SC berth due to his earlier judgements being critical of the government.
Modi government also promoted army chief Bipin Rawat out of turn and today uses him in Kashmir in politico-military positioning which is unprecedented.
Press & Citizens’ Freedom
Indira Gandhi had scant regards for Freedom of Press in particular, and citizens’ political freedom in general. She declared emergency curtailing citizens’ fundamental rights and severely limiting press freedom. LK Advani famously told that she asked media to bend, and it started to crawl. Students’ political rights were severely curtailed and a reign of terror was unleashed on campuses by Indira government in mid 1970s.
Modi is known to have compromised the media much more, ignoring them in sharing any information they seek beyond whatever is dished out, getting crony capitalists to buy out media, use the media owners to ensure absence of sting and watchdog role of the media, and is attempting to limit freedom of the online media, apart from rendering RTI heavily blunted by denying information on grounds of sensitivity and national interests.
Though Modi has not yet officially declared emergency, but socio-political tension among communities is at its worst in a long time today due to repeated lynching deaths on streets and homes on beef or cow trade, ghar-wapsi claims, love-jihad conflicts, ruling party standing with rapists in some states, et al. Politics of vengeance has led to continuous conflicts in university campuses and sensitive areas, including JNU, Allahabad University, Hyderabad Central University, Aligarh Muslim University, et al.
PMO=Government
In spite of a few stalwart ministers like YB Chavan or Pranab Mukherjee, Indira Gandhi was often told as the only man in her cabinet, and she brooked no challenge and often took decisions first and asked the cabinet to endorse it later.
Modi neither has stalwarts in his cabinet who was risen from the grassroots and can stand up strong in front of him, nor does he treat the ministry in any way different from that of Indira. Changing portfolios at will, having average favourites with key portfolios, silencing the potential challengers within the cabinet, and suffering from lack of quantity and quality of ministers, Modi has fine-tuned the art of being a single man government and the PM Office as the single-most powerful centre of authority, just as what Indira did with her PMO.
EC, CBI, ED, IB
The next similarity between the two is the way they treated the Election Commissions. Chief Election Commissioners in Indira regime were known to work on PMO instruction, and so have a few CECs in recent times done. Hence, several biased decisions of EC, as seen in Uttarakhand, Arunachal or in Delhi state, were rendered null and void by the Judiciary later.
Indira and Modi have been effectively using the caged parrot CBI and also the Enforcement Directorate and Intelligence Bureau to intimidate opponents and money bags supporting the opposition parties. The difference is that on the receiving side then were the ideological forefathers of BJP, some regional forces and communists; and the aggrieved ones today are Congress and the regional parties.
One Versus All
Indira effectively used the slogan, “They want Indira out, I want poverty out.” Modi uses this with aplomb, “They want Modi out, I want corruption out.” Larger than life perspective, using media to the hilt (and in today’s context, social media), blending lies and factoids to create a godly image, etc, are the hallmarks of the personal styles of Indira and Modi.
She got her party president Debkanto Barua tell, “Indira is India, India is Indira”. He gets his alter ego to lead the party and work on his agenda with no questions asked. Both the PMs use the bogey of stability and a strong leadership as their raison d etre of seeking and being in power.
In her unabashed pursuit of unlimited power for herself, Indira ruthlessly weakened almost all the Constitutional institutions including the Judiciary (the Supreme Court), the Legislature (the Indian Parliament, the collective responsibility of the Cabinet, the institution of the President of India), the executive (the steel frame of bureaucracy) and even the Fourth Estate (Media) to either manipulate or subvert them to toe her own line or serve her own agenda.
This is why even some of her very positive actions like the Nationalization of Banks and other industries or the Abolition of the already unpopular Privy Purses still had an adversarial ring and an authoritative streak in them and led to avoidable controversies and criticism.
India is currently going through a similar decline in the independence and efficacy of institutions and constitutional authority, while no Lokpal yet appointed and no probes in several alleged cases of corruption initiated (Birla-Sahara diaries, Rafale deal, PDS Scam in Chhattisgarh, etc).
Opposition Politics
With this similar scenario of mid 1970s and late 2018, the Opposition politics to counter dictatorial rulers needs to be on similar lines of unity, program, strategy, tactics and action. United Opposition, with one Common Minimum Program, and a strategy to counter each strong point of the Powerful Man, as it was against the Powerful Woman once upon a time. On that we will speak another day.
(The Author is currently the School Head, School of Media, Pearl Academy, Delhi and Mumbai. He has been earlier the Dean of Symbiosis and Amity Universities. The views expressed are strictly his personal.)
(The views and opinions expressed in this article are of the author and thus do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy or position of OdishaLIVE.)
