TIPPING POINT

A French journalist once asked Nehru that,‘what was the most difficult
part of his experience at the helm had been?’ He replied,‘making a just
society using just means. He further added,‘making a secular republic
in a religious country.’ Both these projects appear endangered today. In
the circumstance that we find ourselves today, this book sketches the
history of political forces in modern India. It begins defining these
political categories of left, right and far-right with the usual reference
to French Revolution (for want of an indigenous equivalent), and
discusses movement of forces towards left, or towards the right from
the balance of socio-political forces or status quo at a point of time in
India. It recalls historical facts, uses chronological order for clarity and
leaders’ names and political parties, their world view and ideas of nation,
social groups they represented, and their movements. It progresses by
reopening only a few windows to modern Indian history and looks at
periods like, the 1920-30s, and 1970-80’s, when there were significant
movements and consolidation of socio-political forces to the right and
far right. At the late 1960s and early 1970s, there were a series of policy
proposals, legislations to nationalize assets and launch direct attacks
on poverty that marked a sharp turn to the leftist ideology in Delhi
(the central government of the time). Following these, a coalition of
mostly right-wing forces rose to challenge the government at the centre
and succeeded. This occurred in the context of heated Cold War
geopolitics. In author’s consideration, this was the ‘Tipping Point’. The
book makes a case that social conservatism and preference of gradual
change implied that the right has dominated in the political spectrum
and countered a tilt to the left successfully.

Anuradha Kalhan has a Ph.D. in Economics. Kalhan has taught in

Mumbai for three decades. She was an elected member of the Senate
in the University of Mumbai, and a fellow at Nehru Memorial Museum
& Library, New Delhi. Currently, she is an independent writer and
researcher, and has published two books and numerous papers. She
spends her time between India, USA and the UK.
TIPPING POINT
A Short Political History of India

ANURADHA KALHAN

MANOHAR
2022
First published 2023
by Routledge
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© 2023 Anuradha Kalhan and Manohar Publishers
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asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
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Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the print versions of this
book in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 9781032498300 (hbk)
ISBN: 9781032498324 (pbk)
ISBN: 9781003395669 (ebk)
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 For
My grandfather
DI NA NAT H K A K
who told me, when I was no more
than 9, that ‘there is no God’
My grandmother
INDRANI KAK
who took me aside to tell me that
‘there is a God, and He must
reside only in your heart’
and
YO U N G I N DI A
 Contents

Acknowledgements 9
Preface 11
Abbreviations 31
1. We Our Nationhood Defined 35
Introduction 35 • Reveries on Roots of the Nation 37 • Repre-
sentation and Electoral Politics 47 • Who did Indian National
Congress Represent? 50 • INC: Swimming with Hindu
Revivalism, Sidelining Social Reform 55 • Who did the Hindu
Mahasabha Represent? 66 • And who did the RSS Represent?
71 • Why did they Create a Separate Organization? 71 • Doctrines
of the Far Right: Savarkar and Golwalkar 79 • The Organization
and Project of RSS: Where did its Funds Come from? 85 • What
Happened to the Peasant, Tribal other Class Based Left Wing
Movements? 90 • Shifting Political Economy of India, Electoral
Politics, and Augmentation of the Right Wing within Congress
96 • M.K. Gandhi, the Man, his Mark, Assassination and what
the Trial Revealed 102 • Conclusion 111
2. Left Turn at the Top 1969-76 117
Introduction 117 • Nehru to Indira Gandhi: And Why a Sharper
Left Turn Became Necessary for Her 121 • Indira Gandhi Voted
PM 127 •The Congress Splits 133 • Road to‘National Emergency’:
Dykes against Monopoly Capitalism and Attacks by the Usual
Suspects 141 • Perils of Left Turn by Legislation Alone 144
The Twenty Point Programme (TPP): The Cul-de-Sacs of
Change by Legislation Alone 158 • The Excesses of Emergency:
They were Asked to Bend, and they Crawled 159 • What Followed
in the Name of ‘Total Revolution’? 167 • Conclusion 171
8 Contents

3. Curious Case of Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan:

Unlikely Messiah 176
Introduction 176 • JP on his Purpose and the Appropriate Manner
of Opposition in a Liberal Democracy 180 • JP and Mrs Indira
Gandhi 187 • JP and his Favourite Variety of Socialism 194
JP’s Horror of Communists, Soviet Takeover of India, the Role
of CIA and America in the World and Asian Neighbourhood
Generally 197 • JP and the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF)
in India 200 • To Conclude 210
4. Gradualism, Marginal Redistribution:
Confusion on the Left, Consolidation on the Right 217
Introduction 217 • Travails and Dilemmas of the Communist
Left 223 • Communists in Free India, Confined by Parliamentary
Democracy 237 • Rupture in the Communist Party 250 • External
Pressures Yet Again 254 • Complex Reality 256 • Self-Analysis
by the Communists 259 • Socialists Disintegrate 264 • Was there
a ‘Liberal’ Right in India? 267 • The Bombay Model, Daybreak
for the Far Right 276 • RSS, BJP and SS 287 • Conclusion 292
5. Far Right at the Centre 300
Long March to the Centre of Political Power through Culture
300 • Why this Narrative Ends with 2002 and Not 2019 301
A Shadowy Organization Becomes an Immense Shadow of Our
Past in Our Present 307 • Not without Enduring Support from
the other Shadow of the Past, the Ancient Regime 318 • Who
was Watching our Growing Shadow? 326 • World Wide Web of
Priests and Temples 333 • Migration, Hindus Abroad: Vishva
Hindu Parishad (VHP) 337 • Globalization, Foreign Funds,
Technology and Non-Government Organizations 348 • Hectic
Groundwork in the 1980s 354 • Stirring the Communal Pot
through the 1980s till it Overflowed in the 1990s and a Tedious
Trick is Reused 359 • Scaling it up-Gujarat Version 2002 370
Conclusion 374
Glossary 389
Bibliography 393
Index 407
 Acknowledgements

I could not have begun this exploration of representation, public

consciousness, and political history of modern India without books by
historians like Sumit Sarkar, Bipin Chandra, Mushirul Hasan, Mridula
Mukherjee, Aditya Mukherjee and many others. Their works proved
vital in the writing of this book. This attempt to chart our times would
be impossible without their scholarship. Aijaz Ahmad, A.G. Noorani,
Asghar Ali Engineer and others who find mention in the end notes,
have illuminated various, more recent aspects of it. Authors like
Ramachandra Guha have thrown additional, useful light on events in
modern India. Many journalists have reported and tracked events of
great significance to the theme and are credited here.
But many also just go uncredited but they continually influenced
my consciousness. Their impact in underlining events cannot be
exaggerated. It is through all the works of these scholars and journalists
that I have tried to pull together important stages that brought us
where we stand today in India. I stake no claim to originality. I
toyed with the idea of extending the title to ‘A Political History for
Dummies.’ For I address it to all those who do not know enough about
this history. Indeed, even I did not know, till I set out to explore it.
Persisting in this rather unfamiliar endeavour would have been
overwhelming without the support and encouragement of friends and
students. I want to specially mention friends like Indira, who helped
me most with locating material, paid patient attention to my perpetual
‘astonishment and horror’ as I discovered facts about India’s very recent
past. Lina, who located and sent valuable reading material to me, Meena,
who listened with great interest and who has already written on the
Far Right and Shakti, my aunt who discussed aspects of recent devel-
opments regularly. M.M. Sharma read the drafts and commented on
10 Acknowledgements

them. All of them helped me to understand the present considering

the past.
Most friends and collegues were stunned by the direction and
speed of recent political developments in India but quite unaware of
several facets and details of our more recent past that heralded the
present. As I talked to them about what I had read and discovered,
they encouraged me to put it together and write. I did not know where
or even how to begin the forbidding account for years, till one night,
many thousand miles from India, I dreamt of Jawaharlal Nehru. He
was telling me with deep sadness,‘Do you realize now how very lonely
I was…. even then’.
In the last few years, it has also become clearer to me just why
writing and teaching of history is important. As a social scientist one
only thought of how to measure the present and move ahead, never
for a moment thinking that historical legacies cast shadows and create
path dependencies. Not only does history make the present more
intelligible but it shines a light on the road ahead. We can ignore it
only if we want to go round in vicious cycles.
Anuradha Kalhan
 Preface
Some Bunched up Thoughts and
an Enduring Empathy Deficit

As of 1920, the Italian Left was incomparably stronger than the rather
small and disorganized fascist formation. Three years later, [Benito]
Mussolini was in power, and by 1926 his power had become absolute,
with the Left decimated as a political force, well before the Nazis came
to power in Germany. In this context, Gramsci asked himself: what is
it in our history and society, what was in the bourgeois nationalism of
our country which has led to such easy victory for fascism and such
easy defeat of the Left? Very large parts of the Prison Notebooks are a
reflection on Italian history, on the special place of the Vatican in that
history, on the peculiarities of the Risorgimento and Italian unification,
on the stunted nature of the Italian bourgeoisie and its industrial cities,
on popular fiction, and so on, so as to grasp patterns of popular
consciousness.1

This short political history could be stimulating for those among us

who wonder why India’s social indicators (what is now internationally
measured by the UN as Human Development Index) are low and why
they remained intractably low by international standards. The phe-
nomenon persists despite three, recent decades of higher economic
growth. The UN rankings are not contradicted by the study of the
Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) published in the
Lancet in 2018, which ranks countries on the basis of the strength of
their human capital using data from government agencies, schools and
health care systems. In that study India ranks 158 behind Sudan, among
12 Preface

195 countries. Nepal and Bhutan are ahead of India, not to mention
Sri Lanka which has been ahead of India for a long time.
For me an appreciation of the manner in which the dominant belief
system in India has been used by its exponents and the elite began in
an unusual way—during years spent in field work while trying to
analyse problems in the implementation of a poverty alleviation policy.
The inescapable question that remained planted in my mind was- why
has it been so difficult to address the issue squarely in more than 70
years as a free nation? Why were a few states much more successful
than others, was the answer buried in their history?
It is a fact that extreme disparity does not unnerve the upper middle
classes who live cheek by jowl with it in cities across almost all states
in India. This empathy deficit exists despite increasingly frequent
references to our much exalted and ancient civilization, indigenous
wisdom, culture, spiritualism, fervent nationalism and more recently
even high economic growth rate. Had colonial rule arrested and then
mis-shaped some aspect of cultural development or is there an intrin-
sically impaired cultural imagination that comes in the way of breaking
away from the old to comprehend the basis of a modern nation? Are
we essentially a pre-modern society that continues to nurture a phil-
osophical outlook in which some people are inherently less equal, where
salvation for self is far more desirable than salvation as a group? Why
did a decent education and healthcare for all not become the rallying
call in a country liberated by a historic, mass based, national movement,
after independence? Nor did it become a rallying call after we adopted
the lofty Constitution or even now? Was the idea of a nation of equals
just an idea which did not turn to reality? These were misgivings
swirling round in my head during years of field work as I grasped
just how far behind we had fallen in addressing basic human
deprivations.
One day I turned a page in Bertrand Russell’s The History of
Western Philosophy and these lines popped out, ‘The conceptions of
life and the world which we call “philosophical” are a product of two
factors: one, inherited religious and ethical conceptions; the other, the
sort of investigation that may be called “scientific”, using this term in
the broadest sense2 (p. xiii).’ He describes philosophy as an integral
part of social and political life, both a cause and effect of the character
 Preface 13

of various communities. Were the answers to my questions embedded

in our national ‘philosophy’?
So, I tried to look at the roots and branches of Indian nationalism
for a clue, found a saga. I have tried to summarize some of that story
in the first chapter drawing from the works of major historians of
modern India. Gradually the book emerged and became an attempted
history of political forces at work in modern India. The principal thesis
here is that the supremacy of the right wing (people who bunch together
to preserve hierarchy, authority, traditions in culture and society and
the ideologies that make it possible to do so) in India has been largely
unbroken. Anti-emancipatory, conservativism has been politically and
culturally typical in India for a long time. The dawn of our nationalist
consciousness was marked by an exaltation of an ancient golden past.
This harking back for courage to march forward was plausibly necessary
to confront racism and colonial domination of two centuries. But it
fused into India’s early development as a republic. This made all manners
of hierarchical and unscientific traditions and perceptions that had
been part of India’s tradition, heritage and cultural consciousness
tolerable, even defendable. We had become so fond of them that we
did not call it a religion, we called it a ‘way of life’. Quite soon after
independence it became obvious that doubts raised to confront these
traditions head on, were threatening to the general enchantment with
new national identity. Those who did question were regarded too
westernized, possibly godless people who were not aware of the deep
Indian heritage. Even Jawaharlal Nehru could not escape this tag.
Gradually a veritable cottage industry grew around the search for all
traditional virtuosity.
Eventually in free India too, few would become culturally revolted
by the structural violence of mass poverty. Oppression of dalits, women,
and minorities came to be considered traditional. A deeply hierarchical
traditional society was evermore, intensely, anti-egalitarian. If people
are meant to be unequal and an entire sacred theory exists to explain
that, then inequity is all right. The degree of inequality is also not a
sensitive issue in popular consciousness. There is little room for
empathy among unequal people. Moreover, even as laws are enacted
to grant ‘equality in law’ they lead to, revulsion and reaction by bene-
ficiaries of the hierarchy. There are few people who appreciate the law,
14 Preface

who endorse it actively and too few who want to implement the law
impartially. The Constitution in eleven volumes and 395 articles that
we adopted and expected would give us justice, social, economic and
political; equality of status, of opportunity and before the law freedom
. . . and so forth was hedged by this predilection.
Deficit of empathy and rejection of radical solutions was born out
of the same fondness for traditions. It became the soft cradle in which
linguistic, cultural and religious bigotry grew. No surprise then that,
few supported Hindustani, the language of popular exchange in the
populous north. Few opposed the imposition of Hindi as national
language. Hindi, in the form it took soon after Independence was not
a commonly spoken language and even fewer people cried out against
its increasing Sanskritization. Eventually the highly Sanskritised
national language became unintelligible to a huge majority, particularly
of poor, unschooled people. It became a language of official commu-
nications in the north. That too was traditional.
Barely anyone questioned the wealth of temples and why temples
were becoming wealthier in a poor country. And temples, mosques
and churches outnumbered schools and hospitals even after
Independence. Soon enough protecting cows caused more public
orchestration, became even more sacred than building human capabil-
ities in the new nation. Still too few protested.
Religiosity induced more people to adopting vegetarianism for
purity, by the 1990s people in metropolitan areas began living in seg-
regated ‘only vegetarians’ buildings. Eventually even denying eggs to
malnourished rural children in mid-day meals at school was acceptable.
And still those who resisted and raised questions, were an insubstantial
minority, right into the twenty-first century so few that the more vocal
could, without difficulty, be silenced by assassins. Nor did the more
silent resistance count in the outcomes of elections.
And all along, hardly anyone, even in the growing educated classes
was shocked that tens of thousands of ‘educated’ men actually wanted
to marry someone ‘fair’ complexioned but only within their own caste,
and said so boldly in classified advertisements in national dailies. So,
what happened to the legacy of the mass struggle against racism of the
European colonisers? Was colonial racism only supplementary to an
earlier traditional, homegrown racism? Nor did the computer and
 Preface 15

internet change this, it only aggravated the situation. Hardly anyone

thought it was racist, it was customary. Computers were vigorously
assisting search for fair brides and marriages within the same caste.
While computerised astrology, palmistry and vastu shastra was assisting
all kinds of choices from wedding venues to homes.
Urban or rural, property owning classes were even more conser-
vative than their poorer counterparts, schooling and academic
accomplishments notwithstanding. And when their offspring grew up,
their heartfelt desire was to conduct themselves like feudal kings and
queens on their wedding day. Laden with silk and jewels they desired
a red, velvet, and gold throne to sit on! An entire traditional wedding
industry grew, matching the flourishing religious festival industry. Kings,
princes, their privy purse, and the zamindari system were abolished by
law in the years after Independence but that obviously did not alter
popular aspirations. The rich and aspiring classes go so far as to prefer
old palaces as wedding venues to this day.
And, when chariots began running across the country making a
commotion over yet another temple in the supposed birthplace of a
mythological king, hardly anyone was outraged! In fact, tens of thou-
sands of people became motivated by this spectacle in late 1980s. This
enthusiasm was able to sustain itself right into 2014 and beyond, in
addition a fervent, religious nationalism assumed centre stage.
Through the 1990s there was a proliferation of upwardly mobile
families with a personal spiritual guru, over and above the ubiquitous
family deity apparatus. That did not invite astonishment. It was
common to see pictures of gods, guru and temples used as mobile
phone covers, wallpaper or printed on gadgets and cars. While caller
tunes sang out religious hymns, outsized SUVs, with replicas of deities,
temples within, played loud religious songs invoking a favourite deity.
The Indian family’s spiritual quest accelerated as they acquired college
degrees, mobile phones, new gadgets, ‘objects of desire’ and personal
physical trainers. Some observers have called this marvel, the ‘modernity
of tradition’, it is perhaps simply the evergreening of tradition, not to
mention its express commercialization in the decades after 1990s. One
can only imagine how the barely literate masses were handling the
‘modernity’. They were everywhere desperately trying to ape the wealthy,
with marginal success and growing resentment. As education and health
16 Preface

care became more expensive and urban housing unaffordable, they were
left trailing far behind. Yet who dare point out that this ‘ever greening’
of tradition was not going to save us from social fragmentation and
crisis with immense psychological ramifications?
As the twenty-first century unfolded, a frenzied consumer culture
was wedded quickly to tradition and religious identity. Relentless
advertising of luxuries that only a few could afford easily, and a com-
mercialized film industry sold illusions in colour and music, it spread
the gospel of a good life far and wide. Satellite television beamed
into homes and showed everyone, the great life Americans lived. A
frenetic, unprecedented display of ambitions and aspirations swept
through society; it moved people from villages to cities and from cities
to foreign shores. Wherever it was possible to earn more, live more
comfortably.
Anomy amid swift change all round the urban landscape should
have rung some alarm bells but they were drowned out by temple bells
perhaps. Most relentless of all was the rate of changes at the workplace3.
In a whirlwind, employment now came with a greater intensity of work
and insecurity of both work and income. People began holding on,
with increasing nervousness, to symbols of their identity. Everywhere
temples were overflowing with offerings of worldly goods, bright lights,
loud drums, firecrackers, garish hues, decorations, and ritzy music
during increasingly raucous religious festivals. Television as well as
public spaces were overtaken by loud exhibitions of religiosity; traffic
could be held up for hours right in the middle of the metropolis, to
accommodate religious euphoria. The revellers were mostly the working
poor whose numbers multiplied with every influx of rural dispossessed.
Celebrities from the cinema, in finery and bare footed piety, political
and public figures alike made their way midst much publicity, often
walking through filthy streets to bend down before an idol in an ornate
temple. Hinduism was famed for being tolerant, inclusive, and plural
and indeed it did seem to embrace the dispossessed, alienated, meek,
the rich, poor, the loutish, the uncouth, and the criminal but above all
else, it seemed to embrace capitalism. You could be anyone, do anything
no matter how horrific, but Gods could be won over, propitiated with
offerings of money, gold, and diamonds. This God then became, not
the plural gods with diverse ways of the old Hindu pantheon, but the
 Preface 17

new Gilded God who could deliver its believers to wealth and good
times. And the city of neo liberal India was his abode. Here the tedium
of crumbling infrastructure and crushed masses, unstable work, young,
desperate, and lost humankind, found relief in pulsating festivals and
temples. While among the well-heeled, an old belief was reinforced by
the exuberance of worship that those crushed, left far behind in the
saturnalia deserved no better, their karma was at fault. The Gandhian
type of a genteel, inclusive, renouncing, ameliorating Hinduism probably
died with him, its spirit hovered over some people for a few decades
and then it died too. The ‘Hindu tradition’ our parents grew up in
revered renunciation, the Hinduism of the twenty-first century was a
creature that had adapted smoothly, was in fact found to be revelling
in the neo liberal creed of greed if gold, cash donations and garish
celebrations in temples was an indication. Gods were sinking in gold
as believers remade them in their own likeness.
And so, such ways of being, living and thinking in which tradition,
ritual, superstition, religious chauvinism, hyper consumerism, aspira-
tions for greater wealth appeared in one ribbon roll and became typical.
It predisposed us all from the upper to the lower socio-economic strata
so that society moved so far and away from the essence of secularism
and socialism that India’s foremost social scientist was constrained to
make a gentle plea for some public spiritedness and argue against the
notion that the privileged deserve what they have.4 Leading up to the
2014 elections, which were fought deliberately to create a Hindu India,
there was a thirty per cent increase in communal riots and incidents.
This is not to diminish the scale and barbarity of Muzaffarnagar riots
in August 2013, between Muslims and Hindu Jats. In this riot for-
ty-three lives were lost, and 50,000 Muslims were rendered homeless
in their own land. In the freezing cold that followed, at least 30 adults
and eight newborn babies died. Yet this heaving mass, of what main-
stream media calls the middle-class in India (constructed on the fact
that they are not absolutely poor nor are they fabulously rich), did not
stir. Deeply inured to violence and so frenzied had they become in their
own insecurities. Only during two episodes was there a public upsurge.5
One followed a ghoulish assault, rape of a young middle-class, phys-
iotherapy intern in Delhi whose father had sold his land to educate
her. He worked as a loader in a private company. She died as a result
18 Preface

of her grievous injuries. Her fortune was a metaphor for deep insecu-
rities physical and mental, faced in the metropolis, specially by women
seeking upward mobility. A wave of anger and revolt broke out across
the subcontinent and all six accused were caught, tried within months
found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging. All this at an unprec-
edented speed. The second episode which stirred the‘middle-class’ was
corruption, rather someone else’s dishonesty and ill begotten wealth.
As mainstream media began a relentless campaign against some mega
scams people took to the streets and organizers of the campaign against
corruption called India Against Corruption, acquired tremendous
prestige. New political parties grew to address issues like improving
urban public services. Old ‘cultural’ organizations, like the far right
Rashtriya Swayam Sevak (RSS) were not just involved in organization
but also profited the most the anti-corruption episode.6
In the chapters that follow, recalling of the recent past emphasises
the thesis – that typical social consciousness of the majority was and
continues to remain decidedly skewed to the right, the push to the far
right has been gradual.
Defining the term left, right and far right in the preface itself, the
book encapsulates the journey of the far right wing organization from
1915-49, till the assassination of M.K. Gandhi, it summarizes the trial
and the reopened trial of the assassination. It will then unpack two
decades that were decisive in the formation and ascent of the far
right – the 1920s and the 1970s. These are the subject of chapter one
and two. The third chapter describes the dilemmas of the organized
left and fate of socialists up to the 1970s briefly. The last chapter bridges
developments of the past with more recent times in the journey of the
far right. It is by no means a comprehensive or decisive account.
The central intention presented in the first chapter, ‘We Our
Nation Defined’, is that at least in the early days (by the end of the
nineteenth century and beginnings of the twentieth) the problem began
with the social elite (elite in terms of land ownership, education and
professions) when they sought to fashion a national consciousness by
reviving ancient Hindu creed, mythology, glory. Contest between
marginal social reform and resistance from orthodoxy was the norm.
Names and movements like Ranade (National Social Conference),
K.N. Natrajan (Hindu Social Reform Movement), Tilak (Deccan
 Preface 19

Education Society), Bankimchandra, Ramakrishna Paramhansa-

Vivekananda (Rama Krishna Mission), Dayanand Saraswati (Arya
Samaj), are associated with this period, not to mention Anne Besant
and the Theosophical Society that provided a western endorsement of
Hindu civilization and mysticism. A similar pattern was emerging in
the Muslim community, where reform and revival confronted each
other. This stirring was occurring in the context of colonial rule which
by now was almost 150 years old and had entered a mature phase. The
British rulers of India were trying to maximise land and other revenue
extraction, to meet growing costs of administration. To that was added
costs of developing markets for British industrial products and con-
trolling the colony better by expanding infrastructure, transport and
communication. This later phase of colonization was advancing amidst
heightened racism. At least that is how the growing tribe of English
educated began to perceive their subordinate position as they gained
access to western ideas and movements. By the 1880s the number of
English educated was close to 50,000, of which graduates accounted
for only 5,000. The number continued to rise rapidly so did the circu-
lation of English language newspapers. Sarkar says, ‘. . . this emergent
social group enjoyed an importance far beyond its size. English edu-
cation gave it a unique capacity to establish contacts on a country-wide
scale. English educated government employees, lawyers, teachers,
journalists or doctors worked fairly often outside their home region’.7
They were eventually to form the leadership of the national
movement.
Hinduism (as a way of life or a set of diverse beliefs, practices and
social ordering of human existence) was the main vehicle of socialization
and culture for the vast majority. Colonizers tried to gauge its contours,
codify it with the help of its leading votaries mainly for administrative
and legislative reasons. In the bargain they also gave it an identity and
unity it perhaps did not have in earlier times. As it was practised,
Hinduism lacked even the primary initiation for an overtly collective
social consciousness. The kind that are found in the principles of say
Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, Buddhism decreeing the
equality of all believers and in some cases women too, is absent in
Hindu practice! Even assembly norms like all believers sitting on the
same level in a common place of worship to be addressed regularly by
20 Preface

scholars and sages of the belief system, were largely absent. Local
congregations were mainly around seasonal festivities, they were infused
with mythology and parable but these were rarely celebrated as all-en-
compassing community events, some castes would be routinely
excluded. There were of course tenets that declare that the world is a
family of a pervasive God (Vasudeva Kutumbakam) with the usual
hierarchies that exist within a Hindu family, one presumes. But practices
and rituals which underscore the unity, dignity of men or oneness of
the believers, are conspicuous by their absence. The reason perhaps is
that Hinduism was not a congregational or a doctrinaire creed to begin
with, one’s consciousness of it as a creed as such, is a colonial feature.
The Arya Samaj as a Hindu revivalist-cum-reform movement intro-
duced congregation and propagandising towards the end of the
nineteenth century. However it was popular only among the upper
castes in north western region of India. Nonetheless, the ability of
Hinduism to draw together the consciousness of millions and influence
their morality through mythology, sacred symbols, culture of rituals,
ubiquitous and enormously wealthy temples, men of religion attached
to temples, wandering men of religion like ‘sadhus’, is strong and also
quite incomparable. So, it had endured over the ages. As a belief system
it was widespread in the subcontinent and hence available for nationalist
and political harnessing. This was the situation in spite of the ‘outside’
rule, Muslim and British colonization that together lasted a thousand
years! Before the Partition of the subcontinent non-Hindus were 24
per cent of the population, they formed only 15 per cent of the popu-
lation after that.
The point being made here, is that the journey from Hinduism to
an egalitarian collective sentimentality is an awfully long one, a journey
that too few Hindus took, till the 1920s at least. In the decade before
Independence, Dr B.R. Ambedkar (a major dalit leader and chief
architect of the Constitution of India), was to wage a lonely battle
against social inequality and after Independence renounced Hinduism
in disgust.8 Bhagat Singh and others like him who located themselves
outside the frame of religious communities, as secular radicals, came
to be considered positively hazardous to the nationalist cause, albeit
privately, in the highest circle of the national movement. A similar fate
circumscribed the communists.
 Preface 21

The second chapter skips the first three decades after Independence
as the Nehru years were relatively stable. The first Nehru decade was
occupied with adopting the Constitution, consolidating borders,
reorganizing states and administration, locating India in the world
order. The halcyon years ended with the Indo-China war of 1962 that
ended unfavourably for India. The war also offered the first major
opportunity for the right wing to orchestrate an opposition to the
influence of left leaning ministers in Nehru’s cabinet. The second
chapter, therefore, moves directly to India’s attempt at expanding state
control over monopoly in industry and finance and simultaneously,
designing and implementing direct attack on poverty under the third
Prime Minister, Mrs Indira Gandhi. What can now with hindsight be
viewed as a pivotal leftward swing in some important central govern-
ment policies (in the late 1960s) under Indira Gandhi, led to a vigorous
offensive from the Right. The offensive was constructed into an
anti-Indira movement, managed substantially by a far right wing
organization at the ground level, led and camouflaged by leaders
claiming allegiance to Mahatma Gandhi and home-grown brands of
socialism. It was so well timed and contrived that even sections of the
left could not recognize it for what it was. State level electoral compe-
titions had become so vicious by then that even if they recognized it
they chose to ignore it and the forest was lost for the trees. The Congress
seeking frantically to maintain a hegemony that was being challenged
regionally, had no mean role to play in the confusion and acrimony
that led to the Emergency. This coalition of the right against Mrs
Gandhi caused unrest and lawlessness that ended in the proclamation
of the Emergency. It lasted from 1975-7, during the period many
democratic rights were suspended. This phase is often described as the
darkest phase of Indian democracy and at least up to 2014 it perhaps
was. The far-right wing rose to become a major back seat political player
after the emergency. During the period leading to and during the
emergency its large, disciplined force proved capable of uniting, esca-
lating and spreading the agitation against Mrs Gandhi. The role of the
anti-Indira movement, its connections with right wing forces within
and imperialist forces outside India, are considered here. These were
indeed redefining years for the far-right wing seeking, as it were, some
respectability after their well publicised association with the Gandhi
22 Preface

assassination which had proved to be a public relations disaster for

them. After the Emergency was lifted, the right wing was no longer a
political pariah. Having used the years between 1949 and 1975, very
productively, it had created social and cultural capital for itself.
Thereafter it set out to capture political power coming closer to it with
every decade (not just electorally but in influencing public opinion and
weakening the Congress). Since then, the far right has managed to
strengthen its cultural and political grip progressively and through
multiple religious and cultural interventions, even sectarian violence,
all culminating first in the first National Democratic Alliance (NDA)
coalition government of 1998 and then in a historic landslide victory
in the 2014 general elections. The rest is still unfolding around us.
The third chapter is a deviation from what and why of events to
a personality, that of Jayaprakash Narayan and the curious role he
played.
The fourth chapter contains a thumb nail view of the journey and
dilemmas of the left in India, first under gruelling colonial repression
and after Independence, as a participant in liberal democracy. A few
other contestants in electoral politics are also discussed.
The fifth and final chapter, far right at the centre, charts the rise
of the far right wing through the 1980s culminating on the ruins of
Ayodhya in 1992. The ascent of the free market, pro-big business
Gujarat model as a national ideal, role of neoliberalism in shrinking
the state, valorising greed and aspirations for wealth midst social
backwardness and conservatism, are the milieu in which secularism
and socialism both collapsed. Failure of the centre right Congress Party
to distinguish itself significantly from the far right in the political
competition that followed made it easy for the far right to succeed.
The terms left, right and centre are familiar in political delibera-
tions. In this text too, political forces of the left and the right will be
used frequently and defined as usual with mention of the French
Revolution 1789-99. This is unfortunately necessary for the lack of an
equivalent event in the Indian subcontinent. Indian political forces of
nationalism are an early twentieth century phenomenon. Here nation-
alism can only be defined in its colonial context, as an affirmation of
an ‘Indian’ identity constructed gradually and broadcast throughout
the movement for Independence. Its anti-imperialist position for
 Preface 23

self-determination is considered as fundamentally a historically pro-

gressive movement and Independence in 1947 is the most prominent
moment of reference for most political discussions. These euro-centric
definitions are, therefore, not entirely appropriate for India besides
being unsophisticated, but one thinks they are basically adequate for
the present purpose.
The left in the post French Revolution world was an ideology and
political formation, most closely aligned with the principle of equality
and fraternity in society. It grew in opposition to monarchies and
feudalism. Carlyle says that the Revolution was against worn out,
corrupt authority.9 But it was perhaps much more than that. The
principle of equality was justified by using enlightenment philosophy
and science. Eventually it placed the principles of democracy on a
rational, scientific basis. The left emerged from within the revolution,
which had differences with other interpretations of democracy over
right to private property. Jacobins were the most vehement critics of
private property. The right was defined in hostility to the left, as an
upholder of tradition, hierarchy, customary practices of monarchies
and feudal societies. The right made a forceful case that hierarchy is
natural and necessary for peace and social order, its absence leads to
anarchy and disarray of which the post revolution period offered many
expedient examples. By the middle of the nineteenth century as capi-
talism matured and feudalism became a vestige of the past, the left
came to be defined in opposition to capitalism and eventually, it aligned
with Marxism, socialism and communism. It stood in resistance to
Imperialism, myriad forms of dominance, discrimination and exploita-
tion, in favour of more genuinely egalitarian ‘peoples democracy’.
Congruently not just the Left’s manifesto but its rank and file, compo-
sition, organisational structure. The Right now manifests itself as an
upholder of the present day capitalism, its hierarchies and inequalities.
It is often spotted with additional features like political democracy,
liberties of religion, expression, freedom of choice, equality of race,
ethnicity with support for ‘multiculturalism’ or national ‘unity in
diversity’ and it may also offer a range of safety nets for the poor. It is
identified with such features as can help identify it as centre right or
far right based on the intensity of violence it uses to encourage
inequalities.
24 Preface

Liberty, equality, and fraternity are ideas that many nations may
adopt formally in their Constitution and implement them in some
order of priority. These ideas remain important 200 years after they
were mounted and define political discourse even today. The left may
put equality, fraternity before liberty and even deny some forms of
liberty, while the right might emphasise liberty and pay only lip service
to equality. But the left and right are not some inert categories or grades
on a sun dial. Socio-economic and so political force within nations
(and globally) are ever-changing. In a dynamic analysis, the centre
(between left and right) has often come to denote the status-quo or
the persisting equilibrium of those forces. Given this centre, political
forces to the right, and left may be judged according to their agenda.
Hence at the turn of the twentieth century, Indian National Congress
(INC) could be broadly labelled a force of the left, against the
status-quo, against Imperialism and for direct representation of that
government but by the turn of the twenty-first century it had become
quite evidently a force of the centre-right.
The far right sits at the edge of the spectrum beyond the right, a
feral child of the right. It shares with the right a belief in social privilege
and hierarchy if anything, more rabid opposition to socialism and
support for monopoly capital. But it has additional illiberal dimensions
like extreme nationalism constructed on some bygone glory or some
imminent war or projection of a national monoculture. It is scornful
of most forms of liberalism. It may also project a national identity
accompanied by religious or racial fundamentalism directed most often
than not against immigrants. Marked by a nurtured cult of hate which
in turn is constructed by devaluing, oppressing, and discriminating
against a group on the basis of their alleged inferiority or deviation
from the national culture, accompanied by the cult of a strong ‘masculine’
leader and his coterie. An ethos of authoritarianism is fostered, storm
troopers, a militia are trained that can indulge in extra state violence
if needed. Time and again appeals to the pride and self-respect of a
group who have been wronged or displaced from their preeminence in
a social hierarchy, are made a pretext for ‘spontaneous’ violence. The
far right movements everywhere share these features but in each country,
the far right has a unique connection to the countries history and is
shaped by present conjunction of socio-political forces. Twentieth
 Preface 25

century Europe produced many movements of the far right, some

became well-known as ‘Fascism’ and ‘Nazism’. They referred to the
ancient glory of the Roman Empire for inspiration or the superiority
of the Aryan race and thrived on anti-semitism, grew rapidly in the
period that preceded the great war between the capitalist powers of
Europe but climaxed after the First World War (WW1) and the
Bolshevik Revolution, as a communist state was created besides Europe
and that called for a response from the right. The left views the far
right as an essential appendage of the right and monopoly capital, to
be used against any democratic upsurge of the left. It is also used to
make way for a war and militarization or simply as a means to push
political forces nationally to the right. The most influential essay on
the historical origins of fascism in the west was that of Arthur
Rosenberg (1934),‘Fascism as a Mass Movement’; he saw the roots of
fascism in the reactionary, ultra-patriotic, violently anti-left, racist
movements of the late nineteenth century. Their resurgence was the
result of the support they received from the existing government and
also their wide appeal across classes. Rosenberg says ‘. . . that the political
dynamics of the capitalist countries of the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries are a hugely complicated affair. The peculiar equilibrium of
capitalist society has always depended upon a multiplicity of distinct
and seemingly opposed forces (p. 148)’.10 The forces include represen-
tatives of the pre-capitalist feudal order, monarchies, upper bureaucracy,
army and church. They contain both economic (free trade) and social
(freedom/choice) liberal and anti-liberal movements. The tendency to
move from liberal to illiberal policies in support of capital, follows
consolidation of capital and its booms, busts, depressions and revivals.
However, a long term tendency for concentration and monopoly
underlies these gyrations and it calls for ‘authority, centralism and
violence’. In Tsarist Russia, for example, in the years before the WW1,
big capitalists like their counterparts in Europe, consolidated behind
imperialist adventures of the ministers. In these years the police agents
of the Tsar created a mass movement from the lumpen proletariat with
liquor and money called the Black Hundreds or True Russian People
as a resistance to the Revolution. It conducted many pogroms. In 1848
and 1871 the French capitalists suppressed the workers in Paris with
a series of bloody massacres and Bismarck kept German workers
26 Preface

shacked with anti-socialist laws. The arrangement is repeated from the

English Revolution of the seventeenth century to the French Revolution
of the eighteenth century to the Russian Revolution in the twentieth
century. When the crisis of resistance is severe, the ruling classes cannot
hope to succeed only by use of normal state power especially when
state power is weakened for any reason, they need to explore other
means. That is when volunteer-corps are recruited from the population
and trained. They are usually recruited from the most impoverished
strata of society, what Trotsky called (at the start of the Russo-Japanese
war of 1905) the consciously planned and organized mobilization of
the scum of society. He talks of an extraordinary development where
the core of a militia was formed on a disciplined and organized military
basis. This hardcore group received its slogans and watchwords from
above and passed them into the ranks below. It was also this group that
decided the timing and scale of any murderous action that had to be
organized. The first attack would come through the media, mainly
newspapers published by them and distributed in specific circles. Their
success is always made possible by the state whose instruments they
are. All this resonates in India today.
After the Second World War (WW2) the cold war between
America and USSR (capitalism and communism) served this purpose
of making enemies and creating fear, well and right up till 1991. Kalecki
(1964) talks of fervent activity among strong fascist groups in the
developed countries in the late 1950s and early 60s, when government
intervention was becoming a part of reformed capitalism. These
movements like the Organisation Armee Secrete (Secret Armend
Organisation) (OAS) in France, Neo-Nazis in West Germany and
Goldwaterites in United States, did not resort to social demagoguery
of the Nazi type but they were supported by the most reactionary
groups of big business, were anti- communists, raised a variety of racist
slogans, and indulged in cold war demagoguery, appealed to the angry
members of the military establishment, and some like Goldwater also
spoke against government intervention in the economy and social
insurance. He says ‘The fascism of our times is a dog on a leash; it can
be unleashed at any time to achieve definite aims and even when on
the leash serves to intimidate the potential opposition (p. 104)’.11
In late twentieth century some advanced capitalist democracies
like USA and UK moved further to the right, abandoned the welfare
 Preface 27

state and the Keynesian compromise with monopoly capital. Pro-

market policy shifts in communist China in the late 1970s around the
same time as the advanced capitalist countries, and then implosion of
communist USSR in 1991 marked the turning of the tide. Gulf wars
that lasted for almost three decades expanded the military enterprise
of the capitalist world thereafter. It gave birth to great waves of refugees
and immigrants, a political vacuum in war torn countries, a virulent
reaction that took the form of a proto fascist movement in the Islamic
world which took to terrorist acts against America and Europe (partners
in the west Asian wars). Thereafter, the tumult was categorized as a
civilizational war, a culture war, war between democracies and non-de-
mocracies. Al-Azmeh12 says that the Muslim political phenomena
developed out of marginal proto fascist youth militias and sporting
club movements, nurtured in a system of meagre public education, in
the 1920s and 30s mainly in Egypt and some in Syria as well. They
were supported, provided ample finance by petro-Islamic agencies. This
went on in an international climate dominated by the Truman Doctrine,
the policy of containing communism using Islamic fundamentalism.
In the Arab world it was used in countering secular Arab nationalist,
socialist and arguably pro-Soviet regimes. Social conservatism and
political Islamism was systematically cultivated and used as a bulwark
against communism. Out of these grew various nihilist cults, ultra-con-
servative, hyper nationalist populism of late twentieth and early
twenty-first century radical Islam in an entirely different context.
American exceptionalism, hegemonic military capacity, collapse of
the Soviet bloc were the setting of the endless West Asian wars that
drove a continuous rightward shift within advanced capitalist countries.
New enemies materialised, at first dictatorship of Saddam Hussain in
Iraq till it transmuted into the axis of evil comprising of ‘all enemies’
of democracy and then all Muslims as an overarching enemy after 9
September 2001. Entering the twenty-first century, the equilibrium of
political forces within advanced capitalist countries was much further
to the right than it had been thirty years ago and it continued to shift
in that direction as it weakened welfare services and state enterprises
to embrace neo-liberalism and perpetual war simultaneously. Presidency
of Clinton and Obama (Democratic Party) in the USA and government
of Tony Blair (Labour Party) marked the point of convergence of the
‘centre-right’ and ‘centre-left’ of the capitalist world into what came to
28 Preface

be known as the ‘extreme centre’ far to the right of centre of the 1960s.
It stayed there, in the extreme centre even after the crash of 2008 which
began in the American financial sector and spread across the globe
pulling the world into a recession. It was widely described as the worst
economic recession since the Great Depression of 1929. Occupy Wall
Street, the mass protests against the depredations of the crash, benefits
granted to the financial sector despite their culpability, echoed across
Europe but it did not shift the equilibrium of political forces.
Inequalities of wealth had risen continuously, having consolidated itself
into an oligarchy of top one per cent of the population. Monopoly
capital, in liberal democracies of advanced capitalist countries, doesn’t
even seem to need a major far right movement anymore. But observers
noted that ultra-right grass root insurgency was multiplying in Europe.
Fekete13 writes of the far rights capacity for mass murder across Europe
from Norway on 22 July 2011 when Breivik killed 77 people in Oslo.
He called them traitors for embracing immigration which would
promote an Islamic colonization of Norway. He seemed to have fellow
travellers, some 1003 people at least, to whom he sent out his manifesto
before he went on the shooting spree. In July the same year revelations
about a German neo-Nazi cell, the National Socialist Underground
to name one, had executed eleven people mostly of Turkish origin and
undertaken fourteen armed robberies. Other fascist group, Autonomous
Nationalists, National Democratic Party (NDP) in Germany, Patriotic
Europeans against the Islamization of the Occident (Pegida) are also
spreading widely in Europe. They formed the third most powerful
parliamentary political force in countries like Hungary, Norway, France,
Denmark, Greece, Italy, Sweden, and Netherlands. In September 2013
the Golden Dawn with army connivance infiltrated key state apparatus
and threatened a coup d’état in Greece. Fueling the cause of the far
right was the concoction of permanent war, distress migration and neo
liberal economic policies. Fekete says these far right groups are not
flash mobs; they are racist mobilizations swelling up from anger, fear
and machismo. Grit for their mills comes from the grass root, converge
with criminality of various kinds from pimping, to extortion, drugs,
arms running, vigilantism, murder which is manipulated by the
ultra-right.
Less advanced capitalist countries like India are dealing with a
 Preface 29

different scenario as they embrace neo-liberalism amidst mass poverty.

Here democratic pressures from below and forces of the left are still
material. The far right has been organized and at hand for a hundred
years almost, but it has made noticeable headway in neo-liberal times,
both inside the parliament and outside. India now boasts of the largest
militia of the far right in the world that rules through its political front
at the centre.
This book is an acknowledgment of the journey that brought far
right to centre in India, the world’s largest democracy. Nothing about
Indian economy, society, its dismal social sector is understandable
without knowing just how deep, and widespread the roots of the far
right are. What passes off as the sacred cow of traditional culture is in
fact a deeply right-wing predisposition that made their arrival relatively
uncomplicated.

NOTES
1. A. Ahmad (2019), ‘A Conversation with Aijaz Ahmad: The State is
Taken Over from Within’, Frontline, 2 August 2019.
2. B. Russell (1945), The History of Western Philosophy, New York:
Simon & Schuster.
3. A. Kalhan (2018), Work in a Metro, New Delhi: Manohar.
4. J. Dreze (2017), Sense and Solidarity, Ranikhet: Permanent Black.
5. P.K. Verma (2014), The New Indian Middle Class, Noida: Harper Collins.
6. https://www.freepressjournal.in/india/prashant-bhushan-claims- anna-
movement-was-propped-up-by-bjp-rss-congress-says-told-you-so
7. Sumit Sarkar (2014), Modern India 1885-1947, Delhi: Pearson.
8. B.R. Ambedkar (2016), Riddles in Hinduism, New Delhi: Navayana and
B.R. Ambedkar (1936), Annihilation of Caste, New Delhi: Navayana.
9. Thomas Carlyle (2002), The French Revolution, New York: The Modern
Library.
10 A. Rosenberg (1934), ‘Fascism as a Mass Movement’, Historical
Materialism 20.1 (2012), pp. 144-89.
11. M. Kalecki (1964), ‘The Fascism of our Times’, Monthly Review, 1972,
New York, pp. 99-105.
12. A. Al-Azmeh (2003), ‘Postmodern Obscurantism and “The Muslim
Question”’, The Socialist Register, pp. 28-50.
13. L. Fekete (2016), ‘Neoliberalism and Popular Racism: The Shifting
Shape of the European Right’ in Socialist Register, pp. 1-23.
 Abbreviations

ABVP Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad

AIADMK All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam
AICC All India Congress Committee
AID Agency for International Development
AIML All India Muslim League
AIRF All India Railwaymen’s Federation
AITUC All India Trade Union Congress
BBC British Broadcasting Corporation
BCSS Bihar Chhatra Sangharsh Samiti
BDD Worli Bombay Development Department
BJP Bharatiya Janata Party
BJS Bharatiya Jana Sangh
BKS Bharatiya Kamgar Sena
BLD Bharatiya Lok Dal
BMS Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh
CBI Central Bureau of Investigation
CCF Congress for Cultural Freedom
CEC Central Executive Committee
CIA Central Intelligence Agency
CII Confederation of Indian Industry
CISCO Corporation of USA
CITU Centre of Indian Trade Unions
CP Central Province
CPC Communist Party of China
CPGB Communist Party of Great Britain
CPI Communist Party of India
CPI(ML) Communist Party of India Marxist-Leninist
CPM/CPI(M) Communist Party of India (Marxist)
32 Abbreviations

CPSU Communist Party of Soviet Union

CRPF Central Reserve Police Force
CSP Congress Socialist Party
DDA Delhi Development Authority
DIR Defence of India Rules
DMK Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam
FICCI Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and
Industry
AFL-CIO American Federation of Labour – Congress of
Industrial Organisations of USA
GIC General Insurance Corporation
GOI Government of India
GP Gantantra Parishad
HRD Human Resource Development
HSC Hindu Students’ Council
HSS Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh
I&B Information and Broadcasting
ICS Indian Civil Services
IHME Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation
IISCO Indian Iron and Steel Company
ILC Imperial Legislative Council
IMF International Monetary Fund
INC Indian National Congress
IPTA Indian Peoples Theatre Association
IRD Information Research Department
IRDF India Relief and Development Fund
ISI Inter-Service Intelligence
IT Information Technology
JP Jayaprakash Narayan
JPM Jayaprakash Movement
KGB Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti
LPG Liberalization, Privatization and Globalization
MIM Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen
MISA Maintenance of Internal Security Act
MLA Member of Legislative Assembly
MNREGA Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment
Guarantee Act
 Abbreviations 33

MP Members of Parliament
MRTP Monopoly and Restrictive Trade Practices
MSEB Maharashtra State Electricity Board
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NDA National Democratic Alliance
NDP National Democratic Party of Germany
NGO Non-Governmental Organization
NPA Non Performing Assets
NRI Non-resident Indian
NWFP North-West Frontier Province
OAS Organisation Armee Secrete (Secret Armend
Organisation) in France
OBC Other Backward Castes
OCI Overseas Citizens of India
OFBJP Overseas Friends of BJP
OPC Office of Policy Coordination
OPEC Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries
PIL Public Interest Litigation
PL Public Law
PM Prime Minister
PMO Prime Minister’s Office
PMS Prime Minister’s Secretariat
PR Public Relations
PSB Psychological Strategy Board
PSP Praja Socialist Party
RRP Ram Rajya Parishad
RSS Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
RTUC Red Trade Union Congress
SDRs Special Drawing Rights
SEATO South East Asian Treaty Organization
SMM Samyukta Maharashtra Movement
SS Shiv Sena
SSP Samyukta Socialist Party
TADA Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act
TCTSFH The Campaign to Stop Funding Hate
TDP Telegu Desam Party
TMC Trinamool Congress
34 Abbreviations

TOI Times of India

TPP Twenty Point Programme
UP United Provinces/Uttar Pradesh
UPA United Progressive Alliance
USIBC United States-India Business Council
VHP Vishva Hindu Parishad
VKA Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram
WPP Workers and Peasants Parties
WW1 First World War
WW2 Second World War
 CHAPTER 1

We Our Nationhood Defined

In Russia, finally. What I see bewilders me. Not like any other country.
The difference is in the roots. They have awakened all the people in the
land. . . .
What impresses me the most here is that vulgarity of wealth has
completely vanished. For this reason alone, a sense of confidence seems
to be universal in the country’s citizens. The peasants and the
marginalized have thrown away the indignity in which they had earlier
lived. This is what surprises me and also gives me happiness. . . .
–Tagore, in ‘Letters from Russia’.
Socialism is not a product of this soil. It is not in our blood and tradition.
It has absolutely nothing to do with the traditions and ideals of thou-
sands of years of our national life. It is a thought alien to crores of our
people here. As such it does not have the power to thrill our hearts and
inspire us to a life of dedication and character. Thus, we see it does not
possess even the primary qualification to serve as an ideal for our
national life.
–Golwalkar

Introduction
There was Russia and then there was China, in the neighbourhood of
India, trying to build dignity and confidence of the marginalized.
Tagore’s empathy was not a common sentiment. To feel impressed by
the absence of vulgarity of wealth, by the confidence and dignity of the
marginalized would have been a rare empathy especially among the
upper-classes and castes that shaped the new Indian nation. The few
leaders who felt empathy and concern like Gandhi, Ambedkar and
Nehru, were in fact quite lonely. Their loneliness became more palpable
36 Tipping Point

on the eve of partition, and later in the midst of the most violent
communal carnage in modern Asia. Their minority position became
increasingly apparent in the decades after Independence.
Certainly, the empathy of Gandhi and Nehru presented tremen-
dous utility in the national movement when masses had to be electrified
for acts of courage and defiance. Gandhi and later Nehru could both
move the masses. Yet, after Independence the core leadership of the
INC could not rationally, debate and construct a coherent programme
to lift the relegated out of ignorance and abject poverty swiftly, let alone
implement it. Much of what was to plague India, even seventy years
later, like the problem of ‘surplus humanity’ or what in popular discus-
sions is labelled as poor quality of human development, has its origins
in that absence of elementary empathy which in turn breeds concern
for or engagement with equity and fairness. Notwithstanding the
rhetoric of few leaders in the nationalist project, the steady cave-in of
parliamentary democracy that followed, produced the largest pool of
absolutely poor people and it’s timorous foundations went almost
unnoticed, till it caved in after 2014.
Why did this blind spot exist and persist? To confront the indif-
ference is to reexamine the ‘roots’ of this nationalist mission that swept
the country to Independence. The traditional society, its cultural norms,
its propertied classes, and the dominant religions that were carried
along on the wave of the movement for freedom. It is from these roots
that the new nation was shaped.
Colonial status had certainly played a role in shaping the economy
of India. When India gained freedom literacy was 17 per cent, life
expectancy at birth 32 years, per capita income Rs. 247 a year, few had
non-agricultural jobs. Economy had been largely stagnant for 3-4
generations. 80 per cent people lived in villages. Landowners in the
rural economy, merchants and emerging capitalist class in the urban,
formed the influential elite. Local government in the form of panchayats
were the main institutions overseeing local customs, traditions, occu-
pation and inter-caste dealings, while British made courts of law dealt
with more serious disputes of property and crime. The British had not
restructured religious, social and cultural norms in any significant way.
They just found it easier to simply rule with the help of local social
elite.
 We Our Nationhood Defned 37

Reveries on Roots of the Nation

People have lived in clusters and communities whether they lived within
a specific geographic boundary or not. The venture of defining national
boundaries as one knows them today, is a rather recent occurrence in
history and it is situated at a point of intersection of politics, technology
and social transformation.1 The process of defining national boundaries
usually passes through three phases. The first phase is largely cultural,
folkloric and mythological. In the next phase some agents of the national
idea, with less than transparent ambitions, begin campaigning for it,
gradually the notion is woven around language, ethnicity or shared
beliefs. It is only later on that the idea acquires mass appeal or is
compelled; possibly it gathers momentum only as socio-economic
interdependence over larger geographic areas increases significantly.
The nation is hence constructed from above and broadcast in multiple
ways to mould the consciousness of those below. The scale on which
this becomes possible depends primarily on the scale of technological
change. Machinery of mass communication like printing, radio and
television and mass transportation have shifted the scale over a period
of time. That in turn determines the magnitude and concentration of
capital in production, transport, communication, and armament pro-
duction. The project of nation building and aligning the political and
national unit is just a recent detail. The compact of governments with
those governed (regarding state effort and policy) were it exists at all
is even more recent.
Otto Bauer argued that nations are products of long history, of
extended intermingling of people in a geographical location. Historically
they develop a commonality through shared stories, languages, com-
munication, habits, culture, philosophy and common political
institutions. In the process they even develop a distinct differentiated
national character. None of the above commonalities are static and do
evolve in the real struggle for existence. They change when material
conditions change rapidly, particularly when transportation, travel and
communication increase, but they tend to retain their differentiation
for longer periods and can be identified as differences in national culture.
Therefore, nations experienced industrial capitalism in similar ways
but with distinct national characteristics and not indistinguishably.2
38 Tipping Point

One finds this argument interesting because it explains historical

patterns and path dependencies somewhat better. It includes the
influence of culture, religions, social hierarchies, customs and belief
systems on the collective choices that nations make. Nationalism is a
formulation and articulation of that choice. It also explains pathways
and trajectories more completely than the understanding of nations
simply as products of capitalism, the great industrial transformation
that expanded boundaries to accommodate increasing productivity and
trade. The equation of nation to just the boundaries of government, a
state and a collective aspiration of future class-based projects, is
inadequate to explain the texture of shades around us globally.
Identifying a common culture seems to have been the widely
assumed mission when leading figures in the national movement of
India set about imagining a nation and searching for shared common-
alities. M.K. Gandhi in Hind Swaraj rejected the generally accepted
hypothesis that the rise of Indian nationalism was a product of mainly
western education, transport and modern means of communication.
Rebuffing the British proposition that India would require centuries
to become one nation, he says that India was one nation before the
British arrived, ‘I do not wish to suggest that because we were one
nation, we had no differences, but it is submitted that our leading men
travelled throughout India either on foot or in bullock carts. They
learned one another’s languages, and there was no aloofness between
them. What do you think could have been the intentions of the
far-seeing ancestors of ours who established Shevetbindu Rameshwaram
in the south, Juggernaut in the south east, and Haridwar in the north
as places of pilgrimage?. . . . They knew that worship of God could
have been performed just as well at home. . . . But they saw that India
was one undivided land so made by nature. They, therefore, argued
that it must be one nation. Arguing thus they established holy places
in various parts of India and fired the people with an idea of nationality
in a manner unknown in other parts of the world. Any two Indians
are one as no two Englishmen are.’3
Here the imagined nation seems to be bound specifically by the
dominant religion and culture. Gandhi goes on ‘India cannot cease to
be one nation because people belonging to different religions live in it.
 We Our Nationhood Defned 39

The introduction of foreigners does not necessarily destroy the nation;

they merge in it’ (p. 52).4
It is not clear who the foreigners were in a world without passports.
Yet there does seem to be a notion, born of a thousand-year old memory,
through the mainstream nationalist discourse that there were some
original inhabitants and some ‘others’, outsiders. Often, the dateline for
original inhabitant in the nationalist dialogue was about one thousand
years ago, even if rivulets of Aryans, Bactrians, Kushans, Phalvas,
Scythians and many others were flowing into India for millenniums
before. Perhaps the lack of interest in writing history seriously made
all our national leaders rely on popular oral sources or hastily written
ones.
Gandhi returned from South Africa in 1915 and soon became the
pre-eminent leader of the political party that took the leadership role
in the freedom movement. His ideas influenced the direction the
national movement took. At that time, the INC was a microcosm of
the elite propertied society. In the eyes of a vast majority of this lead-
ership, traditional culture and norms were good enough and there was
no need for revolutionary change to make a new nation. It was basically
necessary and sufficient only to change the rulers from the British to
more acceptable native ones.
‘I believe that the civilization that India has evolved is not to be
beaten in the world. Nothing can equal the seeds sown by our ancestors.
Rome went, Greece shared the same fate, the might of the Pharaohs
was broken, Japan has become westernized, of China nothing can be
said, but India is still, somehow or the other sound at the foundation’.5
Gandhi, however, did suggest some reforms and added that introspec-
tion, truth, non-violence, Satyagraha at individual and Swaraj at
collective levels would be adequate means of transformation into
nationhood.
‘The people of Europe learn their lessons from the writings of
men of Greece or Rome, which exist no longer in the former glory. In
trying to learn from them, the Europeans imagine that they will avoid
the mistakes of Greece and Rome. Such is their pitiable condition. In
the midst of all this India remains immovable and that is her glory.
. . . What we have tested and found true on the anvil of experience we
dare not change. Many thrust their advice on India, and she remains
40 Tipping Point

steady. This is her beauty; it is the sheet anchor of our hope’ (p. 66).
. . . The Gujarati equivalent for civilization means good conduct. If this
definition is correct then, India as so many writers have shown has
nothing to learn from anyone else, and this is as it should be’ (pp. 66-7).
Here Gandhi was rebuffing modern ideas of the nation and those of
social evolution and progress. Since India was then rural and static, a
non-industrialized country with only a small and new industrial
wage-earning working class exposed to change. Gandhi was also perhaps
playing to a wide gallery.
When he wrote this, Gandhi had already spent a number of years
in England. At the turn of the nineteenth century, England was a
cauldron of new ideas and movements, like atheism, socialism, com-
munism and Fabian socialism to mention a few. Marx’s Communist
Manifesto was published in 1848 and the first volume of Das Kapital
had appeared in 1867, Charles Darwin’s Descent of Man was published
in 1871. An independent labour party was formed in 1887, working
class movements were active and winning concessions. These were
transforming ideas and movements that were being discussed avidly
in progressive and intellectual circles.
Remarking on the Mahatma (an authoritative biography of M.K.
Gandhi by D.G. Tendulkar) E.M.S. Namboodiripad notes,‘However,
it is characteristic of the future Mahatma that the movement which
interested him the most while in London was – vegetarianism!’ (p.
27).6 He joined the London vegetarian society, was on its executive
committee, he contributed nine articles on Hindu customs and diet to
a vegetarian magazine and started a club in his locality. Perhaps Gandhi
was a misfit in the London intellectual world or more comfortable in
the familiarity of Hindu customs and diet, or maybe he was grappling
with the significance of roots, traditions and the possibility of using
old paths to forge new roads leading to unfamiliar destinations.
Rudolph and Rudolph, American scholars working on India think
that Gandhi was for his time‘one of the most conspicuous modernizers
of Indian politics’ and the fact that he could be so, suggests that ‘some
elements of tradition can serve modern functions’.7 Giving new content
to the traditional vocabulary of satya (truth), ahimsa (non-violence),
swaraj (interpreted simultaneously as mastery over oneself and as
 We Our Nationhood Defned 41

secular self-rule) he was shaping the ‘inner environment’ of Indians,

transforming the sense of self-esteem, fear, inferiority and helplessness.
These are the commonly observed consequences of colonial rule, where
the conquered internalize a sense of being dominated. Nehru too
comments on this effect of Gandhi, of engendering a psychological
change among the masses and other Indian leaders.
Namboodiripad, attempting to identify the traits and social forces
that propelled M.K. Gandhi to the helm of the anti-colonial movement,
eventually locates them in his ability to identify with the poor, talk to
the masses and win their confidence for his purpose of anti-Imperial
struggle but ‘. . . though speaking in the name of, and in a language
understandable to, the masses of toiling people, Gandhi was firmly
opposed to anything that would rally the masses against the existing
social system’ (pp. 61-2). This stance was avowedly in the name of
non-violence and perhaps based on a judgment that the possibility of
uncontrolled violence and internal divisions would harm the cause of
Indian Independence. The British control over the subcontinent was
complete by the time Gandhi made a bid for leadership soon after he
arrived from South Africa.
Speculating on how M.K. Gandhi managed to assume the unques-
tioned leadership of the Congress so soon, Namboodiripad says, ‘Yet
a few years after he came to India and settled down, he became the
undisputed leader of the biggest national political movement which
our country had witnessed. . . . Men and women, towering far above
him in intellectual capacity, virtually pledged themselves to service
under his guidance, and even subordinated their judgements to his’ (p.
38).8 The reason was his ability to connect with the Indian masses
largely illiterate and simple minded drawing them into the national
movement against colonial oppression. His self-presentation as an
ascetic leader was such that the multitudes could recognize it and trust
him. As it played out, Gandhi’s self invention captured both the
imagination of millions and control of the nationalist thought sidelining
other contending ideologies. This success was in no small way a con-
sequence of its presentation as continuity of tradition of ascetics,
self-suffering, faith and devotion (bhakti). He will be discussed at the
end of the chapter.
42 Tipping Point

Nehru, although much younger, was the most prominent leader

after Gandhi, both in terms of pan Indian public appeal and repute
within the Congress.
Nehru’s foray into the history of India does not use the Muslim
invasion as a dateline, then popular among British historians and right
wing ideologues. His idea of India’s past has a more universalist vision
sweeping over the historic mingling of races, ideas and histories across
the globe. He rejects the European construction of Indian and Asian
history. His vision is considerably different from that of most other
Congress leaders as well. This was perhaps a consequence of his own
background and spirit. The formative years he spent outside India
might have added to his vision. He was 15 when he was sent off to
Harrow and then to Cambridge. Among the prominent leaders of the
nationalist movement, he had perhaps spent the most time away from
India in his most formative years. His book The Discovery of India is
as much a personal encounter with India as he travelled for political
work, as his synthesis of what he thought and understood about world,
India and Indian history.
He writes,‘My reaction to India was thus often an emotional one,
conditioned and limited in many ways. It took the form of nationalism.
. . . But nationalism was and is inevitable in the India of my day. . . . It
is still one of the most powerful urges that move a people, and, around
it, cluster sentiments and traditions and a sense of common living and
common purpose. While the intellectual strata of the middle-classes
were moving away from nationalism, or so they thought, labour and
proletarian movements were deliberately drifting towards nationalism.
The coming of war swept everybody everywhere into the net of
nationalism. . . . Old established traditions cannot be easily scrapped
or dispensed with; in moments of crisis they rise and dominate the
minds of men, and often, as we have seen, a deliberate effort is made
to use these traditions to rouse a people to a high pitch of effort and
sacrifice. Traditions have to be accepted to large extent and adapted
and transformed to meet new conditions and ways of thought, and at
the same time new traditions have to be built up’ (pp. 44-5).9
‘Every people and every nation have some such belief or myth of
national destiny and perhaps it is partly true in each case. Being an
Indian I am myself influenced by this reality or myth about India, and
 We Our Nationhood Defned 43

I feel that anything that had the power to mould hundreds of

generations, without a break, must have drawn its enduring vitality
from some deep well of strength and have had the capacity to renew
that vitality form age to age’ (p. 47).
Perhaps in the same vein he says that Hindu nationalism was a
‘natural growth from the soil of India’ (p. 293) India and Muslim
nationalism was abetted by the British government as a bid to divide
the nationalist movement led by the Congress. The growth and
development of the Muslim League, he says, is an unusual phenomenon
(p. 418) and started in ‘1906 with British encouragement’ to keep the
new generation of Muslims away from the National Congress. Later
he adds that the Hindu Mahasabha was the counterpoint of the Muslim
League but relatively less important. The Mahasabha was in fact as
aggressively communal as the League but would cover it up with some
vague but familiar nationalist terminology. He thought that the
communal attitudes of the Muslim League was no less difficult and
unreasonable than that the Hindu Mahasabha and British polices were
designed to encourage and emphasise these differences against the
Congress.
While Nehru was simultaneously, discovering, imagining and
forging an India of his ideas, India also becomes the metaphor for
Nehru’s own quest for a meaning and purpose in politics. It ripened
as he elucidated the significance of nationhood to his audience. He
addressed thousands of public rallies; he did this incessantly as he got
involved in political activity and electoral campaigns in the 1920s in
the United Provinces, and in the 1930s all over the country. He was
travelling to and speaking in remote villages. He would talk about other
far away regions of India to his audience and while doing so would be
acquainting each part with the other. He discussed their shared
problems as he learned of them himself on the road. He found that
often the only unifying element across regions was mythology and folk
lore. There would occasionally be some people who had been on pil-
grimage and knew of those other places in India and rare individuals
who had fought wars (including the WW1) in faraway lands, but few
had travelled far even through India.
‘India with all her infinite charm and variety began to grow upon
me more and more, and yet the more I saw of her the more I realized
44 Tipping Point

how very difficult it was for me or for anyone else to grasp the ideas
she had embodied. . . . Though outwardly there was diversity and
infinite variety among our people, everywhere there was that tremen-
dous impress of oneness, which had held all of us together for ages
past, whatever political fate or misfortune had befallen us. The unity
of India was no longer merely an intellectual conception for me; it was
an emotional experience which overpowered me. That essential unity
had been so powerful that no political division no disaster or catastro-
phe, had been able to overcome’ (p. 52). These are uncommonly dreamy
visions for a man in the heat and dust of politics. It was not as much
the material unity of idea, language, food or dress or even of commu-
nication and transport, as much as his hope and vision for unity. None
of that emotional charge can be seen in the poet Rabindranath Tagore.
Tagore, leading Indian intellectual of that period, positioned himself
aloof from the surge of nationalism, against its jingoist variety and
coercion of the individual. India, he felt did not even have the basis for
it, given the ‘physical repulsion, one for the other that we have between
castes’ (p. 95).10 In an introduction to Tagore’s lecture on nationalism
(delivered in Japan and USA between 1916-17) E.P. Thompson says,
‘Tagore was the founder of anti-politics. . . . For Tagore, more than any
other thinker of his time, had a clear conception of civil society as
something distinct from and of stronger and more personal structure
than political and economic structures’ (p. 14).11 Instead Tagore urged
his fellow countrymen to set about awakening the minds of people
‘reforming and renewing their own society – agricultural improvement,
social welfare, education, overcoming the barriers created by caste and
religion by their own efforts’ and not depend on petitioning their British
rulers. He also made a generalized representation of Indian history, its
civil society and continuity but with strong reservations about the
mind-numbing passivity created by the caste system through which
people had lost the power to combat aggression and exploitation. In
an essay on the ‘Cult of the Charkha’ in 1925 he said, ‘So in India,
during long ages past, we have the spectacle of only a repetition of that
which has gone before’ (p. 100).12
B.R. Ambedkar, major intellectual and later prominent political
leader of the schedule-castes, was almost bitter and preferred to position
himself outside mainstream nationalism, dominant religion and against
 We Our Nationhood Defned 45

other major nationalist leaders. From Annihilation of Caste to Riddles

of Hinduism he was preoccupied with dissecting the roots of the
ideological system that created a social impasse in India. He found it
in the Hindu religion as it had grown into a system of social control.
He describes it as a gradation of castes forming an ascending scale of
reverence and ‘a descending scale of contempt – a system which gives
no scope for the growth of the sentiments of equality and fraternity so
essential for the growth of a democratic form of government’ (p. 25).13
For a good part of his life he actually tried and in fact the well spring
of his book Riddles in Hinduism is a desire to reform Hinduism, to
bring about a social reform he thought was a necessary foundation of
a modern nation. The introduction to Riddles begins thus,‘This book
is an exposition of the beliefs propounded by what might be called
Brahmanical theology. It is intended for the common mass of Hindus
. . . and to lead them to the road of rational thinking’ (p. 49).14 He
scrutinizes the misconception that Hinduism is an eternally unchanging
religion and order (sanatana) from Vedic times, looks at the dramatic
shifts in the accepted social order as human settlements evolved, the
myriad changing jatis as sub-castes, questions the static meaning of
dharma as custom or tradition (outside an understanding of the evolving
context) and through it all, highlights the control that brahmanical
theology exerted on the minds of the masses. It is this theology which
took the form of the hierarchy of the caste system. But his most
powerful intervention by far was his 1936 lecture ‘Annihilation of Caste’,
in which almost at the beginning he puts the issue firmly in the centre,
To quote,‘Social reform in India has few friends and many critics. The
critics fall into two distinct classes. One class consists of political
reformers and the other of the socialists.’ Some in the National Congress
recognized the importance of social reform and birth of the National
Congress was followed, two years later, by the founding of the Social
Conference 1887 by M.G. Ranade. The agenda of the reformers was
limited mostly to the rights of women and social practices of the
upper-caste Hindus and not the need for a more egalitarian structure
of society. For a few years they met at the same venue and time annually.
Ambedkar says that soon the two wings developed into two different
parties that could not agree on the priority of the agenda. While the
faction that prioritized political reform supported the National
46 Tipping Point

Congress, the other faction maintained that social reform was a priority.
Over a decade of hostile relations followed, and the fortunes of the
social reformers ebbed as leaders presiding over the social reform
conference ‘. . . lamented that the majority of educated Hindus were for
political advancement and indifferent to social reform’ (pp. 211-12).15
Hostility against social reform turned to enmity under the leadership
of Tilak who lead the opposition to it till ‘Social Conference vanished
and was forgotten’. Even its limited agenda vanished and so did the
understanding that the political constitution of a modern nation must
stand on an appropriate social organization.
The socialists on the other hand, assumed that the economic basis
of inequality was the most significant one and all power flowed from
economic power. Whereas Ambedkar held that in society ‘Religion,
social status and property are all sources of power and authority, which
one man has to control the liberty of another. One is predominant at
one stage; and the other is predominant at another stage. That is the
only difference’ (ibid., p. 230). After all, the economic reforms desired
by the socialists cannot come about without the seizure of power by
the working class and that cannot occur in the absence of a feeling of
equality, fraternity and justice. ‘Men will not join in a revolution for
the equalization of property unless they know that after the revolution
is achieved, they will be treated equally’. Wherever such revolutionary
changes have occurred in the twentieth century, this fundamental
socio-cultural ideal has pre-existed among the compatriots. In India
such preconditions do not exist among the working classes according
to Ambedkar since,‘the caste system is not merely a division of labour
but a division of laborers.’ The culture of the strong beating down the
weak has to be replaced by one of associated life where each individual
is free to and able to develop his/her capabilities. Much of social reform
is essentially a change in notions, values/ideals and attitudes towards
other people and material objects. But, if education is limited to the
advanced castes alone, how can the capacity to alter that hierarchical
social structure develop and gain momentum? Lower classes have been
disabled to resort to direct action (collective and mass resistance that
compels social change by creating a crisis) by the caste system. ‘They
do not think out or know the way to their salvation. They were con-
demned to be lowly: and not knowing the way to escape, and not having
 We Our Nationhood Defned 47

the means of escape, they become reconciled to eternal servitude, which

they accept as their inescapable fate’ (p. 274). Moreover, in this milieu,
those few who do break the mould, do so against all odds, but often
end up imitating the old elite both to seek social mobility, recognition
and acceptance.
Ambedkar eventually resigned from the position as Law Minister
he held in Nehru’s cabinet over intense bitterness created against the
Hindu Code Bill which was meant to give basic rights to Hindu women.
Opposition to the bill brought together the full might of the conser-
vative right wing within and outside the Congress. Their wrath fell
upon Ambedkar and brought the issue into the parliamentary spotlight.
Only Nehru seemed to stand by Ambedkar then on the Bill or other
social reforms.
From the vantage of hindsight it appears that major intellectuals
and political leaders of the national movement saw what they wanted
to see in the Indian roots, just as they do in present times. Their agenda
shaped their thoughts. Besides, as most leaders (except some like
Ambedkar) came with property and upper-caste pedigree, they were
inclined to be quite partial to their inherited heritage as an amalgamated
package.

Representation and Electoral Politics

Right wing or left wing forces can be recognized only in the context of
the national liberation movement. The consensus against foreign
domination grew steadily when larger number of people were drawn
in through the end of the nineteenth century and early twentieth
century.
Right wing, as was discussed in the preface, is commonly under-
stood to represent social and political forces that seek continuity with
the historic or existing social order and hierarchies. The right at that
juncture came to exist as a political organization to represent a socially
conservative section that sought political independence but to recon-
struct a very substantial continuity with a reimagined past of an ideal
‘Hindu nation’ (interrupted one thousand years ago). It was an urge to
power, for some upper-caste Hindus to dominate political and cultural
spheres completely once again. ‘Let us fix our gaze steadfastly on our
48 Tipping Point

past, which was great, and the future, which is glorious, and above all
live in the present as men. . .’ said K.M. Munshi (a most enterprising
agent in the political spectrum whose name will crop up many times)
in his presidential address to the Akhand Hindustan Conference in
February 1942.16 He was urging his audience to hold fast to their
splendid cultural heritage. The details of this future project were to be
assembled by the leadership on the go.
Much of the early articulation of nationalism began as a rather
fledgling project of the new social elite, often well educated or educated
abroad but who had grown up under the colonial rule. They sought
increasing power to determine local level policy. They sought political
power in the colonial frame through greater representation in local
administrative and legislative bodies. The national movement grew
more coherently in the decades that followed the founding of the INC
in 1885 and matured. Within the INC, a shared understanding arose
that this Independence was to be engineered as a more, rather than
less peaceful transition, to a rule by the social elite with concessions to
the depressed castes. Its arguments against colonial rule were framed
in terms of the drain of wealth and poverty of India made famous by
the Dadabhai Naroji thesis. Hence freedom was sought for national
prosperity and alleviation of poverty not for radical change in social
relations. The new nation was to be ruled under a constitution modelled
on the British one. The INC’s position was in a sense left of the colonial
centre when it began to raise concerns about draining of wealth out of
India, famines, poverty, tax burdens, demanding welfare for the people
and representation in government.
The decades that followed the formation of the INC were trans-
formative. Sarkar says that this period of vast changes ‘witnessed
perhaps the greatest transition in our country’s long history’.17 From a
condition where the British found dependable allies in zamindars,
princes, urban notables, where regional diversity and identities pre-
vented the idea of a united Indian people and where the INC
represented a tiny minority of educated urban and rural notables. The
situation was transformed in 1936 when INC became the largest
organization of the people representing almost all sections and regions.
In the 1930s Kisan Sabhas (Farmer’s Associations) and trade unions
grew under its umbrella to become a force. The INC became a massive
 We Our Nationhood Defned 49

organization covering many regions and sectors. Gradually it was able

to generate enough mass pressure to compel the British to withdraw
from India in the period after the WW2. Within 60 years the situation
was unrecognizable. It was in this period that different versions of
Indian nationalism were formulated, articulated and in competition.
An elective principle for local municipal government had been
introduced under an 1892 Act to involve capable Indians in local urban
government. Morley-Minto Reforms also known as the Indian Councils
Act of 1909 was ground breaking in the history of Indian politics. The
most important aspect of the Act was the increase of the native rep-
resentation in the Legislative Councils. The Act of 1909 extended that
principle of representation further and beyond the few cities. The Act
increased the strength of the Supreme Legislative Councils significantly.
The Indian Council Act 1909 granted Muslims two to four seats in
each provincial legislature based on the principle of separate election.
This representation was apparently made on the basis of a represen-
tation to Lord Minto by Muslim men of property and influence led by
Aga Khan.18 The Act, however, provided only for the right to raise
resolutions and ask supplementary questions and the reformed councils
remained mainly advisory bodies. Eight years later in 1917, the British
Government announced that its policy in India was to be that of
increasing association of Indians in every branch of the administration,
the gradual development of self-governing institutions, with a view to
the progressive realization of responsible governance in India as an
integral part of the British Empire. That was followed by an inquiry
led by the Secretary of State, Edwin S. Montagu and the Viceroy of
India, Lord Chelmsford. The results of the inquiry were published in
1918 in their report on Indian Constitutional Reform. The Act of
1919 was enacted by the British Parliament as a step towards the
fulfilment of the objectives that conceded a little more power into the
Indian hands. The Act initiated a ‘sort of responsible government’ in
the provinces.The Act also introduced diarchy in the provinces. Matters
of administration were divided first between the centre and the prov-
inces and then the provincial subjects were further bifurcated into the
‘transferred’ and ‘reserved’ subjects. The ‘transferred’ subjects were to
be administered by the Governor with the aid of the ministers respon-
sible to the Legislative Council which was composed mainly of elected
50 Tipping Point

members but with enough nominated members to keep control. Thus,

responsible governance was sought to be created in a limited sphere.
The ‘reserved’ subjects were to remain the responsibility of the Governor
and his Executive Council, which was not responsible to the Legislature.
The British government was gradually responding to the increased
pressure from the Indian elite by gradually including them in affairs
of administration. The intentionally divisive separate electorates con-
tinued and were extended in the centre and states and also provided
for Indian Christians, Sikhs Anglo-Indians and Europeans. Depressed
classes received representation by nomination. Gallagher succinctly
sums up the change that these reforms brought about when at the
centre, the Government in India and the powers of the Raj were
increased, tightening the grip over all key policies, while in the provinces
more and more authority was entrusted to Indians. This directed much
of Indian political energy and action to the provinces, down to local
levels. By placing the new provincial administrations upon greatly
widened electorates, it also gave the Raj a ‘further range of collaborators,
selected now for their mastery of vote-gathering’.19
With opportunities opening for representation and exercise of
state power, contending visions of nationalism grew along with their
organization.
General elections (2.8 per cent of population based on a property
qualification) were held in British India in 1920 to elect members of
provincial councils and Imperial Legislative Council (ILC). The ILC
in turn had a Lower and Upper Chamber called the Central Legislative
Assembly and Council of States. Over half the seats at all levels were
contested. As can be expected, the 1920s proved to be a critical period
of political mobilization and competition for representation.

Who did Indian National Congress Represent?

The core of the Congress leadership comprised of men from Bombay
and Calcutta who had first come together in the late 1860s and early
70s while studying for the Indian Civil Services (ICS) or law in England.
They fell under the influence of Dadabhai Naroji who was then settled
in England as businessman-cum-publicist.20 Later, local associations
came up in Calcutta, Poona and Madras followed by attempts at coming
 We Our Nationhood Defned 51

together at an all India level. Eventually only the attempts of A.O.

Hume met with sustainable success when, ‘72 largely self-appointed
delegates’ who tended to be ‘Anglicized in their personal life and highly
successful in their professions’ met for the first session of the INC in
Bombay in 1885. By then the railways had made it possible to travel
in reasonable comfort and meet annually at different locations through-
out the country. The early years, twenty at least were spent almost
entirely in making moderate demands through speeches and petitions
very much in the mould of their rulers. Soon they were asking for
greater representation of educated Indians (considered to be natural
leaders) as elected leaders of chambers of commerce, universities and
so on in provincial and imperial legislative councils.
The economic issues raised were almost throughout, derived from
the famous Naroji treatise of the impact of British rule since growing
poverty and famines provided the material conditions on which such
demands could be made. Demands such as reduction in unfair tariffs,
excise duties, home charges, military expenditure, land revenue, suffer-
ing caused by forest administration, Indian coolies abroad and salt tax,
reflect the wider interest represented by the elite in the early Congress.
‘One of the main objectives of the founders of the Congress was to
seek legitimacy as representatives of Indian aspirations. This was
necessary in order to unite the scattered and fragmented elements in
Indian society and also to impress Calcutta and London that the
Congress represented more than a ‘microscopic minority’ and was not
just a ‘ramshackle coalition’ (p. 21).21 The pressure to articulate national
aspiration, opinions and avoid differences over contentious problems
must have been considerable because both matters of social reform
within Hinduism, the dominant religion and relations between the
two major religious communities, the Muslims and the Hindus were
avoided. In 1987-8 the Congress decided not to discuss any subject
which either Hindus or Muslims ‘unanimously or nearly unanimously
opposed’.22
Speaking about that same property owning ‘middle’ class from
where the bulk of INC leadership came, almost 50 years after the
formation of the Congress, Nehru said with immense clarity and
without ambage,‘The present for me and for many others like me was
an odd mixture of medievalism, appalling poverty and misery and a
52 Tipping Point

somewhat superficial modernism of the middle-classes. I was not an

admirer of my own class or kind and yet inevitably I looked to it for
leadership in the struggle for salvation; that middle-class felt caged and
circumscribed and wanted to grow and develop itself. Unable to do so
within the framework of British rule, a spirit of revolt grew against this
rule and yet this spirit was not directed against the structure that
crushed us. It sought to retain it and control it by displacing the British.
These middle-classes were too much the product of that structure to
challenge and seek to uproot it’ (p. 49).23
When the economic foundations of the colonial rule changed, from
the mercantile days of the East India Company to the consolidation
of the Industrial Revolution in England, the interest of rulers changed
quite markedly. The Industrial Revolution had developed and expanded
industries in England and they wanted Indian markets for their
products. They needed to extract land and tax revenues so as to invest
in infrastructure, railways, and telegraph. British rail companies were
guaranteed return on investment by the British government in India.
Railways and roads were making it possible to transport raw material
and commodities back and forth. Eventually as banking and finance
developed in India, in later phases it also made it easier for foreign
capital to flow into the colony in mining, plantations, shipping, etc.
The managing agency system was an organizational format that enabled
this ownership and control to remain within British and European
hands. The need to increase land revenue and taxes had expanded the
regions under taxation, venturing into tribal and forest regions gradually,
squeezed the masses and antagonized them. The exclusion of native
business men, by the administration, from lucrative contracts and
opportunities in favour of British business men aroused the ire of the
property owning class as well. Exclusion of the educated from jobs and
even promotions to the higher administrative levels aggravated their
grievances. A white supremacy type of racism added to the fire of
discontent and intensified the native sense of humiliation. All this
created very fertile ground for the INC and for other expressions of
‘nationalism’. But the pillars of the Congress were not likely to support
radical programmes or violent mass agitations since they had connec-
tions not just with the wider class of professional intelligentsia but
with propertied groups of landholders, commercial magnates and the
 We Our Nationhood Defned 53

Bombay industrialists; for that reason perhaps it was accommodated

and as will be seen later, not banned like communists. When some
concessions were obtained through council reforms, Congress leaders
along with some other leaders were getting elected to local, imperial
councils and savouring power. The moderate position was often tight
rope walking particularly as mass mobilization accelerated. With rising
zamindari rents, raiyatwari revenues, taxes and tariffs and the occur-
rences of periodic famines, things on ground were getting much worse.
Criticism of the Congress for both, its techniques of petitioning
the British and its leadership by mainly the English educated elite, was
increasing in the Indian language newspapers. This created a fecund
environment for more extremist movements which took different forms,
but the common theme was rejection of moderate and passive methods.
An assertion of Hindu revivalism began to take shape with the use of
religious festivals and symbols for mass contact. There was talk of
self-reliance, self-help, education in Indian languages, constructive
village work, swadeshi through handicraft and local industry, swaraj
through both passive resistance and revolutionary terrorism as means
to gain freedom. The Partition of Bengal in 1905 into a largely Hindu
west Bengal and a largely Muslim east Bengal gave Hindu revivalism
its first major platform. The resistance that grew was replete with
religious-emotional resonance of severing the motherland to render
the (land owning) Hindus a minority in east Bengal and the west
Bengali Hindu middle-class outnumbered in a province that included
Bihar and Orissa. Protests, riots and boycott of British goods and
schools (called Swadeshi movement) began which ultimately led to the
reuniting of Bengal six years later. It was an early taste of triumph.
Throughout all this, the superb intelligence network of the British
government was aware, nor was the response indifferent. For the rising
tide of organizations and associations for Swaraj their policy response
was twofold, one, to gradually increase concessions and participation
to appease moderates, and two, to divide and sustain their rule.
Divisions along lines of caste and religion that existed, were suitable
tools to enhance differences. From 1901 onwards, a population census
was conducted every decade. Among other things, its purpose was to
classify castes on the basis of ‘social precedence as recognized by native
public opinion’. This led to jostling for caste consolidation, emergence
54 Tipping Point

of caste patrons and pressure for caste recognition to obtain official

favour, or for education, jobs and other opportunities for upward
mobility. The engineering college in Punjab for example had three out
of 20 open seats for Hindus, the rest were reserved for Muslims, Sikhs,
Christians and agriculturists.
Caste movements grew both as means to rise higher in the caste
hierarchy, a phenomenon often referred to as ‘Sanskritization’ and
against it in the form of assertions of the lower caste against Brahmin
control over Hinduism. This tendency was enhanced by electoral
politics. Concurrently, communal tensions also began to grow as a
reflection of conflict over government favour, representation and
opportunities for jobs. Most such communal aggregations were led by
property owning elites within each religious group. By most historical
accounts communal riots were rare before 1880s. Their frequency
increased after 1920s culminating in the blood bath that accompanied
the partitioning of the subcontinent along Hindu-Muslim majority
lines in 1947. The period from 1920 to Independence laid the ground-
work of representational politics in India.
The small but growing tribe of early factory workers in the cities
was usually drawn from the small peasantry or ruined artesian classes
and fell into sectarian or caste groupings in their new competitive urban
habitats. Class based movements with modern ideology took long to
grow among factories and establishments while their capitalist owners
remained loyal to the British government till the 1920s for economic
reasons (this aspect will be in focus in Chapter 4). Feudal trimmings
thrived in one-third of India that constituted the princely states; these
princely states were specially cultivated to remain loyal to the colonial
rulers. Thus the basis of social divisions was varied and extensive. In
the beginning INC began and remained most closely associated with
the small number of (literacy in English was one per cent and in ver-
nacular was less than ten per cent of the population and all of them
were mainly from the Brahmins and other upper-caste) educated
middle-classes, followed by landed property classes, bankers and
merchants. Old aristocracy and royalty, secure in their opulence were
scarce if any in the INC and absent in the national movement, their
political preferences were clear.
 We Our Nationhood Defned 55

INC: Swimming with Hindu Revivalism,

Sidelining Social Reform
The Hindu revival movements in different regions, in the last quarter
of the nineteenth century, owed their existence largely to a new
self-consciousness that grew out of a new conjunction – western
education, new institution of election, representation, technology of
railways, telegraph and experience of racism. Jaffrelot says the elite
across Bengal, Maharashtra and Punjab were dealing with the question
‘Who am I?’ ‘The first expression of Hindu nationalism emerged in
the nineteenth century as an ideological reaction to European domi-
nation and gave birth to what came to be known as neo-Hinduism’ (p.
6).24
Western interest in the history and culture of the subcontinent
had produced literature that supported the view that an ancient civi-
lization existed largely in continuity. In fact, British Orientalists argued
that Sanskrit of the Vedic Age was the font of the Indo-European
family of languages and this view gained currency. Inflow of conquerors,
traders and people from the central, west Asian neighbourhood had
been a recurring feature well before Alexander. The historical periods
and chronology were marked by the western scholars. For want of an
equivalent indigenous scholarship, this history of India was embellished
with mythology and lore in a curious manner by Hindu revivalists,
often depending on the western material at hand and quoting British
administrators as historical authorities. A reading of the collection of
extracts from texts written by various luminaries of Hindu nationalism
like Dayananda Saraswati, Lal Chand, H.B. Sarda, Malaviya, Sarvarkar
and Golwalkar edited by Jaffrelot is a revelation about the nature of
history telling and ideology that guided it (one will return to it later),
the leadership and its audience.25 It appears that the version of
Hinduism from which the more aggressive revivalist movement spread
was such that it charmed the upper-caste property owning men very
much, so much so as to leave an undeniable stamp on popular discourse
to this day and the young national movement itself.
Hindu religious systems are different from the Semitic; they do
not constitute a single historically evolved religion with a founder,
ecclesiastical organization with branching sects.26 Since the Hindu
56 Tipping Point

religious system itself does not enjoin a set of universal core principles,
obligations, congregations, and a moral code and has no single book
of belief, it is wide open in aspects of theory and multiple interpretation,
so that much of it was quite enchanting to the occidental mind for its
appearance of openness. In practice it had become rigidly patriarchal
and hierarchical, creating a social order through a pyramid of castes
with their elaborate rituals, customs, and inter-caste relations, quite
incompatible with any modern notion of liberalism for all those who
were constrained and subordinated by it in daily life.
After the upheaval of 1857, variously called – the first Battle of
Independence by nationalists and Mutiny by the Imperialists, Queen
Victoria had proclaimed that the British government would, in the
administration of India, pay due regard to the ancient rights, usage and
customs of India. The lesson the British seem to have learned was that
India can be ruled best so and they kept their word.
By most accounts it appears that religious reform movements or
movements to question old hierarchies of caste and gender in society
from within, were also swept aside largely. Such movements had minor
achievements to their credit, except in some regional pockets in the
south and marginally in the west. So, by the end of the nineteenth
century the British government did not interfere much nor did indig-
enous movements thrive. The reasons are located in two developments,
firstly, the strength of the Hindu revivalist movements that led to strong
politico-religious identities did not question traditions or social hier-
archies, and secondly, preoccupation of the Congress with political
reforms until Gandhi somewhat expanded the social agenda with his
Harijan mission. Electoral seats were based on religion: Hindus,
Muslims, Christians and later, an attempt was made to divide the seats
between caste Hindus and untouchables (which led to Gandhi’s fast
and Gandhi-Ambedkar accord). For the colonial rulers the politicized
religious identity became a disingenuous means of control, they could
be deferentially abstaining from interference with customs and at the
same time use it as a justification to equate custom with religious
bigotry, communalism and irrational nature of the vast majority of
natives.
Why did reform movements not survive? In its history and evo-
lution Hinduism was quite unlike what Engels describes of Semitic
 We Our Nationhood Defned 57

religions like Christianity,‘The history of early Christianity has notable

points of resemblance with the modern working-class movement. Like
the latter, Christianity was originally a movement of oppressed people:
it first appeared as the religion of slaves and emancipated slaves, of
poor people deprived of all rights, of people subjected or dispersed by
Rome’.27 Those early days of Christianity are described as one of
development of a religion which was to become one of the most revo-
lutionary elements in the history of humankind. Such a parallel, of a
mass movement that spread from region to region as a basis of a more
egalitarian society, against oppression, cannot be found within
Hinduism (except perhaps in smaller breakaway cults Buddhism,
Jainism, Sikhism). In fact, there is evidence of its early use to dominate
different regions, belief systems and people for their eventual inclusion
within the Hindu hierarchy. Historians explain the process by which
the invention of iron and the ability to clear large scale forests for
agriculture through the Gangetic valley changed the society of the early
Vedic age Aryans.‘In a well established agricultural society, when fami-
lies come to acquire resources that they are unable to exploit on their
own, they usually procure labour power by force of arms and perpetuate
its supply by force of law and custom. To this they add the compulsion
generated by religion and ideology.What is unique in the case of ancient
Indian society is the fact that these different elements of compulsion,
physical and ideological, were interwoven into a social texture called
the Varna system’ (p. 315).28 A long history of social subjection of many
people accompanied territorial expansion in the early and later king-
doms. This became an extraordinarily stable system while enriching
its upper-castes. The only arrivals who were not eventually and com-
pletely absorbed into the Varna system were the Muslims.
So, unless one looks for and cherry picks the egalitarian and
emancipatory elements in the Bhakti movement there is little but
insubstantial evidence of reformative impulse even in the centuries
preceding colonial rule. Bhakti movement was largely against priests
as intermediators and religious rituals as overheads. The movement is
said to have originated in medieval south India and spread to the east
and west from about the eighth to eighteenth century ad. About the
Bhakti movement, Doniger says it was more a religious lifestyle than
a sect, a major force for inclusiveness with its ‘antinomian attitudes
58 Tipping Point

towards pariahs and women, yet the violence of the passions that it
generated also led to interreligious hostility’ (p. 338).29 The closest
parallel to the Bhakti movement in Europe could be the Protestant
movement. Other scholars like Pechilis30 and Pollock31 are of the
opinion that the Indian revivalist religious movement was not unified
by monotheism, reform, or rebellion against brahmin orthodoxy as
such, but was a reworking of the central themes of the Vedic tradition.
Introduction of new practices like communal singing and service, also
including within the Vedic traditions hitherto excluded groups, the
impulse seems to be purely spiritual and rarely socially or politically
transformative. There were, of course, different voices in the Bhakti
movement and some like Kabir do stand out for their rebellion, but
the thrust seems to be one of continuity. Much earlier too, in the
subcontinent, there were new religions like Buddhism, Jainism and
later Sikhism that built congregations of believers irrespective of caste,
but they got marginalized over a period of time. None was to dominate
the Brahmanical versions of Hinduism. It was this version of stratified,
ritualized, upper-caste, male dominated Hinduism that was to become
the archetype and later springboard of both Hindu revivalism and
nationalism in the late nineteenth century.
Representation of the masses from election to election meant the
Congress could not extricate itself from the ethos of Hindu revivalism
surrounding it even if it wanted to. While it had assiduously decided
to bury Hindu-Muslim differences by its 1887-8 resolution it’s largely
Hindu members relied upon Hindu symbols and traditions to stir
people. Leaders like Tilak, Aurobindo Ghose, Lajpat Rai and many
others claimed that it was the only way, and perhaps it was, given the
social backwardness. Historical myths, gods, festivals, and mass par-
ticipation in festivals was encouraged as well as used to spread a
nationalistic zeal. The hectic use of Hindu symbolism could not have
enthused Muslims but must have succeeded enough with the majority
for it become endemic. ‘ The disquieting fact was that so many
Congressmen of stature were so closely identified with revivalist ten-
dencies’ (p. 24).32 Congress leaders including Gandhi came to be
identified closely with cow protection movements sponsored by Hindu
organizations like Arya Samaj, Shuddhi Sabhas, and Hindu Sabhas.
This Hindu symbolism of cow protection with foot soldiers roaming
 We Our Nationhood Defned 59

the countryside continued despite repeated outbreaks of tension and

conflicts over the issue in the UP, Bihar areas where a large number of
Muslims lived. One need not stretch one’s imagination to understand
the impact of the cow protection zeal with the hindsight of just how
much the livelihood of minorities and Dalits and consequently rural
economies suffered on account of its revival yet again, after 2014.33
Having found rapid success in rallying masses using religious
symbolism, the Congress sought conservative orthodox counterparts
in the Muslim community to make alliances with. The Khilafat
movement provided one such opportunity. Gandhi remarked that ‘the
best and only way to save the cow is to save the Khilafat’.34 Khilafat
was a pan-Islamic movement (1919-24) against western destruction
of Islamic zones of power and influence, particularly the conquest of
Turkey, the seat of the Ottoman Empire. It began in Turkey, the seat
of the Ottoman Empire during the WW1 with Sultan Abdul Hamid
II at the centre. He was the last of the sultans to exercise effective
power. He sponsored the movement to save his empire from attack
and dismemberment by western powers. Being a caliph, the Ottoman
sultan was nominally the supreme religious and political leader of all
sunni Muslims across the world. However, this authority was never
actually used. The movement is viewed by many historians today as
both obscure and out of touch with reality of the twentieth century.
This alliance of conservatives served the Congress ill. Customising
religious appeal to different groups with conservative leaders rallying
around, either for cows or Khilafat or both, set the stage for another
kind of nationalism challenging the hegemony of the Congress variety.
It made a bridgehead for and gave credence to claims of organizations
like Hindu Mahasabha (founded in 1915), RSS (1925) and All India
Muslim League (AIML) (1906) that there existed politically distinct
religious communities. Irreconcilable differences created between them
were generated gradually as a strategy for elections and representation.
This version of nationalism, which is expediently called communalism
was simply an afterclap of competition set in motion by expanding
opportunities. Disaffection for the Congress among Muslims found
firmer footing as British opened access to levers of power and influence
in administration and electoral politics. Competition with Hindus,
who formed an over-whelming majority, would be to their disadvantage
60 Tipping Point

in every way for they lagged in mercantile enterprises, education and

had largely avoided the westernizing process. They had lost an empire,
privileges and suffered the brunt of repression at the hands of the
British in the decades after the 1857 uprising and had often withdrawn
into memories of past magnificence. Antagonism to the west only
increased after the WW1 which resulted in dismantling the remains
of pan Islamic grandeur with the defeat of Ottomans in Turkey.
It did not take long, by 1917 episodes of rioting were being
reported. The courts felt these went far beyond attempts to stop qurbani
(animal sacrifice) and were deemed to be deliberate acts of engineered
conspiracy to stir up religious passions. By the mid-1920s Hindu-
Muslim riots had become more widespread and gruesome than ever
before but Congress, caught up in the representation game did not
introspect. It blamed the colonial rulers for the cataclysm.‘By the time
the Congress strategy was modified in the mid-1930s and its leaders
were awakened to the reality of a communal monster, the opportunity
of forging independent links with Muslim masses was lost’ (p. 25).35
Another significant process seems to have got submerged in the
Hindu revivalism of the late nineteenth century and representational
politics of early twentieth century – social reformers within the Hindu
fold.
Historians used the bitter debate within educated Hindu public
opinion, about Age of Consent Act of 1891 (against child marriage)
to mark the turn towards ‘Hindu revivalism’. The progressive Brahmo
Samaj had lost its influence in Bengal and Ranade’s impulse for reform
was stonewalled by Tilak in Poona. The reformists were hindered even
in marginal reforms. The government finally accepted only one of the
proposals of reformists, which was to increase the age of consent from
ten to twelve. This act had created a storm of protest in Bengal and
Maharashtra, ironically the same states that had led the social reform
movements earlier. Two famous observers of colonies noted it and
commented,‘Frankly conservative and obscurantist sentiments mingled
here with the nationalist argument, put forward most notably by Tilak,
that foreign rulers had no right to interfere with religious and social
customs.’ They had also noted that Hindu orthodox groups in the
same period seldom hesitated to plead for legislation against cow
slaughter’.36
 We Our Nationhood Defned 61

Defence of tradition gradually became respectable in India as it

got endorsement from without. It even became fashionable as the cult
of the exotic orient spiritualism and metaphysics. The ancient Aryan
mystique was constructed in the west under the influence of many like
Max Mueller and the Theosophical movement of Anne Besant. It was
echoed in India both as a sophisticated, intellectualized version of
Hindu revivalism espoused by the emergent middle-classes in drawing
room chatter and as a tool used by political agents for mass mobilization
with religious idiom. It became laden with nationalist rhetoric. With
such an exciting appeal it could be propagated without detailing
socio-political objectives, programmes, and processes for the future
nation.
Inside Bengal religious revivalism it found reverberations in
Bengal’s literary renaissance. Bankimchandra Chatterjee, leading figure
of that renaissance was one of the early university graduates (graduating
in 1858), the son of a Deputy Collector of Midnapur who went on to
become a deputy collector of Jessore himself. He wrote copiously,
poems, articles and at least thirteen novels in Bengali.37 He wrote
moral-fiction, allegorical fables. His poem Vande Mataram uses the
imagery of nation as Mother Goddess in the Shakti tradition which
depicted her as Durga. It became immensely popular during the
Swadeshi movement sparked by the Partition of Bengal. It remains the
national song. His novel Ananda Math which contains the hymn Vande
Mataram, depicts a sanyasi army fighting the British. No sanyasi army
could defeat the British. Censure of the early version of the novel made
him turn the sanyasi army against Muslim rulers to keep it in publica-
tion. In his predicament as a colonial subject, he seems to have turned
more completely to a belief that nothing could save India from the
British clutches except reformed, regenerated and purified Hinduism.
It is not clear what the role of the lower caste and women would be in
this reformed Hinduism. Such was his impact among his contempo-
raries and admirers that Aurobindo Ghosh says of him ‘he created a
language, a literature and a nation’. His poem Vande Mataram, the
imagery of nation as mother goddess and the sanyasi army have endured.
Neo-Vaishnavism, Ramakrishna Paramhansa, Aurobindo Ghosh
and Vivekananda follow in that tradition. For example, Aurobindo
says,‘It was in religion first that the soul of India awoke and triumphed.
62 Tipping Point

There were always indications, always great forerunners, but it was

when the flower of the educated youth of Calcutta bowed down at the
feet of an illiterate Hindu ascetic, a self-illuminated ecstatic and “mystic”
without a single trace or touch of the alien thought or education upon
him that the battle was won. The going forth of Vivekananda, marked
out by the Master as the heroic soul destined to take the world between
his two hands and change it, was the first visible sign to the world that
India was awake not only to survive but to conquer’ (CWSA, vol. 8,
p. 62).38
In their quest for the Hindu archetype, mystic forays and ecstasy
of self-illumination they tended to be indifferent to social reformers
for various reasons but most commonly for being elitist and inspired
by ‘western models’. In Maharashtra, Tilak was more aggressive and
busy stonewalling social reformers, like Gokhale and Ranade against
western models. The Arya Samaj reform movement was the only one
to take root in Punjab and western UP and its membership became
half-a-million strong by 1921, but mostly among urban property
owning classes. It focused on removing socially harmful Hindu practices
like child-marriage, taboos on widow remarriage, idolatry, ritualism,
superstition, caste while aggressively asserting the superiority of
Hinduism over all other religious systems. Arya Samaj eventually also
split over issues of meat eating and English education. The puritanical,
conservatism of these movements in Bengal, Maharashtra and Punjab
were dissimilar only in degrees, they were all positioning themselves
as Hindus and superior to other faiths, distant from syncretic traditions
of the subcontinent.
These movements were mirrored by Muslim revivalism led by
religious conservatives, leading to confrontations not just with Hindu
revivalists but also between various Muslim sects. Both forms of reli-
gious revivalisms occurred in the context of restricted job opportunities,
competition from British interests in business activities and new
electoral opportunities for self-advancement. And all this religious
revivalism had regional variations while being liberally mixed with
antipathy towards ‘others’.
Considering the competitive nature of Hindu and Muslim nation-
alism, historians say that in the Urdu/Hindi belt of northern India a
sophisticated composite court culture had developed, and elite and
 We Our Nationhood Defned 63

non-elite shared a common day-to-day language and culture, but it is

right here that competition between Hindu and Muslim arose earlier
than in other parts.39 That there is a close parallel between the growth
of nationalism and communalism is a view shared by many historians
of modern India. Communal groupings were one of the main types of
collectives formed for the purpose of enhancing power in the context
of competition. There is ‘. . . insufficient appreciation of the historical
struggles that have gone to produce specific nationalisms and
nations. . .’ (p. 3). And ‘Everywhere in the world the formation of modern
nationalism has been propelled by contradictory forces. Communalism
was a manner of coming together for social, political and economic
interests among the elite and its use by them of a shared religion to
expand their own power over the group’.40
Fuelled by competition for representation, a sense of religious
community was becoming more widespread than ever before. Indian
Muslim League was an early bird, in 1915, the Hindu Mahasabha was
formed; the RSS was created in 1925. Between, 1923-7, there were
112 serious communal disturbances, that left 450 people dead and
5000 wounded according to official records. Prior to that such distur-
bances were not unheard of (in 1890s for example, the attempts to
consolidate a Hindu community out of numerous jatis and biradris and
dialects, cow protection and Hindi-Urdu divide by the elite had already
resulted in unprecedented riots) but they were not as frequent. The
trigger of these sporadic riots was found in expansion and consolidation
of colonial rule, increasing taxes and legal framework to control colonial
citizens, put simply, as a result of ‘the right of the state to intervene
where it had not intervened before’.41 But by all accounts, in the early
part of the twentieth century the nature of communal confrontation
had changed.
The backdrop to this transformation and escalation of communal
relations was continual constitutional reforms by the wily British, they
were increasing representation of Indians in local government while
weaking the INC by opening cleavage between groups. All of it was
occurring through a medicine that Indian delegates were begging
for- elections. First the Morley-Minto Reforms and then ten years later
the Montague-Chelmsford reforms. While the first one granted sep-
arate electorates to Muslims and greater representation in provinces
64 Tipping Point

where they were a minority, and the second, increased the number of
elected representatives in the Legislative Assembly and Legislative
councils at the centre and provincial levels respectively. This set the
scene for the 1920s.
Many Muslim religious leaders began working to spread awareness
and develop Muslim participation on behalf of the Ottoman Empire.
Muslim religious leaders also attempted to organize a national war of
independence against the British with support from the Ottoman
Empire. This added a new dimension to the communal problem in
India. The Hindu revivalist groups saw the pan Islamic Khilafat surge
(which had brought orthodox mullahs into Indian politics on a large
scale) as consolidating the position of Muslims within the subcontinent
as well. 1920s thus became a decade of increasing communal violence
both as a consequence of Congress/Gandhi decision to support the
Khilafat movement and join it with the Non- cooperation movement
and then withdraw the Non-cooperation Movement suddenly. ‘The
fact that entire movement collapsed when Gandhi called it off also
reveals its own basic weakness – there was ample combustible material
in the India of 1919-22, perhaps even at times an objectively revolu-
tionary situation, but nothing at all in the way of an alternative
revolutionary leadership. The masses had been inspired by the vague
vision of Raj, had interpreted it in their own diverse, sometimes near
revolutionary ways, but they looked up to the Mahatma alone for
guidance’ (pp. 225-6).42 Gandhi had also made it clear that he was
willing to lead only a controlled mass movement and not a class struggle
or social revolution. The years that followed were of deeply anti-cli-
matical because of the soaring expectations that had preceded it. When
the national movement ran out of momentum and direction, unprec-
edented communal riots followed. The Muslim League had already
been established in 1909 and was revived and at its Lahore session of
1924 it raised the demand for full provincial autonomy to preserve
Muslim majority areas from Hindu domination.The Hindu Mahasabha
was revived in this period and its two rival factions, the reformist Arya
Samaj and conservative Sanatan Dharma Sabha formed a common
front although both had a largely north India presence. By 1925, the
RSS was formed in Nagpur. Communal organizations were useful
 We Our Nationhood Defned 65

in elections, as on both sides they bolstered the process of division.

To add to the big fissures, there were emerging tribal and caste
movements.
Although nationalist leaders were critical of the slow pace of
constitutional reform for a more responsible and representative gov-
ernment, the developments of the 1920s seemed to echo the reservations
of the more sober Montague and Chelmsford. They had declared deep
divisions in Indian society, poor education and great ignorance as
unsuitable basis of more rapid expansion of democracy. ‘How quickly
and violently the ignorant portion which is far the largest portion of
either great community, responds to the cry of religion in danger has
been proved again and again in India’s history’ (p. 15).43 Yet no major
leader was willing to contemplate the cost of haste in constitutional
reform with no social reform.
The Congress got internally divided among those who supported
the Gandhian call to concentrate on constructive rural work and others
who wanted to participate in Council elections that followed the
Montague-Chelmsford reforms. There were tactical issues too, since
reforms did increase representation significantly through elections at
the provincial and central level, it would have been an opportunity
missed to the advantage of their rivals. The dissenters formed a separate
Swaraj Party to contest elections.
By 1920s, Gandhi was taking up two, not one issue of social reform,
untouchability (acknowledged to be the great scourge of Hindu society)
and Hindu-Muslim harmony. And it was through the 1920s that
increasingly the two versions, secular, democratic against religious
nationalism were voiced, in clearcut opposition to each other. The
Congress was advocating the former, more modern form of nationalism.
Nehru went further than most other Congress leaders in his quest for
modernity and in Discovery of India positions the whole basis of the
involvement of the INC in the national movement at a great distance
from the communal version. The basis of that involvement came from
the desire for the economic betterment of the masses. In 1891, six years
after its formation the INC had responded to a telegram from General
Booth and declared that the ‘sad condition of fifty to sixty million
half-starving paupers constituted the raison d’etre of its existence’ and
66 Tipping Point

successive resolutions of the Congress bore testimony to their concern.44

The economic explanation of nationalism found full expression in the
famous Karachi resolution of the Congress in 1931.

Who did the Hindu Mahasabha Represent?

Not mutually exclusive sets apropos to the INC.
In Bengal, reform and Hindu revival were both led by the social
elite who (usually associated with the British administration) had
earlier converged around the Brahmo Samaj. In Punjab too the Arya
Samaj attracted upper-caste urban elite but here they were involved in
trade and commerce. These merchant classes had become very powerful
and played the role of money lenders to the peasantry, slowly appro-
priating their land when peasants could not pay back loans. This
phenomenon accelerated towards the end of the nineteenth century,
probably as a result of increase in land revenue. Since the British rev-
enues in India were highly dependent on land revenue, they introduced
in 1901, the Punjab Alienation of Land Act, protecting peasants from
such transfer of land and thus antagonized the elite. The British
antagonized the Hindu elite again, when in 1906 Lord Minto assured
a Muslim delegation of separate electorate. This assurance did not
materialize till 1909 in the form of Morley-Minto constitutional
reforms but word got out. In Punjab (where the Hindus were a sizable
minority, Muslims were 51 per cent and Sikhs 7.5 per cent of the
population) and Hindu Sabhas were often organized under Arya Samaj
leadership, to protect what Lal Chand an Arya Samaj leader, called
‘purely Hindu interests’. They became eager to make common cause
with other Hindu organizations that they had differences with earlier,
for example with the orthodox Sanatanis who had broken away from
Arya Samaj over its opposition to idolatry, caste system and exclusive
Brahmin priesthood. The Sanatanis had developed a stronghold over
United Provinces (UP) the cauldron of Hindu orthodoxy and had
formed a Hindu Sabha under Madan Mohan Malaviya. The Hindu
Sabha movement spread beyond Punjab and United Provinces into
Bihar, Bengal, the Central Provinces, Berar and the Bombay Presidency.
Some of these regional branches sent delegates to Haridwar for the
foundation of the All India Hindu Sabha or Hindu Mahasabha in
 We Our Nationhood Defned 67

1915. Their internal differences, however, dissipated their energy. It

was revived only in the 1920 in the context of an opportunity and new
perceived threat.
Like the elite among Hindus, the Muslims too were also
looking for lost glory. Nehru says that the search for cultural roots
had led middle-class Muslims to Islamic history and to the periods
when Islam was a conquering and creative force in Baghdad, Spain,
Constantinople, Central Asia and elsewhere. There was also the Haj
pilgrimage to Mecca, which brought Muslims from various countries
together. But all such contacts were limited and did not really affect
the general outlook of the Indian Muslim, which was confined to
India. After all, the Mughal Emperors in India recognized no Khalifa
or spiritual superiors outside India.45 But the projection of a pan-
Islamic movement with roots and support far and wide outside India
would have alarmed some (indeed the Muslim Ummah is a interna-
tionalism absent in Hindu fold) and in addition created opportunities
for others.
Some opportunity which had already existed came in the form of
increased possibilities of a political career and privileges. Danger was
quickly perceived and projected. Congress under Gandhi had supported
the Khilafat movement to create a united front with the Muslims who
had remained largely outside the national movement thus far. This was
a strange attempt to connect to the Muslim masses through Muslim
clergy and elite (that considered the ‘Khalifa’ in Turkey as a religious
and political leader of the Muslim world) not with the masses directly.
Religious fervour excited by the entry of clergy/ulema into politics,
talk of a Jihad and pan-Islamic aims of many leaders, speeches were
meant to rouse Muslim masses. It is curios though that Congress under
Gandhi was reaching out to the Muslims masses through their elite
and clergy while he was doing just the opposite for the Hindu masses.
His Hinduism was based on gradual reformism, universalism and did
not leave any space for orthodox Hinduism. Perhaps a tactical error,
for all of it was an easy target. It was used to project the revival of an
aggressive Islam by Hindu conservative groups. The uprising of the
Moplas in Malabar (Muslim peasants against largely Hindu land
owners) in 1921 that occurred soon afterwards, was projected by
the Central Khilafat Committee and used by conservative Hindu
68 Tipping Point

associations to spread fear. On both sides Hindu and Muslim leader-

ships made an escalating use of religion as a mobilizing call for political
gains, ‘In north India the revival of electoral politics was accompanied
by progressive deterioration of relations between the Hindu and
Muslim communities’.46 The first tipping point perhaps, as historians
both Indian and foreign are in agreement about causalities.
Gordon says, ‘In a society where the influence of religious and
social norms was so pervasive it is misleading to exaggerate the impor-
tance of communal catch-cries and to assume that any particular
political body enjoyed a monopoly of nationalism’.47 The period was
soon marked by a confused medley of interests and group formations
at various levels – local, regional, personal and political. While the
non-cooperation movement had heightened and pushed national
awakening further than ever before, the unity of forces it had cobbled,
fell apart after the agitation subsided. The Congress itself was embroiled
in a long struggle between rival factions for control over the organization
when it contested the elections to the imperial and provincial legislatures
for the first time in 1926. A Swaraj Party had been formed within the
Congress in 1922 (for election and supervising work in the Legislature)
in opposition to Gandhian boycott of Legislative Councils. To these
factions was added the opportunism of other Hindu groups that sought
to align themselves with the Swaraj Party and the drifting away of the
Muslims from both the Swaraj and Congress Parties towards separate
electoral alliances. In its early phase before 1922 the Hindu Mahasabha
was not an all India organization in any real sense, it had a distinctly
urban, north Indian flavour and was concentrated in large trading cities
like Lahore, Allahabad, Kanpur, Benares, Lucknow. Its branches in
Bihar, Bombay, Madras and Bengal were not as active. The Mahasabha
tried to create common platform by advocating adoption of Hindi and
Devnagari script, cow protection and such issues (very few issues that
Hindus across India could agree to besides cow protections and temple
protection) on which there was a possibility of agreement. In 1924 it
was still confined to the big cities. The growth of the organization was
sporadic and uneven and firmest only where the communal riots were
fiercest. It was weakest in the south and east where it was confined to
big cities and supported by brahmins (Madras) struggling to create a
platform against lower caste mobilizations and agitations. Madras
 We Our Nationhood Defned 69

Hindu Sabha was composed of Tamil brahmins, some who (active in

the Swaraj Party) were threatened by the rise of Justice Party (non-brah-
min) which planned to control temple properties and endowments
through the Madras Hindu Religious Endowments Bill. In Maharashtra
too, the Hindu Mahasabha was confined to brahmins, mainly
Chitpavan variety seeking to re-establish their status as it was under
the Peshwa rule. Here too like Madras, the leaders of the Swaraj Party
presided over the Hindu Sabha. Most Brahmin politicians in the
Maharashtra were satisfied with controlling the Congress and through
it local bodies. Later, when non-brahmin movements started asserting
themselves through local government bodies (like in Nagpur) some of
them turned to Mahasabha and similar organizations. In Nagpur the
Hindu Sabha was active under B.S. Moonje, a Chitpavan Brahmin,
and later in 1925 the RSS was formed, out of this grew a militant
Hindu movement distinct from the Mahasabha tradition.
Prior to 1920 the Mahasabha was in fact, working as a lobby within
the Congress and the majority of its leaders were members of the
Congress and its conferences were conducted in conjunction with the
annual Congress sessions. It was only in 1920 that the Congress
tightened its constitution to keep other organizations out of it. This
cut the close connections between the Hindu Sabhas and the Congress
at the district level but informal relations continued.
The space for aggressive Hindu nationalism was eventually filled
by the leaders from Maharashtra in western-central India. The roots
lay deep there. In this part of the subcontinent an orthodox Brahmin
dynasty (Peshwas) had ruled directly or collected taxes from much of
the region that is now called Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh
through the eighteenth and early nineteenth century. The Maratha
kingdom, as it was called, had existed on foundations made earlier by
Shivaji a lower caste warrior who was crowned king, despite the
reluctance of local Brahmins. In the eighteenth century the armies of
Marathas had held out against the Mughals for decades, till the Mughal
strength in the Deccan region and eventually even in north declined.
The Marathas also developed a navy that stymied the ambitions of
Arabs and Portuguese along the western coast. The reign of the
Peshwas, as the subsequent Brahmin rulers who assumed power after
Shivaji died, ended in their defeat in the third Maratha War of 1818
70 Tipping Point

and annexation into the empire of East India Company. It is not

altogether surprising then that a forceful brand of Hindu nationalism
was reimagined and a full fledged organization RSS devoted to promote
it was shaped in this region. The relationship between the ancient
regime and the new organization will be discussed later.
V.D. Savarkar who was to become a pivotal leader of the hardline
variety of Hindu nationalism was of the same Chitpavan Brahmin
caste as the Peshwas. He started out as a revolutionary nationalist,
spent many years in a jail in Andaman Islands and returned to the
mainland with a safer agenda of promoting a fiery brand of Hindu
nationalism. He was the president of the Hindu Mahasabha from
1937-44 and wrote the Essentials of Hindutva to define the principles
of Hindu nationalism. In his formulations, Hindus are the exclusive
inheritors of Hindustan because only they regard Hindustan as both
their holy land and the land of their ancestors. As the president of the
organization, he travelled all over India to promote Hindu Sangathan
–‘a campaign to organize and mobilize support for upper-caste Hindu
political leaders who oppose Congress and Muslim leaders’ (p. 71).48
Note, that the earlier version of Hindu nationalists was happy to
function within the Congress. In the decade preceding Partition,
Savarkar raised the rhetoric against Muslims calling them anti-nation-
als, at the same time condemning the Congress. By 1941, he was urging
Hindus to militarize, to create a militia and to enlist as Hindu nation-
alists in the Indian Army. There were close ties and exchange of human
resources between the Mahasabha and RSS and other Hindu nation-
alist fronts. In fact, the Mahasabha was the electoral front of the RSS
till the RSS spawned a new electoral front called the Jana Sangh after
1947.
So, on the one hand, it continued its high rhetoric against Muslims,
and on the other, Hindu Mahasabha became a serious political con-
tender in elections. Even after Independence, in its 1952 election
manifesto while it declared that it stood for an Independent India,
Mahasabha was not at variance from Savarkar’s idea. It repeated them
and only added and recognized the threat from the then sizable CPI.
It wanted, ‘. . . establishment of a Hindu Raj in Bharat with a form of
government in accordance with Hindu conception of polity and
economy. . . . It is the idea of Hindu Rashtra alone that can make people
residing all over Bharat and speaking different tongues united in
 We Our Nationhood Defned 71

common purpose. . . . The Hindu Mahasabha is not wedded to any

ism. It does not believe that classless society is ever possible. So long
as society is based on division of labour, existences of classes with
varying interest is inevitable. The Hindu Mahasabha does not believe
in class war. It believes in the national coordination of class interest to
the mutual benefit of all’ (p. 98).49 The details of that Hindu nation
are foggy but replete with celebrated ideas of Hindu culture, Aryan
womanhood, national pre-eminence in the world, spiritual solutions,
class coordination, legislation in accordance with Hindu ideals, and
against communism, secularism and even liberal democracy.

And Who did the RSS Represent?

The RSS chose to focus on building the core organization till
1947.
In 1925, when the Hindu Mahasabha was at the peak of its power
under leaders like Madan Mohan Malaviya and Lala Lajpat Rai, the
five who went forth to form the RSS were all members of the
Mahasabha. They were B.S. Moonje, Babarao Savarkar (brother of
V.D. Savarkar), L.V. Paranjpe, Hegdewar and B.B. Thakkar. The idea
that was carried forward, into what became the RSS, was K.B.
Hedgewar’s in Nagpur (in Maharashtra).

Why did they Create a Separate Organization?

The aim appeared to be creation of a cadre with sustained indoctrina-
tion for Hindu ideology, possibly against Muslims, weapon training,
military skills, with rituals of oath taking and daily physical drills.50 In
other words, a militia. Developing organizational ability in its cadre
was an added feature as the RSS evolved. It is also worth noting that
all founders except one to date, are Maharashtrian Brahmins. All top
leadership of the RSS, thereafter and before, had the ‘Brahmin’ pedigree
indicating the grip of a caste over the organization. 70 years after its
formation Rajendra Singh the fourth Sarsanghchalak (the chief ) of
RSS from 1994-2000, was a Kshatriya. He was the first and only
non-Maharashtrian non-Brahmin chief of the RSS. Observers of the
RSS suggest that it was a move to increase the footprint of RSS in
north India at a critical stage in its expansion. Possibly he shared caste
72 Tipping Point

based social and cultural networks with north Indian upper-caste

Hindus.
Hindu nationalism, as one knows it today in India, was invented
in present day Maharashtra, the crucible of an earlier, relatively large
‘Hindu’ kingdom while it’s spiritual and literary fountainhead was
Bengal. The British too had acknowledged that by 1806 there were
only two powers in India, British and Maratha. The kingdom eventually,
as mentioned earlier, came to be ruled directly by brahmins. They had
enormous social prestige, were the only literate and numerate caste and
were important in administration even before they took over the direct
rule from the less than capable sons of Shivaji. This is quite uncommon;
brahmins have acted as priests in other regions, landowners, advisors
and men of learning and administrative skills but rarely acted as kings
and warriors.
In his book Discovery of India Nehru also refers to that period in
a relatively long section titled ‘Aurungzeb Puts the Clock Back,
Growth of Hindu Nationalism, Shivaji.’ He suggests that the bigotry
of the last of the major Mughal emperors Aurangzeb (an austere
puritan) upset his subjects on all sides thereby wrecking the equilibrium
of the empire, dragging it into wars with local leaders and kings. The
most significant of them were the Marathas. ‘Over the widespread
domains of the Mughal Empire there was ferment and a widespread
growth of revivalist sentiment, which was a mixture of religion and
nationalism. The nationalism was certainly not of the modern secular
type nor did it, as a rule embrace the whole of India in its scope. It was
coloured by feudalism, by local sentiment and sectarian feelings. . . .
Hindu nationalism was a natural growth from the soil of India, but
inevitably it comes in the way of the larger nationalism which rises
above the differences of religion or creed’ (p. 293).51 This had obviously
become the rather mainstream understanding of the origin of Hindu-
Muslim polarization since even Nehru had also adopted it.
The acknowledged re-inventor of Hindu nationalism as Hindutva
is V.D. Savarkar. His formulation comes about a hundred years after
the Marathas were defeated. It was to become the identity of the new
Hindu nation. Throughout the early period, construction of history
and folklore within the RSS affirmed that the awareness of Hindu-
Rashtra revived with Shivaji’s rule and consolidation of the Maratha
 We Our Nationhood Defned 73

confederacy in the seventeenth and eighteenth century. For his invention

Savarkar borrowed some elements from founders of Arya Samaj and
Hindu Mahasabha and added the concept of the sacred territory of
Aryavarta as described in the Vedas. With that came the notion that
Hindus were descendants of Vedic fathers who had occupied Aryavarta
since antiquity and Sanskrit was their language. Territory, race, religion,
language was to be the basis of Hindu nationalism. A derivative of
Sanskrit, called Hindi, was to be the language of the nation. Majority
community embodied the nation because it was the oldest and the
largest. Minority religions that originated outside India must adhere
to a national ‘Hindutva’ culture.
Hedgewar met Savarkar to discuss the project. Ultimately the
former was to do the extensive groundwork, his strategy was to form
local village and town branches (shakhas) which were maintained by
volunteer preachers (pracharaks) dedicated to grass root work to
improve Hindu society. Young men would gather around these preach-
ers and participate in rituals that involved martial arts and ideological
lectures.
The RSS beginning was modest and limited to brahmins in
Nagpur, eastern Maharashtra but its growth was the work of remarkable
competence. According to Kanungo, under Hedgewar, quality, rather
than quantity was important and he interviewed every aspiring member
intensively and selectively admitted only some. He would prefer young
schoolboys in the age group of 12-15 years, to shape their minds
through a regime of physical, ideological training. They would be taught
to be personally loyal to him and become future missionaries of the
RSS. Physical training included training in the use of commonly
available weapons like lathi, sword, javelin, and dagger, prudently
avoiding a gun culture. ‘An extremely close relationship developed
between Hedgewar and his first group of recruits’ (p. 45).52 The shakha
programme started in 1926 but the organization did not have a name,
symbol or hierarchy. On Ramnavami day in 1926, the name Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) was selected, carefully neutral and in tune
with the nationalist flavour of the times. A symbol, the saffron flag was
chosen that purportedly belonged to Ram, and was said to have been
used by Shivaji. The flag which was also supposed to be the symbol of
the real guru. The mythology was complete with Shivaji and Ram a
74 Tipping Point

mythological north Indian god-king. Linking it to the real time guru

was important as well and completed the obligation to God, country
and leader. A prayer was composed in mixed Hindi and Marathi to be
sung at every shakha meeting along with the utterance of a few slogans
like ‘Rashtraya Guru Samarath Ramdas ki jai’, ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’.
Prominent Hindu leaders were invited to training camps to perhaps
impress upon them the discipline and capabilities of the militia of the
young recruits. Lifetime oaths of loyalty to organization and ideology
began in 1928. Six Hindu festivals were selected for celebration at the
shakha level. Gurudakshina, where disciples offered voluntary donations
to Guru out of gratitude, was instituted as a tradition. At the first camp
in 1928 a sum of Rs. 84 was collected. This was a reaffirmation of the
hoary tradition of Guru-Shishya. The disciple stayed at a venerated
Guru’s residence gratis and owed him total obedience, in exchange he
was trained.
In the hierarchy a stern principle of‘follow one leader’ is maintained
to this day. Hedgewar was elected the supreme director for lifetime.
Total obedience at any stage under any circumstances without any
hesitation was and continues to be the requirement from the students/
disciples. This evoked and resembles the traditional Hindu joint family
system headed by a patriarch. Worship of Hanuman (mythological
figure in the Ramayana who was an embodiment of enormous talent,
but followed Ram without an ego) and rituals were part of the early
days of cultural training. This aspect of idolatry was diluted as it
expanded in the north under pressure from the Arya Samaj which was
averse to idolatry and had a strong presence in Punjab and western UP.
Hedgewar used two strategies to expand the RSS simultaneously;
one was association and networking with other organizations and the
second, focus on universities, start branches in universities and find
suitable recruits among the youth. Hedgewar associated himself with
the Congress, attended the 1928 Congress session in Calcutta but was
reluctant to join the Satyagraha launched by Gandhi in 1930 and
recommended that RSS stay away. Later he was persuaded to join the
Satyagraha. He was jailed for nine months along with other Congress
leaders and he used the time inside jail to build networks with Congress
leaders. Similarly, relations with Hindu Mahasabha were deeply
symbiotic; he invited prominent leaders like Savarkar and Moonje to
 We Our Nationhood Defned 75

RSS functions and provided volunteers for the Mahasabha session.

This was primarily to showcase the value of trained, disciplined cadre.53
The Mahasabha, lacking in its own trained youth power, passed a
resolution lauding the activities of RSS in 1932. It began talking of
the urgent need to spread it over the country and its leaders actively
helped its spread it in the Punjab, Sindh and UP. Later however, the
RSS did not support the Mahasabha efforts to form a political front,
relationships soured between them by the end of the 1930s. The RSS
stayed out of direct politics as a rule till 1951 (eve of the first general
elections), and then formed the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS) with
Shyama Prasad Mukherjee (who had much experience from the Hindu
Mahasabha) and Deendayal Upadhyaya at the helm.
Its first university shakha was set up in Banaras Hindu University
with the help of Madan Mohan Malaviya and the successor to
Hedgewar was recruited from that university.
The RSS started with only five people in 1925 and by 1937 had
grown to 30,000 in Central Province (CP) and Berar with the active
support and patronage of rulers of princely states like Raja Laxmanrao
Bhonsle of Nagpur, Raja Raghojirao Bhonsle of Baroda and their
statesmen like Sir Chitnivis, Hon Tambe (former Governor of CP and
Berar), Sir Morpant Joshi, Raobahudur Kelkar. The animate and
intimate relationship between the RSS and the princely states is the
subject of some interesting historical research.54 With support from
such high places, 14 years later in 1939 there were 500 branches and
40,000 members. By the next year, 1940, they claimed to have 700
branches and 80,000 members. The RSS had branches in all regions
except Assam, Orissa and Kashmir. By 1947 there were six lakh vol-
unteers! These accounts of membership are unverified and remain so
into present times, but by these accounts they grew 2000 times in ten
years. What was sustaining such a phenomenal expansion? It probably
did not occur through volunteer contributions and gurudakshinas alone.
They were growing by several means including donations from sup-
porters and well-wishers. Secondly, the communal atmosphere was
getting vitiated so rapidly that it was feeding into volunteer support
for militant Hinduism both in terms of men and money. The RSS was
snowballing.
In 1930s, the growth, expansion and activities of the RSS were
76 Tipping Point

already on the radar of the British government. Historians of this

period agree that the home department and intelligence reports judged
it as communal in character. The government’s confidential reports say
that the Dussehra celebrations by the RSS in Nagpur in 1932 was a
very significant feature of that region.55 One thousand volunteers, in
uniform, headed by Moonje marched. In attendance were the Bhonsle
king’s descendent (a scion of deposed royal family) and V.D. Savarkar.
The address by Hedgewar was deemed to be provocative and objec-
tionable. The government issued orders prohibiting its employees from
participating in RSS activities. The Congress also followed by restrain-
ing its members from participation.
Before he died in 1940, Hedgewar nominated Golwalkar as his
successor, superseding other seniors. His choice was likely guided by
the need to avert pressures from and avoid bickering among Mahasabha
and other Hindu organizations with which RSS veterans had connec-
tions. While Hedgewar was mainly an organization man, Golwalkar
was an ideologue first and an organization man later.
He defined Hindu cultural nationalism in We or Nationhood
Defined. Which has a more extreme view of Hindu hegemony.
Tactically shrewd, Golwalkar avoided any direct conflict with the
government during the WW2. He withdrew from all politics, dis-
banded the RSS military wing in compliance with a government order.
He did not endorse the Mahasabha call to enroll Indians for the British
army. Instead he focused on the possibility of Hindu-Muslim riots and
of a possible Japanese invasion with characteristic shrewdness. Both
events offered opportunities. The RSS did not participate in the Civil
Disobedience Movement of 1940-1 and Quit India Movement of 1942.
Bombay home department’s report also says that the Sangh had kept
itself within the law and refrained from taking any part in the August
1942 disturbances. Golwalkar also shifted the focus of RSS from
paramilitary activities towards cultural interventions. The RSS prop-
agated the view that although they were sympathetic to the anti-British
movements they wanted to strengthen their organization and not
languish in jail when Hindus were most in need of protection. This
proved to be a tactical master stroke. This position in fact did strengthen
the organization and its hold over the Hindu community. By 1943,
RSS claimed it had 15,000 branches and two lakh members. The
 We Our Nationhood Defned 77

government estimate was that that it had 26,000 members in British

India excluding the princely states. Indicating perhaps their main
support base was inside the princely states or that RSS figures were
exaggerated for effect. Confidential reports of the Home Department,
as early as 1932, exhibit concern about activities of the RSS and suggest
that its policy seems to be to wait until an appropriate time to intervene
came. Reports also mention that in future it could be a menace in times
of communal disturbances.56 Similar reports commenting on the secrecy
and communal motives of the RSS from other provinces were available
in the 1940s. While the British government in India was keeping a
watch over the RSS, its growth was a tool available to the British to
smite the Congress with just as the growth of Muslim League was.
The confidential reports proved to be accurate. As the communal
climate vitiated, the RSS cadre took an active part in violence though
officially it never sanctioned or acknowledged it. This remained its
steady strategy. The RSS justification for its members said that it was
an act of self-defence to protect Hindu life and honour throughout
northern India. During the partition they also involved themselves
with organizing evacuation from west Pakistan and relief services among
Hindu refugees particularly in the north. This established their image
as saviours of Hindus, and the RSS expanded even more rapidly
thereafter. Strong organizational capacity and adroit tactics of the top
leadership helped, and adequate financial support fortified it
throughout.
After M.K. Gandhi’s assassination some of the goodwill washed
away. There were reports and investigations regarding the link of some
princely states (Bharatpur, Gwalior) to the plot and the involvement
of Hindu Mahasabha and the RSS. The places mentioned in the
governmental investigation, where the accused held meetings and where
the conspiracy was perhaps discussed, were almost entirely located in
Maharashtra. Newspaper reports also indicated the likelihood of such
support from princely and feudal elements. More detail was available
only much later after the Commission of Inquiry into the conspiracy
to murder Mahatma Gandhi also known as the Kapur Commission
submitted its report in 1969 (more about that later).
On 4 February 1948, after Gandhi’s assassination the RSS was
declared unlawful.
78 Tipping Point

In a communique by the government dated 4 February the govern-

ment explained,‘. . . to root out the forces of hate and violence that are
at work in our country and imperil the freedom of the nation . . . the
Government of India have decided to declare unlawful the Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh. . . . [I]n several parts of the country, individual
members of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh have indulged in acts of
violence involving arson, robbery, dacoity, and murder and have collected
illicit arms and ammunitions. They have been found circulating leaflets
exhorting people to resort to terrorist methods, to collect fire arms . . .
the cult of violence sponsored and inspired by the activities of the Sangh
has claimed many victims. The latest and the most precious to fall was
Gandhiji himself. In these circumstances it is the bounden duty of the
government to take effective measures to curb this re-appearance of
violence in a virulent form and as a first step to this end, they have
decided to declare the Sangh as an unlawful association’.57 [Quoted in
The Wire]
Following the ban, they suspended their usual activities and
meetings. Soon, they met prominent personalities within the Congress
and outside, to help lift the ban followed by direct correspondence with
leaders like Nehru and Patel. In a communication Golwalkar pleaded
that the RSS was innocent and charges were unfounded. In September
1948, Golwalkar raised the bogey of communist threat and requested
Nehru to ensure an atmosphere in which the RSS would be able to
help the government to fight the threat. Nehru was not impressed, he
maintained that the RSS was a greater threat than the communists
and they had the blood of Mahatma Gandhi on their hands. ‘we have
had enough suffering already in India because of the activity of RSS
and like groups. . .’58 the RSS continued lobbying with other ministers,
collecting signatures (nine lakh), and ironically launched a Satyagraha
to lift the ban. The ban was lifted in July 1949 just a year-and-a-half
after the assassination, despite the seriousness of the charges in the
communique by the government quoted above. G.D. Birla a big
industrialist, considered to be close to Gandhi, often his host in Delhi,
was one of the mediators. This was the strength of influence the RSS
had come to wield among the political and capital owning classes in
India within 20 years. It is obvious that the machinations in Delhi, the
 We Our Nationhood Defned 79

seat of power, had already come to acquire a doubtful nature within

months of Independence.
In the years after Independence, RSS had to reposition itself in a
parliamentary democracy where secularism was protected by the
Constitution. After some internal debates RSS launched a political
party to participate in parliament and elections, loaned its trusted
people to work for the new party called Bharatiya Jan Sangh (BJS).
Thereafter it spawned affiliates like Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS),
Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), etc. In all cases the RSS
provided training and its trusted and dedicated workers.59

Doctrines of the Far Right: Savarkar and Golwalkar

India’s far right has many similarities with such movements wherever
they exist in the rest of the world. Here perhaps they have been able
to obscure their inegalitarian views easily by pro-Hindu tradition
postures, they can baffle the casual observer by projecting a purely
cultural nationalism against socialism.
In May 2002, L.K. Advani, the Home Minister of the first far
right of the BJP government, paid rich tribute to V.D. Savarkar and
named the new airport in Andamans after his idol. This was perhaps
the first time that the BJP publically and explicitly acknowledged its
chief ideologue. Savarkar (1883-1966) is a complex personality,
reportedly with messianic ability to influence people especially young
ones. Hedgewar is said to have met him in Ratnagiri before he started
building the RSS in Nagpur. With him, the centre of Hindu nationalism
shifted to Maharashtra. Sarvarkar spent 27 years in jail, first in
Andaman island and then in Ratnagiri, Maharashtra. He was sentenced
for taking part in a plot to assassinate Curzon Wyllie, associate of
Secretary of State in London. In Ratnagiri he wrote a book Who is a
Hindu? it was first published anonymously in 1923. In Andaman jail,
he is said to have met Khilafatists who convinced him that they were
pan-Islamists, not nationalists, more organized and coherent than
Hindus. Not a believer himself, he began to propagate an ethno-
religious nationalism.
A nation according to him had a territory, racial features and
80 Tipping Point

common culture. By defining Indian Christians and Muslims as all of

a common race but converted a few generations ago, he offers the
possibility of reintegrating them into the Hindu fold. Cultural rituals,
social rules and language were defining features of a nation. Sanskrit,
he claimed as the origin of all Indian languages and so, along with
Hindi, must be the national language. Geographically the Hindu nation
included people who live in the area east of Indus river, between the
Himalayas and Indian Ocean. He fashions an ancient Vedic past in
which the Aryans came and inhabited the fertile land of Indus and
numerous (seven) rivers. Then he attributes this Aryan habitation and
its great culture to ancient records in the Rig Veda and its myths. He
builds a golden age of Hindus under Lord Ram. Aryans knitted
themselves into a nation unified from Himalayas to Ceylon under this
king.‘Nothing makes self, conscious of itself, so much as a conflict with
non self ’, Savarkar says while describing the impact of Muslim invasions.
That becomes the defining moment of Hindu consciousness in his
narrative, and remained the talisman that RSS took to heart with great
benefit. Savarkar writes, ‘But as it often happens in history this very
undisturbed enjoyment of peace and plenty lulled our Sindhusthan,
in a sense of false security and bred a habit of living in the land of
dreams. At last she was rudely awakened on the day when Mohammad
of Gazni crossed the Indus. . . . That day the conflict of life and death
began. . . . Nothing can weld people into a nation and nation into a
state as the pressure of a common foe. Hatred separates as well as
unites. . . . Religion is a mighty motive force. So is rapine. But where
religion is goaded by rapine. . . . Day after day, decade after decade,
century after century the ghastly conflict continued and India single
handed kept up the fight morally and militarily. Moral victory was won
when Akbar came to throne and Dara Shukoh was born. Frantic efforts
of Aurangzeb to retrieve their fortune, lost in the moral field, only
hastened the loss of military fortune on the battle field as well. At last
Bhau [Shivaji], as if symbolically, hammered the imperial seat of the
Mughals to pieces. The day of Panipat rose, the Hindus lost the battle
but won the war . . .’ (pp. 92-3).60
Having manufactured a ‘self ’ against a ‘non-self ’ he coins the term
Hindutva, a contrived sense of unity of Hindus across sects and regions
throughout the subcontinent as they resisted Muslim rule. ‘This one
 We Our Nationhood Defned 81

word, Hindutva, ran like a vital spinal cord through our whole body
politic and made the Nayars of Malabar weep for the sufferings of the
Brahmins of Kashmir . . . no people in the world can more justly claim
to get recognized as a racial unit than the Hindus and perhaps the Jews’
(pp. 93-4). The non-Hindus are different, they may have inherited the
land, a substantial part of the culture but their fatherland is not their
Holy land. Their loyalties are eternally divided.
Savarkar was not a religious fundamentalist who distorted his
religion for a political goal. He was a practicing atheist and nationalist.
He wrote on the Revolt of 1857 too, a book called The First Indian
War of Independence published in 1909 which reads as a manifesto and
retelling of the events of history so as to harness passions of Hindus
and Muslims alike against the British rule. By 1923 he had changed
his mind and written Hindutva. Hereafter, he simply perverted history
to create a story of historical wrongdoings for political purpose.61 He
used it quite systematically to spread hatred and spirit of revenge in
pursuit of a cultural and political hegemony for Hindus over Muslims.
In his presidential address to the Hindu Mahasabha in 1937,
Savarkar declared, ‘India cannot be assumed today to be a Unitarian
and homogenous nation, but on the contrary there are two nations in
the main, Hindu and Muslims, in India’ (p. 26). He spoke of cultural,
religious antagonism between the two over centuries.62 What made
him turn?
When in October 1939 Congress asked its ministers in provinces
to resign, the same month Savarkar met the Viceroy of India (Lord
Linlithgow) in Bombay and pledged his cooperation to the British.
The Viceroy’s report to the Secretary of State for India, Lord Zetland
says: ‘The situation, he (Savarkar) says was that his Majesty’s govern-
ment must now turn to the Hindus and work with their support. After
all, though we and the Hindus have had a good deal of difficulty with
one another in the past, that is equally true of the relations between
Great Britain and the French . . . Our interests were now the same and
we must, therefore, work together. Even though, now, the most moderate
of men, he had himself been in the past an adherent of a revolutionary
party, as possibly, I might be aware (I confirmed that I was.) But now
that our interests were so closely bound together the essential thing
was for Hinduism and Great Britain to be friends, and the old
82 Tipping Point

antagonism was no longer necessary’.63 It’s equally unclear what made

him befriend the British at this juncture. Some scholars attribute his
transformation to his years in the Cellular Jail of Andaman where he
was interned in 1911. Evidence suggests that his spirits and his health
broke down completely and very quickly. He was making mercy peti-
tions by 1913.
From the early days, opposition to the Congress brand of nation-
alism from the far right was not just quite grim and dogged but crafty.
This was a trait that successive leaders of India’s far right have displayed
abundantly.
Golwalkar (1906-73) became RSS chief in 1940. He was attracted
to monastic life as a youth and had joined an ashram in Bengal. Like
Savarkar he requested religious minorities to pledge allegiance to Hindu
symbols of identity and keep their own religion to a private sphere.
Indian identity is equated with Hindu culture. All religious minorities
were called mlecchas (those who do not subscribe to social laws described
by the brahmin system and dictated by Hindu religion). Hindu
nationalism thus develops into ‘upper-caste racism’ according to
Pandey64 (p. 252).
Unlike Savarkar, Golwalkar emphasized the racial unity aspect of
a nation and not the territorial aspect, he rejected the theory that a
nation is composed of all those who for some reason happen to live at
a time in the country. He invoked and echoed Adolph Hitler.
‘We repeat in Hindustan, the land of Hindus, lives and should
live the Hindu nation-satisfying all five essential requirements of the
scientific nation concept of the modern world. Consequently, only those
movements are truly national as aim at rebuilding, revitalizing, and
emancipating from its present stupor the Hindu nation. Those only
are nationalist patriots, who with the aspiration to glorify the Hindu
race and nation, next to their heart are prompted into activity and strive
to achieve that goal. All others, posing to be patriots and willfully
indulging in a course of action detrimental to the Hindu nation are
traitors and enemies to the national cause or to take a more charitable
view if unintentionally and unwillingly led into such a course mere
simpletons, misguided, ignorant fools’ (p. 117).65
The RSS pays obeisance to these gurus as it remains the mother-
board of a Sangh Parivar and a political party whose Prime Minister
 We Our Nationhood Defned 83

(PM) and leaders swear by the Constitution of India today. This

amphisbaena like structure and a crafty will to power have served it
well. This is by now the unacknowledged strategy of the entire far right
establishment.
Resentment against the Muslims is positioned besides hostility
against communism. Golwalkar viewed Muslims as hostile elements
within the country, a far greater threat inside the country than aggres-
sion from outside. Writing about the situation after Partition he says,
‘All the crores of Muslims who are here now, had en bloc voted for
Pakistan.’ Even the creation of Pakistan is a threat to the Hindu nation
because the Muslims have plans to expand all over India, a plan they
have not given up for twelve hundred years, and Pakistan. Kashmir
where they hold one-third of the area and their attempts to infiltrate
Assam are proof of that. The only agenda of the Christian missionaries
is to convert people. The RSS has not budged on this view.
Commenting on the choice of western type of parliamentary
democracy and its result he says, ‘It has given rise to all sorts of
unhealthy rivalries and forces of selfishness and fission’ (p. 133), such
as,‘A serious failure of democracy in our country is the growing, menace
of communism which is a sworn enemy of democratic procedure. In a
bid not to be left behind the communists in their economic appeal to
the masses, our leaders are only making communism more respectable
by themselves taking up the communist jargon and the communist
programmes. If the leaders imagine that they will be able to take away
the wind out of the communist sail by such tactics they are sadly
mistaken. They also feel that economic development is the only defence
against communism. It is the constant dinning into the ears of the
masses of the promise of higher standard of living thus raising their
expectations at a time when they cannot possibly be satisfied, that is
aggravating the sense of frustration and paving the way for popular
discontent and chaos. Nowhere do we find the appeal to higher
sentiments like patriotism, character, and knowledge; nor is there any
stress on cultural, intellectual and moral development. It is only in such
imbecile and despairing minds that that seeds of communism strike
root’. Communism is adversary number two after minorities like
Muslims and Christians’ (p. 133).66
‘When faith goes communism comes; man does not live by bread
84 Tipping Point

alone. He must have a faith to live by and die for. Without such a faith
life loses its direction and meaning and man begins to drift. He feels
lost. It is an impossible state of being. Till the rise of science, Christianity
provided the necessary faith for European life. But science made
mincemeat of Christianity. It blasted the Christian concepts of time,
space, life, and the world. However, Europe lost one sheet anchor but
gained another. It lost its faith in religion but gained a new faith in
science. Indeed, science became its new religion’ (p. 134).67 He and the
RSS were guarding Hindu civilization against such a pass.
In Golwalkar’s lifetime communism was a major threat to his
worldview perhaps more so than Islam and he was very suspicious of
it. He describes the Gandhian socialist movement ‘Bhoodan’ as ‘reac-
tionary’, because it begins with the view that land belongs to the tiller
which is the communist view and movements such as these would pave
the way for communists as the people would want to go further in the
direction of redistribution trusting the communist approach.
About economic inequality, he said that some felt that economic
disparity would lead to the growth of communism, but this was not
the real cause. The idea of dignity of labour should be imbibed instead,
it was the disparity in dignity that created hatred, and this was a recent
perversion that had entered our life. In Hindu philosophy there is no
high or low in one’s ‘karma’ or ‘duty’ and every work is the worship of
the same Almighty.
‘Socialism is not a product of this soil. It is not in our blood and
tradition. It has absolutely nothing to do with the traditions and ideals
of thousands of years of our national life. It is a thought alien to crores
of our people here. As such it does not have the power to thrill our
hearts and inspire us to a life of dedication and character. Thus, we see
it does not possess even the primary qualification to serve as an ideal
for our national life’ (pp. 137-8). A mob of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
workers rushed in to topple Lenin’s statue in Tripura as they made
their first inroad to state power. On 5 March 2018 chanting ‘Bharat
Mata ki Jai!’ saffron clad men felled the statue of the Russian communist
revolutionary. The act was repeated at another site and the head used
as a football. It had been a spectacle imminent on their agenda.
Indeed, Golwalkar thought that we should reject the ‘isms’ of the
west, ‘It would be sheer bankruptcy of our intellect and originality if
 We Our Nationhood Defned 85

we believe that human intelligence has reached its zenith with the
present theories and ism of the West. Let us, therefore, evolve our own
way of life based on the eternal truths discovered by our ancient seers
and tested on the touchstone of reason, experience and history’
(p. 138).68 The sum of Savarkar and Golwalkar’s views is the sum of
the far right position. A position that Hindu society can by and large,
quite easily get used to. It can adjust clearly to more and more inequality
and exclusion as a way of life making a far right position more and
more unobjectionable.

The Organization and Project of RSS,

Where did its Funds Come from?
As an organization of the far right, RSS deserves far more attention.
The last chapter will examine its frontage and strategy in more recent
times. But its early days are no less impressive for speed and efficiency
of growth.
In its founding days back in 1925, Hedgewar, often declared that
the strength of Hindu society would come from and through the RSS;
the organization was made to carry out that supreme task.
The organizational structure he created sustains RSS to this day.
It is like a pyramid. At the top is Sarsanghchalak (supreme director,
not elected but selected) who is assisted by an Akhil Bharatiya
Pratinidhi Sabha. The country is divided into geographical units’ zones,
states, divisions, districts, cities and blocks. Every level has a clearly
defined leadership. The shakhas are at the bottom comprising of not
more than 100 male members usually swayamsevaks in a locality. These
are divided into six age groups below 7, 7-11, 12-16, 17-25, 26-39, 40
and above. The shakha has a meeting every day. The RSS maintains
an office where the shakha meets. The pracharak (preacher/teacher) is
an RSS whole timer who lives in the office, and the RSS claims he lives
very simply and only on the funds collected by the shakha. He is the
backbone of the organization and is required to do multiple jobs as
needed by the organization. The successful pracharaks rise in the
hierarchy. The office also serves as a guest house for visiting members
who may come to the town and cities for education and jobs for a
temporary period. The membership drives are focused on recruiting
86 Tipping Point

teenage boys who are interested in sports and an alternative culture

and are perhaps easy to mould. Around this and the personality of the
pracharak (preacher), his oratory and story telling the young boys are
kept attached to the RSS. Common observation of rituals, lectures on
dogma, participation in physical training, dialogue conducted in a
standardized format, are all designed to indoctrinate a sense of disci-
pline and brotherhood. The RSS has not only spread through local
shakhas but also through numerous affiliates in diverse social and
cultural activities. After creating an affiliate, the RSS appoints a few
trusted pracharaks in key posts of the new organization. Almost every
affiliate has the post of a general secretary and organizing secretary
occupied by the RSS. Trusted sympathizers are appointed to the
ornamental posts. The hierarchical line of control and command in
the organization is maintained throughout. The members are taught
not to ask questions, simply to follow the instructions. Paradigm is
suchna ke elawa sochna nahin hai, do not think beyond the given
instruction or information.69 Periodic camps that include members
from different regions further unite and enforce bonding and commit-
ment. It is thus organized on the lines of a para military force in the
service of a cause decided by the supreme leader. Who would benefit
from such an elaborate authoritarian organization, committed to a
Hindu rule and available on command?
The early route of the RSS suggests that it was not associated with
the popular freedom movement, instead it was committed with and
preoccupied in building cadre. It had a rather narrow exclusive ‘Hindu
upper-caste’ appeal to begin with. Unlike the Congress it did not
participate in the election process. But, it was never short of funds to
build the organization. The organization also grew very rapidly. What
were the sources of its funds in the days leading up to the partition?
Was the RSS design of idealizing and building up princely states in
the Hindu imagery pure expediency?70 There is little hard evidence
about RSS funds then, as now. Some funds must have come from
volunteers in the form of guru dakshinas, and by their own admission
that is the only source. But it is unlikely to form the bulk. Substantial
support is likely to have come from some of the princely states sym-
pathetic to them. And circumstantial evidence does suggest that it
would be so. Many characters like K.M. Munshi, M.M. Malviya who
 We Our Nationhood Defned 87

straddled the western educated and Brahmin world of privilege did

use their association with the Congress to build powerful and wealthy
connections within and outside the princely states particularly in the
bureaucracy. K.M. Munshi, advocate at Bombay High Court, fellow
of Bombay University, president of Sahitya Sansar and creator of
Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, is the subject of a fascinating study where his
close association with Maharaja of Baroda, Sir Sayaji Rao Gaekwad
of Baroda, Aurobindo Ghose, M.K. Gandhi and Hindu Mahasabha
are described.71 He served as an advisor to many princely sates in the
1940s and was in the princely state of the Nizam in Hyderabad at the
time of the army action in 1948. He will figure again in the 3rd Chapter
in the context of the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF). Here it
would suffice to add that V.D. Savarkar, Dr B.S. Moonje (founding
member of RSS) and he were staunch allies.
While the Maratha Empire was the last to be annexed and many
others which were more threatening were annexed earlier, many smaller
(Mysore, Kashmir, Baroda, Travancore) princely states were allowed
to continue independently, with British residents keeping a watchful
presence.The vision of a ‘Hindu nation’ with traditional social structures
projected by the RSS overlapped with that of these princely states.
Particularly the remains of the Maratha empire, later a confederacy
which had exercised an influence up to the north and south of India
had relatively fresh memories of great power. Just as the right wing
after the French revolution looked back to the king and aristocracy so
did the RSS harness that memory.
Post the uprising of 1857, the British policy was consistently
calibrating their alliances with princes and feudal elements – ‘break-
waters in the storm’ as Viceroy Canning had described them even during
the mutiny. The new policy involved concessions to native rulers like
abrogating the doctrine of lapse, returning Mysore which they seized
from Tipu Sultan to its Hindu ruling family after fifty years. In 1881,
durbar pageantry and public school type education for sons of princes
and talukdars was introduced. Feudal paraphernalia and autocracy
were encouraged to flourish in over one-third of India. A few states
like Mysore, Baroda, and Travancore did introduce reforms and evolve
administrative standards on par with or even better than British India,
some were also active in social reform. But for the most part, princely
88 Tipping Point

states remained in social, cultural and political backwaters; petty

despotism which did not have to grapple with legal forms and civic
right. This had been developed in the neighbouring British India. It
was only the development of the State Peoples Movement from the
1930s that united these secluded states with the national mainstream.
It is unlikely that many of these petty kings and princes, India did not
view the RSS as a useful political and cultural force in a changing world
that threatened their privileges swiftly. Their world view was not
dramatically different nor could they have ignored the import of religion
and hierarchy that the RSS endorsed. As mentioned earlier, Bhonsle,
descendants of the king of Nagpur would preside over special RSS
parades.
Sarkar says ‘. . . if the Indian proletariat was far from being an
unequivocal bearer of any modern ideology, the same comment seems
to apply even more to the emerging Indian capitalist class’ (p. 54).72 Of
the major business communities only some sections of educated Parsis
began to get westernized. Guajarati ‘vaniyas’ and Marwari business
magnates remained very orthodox in religious matters. A social reform
movement developed among the Calcutta Marwaris only in the
twentieth century, at least two generations after their Bengali fellow
citizens. Only the ambivalent social reform movement Arya Samaj
managed to win some support among business groups. Despite the
long term objective contradiction between the development of national
bourgeoisie and colonial, political and economic structure, Indian
business groups remained overwhelming loyal to the British Raj till
1920s – often for entirely pragmatic reasons. So they could well be
sympathetic to the RSS since it suited their cultural and social views
very well while being non-confrontational with the British. Their
preferences were described quite vividly by Motilal Nehru in the letter
he wrote to his son Jawaharlal Nehru (2 December 1926) complaining
bitterly about the proliferating communal hatred and ‘The Malaviya-
Lala gang aided by Birla’s money are making frantic efforts to capture
the Congress’ (p. 63).73 The same industrial magnate Birla, would later
mediate the lifting of the ban on the RSS after Gandhi’s
assassination.
But the support base of the Congress at least in its initial years
was somewhat different, it did not include in large proportions, the
 We Our Nationhood Defned 89

princely class discussed above. The composition of delegates to the

Calcutta session of INC on 1886, noted the entire reported absence
of the old aristocracy, the so-called natural leaders of the people. It also
admitted that that ryots and cultivating classes were insufficiently
represented, while minor money lenders and shopkeepers were absent.
However, higher commercial classes like bankers and merchants were
well represented and about 130 of the delegates were landed proprietors
of one kind or the other. The early Congress was associated with the
rise of the educated, professional middle-class and the English educated
elite. 455 of 1200 odd delegates, at the Allahabad Congress in 1888,
declared themselves to be lawyers, 57 teachers, and 73 journalists. Half
of the delegates were educated professionals of some kind.
The princely states, under the umbrella of the states peoples
movement drew closer to the national movement only between 1937-9
voicing concerns about civil rights, responsible government but making
small demands. In 1939, Nehru presided over its Conference in
Ludhiana. Gandhi, however, remained more rigidly non-interventionist
suggesting that although the Purna Swaraj ideal would include them,
for the present the Congress could only extend moral support and
sympathy but not its organizational support. The state people’s move-
ment, however, gathered momentum through local pressures and left
wing forces within the Congress were involved, particularly in Mysore,
Orissa, Hyderabad and Travancore. In the Muslim dominated
Hyderabad state, the Congress policy of non-intervention and lack of
support to local movements for responsible government gave Hindu
communalist forces an opportunity to enter. The Arya Samaj and
Mahasabha began to campaign against the tyranny of the Nizam and
the Ittahadul-Mussalman. The Mahasabha was simultaneously
denouncing Congress interference in Hindu princely states to support
local demand for responsible government. The state Congress began
a parallel, secular and effective Satyagraha independently from INC
from October 1938, demanding a responsible government and its own
legalization in Hyderabad. In the meantime, a powerful Vande
Mataram, agitation backed by Hindu communal organizations devel-
oped among Osmania University students. The RSS was building up
a sizable communal force in the Muslim ruled state. The Congress led
movement was called off by the central leadership on the grounds that
90 Tipping Point

it could get mixed up with Hindu communal agitation. This left the
local Congress leadership confused. The scale of massacre that followed
the interventions of the Indian Army in 1948 to force the Muslim
ruler’s accession to India is the subject of the Sunderlal report com-
missioned by the Nehru government (recently made available to public
in the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library). In it is a graphic
description of the vitiated communal atmosphere and its penetration
into army personnel that led to 27,000-40,000 deaths.74 Penetrating
the India army was also an early agenda of the RSS towards which
they had started military coaching academies. It is worth noting that
K.M. Munshi was the agent general of Hyderabad from January to
September 1948 during the period when the army action took place
and some press reports described him as the Trojan horse in the siege
of Hyderabad.75 To have been dispatched to Hyderabad at such a
sensitive time implied that Munshi had the necessary support from
high places within the Congress. He was also a member of the
Constituent Assembly. This can be seen as another example of the
quagmire in Delhi soon after Independence.
Kings and princes had deep networks with the priestly and
administrative cohort of Brahmins who in turn were the core support
group of the RSS. These were old associates in creating and preserving
their own political, social and economic pre-eminence. They had felt
threatened, first by the arrival of British as conquers and expansionists.
Having made peace with the British rule they were now threatened by
the Congress expansion and its republican agenda. They were instinctive
allies.

What Happened to the Peasant, Tribal other

Class Based Left Wing Movements?
The early left-wing was a faction within the national movement which
sought to combine nationalism with social justice, clearly articulating
the position that freedom from colonial rule was for creating an egal-
itarian society. Gradually, its system of inquiry, articulation and agenda
went on to become closely allied with Marxism.
The Congress represented, right, centre and left in its early days.
Socialists and communists also took cover under its awning in the
 We Our Nationhood Defned 91

1920s. The fate of its social reform agenda, as Ambedkar has so

effectively pointed out, was completely marginalized until Gandhi
injected the rural development, humane treatment of untouchables
and the Hindu Muslim issue in the 1920s. The Congress leadership,
however, remained dominated by property owning classes, upper-castes
almost entirely, despite its declarations in favour of the toiling masses.
Its ability to harness peasant and some tribal mobilizations was quite
significant once Gandhi took charge of its agenda. Gandhi played that
seminal role of linking the masses to the Congress – some peasant and
tribal uprisings made links with the Congress only because of him.
Folklore about his saintliness had travelled far and wide, by word of
mouth among the unlettered, so that he was an object of veneration
among them.
But in its composition and leadership the lower strata was under
represented so far. Those who stayed steadfast to issues of social justice
also became a minority. The Congress soon came to represent a new
form of that old constellation of power and privilege, large represen-
tations of urban, professional classes who had roots in the old landed
classes and accommodated aspirations of new education and profes-
sions. Some of them remained in opposition to the kind of Hindu
revival described earlier, which exemplified if anything, a call to return
to old glory and timeworn Hindu socio-political-economic caste
hierarchy. But it certainly was not clear what proportion of Congress
leadership at the centre and states was unfaltering in its opposition to
Hindu revivalism. Such was the nature of the Congress canopy. In that
sense the right was at the centre in India and in power in most regions
by the 1947.
In India, the left of centre took the contemporary political shape
of communists only in the latter-half of the 1920s. It was far behind
the Congress. The coming together of communists occurred under
challenging circumstances (Chapter 4 has more to say about their
turbulent arrival). The ranks of the left first grew out of the national
movement. It was made up of people disillusioned by the collapse of
the non-cooperation movement. These revolutionaries, labour and
peasant activists were aware of developments across the world and were
most particularly inspired by the October 1917, Bolshevik Revolution
in Russia.
92 Tipping Point

In 1920, M.N. Roy, Abani Mukherji, Mohammad Ali and

Mohammad Shafiq formed the Communist Party of India (CPI) at
Tashkent. Berlin also emerged as a centre for other Indian revolutionary
groups turning to Marxism. Eventually links were set up with groups
in Bombay, Calcutta, Madras and Lahore. By 1922, S.S. Dange was
bringing out a weekly called Socialist from Bombay. For a while Indian
communist groups tried to work within the nationalist mainstream. A
panicky British government jailed prominent communists in the famous
Kanpur Bolshevik Conspiracy Case in 1924 which followed trials after
a series of conspiracy cases. Nevertheless, in a defiant rebound, an open
Indian Communist Conference was promoted by diverse groups. It
was held in Kanpur in 1925. This was to lay the foundations for the
left front with ambitions to unite workers in Bombay and peasants
across India. Eventually it took the form of a united CPI. A communist
cadre of about 50 in 1926 constituted the CPI, compared to 30,000
communist cadres in China at about the same time. Left leaders and
their ideology played a prominent role in promoting awareness of
international developments, of anti-imperialist solidarity of socialism,
and the need to combine nationalism with social justice, in the national
movement. Some revolutionary militants across India like Bhagat Singh
also found their way to socialism. Young leaders in the Congress like
Nehru and Bose were deeply influenced by the left. The start of the
left movement was forty years after that of the Congress. Ironically its
influence within the Congress grew in the 1930s just as the support
and grip of Indian industrial and commercial capital on the Congress
increased. In those decades, as the Congress got fully committed to
electoral politics by 1937, formation of popular ministries in the
provinces was a major Congress victory from such heights that there
was no going back and the grip of rich donors strengthened. These
electoral compulsions amplified strains between the Congress left and
right wing.
Sarkar says ‘. . . the advance and consolidation of the Congress
organization meant also the assimilation and curbing of more elemental
and potentially radical lower-class outbursts. The Congress . . .
while fighting the Raj was also becoming the Raj. . . . This was not just
the question of party organization throttling lower level spontaneity;
what was involved was the gradual establishment of a kind of hegemony
 We Our Nationhood Defned 93

(never absolute or unqualified . . .) of bourgeois and dominant peasant

groups over the national movement’ (p. 254).76
Tensions within created a wide space for an independent left
challenge, heightened the need to form trade unions, kisan sabhas,
independent communist and socialist groups.
The British tried various strategies, against this rising tide of radical
nationalism, mainly outright repression of communists but no less the
old tricks of divide and rule. Across all schisms Hindus, Muslims, tribal,
dalits and so on, the possibilities were many in Indian society. That
was a permanent interruption to the consolidation of a left position.
The British were also now subtly promoting Gandhi over other radical
leaders.
Communists were much feared both by the British and the growing
capitalist class in India. As the number of strikes increased, often under
the influence or direct leadership of communists, a counter offensive
was launched by the capitalists and the government. Muslim pathans
were employed by mill owners as strike breakers in Bombay, leading
to communal riots in February 1929. This was followed by bills like
the Public Safety Bill and Trade Disputes Bill which gave the govern-
ment some powers to arrest, and ‘ban strikes under some circumstances’.
The top leadership of the unions was rounded up and arrested, and a
long conspiracy trial followed in Meerut. They also arrested British
communists helping to organize Bombay and Calcutta workers. The
trials continued for four years and heavy jail sentences brought inter-
national attention to the situation. There were fears of communists
infiltrating and joining armed forces with peasant uprisings specially
the one in Gujarat (Bardoli) and influencing youth militancy. The
might of the British Empire weighed in to thwart the left and once
again the property owning class joined forces with the British govern-
ment towards a common interest.
The communists struggled in India, not just against the combined
colonial state and capitalist repression but they were also thwarted
because of their complex relationship with the Congress. In the early
days they followed a ‘struggle and unity’ approach since Congress had
both a lead and far greater presence in the national movement. Any
direct fight against the Congress would have weakened the national
movement. But pro-zamindar and capitalist stances of the Congress
94 Tipping Point

increased in the 1930s as its dependence on the upper-class increased.

This made it increasingly awkward for the left to stay with the Congress.
Eventually in the Depression years after 1929, the bargaining
position of labour declined and strikes became infrequent. The situation
changed only as the effects of the global Depression ebbed after 1934
but industrialists still tried to keep wages down. A series of strikes
erupted again and the left forces converged to form a Red Trade Union
Congress (RTUC) of the communists in 1935 and rejoined the All
India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) of the Congress Party to create
a common front. A Labour Board was set up to explore further unity
in the labour movement and to work within the Congress. They were
also pursuing a collective affiliation of trade unions and peasant
organizations with the aim of converting it into an ‘anti-imperialist
people’s front’ for a more radical agenda, calling for a Constituent
Assembly elected by universal suffrage.
A student’s left wing, the All India Students Federation, Progres-
sive Writers Association, and Indian Peoples Theatre Association
(IPTA) became supplementary organizations to bring about a radical
consciousness among people through mass contact, debate, literature
and art.
When Nehru became the President of the Congress again in 1936,
his Lucknow address called for an alignment with progressive forces
of the world against fascism and imperialism and also for socialism in
the scientific and economic sense. This is thought to be the high point
of Left influence on the Congress. It also laid the basis of the pro-
people socio-economic programme in the Congress manifesto. Both
his books Glimpses of World History and Discovery of India offer insights
into the profound impact of Marxism and the October revolution on
anti-colonial movements and vision of the way forward. Nehru
remembered his tryst with the modernity again in his first speech in
the Constituent Assembly on 13 December 1946 and moved the
Objective Resolution. This proclaimed India as an independent sov-
ereign republic guaranteeing its citizens justice, social, economic, and
political, equality of status and opportunity. He invoked the great past
of India as well as the French, American and Russian Revolution.77
As the WW2 came to an end, the CPI had become the third
largest party in India after the Congress and Muslim League albeit
 We Our Nationhood Defned 95

much smaller than either. This was despite British repression and
persecution since the 1920s and it’s own mistakes. It was legalized in
1942, (after being proscribed in 1934), as USSR was by then allied
with the west against the fascists. It grew on the basis of its unions,
Kisan Sabhas, cultural interventions particularly through IPTA and
participation in many popular struggles like Tebhaga share croppers
movement in Bengal, Telangana peasants insurgency, Punnapra-Vayalar
revolt in Travancore, Warli movement in Thane, Maharashtra, Royal
Indian Navy mutiny of 1946 in Bombay, to name only a few. The
membership of the Communist Party grew to about 60,000 at the time
of Independence.78 Membership seems to have grown from 60,000 to
100,000 as recorded at the time of the second party congress in February
1948.79 That figure is one-sixth of RSS membership at the same time.
Moreover, CPI was not in a position to provide unified national
leadership in 1947. They were struggling to spread their own roots,
strengthen their organization, develop an audience that understood
what it stood for and improve their own understanding of vastly dif-
ferent regions, classes, castes in India and their local needs. Only much
later could they develop a coherent local, national and international
party programme. The working class remained at odds with itself, they
would gather with the red unions in huge numbers for work related
demands but return home to vote for their caste and religion in the
local elections. A schism in consciousness, which remains to be bridged.
For some thirty initial years, during which it held two party con-
gresses, the CPI functioned without a party programme or a clearly for-
mulated statement of policy or tactical line. That happened only in 1951.
Despite this, in India’s first general elections (which it decided to
participate in after some internal confusion and conflict) it emerged
as the main opposition party with 3.3 per cent of the vote share and
16 out of 489 Lok Sabha seats. The sheer scale of the problems faced
by peasants and workers brought the CPI into the Parliament.
What were the coercions of electoral politics in a liberal democracy?
Ambedkar cautioned that India was going to become a ‘mere political
democracy’, it was going to enter a life of contradictions. In politics it
would have equality and in social and economic life inequality.80 Could
such a contradiction sustain?
The journey of communists in India will be described later.
96 Tipping Point

Shifting Political Economy of India, Electoral Politics,

and Augmentation of the Right Wing within Congress
Although the first cotton, jute mills, the first coal mine were established
and railway lines were laid out way back in the period between 1850-5
(much of it through British enterprise) the transition to industrial
economy was slowing down by the end of the nineteenth century.
Instead, India was becoming an exporter of cotton, jute, tea, and some
food crops and an importer of British manufactured goods. Two world
wars and the Depression in between, changed the economic landscape
of India very rapidly. The war of 1914-18 created demand for factory
goods made in India to support the war effort and as exports from
Britain and Europe fell. Iron, steel, jute, leather cotton and woollen
textile mills expanded capacity. The shortage of heavy industry and
machine tools slowed down the expansion. Up to the late 1920s India
took about 11 per cent of British exports, including 28 per cent of
Lancashire textiles. But the war did weaken and divert British industry
to war needs and promoted industrial development within India.
Subsidiary foreign manufacturing firms arrived in India along with
foreign controlled Indian limited groups; collaboration with Indian
business groups represented a change in the structure of British interest
in Indian manufacturing and finance. The forms in which India
transferred remittances to UK also changed.
By the end of the WW1 British interest controlled at least half of
industrial production in India but this began to change and by the time
of Independence it was less than 5 per cent. In 1923, the Government
had accepted the recommendations of the first Fiscal Commission and
given tariff protection to selected industries in India, this seems to have
helped Indian industrialists. The Depression caused a sharp drop in
Indian export of raw material and cash crop exports fell. Simultaneously
there was also a drop in import of textiles. The burden of Home
Charges rose in pounds – the large amount that India paid for the cost
of British rule from UK.
Slackening the older forms of colonial ties opened opportunities
for India capitalists, textile mills, and jute mills. Steel production
increased and spread in India, benefitting from falling prices of
 We Our Nationhood Defned 97

agricultural inputs. The efforts of the Indian capitalist class to expand

their interests in manufacturing, commerce and finance came into
frequent conflict with the British capitalists. Their location in the
national movement remained ambivalent, navigating between militant
labour movements and the need to avoid conflict with British interests
and for government support, permissions and protection.
But by the end of the 1920s, there also seemed to be an altered
understanding more widely shared among the larger capitalists at least.
As their mutual correspondence and speeches made in trade and mill
associations suggest, they were beginning to feel the need for self-gov-
ernment with control over finance, currency, fiscal policy and railways,
which would more directly support their interests. They found in the
Congress such a future possibility, as Congress influence grew. So while
they had been largely indifferent to the non-cooperation movement of
the 1920s they become more involved in the Civil Disobedience that
followed in the 1930s.81
Global depression brought about deteriorating working conditions
in the factories and lower income for the peasants. Some estimates
suggest that per capita income declined in the 1930s. Concurrently,
population growth accelerated after 1921. It was estimated to be 306
million, and rose to 389 million by 1941. When mill owners tried to
pass on the burdens of Depression and competition (now from Britain
and Japan) on to workers with wage cuts, large and successful strikes
broke out in different parts of India, particularly in Bengal, Madras
and Bombay. The Bombay textile mill workers strike under the Girni
Kamgar Union was the most massive and successful. On the one hand,
was the growing interest of the capitalist class in the Congress as a
vehicle of their cause, and on the other were, the increasingly militant
and well organized working class organizations. The contradictions of
capitalism were now embodied in the Congress. Electoral politics
dictated that they needed the funds of the capital owning classes and
the votes of the working class concurrently.
On the constitutional reform front, a group of seven MPs from
Britain under the chairmanship of John Simon was sent in 1928 to
study the working of the constitutional reforms of 1919 and make
recommendations. No Indian was appointed to that group. Prospects
98 Tipping Point

for unity of all major political groups seemed likely after the commission
(Simon Commission) was announced, many political groups decided
to boycott it and form an All-Party Conference to draw up a
Constitution for India by Indians.82 The Constitution being framed
by the All-Party Conference was drafted mainly by Motilal Nehru and
Tej Bahadur Sapru, popularly known as the Nehru Report.
Then there were developments that reflected the growing clout of
communal parties in the 1920s. These emerging agreements between
political groups were arrested and reversed under pressure from Hindu
communal organizations in Punjab and Maharashtra. Jinnah’s attempts
to create an understanding also proved futile and instead there was a
clear parting of ways after 1928.
The Hindu right wing organizations played a twofold game; they
backed the interests of the princely states at the expense of the nation-
alist cause, while their representatives and allegiants within the
Congress were supporting the nationalist cause. The British had tried
to cultivate the princely states as a wall against the nationalist move-
ment. The question of their paramountcy was the subject of speculation
in the Nehru Report. Princely interests were protected by an amend-
ment guaranteeing all titles to personal and private property; the
amendment was moved by Madan Mohan Malviya and accepted by
the Nehru Report.
Sumit Sarkar says, ‘The most formidable and oppressive strong-
holds of feudalism lay in the Princely states . . . these had already
witnessed spontaneous local peasant outbreaks’ (p. 341).83 However,
Gandhi repeatedly asserted the helplessness of the Congress and
expressed the hope that princes would be persuaded to behave as
trustees of their subjects and right-wing Congressmen remained either
silent or like Malviya and Bhulabhai Desai began assuring the princes
of their paramountcy.
When Bhagat Singh was hanged in March 1932, the anger of the
more radical left nationalists intensified. They felt that nothing was
done to save him by the nationalist leaders. The Karachi session of the
Congress that followed, was marked by moderate left leaning resolutions
on civil rights and agrarian reforms to assuage the left sections.
Nonetheless there was no real challenge to the Gandhian control over
the organization or his preference for mass instead of class-based
 We Our Nationhood Defned 99

politics. Walchand Hirachand Papers (Walchand Hirachand Doshi

was a avant-garde industrialist and a nationalist close to INC) are often
quoted to show that after the resolution at the Karachi session prom-
inent industrialists circulated a note in FICCI, sharply attacking the
Karachi resolution for ushering in a government on the Russian model.
No alternative leadership emerged, outside or inside the Congress
to challenge the Gandhian control, even during the 1930s, despite the
pressures from industrial labour and peasantry. The inability of the
Congress to deal with their distress was patent. The left remained a
fragmented force under various forms of repression. Besides, it had as
yet, a narrow base among the masses of people. Few, if any of its own
members, had any exposure to theoretical Marxism, political develop-
ments abroad or experience of mass-based work in rural India where
most of the population lived. Absence of the culture of egalitarianism
let alone any semblance of socialist consciousness in India, was a wall
they faced (more about the teething troubles of the left in Chapter 4).
The left did grow as mentioned earlier, but was no match for the
Congress or the RSS. Within Congress too, the right wing was con-
solidating its positions (in persons such as industrialists like Birla and
Thakurdas and political leaders like Vallabhbhai Patel, Bhulabhai Desai,
B.C. Roy, Rajendra Prasad, Rajagopalachari and many others). The
right tightened its grip but was doing so very deftly, allowing the party
to continue with the radical presidential addresses of Nehru in 1932
and 1936. The Congress could, therefore, carry on giving verbal
assurances, announce programmes to gather votes of the expanding
electorate and gather support necessary for mass participation.
The position of most of the top leadership of the Congress also
tilted towards the right in a multifaceted advancement. It is explained
not only by their own general class predispositions, but also by the
need for election funds and by the rise of left forces within the Congress
youth, in the country and internationally. Historians cite the declining
participation in actions like Gandhian Satyagrahas, controlled mass
action and rural construction in favour of a more militant peasant and
labour movement at this juncture. To it was added the fear among the
older leaders of loss of influence to left leaning, young and more
charismatic leaders like Nehru and Bose within the Congress.
Since the 1920s, the entire processes of fighting elections, funding
100 Tipping Point

elections and the profits of ministry making had begun to change the
Congress itself. It did very well in the 1937 elections, winning 711 out
of 1585 Provincial seats, with absolute majority in five provinces out
of eleven and a near majority in Bombay. Nehru remained their biggest
vote catcher for three decades thereafter. Congress ministries took office
in UP, Bihar, Orissa, CP, Bombay and Madras, NWFP and with some
assembly maneuvres, and floor crossing in Assam as well. The
Constitution provided limited power to these ministries but neverthe-
less opened even greater avenues to state power compared to the past.
The Congress was not without rivals; competition with other
political forces particularly the Hindu Mahasabha and the Muslim
League remained a concern. Over a period of time, outmaneuvering
them and balancing diverse interests of class, religious and caste based
communities became a distracting preoccupation. Attracting contribu-
tions from propertied classes, the basis of election funds became another
preoccupation. In the electoral competition party funds were never
more than adequate and gradually propertied men who could finance
their own campaign were preferred over activists and militant members
as candidates. Consequently, this alignment with property and mer-
cantile capital grew as did wealth of the class. Corruption inevitably
made its appearance as access to power and patronage systems multi-
plied. Along with it came inner party jealousy and ever sharper rivalry.
Once in power, these Congress ministries, given their limited
resources and power, found it difficult to deliver any substantial benefits
to people. Soon Congress was battling with unrest of the people they
represented in provinces. This rule also led to many complications and
compromises. Their rule also increased alienation of Muslims.
Some historians have marked this period, between 1937-9 after
the 1937 elections, as seriously damaging not just to the left within
the Congress but also communal harmony. It is also linked to the revival
of the Muslim League, which had an even more right wing stance on
socio-economic issues. Congressmen had been active in the Hindu
Mahasabha and only after December 1938 a resolution was passed in
the Congress Working Committee barring dual membership. Meanwhile
the leadership of the Hindu Mahasabha had passed on to more militant
leaders like Savarkar who declared that Hindus were a nation histor-
ically and Hindu nationalism was not an aberration. Para military
 We Our Nationhood Defned 101

communal forces grew on both sides like the RSS in Maharashtra, and
Khaksars under Allama Mashriqui in 1931 in Punjab and Razakars
under Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (MIM) a theocratic party
founded in 1926 in Hyderabad. By 1940 when Golwalkar took over
the leadership of the RSS, it claimed to have a cadre of one lakh trained
persons. In 1942 it is estimated that there were many more Khaksars.84
As a resilient relationship between Indian capitalists and Congress
right wing emerged, Gandhian ideals also seemed increasingly imprac-
tical and irrelevant for remaining in power. After Independence,
adoption of the mixed economy as an idea, of state planning for public
sector led industrialization; without wholesale nationalization or attack
on private property was a direct product of this association.85 The
Bombay Plan was an evidence of the cohesion in the class and grip on
the Congress. Its signatories included the leading industrialists, some
economists and bankers. The capital owning class wanted the state to
invest in heavy industry, infrastructure and long gestation, lower
profitability sector and kick start the national economic development
for them and no more, which the state did after Independence86 stone
walling both, comprehensive state control of the economy for develop-
ment and state control over the capitalist class itself.
In 1930s, these reconfigurations within the Congress led to a
fundamental rightward shift affecting its attitude towards labour,
zamindari and land distribution issues. Leadership of mass organiza-
tions then shifted to the left. The left ranks comprising of the socialists,
Royists, and the as yet illegal CPI, which worked within the Congress
Socialist Party (CSP) grew in increasing opposition to the Congress.
They managed some valuable achievements by keeping up the pressure
to shift popular debates and consciousness to the left, on domestic as
well as international issues. This caused apprehension not just among
the right wing of the Congress but also among socialists like Jayaprakash
Narayan, Minoo Masani, (whose enthusiastic and dubious role in the
1970s will be the subject of some consideration in the 3rd Chapter)
and N.G. Ranga. Communists did received some valuable support from
leaders like Nehru and Bose.
At the Tripura session of the Congress in 1939, the party witnessed
its sharpest internal struggle over the issue of Bose’s decision to stand
again for party president. Despite Bose’s victory and support for him
102 Tipping Point

from the left wing within the Congress and other sections, Gandhi
maneuvered a divide and forced Bose to resign. The next president was
Rajendra Prasad a firm Gandhi loyalist. The Congress was recaptured
by the right wing and thereafter the ability of the left to resist the
anti-labour and anti-peasant policies of the provincial Congress min-
istries was compromised only by the necessity to maintain a united
front in the national movement with the Congress.
Indian business groups gained immensely from war contracts, more
so in the WW2 and remained largely loyal to the British war efforts.
They did experience relatively short lived panic at the possibility of the
Japanese invasion and loss of Asian business and domestic property.
This was probably the predominant anxiety and reason why around
the time of the Quit India Movement of 1942, the Indian business
class supported the movement to quickly push the British out.
While WW2 was raging, and the British were amidst a dire survival
struggle, the Quit India Movement was to be the last anti-British mass
mobilization of the Congress. Mass arrests and imprisonments fol-
lowed; this added a badge of patriotism and wiped out their poor record
of running ministries substantially. Mass arrests of Congress leaders
left the field open to the far right who had not participated shrewdly.
Non-participation of the communists in the Quit India wave (under
Soviet influence which was also at war) marginalized them in the
upsurge of patriotic fervour that swept the sub-continent. For the CPI,
combat against European fascism had a far higher priority than the
precise timing of Indian Independence.
At the end of the war the British were exhausted and broke and
for India some form of self-government became inevitable. Asia too
was rife with anti-European-imperialism fervour and weakened by the
war. The exact form of self-government was to be the subject of future
negotiations with the British Government, Congress and the Muslim
League.

M.K. Gandhi, the Man, his Mark, Assassination

and what the Trial Revealed
The complexity of M.K. Gandhi the thinker and leader, is quite
remarkable. His ideas and writings are so copious and varied that they
 We Our Nationhood Defned 103

are hard to summarize. Besides, that is not the purpose of this book.
He cannot be understood outside the formative milieu, his own social,
cultural and class circumstances as a child and based on his speeches
and writing alone. Summarily, it can however be said that his agenda
was marked by deep economic conservativeness, some social conser-
vatism as well but profound secular convictions. Somehow, his mass
appeal outstripped that of any other contemporary leaders. Where did
he imbibe the skills for leadership, mass organization and appeal?
His family was well connected; they were Diwans (prime ministers)
in the petty kingdoms of Kathiawar and its surrounding region in
Gujarat since his grandfather’s days. His grandfather was prime minister
in Porbandar and occasionally in other states. Historically, Kathiawar
had been a refuge for many religions – Muslims, Jains, Parsees,
Christians, the majority being Hindus. Some communities mingled
socially others did not; there was a tacit tolerance. When Gandhi’s
father, Karamchand Gandhi went to serve as premier in Rajkot, his
brother took up the post at Porbandar. In Rajkot his father had
defended the king against an overbearing British resident and had
served a small detention. The family had a reputation for integrity and
was considered to be beyond bribery or intrigue. Premiership was
considered the natural privilege of the family. Mohandas Karamchand
Gandhi was born on 2 October 1869. While his father was Diwan at
Rajkot, Mohandas studied in a prestigious school, played cricket, tennis
and other games but was indifferent to academics. His father was a
man of politics though not formally educated, his mother Putlibai (the
fourth wife) was religious. A devotee of Vishnu, she frequented temples
and took him along, prayed daily and fasted often. Her attitude to
religion for inculcating ethics was to leave a mark as was his father’s
grasp of politics. Gandhi went on to use a humanized religion in political
work with considerable flair.
The family (the father having passed away) decided to send him
to study law in England and return to assume premiership.This decision
was taken despite massive disapproval of their community, the Bombay
wing of which boycotted them, for a period. Three vows had been
imposed on him by a Jain guru of his mother: not to touch meat, woman
or wine. Gandhi left his home for England, a shy young man, barely
able to converse in English. The three vows set him up poorly for
104 Tipping Point

meeting a substantially different society. Adjustments between two

extremely different worlds would shape his basic attitude, towards
holding his own and seeking resolution in conflict. If one looks at the
background and his journey then it is evident that he travelled a way
forward and away from his extremely conservative, socially privileged
family in an old fashioned feudal, princely state.
Gandhi had worked in South Africa from 1893 up to his return
in 1915, as a lawyer. There, for the first 13 years of the 21 years, he
used the usual moderate technique which was to file petitions and
prayers against racial discrimination. For the Indian merchants he
represented, it was a totally new method. Then he organized three
passive resistance (Satyagraha) campaigns against de-recognition of
non-Christian Indian marriages, tax of three pounds on ex-indentured
labourers, compulsory registration and passes for Indians. These laws
affected Indians of all provinces and of all religions including Christians
in South Africa adversely. His reputation had sailed back to India and
spread to various provinces while he was still in South Africa. He was
quite famous by the time he returned.
In Sabarmati Ashram in 1915, 13 of the first 25 inmates came
from Tamil Nadu – something inconceivable then for any other Indian
leader. Sarkar says, this experience made Gandhi potentially much
more of an all India figure from the beginning of his work in India
than any other politician like Tilak or Lajpat Rai.87 His life experiences
had also convinced Gandhi of the necessity and possibility of Hindu-
Muslim-Christian unity. Non-violence and Satyagraha were a deeply
felt and worked out philosophy which revealed considerable originality.
For him the search for truth was the goal of human life and no one
could ever be sure of having found the ultimate truth, hence use of
violence to enforce one’s own partial understanding of truth was sinful.
Gandhi’s use of non-violence was not dogmatic nor without practical
and political adjustments. His philosophy and its essence was inter-
nalized only by a very small group but enabled him to appeal, launch
and control mass participation.
Another essential aspect of Gandhi’s appeal lay in his vague eco-
nomic ideas; he felt the real enemy was not the British domination but
the whole of modern industrial civilization (at least that is his position
in book Hind Swaraj, 1909). This rather obscure position would be
 We Our Nationhood Defned 105

reconstructed by him into a practical programme of khadi, self-help,

self-sufficiency, swadeshi and rural reconstruction in India to changes
that were neither remarkable nor unsettling for the status quo. This
ambiguous position possibly resonated with property owning classes
and did not concern rural masses who were themselves still living in
pre-industrial state.
Just as Gandhi cannot be understood outside his own background,
he cannot be understood outside of the context of the culturally
regressive and socially backward forces he was battling against in India.
The varied forces he was trying to align with and make bridges between,
multiple castes, regions, religions differences in society. His long
leadership of the national movement had apparently only one singular
overarching purpose, to preserve unity in the struggle. He was inces-
santly carrying the old with the new, making no violent breaks with
tradition, bridging differences to forge a unity where it did not exist at
all. In addition, like all leaders, he would need to maneuvre within to
retain his own personal grip over the Congress even without holding
any of its offices.
In his appeal to treat religious minorities as equals, campaign
against untouchability, living in a Harijan colony, inclusion of women,
including peasants, workers in the movement against colonialism, he
was a force of change, an agent of the unfinished social reform and well
ahead of the culture of early twentieth century India in general and of
the Congress too.
On the other hand, in his grasp of the economic basis of exploita-
tion, class interests, the role of science, medicine and the role of religion
in preserving status quo and inequalities, he seems very conservative
almost antiquated. He often seemed to be trying to restore a mythical,
golden past of self-sufficient, self-governing villages, indigenous
knowledge systems where everything and everyone had a place and a
role.
He was far removed from the political understanding and possi-
bilities opening up across the world in early twentieth century. He was
unimpressed and even horrified by the impact of industrial revolution
on social relations, unenthusiastic about mechanization; he saw the
speed and intensity of work on one hand, unemployment on the other.
He had visited the working class localities in England and formed his
106 Tipping Point

own opinion about the dangers of industrialization both in England

and in her colony. But he did not apprehend it or articulate it as a
danger of capitalism, only as the horror of industrialization. Nor did
he examine the possibility of organizing industrial production on a
different basis in India. He simply rejected science, modernization,
industrialization, redistribution and socialism. This blindsiding
occurred despite the example of countries around him which had
already stepped away from capitalism. Perhaps he thought the violence
necessary to destroy the old system and establish an alternate one was
inordinate and it actually terrified him. He did write about his quite
valid fear that violence would brutalize society, while contradiction
between the means and ends of violence would cause change to become
unsustainable.
Instead of reconciling himself to the contradictions and facing the
new world, he chose to retreat and recommended a return to the past,
tiny scales of production in rural cottage industry, voluntary poverty
or simplicity of consumption needs, high mindedness and a trusteeship
system where the rich held the wealth for the good of the rest. No
major revision in his philosophy or recommendation as to how India
could sustain itself in a new world occurred till his death, half way
through the twentieth century. Considering how much he wrote and
revised his position on other issues, it is possible that Gandhi continued
to believe that it was possible to ‘go back to the future’ rather than
grapple with the unknown and new in matters of political economy.
However, given the abysmal level of literacy, social backwardness,
grip of religions orthodoxy and appeal of (the far right) Hindu version
of nationalism, Gandhi seems to have found a way. He got ahead of
them for a while. He had made his road based on an instinctive
understanding of what was possible for the masses to envision and for
him to communicate at that juncture of history. Shrewd tactician, he
was selective and applied what he thought was socially feasible, com-
mitting himself to unifying without creating too many rifts that could
hamper the complicated objective of winning independence. Unity
could not be preserved eventually but it was not for want of trying on
his part. That he could persuade millions to follow him in India (rather
than give that space to the far right) was the unequivocal power of his
appeal, an appeal, which Nehru (who disagreed with his economic
vision) realized and even his critics then understood only too well. His
 We Our Nationhood Defned 107

critics today, particularly some to the left seem to argue that had he
not been around the left would have done better than it did. Facts seem
to indicate that the far right would have succeeded earlier, more
easily.
Today one tends to forget the social environment and historical
circumstances in which Gandhi laboured. These can best be gauged
from the horrific circumstances of his assassination.
Gandhi was shot dead in daylight, surrounded by people, in the
national capital Delhi, on 30 January 1948, by Nathuram Godse. An
abortive attempt had been made on his life 10 days earlier on 20 January
1948 when a bomb exploded at a wall in the compound where he
offered prayers and Gandhi knew that it was a widespread conspiracy.88
That did not alter his schedule, or travel or his position against com-
munal hatred and riots.
The assassin as it turned out, was an accomplice of many others
who had hatched the plot in Maharashtra. Godse had connections
with both the RSS and Hindu Mahasabha. Hindu organizations of
the far right had gained much traction in the decade preceding the
Partition so as to conceive and conduct such a bold operation. By the
mid 1920s communal riots had become frequent. As communal
antagonism preceding and following the Partition grew, suspicions,
rumours, and propaganda gained momentum and Mahatma Gandhi
became its target. Nehru was to say in 1948, ‘Communalism resulted
not only in the division of the country, which inflicted a deep wound
in the heart of the people which will take a long time to heal if it ever
heals but also assassination of the Father of the Nation, Mahatma
Gandhi’.89
The news of his assassination brought widespread condemnation
for the RSS. Large scale arrests of functionaries including their supreme
leader Golwalkar followed the ban on RSS. The RSS suspended its
public activities in the shakhas for a while. After his release in August
1948, Golwalkar then chief of the RSS started a correspondence with
Nehru and Patel to get the ban lifted. He protested that the RSS was
innocent but that did not carry weight so he began a correspondence
to suggest that the RSS could help the government in containing the
communist menace, that if the government power and organized
cultural force of the RSS could combine they could eliminate the
108 Tipping Point

menace.90 When Nehru was not willing to trust them, the RSS carried
out a signature campaign and soon collected nine lakh signatures; they
also formed a committee to create a sympathetic public opinion under
the chairmanship of J.B. Kriplani (a veteran CSP leader, and a critic
of Nehru, and at later date ally of RSS in anti-emergency movement
of 1970s). The RSS then organized a Satyagraha in December 1948
where 60,000 volunteers were arrested. The Satyagraha was called off
in January 1949 and Golwalkar resumed negotiations with the gov-
ernment. G.D. Birla, a big industrialist, was one of the mediators. The
ban was lifted in July 1949, just a year-and-a-half after the assassination
of the father of the nation! One of the conditions of lifting of the ban
was that the RSS should have a written Constitution, function in the
open and remain a cultural organization.
The assassination meanwhile left Nehru in no doubt that the far
right was planning a seizure of power. He wrote in his fortnightly letters
to chief ministers (February 1948) ‘. . . it would appear that a deliberate
coup d’état was planned involving the killing of several people and the
promotion of general disorder to enable the particular group concerned
(RSS) to seize power’.91 He urged chief ministers of various sensitive
states to be vigilant, to develop intelligence sources. He was dismayed
that a number of Congressmen were attracted to this fascist and Nazi
mode of thought and practice. Based on a reading of his letters, histo-
rians say that ‘such was Nehru’s sense of danger and urgency that it is
difficult to locate a single fortnightly letter to the chief ministers in
which he did not highlight the issue and urge continuous vigilance in
the first two and a half years of his prime minister ship’ (p. 27).92 His
anxiety made him convert the first general election campaign into a
crusade against communalism, travelling 40,000 km, addressing about
a tenth of India’s population. Eventually the far right group including
the Hindu Mahasabha, Jana Sangh, and Ram Rajya Parishad (RRP)
won 10 out of 489 seats and polled less than 6 per cent of the vote.
But it took a massive effort of leadership, force and state apparatus.93
Electoral illusions aside, the might and appeal of the far right was no
mean thing in India at that point or afterwards.
According to scholars like Noorani, the main ideologue of
Hindutva, Savarkar escaped conviction in the Gandhi assassination
case only very narrowly. The law requires that the evidence of an
 We Our Nationhood Defned 109

accomplice to the crime must be corroborated in all material respects

by independent evidence. Savarkar was acquitted only because the
approver Digamber Badge was not deemed an independent witness.
Savarkar’s role did not have independent corroboration. The Judge
Atmacharan accepted Badge as a truthful witness.‘He gave his version
of facts in a direct and straight forward manner. He did not evade cross
examination or attempt to evade or fence with any question’
(p. 4).94 Badge’s version was that on 17 January, he went with assassin
Nathuram Godse, and accomplice Narayan Apte to Savarkar’s home
and he heard Savarkar, while bidding them farewell, say, Yashasvi houn
ya (be successful and come back). On the way back, Apte told Badge
that Savarkar had predicted that Gandhiji’s hundred years were over
- there was no doubt that work would be successfully finished.
Godse had hailed Savarkar in the court as ‘most faithful advocate
of the Hindu cause’. The two had known each other since 1929.
Therefore, Savarkar came under a heavy cloud of suspicion. The day
after the assassination his house was searched and kept under surveil-
lance. He was arrested on 5 February 1948 and on 11 March served
with a warrant of arrest the charge being participation in a conspiracy
to kill Gandhi.95 And this was not the first time that Savarkar was
accused of masterminding an assassination or goading a young man to
do it. Savarkar denied any relationship with the conspiracy to assassi-
nate Gandhi. Both Godse and Apte were hanged, the rest transported
for life, Savarkar was acquitted of the charge of conspiracy to murder;
after his release he moved closer to the RSS. When the RRS chief
Golwalkar was released in July 1950 he sent him a wire of congratu-
lations. In turn, many years later in 1963, Golwalkar acknowledged his
debt to Savarkar’s Hindutva, written forty years earlier.
The Kapur Commission (1970) inquired into the trial and the
conspiracy to assassinate Gandhi. The report reveals that all the accused
were Mahasabha members loyal to Savarkar.96 All except one were of
the same region, caste and were closely associated, that is Maharashtrian
Brahmins. Bombay, Pune, Gwalior and Hindu Mahasabha and Hindu
Mahasabha Bhavan, Savarkar Sadan and Bombay Dyeing House are
the locations and place names that crop up in the conspiracy. It is clear
that money was not a problem for Savarkar and he lived in relative
luxury, he was allegedly funded by some noted industrialist in Bombay
110 Tipping Point

by the name of Gulabchand Hirachand, and that the proprietor of

Bombay Dyeing, Charandas Meghji was another possible source of
funds for the Mahasabha and the conspiracy. Some holy man (Sanatani)
called Dixit Maharaj was associated, and he used to purchase weapons
from one of the accused during communal riots.
One or two years after Savarkar’s death his personal bodyguard
spoke up. Later he also spoke before the Kapur Commission and gave
evidence to support the strong connections between all the accused
and Savarkar. He had not testified in court, if he had, Savarkar would
have been convicted (p. 132).97
The Kapur Commission was set up 17 years (22 March 1965)
after the assissination following an episode which was the early release
of Gopal Godse (brother of the assassin and one of the accused) from
prison. The release was arranged by the then Congress home minister.
A meeting to felicitate Gopal Godse was held in Pune on 11 November
1964. Speaking on the occasion, G.V. Ketkar, a former editor of Kesari
spoke, saying that Nathuram Godse used to discuss the pros and cons
of his plans to assassinate Gandhi with him. This was reported in the
media and it led to an outrage in the Parliament. A suspicion grew and
a realization that the truth behind the assassination had not come out
of the trial. Justice Kapur’s finding are broadly destructive of any other
theory except that the conspiracy to kill Gandhi was hatched and
executed by Savarkar and his group and that, membership of the
Mahasabha and RSS was overlapping. There were more revelations in
a biography of Savarkar that came out after his death. In an interview
to Frontline in 1994 Nathuram’s brother Gopal Godse said that all four
brothers were in the RSS, they grew up in the RSS rather than at
home. Nathuram was an intellectual worker in the RSS, but, in his
court testimony he had claimed that he wasn’t associated with the RSS
to protect the organization and its chief.98
Among other things, a re-reading of the Kapur Commission Report
today is a reminder of the scale of tragedy unleashed in 1947 with
immense law, order, and psychological ramification in the days that
followed. It is also a reminder of the penetration of Hindu Mahasabha
and RSS, their role in fanning communal insecurity in an unsettled
society, besides fanning antagonism, in fact, hatred for Gandhi’s cause.
There were attacks on Gandhi allegedly in 1934 in Poona, in 1944 in
 We Our Nationhood Defned 111

Panchgani and Wardha and an attempted derailment of the Gandhi

special train in the Pune-Kalyan section. All these are located in
Maharashtra and the members of the same Hindu Right groups were
involved. The conspiracy was hatched in Poona and in Bombay in 1947
in which some Maharashtrians with close connection to the Hindu
Mahasabha and one 20-year-old Punjabi called Madanlal were involved.
Perhaps the law and order machinery were compromised in difficult
times as well, for little else can explain the laxity with which the con-
fessions of a co-conspirator Madanlal were treated. He was arrested
after the bombing incident on 20 January 1948 and confessed. The
lack of critical coordination between Delhi, Bombay and Pune police
centres are noticeable. How much of that was the result of a generally
unsettled administration and how much was out of sympathy for the
far right will never be clear. The report mentions the role of the princely
states in supporting and funding the far right in Alwar, Gwalior. All
of it culminated in the brazenness of the final assassination, ten days
later in an open prayer ground, in the national capital. It happened
despite heightened security arrangements.
The inquiry centre’s on the misgiving that there was possible prior
information about the conspiracy and dereliction of duty if not outright
sympathy for Godse’s cause. This was not just among sections of the
population in Maharashtra but perhaps even in the bureaucracy and
police. The examination of witnesses took 162 days and for the con-
venience of those cross examined, the Commission sat in Bombay, New
Delhi, Dharwar, Poona, Nagpur, Baroda and Chandigarh. One of the
people examined was Jayaprakash Narayan (more about him in Chapter
3) for he had made public statements soon after the assassination in
1948 that Congress ministers patronised the RSS and officials within
the administration sabotaged attempts to unearth the conspiracy. These
were reported in by the Times of India (TOI) on 12 February 1948
and referred to by the Kapur Commission.99

Conclusion
The nation was defined, born with two simultaneous afflictions, first
and foremost of colonial domination within a steel frame of all India
administration, second a rather premature opportunity for competitive
112 Tipping Point

electoral politics midst circumstances of social regression into religious

revivalism.
Both Gandhi from South Africa and Savarkar from the prison in
Andamans, returned to India around the same time but with diamet-
rically different ideas and appeal. In the decades before Independence,
both visions struggled for ascendency. With Gandhi’s assassination one
vision was physically liquidated. Were there many hundreds of thou-
sands of torchbearers of his vision in his party who went on to inspire
many more? What happened to the even more radical political forces?
In 2020 and looking back, one knows whatever forces lay behind
his assassination, were never rooted out. They grew, spread, overtook,
and triumphed by the end of the century. Why? An attempt has been
made to pursue some of the answers in events and conjunction of forces
that helped them, at least those that can be identified more definitely.
This will be taken up in the next chapter.

NOTES
1. E.J. Hobsbawm (1990), Nations and Nationalism Since 1780, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
2. Bauer Otto (1996), ‘“The Nation” in Mapping the Nation’, in G.
Balakrishnan (ed.), Verso in Association with New Left Review, London:
Verso.
3. M.K. Gandhi (1997), Hind Swaraj and Other Writings, ed. A.J. Parel,
Cambridge University Press, published in South Asia by Foundation
Books, New Delhi, pp. 48-9.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. E.M.S. Namboodiripad (2010), The Mahatama and the Ism, New Delhi:
Left Word Books.
7. S.H. Rudolph and L.I. Rudolph (1987), Gandhi: The Traditional Roots
of Charisma, Hyderabad: Orient Longman.
8. E.M.S. Namboodiripad (2010), The Mahatama and the Ism, op. cit.
9. J. Nehru (2010), The Discovery of India, Gurgaon: Penguin Books.
10. Rabindranath Tagore (1992), Nationalism, Kolkata: Rupa & Co.
11. Ibid.
12. S. Bhattacharya (1997), The Mahatma and the Poet, New Delhi: National
Book Trust.
 We Our Nationhood Defned 113

13. Bhagwan Das (2010), Thus Spoke Ambedkar, vol. 1: A Stake in the Nation,
New Delhi: Navayana.
14. B.R. Ambedkar (2016), Riddles in Hinduism, New Delhi: Navayana.
15. B.R. Ambedkar (1936), Annihilation of Caste, New Delhi: Navayana.
16. M. Bhagavan (2008), ‘Princely States and the Hindu Imaginary’, The
Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 67, no. 3, pp. 881-915.
17. Sumit Sarkar (1983), Modern India 1885-1947, New Delhi: MacMillan
India Limited.
18. D. Kooiman (1995),‘Communalism and Indian Princely States’, Economic
and Political Weekly, 26 August 1995, pp. 2123-33.
19. J. Gallagher (1973),‘Congress in Decline: Bengal, 1930 to 1939’, Modern
Asian Studies, vol. 7, issue 3, May 1973, pp. 589-645, https://www.
cambridge.org/core/journals/modern-asian-studies/article/con-
gress-in-decline-bengal-1930-to-1939/3ED0336C84046763FE4F-
55CBFDA4AA74. Accessed on 4 April 2022.
20. S. Sarkar (2014), Modern India, Noida: Pearson.
21. M. Hasan (1991), Nationalism and Communal Politics in India, New
Delhi: Manohar.
22. Ibid.
23. J. Nehru (2010), The Discovery of India, Gurgaon: Penguin Random
House India Pvt. Ltd.
24. C. Jaffrelot (2007), Hindu Nationalism, New Jersey: Princeton University
Press.
25. Ibid.
26. R. Thapar (1991), ‘Communalism and the Historical Legacy: Some
Facets’, in K.N. Panikkar (ed.), Communalism in India, New Delhi:
Manohar.
27. K. Marx and Engels (2008), On Religion, New York: Dover Publications
Inc.
28. R.S. Sharma (1980), Sudras in Ancient India, New Delhi: Motilal
Banarsidass.
29. W. Doniger (2015), The Hindus, New Delhi: Speaking Tiger.
30. Karen Pechilis Prentiss (2014), The Embodiment of Bhakti, NY and
Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 10-16.
31. Sheldon Pollock (2009), The Language of the Gods in the World of Men,
Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California,
pp. 423-31.
32. M. Hasan (1991), Nationalism and Communal Politics in India, New
Delhi: Manohar.
114 Tipping Point

33. A. Dillon (2019),‘Free Pass For Mobs’, 19 February 2019, The Guardian,
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/19/a-free-pass-for-
mobs-to-kill-india-urged-to-stem-cow-vigilante-violence
https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/02/18/india-vigilante-cow-
protection-groups-attack-minorities#. Accessed on 4 April 2022.
34. Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, ‘Speech on Khilafat’, 26 January
1921, vol. 19, p. 283, Wardha: Gandhi Sevagram Ashram.
35. M. Hasan (1991), Nationalism and Communal Politics in India, op. cit.
36. K. Marx and Engels (2008), On Religion, New York: Dover Publications.
37. B. Chatterjee (1994), Bankimchandra Chatterjee: Essays in Perspective,
New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi.
38. Complete Writings of Shree Aurobindo (CWSA, vol. 8, p. 62) https://
incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-synthesis-of-the-systems#p. Accessed
on 4 April 2022.
39. G. Pandey (1990), The Construction of Communalism in Colonial North
India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
40. Ibid.
41. Ibid.
42. Sumit Sarkar (1983), Modern India 1885-1947, New Delhi: MacMillan
India.
43. M.M. Malaviya (1918), A Criticism of Montagu-Chelmsford Proposals of
Indian Constitutional Reform, Allahabad: Leaders Press.
44. J. Nehru (2010),The Discovery of India, Gurgaon: Penguin Random
House India.
45. Ibid.
46. R. Gordon (1975), ‘The Hindu Mahasabha and the Indian National
Congress, 1915-1926’, Modern Asian Studies, vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 145-
2013.
47. Ibid., pp. 145-2013.
48. L. McKean (1996), Divine Enterprise, Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
49. Ibid.
50. A.G. Noorani (2019), The RSS: A Menace to India, New Delhi: Left
Word Books.
51. J. Nehru (2010),The Discovery of India, op. cit.
52. P. Kanungo (2002), RSS’s Tryst with Politics, New Delhi: Manohar.
53. Ibid.
54. M. Bhagavan (2008), ‘Princely States and the Hindu Imaginary:
Exploring the Cartography of Hindu Nationalism in Colonial
India’, The Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 67, no. 3 (August 2008),
pp. 881-915.
 We Our Nationhood Defned 115

55. P. Kanungo (2002), RSS’s Tryst with Politics, New Delhi: Manohar.
56. Government of India (1932), Home Department, Political File no.
18/10, 1932, National Archives of India, New Delhi.
57. P. Kulkarni (2019), ‘History Shows Just How Patriotic RSS Really is’,
The Wire, 7 October 2019, https://thewire.in/wp-content/
uploads/2015/11/Rss-2.jpg. Accessed on 4 April 2022.
58. Speeches and Writings of Jawaharlal Nehru 2, vol. 4, pp. 42-3.
59. W.K. Anderson, S.D. Damle (1987), The Brotherhood in Saffron, New
Delhi: Vistaar Publications.
60. C. Jaffrelot (2007), Hindu Nationalism, New Jersey: Princeton University
Press.
61. A.G. Noorani (2002), Savarkar and Hindutva, New Delhi: Left Word.
62. Savarkar (1949), Presidential address, All India Hindu Mahasabha
session, Ahmedabad, 1937, in V.D. Savarkar, Hindu Rashtra Darshan,
Bombay.
63. A.G. Noorani (2002), The RSS, A Menace to India, New Delhi: Left
Word Books.
64. G. Pandey (1993),‘Which of us are Hindus?’, in G. Pandey (ed.), Hindus
and Others: The Question of Identity in India Today, New Delhi: Viking.
65. C. Jaffrelot (2007), Hindu Nationalism, New Jersey: Princeton University
Press.
66. Ibid.
67. Ibid.
68. Ibid.
69. Kanungo, W.K. Anderson and S.D. Damle (1987), The Brotherhood in
Saffron, op. cit.
70. M. Bhagvan, ‘Princely States and the Hindu Imaginary’, The Journal of
Asian Studies, op. cit.
71. Ibid.
72. S. Sarkar (2010), Modern India 1885-1947, New Delhi: MacMillan
India.
73. A.G. Noorani (2019), The RSS: A Menace to India, op. cit..
74. M. Thomson (2013), Hyderabad 1948: India’s Hidden Massacre, 24
September 2013, https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24159594
75. M. Bhagvan (2008), ‘Princely States and the Hindu Imaginary’, The
Journal of Asian Studies, op. cit.
76. S. Sarkar (2010), Modern India 1885-1947, op. cit.
77. Constituent Assembly Debates, vol. 4, pp. 737-62. https://www.consti-
tutionofindia.net/constitution_assembly_debates.
78. G.D. Overstreet and M. Windmiller (1959), Communism in India,
Berkeley: University of California Press, p. 357.
116 Tipping Point

79. P. Bidwai (2015), The Phoenix Moment, Noida: Harper Collins.

80. Constituent Assembly Debate, vol. 11, pp. 972-81, proceedings of the
Constituent Assembly of India in 11 volumes. https://www.constitu-
tionofindia.net/constitution_assembly_debates
81. S. Sarkar (2010), Modern India 1885-1947, op. cit.
82. C.F. Andrews (2017), India and the Simon Report, Routledge Revival
Oxon and NY.
83. S. Sarkar (2010), Modern India 1885-1947, op. cit.
84. Roy Jackson (2010), Mawlana Mawdudi and Political Islam: Authority
and the Islamic State, London: Routledge.
85. Purshottamdas Thakurdas, ed. (1945), A Brief Memorandum Outlining
a Plan of Economic Development for India (2 vols), London: Penguin.
86. V. Chibber (2003), Locked in Place: State Building and Late Industrialization
in India, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
87. S. Sarkar (2010), Modern India 1885-1947, op. cit.
88. Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: The Last Phase, vol. II, p. 750.
89. Speeches and Writings of Jawaharlal Nehru, Coimbatore, public speech
1948, second series, vol. 6, p. 25.
90. P. Kanungo (2002), RRS’s Tryst with Politics, op. cit.
91. Government of India (1985), J.L. Nehru; Letters to Chief Ministers, 5
February 1948 vol. 1, p. 57, distributed by Oxford University Press, New
Delhi.
92. M. Mukherjee (2011), Communal Threat and Secular Resistance,
Presidential Address 11-13 February 2011.
93. Ibid.
94. A.G. Noorani (2002), Savarkar and Hindutva, New Delhi: Left Word.
95. Ibid.
96. Government of India (1970), Report of Commission of Inquiry into
Conspiracy to Murder Mahatama Gandhi, New Delhi.
97. A.G. Noorani (2002), Savarkar and Hindutva, op. cit.
98. A. Rajagopal (1994),‘Interview with Gopal Godse’, Frontline, 28 January
1994.
99. Ministry of Home Affairs (1970), Report of Commission of Inquiry in
to Conspiracy to Murder Mahatma Gandhi 1965-9, Also known as the
J.L. Kapur Commission Report, http://www.sacw.net/article2611.html.
 CHAPTER 2

Left Turn at the Top 1969-76

In India we have too long sought individual salvation. Perhaps that is

why as a country we came to grief. We now realize that there cannot
be salvation for the individual without social salvation.
–Indira Gandhi
Whenever the ruling classes see that the working class is using this
Bourgeois democratic system to further its class interest in order to
weaken and defeat the ruling class, they throw away their democratic
masks and show their true faces. We harbor no illusions that we can in
this way carry out a basic social revolution.
–E.M.S. Namboodiripad

Introduction
The decade, 1915-25, was critical for establishing the far right in Indian
politics. Chapter 1 discussed how the opening year brought the
inception of the Hindu Mahasabha with a north Indian presence. The
Mahasabha was clearly looking at the past for inspiration and espoused
an ultra-conservative, socio-economic agenda. In the closing year, RSS
was set up in central-western India with pan-Indian ambitions of a
similar inspiration. They were fellow travellers sharing resources during
the period colonial rulers were attempting some devolution of power,
primarily to counter the surge of nationalism. Participation in provincial
elections created both context and new opportunities for a coming
together of far right interests.
Some strategic decisions of the Congress like linking Khilafat (a
rather reactionary pan-Islamic movement against dissolution of the
Ottoman Empire) to the non-cooperation movement in 1920 gave the
Hindu right a fastener to latch their anti-Islamic rhetoric on to, just
118 Tipping Point

as it would 80 years later in the post 9 November 2001 scenario. When

once again a political foray by expansionist, imperialist powers into
West Asia acquired the language of religious war, warfare spanned
decades, attacks on one country after country, it was called a ‘clash of
civilization’. The far right in India was quick to use this opportunity to
circulate Islamophobia as it had 80 years ago. More about that later.
Chronologically, in India, the next major development, came in
the decade 1967-7, developments which proffered a momentous
opportunity for enlarging the political ambitions of the far right.
As a reminder, in the ‘Preface; Note to the Reader’, organized
political far right is defined and distinguished from the right. It rep-
resents collectives who have faith and interests in continuity of, religious
tradition, prevalent social hierarchy, cultural privileges of various sorts,
permanence of existing or possibly more, unequal property distribution.
Surplus extraction follows from such privileges. The far right will,
therefore, intensify inequality and preserve it with militia and force if
needed. Indian political consciousness was in arrested development to
begin with, given the historical absence of people’s participation in
governance and peoples movements, except at the micro level in some
regions. Authoritarian hierarchies of kings, their bureaucrats, generals,
upper-castes and propertied classes had always dominated those below
them unconditionally and justice to common man was bound to their
goodwill if any. Laws that governed property and civil affairs were tied
up with custom and tradition or religion entirely, till colonial times.
Leadership in all mainstream political parties, including the Congress,
eventually came from a dominant class with a shared history. Right
leaning predispositions were inevitable and pervasive. In Congress
however the right was differently nuanced, given the quality of its top
western educated leadership. There were among them, a few exposed
to ideas and functioning modes of powerful, modern, western nations
like Britain and America. To add, they established an engagement with
and concern for the economic effects of colonial rule in their country’s
economy. As the agenda of unity (essential for Independence) was
articulated it came to include welfare of the masses who gradually
participated in the national movement in huge numbers. After
Independence, the Congress strove to place its agenda and action within
the framework of liberal, secular democracy. Under Nehru, Shastri
 Left Turn at the Top 1969-76 119

and Indira Gandhi’s leadership, this framework got interwoven with

contemporary ideas of socialism, self-reliance, industrialization,
non-alignment, secularism but this was by no means the majority
position within the Congress as Chapter 1 has shown. As long as Nehru
lived, opposition was marginal though not absent by any means. His
tenure was preoccupied with building new institutions, defining
political boundaries between states, and building national unity for the
future.
The far right was less focused on the details of the future than on
the past. The Hindu formations of the far right (both Hindu
Mahasabha and RSS) spoke a lot about historical wrongs inflicted by
Muslim rulers for a thousand years. The loss of privilege, tradition and
hierarchy of the traditional elite was projected as the loss of the Hindu
masses. The last chapter described how RSS was founded in 1925 in
Nagpur, cultivating a legend around the regional kingdom of Shivaji;
then as their ambitions and capabilities grew, they embraced Ram a
mythological God king who had a subcontinental footprint (Shivaji
was a regional hero of the western-central parts). The far right was
electorally less successful in the early years but systematically infiltrated
other spaces – cultural, social, bureaucracy and political organizations
including the Congress. The modern tools, printing press, telegraph,
railways, telephones, and later TV, etc., were of great use to them as
they were to all the other political players at that point. Shared class
interests of many of the elite helped to create networks for the RSS
across India just as new technology helped build stronger organizations
to augment their efforts.
When organizational rules prevented members of the Congress
from dual membership of other organizations like the Muslim League
or RSS, the rule was followed in letter. Obviously, it could not prescribe
its members from religious obligations, nor from love of inherited
property, traditional privileges, and power or from wanting to enhance
these. It could not prevent them from being sympathetic to the agenda
of the RSS or to support it circuitously. Repeatedly and conveniently
the excuse would be that the activities of Muslims inspired by the
Muslim League need to be countered and this went on till the Partition
of the subcontinent and found new excuses for old animosities after
Partition. It worked effectively among other things in establishing a
120 Tipping Point

Hindu majoritarian consciousness, hardening communal positions

(Hindu against Muslim) within and outside the Congress, the road
leading to the Partition was paved with their efforts as much as it was
by the Muslim League if not more, since they represented the majority
and had the obligation of taking minorities along. By 1947, they had
become a potent player in India, as saviours of Hindus in the blood
bath of the Partition. In the socio-cultural field it worked through
temples, schools and social work of relief and rehabilitation in the
post-Partition chaos. They continued such useful socio-cultural
activities like fish in water long after Independence. For the political
project they formed a front called Jana Sangh. The Jana Sangh remained
insignificant in the electoral system in the 1950s only because of the
stigma attached to the RSS after Gandhi’s assassination. But public
memory is famously short.
During 1967-77, it became clear that the ambitions of the far right
had lifted. Change of leadership at the top of RSS was one reason. A
clear, long run plan to participate in the democratic process, to acquire
political clout in the government to forge a Hindu state had become
operational. Functioning out of several educational, cultural and reli-
gious fronts they had been around now for over forty years. They had
become creators and curators of ‘modern’ India’s memory of its ancient
civilization and the wrongs it had suffered, simultaneously becoming
a strident souvenir of the fragmentary, unfinished job of modernizing
India.
In the last chapter it was seen how the project of social reform was
resisted throughout the national movement, by interested groups within
the Congress as well. After Independence it appeared as though even
Nehru’s position on secularism and socialism was a minority one.
As the first Prime Minister, Nehru’s grip on the Parliament was
more a result of his stature, reputation, liberal style of discussion, direct
rapport with the people and relationship with Gandhi rather than his
ability to persuade many other Congress leaders to share and commit
to modern, progressive, socialist vision for India. His stature insured
his dominance but could not produce a wider persuasion. Indeed, the
decade, which followed Nehru’s passing away, is in many ways, a tes-
timony to his unseen loneliness.
After him, from without and within the Congress, people joined
 Left Turn at the Top 1969-76 121

forces against what was broadly to be referred to as the Nehruvian idea

of India. The services provided by the far right in joining those forces
were considerable. As fault lines appeared within the Congress, it
became an opportune time for the well poised RSS to grasp at the
possibilities.

Nehru to Indira Gandhi: And Why a Sharper

Left Turn Became Necessary for Her
Soon after Nehru’s passing away, some weakness of the state led, heavy
industry model of industrial development appeared. Food, employment
and wage goods scarcity were manifest, something, early critics of the
heavy industry model had cautioned against. In a largely poor country
food inflation is deeply unpopular. His opponents got their first
foothold in pervasive food shortages.
What follows here is a rendering of events and developments till
Indira Gandhi became the PM; they are drawn mainly from Mrs
Gandhi’s recollection in 1980.1 This has been chosen because most
other accounts, from the left and liberal right, of this period largely
ignore what she had to say about her own position and circumstances.
She was widely discredited for the Emergency rule she proclaimed,
and forty-five years later, it is still fashionable to disparage her. Hardly
any need has been felt to reexamine what happened and why she might
have done what she did in the larger context of electoral politics. This
was her view on the nature of the Congress Party and her
compulsions.
‘This big conflict has always existed since the Congress is a party
of many opinions. Its members vote for various resolutions because
they are popular. But many MPs don’t have faith in them. The so-called
bosses of the party were the ones more to the right; they took most of
their ideas from the west. That is why the Nagpur resolution could
not be implemented, or any other land reform. We kept on passing
resolutions, but it seemed impossible to implement them’ (p. 80).
In Mrs Gandhi’s telling of the past, the Nagpur session Congress
in 1959 was an important pivot. It had adopted the resolution on
cooperative farming which prescribed joint cooperative farming as the
future model for Indian agriculture. She remembered the difficulty in
122 Tipping Point

passing that resolution. Somehow the impression was created and

spread that implementation meant land would be taken away from the
peasants. Disinformation was launched to the effect that it was not
cooperative farming but soviet style collective farming. This created
such an adverse reaction in the Parliament and outside, that it became
impossible to proceed with it. That mere cooperative farming was
intolerable as an agenda is a further indication of the class composition
and sway of landed classes in the parliamentary system.
She recalled, she was elected President of the INC session in the
same year, and in her Independence Day message on 15 August 1959
she said; in mountaineering, the higher one climbs the more hazardous
the journey, the narrower and steeper the trail.‘Unfortunately, then the
Congress Party seemed to refuse to climb the slope with me. People
generally like to take the easier road. . . . And after all, it is faith –
whatever the kind – which drives a person on. Either a religious creed
or faith in an ideology. It can be to the right or to the left. But most
people prefer the middle of the road. They lack that kind of drive. . . .
So, it is difficult to get people moving’ (p. 79).2
The period after the Indo-Chinese war was marked in her memory
by the way senior Congress leaders, even those Nehru thought were
close to him like Shastri and Krishnamachari, hounded the left leaning
V.K. Krishna Menon, out of the cabinet. She said that the effect it had
on Nehru’s health and control over the party, was serious. Menon was
a nationalist and an architect of the non-aligned movement, who was
considered close to Nehru.3 It was a big blow to Nehru and at that
point the Congress moved to the right perceptibly, just about none of
the programmes were implemented. ‘Of course, the Syndicate had
always existed, but it had never been so visible or so compact. It really
emerged at that time’ (p. 86).4 It is perhaps worth noting that in the
1962 general elections Jayaprakash Narayan ( JP) campaigned for his
friend Kriplani, against V.K. Krishna Menon in an exceedingly publi-
cized election where Nehru campaigned vigorously for his candidature
saying that a defeat for Menon would signal a defeat for his own policies,
while JP said that the future of democracy and our spiritual values
were at stake.
There’s reason to pay attention to her recollections. More than one
historian who has dealt with the Indo-China war has drawn attention
 Left Turn at the Top 1969-76 123

to maneuvers of right political parties.5 Leading up to the war, the

opposition (excluding the left) were vexed about Chinese intentions
about the border. Border clashes in August 1959 had led to Jan Sangh,
Members of Parliament (led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee) insist that gov-
ernment place before the Parliament its correspondence with China.
The appearance of these correspondences (White Paper) coincided
with a spat between the Defence Minister V.K. Krishna Menon and
his Chief of Army Gen K.S. Thimayya. The differences between the
two seem to have stemmed from the General’s concerns about pre-
paredness for possible imminent engagement with China in terms of
deployment along the north-east, weaponry and promotion of a General
considered close to Nehru superseding many others. Menon apparently
had no wish to buy weapons from North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO) powers. Eventually the General offered to resign. The media
fallout of the resignation amid tensions between India and China are
revealing. While some to the Left thought that the General had
unwittingly become a tool of the American lobby others thought
Krishna Menon should go, particularly media that was known to be
pro American.6 The White Paper itself generated heat inside and
outside the Parliament about China’s cartographic war on India, about
Krishna Menon’s loyalty to India in the face of a communist opponent.
Heat waves of patriotism and antagonism spilled over into attacks on
communist parties in India, a point that E.M.S. Namboodiripad also
mentioned and which will be discussed in the next chapter. Socialists,
senior Congress leaders including the then Home Minister G.B. Pant
and the media were all focused against Krishna Menon and ignored
the nuances of China’s claims and reasons for not recognizing bound-
aries drawn by the erstwhile colonial rulers. China in the post 1949
period was redefining everything about itself including its pre-colonial
boundaries. They annexed Tibet in the same context. This internal
obfuscation, diversion into personal attacks and anti-communist sus-
picions perhaps weakened India’s perception of the Chinese position
in the post-revolution phase. One wonders if a more intelligent dialogue
could have been conducted in a calmer atmosphere. On the one hand
a series of White Papers in the Parliament had opened the affair to
public eye and interested parties had raised the pitch of anti-China
rhetoric in an emotionally roused Parliament and press. Calls to guard
124 Tipping Point

the nation’s honour and reject a deal with China came loudest from
the Jan Sangh. In 1960, in fact just a few months before Chou En-Lai
was to visit Delhi for discussions and a possible settlement. According
to historians of modern India, leaders of the non-communist opposition
sent a note to Nehru reminding him of the popular feelings and urging
him not to surrender any territory. The signatories included A.B.
Vajpayee, J.B. Kriplani, M.R. Masani and N.G. Goray, names that will
reappear in the anti-Indira movement of the 1970s. The Jan Sangh
organized a protest outside Nehru’s residence and then days before the
visit, a mammoth public meeting warning him that if he struck a deal
with China, his only allies would be communists. To prevent the war
of 1962 was necessary but by then Nehru was left alone against the
rising tide of resentment against China. After India’s defeat in the war
there was a further weakening of his position.
In 1964, the Congress met at Bhubaneswar and an important
resolution was passed on democracy and socialism very much on the
lines of some of the previous Congress resolutions. There were two
important concepts which could yield many possible interpretations
and applications. Indira Gandhi said, ‘Democracy’ was one and it was
important to accommodate India’s size, so that diversity and people’s
voice was heard, so that they could participate in the choice of devel-
opmental goals, and, ‘socialism’ was ‘imperative in a country with so
much poverty’. These were to be the guiding lights, not just for the
human reason of not allowing people to suffer but for democracy itself
to work, socialism is necessary. Democracy implies equality and,
therefore, it implies socialism. Socialism in India existed in a mixed
economy with importance to the public sector. Such resolutions were
often passed within the Congress, but it apparently did not translate
into a general in-principle appreciation let alone acceptance as creed.7
What did this ideological incoherence amount to? How did it
impact the lowest ends of society? It would be difficult to find a more
lifelike account or interviews with the poorest across Indian comparable
to the ones in the reports filed by two Swedish journalists who visited
India in 1966 and returned in 1968-9 to commence sociological
research. The images of mass deprivation, hunger and stagnation are
unambiguous.8
 Left Turn at the Top 1969-76 125

When an American journalist had asked her who would succeed

Nehru sometime before his passing away, she predicted Shastri would,
but was informed by an American journalist (Welles Hangen) that
S.K. Patil was the favourite. Patil was known to be a right winger. In
the period immediately after Nehru, there were actually two contenders
for the Prime Minister’s position, Morarji Desai and Lal Bhadur Shastri.
They were different temperamentally, but both perhaps lacked the
charisma and perhaps even conviction required to keep up the momen-
tum of secularism or socialism, even the ‘socialism from above, variety’
that was espoused by the Congress. The former was often described
as arrogant, intolerant and an out-and-out right winger while the latter
was mild, religious and malleable. Shastri did get chosen by the party
eventually but struggled to establish his presence and authority. At
some point then, early in her stint as a Minister in Shastri’s government,
Indira Gandhi noticed the threats to both non-alignment and socialism.
Anyways his tenure was too brief to offer a meaningful analysis.
Shastri’s time in power was marked by unstable economic circum-
stances. Droughts that followed in quick succession 1965-6 caused
food shortages and hoarding, black marketing characteristic of scarcity
in the open market. The balance of payment situation was not strong
enough to enable imports to cover food deficits and tide over the crisis.
This was compounded by war with Pakistan over which US (main
food donor) suspended aid. India’s food economy had come to be
dependent on that aid. This was the period during which economic
circumstance was so stressed that planning was suspended. Meanwhile
in 1963, US and Bretton Woods institutions had already concluded
that India’s economic growth was held back by the wrong policies of
the government.‘The Indian economy was said to be in a quiet crisis’.9
Later the drought set off new and instant crisis (a ship to mouth was
the popular description). Food prices rose, always a sensitive issue in
a poor country. In September 1964, the World Bank sent a mission to
India. It presented its report to the President and recommended
devaluation of the rupee, reduction in import duties and higher priority
to agriculture, in essence, a reversal and correction of Nehru-
Mahalanobis model. The expectation was that growth would be
stimulated by devaluation and future aid was linked to these policy
126 Tipping Point

recommendations. The Prime Minister (Shastri) accepted the recom-

mendations in principle; the Finance Minister, who was opposed to
the idea resigned.
Indira Gandhi reminiscenced,‘It was also said that some countries
were putting pressure on him (Shastri). I think that was not fair. The
bureaucracy has never been much in favour of non-alignment. They
were, and many of them still are, biased in favour of western block.
Shastri was surrounded by such people. . . . At some point I remember
warning against the danger of the Congress party sliding away from
the socialist path. I could see that policies were not being implemented
and, of course, the more conservative groups had come very much to
the fore after my father’s death’ (p. 92).
Historians say that the Congress party was being handled by a
group of old Congressmen who came to be known as the Syndicate.
The group formed in 1963 consisted of K. Kamaraj, the Congress
President and regional chiefs Atulya Ghosh of Bengal, S.K. Patil of
Bombay, N. Sanjeeva Reddy of Andhra Pradesh and S. Nijalingappa.
It was ridden with factionalism, and regionalism. They had managed
to create a consensus around the acceptability of Shastri for the post
of PM after Nehru, partially in the hope that he was acceptable to the
majority and partly because they thought he would not defy their
leadership in the party.10 Shastri did not make any major changes in
the cabinet except inviting Indira Gandhi (daughter of Nehru) to head
Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. He was not a swift decision
maker and some problems that were emerging were allowed to drift
specially the slowing economy and food shortages, problems of distri-
bution from food surplus to food shortage states. The government did
create the State Food Trading Corporation in January 1965 and initi-
ated the Green Revolution but leadership and control were slow to
come and it was only by the end of 1965 during and after the Indo-
Pakistan war that Shastri came into his own. India acted decisively to
deal with an act of invasion by infiltration and aggression, foiled it.
Although USA and Britain cut off arms, food and other supplies to
both countries and China declared India to be the aggressor; USSR
remained sympathetic to India and discouraged China from going to
Pakistan’s aid. Three weeks of war did grievous damage to both India
 Left Turn at the Top 1969-76 127

and Pakistan, diverted resources to military expenditure and defence

budgets began to rise.
Indian government was among the first to criticise the US bombing
of North Vietnam asserting her non-aligned position.
Shastri, gradually set up his own secretariat with his own advisor,
independent of the ministries. The secretariat came to be known as
Prime Minister’s Office (PMO); it started acquiring a great deal of
influence and power in the making and execution of government policy,
a trend that has continued. But he died suddenly during the Tashkent
Indo-Pak agreement sponsored by USSR in 1966.
In the meanwhile, the Congress party, at the state level particularly,
had dimmed the halo acquired during 75 years of leadership of the
freedom movement. Fiercely competitive and expensive electoral politics
had to push it into internal competition and down the road of
venality.
Such was the degree of divergence in the ideology of senior
Congressmen that Indira Gandhi wrote,‘. . . although we had a majority
in 1967, Mr Patil and some others were in favour of a coalition gov-
ernment. When asked how this was possible, they answered: ‘with
Swatantra Party and Jan Sangh’, though both these parties were dia-
metrically opposed to our secularism, our socialism and our foreign
policy’ (p. 96). She was particularly worried about Morarji Desai
becoming the next PM since he was so totally opposed to what the
Congress stood for. In her opinion, the country would change direction
radically and immediately if he were to assume leadership.
She herself could not hold off some of those changes after 1977
and lived just long enough to appreciate the potency of a well-coordi-
nated far right-wing assault, an assault that was anticipated and feared
by more objective witnesses.11

Indira Gandhi Voted PM

On 19 January 1966, nine days after death of Shastri, in a secret ballot,
67 per cent of the Congress MPs voted for Indira Gandhi (355 for and
169 for Morarji Desai), she was selected leader of the Congress par-
liamentary group and went on to became the PM. About the succession
128 Tipping Point

that was settled in favour of Indira Gandhi, Chandra says, ‘The syn-
dicate looked around for a candidate who could defeat Desai but remain
under their shadow . . . Indira Gandhi was Nehru’s daughter, had an
all India appeal and a progressive image, and was not identified with
any state, region, caste or religion. They also thought that India Gandhi,
being inexperienced and a young woman and lacking substantial roots
in the party, would be more pliable and malleable’ (p. 280).12 12 out of
14 state chief ministers supported her having estimated that her name
and connection with Nehru would help win the imminent elections.
Desai had insisted on a contest he felt he would win against a person
he described as a ‘mere chokri’ (mere girl).
Indira Gandhi described her career as an imprisonment of sorts.
The journey was indeed covered in thorns. In the circumstances that
India found itself economically, leadership would have been a daunting
task as it was. But to be in a society where being a woman, a leader
among many older, envious, disdainful, and oftentimes downright
malicious men must have added to her difficulties. And difficulties
rained on her. India in 1966 was facing economic problems on an
unprecedented scale; severe drought resulting in acute food shortages
verging on famine conditions in UP and Bihar. Politically, India was
still a young nation, many unresolved problems became her lot like the
official language controversy, demand for Punjabi Suba (separate lin-
guistic state), militant Nagas seeking independence, aftermath of 1962
Chinese aggression and diplomatic isolation triggered by India’s
non-alignment which the western countries frowned upon. She was
truly imprisoned and sentenced to addressing these almost
simultaneously.
She paid immediate attention to Punjab, the state was formed and
militant Nagas and Mizos were granted greater autonomy. But about
the economy she was unsure, it was in recession, both industrial pro-
duction and exports were in decline on top of severe food shortage.
Even though she was inexperienced, and hesitated in taking decisions,
implementing them, her government succeeded in dealing with distri-
bution of food grains and preventing famine deaths, on a war footing.
But unemployment was another kettle of fish.
A procession of unruly agitations, bandhs organized by different
sections of society followed and counter actions in police lathi charges,
 Left Turn at the Top 1969-76 129

and firing sweeping north India greeted her even as she was being
sworn in as PM. Sensing it as the flash point on the route to power
opposition parties to the left and the right of the spectrum were actively
organizing these protests. Such was their compulsion, some of them
even hoped that administrative break down would create conditions
for them to come to power through non parliamentary means if not
via elections. Witnesses in the administration like Dhar and historians
like Chandra both, say the opposition forces often did not observe even
basic constitutional proprieties. In 1966, the Jan Sangh organized a
fierce country wide agitation for ban on cow slaughter. The government
had stood firm against it both because of its communal nature and also
because it was against the interests and eating habits of low-caste
Hindus and Muslims. In a macabre drama, recounted by Bipin
Chandra, on 7 November 1966, a mob of hundreds of thousands, led
by naked sadhus, carrying swords, spears and trishuls tried to invade
the Parliament House, burnt buses, cars, looted shops, and attacked
government buildings on the way, tried to destabilize the constitutional
government. They surrounded Kamraj’s house with the intention to
assault him. Clashes with the police led to deaths. Mrs Gandhi blamed
the Home Minister, Gulzarilal Nanda, for inept handling. He, the
Home Minister, was apparently a believer in the holiness of sadhus and
sympathetic to the cause – earlier he had been the President of the
same Sadhu Sangh. Such was the confusion and mixture of ideologies
within the Congress that the same gentleman had been the leader of
the Congress Forum for Socialist Action (CFSA) to spread socialist
outlook, formed four years earlier in 1962, under Nehru. Such was the
quality of the people in the Parliament, of political leadership, socialists
and right wingers alike. And it spoke volumes then as it does today.
There they were, in flesh and blood, real representatives of Indian
democracy, revealed in the sunlight after the great oak had fallen. The
raw material from which a liberal democracy was to be shaped being
what it was, a woman less courageous would have bolted. Instead Indira
Gandhi told the Parliament,‘This is not an attack on the Government.
It is an attack on our way of life, our values and the traditions we
cherish’ (p. 284).13 The Home Minister was asked to resign.
The level of discourse and conduct inside the Parliament also
suffered. Members of the opposition emboldened by the turmoil in
130 Tipping Point

the country, taking advantage of the young woman PM, showed dis-
regard for parliamentary decorum. In other words, perhaps they became
who they truly were and did not have to pretend or act under pressure
of Nehru’s presence. She was often subjected to heckling and harass-
ment, vicious, vulgar personal attacks, sexist remarks and unfounded
allegations. Rammanohar Lohia (stalwart of the Indian socialists) often
took the lead, never missing a chance to ridicule her. She mentioned
all this in her own account. Without naming them she said that some
people would deliberately almost insult her, incessantly needle her
about small points, making the meeting of the executive of the parlia-
mentary party quite unpleasant and pushing the party towards a crisis.14
One can only imagine the atmosphere in which she had to function.
It is all too common a scenario faced by women in India today. In a
leadership position where her main claim to the position was her
ancestry, it would perhaps be worse. So, despite having won the position
handsomely within the party, opponents within the Congress were
constantly trying to outmaneuvre her. She had to withstand this
within the party while dealing with the opposition outside the Con-
gress, a situation likely to make any young leader suspicious and
fretful.
In March 1966, Mrs Gandhi visited USA, India needed wheat,
financial aid and capital investment and she tried to build bridges with
the US. President Johnson promised to send food and aid in dollars
but later controlled its release to pressurize and humiliate. Pressure
was exerted to force India to change farm policy and position on
Vietnam. Feeling humiliated and coerced she resolved to find a way
out of dependence on America and eventually turned away from
America to align herself with USSR and within the non-aligned
movement against neo colonialism. In the way she understood it, she
was trying to preserve India’s political autonomy and make independent
decisions.
Moreover, USA, World Bank and International Monetary Fund
(IMF) insisted on the devaluation of the rupee for continuing various
types of assistance to India. Indira Gandhi devalued the rupee by 35.5
per cent. She had accepted devaluation on the advice of her Secretary
L.K. Jha and Ashok Mehta the Deputy Chairperson of the Planning
Commission. However, the gains from devaluation did not materialize,
 Left Turn at the Top 1969-76 131

in fact, the results were worse than anticipated. For this she came under
strident criticism from the left and her own party. Soon, all parties
opposed the devaluation when it failed to stimulate exports or invite
foreign investments or flow of foreign aid. She soon realized the heavy
price of inexperience in matters of economic policy (14 years later
Indira Gandhi went on to admit that it was a mistake and had harmed
India greatly). She also learned that she needed advisers she could trust.
Congress went to general elections of 1967, as a divided, faction
ridden party, its reputation blemished by political wheeler-dealers and
corrupt bosses. It did badly in the northern states and its majority
was reduced in the Lok Sabha, It won only 283 of 520 seats. Table 2.1
below gives it fortunes since the first elections in 1952.
Table 2.1: Seats

Year Seats Won Change Vote Share Change

1952 364 base year 44.99 base
1957 371 7 47.78 2.79
1962 361 -10 44.72 -3.06
1967 283 -78 40.7 -4.02
Source: Compiled by the author.

It ruled with a leaner majority. Senior Congressmen, among others,

the veteran K. Kamaraj were defeated, leading to much dejection.
In subsequent state elections Congress was a minority in eight
states, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Kerala, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh,
Rajasthan, Orissa, and Punjab, opposition parties gained, the left in
West Bengal. It was the majority party in Kerala, Samyukta Socialist
Party (SSP) in Uttar Pradesh, Orissa and Bihar, BJS in Uttar Pradesh,
Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Bihar, Swatantra Party in Orissa,
Rajasthan, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Haryana and Andhra Pradesh, Akali
Dal in Punjab. A new phenomenon of coalition governments and wild
defections manifested, even from majority holding congress in states
like Haryana. Unstable coalitions of all hues were formed in opposition
ruled states. Tamil Nadu was an exception to this mode – stable
coalition ruled there. In popular parlance the term coined was ‘aaya
ram, gaya ram’ (mister come, mister go) with reference to Haryana.
Table 2.2 shows how opposition was fragmented, resulting in recurrent
132 Tipping Point

Table 2.2 State Assembly Elections 1967, Congress a Minority

State Seats INC Non Socialist Right Left Regional Indecent-

INC dent
Bihar 318 128 190 86 29 28 14 33
Kerala 133 9 124 19 71 19 15
Orissa 140 31 109 23 49 8 26 3
Punjab 104 48 56 1 9 8 29 9
Rajasthan 184 89 95 8 70 0 1 16
Tamil Nadu 234 51 183 6 20 13 138 6
Uttar Pradesh 425 199 226 55 110 14 10 37
West Bengal 280 127 153 14 2 59 47 31
Total 1,818 682 1,136 212 289 201 284 150
Note: INC. Indian National Congress; Socialist– SSP+PSP; Right– BJD+
Swatantra; Left– CPI+CPM; Others– RPI mostly 1-2 seats, but in Punjab
two Akali Dals (25+1); TN DMK + ADMK (136+1)
There seems to be disenchantment with the Congress, but hardly any clear
leaning towards an alternative. 150 Independents reinforce that
impression.
Source: Compiled by the author.

political instability. Tamil Nadu was stable because a clear alternative

emerged there in the form of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK).
In West Bengal the Congress had ruled since 1947. This time the
United Front – Left Front Alliance took over. It was a coalition of
Bangla Congress (a breakaway group of the Congress) and Communist
Party of India (Marxist) (CPM) and an assortment of left groups and
independents. Ajoy Mukherjee of Bangla Congress became the Chief
Minister and Jyoti Basu of CPM Deputy Chief Minister. Factions
within the CPM, including its chief organizer had strong reservations
about becoming a junior partner in a bare majority.15 The party even-
tually split again over conflicts created by partial power in the state,
those who exited CPM came to be identified with the Naxalite/Maoist
movement and a bitter contest between Bangla Congress and CPM
ensued. The state itself went through turmoil as a result.
In less than three years from 1967-70, Bihar had seven govern-
ments, Uttar Pradesh four, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab three
 Left Turn at the Top 1969-76 133

each and Kerala two. There were eight spells of President’s Rule in
seven states. Defections for ministerial berths and benefits were
rampant, nearly 800 assembly members changed party and 150 were
rewarded with ministerial offices. Anti-Congress was sufficient reason
to form coalitions, ideological or policy-based differences were second-
ary. The period that followed saw the coming together of the opposition
with no common programme except the defeat of the Congress – from
the the left (CPM) to the far right ( Jan Sangh).
This tended to devalue democratic norms and encouraged a very
cynical view of electoral and political processes with damaging conse-
quences for governance and stability. Much pessimism about liberal,
parliamentary system emerged just 20 years after Independence, it
reflected among other things, low assimilation of democratic standards
in India. It was as though a hothouse plant had been transplanted in
ill-equipped soil.
Then, when the Congress cabinet that was formed at the centre,
it consisted of ideologically dissenting members from the left to the
right of the political spectrum. Indira Gandhi, therefore, had her task
cut out. Problems beginning with the control of the party and its revival,
and coherence within the cabinet had to be accomplished under great
pressure of economic downturn. Her own inexperience was com-
pounded by the threat to her leadership from senior members of her
own party who were typically older men, jealous of her and who viewed
her ascent as a permanent threat to their own control. Governance,
especially implementation of policies suffers if too much attention and
energy needs to be diverted to guarding against in-house dissonance.

The Congress Splits

The Congress split in 1969 was a result of the view that the hubris of
the old Congress must give way to a new vision and strategy to address
both the socio-economic crisis and disenchantment with the existing
political process. Industrial unrest, unemployment, ‘gheraos’ of man-
agement, unrest in educational institutions, agitations among the
lower-middle classes were becoming all too frequent.
It was also imperative for the PM to establish protocol between
the executive and the party hierarchy. The Syndicate had reasserted
134 Tipping Point

itself; it would not let the PM assert her position in party affairs. It
also began to plot actively to dislodge her from for the office of the
PM. Morarji Desai, who for so long had been an aspiring PM was
egging them on. While Mrs Gandhi was cautious about splitting the
party unity given its weak majority in the recent Lok Sabha elections,
she could not run an effective government with active hostility from
the old guard.
Given the shifting sands around her and the fact that Congress
itself was a heterogeneous ideological association representing sectional
and regional interests, Congressmen began to coalesce into factions
along left and right of centre lines. So far the Congress had presented
a vague left of centre radicalism at least in assertions, intentions and
some programmes. Now the left within asserted itself to capture the
party on the back of growing popular disenchantment.
To those, and there are many, who would say that Mrs Gandhi
turned left out of opportunism the following comments made by her
are meaningful since they are in fact borne out by real events that
followed,‘Many choices would have been much easier for me to make
so far as I personally was concerned. Even at the time of the split in
the Congress, all I had to do was to go along with it. But I didn’t think
it was the right thing for the country and, therefore, I stood out and
this is what the people respect. At that time, I had no idea that the
majority would be with us, and neither did I know how the people
would react afterwards . . .’ (p. 113).16
As a leader, her anxiety about the effect of the split on the party
could not have been trivial. Mrs Gandhi was not just determining her
own position in the party, India’s domestic and foreign policy in a void,
but midst two fiercely antagonistic superpowers. The 1970s marked
the high point of the cold war. To understand what happened in India
in the 1970s, the context of the cold war is essential. Serious ideological
polarization in the Congress occurred around foreign affairs the first
time leading to the Indo-China war in 1962, again during the Arab-
Israel war of June 1967. Mrs Gandhi came out strongly against the
aggressor Israel. Desai and some of his supporters, Sucheta Kriplani,
Ashok Mehta and others took an active pro-west position. Again, the
supply of arms to Pakistan and the Warsaw Pact, invasion of
Czechoslovakia became points of deep division and contradiction. The
 Left Turn at the Top 1969-76 135

latter was a major international event. Public reaction to the invasion

was sharp and riven. Most of the Soviet Bloc supported the invasion
along with several other communist parties worldwide. Western nations
like Albania, Rumania and most importantly China condemned the
attack. Many other communist parties either lost influence, denounced
the USSR, split, or dissolved due to conflicting opinions. The invasion
started a series of events. The passion it generated was in no small
measure stirred by influential literary personalities sympathetic to
liberal economic and political reforms within the Union of
Czechoslovakian Writers. This revealed a crack in the communist bloc
between China and USSR which created an opening for the US
president Nixon to improve relations with China and he visited China
in 1972. The USSR ultimately had a pact with America in the same
year.
The debate was out in the Indian media as well. The sharpest
weapon used against Mrs Gandhi’s position in foreign affairs was that
she was abiding by the USSR. She thought it was done to frighten her
into abandoning friendship with the Soviet Union and non-alignment
itself.
Soon after the India-China war of 1962, USA had offered enor-
mous military aid and conducted military exercises in India. But the
political terms attached were such as to render India as a client state.
Having struggled so long against colonial domination and for sover-
eignty Nehru was to decline their generous offer. However, their
presence in India did increase in the shape of aid agencies and foun-
dations of various sorts. Indira Gandhi was not likely to fall into either
the Soviet or American bandwagon quickly. Memories of her family’s
involvement in the anti-colonial movement was quite central to her
political training.
Then there were domestic differences too between her and
Congress stalwarts, Desai made it clear in the Bangalore All India
Congress Committee (AICC) meet that while he was Finance Minister
there would be no bank nationalization. The party however voted
overwhelmingly for nationalization. On 12 November she was asked
to quit the Congress after news got around that rival sessions of the
Congress Working Committee were in progress at her residence.
Conceivably that would have been the breaking point.
136 Tipping Point

She had been looking for non-political allies, policy advisers and
she eventually found one in P.N. Haksar who she knew from her
London days. Haksar had been, until 1944, an active communist having
arrived from London in 1942 with a message (sewn into the lining of
his coat) for P.C. Joshi the CPI general secretary from R.P. Dutt. He
had gone to Nagpur to spread the communist ideology among industrial
workers. Haksar eventually became the secretary of the Nagpur unit
of the CPI.17 He was also a family friend and had grown closer to her
during university days in London.
Haksar was appointed as her secretary (1967-73) and was to play
a crucial role in in what Jairam Ramesh describes as ‘five-and-a-half
years which witnessed great political turbulence, but which also saw
Indira Gandhi emerge as a world leader in magnificent style. Haksar
was her ideological anchor and moral compass in this momentous
period’ (p. 91).18 This was quite an unprecedented phenomenon, to
have a Marxist chosen as a principal secretary to the PM and one who
had not recanted his ideology. Nor did he have to make loud declara-
tions swearing allegiance to India! Mrs Gandhi handpicked him, a man
of the left and a man of unshakable integrity by all accounts.19 Haksar
urged her to forge a wide progressive alliance and project her image
more assertively to the people over the heads of her colleagues in the
Congress party.20 Some biographers said that he urged her to convert
the battle for personal power into an ideological one and some seem
to imply that it was his ideology that Mrs Gandhi began to project and
not her own.
P.N. Haksar took over in May 1967 soon after the poor showing
of the Congress in the general elections. He helped beef up the Prime
Minister’s Secretariat (PMS) with capable and loyal advisers. Also she
steadily widened her control over the administration for policy coor-
dination. On 23 May the same year, the agrarian unrest reached a
boiling point in the north of West Bengal in a place called Naxalbari.
It took the form of an armed uprising against the state by landless
labourers, small landholders, tenants, sharecroppers. These were hailed
by the Chinese newspaper People’s Daily on 5 June 1967. On the Indian
side too, Chairman Mao was hailed by the leaders of the Naxalbari
movement. Over the next few years the agrarian protests spread across
Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa, Assam Punjab, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh.
 Left Turn at the Top 1969-76 137

The Home Ministry was asked to study the nature of the agitations.
It was traced to pervasive existence of discontent or deprivation in the
agricultural sector. According to Ramesh, the report that came out was
the work of Home Secretary L.P. Singh and Haksar, it was to be the
basis of policy discussions that followed.21
In June 1967, AICC and Congress working committee adopted a
radical Ten Point Programme which comprised social control of banks,
nationalization of general insurance, state trading in import and export,
state trading in food grain, public distribution of food grain, ceiling on
urban property and income, curb on business monopolies and concen-
tration of economic power, rapid implementation of land reforms,
provision of housing sites to the rural poor and abolition of princely
privileges. The left wing of the Congress that consisted of the honour-
able Gulzarilal Nanda (of the cow protection movement), Y.B. Chavan,
Chandra Shekhar, Mohan Dharia and some others were in large
agreement with the agenda.
The Congress right subdued under Nehru asserted itself and was
for the first time willing to advocate right wing policies openly. They
were led on by Morarji Desai and Nijalingappa the new Congress
president and other members of the syndicate who had officially
adopted the TPP, but, were determined to stall its implementation.
The right wing instead advocated dilution of planning, lesser emphasis
on public sector and greater encouragement to private enterprise and
foreign capital. In foreign policy they supported strengthening of
economic and political relations with the west and America in particular.
In the domestic political field, they wanted suppression of the left and
protest movements especially those of the rural poor (particularly
Naxalite) in order to get back the support of the rich peasants and
large landowners.
While the preferred alliance partners of the left leaning flanks of
the Congress (Young Turks) were the Communists, those of the
Congress right wing were keen to align with the Swatantra Party and
Jan Sangh.
In late 1969, Congress split, and Indira Gandhi gathered the
majority, 220 of the Lok Sabha members moved with her to the new
Party called Congress (R). The Syndicate representing the right wing
of the party was left with a minority of (68) MPs. In AICC 446 of its
138 Tipping Point

705 members went over to Indira Gandhi. Bipin Chandra (historian)

says that Congress (R) was by no means a leftist party, even after the
split it contained a spectrum of political opinions, but it now clearly
occupied the left of centre political position in Indian politics. Mrs
Gandhi was the unchallenged leader of the party, the government and
had popular support of the poor, middle classes, large sections of
intelligentsia and ‘Her political power surpassed anything her father
had ever enjoyed’ (p. 300).22 But her party did not command a majority
in the Parliament; it was supported by two communist parties, some
socialists, Akali Dal, DMK and some independents. Notwithstanding
this vulnerability, she pushed the radical agenda forward and that is
no trifling achievement. Never before or since, has such a sharp left
turn occurred in policies coming out of Delhi.
In February 1970, the Supreme Court invalidated bank national-
ization on grounds of inadequate compensation and its discriminatory
nature. A presidential ordinance was used to overcome that and revo-
lutionize banks. After nationalization, the banks launched schemes to
grant loans to small scale business, farmers and the self-employed. In
August when government lost by one vote a constitutional amendment
to abolish the privy purse and privileges of the princes, it used the
presidential route again. This too was immediately invalidated by the
Supreme Court.
‘The nationalization made Mrs Gandhi an instant national hero,
leading her to fully own the socialist agenda. The radical socialists had,
thus, scored complete victory. In the following years, Mrs Gandhi
nationalized insurance, coal mines and oil industry; severely restricted
investments by large firms under the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade
Practices Act, 1969; reserved many labor-intensive products for
exclusive manufacture by small-scale enterprises; tightened controls
on exports and imports; nearly banned foreign investment under the
Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, 1973; effectively denied the firms
with 100 or more workers the right to lay off workers; and severely
limited the ownership of urban land under the Urban Land Ceilings
Act, 1976’.23
The scale, speed and scope of her reorganization are quite unimag-
inable particularly in present times. But it could not have been less
than radical for her time as well. More than one observer has tried to
 Left Turn at the Top 1969-76 139

project the move as an opportunist, populist, serviceable move by Indira

Gandhi to wrest control of the party and government. The argument
was that she was not a socialist by conviction, that she had not written
or spoken about her ideology. For instance, Guha writes,
‘With Mrs Gandhi one cannot be sure. She had neither read nor
travelled extensively. She was unquestionably a patriot; having grown
up in the freedom movement . . . she was deeply committed to upholding
India’s interest in the world. How she thought this could best be upheld
was less certain. In all the years she had been in politics her core beliefs
had not been revealed. . . . The prime minister was, so to say, non-ideo-
logical’ (pp. 431-2).24
As a young girl studying in London after 1936, preparing to join
Oxford, Indira Nehru and Feroze Gandhi (later to become her hus-
band) spent all their spare time helping V.K. Krishna Menon in the
India League, the leftist platform for India’s Independence. All pro-
gressive, anti-fascist, international causes that it supported took up
their energy.‘He was to have a lasting ideological impact on both. For
Feroze he was to become a lifelong infallible guru’ (p. 11).25 She travelled
extensively with her father, inherited the Congress legacy and certainly,
for her a more pragmatic politics was to become a lifelong preoccupation
but she was not bereft of ideological exposure.
By the mid-1960s she was restless with the moribund Congress,
the inertia of the civil service. She even said that she wished India had
a real revolution – like France or Russia – at the time of
independence’.26
Skeptics also disregard the fact that it would have been so much
easier for her to go rightwards in India and gradually cement her control
over the party and government. Given the over-whelming social and
cultural clout of the right and their obvious need of a Gandhi – Nehru
name in the Congress to win elections, that would have been the
pragmatic approach as well. She chose the road less travelled in India.
As events played out subsequently, the right wing resistance within and
outside the Congress was far from a marginal force, it toppled her. But
Nehru’s daughter should have known this better than anyone else.
Opportunism or even boldness was perhaps not the only force driving
her.
Managing agency system had been in place since colonial times, it
140 Tipping Point

too was abolished. Under the Momopoly and Restrictive Trade Pactices
(MRTP) Act passed in 1969, a MRTP Commission was appointed
to check the concentration of economic power in the hands of a few
leading business families. Chief Minister were asked to implement the
land reforms more vigorously and the fourth, five-year plan with double
the outlay of the third plan was put in place after a gap of three years.
Because hers was a minority government, it was frustrated by the
dependence on other parties for getting legislation passed in the Lok
Sabha. She was perhaps looking for an issue on which to go to the
polls and when the Supreme Court refused to let her abolish the privy
purses on 27 December 1970, she dissolved the Lok Sabha and called
for elections in February 1971, one year ahead of schedule.
The election fought later in 1971 was with an agenda decidedly
for expanding state control over the banking system, against monopoly
capital and addressing issues of poverty directly. The non-communist
opposition parties Congress (O), SSP, Jan Sangh and Swatantra soon
formed a grand alliance; Jayaprakash Narayan was involved in devel-
oping that alliance. They had no perceptible, common ideology or
positive programme but concentrated their energy almost entirely on
the person of Indira Gandhi.‘Indira hatao’ became the campaign slogan,
personal abuse and character assassination was the main content of
opposition election campaign (more about that in the next chapter).
The election results validated Indira Gandhi’s leadership and
programme. Her party got a 2/3 majority (352/518 seats in Lok Sabha).
Chandra observes that the 1971 elections demonstrated that once
national issues were raised, vote banks and politics of patronage became
relatively irrelevant.27
As soon as she was sworn in, trouble broke out on the eastern
front, influx of over ten million refugees from East Pakistan and dis-
turbances assumed serious proportions. Turmoil there and strategic
interests led India to intervene, war broke out with Pakistan which
India won in a decisive manner but at a high cost. The cost of war led
to budgetary deficit and drained foreign exchange reserves. Monsoon
failed for two successive years 1972 and 73 leading to a severe drought
in most parts of the country, food scarcity and inflation. This and the
burden of feeding ten million refugees! Fall in power generation,
economy bordering on recession and industrial recession followed as
 Left Turn at the Top 1969-76 141

demand fell. This is the characteristic pattern in India; as bulk of the

population is employed in agriculture; prolonged agrarian distress is
the beginning of a general all around downturn.
As if this was not enough, soon afterwards, in 1973, as a result of
Arab-Israel war, petroleum prices increased four-fold, leading to a
severe strain on foreign exchange, rapid rise of fertiliser prices and a
greater economic slowdown alongwith rising unemployment which
began to dent the government’s popularity.
In the middle of this slowdown was an even slower pace of change
towards land reforms and that belied people’s expectations about
socialist transformation. Food riots occurred in several parts of the
country. Industrial unrest followed and a wave of strikes occurred
during 1972-3. An All India Railway strike in May 1974 lasted for 22
days; it had the effect of paralysing the economy.
In 1980, looking back at the March 1971 electoral victory and
December military success against Pakistan under her leadership Mrs
Gandhi was to say, ‘Our troubles in India started with our great victory
in the elections, and our troubles with the rest of the world started
with the victory in Bangladesh’ (p. 139).28 Some people, she said, had
not forgiven it. Here she was alluding to the right wing in the first case
and to America in the case of Bangladesh. The American antipathy to
the Awami League and Bangladesh independence was a well known
pro-Pakistan position and Henry Kissinger took it as a personal setback
when Bangladesh was formed. America had earlier, in the 1950s, fought
a long war against China in Korea, but in 1972, was wooing Communist
China and using Pakistan as an intermediary. This was the substantial
background of the anti-Indira movement that followed.

Road to ‘National Emergency’: Dykes against

Monopoly Capitalism and Attacks by the
Usual Suspects
26 June 1975 was by all accounts a red-letter day, a ‘setback in the
political evolution of India’, a state of emergency was declared in India
and P.N. Dhar’s account (he was the PM’s principal secretary at that
time) of what lead to the event pivots around the breakdown of the
hegemony of the Congress party, growth of regional and sectional
142 Tipping Point

power groups and their single minded interest in garnering political

power. General disregard of democratic norms and the constitutionally
elected government of India made the situation unmanageable.29 Weak
administrative capacity for policy and law enforcement, also called the
soft state syndrome, made government’s work painfully difficult.
In a broadcast to the nation, on the night of 27 June 1975 Indira
Gandhi said: ‘A climate of violence has been created which resulted in
the assassination of a Cabinet Minister and an attempt on the life of
the Chief Justice. The Opposition parties had chalked out a programme
of countrywide gheraos, agitations, disruption and incitement to
industrial workers, police and defence forces in an attempt to paralyze
totally the Central Government. One of them went to the extent of
saying that armed forces should not carry out orders which they
consider wrong. This programme was to begin from 29th of this month.
We had no doubt that such a programme would have resulted in a
grave threat to public order and damage to the economy beyond repair.
This had to be prevented. The kind of programme envisaged by some
of the opposition is not compatible with democracy; it is anti-national
by any test and should not be allowed’ (pp. 141-2).30
Did Indira Gandhi panic? Or did she appraise the situation
accurately? In her account of the events leading up to the declaration
of Emergency she talked of the relentless campaign of hate, character
assassination, rumours and calumny launched against her by the
opposition and media in 1969 and the tremendous and unscrupulous
pressure brought against her from all sides in the name of democracy.
Right from the start of 1971, following her victory at the centre, the
trouble began, subsided only for a while during the Indo-Pakistan war
for the creation of Bangladesh, to erupt again in the most difficult of
post-war times. She recalls the pressures exerted by western govern-
ments against her government on a number of occasions but especially
on her for her position on non-alignment. She highlighted the economic
loss in strikes and national agitations that erupted in the post-war
period, that too when the economy was under deep stress. The strange
silence of the Indian media about the damage of the crippling agitations,
its indifference to issues of mass poverty and her government’s poverty
eradication programme is also something that she remembered.
Like present times, the media was owned by big business but unlike
 Left Turn at the Top 1969-76 143

our times it consisted mainly of print media. Her economic policies

would not have pleased them. Her observation reverberates in our
times; leading up to the 2014 elections for example, there was far less
media engagement with the large scale poverty alleviation and entitle-
ments programmes of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) compared
to the air time and print expended on corruption charges and
disparagement.
Indira Gandhi recalled substantial financial support for the
opposition campaign, the large amount spent on it, its link with
businessmen and others and the fact that the hand behind this campaign
did not remain unseen. Does it sound painfully familiar? That hand
was not considered squarely enough, understood, given a name and
dikes were built against it through democratic reform, social reform,
awareness and political education. In the aftermath of the Emergency,
people were ever so eager to carry on with life and electoral politics as
usual just like after Gandhi’s assassination in the last chapter.
P.N. Dhar on the other hand was confounded by the motivation
of the agents of anarchy mainly Morarji Desai, George Fernandes and
Jayaprakash Narayan.
While the war, two successive droughts and oil-price shock were
not of Indira Gandhi’s making, life of the poor and middle classes was
indeed more difficult. However, such hardships and conditions have
existed in India and at times they do get worse, the scale of disturbances
that just paved the way for the Emergency were unprecedented and
have not happened since, in Independent India.
The tumult in fact began with the split in the Congress and
resounding success of Indira Congress in the 1971 general election
based on the most radical left wing agenda since Independence. Parts
of that agenda had been executed before 1971. Legislations of unprec-
edented radical nature had followed each other in quick succession,
bank nationalization, Monopoly and Restrictive Trade Practices Act
(MRTP Act), abolition of princely privileges, etc. The entire breadth
of customary support base of the right wing was unfavourably affected
in one felling swoop. Finance capital, merchant, manufacturing capital,
the managing agency system were under siege, feudal land holdings
under the threatening cloud of land reforms and the withdrawal of
princely privy purses and privileges added to its anger. A large scale
144 Tipping Point

poverty alleviation programme was charted out and launched. The

impact of these on the wealth owning interest groups could well be
imagined.

Perils of Left Turn by Legislation Alone

These were momentous legislations and need to be detailed. Before 14
of the largest commercial banks were nationalized in July 1969,
commercial banking was almost entirely privately owned. 70 per cent
of the country’s saving deposits were with them and they in turn were
owned through interlinking directorships to large industrial and
business houses. The financial system epitomized an immense concen-
tration of capital in a few hands. Hundreds of smaller banks also existed
which would often collapse causing hardship and chaos for small and
medium savers. Besides, it was difficult for farmers and small businesses
to get formal credit, money lenders were their only source – typical
interest rates even now are 36 to 50 per cent. Big banks were nation-
alized then and their role since then in redirecting some credit to
agriculture and small business, expanding branches and banking habits
in rural and backward regions has been well documented and acknowl-
edged. One cannot also overlook the fact that their nationalized status
prevented them from being drawn into hyper speculations that caused
the 2008 banking collapse and global recession in the west whatever
their recent problems with Non Performing Assets (NPA) might be.
In 1980, when Mrs Gandhi returned to power six more banks were
nationalized, a confirmation of her conviction perhaps.
The managing agency system, a tool, developed in colonial times,
enabled a few controlling groups, usually foreign, to manage a number
of private and public limited companies simultaneously. This process
had begun to shift in favour of Indian capitalist families in the two
decades preceding Independence and then more rapidly in the 1950s.
A few families, through investment-cum-management companies,
controlled a larger network of companies, with relatively small owner
capital.
In 1964, Hazari listed 20 major business groups that existed
between 1951 and 57. Each had one or two managing agencies, and
each of these in turn held or operated a few companies, 85-77 such
 Left Turn at the Top 1969-76 145

companies each in 1951 and 1958 respectively. Much of the large

industry was thus family controlled by a small owner investment; in
effect the group provided or controlled the managerial cadre.31 Hazari
was making a case for its abolition in a phased manner to increase
professionalism and technical expertise in management of public limited
companies. In 1965, he also chaired a government commission that
inquired into the working of the licensing system set up in 1951 under
the Industrial Development and Regulation Act (1951) to find that
the system had helped the big business houses the most. Well substan-
tiated observations of the Dutt Commission, as it was called, cemented
the basis of the Monopoly Inquiry Commission and its recommenda-
tions. Eventually the MRTP Act 1969 came into effect in 1970. The
MRTP Commission constituted thereafter was empowered to conduct
inquiries on its own account or on the basis of directions from the
Central Government.
At the time of Independence, princely states constituted 40 per
cent of the territory and 23 per cent of the population of undivided
India. Their resources and influence were not insignificant in those
early years after Independence. The heirs of the Hindu Bhonsle kings
were already presiding over parades of the far right Hindutva militia
of the RSS in Nagpur. By late 1970s sympathies of most other princely
states (with a few exceptions) could not have been very different.
The nationalization of coal mining occurred in phases – coking
coal mines in 1971-2 and non-coking coal mines in 1973. With the
enactment of the Coal Mines (nationalization) Act, 1973, all coal mines
were nationalized on 1 May 1973. By then, numerous Indian business
family interests had been tied up with coal mining for 70 years. The
British monopoly over coal mining had been broken in the first decade
of the twentieth century, production had risen rapidly in the WW1
and the WW2 and thereafter too legislation in the 1950s was mainly
of the type that would assist and direct private business in minerals,
and mining under licenses. With assistance from the National Coal
Development Corporation created in 1956 to help scientific develop-
ment of mines. India which had the fifth largest coal reserves, became
the fourth largest producer in the world. By 1973, the entire coal mining
industry was nationalized. Prominent Indian business families, many
of whom were directly associated with coal mining and trade were
146 Tipping Point

affected adversely. This would provide a context to the impact of

nationalization – which was reversed in 2015 forty years later, when
the far right BJP government came to occupy power with a majority
in the Parliament.
Mineral and coal rich Bihar became the nucleus of unrest in 1973-4
because its political economy was most affected by land reforms on the
one hand and nationalization of mines on the other. Both, its hefty
feudal land owing class was threatened and it’s mineral and coal owning
classes were dispossessed.
Life Insurance had been nationalized in 1956, as a step towards
protecting policy holders from unfair practices of private insurers and
for expanding social security on the path to socialism.32 In September
1972, this was taken forward; the Parliament passed the General
Insurance Business (nationalization) Act, ‘acquisition and transfer of
shares of Indian insurance companies and undertakings of other existing
insurers.’ General insurance business of 55 Indian companies and the
undertakings of 52 foreign insurers were taken over. Eventually, 107
companies were amalgamated into four separate companies – National
Insurance Company Ltd., Oriental Insurance Company Ltd., New
India Assurance Company Ltd. and United India Insurance Company
Ltd. On 22 November 1972, General Insurance Corporation (GIC)
was incorporated to control and run the business of general insurance.
The government transferred all its shares of the four companies to GIC
turning it into a holding company. Insurance is an enormous appendage
of the financial sector and general insurance more so than life insurance.
This nationalized, insurance system stood in place till recently when
private insurers could return.
This scale, speed and direction of Indira Gandhi’s reforms would
undoubtedly have angered and upset classes that were firming up their
control over the industrial and financial system. The resentful set now
comprised financial sector owners, industrialists, big landlords, and
princes. All these classes, with considerable social clout and means,
would have aligned themselves against Indira Gandhi’s government.
They would begin to see great value in coming together to form a
coalition against her in self defence, so to say.
Her strategy of legislation was perhaps inappropriate for a parlia-
mentary democracy like India, where the cultural, social influence and
 Left Turn at the Top 1969-76 147

sway of the right was far deeper, wider and resource rich compared to
the left, though not yet coherently consolidated as is evident from their
performance in the post emergency government. Without a Congress
cadre dedicated to grass root mobilization in support of the left turn,
without mass campaign style-education of people and without prepar-
ing a fortification against the prospects of counter movements from
the wealth owing class, she was a sitting duck. Besides in those days,
attacks against nationalization were clothed in fears of communism
and Soviet annexation. Two decades later in the 1990s (USSR broke
up in 1991) these earlier fears were undressed and re-attired in the
semantics of economic efficiency. In 1990 the public sector was ‘inef-
ficient’ and almost as much media attention was paid to inefficiency
discourse as had been to communist threat earlier.
In the climate of cold war, it is to be presumed that the right would
be supported anywhere by international powers against communism
just as communists would be supported by USSR or China. This would
add a foreign threat angle to a complex domestic political economy
situation.
As circumstances, external and internal, spun out particularly with
the four fold oil price hike, the government had to go for a wage freeze
and a ceiling on dividend payment by companies to control demand;
it also had to grapple with controlling wholesale trade in wheat and
then had to abandon it because it did not work in controlling prices of
food and essential goods. To the people at large it may not have looked
like a left turn with any benefits, at least not in the short run which
concerned them the most.
There were suggestions from within the Congress (P.N. Dhar
himself ) to invite multinationals into India to benefit from their
investments, technology, and capital. The press coverage of these
proposals caused an embarrassment to the PM, her own inclinations
did not correspond to this measure, nor did the implication that there
was an American pressure on her government. Although USSR sup-
plied India with two million tons of wheat, the situation of acute
shortages was a bitter disappointment for people. Three years that
followed were marked by unrest sponsored by the opposition. They
had a convenient situation in which to launch an attack on her sym-
bolically, but in effect on her left leaning policies.
148 Tipping Point

In this cauldron of confused perceptions, socialists played a very

suspicious role, more about that will follow later. The communist left
(now split into two main parties) could not see the forest for the trees
or the distinction between their own state level rivalry with the Congress
and the play of larger political forces at the centre. The 4th Chapter
will dwell on them.
In his account of the events Dhar, chose to highlight two episodes
that marked the journey to a state of Emergency – the railway strike
of 1974, and the political movement of 1974-5 led by Jayaprakash
Narayan. He attributed the railway strike to the immature and peculiar
nature of the labour union movement in India in the 1970s. It was
marred by severe inter union rivalry, control by major political parties,
and competitive strike calls.
The fact that, the government was the largest employer in the
country (railways employed 1.4 million people in 1974) and modelled
itself as the ideal employer with generous wage settlements compounded
the government’s position during the strike. Unionized labour thus
became a special interest group especially because they worked for the
commanding heights of the economy as the public sector was called.
A railway strike for example could hold up the whole economy. And
the railway unions were asserting themselves, the newly formed loco
running staff union first called an illegal wild cat strike in August 1973,
and to two of its demands the railway and labour minister
capitulated.
In November, George Fernandes an avowed socialist like JP,
replaced the old leader of the All India Railwaymen’s Federation (AIRF)
Union; just before this he had declared in his address to the National
Railwaymen’s Union that his aim was to organize a strike that ‘could
change the whole history of India and bring down Indira Gandhi
government at any time by paralyzing railway transport to a dead stop’.33
He set about organizing it and a National Coordination Committee
for Railwaymen’s struggle was created with Fernandes as its convener.
It made an extensive list of demands. Concurrently, the opposition
parties were to launch Bharat Bandh to protest against the rising prices
and to support the railwaymen’s strike. The government was in no
position to concede this time considering the scale of demands, the
likelihood of strikes spreading to other unions, and inflationary
 Left Turn at the Top 1969-76 149

pressures were already making increasing expenditure and deficit

spending dangerous. Fernandes’ speeches were becoming more and
more provocative. Urging the railwaymen to realize their power and
ability to bring the economy to its knees and starve the people.34
Intelligence reports suggested that the threat of sabotage was not an
idle one.
The government used the Defence of India Rules (DIR) to declare
the strike illegal, Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA) to
arrest the leaders and workers. This led to dissensions among the
unions, CPI dominated AITUC withdrew the strike and the whole
strike was called off, but only after 20 days. ‘Some 30,000 people,
including Fernandes, were imprisoned. Thousands lost their jobs and
were evicted from their quarters. The army was called out in several
places. The government’s ruthlessness paid off. The strike was broken
within three weeks. But the bitterness between the government and
the union activists festered for long afterwards’.35
Government actions against the strike got adverse international
press and among sections of opposition parties in India too it was
criticized. Some Indian socialist leaders were connected internationally
through the Socialist International. Donations came in through
international socialist trade unions and the American federation of
labour unions AFL-CIO. AFL-CIO, in turn, was heavily infiltrated by
the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and backed the American foreign
policy goals in the cold war, a fact that has been in the public domain
for at least 25 years.36 Since then ‘Wiki Leaks tapes of the diplomatic
exchanges of that period suggest that Fernandes had even applied to
the CIA for funding his cause’.37
Anyway, at that time the grave state of affairs in the country gave
opposition parties another opportunity to exploit; it came in the form
of the Nav Nirman Movement led by Gujarat students protesting
increasing mess charges to accommodate rising food prices.
The RSS had spawned a student’s organization called the ABVP
and half its founding members were RSS members. In 1972 papers,
Anderson noted that it had become one of the largest and best organized
student groups in India; it was entering a space vacated by the
Congress.38 Political parties like Congress (O), Socialists and BJS (RSS
political front) supported the student agitation and encouraged them
150 Tipping Point

to form ‘Nav Nirman Samitis’ to spread the movement. These same

parties had simultaneously opposed mandatory procurement levy on
food grains to deal with food inflation. The agitation spread, became
violent leading to 85 deaths in police firing. As the momentum of the
agitation grew so did their demands, culminating in a demand for the
resignation of the Congress government of Gujarat, which held 140
out of 168 assembly seats. The agitation continued and the government
resigned. President’s rule was imposed. JP visited Ahmedabad two days
later, to congratulate the students and encourage them to get the
assembly dissolved by renewing their agitation. Thus, the agitation
continued at the cost of 95 death, almost a thousand injuries, loss of
public and private property and what many describe as ‘unconstitutional
harassment’ of an elected government.
Meanwhile the opposition parties lost two assembly elections in
Uttar Pradesh and Orissa and felt more frantic.The prospects of gaining
power through elections seemed too fraught for them. Morarji Desai,
their senior leader sat on an indefinite fast to press the student demand;
under pressure the state assembly was dissolved. JP claimed that he
was inspired by that movement.
JP wrote in Everyman’s Weekly, 3 August 1974 (quoted in Dhar
p. 247),‘I wasted two years trying to bring about a politics of consensus.
It came to nothing . . . Then I saw students bring about a political
change with the backing of the people . . . and I knew that this was the
way out’. This was a strange sentiment for someone who had spent his
youth in the freedom struggle and had since then acquired a national
stature as a Gandhian! More about this peculiar outlook in the next
chapter.
In March 1974, JP came out of a political retirement to take over
the leadership of the Bihar student agitation and asked for total revo-
lution, demanding resignation of Congress government in Bihar,
dissolution of assembly and urged students to put pressure on Members
of Legislative Assembly (MLAs) to resign to paralyze the government.
He told them to gherao the assembly and government offices, set up
parallel people’s government all over the state and pay no taxes. When
the Bihar government did not fall, JP decided to go beyond Bihar to
organize a campaign against corruption and demand removal of Indira
Gandhi. He drew large crowds especially in the strongholds of socialists
 Left Turn at the Top 1969-76 151

and Jan Sangh and among students and middle-class. His movement
soon got the backing of nearly all non-communist political parties who
saw in him a popular leader who would enable them to acquire cred-
ibility, as an alternative to Congress.
JP used the organizational structures of these parties to confront
Indira Gandhi’s government in the streets and then in the polls. Not
coincidentally, in September 1974, A.B. Vajpayee a consummate par-
liamentarian and a moderate within the far right Bharatiya Jan Sangh
read a paper in a party conference in Hyderabad that gave a call to
expand the struggle against the government from the Parliament to
the streets and onto all sensitive power centres of the establishment.
In December 1974, the Socialist Party, adopted a resolution in
their Calicut session calling for extra constitutional methods and
popular action. Later in 1975, the CPI(M) in an impulse perhaps not
to be left behind joined the opposition. Its general secretary E.M.S.
Namboodiripad wrote in the party newspaper that left parties were
aware that problems of the country could not be solved by elections,
parliamentary and constitutional methods alone. According to Dhar
all these parties worked together to convert JP’s call into a
confrontation.39
The youth wing of the BJS, called ABVP had played an important
role in the Gujarat mobilization and it got completely involved with
organizing a similar movement in Bihar. A large alliance was formed
by linking SSP’s, Samajwadi Yuva Jan Sabha and Chhatra Sangharsh
Samiti into a larger front called Bihar Rajya Sangharsh Samiti. The
demands presented to Bihar Chief Minister included issues like increase
in scholarships, increased supply of wheat and rice to hostels and
removal of minimum marks to appear for medical entrance exams and
were agreed upon. However, for some odd reason JP began to lead the
agitation and demanded resignation of the Bihar government. Student
and people’s fronts called Chhatra and Jan Sangharsh Samitis respec-
tively were to collect funds and volunteers for the movement. A series
of bandhs were called, and many turned violent. JP gave a call for gherao
of the assembly and led the march himself, however, the government
continued unmoved and the agitation did not turn into a Gujarat as
anticipated.
It is possible that general student alienation, frustration and unrest
152 Tipping Point

were harnessed. A 1970 paper by Anderson and Pant (more about

Anderson later) on student politics in Allahabad University talks of a
disposition towards violence among students as they struggled to cope
with a new environment, to form a new identity, or poverty and pressure.
Most students at that time came from surrounding villages, conservative
families that had little money to spare, besides they themselves often
had such poor schooling that they struggled to cope with university
education but viewed university education as prestigious and necessary
for a white-collar job.‘It is not surprising that they feel oppressed and
turn to leaders willing to go out and“fight the dragon” on their behalf ’.40
At a youth conference in Allahabad in June 1974, JP said that
although he himself would not take up any armed insurrection, he
would not stop revolutionaries from taking up the gun and followed
up such statements by similar suggestions about the need of a people’s
revolution, referring even to the Russian revolution as an example of
how a successful revolution was possible only when the army and police
rebelled.
When the movement sought resignations from individual MLAs,
42 MLAs resigned out of 318. Some Dalit and tribal MLAs who were
forced to resign, later backtracked. Even this maneuvre proved unsuc-
cessful in removing the Bihar government. JP tried to expand the
agitation by inviting farm workers, landless labour and other
sections.
The CPM was expected to launch convergent movements. It
supported these agitations but in line with its basic opposition to the
Congress. With the growth of the JP movement there were hesitant
moves towards cooperation which never achieved formal status or
proved of much significance.41
The JP movement, however, was running out of steam by the end
of 1974, students went back to colleges and it did not attract the rural
and urban poor even in Bihar and Gujarat. This made the opposition
more frantic. Elections were due in January/February 1976 and Indira
Gandhi challenged the opposition to settle the issue at the polls. JP
and the opposition formed a National Coordination Committee for
contesting elections.
Again, this was perhaps a sign of either political immaturity or
 Left Turn at the Top 1969-76 153

unexplained doubtful motivations. In November 1974, JP called a

conference of opposition parties who eventually decided to gherao and
later organized demonstrations outside Parliament and in states. By
December, the fronts were asking for the formation of parallel govern-
ments in villages, in January 1975, separate Republic Day celebrations
were organized and in February, a march to All India Radio followed.
In March, JP gave a call to students to revive a no-Tax campaign. In
May, a three-month programme to form Janata Sarkars was announced.
All this disorder led to 500 casualties, 70 of them fatal but it had built
up the excitement and expectations of the opposition parties. In state
after state Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab,
Rajasthan, Delhi, Haryana opposition parties tried to organize similar
agitations.
Dhar describes at length, his attempts to negotiate with JP on
behalf of the Congress to arrive at some understanding about how to
proceed with some tough measures likely to be unpopular such as those
meant to control food prices. Initially he tried to contact him through
the director of the Institute of Gandhian Studies, Varanasi, but he got
no response. JP did not at any point spell out his practical strategy to
quell inflation or curb corruption. These were the very issues, which
had disturbed him enough to begin the agitation. Nor did he take any
notice of the policy package that the government had introduced which
had reduced inflationary pressures. He kept talking about a revolution
‘moral, cultural, educational, social, and economic and so on to bring
in a quaint set of outcomes like a ‘party-less democracy’, ‘communitarian
society’.42 These ideas seemed very confused and not actionable to any
unprejudiced observer of the ground realities in India. Dhar eventually
suggests that the only two reasons that he could recognize through his
efforts to contact JP was that he felt disregarded by Indira Gandhi who
he had expected would maintain a close relationship with him given
the past proximity of their families, in addition, he was enraged with
her because after the 1969 split in the Congress Party she came under
the influence of Moscow through her liaison with CPI (Dhar, p. 156).
Just as with his antipathy to Mrs Gandhi, it is very unclear why
JP had come to so abhor communists. He had spent nine years in
America, shifted between Universities there, from University of
154 Tipping Point

California at Berkeley, to Ohio and Wisconsin and returned ‘Completing

his Master’s in Sociology from Wisconsin University he ( JP) returned
to India in 1929, firmly committed to Marxism’.43
Perhaps the anti-Stalin literature had got to him; there was no
dearth of western evidence being put out about the horrors of life inside
USSR and Soviet aggressiveness in Eastern Europe during the Cold
War period. Many intellectuals had banded together under the umbrella
of the CCF, some of them through conviction and others by induce-
ments. JP and his role in the CCF will be discussed at some length in
the next chapter. He also received the Magsaysay award where the
citation described him ‘as the conscience of the people’, The government,
could not deal with him or the disturbances more firmly given his age,
stature as Gandhian, freedom fighter, and aura of renunciation. All this
saved him from insinuations of dubious motives.
The JP movement also scarred the Congress Party and divided it
between those who wanted Indira Gandhi to negotiate with JP and
those against it. She became inclined to CPI’s assessment of the
movement as being an externally supported fascist movement. CPI
would compare the praise showered by the US on JP in 1974, with the
manner he was ignored when, only three years earlier, he went to USA
to campaign for the Bangladeshi freedom movement. They believed
that the administration of President Nixon was out to punish Indira
Gandhi for her defiance both in the Bangladesh war and nuclear
programme.
Dhar notes, ‘In this context the hectic activity of Peter Burleigh a
US consular officer who was constantly in touch with the agitators,
was looked upon as proof of American involvement with them’
(p. 254).44 A New York Times report in May 1973 said an Indian MP
made a demand to arrest and deport the same Burleigh and claimed
he was a CIA agent.‘In Parliament, S.M. Banerjee read into the record
a report from a local pro-Moscow newspaper, The Patriot, that Burleigh,
had been ‘in regular and close contact’ with state officials in the east
Indian states of Orissa and Bihar’.45 Press reports to that effect were
common in India as well, and this is mentioned in American
Ambassador Moynihan’s letters.46
Mrs Gandhi was beginning to get more and more uneasy about
the foreign hand working against her; after all, Allende of Chile had
 Left Turn at the Top 1969-76 155

just been overthrown and assassinated in 1973, because his presence

would have meant the loss of American economic interests and
influence.
Similarly, unsettling intelligence reports about a plot to overthrow
the new government of Mujib in Bangladesh were doing the rounds
not to mention events in other parts of Latin America and the world
as a direct fall out of the Cold War. It is likely that Mrs Gandhi would
have received intelligence reports as well as warnings.
Although the Bihar movement was losing momentum on the
ground by the end of 1974 and the economic situation had improved
as well, in early January 1975, L.N. Mishra the railway minister (also
Congress Party’s fund raiser) was assassinated in Bihar. This was fol-
lowed by an attempt on the life of the Chief Justice whom JP had called
Mrs Gandhi’s stooge.
Meanwhile, on 8 December 1974, the BJS parliamentary leader
Atal Bihari Vajpayee had resigned from the Lok Sabha on the grounds
that ‘parliamentary democracy was no longer an effective instrument
to serve the people in our country. . .’ (p. 129).47 Minoo Masani sup-
ported what he believed to be JP’s belief that ‘hopes for India lay neither
through election nor parliament’. In an interview with Oriana Fallaci
in The New Republic July 1975, JP said that the developments in Gujarat
are ‘the start of the battle I had been dreaming of since 1969’.
In the meantime, Morarji Desi had commenced a fast on 7 April
to force the centre to announce elections in Gujarat which had been
under Presidents rule. JP strongly supported an early election rather
than the one scheduled for September. The government eventually
gave in, and elections were held in May. A four party alliance of Congress
(O), Jan Sangh, Bharatiya Lok Dal (BLD) and Socialist Party formed
the government in an electoral loss that was a setback for Indira Gandhi
who had personally campaigned vigorously. On the day, the results
were announced. The Allahabad High court set aside her election to
the Lok Sabha on grounds of electoral malpractices on an election
petition filed four years earlier by Raj Narain in consultation with JP.
On 19 March, Mrs Gandhi became the first Indian PM to testify in
court, she was in the witness box for five hours. On 12 June, the
judgement of the court rendered her election to Parliament null and
void. It acquitted her on 12 out of 14 counts holding her guilty on two
156 Tipping Point

trivial counts like UP government building a high platform for her and
her election agent being in government service at the time he served
her. The latter was a quibble on the date of retirement. The matter
would not have survived a Supreme Court appeal. She moved the
Supreme Court for a stay against the order of the Allahabad High
court. The stay was granted but only a conditional one; it prevented
her from voting in the Lok Sabha but allowing her to continue as PM.
The manner in which the opposition besieged her at that juncture may
be reason enough to suspect the motives and merits of the case itself.
Raj Narain, descendant of the royal family of Banaras had long been
a fellow traveller of JP in the Socialist Party. At that juncture Sanjay
Gandhi stepped in to help his mother deal with the situation. Some
in the Congress advised her to step down temporarily, win her appeal
in the Supreme Court and then step back with both advantages of
victimhood and vindication. She could select an interim PM who would
step down later. ‘Mrs Gandhi discussed her stepping down idea with
few of her colleagues and they not only concurred but congratulated
her statesmanship’ (pp. 98-9).48 Sanjay thought his mother’s plan was
dangerous. An appeal could take six months to a year and that that
was a long time in politics. Could she be certain that Jagjivan Ram,
Chavan, Swaran Singh – the suggested names – would step down?
What if she lost the appeal? Historians and political analysts argue
that she should have resigned and avoided the Emergency. Mehta thinks
that ‘Sanjay’s advice to his mother was at once shrewd and sagacious.
. . . Mrs Gandhi would have committed political hara-kiri had she done
so’. With the benefit of hindsight, one would agree. Jagjivan Ram,
abandoned her and joined her opponents when he thought she was
going to lose in 1977. The opposition achieved in one stroke, what it
could not for years of trying, they pushed her into a tight corner.
Then they formed a National Programme Committee for a national
wide campaign of processions, demonstrations to force her to resign.
With Desai as Chairperson of a rally organized by Jan Morcha in
Delhi, Ramlila Grounds, on 25 June, JP went so far as to say that civil
disobedience should spread to army, police and government servants.
This was not the first time that he had insinuated a call to arms and
violence; often referring to an appropriate hour for the flare up or total
rebellion. JP repeatedly asked the people to make the government
 Left Turn at the Top 1969-76 157

dysfunctional, calling people not to pay taxes (that too at a time the
country was suffering from drought). ‘Even more serious was JPs
repeated incitement to the army, police and civil services to rebel’
(p. 131).49
Mrs Gandhi justified imposition of emergency in terms of national
interest primarily on three grounds first; India’s stability, security,
integrity, and democracy were in danger from the disruptive character
of the JP movement. Referring to JPs speeches she accused the oppo-
sition of inciting armed forces to mutiny and the police to rebel. Second,
there was need to implement a programme of rapid economic devel-
opment in the interest of the poor and the underprivileged. Third, she
warned against intervention and subversion from abroad with the aim
of weakening and destabilizing India. Another anxiety she mentions
is the need to keep the RSS under pressure and preferably in jail.50
The RSS and its fronts the BJS and ABVP are mentioned repeat-
edly in the Home Ministry Report (1975) too, it states that BJS and
the Congress (O) started the Gujarat agitations on 1 January 1974 by
organizing a bandh in Rajkot which turned violent.51 Junagadh also
witnessed arson and so on till the three-day Ahmedabad bandh ended
on 4 January. Students were drawn in, and on 10 January Ahmedabad
was shut down for a second time. Simultaneously ABVP organized
bandhs in other cities in Gujarat. While the agitation in Bihar was
planned by the student community, it was the ABVP that tried to urge
the leadership to organize a wider struggle even when the Chief
Minister had assured students of his support in curbing the food prices.
The two movements led to violence, deaths, and police firing. And
finally, they are mentioned for giving direct assistance to JP for his ‘total
revolution’. Jana Sangh cadres were the main foot soldiers. In the next
chapter it becomes clearer that the JP and Jana Sangh had closer than
imagined relations in the build up to the 1974-5 agitation, it was not
forged in the heat of the moment. This relation of an RSS front with
JP (who had launched a broadside against Congress leaders for having
close relations with the RSS in the aftermath of Gandhi’s assassination
in 1948) is another whodunit besides being a sign of RSS influence
across the spectrum.
So, by her own estimation, her home minister’s, her principle
secretary’s account Mrs Gandhi seemed to have read the situation as
158 Tipping Point

perilously and increasingly subversive. By mid-1975 she came to believe,

that the movement was nourished by foreign donations and said so
publicly,52 that there was a conspiracy against her government and a
threat to her life. Even if this was a one-sided view, historians of con-
temporary India cannot dismiss it to claim that she simply ignored the
ordinary judicial remedy of appeal and resorted to unconstitutional
measures out of expediency alone.

The Twenty Point Programme (TPP):

The Cul-de-Sacs of Change by Legislation Alone
Soon after declaration of emergency, on 1 July 1975 a government
initiative called Twenty Point Programme (TPP) was launched and
projected as a wide umbrella for the poor – a wide-ranging attack on
poverty. Many of these schemes were later redesigned and improved
and continue to be the basis of more contemporary policies like
Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act
(MNREGA). The programme promised to liquidate existing debt of
landless labourers, small farmers and rural artisans, extend alternate
credit to them, abolish bonded labour, implement existing land ceiling
and distribute surplus land to landless, provide housing sites to landless
labourers and weaker sections, revise minimum wages of agricultural
labour, provide special help to handloom industry, prevent tax evasion
and smuggling, increase production, streamline distribution of essential
commodities. There were schemes specially for children, women, the
disabled and tribal areas. Interestingly, the limit of Income Tax exemp-
tion was enhanced to stimulate consumption of the low income groups
and to encourage saving in the mid and investment in upper income
groups.
The rural segment of TPP ran out of steam soon, while the pos-
sibility of substantial land reforms was real during the emergency
redistribution of land which was resisted by large landowners, rich
peasants and unsympathetic bureaucracy (which often belonged to the
same propertied class-caste formation). Indira Gandhi and the Congress
party failed to create a new organization for social change, popular
mobilization and implementation.53 An old mare cannot learn new
tricks and implementation was dependent on the same old bureaucracy
 Left Turn at the Top 1969-76 159

and politicians who often did not believe in rights of the poorer sections.
Enabling the poor to access nominal welfare benefits is not simple in
India; so far removed is the lower bureaucracy from the idea of egali-
tarianism that often even mere compassion is conspicuous by absence.
This has remained a hurdle right into present times, particularly for
the social sector and welfare schemes where human interface is necessary
for delivery. Hence the continuing search for minimizing human contact
in the delivery of benefits, measures like direct transfer of benefits to
beneficiaries and minimum state interference becoming more fashion-
able in India compared to even advanced capitalist countries.
What did work rather well during the emergency was curtailment
of labour rights. In June 1974, a Wage Freeze Act was passed allowing
for half of workers’ dearness allowance to be withheld as compulsory
deposits. Later there was a reduction in the annual wage bonus. Strikes
were banned, many trade unionists were locked up. Some large trade
unions were disciplined from within. The worker’s participation in
management was institutionalized for better industrial relations. This
suited business interests as did various other measures to integrate
national markets and encourage investment. In fact the tipping of policy
scales back in favour of corporate growth begins here, more markedly
in the 1980s and accelerates thereafter. The emergency probably taught
the ruling party that right wing interest groups were far more deeply
entrenched, well linked, could generate forces for regime change when
stone walled compared to forces of the left.

The Excesses of Emergency:

They were Asked to Bend, and they Crawled
The least recalled aspect of the emergency of 1975 is that it was
constitutional and remained well within constitutional ambit. The
Constitution has listed between Article 352 and 360 immense reserve
powers at the disposal of the state to be deployed when thought nec-
essary. Emergency could be imposed as a response to war or internal
disturbances. When imposed it would set into motion several provisions
that allow delay of general elections, one year at a time, curtail citizen’s
rights to appeal to courts to enforce their fundamental rights There
are provisions retained by our founding fathers from our colonial past,
160 Tipping Point

which allows for preventive detention and suspension of human rights.

There are scarcely any restraints that check its usage.54 Some members
of the Constituent Assembly had remarked that there exist ‘no parallel
to these provisions in any Constitution of any democratic country’.55
Indeed there were scarcely any restraints specially for a ruling party,
led by a strong leader, that enjoyed sufficient majority. The emergency
only needs ratification by the Parliament within two months and
promulgated by the President. Such provisions were used before 1975
but not on a national scale. An emergency had been declared twice
before but only to deal with external threats. When the internal
emergency was imposed in 1975 an external emergency was already
in place since the December 1971 war with Pakistan. Once the internal
emergency was invoked, two laws were used to imprison political
adversaries and common criminals alike, both predated the emergency,
DIR and MISA.
Emergency exposed three fundamental fault lines in India’s liberal
democracy. First, fragility of its new democratic institutions – media,
judiciary, bureaucracy and police. They caved in rapidly often without
pressure exerted from the PMO, soon creating an absence of due
processes and a vacuum of checks and balances.The inquiry commission
to examine the excesses of the emergency had senior ministers deposing
who wanted proof of any order in support of what was done during
the emergency,56 a rather remarkable phenomenon that was to repeat
itself even when institutions were not fledglings as in 1975. It lasted
for a brief period, but the emergency incarcerated over one lakh pris-
oners only one-fourth were RSS members. All newspapers fell in line
with pre-censorship and soon self-censorship was practiced based on
phone calls from censors that were passed on as notes from news editors
or sub-editors. Before the emergency the Indian Express had supported
the JP movement. According to accounts by journalists who were
employed by the Indian Express, Ramnath Goenka, its owner was a
media adviser to the JP movement and fought to retain his role through
his newspaper. He was specially close to Nanaji Deshmukh, RSS
pracharaks and chief fund raiser for Jana Sangh (p. 128).57 The battle
between the will of the people (Parliament) and the judiciary had begun
long before the emergency on the issue of bank nationalization and
 Left Turn at the Top 1969-76 161

right to property. Subsequently, judiciary was dealt with directly, transfer

of judges and denial of promotions was the most common tool. Many
judges stood up but not the majority. The passage of the thirty-eighth
amendment in July made the declaration of emergency and ordinances
promulgated under it immune from judicial review. This along with
the suspension of civil liberties meant that though many battles were
waged in the courts, none disabled the emergency. Intelligence agencies
were mapping the political dissent before the emergency was declared
officially. So, it was not difficult to identify primary suspects.
Secondly, the speed with which mass protests and resistance died
down as prominent leaders were incarcerated, perhaps indicated the
absence of grass root leadership. The movement appeared to be dying
out even before the emergency was declared.This is a fact that historians
have alluded to. Middle and upper leaders of six opposition parties
Congress (O), Jana Sangh, BLD, SSP, CPM and DMK were imprisoned
within a few hours, 676 politicians were already in jail. After that the
movement lost steam entirely. Rural India had not been a major par-
ticipant of the movement nor was the impact of the emergency perceived
beyond the periphery of Delhi and Uttar Pradesh. For the middle-class
it was a return to social order after a long period of unrest. Swift
intensity of state repression was only one reason for the return to
‘normalcy’, an aspect that was to appear and reappear continually in
the post-colonial state. The centre then commanded the military and
paramilitary with personnel of over twenty million to be deployed at
its command. Typically, no force within the security complex can defy
the centre and was used against civilians even before the emergency.
The other reason was the lack of deep roots in the movement, apart
from the RSS which had the strong roots and organization. The RSS
chose to play its old trick, made some show of resistance, plenty of
subversion, and tactical compromise. Their shakhas grew rapidly during
the emergency and after.
Thirdly, a rather prolonged infatuation with strong, charismatic
leaders has always been there. Indira Gandhi commanded the party
she put together as a strong leader, her son Sanjay Gandhi gradually
acquired a reputation as a strong leader within his coterie and outside
as well. A fascination that was to endure, so much so that the absence
162 Tipping Point

of a charismatic, formidable leader would produce a collective national

yearning. Ultimately, the RSS as the only organization dedicated to
producing strong authoritarian leadership would fill the vacuum.
Soon after the emergency was imposed, bureaucracy and police
also became increasingly authoritarian. This feudal tendency was
aggravated as officials were shielded by the emergency, unchecked by
exposure in the press, courts, opposition or popular protests. They
began to abuse the power they had, this affected everyone but mostly
the poor, especially in northern India. The government at the top
became unaware of the problem because of drastic press censorship
and silencing of protests. People gradually lost faith in the press, relied
on rumours and tended to believe the worst regarding the government’s
actions and intentions. Further, over a lakh of people were incarcerated,
many supposedly tortured. So many, including the articulate educated
middle-class had been in and out of jail during the months of emergency
and this hardened resentment, spawned rumours, brought the oppo-
sition together and created an aura of martyrdom around those who
spent time behind bars. Active opposition to emergency in the govern-
ment, judiciary, bureaucracy and middle-class subsided soon and
surprised many western observers.58 Resentment of the poor particu-
larly in the north, as usual, manifested itself only in the next general
elections. They have never had too many champions in India. Here
too, in the south the excesses of police and administration were minimal
the electoral consequences were accordingly favourable.
The anti-emergency sentiments thrived in the jails and became
successful in focusing attention to the loss of fundamental rights and
liberties for 21 months midst the middle-classes that had hitherto
made use of much of that liberty. It is, to this day, frequently described
as the darkest day for Indian democracy by liberals and leftists alike,
at least up to 2014.
Although, Mrs Gandhi repeated it often enough that the emergency
was only a temporary correction for the dangers that Indian democracy
and unity were facing, nonetheless, after the first year of general
acceptance, support for the emergency vanished. Resentment spread
to the poor as the four-point programme, of Mrs Gandhi’s now powerful
younger son Sanjay Gandhi took precedence over the government’s
TPP. The four-point programme included birth control resulting in
 Left Turn at the Top 1969-76 163

forced sterilization of those who had more than two children and urban
slum clearance. This direct association of poverty with over population
is an axiom of faith in middle-class India to this day. Slum demolition
made it an all-out anti-poor project. In this project the enthusiasm of
senior officials in the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) like
Jagmohan to clean up old Delhi which had a large Muslim population
in slums has been well documented.59 The beautification and gentri-
fication of the national capital was an ongoing project but during the
emergency it was accelerated. Over one-and-a-half lakh homes were
demolished within those 18 months. The personality of Indira Gandhi’s
son, the strange coterie he rapidly acquired and their motive made it
worse. Birth control became the source of disaffection among religious
fundamentalists immediately and forced birth control united opposition
to it across ideologies. Officials at major institutions like the World
Bank and foundations like Ford and Rockefeller had been spreading
the gospel of population control to combat poverty since 1950s in
India. Their consultants had made successful representations to health
ministries about the use of birth control. A central family planning
board was created. Gradually the realization dawned that voluntary
approach was not working in India and foundation pressures to give
incentives and later to make it compulsory were mounted. Some
infrastructure to implement mass vasectomies and sterilization was
created which was eventually misused during the emergency to sterilise
millions often with inadequate facilities.60 It is not clear who influenced
and organized over enthusiastic forced sterilization though the involve-
ment of Sanjay Gandhi is widely recognized. It is quite likely that it
got implemented rashly in pursuit of poor people who were easy targets
and eleven million were sterilized. More than anything else during the
emergency it was the brash and brutal campaigns of slum demolition
and sterilization that turned the general population against Indira
Gandhi. Loss of liberty, incarceration of dissidents and press censorship
could not have moved the masses then as now. It means little to the
toiling classes in India.
Why Indira Gandhi developed a precipitous dependency on her
younger son is not clear. Nor is it clear why she did not monitor him.
The only reasonable explanation is that she felt lonely, distrustful of
her own colleagues in the aftermath of the JP movement. Sanjay Gandhi
164 Tipping Point

stood by her and aided her in the most difficult period of her career.
‘During the dark days of the Allahabad trial, Sanjay stood by his mother.
Subsequently, when she was universally advised to step down, he advised
her to fight it out. Moreover, . . . the imposition of the emergency was
such an unqualified success (from the Congress point of view) that
Mrs Gandhi was beholden to Sanjay, not only for his moral support,
but for his political presence too’ (p. 233).61 Some trusted assistants
and well wishers tried to warn her about his impetuous and rash
tendencies but later withdrew and some others truly loyal to her like
Haksar even distanced themselves from her over Sanjay’s ambition and
personality.62
The politician in Indira Gandhi did not overcome the mother and
apparently, she never spoke a harsh word to him even after the election
results, defended his role and programme to the end.
Indira Gandhi was an astute, adept politician, good at sensing the
popular mood; she would have soon recognized the remoteness of her
government from the people. But she also felt trapped, politically
isolated and alone in a situation she felt was not of her making and
wherein her instincts were not functioning. She was deeply uneasy in
her image as an authoritarian anti-democrat.63
On 18 January 1977, she announced that elections to Lok Sabha
would be held in March. Only two months earlier she had got the
Parliament to extend the emergency by one year. Indications were that
she did so of her independent will and Sanjay Gandhi was not in favour,
he thought his mother was ‘too much influenced by communists’ (p.
136).64 Simultaneously, all political prisoners were released, press
censorship removed and restrictions on political activities such as
holding public meetings by political parties were lifted and they could
campaign freely. Mrs Gandhi announced elections barely a year-
and-a-half after announcing the emergency.
It was an election that she eventually lost to the coalition of the
opposition, the very same assemblage that had been the cause for
imposing the emergency. All opposition political parties came together
to fight the elections. The anti-emergency movement, much of it
underground, was to become one of the most effective movements to
restore constitutional rights. It united the far right with the left and
isolated Congress under Indira, CPI, and allies. Intellectuals, middle-
 Left Turn at the Top 1969-76 165

classes and the poor who were experiencing the effects of an unchecked
bureaucracy became united in their anger. The primary target of public
dislike became the repressive regime.65 Prominent Congress leaders
like Jagjivan Ram, H.N. Bahuguna and Nandini Satpathy left the
Congress and joined the opposition in some form or the other.
The new entity created by the opposition for the purpose of
elections after the emergency was called the Janata Party; its founder
was JP and its president a young man of 38. A brief diversion on the
young man would not be amiss here. Some accounts say he had been
contacted by JP in 1968, in America and was inspired to give up his
job as a teacher of economics at Harvard University and return to India
to work for Sarvodaya – a Gandhian movement started by Vinoba
Bhave that JP had joined in 1955.66 (the control of Sarvodaya was
taken over and later used in the JP movement.) The young Subramanian
Swamy did return to India to work briefly in Sarvodaya by his own
account. He was a vocal advocate of free markets, self-avowed
pro-American, anti-Communist. According to his journalist sister in
law (who devotes many pages to his Houdini acts, absconding from
police and crisscrossing the country and abroad with the help of the
RSS during the emergency) Swamy was already a Jana Sangh MP from
Rajya Sabha in 1974. ‘After that he worked closely with Nanaji
Deshmukh, a full time RSS pracharak at the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya
Research Institute’ (p. 128).67 How did he find his way into Jana Sangh
nominations five years after his return? Swamy had quit his associate
professorship at Harvard when he was invited to teach at Delhi School
of Economics in 1969. It seems that the offer of professorship was
withdrawn because his views were pro-market and anti-establishment
and he was offered a readership instead. Swamy accepted a professorship
at IIT Delhi instead. He then did a short stint in IIT Delhi. According
to his sister-in-law he was dismissed from the IIT for his union activities
and anti-establishment pronouncements. Of this union some two
names are mentioned as members who supported Swamy during the
JP movement and emergency days. Nanaji Deshmukh and RSS were
known to have an ability to mobilize manpower and money (p. 130).
Even newspaper barons knew that. As a Jana Sangh MP he joined
forces with JP, in the movement against Indira Gandhi. Inside the
prison where political and petty criminals were a mixed house there
166 Tipping Point

was one petty criminal who voiced his opinion that Swamy was working
for the CIA (p. 111).68 Within ten years of meeting JP, Swamy was to
become the president of the party that was going to form the govern-
ment. More recently in 2013, he merged the Janata Party with the BJP
and is currently a BJP MP. He remains to this day, for many observers
of Indian politics, an inscrutable but powerful political player, his
pro-Hindu views became more extreme with time and helpful to the
RSS causes. He has been celebrated by them in return.69
To return to the events after the emergency, in the elections that
followed, the Congress lost, got 154 seats out of 542. CPI got 7 and
their allies All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK)
21. Congress was wiped out in northern India. It won 2/234 seats in
seven northern states. In western India there were mixed results. In
the south, however, the result was different perhaps because the excesses
of the emergency were less pronounced there, and the pro-poor
measures better implemented. The Congress improved its position
from 70 to 92 seats and Janata won only six in four southern states.
Both Indira Gandhi and Sanjay Gandhi lost their seats. Indira Gandhi
issued a statement accepting the public verdict with due humility. This
did not seem like the strategy or disposition of an autocratic ruler. Yet,
for many political observers, she was categorized either as a left-wing
populist of sorts who spoke directly to the people overriding the party
as an organization, or an outright authoritarian, who distorted the
party and constitutional apparatus for her own political ambitions. Her
style and rule marked some sort of turning point in the decline of
Congress as an organization of collective decision making. It was a
turning point in the use of the executive to override judiciary, intro-
duction of curbs on media, on trade union activity and civil liberties.
Evidence exists and is summoned to support these trends; comparisons
are made with Nehru the greater consensus seeker. Yet how much of
this was decline from high standards of liberal democracy in India were
her doing and how much was in the making from the word go? Why
is the loneliness of Nehru sidelined in the analysis? How much of
organizational weakness came from the heterogenous make up of the
Congress itself, its lack of ideological coherence and cadre? How much
from the masses of poor, illiterate for whom liberty meant little, who
waited for messiahs to this day and for whom democracy was just one
 Left Turn at the Top 1969-76 167

day of reckoning every five years? How much was the deterioration a
result of the electoral funds game?

What Followed in the Name of ‘Total Revolution’?

Three PM aspirants emerged, Morarji Desai, Charan Singh, and
Jagjivan Ram. JP and J.B. Kriplani decided in favour of Desai (the very
person who Indira Gandhi had feared would roll back socialism) on
23 March 1977. The new government at the centre dismissed nine
congress governments in states where congress had lost Lok Sabha
seats. In reelection there the CPM emerged with an absolute majority
in West Bengal, in all other states Janata Party and allies came out
victorious, only AIADMK won in Tamil Nadu.
The centre also modified the 47th amendment repealing those of
the provisions which had changed the Constitution and restored the
rights of the Supreme Court and high court to decide on the validity
of central and state legislation. They restored press freedom, ended
censorship. A newspaper revolution that began at that point has been
recorded.70 And some historians note that while the political system
was being decentred as the Janata Party proved to be unstable, there
was a flowering of various new social movements like feminist, envi-
ronmental, unorganized workers, civil liberties that were previously
neglected by class-based movements. In their view ‘Indian democracy
was being deepened and enriched simultaneously’.71
But within seven/eight months the support for Janata party began
to evaporate. They were unable to deal with social tension in rural areas
where atrocities against the rural poor and schedule castes began to
rise. This was because its social base in rural north India was mainly
rich and middle-class peasants and large landowners belonging to
upper-castes. The rural big and middle order landlords felt empowered
with the new government. The rural poor, landless labourers’ belonging
largely to the schedule castes had become less pliant over time, and had
started asserting their demands for benefits and rights specially those
they had obtained under TPP. Money lenders wanted to recover debts
cancelled under TPP. Landlords wanted to reclaim land redistributed
under TPP. The result was widespread tension and caste violence in
rural India. Within four months of the new government formation,
168 Tipping Point

killing and torturing of Dalits increased in Bihar (Belachi) in 1977.

For ten years after Belachi they were regular in recurrence, particularly
in Bihar, the seat of JPs ‘total revolution’. This episodic trend of violence
turned to mass violence against Dalits all over India. It acquired a new
form in the 1970s partially because dalit movements also began offering
organized resistance, e.g. the Dalit Panthers.72
In urban areas Janata party’s support came from shopkeepers, small
businessmen and petty bourgeoisie. Here there was a rise in communal
violence, and lawlessness and colleges and universities were particularly
affected. Not just caste but communal violence was to escalate in the
decades that followed, more about that aspect in the last chapter.
Factory strikes and unrest increased. The Bhilai steel plant, for
example, was one of the biggest industrial investment projects in
post-colonial India. It was planned and built in cooperation with the
Soviet Union; therefore, it was in the focus of party politics in the
background of Cold War.
Sixty km away, 20,000 male and female workers were employed
in the iron ore mines of Dalli Rajhera (Chhattisgarh), supplying the
steel plant. In 1977, their wages were around Rs 5 a day; most of them
were hired through contractors. In the steel plant the permanent
workers earned about ten times as much.The mining workers organized
a strike in February-March while the emergency was still formally on.
One of the leading figures of the strike was Shankar Guha Niyogi; he
had left his job at the Bhilai steel plant to ‘organize in the rural areas’.
After his release from jail where he had been put during the emergency,
he returned to the scene. On 2 June 1977, three months after the official
end of the emergency, Niyogi was again arrested allegedly for provoking
thousands of workers to demonstrate at the police station and practi-
cally lay siege to it. On 3 June 1977, police opened fire on the protesting
workers, and killed 12. That incident of firing was only the first of its
kind in the first 100 days of Janata rule.73 Niyogi was assassinated in
1991.
On 30 June 1977, all activity in Faridabad industrial belt came to
a standstill. Thousands of factory workers downed their tools in protest
of the death in police custody of Harnam Singh, a maintenance foreman,
working in one of the leading companies of Faridabad. Violence erupted
 Left Turn at the Top 1969-76 169

in many parts of Faridabad and vehicles proceeding to the capital were

stoned, looted and burnt. According to his co-workers, Harnam Singh
had been tortured to death by the police on the factory premises in the
presence of the managing director, a sub-inspector of police, and other
senior company officials. On the morning of 7 September 1977, Harig
India, a machine tool factory located in Mohan Nagar near Ghaziabad,
was the scene of a violent confrontation between workers and the
management, in which two persons died, 76 were hurt and the factory
was gutted by fire. The management was unreceptive to the charter of
demands made by the union and had used security guards to thwart
protests. Workers in neighbouring factories went on one-day wildcat
strike in solidarity with the Harig workers, a crowd of 20,000 workers
gathered next day. Most encounters ended in bloody violence.
On 16 February 1978, over 120 striking workers of the Auto-Pin
(India) in Faridabad were arrested on charges of rioting and arson,
after they had defended themselves against armed security guards sent
in by management to break their strike. All this violence against workers
occurred while the arch trade unionist and stalwart George Fernandes
(of the famous railway strike that set the stage for escalating unrest)
was Labour Minister in the Janata government. In the middle of 1979,
a wave of strikes and mutinies by policemen and paramilitary forces
spread, the very things that JP had earlier tried to instigate before the
emergency.
Although this was a continuation of the industrial unrest that had
preceded the emergency, it was clearly a case of economic demands still
being firat ignored followed by repression. The period after the emer-
gency also saw the general weakening of labour power, further
fragmentation of unions. Congress and CPI unions saw a decline in
membership due to the excesses of the emergency while right wing
unions increased. The growth rate of the trade unions federated with
BMS (affiliated to RSS) which was slow till 1970, accelerated thereafter,
from 240,000 members registered in 1967 to 1.2 million in 1984; it
had grown five times.74 (The trajectory continued. BMS membership
in 2010 was 11 million while the left unions saw erosion). The 1980s
also saw the expansion of the unorganized sector in manufacturing
where labour laws did not apply.
170 Tipping Point

Not only was no radical agenda undertaken, but the neo-Gandhian

mission of uplifting the rural poor was minimized and changed to a
food for work program.
Propertied intermediate castes in the Gangetic plain benefited as
the green revolution spread gained more because of Janata party’s
agricultural policies.75 Measures to augment and decentralize power
for implementation of welfare policies began by increasing entitlements
of village panchayats and holding elections to local bodies like gram
panchayats, municipal corporations, and Zilla Parishads. Most of the
power was captured by local elite. The most significant scheme for the
poor, implemented by Janata party was ‘food for work’ programme for
rural unemployed labour to be implemented by the gram panchayats.
By 1977 when the emergency ended, India had a food grain surplus
stock of 15.4 million tons, a markedly different situation compared to
five years ago. It was decided by the Janata party to use this to create
employment while building the rural infrastructure. But it was imple-
mented well only in some states like Maharashtra where a Rural
Employment Guarantee scheme already existed. The entire scheme
was criticized by the auditor and comptroller general of India and the
Planning Commission for not living up to expectations.76 Another
scheme called Antyodaya was aimed at five poorest persons in every
village to be identified and helped by the gram panchayat. Raj Narain,
who took Indira Gandhi to court and was famed for being the only
politician to defeat her at that point, got the Health Ministry. His main
achievement was drafting a new health policy that de-professionalized,
decentralized, and promoted indigenous systems of medicine. This was
in sum, the outcome of the ‘total revolution’ for the poor. Alignment
with the west (America) certainly increased. Through the 1960s
America had shipped large amounts of wheat to India under the
agreement called Public Law (PL) 480, the wheat was to be paid for
in hard cash, i.e. Indian rupees at a continually inflating process. Part
of these tremendous funds generated in India were ued to give loans
to the Indian government and a part used to fund American cultural
activities,77 both with the intention of getting a grip on opinion building
process in India that eventually brought dividends.
Throughout, internal bickering was a major preoccupation, the
Janata party front was disintegrating fast, and by late 1977 the
 Left Turn at the Top 1969-76 171

government lost direction and grip. Two years on and, Morarji Desai
was replaced by Chaudhry Charan Singh in 1979 and his term lasted
till the next elections in January 1980. Each group within the Janata
party tried to expand its base and power within the government and
country. In the ideological sphere Jan Sangh tried to promote its
communal agenda via textbooks and own-cadre recruitment to the
official media, educational media, and the police. Jan Sangh had 90
MPs, was the best organized and dominant partner. Along with RSS
it maintained its separate identity and agenda. The final breakdown
of the Janata Party government came with the walking out of Charan
Singh (in July 1979) and the socialists over the issue of dual membership
of Jan Sangh members in RSS.
The collapse was followed by elections in January 1980 and the
Congress under Indira won 353/529 seats in the Lok Sabha.
After the elections, Janata Party split again into its components,
with the old Jan Sangh leaving it to form a new party Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP).

Conclusion
What Indira Gandhi was trying to achieve in her left turn was essentially
to build safeguards against existing monopoly capital and the strangle-
hold they had dover the economy. There was no redistribution of land
or wealth. By redirecting a renewable resource like credit to agriculture
and small industry she was trying to build a wider, new class of wealth
owners. There were some novel programmes directly addressing poverty.
By no means, a radical agenda yet the scale and speed of changes
probably offended existing wealth owning classes.
By waging and winning the war against Pakistan she had upset
America at the height of Cold War. Economic stress after the 1971
war and oil price hikes by Organization of the Petroleum Exporting
Countries (OPEC) countries created a crisis in the domestic economy.
An agitation was organized at that juncture and it took the form of
the JP movement. Significantly, on account of its role in the JP move-
ment, the emergency, and its aftermath, RSS, through its political front,
experienced the benefits and reimbursements of political power at the
centre. The decades that followed first saw the rise of several regional
172 Tipping Point

identity, caste, religion based political parties. With restored ambitions,

a new plan and vigour to forge ahead, in 1980, the present political
face of far right in India was also shaped.

NOTES
1. Indira Gandhi (1980), My Truth, New Delhi: Vision Books.
2. Ibid.
3. M. Pillai (2018), ‘The Complicated V.K. Krishna Menon’, LiveMint, 2
May 2018; Jairam Ramesh (2019), A Chequered Brilliance, India:
Penguin, Random House.
4. Indira Gandhi (1980), My Truth, op. cit.,
5. R. Guha (2017), India After Gandhi, New Delhi: Picador India.
6. Ibid.
7. Indira Gandhi (1980), My Truth, op. cit.
8. Lasse Berg and Lisa (1971), Face to Face, Fascism and Revolution in India,
Berkeley, California: Ramparts Press.
9. P.N. Dhar (2000), Indira Gandhi, The Emergency and Indian Democracy,
New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
10. B. Chandra, M. Mukherjee and Aditya Mukherjee (2008), India Since
Independence, New Delhi: Penguin.
Ibid.
11. Lasse Berg and Lisa (1971), Face to Face, Fascism and Revolution in India,
Berkeley, California: Ramparts Press, pp. 93, 182.
12. B. Chandra, M. Mukherjee and Aditya Mukherjee (2008), India Since
Independence, op. cit.
13. Ibid.
14. Indira Gandhi (1980), My Truth, op. cit.
15. J. Basu (1999), Memoirs: A Political Autobiography, Calcutta: National
Book Agency.
16. Indira Gandhi (1980), My Truth, op. cit.
17. J. Ramesh (2018), Intertwined Lives, New Delhi: Simon & Schuster.
18. Ibid.
19. B. Sarkar, ed. (1989), P.N. Haksar: Our Times and the Man, New Delhi:
Allied Publications.
20. P.N. Haksar papers, third installment, subject file 198, note dated 21
January 1968.
21. J. Ramesh (2018), Intertwined Lives, op. cit.
22. B. Chandra, M. Mukherjee and Aditya Mukherjee (2008), India Since
Independence, op. cit.
 Left Turn at the Top 1969-76 173

23. A. Panagariya (2011),‘March to Socialism under Prime Minister Indira

Gandhi…’, Economic Times, 24 August.
24. R. Guha (2017), India after Gandhi, op. cit.
25. V. Mehta (1978), The Sanjay Gandhi Story, Bomaby: Jaico Books.
26. V. Mehta (1970), Portrait of India, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux,
pp. 545-6.
27. B. Chandra, M. Mukherjee and Aditya Mukherjee (2008), India Since
Independence, op. cit.
28. Indira Gandhi (1980), My Truth, op. cit.
29. P.N. Dhar (2000), Indira Gandhi, the Emergency and Indian Democracy,
New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
30. Indira Gandhi (1980), My Truth, op. cit.
31. R.K. Hazari (1964), ‘The Managing Agency System’, Economic and
Political Weekly, February 1964, pp. 315-22.
32. K.N. Kabra (1986),‘Nationalization of Life Insurance in India’, Economic
and Political Weekly, vol. 21, no. 47 (22 November 1986),
pp. 2045-53.
33. P.N. Dhar (2000), Indira Gandhi, the Emergency and Indian Democracy,
op. cit.
34. The Hindu, 30 March 1974.
35. C. Kapoor (2015),‘George Fernandes: Rebel Without a Pause’, LiveMint,
26 June 2015.
36. H. Hill (1993), ‘ The CIA in National and International Labor
Movements’, International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, vol. 6, no.
3 (Spring, 1993), pp. 405-7. https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/
docs/CIA-RDP88-01350R000200420037-8.pdf; https://www.cia.gov/
library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP90-00965R000403560008-9.pdf.
37. C. Kapoor (2015),‘George Fernandes: Rebel Without a Pause’, LiveMint,
26 June 2015.
38. W. Anderson (1972), ‘The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh – IV’,
Economic and Political Weekly, 1 April 1972, pp. 724-7.
39. P.N. Dhar (2000), Indira Gandhi, the Emergency and Indian Democracy,
op. cit.
40. W. Anderson and A. Pant (1970), ‘Student Politics at Allahabad
University-II’, Economic and Political Weekly, 13 June 1970, pp. 941-8.
41. R. Mallick (1994), Indian Communism: Opposition, Collaboration and
Instutionalization, Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 159-62.
42. P.N. Dhar (2000), Indira Gandhi, the Emergency and Indian Democracy,
op. cit.
43. Bipin Chandra (2003), In the Name of Democracy, New Delhi: Penguin
Books.
174 Tipping Point

44. P.N. Dhar (2000), Indira Gandhi, the Emergency and Indian Democracy,
op. cit.
45. New York Times (1973), https://www.nytimes.com/1973/05/11/
archives/indian-mp-demands-us-aides-expulsion.html.
46. S.R. Weisman (2010), Daniel Patrick Moynihan: A Portrait in Letters of
an American Visionary, Public Affairs, New York: Hachette.
47. B. Chandra (2003), In the Name of Democracy, Gurgaon: Penguin.
48. V. Mehta (1978), The Sanjay Story, Bombay: Jaico.
49. B. Chandra (2003), In the Name of Democracy, op. cit.
50. Indira Gandhi (1980), My Truth, op. cit.
51. Government of India (GOI), Ministry of Home Affairs (1975), ‘Why
Emergency?, July.
52. R. Guha (2017), India After Gandhi, New Delhi: Picador India, p. 484.
53. Mary C. Carras (1980), Indira Gandhi: In the Crucible of Leadership,
published in arrangement with Beacon Press, Boston by Bombay: Jaico.
54. C. Jaffrelot and Anil Pratinav (2020), India’s First Dictatorship: The
Emergency, 1975-77, London: Hurst Publishers.
55. K. Nayar (1977), The Judgement, New Delhi: Konark Publishers.
56. Ibid.
57. C. Kapoor (2015), The Emergency, Gurgaon: Penguin Books.
58. C. Jaffrelot and Anil Pratinav (2020), India’s First Dictatorship: The
Emergency, 1975-77, London: Hurst Publishers.
59. Jagmohan (1975), Rebuilding Shahajahanabad: The Walled City of Delhi,
New Delhi: Vikas; C. Kapoor (2015), The Emergency, Gurgaon: Penguin
Books; C. Jaffrelot and Anil Pratinav (2020), India’s First Dictatorship,
The Emergency, 1975-77, op. cit.
60. G. Prakash (2019), Emergency Cornicles: Indira Gandhi and India’s
Turning Point, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
61. V. Mehta (1978), The Sanjay Story, Bombay: Jaico Publishing.
62. J. Ramesh (2018), Intertwined Lives, op. cit.
63. M.C. Carras (1980), Indira Gandhi: In the Crucible of Leadership, op. cit.
64. V. Mehta (1978), The Sanjay Story, op. cit., p. 136.
65. J. Das Gupta (1979),‘The Janata Phase: Reorganization and Redirection
in Indian Politics’, Asian Survey, vol. 19, no. 4 (April 1979), pp.
390-403.
66. https://www.ibtl.in/news/exclusive/1666/my-experiences-with-
jayaprakash-narayan-:-dr.-swamy/
67. C. Kapoor (2015), The Emergency, Gurgaon: Penguin Books.
68. Ibid.
69. S. Subramanian (2012), ‘The Outlier’, The Caravan, 1 May 2012.
 Left Turn at the Top 1969-76 175

https://web.archive.org/web/20120504172103/http://caravanmaga-
zine.in/Story.aspx?Storyid=1389&StoryStyle=FullStory; https://web.
archive.org/web/20120828044859/http://janataparty.org/articledetail.
asp?rowid=
70. R. Jeffrey (2000), India’s Newspaper Revolution: Capitalism, Politics and
the Indian-Language Press, London: C. Hurst and Co.
71. R. Guha (2017), India After Gandhi, op. cit., p. 541.
72. K. Satyanaraana (2014), ‘Dalit Reconfiguration of Caste: Repre-
sentation, Identity and Politics’, Indian Cultural Studies, 21 October 2014,
https://doi.org/10.1111/criq.12137.
73. This chronical of strikes and events that followed is borrowed entirely from
the Gurgaon Workers News, https://gurgaonworkersnews.wordpress.
com/workers-history/#fn3; https://gurgaonworkersnews.wordpress.
com/workers-history/#fn4; On Workers of Dalli Rajhara Mines:
https://gurgaonworkersnews.wordpress.com/workers-history/#fn61.
74. W. Anderson and S. Damle (2019), Messengers of Hindu Nationalism,
London: Hurst & Company.
75. S. Ruparelia (2015), Divided We Govern, New Delhi: Oxford University
Press.
76. P. Chawla (1981), ‘Food for Work Programme Criticized by
Planning Commission and CAG’, India Today, 31 May 1981.
https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/indiascope/story/19810531-
food-for-work-programme-criticised-by-planning-commission-
cag-772930-2013-11-22
77. Lasse Berg and Lisa (1971), Face to Face, Fascism and revolution in India,
Berkeley, California: Ramparts Press.
 CHAPTER 3

Curious Case of
Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan
Unlikely Messiah

The Indian concept of life is that we are living in order to achieve our
deliverance – whether it is called by the Buddhist term of Nirvana or
the Hindu term Moksha – deliverance from the limitations of time and
space – from the limitations of life and death, from bondage … Every
individual was expected to fight his own battle, not with the help of
the state. Every individual had to struggle in order to free himself from
the limitations which his Karma, or whatever you call it, has placed
upon him.
–Jayaprakash Narayan
It is tempting to see the JP movement as a reprise, at the all-India level,
of the popular struggle against the communist government in Kerala
in 1958-9. The parallels are uncanny. On the one side was a legally
elected government suspected of wishing to subvert the constitution.
On the other side was a mass movement drawing in opposition parties
and many non-political or apolitical bodies.
–Ramachandra Guha (p. 481)1

Introduction
On 16 July 1977, in a glittering ceremony Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan
awarded JP, a copper plaque. The citation read ‘We venerate you as the
messiah who lead us to freedom from native dictatorship through a
unique ballot box revolution in 1977, as we do the Mahatma who led
us to freedom from foreign rule. . . .’2
This chapter is a deviation from what has so far been the how and
 Curious Case of Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan 177

why of events. It is about a person, indispensable because in a retelling

of the past, the agency of major leaders cannot be brushed aside. JPs
views have been taken almost entirely from his own writings, letters
and speeches available in the archives of the Nehru Memorial Museum
& Library as well as published in book form.
To quickly sum up events of Chapter 2, in the words of a historian,
‘Two crisis of unprecedented magnitude rocked India during the years
1974 to 1977. From January 1974 to June 1975 the country went
through a turbulent period marked by a series of agitations – bandhs
and gheraos, strikes and slowdowns, closure of colleges and universities,
two massive popular movements in Gujarat and Bihar, that demanded
resignation of state governments and dissolution of state assemblies’.3
The latter soon spread under the leadership of JP to parts of north
India and developed into a movement for the ouster of Prime Minister,
Indira Gandhi. The disturbances led to the imposition of emergency
by the PM on 26 June 1975 which lasted till 1977. The Gujarat
movement began earlier and as he himself says inspired him greatly.
On 20 December 1973, students at L.D. Engineering College, Gujarat
set fire to the college canteen, attacked the rector’s house; they were
protesting against the mess fee hike. The hike followed a hundred per
cent rise in food grain and cooking oil prices. Two successive droughts
had brought it on. Two weeks later they went on strike and destroyed
college furniture. In the confrontation with the police there was the
usual brutality. On 10 January, students called for a bandh protesting
police brutality and price rise. It was supported by opposition parties
mainly Congress (O) led by veteran, conservative Congressman, Morarji
Desai, Jana Sangh and by a large number of Sarvodaya workers, who
were associated with the Bhoodan movement founded by Vinoba Bhave
and were being used increasingly for agitations under the influence of
JP,4 a situation, which later led to serious differences between the
founder and the followers and wrecked Sarvodaya but more about that
later. Here it is sufficient to note that even the Gujarat movement was
connected to JP. Sarvodaya was launched by its founder to secure
voluntary donation of land to the poor. The student agitation continued,
supported by opposition parties who expanded its purpose to suit their
own agenda – dissolution of state assembly and fresh elections. On 11
February, JP visited Ahmedabad and lauded the students, ‘For years I
178 Tipping Point

have been groping to find a way out. . . . Then I saw students in Gujarat
bring about a big political change with the backing of the people and
the moral support of Ravishankar Maharaj (Sarvodaya leader) and I
knew this was the way out’ (pp. 98-9).5 For ten weeks Gujarat was in
turmoil and over a hundred people were killed, 3000 injured and 8000
arrested and ultimately the opposition succeeded.
The two, Gujarat and Bihar movements are connected, as are the
JP movement and the state of emergency that followed. By all counts
they changed the course of India’s post-colonial history. The dramatis
persona is JP.
A case will be made here that JP had perhaps, come to occupy a
position that surpassed his authenticity. The narrative that follows,
quotes extensively from his texts including letters. It will also examine
texts of others who have tried to understand him. It is an attempt to
comprehend his position on important political issues and where he
wanted to lead the nation. As it turns out it is not easy to do so. His
position on significant national issues shifted through his lifetime, often
going round in confounding circles. ‘JP’s odyssey in quest of the India
revolution took from revolutionary nationalism, to Marxism, to
democratic socialism, to Gandhi’s non-violence to winking at violence,
to Sarvodaya to total revolution’ (p. 155).6
But it is also difficult to explain why a man in his 70s by 1974,
jumped out of semi-retirement, to lead a violent anti-government
agitation in the midst of one of the most difficult times for the country,
unless the consequences of what ensued are reviewed with the benefits
of hindsight and the episode is reread with evidence available now.
One insightful source (more recent evidence) is available in the
form of ten essays, one of which is by Bhola Chatterji, a fellow traveller
who had questioned JP on many occasions.7 In search for the real JP,
Chatterji examines the inconsistencies in ideas and practice occurring
frequently, sometimes barely months apart. After the 1977 elections,
shortly after the Janata government was established and his dramatic
apprehensions about the state of democracy proved unfounded, JP
declared that ‘his life’s work was done now’. From that statement in the
press, Chatterji goes back to the 1930s pointing out JPs disagreement
with Gandhi, followed by opposition to participation in elections and
taking of office in 1935 to a total turn around on all those issues within
 Curious Case of Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan 179

months. JP was a Marxist, considered Gandhi a retrogressive force in

Indian politics and said so publically. In the 1939 Tripura Congress
midst the Gandhi-Subhas Bose dispute, JP took a pro-Gandhi position
against a fellow socialist, then in 1942 during the Quit India movement,
when all senior Congress leaders were arrested, JPs in opposition to
Gandhi became the centre of an underground revolutionary movement
as General Secretary of the CSP. In the 1948 post-Independence
conference of the CSP in Nasik, JP discovered the moral imperative
of Gandhi and the salience of means over ends. The deficit of moralism
in Marxism upset him. Subsequently he dwelled on non-violence and
satyagraha in various CSP conferences. But at the same time JP was
the principal organizer of the armed resistance against Nizam’s
Hyderabad in 1948 and an active conduit of arms for the armed rev-
olution for democracy in Nepal in 1950s. Reexamining the past
Chatterji is compelled to wonder,‘Were JPs choices those of expediency?
Did he have double standards? Was there an area of darkness between
his profession and practice?’ (p. 152).8 His conclusion is not explicit,
but his doubt is the starting point of my inquiry.
Perhaps the confusion around JPs purpose and ideology was by
design. One is of the view that it was by clever strategy, not by coinci-
dence, that in the period between, 1972-5 he set out to push back a
set of policy initiatives that were basically aimed at circumscribing the
control of capital and feudal elements – the left turn at the top described
in the previous chapter. He shrewdly chose a time when external forces
had loaded burdens on the nation, there was war with Pakistan and
oil price had risen, droughts had thrown the Indian economy out of
gear. Why did he do so?
The alternate view that is far more popular, is that he was a very
confused, benign old man, avowedly Gandhian in the last phase of his
life, who perhaps wanted positions of power and influence but did not
hold on to them. Hence he skirted the burden of responsibility and
blame, a view perhaps, held by Mrs Gandhi as well, for as she desisted
from taking actions against him till the very end even though ‘The
[ Jayaprakash Movement] JPM acquired a large part of its political
strength and popularity from the moral authority and political appeal
of JP’ (p. 94).9 He had built up such a reputation as the last of the
stalwarts of the freedom struggle, who stayed away from positions and
180 Tipping Point

power selflessly that it was difficult to accuse him of anything. He was

repeatedly described as a staunch Gandhian Socialist by his admirers.
But then again remarkably, in 1972 he was receiving and sending off
telegrams to arrange meetings with members of the Jana Sangh and
addressing members of the RSS as friends in his correspondence.10 He
was in contact with these friends many months before; was making
active alignment with them, allegedly to ‘preserve democracy’. He could
not have missed noticing the role of RSS in the assassination of his
mentor and ideal. Indeed, he did not miss it for he launched an attack
through public speeches and press conferences that are documented
in the Kapur Commission Report referred to in the Chapter 1, not
just corresponding with the Jana Sangh but making room for them
because eventually, RSS cadres were manning important positions in
his movement.11 By March 1975, at the Twentieth Annual Conference
of the Jana Sangh Party JP declared that, ‘If you are a fascist, then, I
too am a fascist’ (p. 37).12 A few decades earlier he had criticised the
same lot severely in public addresses.
JP spent some months in jail during the emergency, in reasonable
comfort it appears. He wrote a prison diary. His thoughts were penned
in his prison diary in the silence of his cell after the heat and dust of
the agitations subsided. One assumes they are products of a more
thoughtful spell than his heady public orations for seventeen months
at the helm of the movement. His account of purpose and events in
this Prison Diary are quite dissimilar to comprehensive accounts of
that period by historian, Bipin Chandra, P.N. Dhar (Principal Secretary
to PM) and reports of the Home Ministry at that point. But the Prison
Diary is worth reading carefully as the testament by a messiah at the
near end of his career.

JP on his Purpose and the Appropriate Manner

of Opposition in a Liberal Democracy
A wave of student protests started in Patna, Bihar in December 1973
and spread to other towns. Following the Gujarat model, opposition
parties (except the communists) called a bandh against price rise on
21 January 1974. A conference of student leaders from Bihar colleges
formed a Bihar Chhatra Sangharsh Samiti (BCSS). The purpose was
 Curious Case of Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan 181

to fight for students needs including lowering of food prices, reducing

tuition fees, more jobs and to fight against corruption. The left students’
unions stayed separate but did join the student’s struggle which turned
violent by March and the usual cycle of police repression and escalation
followed. Bihar soon turned into a battle ground and the army had to
be called out and curfew imposed. By April according to a magazine
he brought out, JP was invited by the Patna University Students Union
and some student leaders of the RSS student wing ABVP, to lead the
movement.
Thereafter for a year, he was to stress the revolutionary role of the
students and youth. However, before the 1971 general elections he had
tried hard to unite the opposition in an anti-Indira, anti-Congress
coalition primarily because she had formed an alliance with the CPI.
In 1969 he had opposed bank nationalization as wrong and unwar-
ranted.13 Soon he was speaking of the dangers of her authoritarianism
being imposed on the country in the name of socialism. And by
November 1974, he told a conclave of opposition leaders that the Bihar
movement was not just a student’s movement but a struggle for a ‘total
revolution’, which was to become the movement’s clarion call.
The organ of revolution BCSS, was to form branches in every
college and village. They were to set up village level Janata Sarkars in
every village right up to district level and these were to become per-
manent organs of peoples’ power. This was the revolutionary hard work
which never took off; few student agitators in his following had the
commitment for such work. Most of the time of the leaders were
devoted to agitations called ‘satyagraha’ in the Gandhian mode (more
violently though) with JP making frequent use of the episodes from
the freedom struggle to highlight the significance of his movement in
speeches.
Contrary to allegations of the government, JP said he was creating
only a medium between the government and people through his village
bodies (Gram Jana-Sangharsha Samitis and Janta-Sarkar) particularly
at district level. Janata Sarkars were not intended as a parallel govern-
ment. And of his purpose he said, ‘Here was I trying to widen the
horizons of our democracy. Trying to do it mainly by involving people
more intimately and continuously in the process of democracy. This
in two ways one, by creating some kind of machinery through which
182 Tipping Point

there could be a measure of consultation with the people in the setting

up of candidates. Two, by providing a machinery – the same as in the
one above, through which the people could keep a watch on their
representatives and demand good and honest performance from them’
(p. 2).14 He however added later (p. 21 of same Prison Diary) that the
movement he launched was for ‘total revolution’. It is not clear when
his aims shifted from including people more intimately in the demo-
cratic process to‘total revolution’ of removing Indira Gandhi from office.
It is not clear if his youthful followers knew either.
His post-Independence break from politics commenced with
participation in Vinoba Bhave’s Bhoodan and Gramdan campaign
which was supposed to take the Gandhian vision forward – it sought
voluntary donation of land to the poor. JP had announced his retirement
from politics to join this movement. But then it appears that his
enthusiasm fizzled out. About the struggle launched in 1974, he said
an attempt was being made to deepen and strengthen the Gandhian
movement through a people’s struggle which would release ‘psycholog-
ical forces’ that would go beyond moral appeals and saintly influence.
Such an atmosphere of struggle cannot be conjured up at will, it is only
when a large section of people, especially the youth and intelligentsia
are disaffected and frustrated that conditions for a struggle are ripe. It
is perhaps such a circumstance he found in December 1973.
He said that he had always been bitten by the bug of revolution
since school days. When Mahatma Gandhi gave a call for revolution
and he joined it; after which he went to American universities to learn
and earn his way through. The revolutionary bug took him to Marxism,
national freedom movement, democratic socialism and Vinoba Bhave’s
non-violent revolution through love and Bhoodan. This last revolution
had attracted him because it aimed at transformation of man, and
through man, the human society. But since Bhoodan, the non-violent
revolution had lost all momentum, he was seeking some other way and
using Sarvodaya workers for the same.
Why had he not tried to use his position for improving the par-
liamentary democratic system from within (rather than capsizing it in
the 1970s with call for total revolution against an elected government)?
JP said that he understood the struggle for Independence had been a
struggle to create an independent democratic state. He had been
 Curious Case of Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan 183

advocating certain electoral reforms such as measures to make elections

less expensive, to make parliamentary democracy more democratic, and
a better type of democracy such as Gandhian communitarian democ-
racy or something like a mix of German (List) system rather and the
majority system that prevails here. However, he never accepted an office
of government (or responsibility) to use it as a platform for the reforms
he espoused so ardently and perhaps soon enough lost interest in that
as well. He refused offers made by Nehru.
But at the same time, he often suggested that liberal parliamentary
democracy was a western idea unsuitable for India. It could be reduced
to mere casting of votes and rule of coterie, that it was as capable as
totalitarianism or the ‘rape of masses’. So, what was the alternative? A
‘natural decentralization, a multi-central pluralistic state’ he said.15 How
was it to be achieved and who would grasp power at the local level? In
an interview (Hindustan Times, August 1974) he said that while
selecting or endorsing candidates, the most important ideology should
be honesty.16 What else was needed besides honesty? So, the total
revolution that JP had in mind seems artless.
As a self-confessed Gandhian, he did not think it was dangerous
to make violent agitations and civil disobedience as a basis or means
to change democratically elected governments. Nor did he expect Indira
Gandhi to react in the severe manner she did. In the Prison Diary JP
seems to suggest that the government in Bihar had been given enough
time and room to involve the agitating students in finding a solution
and the student agitation became violent only when the offer of dialogue
did not come from the government and later when repressive measures
like lathi charge and tear gas were used to quell the agitation. He felt
that the lack of response from the Bihar government was founded on
its innate corruption and arrogance; it did not leave any option to the
protesting students. How a government was to deal with the ever-wid-
ening demands and agenda of his movement, discussed in the last
chapter, was not his concern.
As it transpired the Bihar movement was far from non-violent, it
began on 18 March 1974, it started with a gherao of the Bihar assembly,
and this led to a confrontation between police and students. Government
buildings were set on fire, food warehouses were looted, mobs were
rampaging, and similar episodes occurred throughout the capital; some
184 Tipping Point

27 people were killed and property destroyed. They continued till 27

March and spread to several other towns. JP took leadership in April.
The movement was intensified further, JP made calls to render the
government dysfunctional, to paralyze the economy with an all India
railway strike under the leadership of his friend and socialist union
leader, George Fernandes; violent protests occurred on other occasions
as well. But the movement was not called off. Gandhi had called off
his Satyagraha campaigns when violence erupted. But JP began to warn
his Gandhian friends that if the problems of the people could not be
solved democratically, he too could take to violence.
Incidents like these occurred throughout 1974, and JP kept up his
metaphysical deliberations about peaceful versus violent means and
made some perilous declarations like, ‘A stage has now come when a
flare up is a must’ (p. 182).17
After a meeting with the opposition parties on 5 June 1974, JP
said that the parties had given him their assent to accepting total
revolution as the goal of the struggle/movement. He added that he was
not sure as to what extent they were committed and convinced about
the revolution, but he pulled them along and pushed the struggle
anyways (p. 26).18 Later he said he was not convinced during his tours
that if continued, the struggle would spread all over India, but he was
anxious ‘in the interest of the health of our democracy’ to break the
Congress monopoly of power at the centre. Who would replace the
Congress? The commitment of the opposition to democracy was not
his concern. This was over and above his doubts about the opposition’s
commitment to the goals of his concept of total revolution itself. Then
why this rush to achieve with whatever means possible with the end
of breaking Congress monopoly in Delhi! A monopoly which was by
no means unchallenged in many states already!
Regarding the validity of a call to civil disobedience as a method
of changing elected governments, he said that normally the recourse
to the civil disobedience was not a part of democracy but in rare cir-
cumstances like corruption, or repression of protests, the opposition
was compelled to do so. Over this issue he fell out even with his second
mentor and Gandhian, Vinoba Bhave. He and the opposition decided
that the condition was rare enough in 1974. It somehow did not matter
to JP’s sense of democracy that the economic woes of the country were
 Curious Case of Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan 185

beyond Indira Gandhi’s instant control or that the Bihar government,

like the one in Gujarat, had been duly elected for a period of five years
or that Indira Gandhi had declared that the next election would follow
soon. He said that the agitation to remove these governments might
be unconstitutional but not anti-democratic. A.B. Vajpayee (the
president of Jana Sangh) also acknowledged that the movement was
an extra parliamentary action. Six months later, his lawyer friend and
supporter had apparently persuaded him that the demand was quite
constitutional quoting some nineteenth century British scholar of
constitutional law who was probably discussing the prerogatives of the
Crown.19
But in an entry dated 6 September in his Diary, JP reflected that
‘there is no doubt in his mind that if the movement had not got mixed
up with opposition parties, its educative value and character would not
have been compromised!’ After coming out of retirement back into
politics, he had no organization or cadre of his own, and was wholly
dependent on allies about whom he already had some misgivings; and
should have had serious apprehensions. The parties involved were Jan
Sangh, Socialist Party, BLD and Congress (O). It is curious to say the
least that a politician/public figure of his vintage would not have known
that, the ideological inclinations of at least two of them was diametri-
cally opposed to any form of socialism Gandhian or otherwise. Most
of his allies like Jan Sangh, Jamaat-i-Islam, Anand Marg, Akali Dal,
RSS, Congress (O) were conservative right wing parties, some deeply
divorced from even the idea of popular democracy, a fact that some
political thinkers to the left seem to have recognized early enough.20
Did the nature of the democratic crisis in 1974 justify an alignment
with them for civil disobedience? After all, elections had been held in
1971 and would be held again in 1976. Indira Gandhi had repeatedly
said that the next elections would resolve the question of the unpop-
ularity of her government.
His version of the events leading up to the emergency were rather
odd but so is his reaction to the emergency given his repeated and
audacious call to the armed forces and police to disobey orders,‘I went
wrong in assuming that a Prime Minister in a democracy would use
all the normal and abnormal laws to defeat a peaceful, democratic
movement, but would not destroy democracy itself and substitute for
186 Tipping Point

it a totalitarian system. . . . But the unbelievable has happened. One

could have understood such a result if there had been a violent outbreak
and there was fear of a violent take over. But a peaceful movement
resulting in such a denouement! What can people do . . . wait quietly
for the next general election! But what if, in the meantime the situation
grows intolerable. I don’t think in any democratic society the people
have relied wholly and solely on elections to change their plight.
Everywhere there have been strikes, protests, marches, sit-ins, sit-outs,
etc.’ (p. 2).21
Chandra thinks that ‘. . . JP himself was not the stuff of which
dictators are made . . . he was basically a democrat and had functioned
as such in the Congress and in the Socialist Party. It would be wrong
even to see him as an agent of fascist forces’ (p. 153). However, ‘The
authoritarian or fascist possibilities also lay in the fact that, by mid-
1975, the core of the JPM, especially in Delhi and in the Hindi
heartland, was provided by the RSS-Jan Sangh’ (p. 155).22 Moreover,
‘JP did not oppose the RSS-Jan Sangh penetration and domination of
the JPM, and instead, gladly accepted their active participation even
though he had been all his life a staunch opponent of communalism
and communal organizations and also a sharp critic of RSS-Jan Sangh’
(p. 144).23
P.N. Dhar said that when confronted with this in 1976, JP said
that the RSS had surrendered to him and his struggle for total revo-
lution and at the same time he denied their main role in what came to
be known as his movement.24 Was JP being used without knowing so?
Was JP’s association with the far-right, RSS and its political face, Jan
Sangh one that was pragmatically forged in the heat of the moment
during the agitation to topple Mrs Gandhi? Was it purely a happen-
stance? Documents indicate that it was not. There was some urgent
and direct communication between them as early as 1972. A telegram
from L.K. Advani (a Jan Sangh MP) to JP dated 23 November 1972
from Delhi said, ‘Your not coming to Hyderabad will cause deep dis-
appointment to us all. I urgently request you to reconsider and readjust
programmes. Please make it positive’.25 A reply followed acknowledging
the telegram and, ‘… As I explained to Nanaji Deshmukh it is impossible
for me to leave Bihar at this critical hour. Hope you and other friends
realize my position’. These were perhaps friends in need of each other.
 Curious Case of Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan 187

As the movement intensified there was direct communication from

Jana Sangh to JP and the letters become increasingly respectful in their
address. For example, the letter from Secretary, Jan Sangh, Bombay
dated 30 December 1974, referred to him as Jayaprakashji while the
later ones from Uttar Pradesh addressed him as Loknayakji. The letter
from Bombay by Jan Sangh Secretary informed JP of the active role
played by the Jana Sangh in the Bombay chapter of Bihar Jan Sangharsh
support committee. It requested him to make time during his busy
schedule for their local Corporators and MLAs, who wanted to meet
him during his forthcoming visit to Bombay in January 1975. The
intensity of cooperation only increased; it was apparently not forged
at the height of his movement.

JP and Mrs Indira Gandhi

In the Prison Diary JP referred to Indira Gandhi as the frightened lady
of New Delhi who thought that the gang up of JP, Morarji Desai, Ashok
Mehta, A.B. Vajpayee, Chandrashekhar, and Ramdhan was aimed at
annihilating her and her family. He declared ‘I had always believed that
Mrs Gandhi had no faith in democracy that she was by inclination and
conviction a dictator’.26
Later in the same book, after he had probably read news of her
announcement that elections would be held, he said,‘I do not find any
such personal quality in Indiraji or in her party as to believe that her
autocratic rule over this vast land will continue for long’ (p. 11). Some
pages later he again declared that Indira Gandhi would hold elections
only when she was sure to win, and that everything leading to emergency
and after it was meant ‘to keep Mrs Gandhi safe and warm’ (p. 28).
His communications with Indira Gandhi are equally curious.
Revealed through his letters, there are some 22 of them addressed to
her, over a span of four years from 1972-6.27 The first letter dated 19
April 1972 suggested how the administration might deal with the
dacoits who had surrendered in Chambal, by a process he seemed to
have evolved from a moral force through a peace mission. The mission
he said was acting in parallel, as a back channel to the police. He was
seeking, her views, the support of the administration on the matter,
and a meeting with her to discuss the possibility of involving Sarvodaya
188 Tipping Point

workers in model self-governed ashram-like prisons (p. 13). Within

three months he wrote again to the PM because a controversy had
erupted about his role in the surrender of the dacoits. The Police
Commissioner, Sethi seemed to have reported that JP was objecting
to the fact that government and police did not want more publicity
and film making of the events. In a TOI (11 July 1972) report the
police commissioner was quoted as having said that JP had at a public
meeting at Gwalior stooped to challenge the PM’s authority.
The letter he sent off to Mrs Gandhi hastened to correct that
impression while he went on to say that he did not understand why
the government was not allowing public, press and filming by British
Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). However, he had already given an
interview to Minoo Masani in the Illustrated Weekly of 11 June 1972
criticizing the government’s inhibitions on media participation and the
low level of media involvement in the events (p. 58). He appeared to
be a Gandhian in urgent need of additional media attention.
Many other letters and polite replies followed on a range of issues
like some freedom fighter’s pension, prohibition in Rajasthan, the
north-east, problems with wheat procurement, and so on. He appeared
to be establishing a personal and direct rapport with the PM. This was
reciprocated; there are exchanges between Mrs Gandhi and him,
solicitous inquiries about his wife’s health and letters from him on the
issue of his wife’s illness.
Later he wrote another long letter on her selection of the Chief
Justice which overlooked the consideration of seniority which had
perhaps been the convention. He was urging her to maintain an
independent judiciary and create mechanisms of consultation with
opposition and public opinion to select the Chief Justice in cases of
selection rather than seniority as basis. He was not alone in his concern
for judicial independence, A.G. Noorani, a constitutional lawyer had
voiced it in an article.28 Her reply was prompt and pointed out that
since his statement against her selection was already in the press, she
was aware of his positon but since he had followed it all up with a letter
to her, a response would be expected. She wrote,‘Dissent is indispens-
able to democracy, equally indispensable is the readiness to shoulder
responsibility in order to fulfil the dreams of people . . . You have spoken
about the competing rights of democracy and socialism. It has been
 Curious Case of Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan 189

our endeavor throughout our struggle and during these 25 years as an

Independent nation to reconcile the two. I am perhaps more confident
than you that we can achieve this reconciliation. Democracy, indepen-
dence of judiciary and fundamental rights are not in danger. They
would be threatened if we were to allow our faith to be eclipsed by
defeatism and if we help alliance of the extreme right and left’ (p. 120).
She went on to explains that such a selection was not against the
Constitution but necessary to reduce turnover of Chief Justices, allow
continuity of thought and permeation of more liberal ideas in the
judiciary, particularly about the right to private property around which
there had been much debate and confusion because the judiciary had
taken a position different from the legislature in the preceding years.
This issue again focused on the complications of policy left turns
through legislations alone.
Probably she also had wind of the convergence of opposition parties
occurring around her left ward turn.
Many months later, a letter he wrote dated 28 February 1974
indicated that Indira Gandhi had, at a meeting with her in her office,
requested him to help her to reach some kind of amicable agreement
with the opposition, which he promised to do, adding that, she looked
very ‘well, spruce and charming’ and hoping that she would always look
so. Another letter addressing her (4 March 1974) as ‘Indu’ followed.
Here he said that he had been unwell but detailing efforts he had made
in the directions Indira Gandhi had hoped for. He had talked to A.B.
Vajpayee and had received a positive response from him in favour of
an all-party solution to the national crisis under his ( JP’s) leadership
and he promised to continue the discussions with other parties. Indira
Gandhi, in turn had been inquiring about his wife and his health and
so on in an apparently cordial relationship.
But, behind this smoke screen there were letters flying out from
him to opposition members on how to manage the Bihar movement
and intensify it. Six months later, he was writing to N.A. Palkhivala
addressing him as ‘Dear Nani’ making an ‘earnest request’ to him to
fight the case of MP, Raj Narain’s against Mrs Gandhi in the Supreme
Court (p. 337).
Meanwhile the Gujarat and Bihar anti-government movement had
picked up steam, the latter under his direct leadership.
190 Tipping Point

Then JP shot off yet another letter to Indira Gandhi (20 June
1974) accusing her of making insinuations (reported in the press)
against his wealthy connections, and the role of non-party organizations
like Sarvodaya without naming him. This he claimed she had done
only after his threat of launching a procession, to be led by him against
corruption, in Patna. The tone was that of hurt and moral indignation
pointing out that she was ‘missing the meaning of the upsurge welling
up from below’ (p. 307). She replied quite promptly and at length,
thanking him for saying that there was no confrontation between them.
She went on to add that it was difficult for her to know what to write
to him since he had already spoken to a newspaperman and others
stating that ‘all bonds’ between them had snapped and that he saw no
point in having a dialogue with her. She added that reading the pub-
lished account of his Patna speech of 5 June, his interview in The
Statesman and his letter filled her heart with sadness. She argued the
case that corruption was not a weapon to be used by the opposition
but a problem to be solved by concrete proposals and their implemen-
tation. In the election process for example his notions of a party-less
democracy was not practical in the present state nor were the people
aligning with him beyond the issue of corruption. She attempted to
explain, caution and help him understand her position. JP responded
in July saying that her reply went a long way in restoring the personal
relationship of affection and regard he had for her. He said his ideas
went beyond party-less democracy to evolve organs of people power
to exercise strict vigil over the democratic process including non-pay-
ment of taxes and land rents as a manner of protesting against
corruption (p. 321).
This letter to her was immediately followed by (on the same day)
a statement perhaps released to the press stating that the PM had
clarified her remarks made against him for which he was thankful. The
statement also said the PM continued to make wild statements about
the Bihar movement. He claimed that although he had never held a
position of power or office he could raise large sum of money ‘. . . it is
not difficult for me to raise a few million rupees for this movement or
for any other cause. . . . In the past also I have raised large funds,
including those for famine relief in 1966-7 in Bihar, and have never
depended on any one businessman or business house’ (p. 322).
 Curious Case of Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan 191

Then there was an escalation of the Bihar movement, and a meeting

with the PM on 1 November 1974, that lasted for 90 minutes along
with Jagjivan Ram, Minister of Food and Irrigation. This was followed
by a press release in which he mentioned her anxiety about the esca-
lation and spread of the movement to other states and he identified
problems of inflation, electoral reforms, corruption, and education and
repeated the demand for the dismissal of Gaffoor Ministry. He stated
that the movement would go onto the next phase with new vigour (p.
381).
Compare all this with the letter dashed off to her from Bangalore
(8 July 1972), congratulating her on the success of the Shimla talks
and with Bhutto with a usual suggestion thrown in and ending with ‘I
am afraid you are working too hard and I hope you will take care of
your health. I am glad you decided to stay behind in Shimla for a couple
of days of rest.’ In two years she could do nothing right!
Although Mrs Gandhi’s replies were gracious throughout, they
became brief progressively. She was in fact, convinced that the move-
ment was directed against her, that it would lead to anarchy and political
instability and that JP was working under the influence of the forces
of reaction and outside forces.29
The game of smoke and mirrors lasted for about two years. The
phase of kind hearted avuncular regard and counsel on different issues
was abruptly over. The confrontation thereafter became direct.
Thereafter a single-minded attack on the person of Indira Gandhi
began, that was evident in his letters, speeches, and press releases. For
example, in a press statement issued and signed by him on 9 January
1975, JP responded derisively to a speech delivered by Prime Minister
Indira Gandhi soon after the assassination of Congress Party treasurer
and minister L.N. Mishra. She had blamed the Bihar movement for
having created an atmosphere of hate and violence. He said she had
‘whipped herself into hysteria’ and repeated the words again in the
same document. JP first cast doubts, about who could have assassinated
Mishra, insinuating perhaps that the situation within the Congress
was such that it could well have been an inside job. He went on to
declare ‘For my part I assert with full responsibility that the Bihar
movement has been the most peaceful and orderly of all such move-
ments that there ever were in this country, including those of the
192 Tipping Point

freedom movement’.30 He blamed the Bihar government for more than

a hundred deaths, injury of thousands and imprisonment of thousands.
This shrewd rejoinder in the press notwithstanding the facts were that
mammoth anti-government rallies were indeed being held in Bihar,
enforcement of three day Bihar bandh did happen and meetings were
held in every constituency and in Gandhi Maidan on 18 Novembers
1974. Similar level of activities occurred in Uttar Pradesh, making the
entire region quite ungovernable.
However, observers said that the movement was dying down by
late 1974. Indira Gandhi publicly addressed JP Narayan to ‘let people
decide at the ballot box’. He publicly accepted the challenge. But
repeated acts of violence from both sides continued. He cited these as
a measure of people’s will against a corrupt government, but no charges
of corruption were produced or substantiated (not even during the
Janata Rule that followed). Corruption itself was a systemic fact, the
real problem was how to build checks and balances against it and keep
them in place. Decades after Independence opposition leaders pro-
nounced their determination to root it out with convenient
predictability.
Much later in a speech at Sarvodaya Ashram he became more
sober since there was evidence from the field that the movement was
indeed slowing down.31 He referred to the fact that there was an
impression that the movement was losing ground since the number of
demonstrations had fallen; mentioned a few pending public actions
but talked mainly of the need to organize students and people for Lok
Sabha elections since Mrs Gandhi had thrown the gauntlet of using
the elections to test the will of the people.
But on 15 January 1975, in a continuation of the old strategy of
agitation he said ‘as we approach 26 January this year, in Bihar we
feel that the present government has no right to lead the people in
celebrating. . . . In the country itself, there has been an unmistakable
tendency to stifle and limit democracy. Fundamental rights of the
citizens have been curtailed; serious threats have been posed to the
independence of the judiciary. Attempts have been made to brow beat
and control the press. Elections have been manipulated through the
massive use of money power. . . .’32 He urged the anti-government
movement to continue.
 Curious Case of Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan 193

Twenty odd days later in a press statement on Mohan Dharia’s

dismissal (a congressman and socialist who had been calling for dialogue
with JP) he urged senior congressmen to protect the tradition of their
party, since a conspiracy seemed afoot to establish Indira Gandhi’s
dictatorship.
A week later, he was once again making a speech in a large gathering
of rural folk at Aurangabad. He talked about Indira Gandhi and how
she had spoken to him (on 1 November 1997) and refused to dissolve
the Bihar assembly.
On 6 March 1975, the Bihar movement activists marched to the
Parliament. The tenors of the speeches that followed were less and less
peaceful.
Hence, the fact that elections could be announced soon had not
mitigated his fanatical unease. It appeared that he could not wait.
Perhaps the fact that the movement was running out of steam and the
economy was stabilizing did not allow him to calm down.
Then another door that was being pushed (with his help) opened
up. The Allahabad High Court delivered its judgement on 12 June
1975 on the petition filed by Raj Narain (another socialist) challenging
the validity of Indira Gandhi’s election in 1971 from the Rae Bareli
constituency against him. The judgement found her guilty of technical
malpractices, declared her disqualified for a period of six years, that
was one more opportunity. JP thundered from Patna, ‘Mrs Gandhi’s
failure to bow to High Court verdict would not only be against the
law as found by Allahabad High Court, but against all public decency
and democratic practice.’ At the same time opposition leaders sat on a
dharna outside Rashtrapati Bhavan and continued till he returned from
Kashmir (p. 72).33 The opposition parties did not want to wait for the
plea filed on 23 June in the Supreme Court, for a stay on the orders of
the Allahabad High Court. On 25 June, JP addressed that large and
‘famous’ rally at Ramlila Ground in Delhi announcing a programme
of civil disobedience against a duly elected government and repeated
his exhortation to the police and army to disobey illegal orders. On 25
June, soon after a call by JP that would culminate in a gherao of the
PM’s residence, forcing her to resign, Morarji Desai said,‘we intend to
overthrow her. To force her to resign by camping there day and night.’
Oddly such relentless attacks hurled on one individual seemed to
194 Tipping Point

imply that it was in her person alone (in the entire, massive Congress
Party) that a threat to JP and the notion of democracy of his coalition
was embodied or the opposition was convinced that Indira Gandhi
was a lonely guardian of the Nehru’s socialist, secular and non-aligned
policy.

JP and his Favourite Variety of Socialism

Presenting Mrs Gandhi with a book he had authored, JP wrote ‘Dear
Indu’, in an epistle (dated 4 March 1974), ‘You understand that my
thoughts are somewhat odd, and I speak something sometime and
something else some time. If you go through this book, you get help
in understanding me – provided you want to’ (p. 250).34 This letter
was written after she had met him and requested him to help resolve
the confrontation with the opposition; he had promised to help and
did just the opposite.
Indeed, not just Mrs Gandhi but others mentioned earlier tried
vainly to understand the logic of his ideology. Amplifying his ideology
in the journal Everyman’s Weekly which he had launched, JP announced
in 1973 that he was not wedded to any ism-whether left, right or centre
(p. 151).35 In an interview given to the Statesman (15 June 1974) he is
reported to have told an interviewer that ideology was a very deceptive
word, what was needed was an end of all ideology and instead only
science could answer the questions and scientists and economists could
chalk out a programme, and common sense and intelligence could
remedy all the social evils.
JP’s socialism was curious indeed, positioned away from Nehru
and Mrs Gandhi it is hard to define. But it would fall somewhere
between the Bhagavad Gita, Upanishads and the Gandhian transfor-
mation of men into pure trustees of their wealth employing it for
decentralized, people’s participation, community-oriented development
with small enterprises. It would perhaps also stand against consumer-
ism, in opposition to the tyranny of ‘standard of living indicators’, and
fall into a third way an alternative category, but one that had no
benchmarks, no clear point of reference. How it was to be achieved
and sustained in a world deeply divided between deeply centralized
(large scale produciton oriented) capitalist and communist alternatives
 Curious Case of Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan 195

was not a profound concern for JP. Having opposed bank nationaliza-
tion earlier he said, state enterprises were state capitalism, elitism
prevailed, and the basic social structure was unchanged. When pressed,
he said nationalization might not be permissible in large scale utilities;
even here other forms of organization might be invented and so on
and so forth. He probably dismissed bank and coal, nationalization
announced by Mrs Gandhi as mere statism. Socialists looking for a
third way were wary of statism.
Nine months after his address to the Rangoon sessions of the CCF
(more about his long association with that later), on 27 December
1955, he addressed the second conference of the Praja Socialist Party
(PSP). JP was a leading member of the Party. He talked about his
decision to retire from active politics to devote himself to Sarvodaya
– an organization that JP later used for his political movements and
damaged. This address to PSP followed a split in the party; the PSP
put up a poor show in the first general elections and his associate Dr
Rammanohar Lohia had broken away.
Two years later he offered a rationale in the form of a 54-page
booklet with Vinoba Bhave’s introduction (a man he also fell out with
later); it was addressed to his colleagues in the PSP and public generally.
He began ‘The past Course of my life might well appear to the outsider
as a zigzag and torturous chart of unsteadiness and blind groping. But
as I look back, I discern in it a uniform line of development’ (p. 228).36
Therein is an account of his journey from participation in non-coop-
eration movement, his involvement with Salt Satyagraha, his quest for
freedom, commitment to marxism and communism as a student in
America. Then follows his disenchantment with the Soviet style of
communism, not uncommon in the post war, post Stalin period. The
Khrushchev years and exposure of Stalin’s methods must have added
to the disenchantment across the world. Upon returning from America
as a marxist he had differences with the CPI. The reasons are described
in some detail. Even for the rise of Hitler he blamed Stalin. JP actively
disassociated himself from the communist movement. He then got
involved with the CSP, which had an alliance with the CPI till they
fall apart. Then he abandoned marxism, reconsidered socialism,
searched for an Asian socialism till he found it in travelling away from
‘materialism’ to ‘goodness’ and ‘Sarvodaya’. But for the longest time he
196 Tipping Point

remained closely associated with the CCF (now widely acknowledged

as a CIA front), this did not deserve even a mention in his 54 page
booklet on his ideological journey and ‘development’.
Almost twenty years after he had described this ideological journey,
his Prison Diary repeated and added other ideas to his eclectic vision.
In the Prison Diary he said that the aim of economic development
should be man, work for every head of the family and a minimum
standard of living. Industrial development should take the line of
medium, small and rural industry, appropriate technology for the scale.
Ownership patterns should vary but be biased towards the small
entrepreneur. Social ownership and trusteeship of workers in the large
industry would be most desirable. He said,‘the Yugoslav model minus
the dictatorship would be quite an agreeable picture’. At the same time
in fact, in the same text, he said that the private sector should have
enough incentives to produce, develop and grow. Unnecessary restraints,
controls should be removed. All enterprises must be keenly sensitive
to ecology as well as considerations of beauty and cleanliness. An
assortment of suggestions followed but all curiously ignored critical
issues of how they would be achieved or how control, national security
in such a decentralized, nebulously structured political economy would
be maintained. How was India to position itself internationally, guard
against interference, aggression and the military technologies evolving
the world over and being supplied in the subcontinent? How should
it survive the cold war?
From his affiliation with Bhoodan were added the ideas of
Trusteeship of Property, ‘Sarvodaya’, voluntarism, of near-total or
maximal decentralization, and against central planning. All this was
essentially a confused, conservative agenda in the 1970s with a deco-
rative, rhetorical veil. ‘Running through all of them is the radically
interpreted concept of voluntarism, which Gunnar Myrdal, in his Asian
Drama singled out as the pernicious feature of the soft state that
pervades not only government but the entire socio-political structure
and culture’ (p. 189).37 Such decentralization in 1970s appeared to be
cloak for nineteenth century type laissez-faire positioned against
planning, control of monopoly capital by expansion of public sector
and against any kind of redistribution.
 Curious Case of Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan 197

As for education, there was a string of recommended topics for

rural schools, about courses on agriculture, law, literature, sociology,
book keeping, gas plant, gram adalat, hygiene, compost, bacteria, biology,
urine-manure all followed each other in a list. This ephemeral descrip-
tion of curriculum was supposed to be the foundation for a third way
in socialism. Various hopes, ideals, suggestions followed each other
eccentrically, unsupported with facts or explanation. By then he was
in his late seventies!
It is quite understandable how this eclectic vision provided a
complete umbrella for the right and far right and socialists of all hues.
It paved the way for the far right which had been struggling previously.
In this coalition, a segment of communists (CPM) was ironically to
find themselves aligned with the far right. To this and other peculiar
compulsions and maneuvres of the organized left in India we will return
at some length in the 4th Chapter.

JP’s Horror of Communists, Soviet Takeover of

India, the Role of CIA and America in the World
and Asian Neighbourhood Generally
‘Of course, quite a number of congressmen are disguised Communists,
they will go with Mrs Gandhi to the ultimate end. They have always
been enemies of democracy. Right behind them is the CPI and behind
it is Soviet Russia. Russia has backed Mrs Gandhi to the hilt. Because
the further Mrs Gandhi advances on her present course, the more
powerful an influence will Russia have over this country. A time may
come when, having squeezed the juice out of Mrs Gandhi, the Russians
through the CPI and their Trojan horses within the Congress will
dump her on the garbage heap of history and install in her place their
own man’ (p. 3).38
‘It might appear from my letter to the PM . . . that she acted in
the manner she has done when her position as PM was threatened.
That only determined the timing. But I am sure Indiraji, the disguised
Communists in her party, the CPI and, behind the scene, Soviet agents
must have prepared a detailed plan for substituting a totalitarian system
for the democratic one that we had until 25th June . . . first social
198 Tipping Point

democracy and then naked Communist Party rule under carefully

disguised Russian tutelage’ (p. 6).39 His deep seated anti-communism
found expression in his vocabulary associated with the McCarthy era,
wherein Communists were ‘describes as stooges’, ‘cryptos’ and ‘dupes’.40
He read of the coup in Bangladesh while in prison. Reacting to
the coup and Mujib’s assassination in 1975 he wrote that it was all the
result of personal and party dictatorship that Mujibur Rehman had
established in Bangladesh after independence. Rumours according to
JP, were thick that,‘. . . at that time the whole strategy followed by Mujib
had been worked out at Delhi by Mujib’s trusted men, Mujib also gave
out excuses similar to those being given now by Indira Gandhi’ (p. 17).
He went on to say that Mushtaq Ahmed, the leader of the coup against
Mujib, could not have done it on his own. The CPI and Russian stooges
all over the world would put the coup down to American imperialism
but JP believed that Mujib’s dictatorship was the cause of the coup. JP
could not grieve for him because Mujib had not overcome his difficulties
to establish a democracy after his break from Pakistan. It entirely
ignored the fact that the utter chaos that prevailed there was in good
part a result of brutal Pakistan repression.
JP knew most of the senior leaders of the Awami League. He knew
Mushtaq Ahmed the leader of the coup at the time of the provincial
government, knew him to be pro west and more Muslim in a sectarian
sense than the Awami League. He added that although CIA and
Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (KGB) were active all over
the world, in India KGB appeared to be doing better and CIA might
have got the better of KGB in Bangladesh, but added with some cer-
tainty that it (Bangladesh coup) was a domestic affair; it went off
smoothly without much bloodshed and was not the result of an
intervention by CIA. He wrote all this from the prison. It took many
years of investigative research by a journalist to prove otherwise.41 Soon
after the coup in the 1980s ‘market based reforms’, liberalization and
privatization became operative policy measures in Bangladesh.
To think that a few years before this summary judgement against
Mujib, JP was writing to and lobbying for Bangladeshi independence!
He was corresponding with leaders and with T.N. Kaul (India’s Foreign
Secretary in 1971) and remarking on Haksar’s cautious approach to
Bangladeshi leaders, who he claimed were unhappy with Haksar, Mrs
 Curious Case of Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan 199

Gandhi’s advisor.42 In his letters he claimed to be in touch with the

ultra left leaning leaders of Bangladesh. In those days he seemed to
want to hasten India’s recognition of Bangladesh.
JP thought Anwar Sadat of Egypt towered over all other leaders
of Asia because he spoke boldly and frankly of Soviet influence and
pressure to accept ceasefire with Israel. America had armed Israel.
Nixon had earlier visited Moscow and the two, USSR and America
had issued a joint statement which reduced Soviet influence in West
Asia. To give the reader a sense of the significance of that occasion and
JP’s position in the Cold War, it is worth noting that on the occasion
of the 40th year of Nixon’s visit to West Asia, the Nixon foundation
website said, ‘President Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger
worked together with President Sadat to push Soviet influence out of
the Middle East, thrusting the United States into the leadership role
as mediator of peace. Egypt was the first country President Nixon
visited on this journey, and the first in the Middle East to instigate a
shift in Arab-Israeli peace talks.’43
JP often mentioned his belief that the secret cells of the PM’s
confidants were pro-Soviet members and they had planned the emer-
gency in his diary. He, an avowed Gandhian socialist, seemed to be
much more panicky about the implausible Soviet takeover of India in
the 1970s than the American interventions to topple popular democ-
racies all over Latin America and the world. By 1970s chronicles of
CIA interventions were well-known in the decolonized world. In the
hub of the cold war, he seemed to have a clear partiality.
JP seemed to be horrified by communist states, a horror not
uncommon among socialists in what they called the free world, a horror
that was amplified by cold war literature. He offered the examples of
poverty in Eastern European cities. One is left wondering how he
compared them to the condition of Indian cities in Bihar in his own
time or how soon decentralized socialism and democracy of his chosen
variety could help improve them. Unfortunately, he is as vague during
his sunset days about the details, as he was in his early days. But
there is one platform where he was quite consistent and involved
(until it becomes impossible to hide behind the façade) and that was
the CCF.
200 Tipping Point

JP and the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF)

in India
A certain ‘CCF’ existed in India; the first country in Asia, outside of
western Europe and America, to have such a Congress. JP was the
Chairman of its first conference in India and (his associate) Minoo
Masani was a pivotal figure. Its first conference was organized at
Sundarbai Hall in south Bombay (Mumbai), on 28 March 1951 barely
four years after Independence. Its plenary session met in the morning
at the Library Hall of the Indian Merchants Chamber in Bombay,
having been denied permission to conduct the conference in Delhi.
C.P. Ramaswamy Aiyar was elected to chair the meeting and the agenda
was to elect members of the steering committee and the following were
elected: D.F. Karaka, Minoo R. Masani (an MP and close associate of
JP), Asoka Mehta (secretary of the Socialist Party of India), S.
Natarajan (editor of the Bombay Chronicle) and Vatsyayan. Delegates
from America and Europe arrived and they were nominated to attend
the meeting in a consultative capacity. Its participants, agenda and
content were noteworthy for reasons that would be discussed.
The same evening, an inaugural session was conducted in
Sundarbai Hall nearby, JP was chairing that session. The welcome
address was given by Masani wherein he welcomed K.M. Munshi a
Cabinet Minister and significant player in the cultural crew of the far
right (he was a Minister in Nehru’s government that had denied per-
mission to conduct the conference in Delhi,) and JP whom he hailed
as the one of the finest and noblest of public men, indeed, one who
was looked upon as the hope of a large section of young people. He
then made some sarcastic remark about the establishment in Delhi
which denied them permission, referred to the danger of a totalitarian
menace which restricted the freedom of speech, expression and thought
in India and everywhere in the world. Bombay apparently was the host
of the last resort in India. Masani who gave the welcome address and
the Cabinet Minister who gave the opening speech were both from
Bombay and were able to plan to shift the conference from Delhi to
Bombay at short notice.
Foreign delegates included the following, Norman Thomas a
Presbyterian Minister, an ambitious politician, a leader of the socialist
 Curious Case of Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan 201

movement in America, who often spoke about the differences between

his brand of socialism and communism, and was an active anti-Stalinist;
H.J. Muller geneticist and Nobel Prize winner, who edited a leftist
newsletter The Spark. Earlier in 1934 he had migrated to USSR, but
his work on eugenics had earned the displeasure of Stalin and he had
to leave; Max Yergen an African-American sociologist; James Burnham
an American political scientist was a prominent left activist in the
Trotsky camp 1930s and later left Marxism to become a public intel-
lectual of the conservative persuasion; Stephen Spender and W.H.
Auden were both from Oxford and poets of the 1930s, Spender’s early
career reflected his Marxist orientation; Denis De Rougemont a social
philosopher from Europe and campaigner against the perils of totali-
tarianism and preservation of Christian values and federalism in
Europe; Julius Mangoline known as an authority on soviet slave labour;
Don Salvador de Madariaga a Spaniard man of letters, classic liberal,
diplomat and Ambassador to USA and a permanent delegate to the
League of Nations. These assembled foreign speakers either dwelt on
or referred to the dangers of Soviet style totalitarianism. This galaxy
of socialists and ex-leftists with some men of science was a front as
one would see later.
Mr S.H. Vatsyayan (‘Agyeya’ the unknowable, as he was known)
was the secretary of the CCF, a man of many parts, associated with
revolutionaries during the freedom movement, a Hindi literary figure
with an extensive body of work, political activist, well travelled in his
later years and associated with the Progressive Writers Movement,
editor of many Hindi newspapers and magazines at various periods,
some associated with the TOI group. Vatsyayan began by reading
messages of greetings from abroad and within the country, made some
observations regarding the significance of the conference since he was
the editor of the journal which originally sponsored the idea of an
Indian Congress of Cultural Freedom.
Vatsyayan held forth on the long history of cultural freedom or
freedom of the spirit as he called it, in India and the need to have no
sense of complacency in guarding it especially in the wake of a dangerous
idea that had grown out of the European enlightenment into Marxism,
which linked culture completely with political ideology.44 In 1973-4
he was editor of JPs magazine Everyman’s Weekly. In 1978 he was duly
202 Tipping Point

awarded the Bharatiya Jnanpith Award for Hindi literature, when the
(opposition) Janata Party was in power. So, the core group was like
minded, consisted of handy associates of JP and the invitees who were
worried mostly about the dangers of Marxism, Communism and Soviet
Union. Some however were not as alert as others about the mission
and purpose of the CCF.
JP remained closely associated with the CCF for he addressed the
next event too, this time in Rangoon on 17, 18, 19 February 1955. His
friend Minoo Masani and the Mayor of Rangoon were in attendance;
he spoke to an audience from various Asian countries about the threats
to cultural freedom from the increasing role of the state, he referred to
the division of the world into the ‘free part and the slave or totalitarian
part’ and the mixtures within the spectrum, advising countries who
were looking forward to shaping a political system after achieving
freedom to stand guard.‘In my country we talk a great deal, for instance,
of the welfare state. In other countries there are other ideals which
have been placed before the people; but all these systems seem to be
based on the assumption, on the principle, that human beings cannot
take care of themselves; that there should be some institution, some
authority, whether elected by the people or imposed over their heads,
who should be given the power and the authority to look after the
well-being of the people – their education, their economic betterment
and so on. It seems to me that in thinking of all these systems, economic,
political or other, there is a tendency to forget the human being – the
individual who is, after all, the root of society’ (p. 47).45 He talked of
how creating a welfare state, could translate into denial of freedom to
vast masses of people and the growth of a totalitarian state. Instead,
the basis of cultural freedom was a self-reliant, independent, creative
man as the centre of the system who was dedicated to the good of all.
‘The Indian concept of life is that we are living in order to achieve our
deliverance – whether it is called by the Buddhist term of Nirvana or
the Hindu term Moksha – deliverance from the limitations of time
and space – from the limitations of life and death, from bondage. . . .
Every individual was expected to fight his own battle, not with the help
of the state. Every individual had to struggle in order to free himself
from the limitations which his karma, or whatever you call it, has placed
upon him’ (p. 49). He spoke on three consecutive days on religious and
 Curious Case of Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan 203

economic aspects of cultural freedom voicing his faith in the transfor-

mation of man for Sarvodaya.
The CIA had funded CCF to counter what they described as the
Soviet propaganda. The CCF in turn spawned a variety of cultural
interventions in the world of letters, this included magazines and
journals. The political interventions of the CIA were rather well rec-
ognized even in the 1960s and 1970s. However, their activities in
promoting the American view and way of life through the world of art,
music and literature became better known much later. The details of
these operations were uncovered gradually through books and papers,
Saunders’ Cultural Cold War (1999) being the most cited work in that
context.46 Papers like Sabin’s,‘The Politics of Cultural Freedom’47 and
Sconti’s paper on CCF in Europe can be cited as examples.48 A more
recent book by Whitney (2016) has extended the line of research to
confirm the level of CIA involvement in India.49 Whitney’s research is
based on archives that of the internal correspondence of parties involved
in the CCF.
A letter of one of the co-founders of The Paris Review (CFF flagship
publication), from Harold Humes to Plimpton (co-founder) informed
him on Humes having just learned from a third co-founder Peter
Matthiessen that he (Matthiessen) was an agent of the CIA and that
Matthiessen himself had volunteered this information. Whitney said,
‘. . . In an attempt to inspire his colleagues to come clean Humes cited
an opinion that grew increasingly common as revelations of the CIA’s
vast propaganda apparatus was published in Ramparts (magazine) and
The New York Times in 1964, 1966 and 1967. Namely that any
association with the super-secret spy agency notorious for coups,
assassinations, and undermining democracy in the name of fighting
communism-tainted the reputations of those involved’ (pp. 3-4).50
Humes pressed the point forcefully,‘. . .since this was apparently a
formal arrangement, involving Matthiessen being trained in a New
York safe house and being paid through a cover name; that without
doubt the fact is recorded in some or several dusty functionaries files
in Washington and all around the world that our hapless magazine
was created and used as an engine in the damned cold war.’
Plimpton chose to downplay the concerns of Humes perhaps
because he himself had ties with the CIA. These ties emerged only in
204 Tipping Point

2012, when several years’ worth of correspondence between Plimpton,

his staff and functionaries of CIA funded CCF was unearthed in the
Paris Reviews Archives at the Morgan library in mid-town Manhattan.
‘Indeed, the Paris Review was one of the CCFs many active partners
that agreed to syndicate “content”’. Though, these were magazines not
necessarily founded or run by the CCF, the Paris Review was indeed
founded by one agent, but their editors were willing to work with the
CCF on a slew of collaborations large and small . . . more than two
dozen official magazines like Preuves in France, Der Monat in Germany,
Encounter in London-plus, the lesser known Quest in India, Mundo
Nuevo in Paris for Hispanic readers and Jiyu in Japan. These official
[funded] magazines were conceived, created, named and even overseen
by CIA officers who consulted directly with the like of CIA director
Allen Dulles and a handful of other agencies or foreign intelligence
officials about their editorial operations but unlike these official CIA
magazine the Paris Review was left almost entirely to its own devices’
(p. 4).
Plimpton consciously aligned his agenda with that of the CIA.
Whitney mentioned a string of writers like Arthur Schlesinger, James
Baldwin, Arthur Miller, Pablo Neruda Ernesto Che Guevara, Emir
Rodriguez Monegal, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, JP, who were wittingly
or otherwise drawn into the cultural propaganda and censorship
enterprises of the CIA through the CCF. Some of them undoubtedly
were drawn in unwittingly.
‘As such, India’s leaders refused to align solely either with the United
States or USSR. Because of this the CIA sought to penetrate India.
It would do so by using the local affiliate of the CCF as a foothold,
and that affiliate would include Narayan and Masani among its
members’ (p. 136).51
JP was not just an unwitting writer; he was to become honorary
president of the Indian chapter of CCF. Whitney traced JPs progress
and said, ‘What was unusual about the Bhoodan movement was that
it was not only approved by anti-communists it was also co-led by a
figure revered by CCF; the CCF has even put him on its stationery
besides John Dewey, Bertrand Russell, Reinhold Niebuhr. At the height
of the movement, in fact, Encounter gave more space to Bhoodan with
its Gandhian and religious tint and to its founder Vinoba Bhave than
 Curious Case of Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan 205

it gave to American desegregation or a long list of other important

topics’ (p. 130).52 JP was a unique figure in the middle and late 1950;
unique in that he was a hero of the CCF and at the same time, his
involvement in a ‘redistribution’ drive however minor, was being praised
by the CCF. Nowhere else did the CCF approve of or even flirt with
the ideas of redistribution.
JP in the 1930s as mentioned earlier, along with a few others like
Minoo Masani whom he had met in the prison in pre-Independence
days, had launched the CSP initially within the fold of the Congress
for addressing issues of labour. After independence in 1948, JP launched
what became a popular union in India in charge of a force of a million
workers. The socialists then split from the Congress. His relationship
with Nehru became increasingly fraught when the Congress party won
the 1952 elections. Nehru invited JP to explore the prospect of socialists
rejoining the Congress Party, but JP did not make that happen. Nehru
was saddened by their departure, in his campaign speeches he praised
JP, Kriplani, and rued the fact that he was campaigning in opposition
to the socialists some of who were his old, intimate friends, that all of
them were pulling in different directions and doing nothing in the end.
Indira Gandhi however believed that the socialists were funded by
American dollars 53 and JP was jealous of Nehru’s preeminence as a
PM just as he also resented her being the Prime Minister.54 By 1955,
JP went through another shift in his political orientation that made
him dedicate his life to the Bhoodan movement that has been discussed
earlier.
In 1956, Nehru was initially silent in the face of Soviet invasion
of Hungary and its accession, he spoke later. JP and the Indian branch
of the CCF expressed their shock quickly. On 25 February 1956,
Khrushchev as the new leader gave an account of the excesses of the
Stalin period to the twentieth Party Congress of the Communist Party
of USSR. The speech was leaked into the western press allegedly by
the CIA which obtained it.55 Excerpts ran in New York Times on 5
June 1956. Radio Free Europe which was another instrument of the
CIA played it up and helped to provoke unrest in Poland and Hungary.
CIA had hardly any presence inside Hungary56 and Soviet forces
entered Budapest. The Hungarian episode turned nasty with thousands
of civilian protesters dead.
206 Tipping Point

Apparently though, JP had declared that he would dedicate his

life lately to quieter grass root campaigns seemingly outside the political
frame, however, as the honorary president of the CCF in India, he
issued a statement: condemning armed intervention by Russia to impose
its own puppets. He said that no one could question the right of
Hungarian or any others including the Indian people to choose a
communist form of Government if they so desired, but interference in
domestic issues by a foreign power was to be condemned. His state-
ments were carried in the CCF newspapers. JP’s anti-communism vs
Nehru’s staunch neutrality became well established talking point among
the intelligentsia. He took pains to underline it.57 Whitney said, ‘He
became known as Nehru’s foremost critic, but he vacillated between
his commitment to the poor and his role as public gadfly keeping in
touch with political players and friends’ (p. 137). Nehru remained
consistently neutral despite the best efforts of America. With the help
of sympathisers, CCF kept trying to expand its influence in India. The
editors of Encounter (the other CCF magazine) knew that India was
mission critical and were told so by the headquarters. India was referred
to as the last hope in Asia of the ‘free world’. The Paris Review, on
the other hand, almost entirely ignored India and the developing
world in favour of trans-Atlantic cultural alliance. To augment its
influence and promote free world ethos in India, the CCF launched a
new Indian magazine called Quest in August 1955. Its mission
statement was recorded, for its funding agency the Asia Foundation,
‘Considering moral neutrality in the face of totalitarian threat to is a
betrayal of mankind, the CCF opposed thought control whether
concealed or active.’ Indian communists called it insidious American
propaganda.58
Nissim Ezekiel, then a young and aspiring writer/poet became the
editor of Quest. Nirad Chaudhuri also became associated with CCF.
The western funders tried to control Quest through editorial orders
besides directives to report on all the CCF conferences. In his second
editorial, Ezekiel had to refute charges that Quest represented the
American lobby. The third issue ran articles on Indian dance, poetry,
music midst articles on India’s inability to buy more defence equipment
and in praise of Henry Kissinger.
Another magazine brought out in India was Imprint, this was by
 Curious Case of Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan 207

an International Organizations Division, responsible for non-intelli-

gence gathering of covert operations of CIA specifically projecting soft
power. It sought to project American literature, way of life, generosity
and heroism, Indian poverty and recruit any anti-communist they could
find.
Alongside JP, Minoo Masani and others who were in the executive
committee of the CCF included prominent socialists who operated all
over India and opposed India’s neutrality. Masani, a former Mayor of
Bombay and three time member of Parliament, was a democratic
socialist who opposed monopolies, but none the less co-founded the
Swatantra Party which was opposed to the nationalization of banks.
JP was not alone in this mélange.
Whitney said it was part of a view widespread in America’s CIA,
that working journalists, in at least one newspaper in every foreign
capital might justifiably do double duty as CIA agent so that the CIA
may use the media in its many forms as cover and as a soft power for
dampening blow back against its unpopular operations.
Referring to their most famous magazine the famous Paris Review
Whitney said, ‘Indeed, The Paris Review was one of the Congresses
for Cultural Freedom’s many active partners and vast engine that agreed
to syndicate content.’
The British answer to the claims of Soviet propaganda was also
belatedly taking shape at that time. The Information Research
Department (IRD) had been set up in February 1948 by Atlee’s
Government. It was the fastest growing section of the foreign office.
‘We cannot hope successfully to repel Communism only by disparaging
it on material grounds’, explained IRDs architect, Foreign Secretary
Bevin,‘. . . and must add a positive appeal to democratic and Christian
principles, remembering the strength of Christian sentiment in Europe.
We must put forward a rival ideology to communism’ (p. 49).59 The
IRD was a secret ministry of Cold War. It roped in British intellectuals
whom it had used during the WW2 to build up a cosy ‘Uncle Joe’ image
of Stalin – then a partner of the Allied forces. The main aim was to
produce, circulate and distribute unattributable propaganda among
the public. One of the IRDs most important early advisers was
Hungarian born famous author and dissident Arthur Koestler;
under his tutelage the department understood the usefulness of
208 Tipping Point

accommodating those people and institutions who, while in the tradi-

tion of left wing politics, perceived themselves broadly to be in
opposition to the centre of power. The purpose was twofold: first to
acquire a proximity to progressive groups in order to monitor their
activities; second, to dilute the impact of these groups by achieving
influence from within or drawing its members into a parallel – and
subtly less radical forum. JP referred to Koestler as his friend60 just as
later he was to refer to members of the Jana Sangh.
The CIA had a bright idea: who better to fight the communists
than the ex-communists or socialists? In consultation with Koestler,
this idea began to take shape. Many such people were already lured
into the state departments and intelligence circles, designated as a group
– the non communist left.
Indeed, for the CIA, the strategy of promoting the non-communist
Left was to become ‘. . . the theoretical foundation of the agency’s political
operations against communism over the next two decades’.61 The
non-communist group was collected under the covers of the God that
Failed a book with essays by six contributors who put together their
personal experiences against communism.
The Soviet propaganda establishment of the late 1940s was not
so easy to overcome. There was need to create a permanent structure
dedicated to organized intellectual resistance to communism. This was
discussed in Germany, present among others were ex-members of the
German communist party, officials of the State Department’s Covert
Operations Wing called the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC), and
CIA agents. It was formalized in the shape of a large gathering in West
Berlin of all ex-communists, anti-Stalinists, declaring sympathy for
Tito and Yugoslavia and for the silent opposition in Russia and the
satellite states. Funding came via Marshall Plan, which was a gush of
fund for rebuilding war-devastated Europe, some used by the CIA.
This became the CCF and held its first session in Berlin 1950. Saunders
said, ‘Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs was so impressed
by the whole thing that he urged the CIA to sponsor the Congress on
a continuing basis even before the conclave in Berlin had taken place.
For once, such optimism was not misplaced’ (p. 61). But since its first
conclave in Berlin there were rumours surrounding the CCF that it
was not the artless independent event that its organizers claimed it to
 Curious Case of Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan 209

be. ‘The grand scale on which the Congress was launched at a time
when Europe was broke seemed to confirm the rumours that this was
not quite the spontaneous, independent event that its organizers
claimed . . . had so much money that he didn’t know what to do with
it (p. 69). . . . Years later, Tom Braden of the CIAs reflected that simple
common sense was enough to find out who was behind the Congress’.62
As it happened common sense was not the rage in India until CCF
was definitively exposed in 1967 by western sources. Whatever goodwill
the Indian collaborators would have enjoyed must have evaporated
quickly because they rushed to express their indignation. JP had worked
with the Indian chapter of the CCF since its inception, and wrote to
his connected friends that ‘It was not enough to assess that the Congress
had always functioned with independence. . . . The Agency was only
doing what it must have considered useful for itself.’ His colleague,
K.K. Sinha, wrote to announce that he was quitting the organization,
adding, ‘Had I any idea . . . that there was a time bomb concealed in
the Paris headquarters, I would not have touched the Congress’.63
It is difficult to imagine that JP had no clue about the funding.
His name figured in the list of notables who contributed to their
magazines. The magazine Encounters for example was linked to the
intelligence world and lists him, as their sole contributor from the Asian
world, alongside notable names in literature like V. Nabokov, J.L. Borges,
Richard Ellmann, W.H. Auden, Arnold Toynbee, Bertrand Russell
and Hugh Trevor-Roper as its contributors. In 1958, the CCF had
organized a ‘western celebration of Tolstoy’. American intelligence had
long had an interest in Tolstoy as a symbol of individual freedom and
the CIA had funded the Munich based Tolstoy foundation through
the contacts that the Tolstoy family maintained with the Psychological
Strategy Board (PSB) of the CIA. This eventually took the form of a
lavish affair on a Venetian island of San Giorgio in June-July 1960. JP
is listed as one of the luminaries who attended.
Then in 1967-8 when there were public disclosures about the fact
that CIA money had funded the CCF and its events there was serious
fallout among those associated with it, and reports about that squabble
appeared in the New York Times. Many people hastened to retrieve
their reputation and express their surprise and innocence. The fact is
that hardly anyone with some experience of the CCF was much deceived
210 Tipping Point

since it was a story that was widely discussed. While K.K. Sinha
resigned, JP as Chairman of the Indian CCF wrote that he could not
conceive how anyone who believed in freedom, open society and in the
moral correspondence between means and ends could have thought it
proper to accept funds from an agency of international espionage!
By this time JP had been working on behalf of this front organi-
zation of CIA for at least 15 years. JP should have lost some of his
Gandhian radiance by the time he plunged into the Bihar movement
barely five years later. Somehow, he did not even get stained, he had
long been an influential exemplar of the ‘saintly -idiom’ in Indian pol-
itics,64 his righteous image now resisted the international brouhaha
over CCF. An astute media and public less overwhelmed with saintliness
would have at least been apprehensive.

To Conclude
The years 1973-4, therefore, were packed with both economic and
political worries for Indira Gandhi’s government, a fact that was noticed
internationally. A New York Times report in January 1974 had put
India at grave risk from the oil price rise, anywhere from 50 per cent
to 80 per cent of export earnings would be spent on oil imports up
from 20 per cent. Cost of kerosene, the main cooking fuel had risen
rapidly.‘Economists and Government officials were now convinced that
the rising cost of oil imports placed India in a bleak position as the
nation was beset by inflation, political dissension, lagging growth, a
spiralling population and unchecked poverty. In the aftermath of the
decision by Persian Gulf nations to double the posted price of crude
oil, the Indian Government remained torn by uncertainty about 1974.
Food production, a key to India’s stability, was expected to drop at least
three million tons during the spring harvest because of the rising oil
price and a shortage of petroleum based fertilizer’.65
From 1973 onwards a global slump brought on by oil price rise
had the usual consequences for the working class with closures, layoffs,
unemployment, rising prices but frozen wages. Up to the early 1980s,
most developing countries underwent major economic turmoil, social
unrest and extended periods of state repression, from Chile 1973, to
 Curious Case of Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan 211

India 1975, to South Africa 1976, to Poland 1977, to South Korea

and Iran 1979.
At least some of the problems in India like oil price rise and
droughts were completely out of current domestic control. Besides
India was just recovering from a war, massive refugee crisis. Food
shortages were certainly a result of the internal contradictions in the
development model adopted earlier, inability to push through any kind
of agrarian reform, institutional or technological in the first three plans.
In addition a rapidly growing population created an enduring condition
of demand exceeding supply of food. This was coupled with the scarcity
of other wage goods (basic consumer goods). An oil price shock had
the potential to undo the economy.
While, the north-eastern states remained highly volatile at Diego
Garcia, not far from India’s southern tip, America was establishing a
naval base. President Gerald Ford claimed the right to destabilize
governments it did not approve.66
And given the complex antecedents and intentions and oriented
leaders of the ‘Sampooran Kranti – total revolution’ movement, the
response of the PM was conceivably either panicky or precautionary.
Indira Gandhi announced her rejoinder to the activities of the oppo-
sition parties on 26 June and declared the national emergency. Soon
after this the opposition movement collapsed with the arrest of its
leaders. So, it was not as popular a movement at the grass roots as it
was made out to be in the media. The organized working class, rural
and urban poor, was not a part of it. In the later stages even students
or the urban middle-class participation was on the decline. Large
sections of the industrial working class were unionized and under the
influence of the CPI which was from the outset, against the JP move-
ment and its connections with reactionary forces of the far right. The
underclass that provided recruits for the demonstrations disappeared
when the organizers of rent a crowd were no longer there.
A TPP was announced five days after the emergency to address
rural poverty on an unprecedented scale. Steps were taken to raise
agricultural production through more energetic implementation and
spread of green revolution, to increase industrial production, clamp
down on strikes, agitations and reinforce economic growth. All this
212 Tipping Point

was considered necessary to deal with the multiple pressures on the

economy. Dhar said the adoption and implementation of these policies
(TPP) became more feasible under the new regime than in the past,
besides some of these policies were state subjects and many states had
ignored them earlier.67
Indira Gandhi, however, did not use her emergency powers to set
about implementing liberalizing polices that would stimulate higher
growth to tackle poverty. Dhar who seemed to think these were
appropriate strategies for ultimate self-reliance said, ‘She herself was
unimpressed by the prospect of liberalization policies which were to
put India on a high growth path, and which would ultimately eliminate
poverty and make India a truly self-reliant power’ (p. 265).68 But she
did not use her powers to push through land reforms. One suspects
that there was no will at the state and grass root level besides the
turbulence caused by bank, coal, insurance nationalization had almost
unseated her. It would have been politically foolhardy to go onward.
After all the state level Congress political leadership was still the
entrenched in landed property.
The emergency certainly became unpopular over time and excesses
of bureaucrats, police were unreported and became indefensible. The
economic policy that Mrs Gandhi had defined as her party’s campaign
platforms so far also resulted in considerable apprehension within parts
of her party itself. Reports seemed to suggest that it was the Ford
Foundation sponsored, campaign for mass forced sterilization that
became the central cause of popular disgust with the emergency. Indira
Gandhi’s son Sanjay Gandhi got deeply involved in it’s over enthusiastic
implementation. The major portion of JP’s funds came through the
‘Gandhi Peace Foundation, a ‘cultural center’ that also received its money
from the Ford Foundation.
Seventeen months later, in a brief national broadcast on 18 January,
Gandhi announced the election and her ‘unshakable faith in the power
of the people.’ She warned against misuse of election campaigns: ‘May
I remind you that the emergency was proclaimed because the nation
was far from normal. Now that it is being nursed to health, we must
ensure that there is no relapse.’
Executive Intelligence Review (a journal that has links with the
maverick La Rouche movement and to the US Labour Party) wrote
 Curious Case of Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan 213

‘This warning is well taken by the coalition front of opposition parties

( Janata Front), which in the pre-emergency period attempted to topple
Mrs Gandhi from power through provoked strikes and mass disruption
of the economy, in many cases with direct aid from the US CIA. JP,
the opposition leader on the Ford Foundation payroll, called for the
army to mutiny, which led to the declaration of the emergency in June
1975’.69 According to the report just cited there was a larger plot that
included World Bank pressures on the government to forego indepen-
dent development in favour of externally determined model mainly:
borrow externally on soft or hard terms, earn foreign exchange to pay
the foreign debt.
Indira Gandhi saw it as a convergence of the forces of reaction and
imperialism at the height of the Cold War in India. She claimed that
there had been ‘growth of subterranean foreign influences in Indian
politics and of deep penetration of the country’s institutions, bureau-
cracy, and political leadership . . . by foreign intelligence agencies . . .
RSS’s influence over the JP movement . . . its penetration of army, police
and bureaucracy. . . ’ (p. 5).70
Calling for JP’s release from prison immediately after his arrest
was Willy Brandt (leader of Social Democratic Party), Chancellor of
West Germany 1969-74 (pro-America) and later Chairman of the
Socialist International, suspected to be close to American intelligence
agencies. The Communist party of India was persuaded that JP and
George Fernandes had direct links with the CIA.71
Soon after the Janata victory, New York Times and Washington Post
wrote that American strategists were salivating at the prospect of a
China-India-America alliance against USSR. They thought that the
Janata victory represented something of a windfall for Washington
DC.72
Whatever the truth might be about the 1970s, Indira Gandhi’s
version does not seem too improbable now, given the evidence at hand.
Nor are the after effects of the JP movement and resulting emergency
unbelievable today, they consolidated the right and far right wing. They
surround us today, calling us to consider her view.
Interestingly, the Shah Commission of Inquiry set up by the Janata
government, was given terms of reference that included misuse of
authority and subversion of lawful process during the emergency but
214 Tipping Point

there has been no inquiry about the circumstances that led to the
emergency.

NOTES
1. R. Guha (2017), India After Gandhi, New Delhi: Picador India.
2. Amrit Bazar Patrika, 7 July 1977.
3. B. Chandra (2003), In the Name of Democracy, Gurgaon: Penguin Books.
4. Ibid.
5. J. Narayan (1978), Towards Total Revolution, vol. IV.
6. G. Ostergaard (1985), ’The Ambiguous Strategy of JPs Last Phase’, in
D. Selbourne (ed.), In Theory and in Practice, Delhi: Oxford University
Press.
7. D. Selbourne, ed. (1985), In Theory and in Practice, Delhi: Oxford
University Press.
8. B. Chaterji (1985), ‘In Pursuit of the Real Jayaprakash Narayan’, in D.
Selbourne (ed.), In Theory and in Practice, Delhi: Oxford University
Press.
9. B. Chandra (2003), In the Name of Democracy, op. cit.
10. J.P. Narayan Correspondence, III installment, NMML Archives,
Telegram, 23 November 1972.
11. G. Shah (1977), Protest Movements in Two Indian States: A Study of the
Gujarat and Bihar Movements, New Delhi: Ajanta Books.
12. GOI, Ministry of Home Affairs (1975), Why Emergency?
13. B. Chatterji (1984), Conflict in JPs Politics, New Delhi: Ankur Publishing
House.
14. J. Narayan (1977), Prison Diary 1975, Bombay: Popular Prakashan.
15. J. Narayan (1978), ‘Total Revolution’, in Brahmananda (ed.), Towards
Total Revolution, Bombay: Popular Prakashan.
16. B. Chandra (2003), In the Name of Democracy, op. cit.
17. Mary C. Carras (1980), Indira Gandhi: In the Crucible of Leadership,
Bombay: published in arrangement with Beacon Press, Boston by Jaico.
18. J. Narayan (1977), Prison Diary 1975, op. cit.
19. Mary C. Carras (1980), Indira Gandhi: In the Crucible of Leadership, op.
cit.
20. A. Roy (1981), Political Power in India: Nature and Trends, Calcutta:
Naya Prokash.
21. J. Narayan (1977), Prison Diary 1975, op. cit.
22. B. Chandra (2003), In the Name of Democracy, op. cit.
23. Ibid.
 Curious Case of Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan 215

24. P.N. Dhar (2000), Indira Gandhi, the Emergency and Indian Democracy,
New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
25. Nehru Memorial Museum and Library Archives, Jayaprakash Narayan,
III Installment, Correspondence L.K. Advani, Telegram 23-11-72.
26. J. Narayan (1977), Prison Diary 1975, Bombay: Popular Prakashan.
27. B. Prasad (2007), Jayaprakash Narayan, Selected Works, vol. 7, New
Delhi: Manohar.
28. A.G. Noorani (1974), ‘Crisis in India’s Judiciary’, Imprint , January 1974.
29. B. Chandra (2003), In the Name of Democracy, Gurgaon: Penguin Books.
30. Nehru Memorial Museum and Library Archives, Jayaprakash Narayan,
III Installment, Speeches/Writings and Articles, serial no. 232, p. 2.
31. Ibid., serial no. 231, p. 2.
32. Ibid., serial no 232, p. 2.
33. P. Mukherjee (2015), The Dramatic Decade, New Delhi: Rupa
Publications.
34. Nehru Memorial Museum and Library Archives, op. cit.
35. B. Chandra (2003), In the Name of Democracy, op. cit.
36. B. Prasad (2007), Jayaprakash Narayan: Selected Works, vol. 7, New
Delhi: Manohar.
37. Mary C. Carras (1980), Indira Gandhi: In the Crucible of Leadership,
op. cit.
38. J. Narayan (1977), Prison Diary 1975, op. cit.
39. Ibid.
40. B. Chandra (2003), In the Name of Democracy, op. cit.
41. L. Lifschultz (1979), Bangladesh: The Unfinished Revolution, London:
Zed Books; L. Lifschultz (2005), ‘The Past is Never Dead: The Long
Shadow of the August 1975 Coup’, The Daily Star, vol. 5, # 434, 15
August 2005.
42. J. Ramesh (2018), Intertwined Lives, New Delhi: Simon & Schuster.
43. https://www.nixonfoundation.org/2014/06/6-12-74-toasts-president-
nixon-president-anwar-el-sadat-egypt/
44. Indian Congress for Cultural Freedom (1951), Proceedings 28 March
-31, Kannada Press, Poddar Chambers, Bombay
45. B. Prasad (2007), Jayaprakash Narayan: Selected Works, op. cit.
46. F.S. Saunders (1999), The Cultural Cold War, New York: The New
Press.
47. M. Sabin (1995), ‘The Politics of Cultural Freedom: Indian in the 1950s’,
Raritan, 1 March 1995, pp. 45-65.
48. A. Scointi (2020), ‘I Am Afraid Americans Cannot Understand: The
Congress for Cultural Freedom in France and Italy, 1950-1957’,
Journal of Cold War Studies, vol. 22, issue 1, Winter 2020, pp. 89-124.
216 Tipping Point

49. J. Whitney (2016), Finks: How the CIA Tricked the World’s Best Writers,
New York: OR Books.
50. Ibid.
51. Ibid.
52. Ibid.
53. R. Guha (2017), India After Gandhi, op. cit., p. 139.
54. P. Jayakar (1988), Indira Gandhi: A Biography.
55. M. Holzman (2008), James Jesus Angleton: The CIA and Craft of Counter
Intelligence, Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press.
56. E. Thomas (1995 ), The Very Best Men: The Daring Early Days of the
CIA, New York: Simon & Schuster.
57. J. Narayan (1956), ‘Nehru and Hungary’s Revolt’, The New Leader, 17
November 1956.
58. F.S. Saunders (1999), The Cultural Cold War, New York: The New
Press.
59. J. Whitney (2016), Finks: How the CIA Tricked the World’s Best Writers,
op. cit.
60. D. Selbourne (1985), ‘A Political Morality Reexamined’, in Selbourne
(ed.), In Theory and in Practice, Delhi: Oxford University Press.
61. M. Warner (1955), ‘Origin of the Congress for Cultural Freedom’, Studies
in Intelligence 38, no. 5 (Summer 1995).
62. F.S. Saunders (1999), The Cultural Cold War, New York: The New
Press.
63. https://thewire.in/116189/cia-sponsored-indian-magazines-
engaged-indias-best-writers/
64. R. Guha (2017), India After Gandhi, op. cit., p. 492.
65. B. Weintraub (1974), ‘India, Slow to Grasp Oil Crisis, Now Fears Severe
Economic Loss’, 20 January, New York Times.
66. Mary C. Carras (1980), Indira Gandhi: In the Crucible of Leadership, op.
cit.
67. P.N. Dhar (2000), Indira Gandhi, the Emergency and Indian Democracy,
New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
68. Ibid.
69. Executive Intelligence Review (1977), Asia, pp. 55-6, vol. 4, no. 5.
70. B. Chandra (2003), In the Name of Democracy, op. cit.
71. Executive Intelligence Review (1977), op. cit.
72. B.R. Nayar (1977), ‘India and the Super Powers . . . ’, Economic and
Political Weekly, 23 July 1977.
 CHAPTER 4

Gradualism, Marginal Redistribution

Confusion on the Left,
Consolidation on the Right

Pandit Nehru has complained that China has unity while India lacks
it. He should know why there is unity in China. Because, the people
there are united to sweep away the obstacles that stand in the path of
China’s advance towards the happiness of the masses; Chiang Kai-shek,
despite his talk of unity could not achieve it because he was anxious to
preserve those very things which prevented the improvement of the lot
of the people . . . the mass of people cannot be united behind a policy
which seeks to perpetuate the atrocious exploitation by the foreign and
Indian vested interest.
–Ajoy Ghosh: Communist Answer to Pandit Nehru
An objective illusion may arise from what we can see from our particular
position – how things look from there (no matter how misleading).
Consider the relative sizes of the sun and the moon, and the fact that
from the earth they look to be about the same size. . . . But to conclude
from this observation that the sun and the moon are in fact of the same
size in terms of mass or volume would be mistaken, and yet to deny
that they do look to be about the same size from the earth would be a
mistake too.
–Amartya Sen1

Introduction
To recapitulate Chapter 2; Mrs Gandhi turned to the left and undertook
political and legislative maneuvres to push that agenda. Her left turn
was more radical than Nehru’s who was perhaps far more preoccupied
218 Tipping Point

with difficulties of establishing liberal democratic institutions and

maintain political unity in the aftermath of 200 years of colonial rule,
one that ended in a bloody and chaotic Partition. Conceivably, gradu-
alism and caution had been overdone in the 1950s and 1960s and some
reforms that could have preceded her tenure had not happened during
Nehru’s tenure, agrarian reforms being the principle issue.
Her legislations included circumscribing the power of monopoly
capital particularly in banking, insurance by nationalizing them, mineral
resources and so on. Bank nationalization was also done to include
smaller producers and farmers in the financial system and increase the
production of food. The success of the Green Revolution was based
on introduction of new seeds, fertilisers, pesticides, and credit in
agriculture. Credit expansion and inputs of Green Revolution went to
the land owning class. This was perhaps an essential supply side
stimulus even though it was an adequate response to precarious food
situation from the demand side. It was the only way forward from
where Indira Gandhi found India. The situation was so dire that earlier,
Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri had appealed to the nation to fast
once a week to cope with it.
Nationalization of natural resources like coal, coking coal; smaller
shipping enterprises, gold and copper mining, and 46 textile mills
followed. Earlier, a single holding company would control steel and
associated industries. The management of Indian Iron and Steel
Company (IISCO) owned by Martin Burn and the third largest
business house in India was taken over in August 1972 without
compensation. In 1973, the government also decided to take over
wholesale trade in wheat and rice to deal with hoarding and speculation
in scarce food grain (which had to be withdrawn in a year).
The comprehensive anti-poverty agenda initiated was not a radical
one. Given the scale of the problem it was merely a beginning, half the
population was below the poverty line. But as a policy bundle it was
nevertheless more radical compared to what had occurred before.
Further, electoral victories of 1971 in the Parliament and 1972 in
states seemed to reaffirm not just Indira Gandhi’s personal popularity
but her agenda and campaign slogan ‘garibi hatao’. Her political oppo-
nents seemed to be marginalized. She proceeded to redeem the agenda
and began with the Supreme Court, which had blocked her progressive
 Gradualism, Marginal Redistribution 219

policies for so long. In August 1971 the twenty-fourth amendment to

the Constitution was passed affirming the right of the Parliament to
amend even the fundamental right where the main contestation was
over property rights, the Swatantra Party and Jana Sangh had continued
to oppose it (mentioned in Chapter 2). Thus the irksome Golaknath
judgment was defeated. The twenty-fifth amendment was passed in
December 1971; Parliament’s power to establish guidelines for com-
pensation payable when state acquired, or requisitioned property was
not subject to judicial review. This had stalled the bank nationalization
process earlier. This would enable other legislations that were designed
to prevent concentration of economic wealth and power in accordance
with the directive principles. Similarly, by 1972 the privy purses of the
former princes were abolished. Twenty-sixth amendment passed in
December 1971, which enabled this was vehemently opposed by the
Swatantra Party and Jana Sangh. The twenty-ninth amendment in
May 1972 included Kerala’s Land Reform Act in the ninth schedule
of the Constitution to protect it from judicial challenge based on
infringement of fundamental rights. Five constitutional amendments
in two years reflected her commitment to her agenda. To protect her
government’s progressive legislations, she appointed a like minded chief
justice revoking the earlier practice of promoting the seniormost judges
to the position. This resulted in the resignation of three senior judges
and antagonized some in the profession. Also, it gave the opposition a
handle against her.
Mary Carras, who accompanied her electoral campaign, said that
by 1972 in all her state election tours Indira Gandhi repeated that
many of the 1971 pledges were redeemed.2
Unfortunately, too soon, to the economic cost of 1971 war were
added two successive droughts, and more than doubling of petroleum
price by OPEC. These resulted in food shortages by 1974, and social
unrest.
It was in this situation of multiple predicaments that the limitations
of Indira Gandhi’s socialism by legislation alone became obvious. Both,
the lack of a strong all India cadre based party organizations (dedicated
to implementing a progressive agenda) and the travails of competitive
electoral politics in a backward social milieu (plagued by ignorance,
conservatism and resistance to change), proved to be an obstacle. All
220 Tipping Point

of it came to haunt her and she found herself quite alone. Even after
the constitutional amendments of 1972, there was little follow up on
land reforms. Agriculture was a state subject and Indira Gandhi said
in an interview ‘. . . one can only bully state leaders so much and no
more’ (p. 152).3 State leaders would not lend support to an amendment
making land reforms a central subject either. For the problems in
implementation, Indira Gandhi had no answer. Based on interviews
with Indira Gandhi, Carras says ‘. . . clearly the problems of her political
personality; the tendency towards very gradual reform; dim awareness
of inherent contradictions between the imperatives of democratic
procedure and socialist revolution; and reluctance to disturb the party
organization on which her political and government power rested but
of whose inadequacies she was painfully aware’ (p. 153).4
Imaginably, these constraints would have slowed down Nehru as
well, triple inadequacies one within the Congress party, as largely
consisting of land owning, conservative leaders with their respective
regional and caste following, second, the constraints of frequent elec-
tions in an increasingly competitive liberal democracy, third, the
problem of resource mobilization for public sector within the ‘mixed
economy’ model. In India where already the economic divide between
the haves and have nots was very deep since pre-Independence, issues
of taxing the rich were very contentious.
Indira Gandhi spoke of persuasion and legislation as a tool of
restructuring social and economic relations in favour of greater social
justice but in the absence of adequate number of like minded influential
people who could help her do the persuasion, she had to rely essentially
on legislation in the early 1970s. She did recognize that Congress had
to become more than a vote gathering machine and pay more attention
to field work and mass contact. Efforts in that direction began in 1969
at an AICC session in Bombay. Carras says that three years later the
head of the AICC cadre building department (devoted to building an
army of dedicated cadre) said that state Congress units had resisted
the programme for fear that an alternate power base would be created
inside their turf.
Having got rid of the stalwarts (Syndicate), the party had however
absorbed their protégés in the bloc at district and state levels thereby
creating another right leaning lower flank within. But exigencies of the
 Gradualism, Marginal Redistribution 221

frequent elections perhaps make such decisions necessary for electoral

survival. It does not allow for a long-term plan and procedure. Another
problem was the increasing urban bias; too many urban upper-class
members were inducted in the cadre building process and they were
poorly informed about rural problems, processes, and possible solutions.
The need of the hour was for creating a cadre of the poor to safeguard
their own interests. These camps for cadre building were, hence, not
remarkably successful. Nothing much was heard of them till late 1974
when they were revived to counter the threat of the JP movement. Even
after that, gap between professions and deeds of many Congress leaders
continued and they failed to create a solid cadre base for the party.
There were rumours of corruption, yet such were the compulsions
of elections that Commissions of Inquiry against political leaders were
unheard of. This led to rampant rumours, only some of them would
have been based on reality. Her government had failed to pass a bill,
pending since 1968, for setting up an independent Lok Pal at national
level and Lok Ayukta at state level. Something we still have not managed
to do in 2020. This would have gone a long way in enforcing a cleaner
accountable government while taking the wind out of the rumours.
A report discussed at the AICC central training camp at Narora
is important to mention. This background paper on the rural poor
noted that the number of agricultural labourers as a proportion of the
total population had increased from 16.71 per cent in 1961 to 25.76
per cent in 1971. The increase was a result of evictions that followed
tenancy reform legislation. Despite the fact in all the states, enforcing
land to tiller was not a general reality. Landlords everywhere acted
swiftly and took back land from sharecroppers, often taking advantage
of legal loopholes. The latter were too afraid, too ignorant, and ill
prepared to resist the eviction. Nearly two-third of the agricultural
households were indebted to their employers-cum-landowners. Only
in Kerala and West Bengal, the communist governments were more
successful in redistributing land – a success attributable to availability
of a large, committed party cadre. Obviously, Congress state govern-
ments were not raising cadres to help tenants.
Further, per capita earnings were extremely low. In the approach
paper to the fifth five year plan the planning commission’s estimate was
that the absolute number of people below the poverty line was just as
222 Tipping Point

large as twenty years ago (population was also exploding).These abjectly

poor, were estimated to constitute between 40 to 50 per cent of country’s
population. For these abjectly poor, food insecurity was a tangible issue.
Benefits of cooperative credit, fertilizers, improved seeds and agricul-
tural development had gone to the upper crust rather than the lowest
that needed it the most. The gap between the rural rich and poor had
widened. These were issues confronting the Congress party as a political
organization and one that they should have seized and arrested.
But, another major issue (not discussed in the report mentioned
above) in a mixed economy is one of resource mobilization, taxation
of the rich and hence politically influential, is considered another
antagonistic issue and domestic resources outside the rich class are
scarce. Inevitably the resource strapped state must turn towards external
resources. The design of dependence on foreign aid and investment
was well documented by the 1960s. So, when America suspended aid
following war with Pakistan in 1965 there was a crisis. This came with
American and World Bank pressure to devalue the rupee and liberalize
the economy along western capitalist lines. ‘Food for Freedom’ ship-
ments were to be approved monthly during the height of India’s worst
droughts. Percentage of external assistance as proportion of total plan
resources was at 28.2 per cent during the third plan.
It fell to 12.9 per cent in the fourth plan. Besides, aid and conces-
sional components were shrinking. This was likely a reflection of India
leaning towards the USSR and securing their support during the 1971
war. It was viewed consequently as a drift from its earlier strict neutrality
within the non aligned movement. This was a shift forced upon India
by western indifference to the Bangladesh crisis.
The private sector remained largely outside the control and
planning process except through licensing and taxation. All in all, mixed
economy was not amenable to large scale domestic resource mobiliza-
tion for planning. Policy measures to curb consumer expenditure,
increase tax collection was met with little success or support from the
rural and urban property-owning classes. Evasion of direct and indirect
taxes was widespread. Imports continued to exceed exports and when
the oil crisis came and increased foreign exchange requirements in
1974-5, India was unprepared. Foreign exchange needs including debt
servicing requirements rose rapidly.
 Gradualism, Marginal Redistribution 223

By 1974, the pressure was enough to make India approach the

IMF to use Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) and negotiate credit. About
half-a-billion dollars were drawn from the IMF in various forms during
1974. Such amounts cannot be raised without conditional ties of
structural changes and macroeconomic stabilization plans like wage
freeze, inflation control. Neither can a wage freeze when implemented
in the midst of inflation, go uncontested by trade unions. The troubled
waters of popular discontent and industrial relations in the period
became pools where organizations of the far right began to fish.
Already, across the spectrum political conservatives, business and
landed interest were confronting a threat like never. One strongly feels,
that given the situation of general economic crisis and food scarcity,
social unrest was inevitable. This coalition of right wing forces chose
that period to subvert the agenda of Indira Gandhi’s government. Their
coming together would have been that much more difficult and visible
without the façade provided by ‘socialists’ of various hues. Some of
these socialist visions and activities are described in Chapter 3.

Travails and Dilemmas of the Communist Left

An account of the rise of the far right in India is not complete without
reflecting on initiatives of the communist left. It is the only socio-po-
litical force defined by its commitments which are in opposition to
those of the far right.
In India,‘What has come to be defined as the left in the historiog-
raphy of the national movement and current political discourse is
essentially the assemblage of all elements as owe allegiance to the
socialist world view. It is an area in which Marxism exercised the
dominant influence’.5 Some of its early history was narrated in Chapter
1. As described, the arrival of Marxism in India was an excruciating
episode. Some copies of the Communist manifesto arrived by 1912,
were read by some educated upper caste people. It was entirely a new
fangled idea. Its novel agenda of creating a ‘people’s democracy’ on a
national scale was historically unimagined, unheard of in India. No
major social reform movements had even succeeded in shifting the
consciousness of the people towards egalitarianism. Nothing resembling
a widespread class based rebellion had ever arisen; lower caste assertions
224 Tipping Point

were local and social reforms if any were regional. A peasant rebellion
with the ambitions and proportions of the Taiping Revolution of China
that Mao and his leaders could later harness for their purpose was
undreamt off in India.6 All the salient ideas of the left were alien to a
society that was immeasurably dissimilar to that of Europe and Russia
even its major religion was inegalitarian.
Renaissance, Reformation, Enlightenment, great working class
struggles, the French Revolution, the WW1, Great Depression, the
Bolshevik Revolution, great crisis of capitalism and yet another world
war, all followed each other in distinct waves on the European stage.
They were the subject of intense philosophical debates and literature.
Repercussions of these wars and great depression and some other
events were experienced only as a colony in India, integrated to the
world economy through imperialism. These later events intensified
national liberation struggles, but the big ideas reached India in a dribble
and spread even more slowly because of poor literacy. India woke up
to Independence without an armed or even a social revolution, relatively
peacefully following a long colonial era.
Unlike the ideas of left, the far right position was familiar in India.
It was re-invented with elements from tradition, ancient scriptures,
popular mythology, some strands of popular neo-Hindu literature from
the Bengali literary resurgence, an imagined idealized, golden past,
much of which was already familiar lore, so much so that the far right
could live and organize like fish in water. In the 1920s, it acquired an
organizational form that it retained and greatly extended, more or less,
undisturbed into present times. To that mythos it just added along the
way, created a militia of celibate men, made a certain history of Maratha
kingdoms, rejuvenated some arcane traditions and merged them with
newly minted nationalism. It had scarcely any new ideas.
In 1871, when Karl Marx was the moving spirit of the General
Council of the International Working Man’s Association, the association
received a letter from an unidentified supporter. It was from Calcutta,
highlighting the wretched conditions of the workers. Dadabhai Naroji
who presided over the Calcutta session of the INC, made an appearance
at The International Socialist Congress, 1904.7 It was the sixth
Congress of the Second International and was held in Amsterdam. It
called upon ‘all Social Democratic Party organizations and trade unions
 Gradualism, Marginal Redistribution 225

of all countries to demonstrate energetically on the 1st of May for the

legal establishment of the eight-hour day, for the class demands of
proletariat, and for universal peace.’ These were among the earliest
contacts. While the communist manifesto had arrived earlier, Das
Capital was first published in Marathi only in 1943, in Hindi in 1965,
in Malayalam in 1968. Meanwhile S.R. Pillai had written a biography
of Karl Marx in 1912, and young nationalists and trade union workers
took up the ideas after 1921 and started groups and journals. In
Calcutta Muzaffar Ahmed edited and published Navayug, in Bombay
S.A. Dange brought out The Socialist, while from Lahore Gulam
Hussein’s contribution was Inquilab and from Madras, Singaravelu
Chettiar’s journal. They also led the local groups. The communist
manifesto was published in Bengali and Marathi and in 1921 S.A.
Dange also published an ideological critique titled Gandhi and Lenin.8
These started new discussions among the few educated, without much
publicity and without becoming widely known.
Paucity of original Marxist or socialist literature inhibited theo-
retical education and debate right up to the 1950s.9 In 1922, R.B.
Lotwal brought out a series of pamphlets on scientific socialism; among
them was the communist manifesto along with other booklets by Engels,
Lafargue and R.P. Dutt. The March 1923, issues of The Socialist edited
by Dange advertised these pamphlets.10 Slowly the library grew.
The first Indian translation into a Indian language, of the
Communist manifesto was in Bengali. Soumyendranath Tagore, grand
nephew of Rabindranath Tagore did it and it was published in Ganavani
the weekly paper of the Peasants and Workers Party of Bengal, edited
by Muzaffar Ahmad. Six issues carried it during 1926-7.11
Namboodiripad (prominent leader, later Chief Minister of Kerala
and General Secretary of the Communist party of India in 1977) was
to say that he had no early access or exposure to Marxism and began
his study only in 1935. The deficit was to become a serious bottleneck
in generating a large base of informed participants, dynamic open
debates on theory and praxis at the local levels. This may have resulted
in a certain lack of maturity, dependency on Soviet guidance and some
unfortunate decisions by the early communist leaders.
Bombay and Calcutta had emerged as industrial centres in the
1870s-1880s and a sizable proletarian concentration had grown in the
226 Tipping Point

area. Living and working conditions were as bad if not worse as those
in emerging capitalism in other parts of the world. Some basic forms
of middle-class philanthropy had emerged in the form of journals
highlighting working conditions making demands for improvements,
night schools, self-help, and temperance groups but no labour class
solidarity emerged even in these cities.
Chakrabarti’s study of the Calcutta jute mill riots of the mid-
1890s, examined early labour consciousness; it indicates that embryonic
labour protests would take the form of a kind of ‘community-
consciousness’ rather than a clear recognition of class.12 Workers would
mount resistance through short lived strikes, assaults, and riots. These
would easily relapse into or often even take the shape of inter-commu-
nity riots over issues like Hindu or Muslim places of worship and cow
protection or community based demands for Hindu and Muslim
holidays. Working class strikes broke out in 1918 in many industrial
towns like Ahmedabad, Madras, Bombay, Calcutta and Kanpur.
Demands for higher and regular wages, reduction in working hours,
lunch break and reduction in fines were the focal point. They did not
have a unified leadership. The nucleus of AITUC came into existence
only in 1920. Workers began participating in the national movement
as a class through organized hartals (strikes). But the tendency for
Indian working class, mainly first generation, impoverished peasantry
and ruined artisans sucked into factories, to fall back upon sectional
ties of region, caste, kinship, or religion persisted.13
This was not a feature unique to India. In other pre-industrial
societies too, class consciousness was burgeoning though not yet
developed. Among migrant workers from different regions, living in
urban working class neighbourhoods, it is to this day, most deficient.
They return to the village and resume their caste roles so frequently
that they cannot develop a lasting class based identity. Since their jobs
and wages cannot suffice to sustain the entire family in the city, the
need to return to village is recurring. Their urban identity is never fully
formed. So, one kind of combativeness would easily turn into another
based on an older identity. In this kind of environment, workplace
solidarities are fragile, labour takes an awfully long time to evolve
anything resembling a purely class based trade union consciousness.
 Gradualism, Marginal Redistribution 227

It was only after the Soviet October revolution made a break-

through that Marxism Leninism and the possibilities of a new order
appeared in Asia and other colonized nations. It created news, a pre-
cursor, a vision and a praxis.
‘By the second decade of the twentieth century, one of the most
complex problems faced by the communists the world over was that
of determining their role in the context of national liberation struggles
emerging in the colonies and semi-colonies’ (p. 1).14 Lenin laid out the
discussion on this issue in ‘Preliminary Draft of the “Thesis on the
National and Colonial Questions” presented to the second Congress
of the Communist International in 1920. Lenin’s position was not rigid,
he felt that the communist “must base policy on the national questions,
not on abstract and formal tenets but, firstly on an exact appraisal of
the specific historical situation”’ (p. 2).15 The understanding was that
the anti-colonial revolution was a consequence of deep conflict between
the imperialist nations and the exploited nations. It was national in
character and not class based. Forces of national liberation include
sections of the national bourgeoisie and other classes who tended to
align themselves with imperialism and/or gradual reform when con-
fronted by radical left wing threats. Revolutionary left wing parties,
therefore, had to build up a presence among farmers and workers within
the national movement. In India this was to be done under the watchful
eye of British administration who viewed it as the foremost threat.
Because among the colonies there did exist the possibility of both,
rebellion against colonial rule and revolution (bypassing capitalism) to
develop along non capitalist paths. Since that could not happen without
building working class hegemony inside the anti-imperialist struggle
it was important for the rulers to thwart it. It was done rather well,
given the steel frame around India and its colonial status as ‘jewel in
the British crown’.
Was there a large enough pool of local leadership, not just to fathom
the abstract principles of Marxism but translate it into local terms and
employ it to practical ends? Would the state of social development,
class consciousness of its workers and peasants, caste, diversity of
languages, religions, customs, property/land relations, state of industrial
development and all the related complexity of organizing such raw
228 Tipping Point

material create a gridlock too serious to enable a communist hegemony

in the anti-imperial struggle?
A brief history of the travails of the Communist party in colonial
times is essential to answer these questions.
Even the foundation of the CPI had to be laid abroad in Tashkent,
in October 1920 and it had to wait five years to establish itself in India.
M.N. Roy was a member of the Turkestan Bureau of the Communist
International and the main Indian origin theoretician abroad; his wife
Evelyn Roy, Abni Mukherji and wife Rosa, Muhammad Shafiq (the
first secretary of the party), Masood Ali Shah, some muhajirs (Khilafat
enthusiasts who had joined the hijrat that began in 1920 – emigration
from oppression, in this case colonial rule of India) who crossed over
through Afghanistan into Soviet territory and played a central role.
The cadre was trained and educated by M.N. Roy and founded the
CPI in Tashkent.
The story of that band of muhajirs who set off on an odyssey to
fight imperialism recounts the hazards communists faced thereafter.
They entered Turkmenistan from Afghanistan and were taken captive
by Turkmen, who thought they were British soldiers and mistreated.
They were saved from certain death by the arrival of the Red Army
and took refuge in the Kirkee fort with them. Turkmen rebels with
reinforced strength attacked the fort and the muhajirs took up arms
with the Red Army to defend the fort. Some, from that group went
ahead to Tashkent of their own free will under the sympathetic but
watchful eyes of the Russians.
Others like Rafiq Ahmad, Trimul Acharia joined the CPI a little
later. M.N. Roy said that in the political training of the muhajirs he
first took those who had some suitable background and the results
were beyond all expectations particularly on the military front but also
on the political front. Some of these muhajirs wanted to join the
Communist party. Several who had already declared themselves to be
communists while in Kabul arrived later, among them were Abdul Rab
and Acharia, who inspired others to set up the party in Tashkent.16
Some went further and decided to set up a CPI in India.
Commenting on Roy’s memoirs (published in his journal the
Radical Humanist), Ahmad said that it was very unlikely that the
muhajirs were completely unaware of democracy or communism, if for
 Gradualism, Marginal Redistribution 229

no other reason than that ‘Islam was based on a brand of democracy’.

‘There was, and perhaps still is in the Muslim mind something like a
feeling of international fraternity, and its symbol was the Khilafat’
(p. 74).17 Be that as it may, the list of early membership of the
Communist party of India had many Muslims. In Uzbekistan, the
military and political training school was a safe house for engaging and
training. When hopes of penetrating India through Afghanistan faded
away in early 1921, some of the new Indian recruits joined the
Communist University of the Toilers of the East, at Moscow. And
some more muhajirs gradually made the intellectual voyage from
Khilafat to communism. Roy meanwhile, shifted his headquarters to
Berlin in 1922 and published the fortnightly Vanguard of Indian
Independence from there. These were the early stages of the formation
of the CPI. By mid-1920s an important section of the Gadar Party in
exile had also turned communist. By the end of 1922, Roy was able to
set up links with small communist groups in Bombay, Calcutta, Madras
and Lahore with the help of emissaries’. Journals, weeklies, and news-
letters of the left began appearing gradually.
Meanwhile, some of the early Indian recruits made their way back
to India from USSR suffering great hardships on the way back. They
were to suffer more; they were arrested and prosecuted as soon as they
returned. British spies were embedded in muhajir groups. The British
had always been very wary of Russian ambitions in Central Asia and
Afghanistan (now deemed even more sinister and dangerous as com-
munists) and had made anticipatory arrangements to nip their influence
in the bud. Thus, when the attempt was made by M.N. Roy and other
Indian communists abroad to form a CPI unit in Tashkent with
muhajirs in 1920, the British intelligence was not oblivious of it.
Out of the 200 muhajirs who crossed over to Russia around the
year 1920, some 40 to 50 joined the political and military school at
Tashkent and later they joined the Communist University for the
Toilers of the East in Moscow. Some were or became British informers
and were suitably rewarded and protected later. From their foreign
office, the British intelligence was warned that batches of trained
personnel were being sent to India by the CPI in Tashkent. The first
batch reached Peshawar on 3 June 1921. The British police arrested
them as ‘Bolshevik agents’ and started the first in a series conspiracy
230 Tipping Point

cases. ‘The Home Political Files of 1920s are at times obsessed with
the “Bolshevik menace”, the obsession far exceeded the real immediate
significance of their activities and can be explained only by the world
wide ruling class fear inspired by [the Bolshevik revolution] 1917, so
reminiscent of the panic after the French Revolution’ (p. 214).18
The first two decades of communist existence in India was marked
by British surveillance through the Central Intelligence Bureau, arrests,
rigorous imprisonments release and re-arrests. From 1921 to 1927 five
conspiracy cases were launched against those early communists and
national revolutionaries. According to Communist Party of India
Marxist-Leninist (CPI(ML)) sources, ‘The distant town of Peshawar
was chosen as the venue of the sham trials, so that it would be easy to
fabricate news about Russian or Bolshevik “destabilization polities” and
also the accused would not get the benefit of the Jury System. . . . No
documentary evidence or exhibit was necessary to prove the guilt of
the accused – to prove that a conspiracy existed to “overthrow the
king-emperor from his sovereign right” and to merely claim that the
accused was a member of it was considered enough for punishment
under section 121-A, IPC for punishment’.19
These trials became both a consequence and cause of a simulated
fear psychosis about Bolshevism and its potential. Class abhorrence of
communist ideology facilitated the spread of fear and the prosecution
did not invite any response from the nationalists in the mainstream
media or otherwise. Only M.N. Roy wrote an article ‘Manufacturing
Evidence’ – accusing the British government, which was published in
the Comintern journal Inprecor. Nothing of this nature was ever faced
by the RSS.
Despite the repression, communist activities picked up in the
metropolitan cities of Calcutta, Bombay, Madras and smaller cities like
Kanpur and Lahore. Communist groups in these cities were involved
in organizing workers, educating them and expanding the communist
presence. Throughout this endeavour there remained a weak but
continual link between communists in India and connections abroad.
Though, fledgling communist groups functioned independently
across India, any attempt to come together and become more visible
was scuttled. This significant decade in India’s political advance was
the period when the far right was organized as RSS. There was a
 Gradualism, Marginal Redistribution 231

discernable dissimilarity in their progress. That the communist presence

grew at all, despite severe repression, is indicative of not just the
commitment of those early communists but also perhaps of the reso-
nance of Marxist ideology and its possibilities. The material conditions
of toilers gave it traction.
Communist groups also took a more radical view of the national
movement from the very beginning with demands for complete inde-
pendence (not just dominion status), end of feudalism and princely
states. So when, after the withdrawal of the first non-cooperation
movement, radical sections of the Congress became disenchanted with
the turn of events, some of them became fascinated by Marxist ideology.
According to Sarkar,‘. . . Indian communism actually sprang from roots
within the nationalist movement itself, as disillusioned revolutionaries,
non-cooperators, Khilafatists, labour and peasant activists sought new
roads to political and social emancipation’ (p. 212).20
By the time of the next (Kanpur) conspiracy case in 1924 there
was a little more organized protest. By then the list of 13 person
originally (more added later) accused in the case included the who’s
who of the movement in India like M.N. Roy, Muzaffar Ahmad,
Shaukat Usmani, Ghulam Hussain, S.A. Dange, Singaravelu, R.L.
Sharma, Nalini Gupta, Shamuddin Hassan, M.R.S. Velayndhun, Dr
Manilal, Sampurnananda, and Satyabhakta.
These setbacks in court notwithstanding, the first open Indian
Communist Conference was held in Kanpur soon afterwards in
December 1925. It was floated by different groups, but the structure
created was soon taken over by determined communists like S.V. Ghate
who functioned as general secretary till 1929. Much later, in 1959 the
united CPI acknowledged the 1925 conference as having marked its
formal foundation.
Restrictions on the communists of various kinds – travel, corre-
spondence and literature circulation remained and meant that in effect
only a wispy thread linked the communist party of India to develop-
ments, literature and ideas abroad and to the Comintern. A point
highlighted by the fact that when leading members of the Central
Executive Committee (CEC) elected at Kanpur went to meet and invite
Shapurji Saklatvala, a Communist MP in UK (who arrived in 1927)
he did not pay much attention to them and issued a statement to the
232 Tipping Point

press that he would not preside over the conference of a communist

party that was not affiliated to the Communist International.21 Even
the British MP Saklatvala was under police surveillance for possible
connections in India.
Documents of the communist party in those early days are replete
with records of police surveillance, searches and arrests. This, even
though there were not more than 25 communists in Bombay, which
was their main base. Such problems plagued them across India and
confronted as they were, by the problem of state repression and legality,
communists had to work out innovative ways to address issues of
organization and dissemination. They had to make use of multi-class
fronts since class based fronts were scanty. Multi-class fronts included
petty bourgeois, workers, and peasant masses that had divergent
interests. They had to do so to create an organization that could be a
legal front of a more tightly controlled and knit core revolutionary
communist party. The underlying core party was necessary to control
and steer the mass front effectively. Yet, problems of legality and ille-
gality, separation and control were to persist all through. Further, there
was permanent police tailing and cruelty, not to mention other com-
plications under police pressure, like betrayal, confessions, mutual
suspicion, bitterness and splintering among communist groups.
Even during the WW1, when British troop presence was at its
lowest in India (at one point down to 15,000 men) revolutionary
nationalists of the Gadar or Bengal variety were tracked down and
eliminated. Communists were confronting the same state. This firm
grip explains the sluggish spread and penetration of the communist
ideology in the entire subcontinent in some measure, in comparison
to say, China which was an independent country.
Initially, as the communist movement tried to grow just by forming
Workers and Peasants Parties (WPP) some were within existing
organizations like the Congress. By 1927 the WPPs were emerging as
an organized left wing which strengthened the forces of the left within.
They managed to train a leadership and secured the adoption of
programmes of mass action. Outside these, paucity of cadre was a
perpetual damper. Hence, even though communist documents first
raised issues of abolition of zamindari and redistribution of land, their
appeal and spread in rural areas was slow. They remained small and as
 Gradualism, Marginal Redistribution 233

a smaller organization, needed to be part of a larger mass organization

and political party like Congress, for national liberation.
But working within the Congress was not without its pitfalls. The
influence of landlord, and mercantile, capital-owning classes accelerated
particularly after the WW1 and it was dominant within the Congress
to begin with. But by the end of the 1920s, partially from an estimation
of its own strength and partly from directions received from Comintern,
CPI struck out on its own briefly, only, to recalibrate once again in the
1930s confronted by the growth of fascism in Europe.
The need to bring workers and peasants into the national move-
ment had led the Congress to talk of ‘Swaraj’ for the 98 per cent in
1922, even Gandhi shifted enough to demand universal suffrage and
state ownership of such machine industry as may be allowed in the
Gandhian system of thought. It was Nehru in the Congress who
travelled more to the left in his public political and economic positions
along with a radical section of the Congress by the 1930s. But they
could never prevail over Gandhi and Gandhi never broke with the
right, among other rationales he saw unity as a crucial weapon for the
Independence struggle.
Obvious indications of the dominant ideology within the Congress
were recurrent. There was scant support for communists during the
repression faced by them through various bans and imprisonments,
the Gandhi-Irwin Pact of 1929 did not seek any reprieve for Bhagat
Singh and his comrades (soon to face a death sentence) or those
convicted in the Meerut conspiracy case (enduring harsh terms of
imprisonment). The resolve of the right wing to stem the rising tide
of the left within the Congress and outside was palpable and they were
never a minority.
CPI was a part of the Congress again from 1936 to 1942. In 1942
they were expelled for their opposition to the Quit India Movement
(the left took a distinctly pro-Soviet positon in support of fight against
fascism). Progressively through the 1930s and 40s, as the grip of
property-owing class interest tightened, it became difficult to influence
the Congress from within. Communists were compelled to work outside
the Congress and in 1934 in Calcutta the communists even helped to
organize a League against Gandhism. They viewed Gandhism as a
façade behind which all manner of right wing sentiments were veiled,
234 Tipping Point

an evaluation not too far off the mark as events in the 1970s were to
demonstrate.
The dilemmas of the left were exemplified by two shifting positions,
one in relation to the Congress (which it could not neither overcome
nor ignore) and the other in relation to the international communist
movements.
The secretary of the Indian Communist Party, Satyabhakta had
at its inception in made an appeal, ‘After all the Congress is well
established and influential institution and the best interests of the
country require us to reform it and not go against it’ (p. 11).22 So, as
mentioned earlier, communists first functioned inside the Congress.
Forming WPPs and strengthening the left within the INC; pushing
resolutions like boycott of Simon Commission; establishing contact
with the League against Imperialism; and solidarity with other national
movements like those in China. There were many radical congressmen,
like Dange, Singaravelu, Velayudham, Joglekar, Nimbkar, Thengdi,
Satyabhakta, and Bagerhatta who were communists, some holding
congress party positions. Some of these were names which are associ-
ated entirely with the CPI. Secret conferences of the communists were
held in 1928, 1929 to discuss and debate resolutions. In those early
days some guidance came from Comintern and Communist Party of
Great Britain (CPGB). Three communists from Britain, Philip Spratt,
Ben Bradley and Hutchinson, even came to India and worked closely
with the CPI and find frequent mention in the literature.
CPI also worked through AITUC of the Congress Party and
maintained this approach with considerable success. Their influence
grew rapidly, so much so that the intelligence sources of the government
felt that there was hardly any public utility or industry that was not
influenced. The Girni Kamgar Unions formed in May 1928 in Bombay,
was part of a general strike that had lasted six months, this was the
high point of the early influence of communists in the city. It also
resulted in the penetration of communists into trade unions across
sectors and regions, a massive labour upsurge and numerous strikes.
The upsurge summoned a government and capitalist offensive. Pathans
were called in to break the strikes in Bombay which was the hub of
labour action, leading to a major communal riot in 1929. The govern-
ment moved on multiple fronts urging the capitalists not to give in,
 Gradualism, Marginal Redistribution 235

arresting all the major leaders, deporting some, passing the Trade
Disputes Act, setting up tribunals and banning strikes through Public
Safety Bill. The Meerut conspiracy trials that followed lasted for four
years, and heavy jail sentences were imposed (in January 1933). All
attempts to weaken the powerful and emerging unions were imple-
mented promptly.
By December 1930, the Draft Platform of Action of the CPI said
that the building of a centralized, disciplined and united mass under-
ground communist party was the chief and basic long overdue task of
the revolutionary movement for the emancipation of our country. The
old phase of unity-cum-struggle within the Congress was phased out
after the Sixth Comintern Congress. This new phase corresponded to
the period when Stalin consolidated his position over the Communist
Party of Soviet Union (CPSU). The early 1930s also saw a reorienta-
tion, disagreements and splintering that slowed down the growth of
the CPI. It was a phase, therefore, in which sectarian tendencies grew
and the Comintern also withdrew the recognition it had given the CPI
temporarily. A change came about in 1933-4, with a revival of labour
activity associated with communist unions. Several trade unions merged
under the communist banner after 1933. This was a renewed phase of
the United Front strategy, associated with s shift in the Comintern line
in the context of the rise of fascism in Europe. As a sign of renewed
vigour, the number of strikes increased again. A new generation of
famous mass leaders like P. Krishna Pillai, E.M.S. Namboodiripad,
and A.K. Gopalan arose, who came into the movement drifting away
from mainstream Gandhian nationalism.
In anticipation of increasing unrest, the CPI was formally banned
on 23 July 1934, using an older act against seditious associations. By
the mid-1930s within the Congress,‘The stage had been set for a major
confrontation between Right and Left within the national movement’
(p. 288).23
Meanwhile, the British government had honed a new range of
tactics. It kept offering fresh prospects of enhanced Indian participation
in the government through constitutional reform. This added a different
facet to political developments and accelerated some changes inside
the Congress. As usual business and landed property interest groups
organized and grasped the possibilities of power and privilege rapidly.
236 Tipping Point

Opportunities to occupy positions of power perhaps encouraged the

right to speed up its consolidation within the Congress. The United
Front, a broad measure of unity in the national movement of the left
within the Congress, was somehow preserved but with increasing
difficulty, till 1942. With a few attempts to force the direction and
leadership leftwards, they eventually parted company over a serious
difference over the left support to the British war efforts (by then
Soviets were Britain’s allies) calling it a popular anti-fascist people’s
war. After the communist exit, Gandhian right wingers wrested even
greater control of the Congress.
Limited and delayed civil disobedience launched by the Congress
during the war also landed all its main leaders in jail at a critical juncture
while outside the jails the RSS and Muslim League were energetically
supporting Britain’s war effort. After the war, the left too faced British
repression as it had earlier. A lonely Nehru (who himself, could never
make a break from Gandhi) was ultimately Gandhi’s chosen one to
lead the Congress in a subcontinent hurtling towards a gory Partition
and Independence.
Soon after Independence, within the CPI, there was intra-party
dissentions and confusion about the nature of Independence and
balance of class forces. These confusions and their doctrinal implications
began to push the CPI into two factions, one with a reformist agenda,
supporting Nehru’s government and the other with some optimism
about possibilities and efficacy of an armed uprising as against parlia-
mentary system of government.
Despite repression and these dilemmas, CPI membership was
about 60,000 at the time of the second party Congress in 1948. Its
influence in trade unions, student fronts and among the world of art
and culture was considerably greater than its membership would
indicate.
Many less familiar with political history, assume that Congress
after Independence was a hegemonic force and stayed so for thirty
years. This assumption is tied up with legends of the nationalist freedom
movement. This is in fact not the whole truth. Both the left newly
arrived and just setting about expanding its influence, and the far right,
an old force at home and consolidating their organizations rapidly, were
contenders.
 Gradualism, Marginal Redistribution 237

Communists in Free India, Confined by

Parliamentary Democracy
In the first party conference in 1943, and earlier too, party general
secretary, P.C. Joshi (1935-48) and the party had taken a soft line on
the Congress by supporting it in its struggle against imperialism. The
party reviewed the question of political situation in India soon after
Independence and concluded that India had become independent and
advised all progressive forces to rally round Nehru and against the
reactionary communal and pro-imperialist forces. But soon afterwards,
and according to Bipin Chandra, under new Soviet guidance, it declared
that India’s Independence was false because Congress had not broken
with feudalism and imperialism. The Constitution being framed,
therefore, was a charter of slavery. They went so far as to suggest that
Nehru had become a stooge of imperialism.24
These assessments were not based entirely on Soviet directives;
there were indeed some objective conditions under which this reas-
sessment was made. In the years immediately after Independence the
government’s position on the issue of land reforms and on issues of
foreign policy would have confounded anyone expecting a sharp break
from imperialism and movement towards a genuine democracy. The
left membership felt that Nehru was the leader who spoke one way, a
way that the left appreciated, but the pack he was leading was entirely
different. Some also felt, perhaps given the chaos of Partition, Kashmir
war, and needed to stabilize and to control the new country Nehru was
not able to do more.
In 1948, Comrade Ranadive was chosen party general secretary.
At the party Congress in Calcutta it was decided that the masses were
let down by developments after Independence and particularly after
the Partition. Its experience, as expressed by party members from Bengal
was particularly bitter after the Partition. Party members also expressed
similarly angry experience regarding the Telangana struggle. In their
anger they were perhaps ready to move away from ‘only peaceful’ means
of resistance. There were external factors at work too; a backwash of
the cold war between USA and USSR resulting in an intense battle
for influence in Asia, while the impulse from the Comintern (Inter-
national Communist Movement) also seemed to have strengthened
238 Tipping Point

this antagonistic push away from the Congress. The party did give an
overzealous call for immediate armed uprising. Two developments
followed; its decision to continue the armed struggle in Telangana
which had been going on against the Nizam of Hyderabad since 1946,
but now it got directed against the Indian government and in 1948
Indian army was sent in. That resulted in an armed struggle with deaths
of thousands of leaders and communist cadre. This was another
juncture where K.M. Munshi had allegedly played a dubious role. Then
on 9 March 1949, CPI declared a national railway strike hoping that
it would culminate in a national uprising. The strike was not a success.
CPI also participated in a number of terrorist acts, and as a consequence
it was banned in several states, got isolated and decimated organiza-
tionally because of expulsions, resignations and its membership declined
from a high of 60,000 in 1948 to 18,000 in 1951.
However, there was more to the crisis and confusion in CPI at this
stage, aspects that might have been ignored by historians. Records of
the meeting of CPI leaders of the Central Committee – Rajeshwar
Rao, Ajoy Ghosh and S. Dange with comrades in USSR on 4 February
1951 revealed a genuine conflict and confusion within the rank and
file of the CPI, confusion regarding serious questions about the balance
of class forces in Independent India, stage and prospects of a revolution
and armed struggle.25 In that meeting it became clear that at the time
of the second party Congress the CPI cadre were engaged in an effective
armed struggle in Telangana, over a territory that included 3000 villages.
Intensified struggle had been going on for at least ten months. This
struggle was being stalled by the general secretary and the Central
Committee who were urging comrades to ‘be cautions and leave a
loophole for retreat’. It is likely that situation on the ground did not
permit an orderly retreat. It is an acknowledged fact that ‘Telangana
between 1946 and October 1951 saw the biggest peasant guerrilla war
so far of modern Indian history, affecting at its height about 3000
villages spread over 16,000 square miles with a population of three
million’(p. 379);26 quite unlike other similar communist led struggles
‘tebhaga’ in Bengal and Travancore. In its origins, it had a broader
dimension of liberation struggle against the oppressive feudal regime
of the Nizam, where locals were involved. It probably would have
already been almost impossible to stop such a struggle suddenly, on
 Gradualism, Marginal Redistribution 239

Central Committee’s call. The last party Congress had been held in
1943, too long ago.
The main speaker at the second party Congress, Com. Ranadive
was perhaps not the one pushing the line of aggression. According to
Com. Punnaiah’s report, (made in the presence of and not repudiated
by Ghosh or Dange) delegates from Andhra and Telangana were
carrying out propaganda work among party delegates. Com. Ranadive
made all attempts to avoid the question. A draft speech was circulated
by them; it was rejected by the Central Committee and Politburo. Many
problems that were not clear before the second Congress remained
unresolved despite attempts by the Andhra delegates to force a discus-
sion. Thereafter, discussions stopped, but armed struggle continued
then on in the form of a defensive struggle. Then in May 1950, Peking
Conference of trade unions of Asia took place and a famous article ‘For
a Lasting Peace, For a Peoples Democracy’ was published in the journal
by a top ranking theoretician and leader of the Chinese Communist
Party Liu Shaoqui; it advanced the Chinese model of revolution for
Asia. After this, differences among CPI members just kept
increasing.
In the same month, the plenum of the Central Committee took
place; of the 31 members only 19 were available, the rest were in jail.
The new General Secretary P.C. Joshi defended his reformist position
and proposed putting an end to the Telangana struggle when the Indian
armed forces entered. The Central Committee somehow did not have
an identical view. It approved the line of armed struggle but only after
the scrutiny of written documents, presented by party members from
armed struggle zones detailing how they were organized, their rules,
how land was divided and so on.
By June there was a shortage of cadre at the top, of the nine elected
to Central Committee , four had to leave their provinces for safety. The
comrades who were released from jail did not appear for six months
after release. This hampered the resolution of conflicts that seems to
have deepened between factions. Some agreed with the Soviet view
that perhaps the Chinese path could not be applied to India in the
absence of a well armed and trained left army. So far even locally
successful armed struggle could not be taken forward, and often could
not even protect the gains made locally (on behalf of the landless and
240 Tipping Point

lower castes) and hold out against the Indian army. Com. Ranadive
and the Central Committee seemed to disagree over the fundamental
position.
According to Com. Rao (during the second Congress) the view
was that even though Ranadive was calling for rebellion, but in reality,
he was obstructing the armed struggle in a number of regions where
masses were ready for one, including Kerala. Arms were not available
for a large scale armed struggle anywhere but Bengal and Ranadive had
even taken weapons out of circulation. So, it’s not clear what exactly
Ranadive’s position was. The failure of the earlier general strike also
had a lot to do with this division within the party. Com. Dange was a
vocal voice against the armed struggle, he thought under the circum-
stances it was political adventurism, conditions for it did not exist in
the rest of the country and other forms of struggle were necessary and
possible. The second Congress did however review and change the
party constitution adopted in 1943 at the first Congress.
After 1948, after the Indian army arrived in Hyderabad and began
its operations, the number of combatants declined steadily, to one-
fourth. The armed struggle became sporadic and retreated from Andhra
into Telangana. Moreover, the degree of disarray and disconnect within
the party can be judged from the fact that estimates of the armed
struggle, numbers and weapons, provided even by the party members
is based on foreign media as the Central Committee of CPI did not
have information from provincial units.
Looking back at the sources of confusion, Ajoy Ghosh, the next
General Secretary of the CPI (1951-62), said that in the early years,
the government of India had repeatedly announced its closeness to
Britain and America. He quoted Nehru’s speech in Delhi on 22 March
1949 where Nehru had asserted that India had far closer relations with
the countries of the western world than with others due to historic and
other factors and that relationship would develop and ‘we will encourage
them to develop’.27 The left saw them as the key imperialist powers.
Then in 1950, India sided with the Anglo-American block in the
Security Council of the UN, when it voted that North Korea was an
aggressor and thereby provided support for the American invasion of
Korea. In March 1951, India signed the Mutual Defense Assistance
Pact with America. The US Secretary of State made it clear that the
 Gradualism, Marginal Redistribution 241

aid given under the pact was required by the Government of India to
maintain its internal security, its legitimate self-defence or permit to
participate in the defence of the area of which it was a part. The entire
statement spelled out that this transfer would occur in accordance with
the interests of the US national interest (p. 3).28 In 1949, Nehru visited
Malaysia and attacked the freedom fighters in a speech – they were
mainly communists. There was an arrangement by which Britain could
recruit Gurkha troops on Indian soil for use against Malaysian patriots.
The transit facility continued even after protests forced the government
to stop recruitment on Indian soil. Nehru denied it in the Parliament
in 1952 but had to admit it when communists brought it to light with
evidence. French imperialists were using Indian airports for dispatching
troops to defend their colony in Indochina. This too was exposed by
the communist party which compelled the government to stop them.
Various forms of US aid were flowing into India in the name of con-
quering communism. Before departing for China, while Nehru
denounced the American backed South East Asian Treaty Organization
(SEATO), he declared that its motives might be good, the governments
of countries in Asia and outside might have fears about the communist
parties and the spread of communism. This was his position even
though much of the aggression faced by Asian countries form Malaysia
to Indonesia, including Vietnam was being inflicted by the imperialists
at that point.
But all of a sudden, in 1954 Nehru’s position seemed to have
shifted and there was a Chou-Nehru (Panchsheel) declaration for
peaceful co-existence and sovereignty. India also took a stand against
expansion of war in Korea into North Korea beyond the 38th parallel.
The altered stand followed the progress of the Korean War; six months
after the outbreak it became clear that the imperialists were not
invincible. The anti-imperialist sentiments were high and rising. Indian
communists praised Nehru for the shift in his policy. Nehru in turn
praised China following his visit but he simultaneously attacked
communists in India. He criticized them for following the dictates of
USSR and China while lacking a strong base in India. By the mid-1950s
there was a clearer comparison emerging to the paradox ridden middle
path of the Congress in the more rapid changes and development in
China. The contrast with India’s slower pace was obvious, as was the
242 Tipping Point

unmet expectations of the masses. On the other hand, big business

was full of apprehension about the spread of communism and this was
frequently and effectively communicated to the Congress.
When the CPI accepted parliamentary democracy, electoral
competition between communists and Congress (at the state level)
would be another cause for repeated outbreaks against communism
in the years that followed. The communists in reciprocation would
ratchet up their rhetoric. Besides the tasks of anti-imperial and
anti-feudal struggles would bring them into conflict with Congress
state governments.
Although a new line was adopted after 1951, it was not based on
a new Indian reality, or a new understanding of the reality among CPI
cadre. The transfer of power from British to Congress representing
landlords, big bourgeoisie, was still viewed as a betrayal of the masses
by them. Armed struggle to overthrow the state was still on agenda,
but a far future agenda, because the masses were not yet prepared for
that. The immediate task was to withdraw from the armed struggle
and participate in the general elections in 1952. Nehru had taken a
matching step and legalized the CPI all over the country to enable its
participation in elections.
Focusing on the areas where they had a presence, the CPI emerged
as the single largest opposition party with 23 seats in Parliament and
4.6 per cent vote share. In 1957, it won 27 seats and 8.92 per cent of
votes in 1962, 29 seats and 9.94 per cent. In 1957, they had also got a
majority in Kerala and formed the first democratically elected com-
munist party led government in the world. Gradually and perhaps also
because of participation in the elections, the CPI moved its position
around. First, by accepting that although India was following an
independent foreign policy, internal policy was still not wholly inde-
pendent. In 1953, at its Madurai Congress, it acknowledged that India
was a sovereign republic; in 1956 at its Palghat congress it reported
that India was building capitalism, however in 1958 in Amritsar when
Dange was general secretary, it was accepted that advance to socialism
through parliamentary and peaceful means was possible. In 1961, at
Vijayawada it decided to follow a policy of struggle and unity towards
Congress but only for its progressive policies.
 Gradualism, Marginal Redistribution 243

However, agreements in the party congress concealed deep differ-

ences within regarding attitude to parliamentary means, international
developments like the Soviet critique of Stalin under Khrushchev,
Russia-China differences, and Indo-China relations. Over these issues,
CPI split in 1964. The left faction now called CPM did not believe
that parliamentary means were enough.
Some historians of modern India are of the opinion that the
communists failed to realize their political potential. This happened
despite the favourable socio-economic conditions.‘Despite toiling hard
in the anti-imperialist cause and being a part of the mainstream national
movement led by Congress and Gandhiji, both before and after
Independence, the party failed to appreciate correctly the character of
the freedom struggle as a massive national revolution, comparable to
the Russian and Chinese revolutions’ (p. 263).29 They did not pose the
real problem and discussed it thoroughly in the communist party. For
instance, what did it mean to be a social revolutionary in post-
colonial, democratic India? In their opinion CPI in the early days, failed
to understand the significance of nationalism in the context of an
anti-colonial struggle. They did not involve themselves in the develop-
ment and consolidation of the nation while people looked to a strong
and consolidated nation to improve their social conditions.
As a result, both the communist parties split further, and have
more or less stagnated, remained small, they formed governments in
West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura in a left front and made their presence
felt in the parliament. But after 2014, only Kerala remained. Outside
these states, they have not been able to expand or form a broad national
level mass movement. Perhaps, their response to Indian realities had
been slow. If viewed from a position that recognizes just how diverse
and divided the subcontinent actually was in the decades leading up
to 1947 and how backward socially, culturally and economically. What
was achieved in those decades by the national movement was indeed
immense. The movement for Independence was the biggest social force
of its time and all other forces had to adapt themselves around the
movement, its dominant leaders, their ideas, and their compulsions.
The forces of the left had to organize and wait for their turn. Mean-
while the RSS stayed united, unobstructed. It had grown much in
244 Tipping Point

organization, reach and influence in those decades before Partition,

more so than the left. After Independence too there was little obstruc-
tion from the state and hardly any self-imposed constraint on procedure,
norms, and funding, all this is vastly different from the left. Early
electoral success of the CPI also tied it down to constitutional means,
drained its resources and manpower continually. For the longest time
its energies were consumed by maneuvering around the Congress.
Though Congress was the dominant organization in the struggle
for Independence it was by no means the only potentially significant
force in India, the far right had a manifestation that was not entirely
apparent in the electoral outcomes.
‘The results of the first general elections (1952) showed that
the monopoly of power enjoyed by the Congress at the time of 1947
transfer of power being challenged by the parties of the democratic
opposition (the Communists, Socialists, various groups of left dem-
ocrats) on the one side, and such parties of right revivalist opposition
as the Hindu Mahasabha, the Ram Rajya Parishad on the other’
(p. 31).30
Meanwhile at the state level, friction between the Congress party
and its own governments had been increasing. Ambitions and corrup-
tion of some of its members also accelerated. Tension between Nehru
and his recalcitrant chief ministers was another factor well illustrated
in his letters to the chief ministers, they contained his anxiety and
warning about the activity of the RSS.
E.M.S. Namboodiripad (prominent ideologue and leader of the
Communists) said that at that juncture, the Congress repositioned
itself to deal with the competition from the left.31 Interestingly it did
not confront the far right perhaps because its parliamentary presence
was marginal at this point. The Congress began to acknowledge that
it was late in declaring itself on the side of socialism and that it had in
fact treated the formation of socialist and communist groups in the
1920s with hostility. It declared that it would begin the journey from
Ramraj, cooperative commonwealth to socialistic pattern of society
and socialism at the famous Avadi Congress in 1955. This and several
practical measures, including the second five-year plan (a paradigm
shift), were announced. A contingent of socialist planning experts
from socialist countries, were involved as were left oriented political
 Gradualism, Marginal Redistribution 245

economists in the planning process. The first plan had been a collection
of proposals made by the British government as part of the Colombo
plan and made no major changes in the economy. When the more
comprehensive second plan was tabled, following the Avadi session,
the right wing feudal land owning section of the Congress broke away
and formed the Swatantra (freedom) party. This split was the first
assertion of the anti-left segment of the Congress. It had remained
dormant despite that fact that the manifesto of the Congress for the
1952 elections (which they won handsomely) had stated the intention,
‘It is not possible to pursue a policy of laissez-faire in industry. . . . It
is incompatible with any planning. It has long been Congress policy
that basic industries should be owned or controlled by the state. This
policy holds and must be progressively given effect to. State trading
should be undertaken wherever the balance of advantage lies in favour
of such a course. A large field for private enterprise is, however, left
over. Thus, our economy will have a public sector as well as a private
sector. But the private sector must accept the objective of the National
Plan and fit into it’.32
However, at that point the large capitalists/industrialists were not
perturbed by the public sector dominated heavy industry model
introduced and initiated by Nehru-Mahalanobis. It mirrored their
needs as evident in their own document known as the Bombay Plan.
They were only somewhat apprehensive about the doctrinaire priority
of the public sector and land reforms. As for the rest they were more
or less confident of their equation with the influential segments of
Congress leadership, their equation with the right wing in the oppo-
sition and ability to prevent Congress from going ‘too far’ to the left.
Their confidence was not misplaced. The balance of forces in the
economy did shift in favour of the traders, rentiers, big farmers and
the big capitalists as various reports had pointed out.33 This reposi-
tioning in 1955 of the Congress towards the left was primarily a tactic
to mirror the popular will and strategy against the left. It was a clever
approach.
Despite perceiving the class character of the Congress party this
repositioning did throw the CPI into a great deal of confusion regarding
how it should place itself in relation to the Congress in the future. It
did not help the Communists in India that leaders from USSR visiting
246 Tipping Point

India praised the leftward shift of the Congress. One of the immediate
consequences was that in one of its strongholds, Andhra Pradesh (built
over years of land struggle, bloodshed) the CPI already depleted,
received a big setback in the March 1955 elections from which it could
not recover. However, in other states the setback was less marked than
in Andhra. In its strongholds like Kerala and West Bengal there was
much debate over how to understand and cope with the Avadi shift.
In Kerala, the CPI was able to rebound; in the state elections in
1957 it formed the first democratically elected communist and the first
stable non-Congress government in India. Although its majority was
very thin it nevertheless bolstered confidence of communist party there
and vindicated its approach of conditional and issue based ‘revolutionary
and flexible’ support to the Central Government. But what followed
was a bitter struggle between the Congress and communists at the state
level. The Congress was prepared to use its position in the centre to
bolster its party in the states. It let lose a rush of obstacles against the
Government of Kerala accusing it of having a minority vote share, being
dangerous for the law and order situation, etc. It tried to shake off left
allies but failed.
The Government in Kerala went about implementing the policies
that the Congress and its Central Government had announced but its
own state governments had failed to implement elsewhere. Learning
from the failures in other states the communist led government plugged
loopholes in the land reform bills, made comprehensive legislations
covering all kinds of tenancy arrangements and banned eviction of
tenants from their lands. For this mobilization of peasants and control
over state administration and police were needed and it was accom-
plished, eventually landlords had to concede. This angered the
middle-classes who made it their business to raise the fears/bogey of
lawlessness.
The government followed up its agenda with the Education Bill
to put some curbs on the private management of education institutions.
The Christian Church and the Nair Service Society had a practical
command over most educational institutions. These groups raised a
storm about the curbs. With the support of landlords and religious
associations, the Congress confronted the communist government and
provided support to the ‘liberation struggle’.34
 Gradualism, Marginal Redistribution 247

Food deficiency in Kerala was used to create more trouble for the
state government. The Central Government directed it to acquire food
grains from surplus states, when it did so from Andhra, allegations
were made that this was done to enrich the Andhra communist party,
followed by allegations of corruption about the Andhra Rice Deal.
Under pressure of the opposition, a commission of inquiry on the rice
deal was instituted headed by a judge, and it came to the conclusion
that while the government needed to purchase 5000 tons in August-
September 1957 the situation did not warrant a purchase made in the
manner that it was or with the urgency that it was. In doing so the
inquiry commission perhaps disregarded the fact that festival seasons
were around the corner and stock maintenance was the responsibility
of the government.35
This episode gave more ammunition to the opposition. The left
government was toppled in 1959. The toppling game was played again
in 1967-9 in both Kerala and West Bengal against the communist lead
United Front governments. In both states, the communists had won
in democratically held elections and were engaged mainly in imple-
menting the avowed policies of the Congress government at the centre,
perhaps considerably more effectively. Animosity between electoral
rivals was rising precipitously.
Political leadership against the communist state government in
Kerala was provided by the then Congress President, Indira Gandhi.
Although she was a newcomer to the field of active political work she
succeeded. She was able to rally all the reactionary and communal
forces for the sole objective of toppling the communist government (p.
58).36 In 1957, the Congress had declared that it would paralyze the
administration in Kerala with no less than the PM praising the efforts
of his daughter in doing so. Relations being so strained between the
Congress and communists at the state level did not auger well for their
relationship at the centre. Meanwhile the victory of the CPI in Kerala
state elections in 1957 had sent alarm bells ringing loud in the American
CIA establishment; preventing additional such outcomes became an
essential aspect of arguments to increase ‘assistance’ to India.37
Moynihan, US Ambassador to India spoke of a demi-raj that the US
had set up in India in the mid-1950s and 1960s, which ended rather
badly later during his tenure 1973-5.38 Haksar too had commented on
248 Tipping Point

the situation with specific reference to activities of University of Chicago

in Varanasi, in a letter to Indira Gandhi in 1970 saying that ‘. . . we
allowed a certain amount of flabbiness to creep into our system of
governance and let Americans loose in our country. . .’ (p. 166).39
The story in West Bengal was far more vicious. Bengal had an
early history of revolutionary terrorism and left radicalism. Its status
as centre of colonial rule till 1911, many generations of western edu-
cation and industrialization made it a special case. The role of its landed
elite was unique; it took to modern education, occupied key professional
positions and perused literary, artistic, scientific and political interests
to constructing a social-cultural renaissance. The Partition of Bengal
and the turmoil it created in 1905, sharecropper’s movement in the
1940s, the great famine of 1943 and frailty of Congress and weakness
of Gandhi’s influence allowed space for communists. The Bengali elite
in considerable numbers, unlike the elite elsewhere, moved on to
Marxism for its promise of liberation from both colonialism and
capitalism. In 1930, CPI was recruiting actively in the jails of Bengal.
Its membership in pre-Independence Bengal rose sharply from 37 in
1934 to 20,000 in 1947 on the basis of its relief work in 1943, and
Tebhaga movement of sharecroppers. Many left parties grew. After the
Partition of 1947, their support to the Hindu, East Bengali refugees
enabled them to recruit new members. The left won 18 per cent of the
popular vote in the first assembly election and 47 per cent in 1971
when they overtook the Congress. The process expanded with the
arrival of more refugees after the 1971 war. The Congress had ruled
the state since 1947. By 1967 the Congress failed to get the majority
and was replaced by a United Front with significant representation
from left parties. The coalition did not last beyond a few months, it
was replaced by Presidents’ Rule. In 1969 re-election, the same coalition
returned with greater representation of left parties. The government
was dismissed in a year, subjected to severe repression during 1970-1,
particularly after the Congress won almost three-fourth majorities in
the 1972 elections. There were allegations of rigging by the Congress.
CPM boycotted the assembly for five years. In Bengal,‘In 1977 the left
parties emerged from what they consider as one of the darkest periods.
In the preceding years, their cadre had been systematically hounded
out of trade unions, ousted from the living quarters, prevented from
 Gradualism, Marginal Redistribution 249

holding public meetings and subjected to all manner of harassment’ (p.

123).40 Given this ferocious, no holds barred electoral competition at
the state level, it was unlikely that Indira Gandhi would be seen as a
promoter of socialism to the communists. This was the state of
heightened antagonism between the Congress and the CPM when
some leaders from Bengal gravitated towards JP’s movement in the
years leading up to the emergency. Its political prisoners alone were
estimated to number 40,000 during the emergency.
Neither communists nor the Congress leadership looked particu-
larly accurately at the political forces at play to the right of the Congress.
And, therefore, they did not consider them to be either potent or
threatening. At that point they were not manifestly so. In the aftermath
of the ban it faced in 1949, the RSS fashioned itself as a cultural force
and till Golwalkar passed away in 1973 it did not spread its political
wings too wide. Jana Sangh, its political affiliate was a relatively marginal
force while communists were the principal organized opposition in a
few states. The first chapter refers to foreign scholars who had written
about the role of militant Hinduism in Indian politics in the colonial
period and some others kept up the examination in post-colonial
times.41 Nevertheless, few inside India perceived the potential of the
Jana Sangh. At least not as shrewdly as Craig Baxter, an American
Foreign Service officer. He had spent time in Bombay, New Delhi and
Lahore, studied developments in Jana Sangh up to 1967 and remarked,
‘The Bharatiya Jana Sangh enjoys a unique position among the national
parties of India: It is the only party that has increased its percentage
of popular vote and its share of parliamentary and assembly seats in
each successive election from 1952 through 1967. Despite the party’s
strong position; in the Western world it has been undoubtedly the least
studied and the least well known of the major Indian political parties’.42
Baxter said that after the 1967 elections, the Jana Sangh had matured
into a potent force on the Indian political scene, both in the national
Parliament and the legislatures of several Indian states. Soon after
Baxter (another foreign office connection), in the early 1970s, wrote
extensively about the RSS, that will be examined in the last chapter.
The role of CIA and the RSS in assisting the toppling of the first
communist government in Kerala is known in left circles. It is hardly
likely that CIA would have been indifferent to the rise of communists
250 Tipping Point

in India that too through successive elections! Some suggestions about

the role of CIA and that of the RSS in the anti-Indira movement have
also been made and examined in Chapter 2 and 3. It is not yet estab-
lished as to what extent they worked in partnership in the 1970s and
perhaps never will, given that covertness is a norm in both.

Rupture in the Communist Party

Reasons that weakened the communist movement are broadly three;
one, the constant confusion around the shift in Congress towards the
left. The dilemma was how to respond to its shifts and maneuvers.
Associations with the Congress had been a source of disagreements
within the communists since the very beginning but after the Avadi
session of 1955 they got worse. Second, the far more intricate issue
unresolved since its early years was, how would the communists expand,
strapped within a parliamentary democracy committed to supporting
a capitalist economy? ‘Intra-party situation was marked by tensions
and disagreements that burst forth after the Andhra defeat in 1955
mid-term elections and they were not resolved sufficiently in the party
Congress at Palghat; they roiled the members till the party split in
1964’ (p. vi).43 Radicals within the movement rejected the possibility
of peaceful transition to socialism formally adopted in 1958 while the
moderates insisted that it was the only way possible (especially after
the Telangana armed struggle was crushed by the state and army) and
supporting progressive congressmen was necessary to sideline the
reactionary segment within and so on. The third major problem erupted
around the rift in the USSR-China and then Indo-Chinese relation-
ships. In the post-war era, USSR was a major power. Later, China was
an emerging one in the Asian region. Both were led by communist
parties that supported each other broadly, though, their differences
caused CPI factions to pick one over the other – tensions rose. In India,
as mentioned, the Communist party was in no position to seize power
after Independence. In the early 1950s, they had decided to work within
parliamentary democracy and Constitution. They had no role in
framing the Constitution and the framework in which they now decided
to work. In 1946 provincial elections had voted the Congress with a
large majority and they inherited India directly from the British,
 Gradualism, Marginal Redistribution 251

administration and the instruments of state power. Quite naturally

their vision and ideology were encapsulated in the Constitution. The
communists also consented to form the constituent assembly without
a direct election for the same. During such an election they might have
argued, contested, and strengthened their case against the Congress.
In the years after Independence, the Communist party of India,
therefore, had neither the size nor position to be wholly independent
of international support or advice, which it continued to get from the
USSR.
This enabled the charge of international alliances beyond nation-
alism and a foreign hand to be hurled at them. Whenever an external
threat like China was sighted both right wing within the Congress and
the far right would orchestrate such allegations. The Congress too was
not above using such forces in its struggle to retain and expand power.
The build up to the India-China war of 1962 was one such occasion
because a faction within the CPI was the only voice demanding a
peaceful settlement of the territorial disputes with China.
Since, boundaries between the two countries had been determined
by the British, rulers of India and the Chinese were not willing to accept
them, notwithstanding a thaw in the relationships with China and the
grand success of the Bandung Conference. In this context the call for
peaceful settlement by the CPI became the basis of an anti-communist
storm. The party split over the issue into CPI and CPI(M) and the
latter bore the brunt of the anti-communist tempest. India’s rather
humiliating defeat in the 1962 India-China War was a political disaster
for Nehru and the Congress party. The role that Jana Sangh and the
right wing Congressmen played in forcing Nehru into the war which
India was ill prepared for, has been well documented.44
Hyper-nationalism has been an important smoke screen for right-
wing just as ‘anti-national’ has been a tool to fight political enemies for
a long time. Communists in India have long been accused of finding
inspiration outside India. The far right found inspiration in primeval
glory of Bharat and in the mythology of old Hindu kingdoms, while
the centre right Congress looked for inspiration entirely in the person
of its leadership. Some leaders also espoused an indigenous version of
secular and socialist nationalism. The Communists alone were found
looking outside for inspiration and often direction as well. Hardly
252 Tipping Point

anyone questioned that the very idea of ‘liberal democracy’ was an

inspiration from outside, as was the idea of a modern ‘nation’. Essentially
the models for reference and imitation or adaptation came from outside,
from the successful and powerful nations. The west that had dominated
the world for a few centuries, USSR which had become a superpower
within 50 years and China which was quickly finding its own way in
the socialist world.
Be that as it may, after the split in the Communist Party in 1964,
leading to the formation of CPI and CPM, the Home Ministry
launched a country wide attack on the latter, arrested thousands of
middle and top rank cadres under the Preventive Detention Act and
issued a ‘white paper’ giving the reasons for these arrests.45 The Calcutta
conference of the October-November 1964 marked the birth of the
CPM. More than 900 of its leading members were arrested by the
central government in late December 1964 on vague charges of pro-
moting an internal revolution to synchronize with a fresh Chinese
attack, this was done under emergency powers of preventive detention
and these leaders were in jail for one-and-a-half years.46 On the eve of
the mid-term elections in Kerala in 1965, it also used the material that
CPI faction had used to attack the CPM, the hysterical anti-China
patriotic campaign in which Congress, Jana Sangh and Socialists had
eased off only with the setback in the Indo-Chinese war of 1962, but
the anti-national label remained wedged in to be used whenever needed.
In 1965, another war, this time with Pakistan, with whom China
had meanwhile established friendly relations was yet another occasion
for patriotic fervour. These wars, as all wars do, had drained national
resources, created scarcity and popular discontent in the post-war years.
The left and other parties participated in mobilization programmes
against price rise.
On the eve of the fourth general elections, the CPM took the lead
in uniting as many left and democratic parties on issues of civil liberties
(since the cadre of CPM was still in prison) and prices of essential
items which had risen sharply. It was this that led to the formation of
many non-Congress governments at the state level and the phenomenon
of what came to be called ‘anti-Congressism’ in 1965-6, which in the
next decade under leaders like the Socialists Dr Lohia and later JP
assumed a hostile, even perverse dimension.
 Gradualism, Marginal Redistribution 253

In the fourth general elections in 1966, the Congress lost many

states, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Orissa, West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh,
Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Pondicherry, Delhi and
Manipur. This was almost 68 per cent of the Indian population. But
the going for the non-Congress governments was tough because they
were not united by an agenda or ideology. Exceptions were Kerala
CPM, Orissa and Tamil Nadu (DMK). Jana Sangh, Akalis, and the
CPI participated in various unstable fronts. Defections were frequent
as were rotations of parties that formed successive governments; all of
it created much cynicism about the nature of the political system and
leaders (this has been discussed in Chapter 2). Punjab, Uttar Pradesh,
Bihar and West Bengal had to hold mid-term elections in 1969. It was
in this election that the United Front emerged in West Bengal with
more seats than in 1967.
This breakdown in the Congress hegemony through the 1960s
and the ability of the left to wrest a few states was the background in
which Congress had to reorient its strategy once again. In doing so,
Indira Gandhi resorted to a strategy akin to what Nehru had envisioned
after 1952; that is to reposition Congress firmly to the left. Again, to
enable the sharper left wing, the Congress split. A large segment of the
top echelon in Congress was inclined to shift right. Unseen beneath
this left-right tug of war within the Congress was the struggle for power
of ambitious politicians after Nehru’s passing (dealt with extensively
in Chapter 2).
Within the left there was turmoil all over again just as in the years
after Avadi. One set saw the Congress rift as representing two different
class forces, one representing monopoly capital and the other, under
Indira Gandhi progressive and inclusive, that would help the people
fight the feudal and monopoly control. The other section thought that
while tactically it would be a useful to support the Indira Gandhi
Congress it did not in fact, represent a different class force. The differ-
ences among the left were based on the degree of support that should
be extended to Indira Gandhi’s Congress, all out or only issue based
without abandoning own agenda and struggle. The presence of left
governments in West Bengal and Kerala in 1969, complicated the
situation. These governments had waged long years of local struggles
against the Congress governments in the states and against the centre
254 Tipping Point

which had dismissed left governments in the past and did so once again
just before the formal Congress split came in 1969.
Eventually, two main clusters went into the 1971 elections. CPI
and some socialists (PSP) went with the Congress under Indira Gandhi.
The other referred to as the grand alliance was composed of the syn-
dicate Congress, Jana Sangh, Swatantra Party, SSP. The CPM opposed
both these groups and in West Bengal most of the left groups supported
CPM. While the Congress under Indira Gandhi went into the elections
with a radical left agenda claiming to have cleansed itself of the right
wing elements, the grand alliance went into it mainly with an anti-au-
thoritarian, anti-Soviet line.
Indian monopoly capital played the hedging game, of opposing the
left leaning Congress under Indira but at the same time funding the
Congress, preparing the ground for favours that would consolidate
class interest. They funded both the Congress under Indira Gandhi
and the right. The Congress under Indira Gandhi won handsomely,
and the grand alliance was routed.
CPM was able to get the largest number of seats among the
opposition parties in the Lok Sabha, followed by CPI which was
supported by Congress. In three states of Kerala, West Bengal and
Tripura the CPM got the largest percentage of votes polled. However,
despite this early burst of success, eventually, it appeared that splitting
of the communists and the disruptive behaviour of the socialist sup-
porters did weaken the presence of the left on an all India level, a fact
also analyzed in a CIA special report in 1966.47 The report talked of
the communists being the greatest threat to the democratic government
of India with the greatest will, discipline, and considerable public
support but much weakened by intense factional fighting among its
ranks and repression by the state. It noted that they now posed a serious
challenge only in three states identified as West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh
and Kerala and were not in position to shape national level outcomes
or policy.

External Pressures Yet Again

Despite the left ward shift of the Congress under Indira at the centre
and the many legislations that hemmed in monopoly capital and its
 Gradualism, Marginal Redistribution 255

victory at the polls, land reforms (state subject under the Constitution)
were not followed through. What happened instead was that another
war occupied national attention, this time on the eastern front over
the issue of Bangladesh (discussed at some length in Chapter 2). The
dispute was a power struggle between Bhutto who won the elections
in West Pakistan and Sheikh Mujibur Rehman of the Awami League
who had won resoundingly in East Pakistan and gained majority in
the national parliament. Eventually India went to war with Pakistan
because of the military atrocities on the supporters of Awami League,
the resistance movement there, and the burden of over ten million
refugees who had poured into India across the eastern border.
India was caught in a situation with the western powers’ hostile to
the issue of East Pakistan and unwilling to come to India’s support for
the cause. Muslim countries sided openly with Pakistan. In these cir-
cumstances India turned to the USSR to accept the offer of a mutual
treaty of friendship that had been offered a few years earlier. The
Indo-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation was signed, this
guaranteed arms and diplomatic support to India in the event of
aggression. Reciprocal support from India was assured to USSR. This
was a pronounced turning point in India’s foreign policy orientation.
Bangladesh became an independent nation, and this outcome, because
it was supported indirectly by USSR, was a diplomatic setback for
USA. America under Nixon was trying to normalize relationships with
China and USSR. There were now three powers on the world scene,
each interested in maneuvering against each other. India’s support
became important for USSR and vice-versa. What followed the 1971
war, could well be called a phase of intense diplomatic rivalry between
the USSR and America – war by other means. 1970s saw a series of
dramatic international developments wherein the American military
might was defeated in direct confrontations in Vietnam, Laos,
Cambodia (1975), countries under the influence of USSR/China.
These countries saw the reemergence of communist parties at the helm.
This midst the general and continual retreat of western forces from
Cape Verde, Guinea, Mozambique, armed struggle in Zimbabwe,
Namibia and growing resistance in South Africa. The long war in
Indochina also known as the greatest proxy war of the cold war era
ended quite badly for America in terms of time, cost, and eventual
256 Tipping Point

defeat. For a while thereafter, American efforts to restore their spheres

of influence consisted of more indirect means like coups in Thailand,
Chile (1973), assassination of Mujibur Rehman (1975) and creating
or backing puppet regimes in Saudi Arabia and Sadat in Egypt.48
All this geopolitical turmoil was accompanied by a serious eco-
nomic crisis for western countries, set off by oil price hikes, arrival of
Japan as a major manufacturing rival in international trade. Stagflation
accompanied by increasing unemployment beset the western world.
The intensity of the slowdown in the west, rise of Japan in the east and
the rising prices of crude oil were to have profound socio-political
consequences across the globe resulting in the end of the full employ-
ment, working class unrest and gradual retreat of welfare state in
capitalist countries. The burden of this slowdown in the western
economies was being redistributed everywhere not just among its own
working class, but to the debt ridden third world (by raising interest
on debt) and through trade manipulations by multinational corpora-
tions and via technology transfers deals (these came to be recognized
as the tools of neo-colonialism). Weapons manufacture was the only
steady source of profit and weapon sales rose sharply, ostensibly to
counter communism. The socialist bloc was not without its internal
tensions, when it was not warding off an intervention from the CIA
or battling economic problems, it was dealing with the tensions ema-
nating between the two giants Soviet Union and China.

Complex Reality
At the height of the complicated international situation the Indian
domestic economy took a turn for the worse following yet another war.
There were food shortages, oil prices hikes, all this leading to popular
unrest. The left trade unions could have hardly ignored these issues
without losing their relevance.
The situation in West Bengal was the most complex, The Congress
had held West Bengal since 1947. But after 1966 the state elections
resulted in Bangla Congress (break away from Congress) with Ajoy
Mukherjee as Chief Minister and the CPM with Jyoti Basu as deputy
Chief Minister and assortment of left-wing parties sharing power.
Within the CPM there was disagreement about participation in such
 Gradualism, Marginal Redistribution 257

a government between Jyoti Basu and Promode Dasgupta. The former

supposed that the government could be shaped from within the latter
was against it.49 The Congress, as opposition was the single largest
party. Within a year contradiction emerged in the shape of the Naxalbari
movement for land redistribution in Naxalbari region in Darjeeling
district. These Himalayan foothills had particularly fraught land
relations with large tea plantations owned by British companies. With
communists in power there were raised hopes for redistribution which
could not be addressed. The peasant organization that led the struggle
under Kanu Sanyal met with state repression. Many hailed the rise of
the revolutionary struggle including leaders in communist China. This
spread to include other communists groups disenchanted with their
role in parliamentary democracy. Andhra Pradesh was one such region.
The CPI(ML) was formed, a break away group of communists and
their differences which can fill volumes, multiplied.50 Meanwhile the
government collapsed under its contradictions and President’s Rule
was imposed from February 1968-9 for a year in West Bengal. In the
next state elections CPM came back with more seats but had to form
a government with Bangla Congress once again. Some years of deep
turmoil and lawlessness51 followed while the ruling parties struggled
against each other, among each other and the centre. Once again
Presidents Rule was imposed in March 1970 which lasted till April
1971.
In West Bengal elections soon after the 1971 war, matters got
worse than in Kerala (where state government of the left had been
toppled a second time in 1969). The left parties were denied the right
to approach the electorate. The irregular manner in which the elections
were organized has been commented on by observers.52 Despite the
fact that Indira Gandhi and Sheikh Mujibur Rehman of the newly
created Bangladesh (then riding a wave of popularity in West Bengal)
addressed an election rally from the same platform. Political analysists
and Intelligence Bureau did not give the Congress anything but a slight
majority which would have been an uneasy situation for the Congress.53
The political leaders who got involved in criticizing the Congress
included Jayaprakash Narayan. He addressed a press conference in
Calcutta on 14 May 1972 on the issue. JP’s correspondence reveals
that some opposition parties including the CPM approached him to
258 Tipping Point

initiate a Commission of Inquiry headed by distinguished jurists into

the conducting of elections to the West Bengal state assembly and
possibly one or two other state assemblies. However, the West Bengal
Pradesh Congress Committee refused to participate in such an inquiry
and suggested that the opposition approach the election commission
or the court of law (p. 49).54 Within seven days of the polling, 20,000
workers and leaders of the trade union movement were forcibly evicted
from their houses; many homes were then looted and burned. Left
trade unions and some 360 of Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU)
branches were uprooted, their offices were occupied, and their members
were told to join unions of the ruling Congress party. In West Bengal
even before the June 1975 emergency there were 15,000 to 20,000
political prisoners many of them alleged Naxalites and held without
trial since 1970-1.
This account is not to deny the intense friction between the factions
of the left.
The Congress like other political parties including CPM seemed
to be in a no holds bar contest at the state level. The Congress, nationally
the most powerful, was making enemies out of the opposition parties
and making the quest for an alternative to Congress more urgent for
their survival. In Maharashtra, the Congress was not averse to aligning
with the far right, nativist formation called Shiv Sena, who in turn gave
them ample assistance in breaking the sway of left run unions in
Bombay. More about that saga will follow later in the chapter.
Internationally, the alliance with USSR was firm (the west not
having forgotten or forgiven the break up of Pakistan) and plenty of
central legislations both gave Congress a left leaning position.
Implementation of some policies was sketchy as states ignored the
centre. The centre’s harassment and dismissal of opponents, particularly
the elected communists, severely dented public perceptions about the
Congress. Indira Gandhi in turn was perhaps too preoccupied trying
to consolidate Congress electoral victories, her own position earlier
within the Congress and then in her breakaway Congress.
Indira Gandhi’s reply to the Commission, set up to inquire into
the excesses of the emergency period, was that if the purpose of the
Commission was to check abuse of power in the future, the circum-
stances that created the chaotic conditions and led to the emergency
 Gradualism, Marginal Redistribution 259

must also be enquired into. She blamed the opposition for creating
unrest and anarchy because of which the government had to take such
an action to save the country. Responding to it Namboodiripad said,
‘Can Indira Gandhi argue that the talk of ‘civil war’, ‘bloodshed’, ‘taking
things to the street’, etc., indulged in by the Congress (I) leaders
including the Chief Ministers of two states is something better than
the alleged threat of direct action by the opposition leaders in 1975’?55
This in sum, was the depth of fury and dismal outcome of the electoral
competition.
The urgency to create an alternative to the Congress at the centre
just kept growing. Some programme, as a base, upon which such a
coalition could be built up was outlined at the ninth party Congress
of the CPM held in 1972. It had four basic points. The first set was,
combating the dangers of firstly, Congress party dictatorship, protecting
constitutional liberties, free and fair elections, right to vote, withdrawing
of all repressive legislation like Preventive Detention Act, MISA,
Prevention of Violent Activities Act, Defence of India Act and
Emergency Rules, Arbitrary Power of Dismissal available to President
and withdrawal of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), military from
West Bengal and release of all arrested under those Acts. All these
were political demands based on the experience of repression.
The second was economic demands that included the rights to
minimum wage, full trade union rights, land reforms, fair price shops
for essential commodities, housing sites for rural poor, credit to agri-
culture and so on. Third, educational and cultural demands included
free education up to secondary stage, hostels, and scholarships, safe-
guards for rights of women, minorities, schedule castes and tribes and
protection of Urdu and fighting communal passions on all sides. Fourth,
foreign policy demands included anti-imperialism and support to all
struggles against imperialism, for friendly relations with all socialist
countries including China.

Self-Analysis by the Communists

Looking back scholars say, ‘The emergency marked a turning point in
Indian politics. It weakened the forces of the left and also led to further
deterioration in the CPI-CPM relations’ (p. 97).56
260 Tipping Point

CPM collaboration with other parties both in pre- and post-

emergency period was a subject of great dissent within the party.
General Secretary, P. Sundarayya resigned in protest. His letter of
resignation dated 22 Augusrt 1975, two months after the emergency
was declared, states clearly the first reason that ‘joint actions with
pro-imperialist Jana Sangh and para military fascist storm troopers
like RSS in the name of fighting emergency would isolate the party
from anti-imperialist and socialist forces in the country and abroad’
(p. 1).57 In his judgment, Jana Sangh and other rightist parties were
keen for the left to join because they would reap benefits from political
agitations against the government in the company of the left democratic
forces without any commitment to the causes of the left or democracy.
He was upset that CPM tactics were tacitly shifting from loose col-
laboration, to action committees to campaign committees to united
fronts as time progressed. He quoted the party’s own programme at
that point in which Para 109 identified right wing forces collaborating
with one another like, Swatantra Party as being reactionary and counter
revolutionary while the Jana Sangh had an additional character of being
communal. These parties were known to sabotage all agricultural
reforms, attack the public sector viciously, and damage trade with
socialist bloc, to advocate open door policy for foreign capital and
concessions for monopoly capital and military alliance with America.
His opinion was not heeded; it was not the majority position in the
politburo.
In the 1978 Draft Resolution (for tenth Congress of CPM),58 the
party reflected on the 1970s, and acknowledged its role in the agitations
before the emergency along with other opposition parties. They were
against what it described as tendencies of one-party dictatorship,
anti-democratic measures taken by the Central Government against
working people in the form of wage, bonus freeze under pressure from
the IMF. But essentially the conflict that led to the emergency was
described as one between two rival bourgeoisie-landlord parties to seize
government machinery by all possible means where ‘both groups were
prepared to violate their cherished parliamentary norms, thus throwing
the system into crisis’. The opposition parties‘chose extra parliamentary
activity and not only appealed to the masses for direct action but also
appealed to the police and the military to disobey illegal orders.’ One
 Gradualism, Marginal Redistribution 261

fraction of the communists in the CPI had already identified the more
reactionary of the two bourgeoisie-landlord parties and decided to
support the Congress. Report from Ministry of Home Affairs recorded
the role of the CPM in cooperating with the opposition ‘to launch
peripheral and converging agitations’; it often cited Jyotirmoy Basu
being the CPM’s point person.59 CPM was not part of the national
coordination committee set up in November 1974, but on 25 June
1975 attended the meeting of the programme committee of the
opposition parties. This peripheral association was before the emer-
gency was imposed and it increased during the emergency. The logic
of this association had not been thoroughly analyzed although internal
disagreements in the party were mentioned. Some dissenters were
especially unhappy with the indirect collaboration with Jana Sangh
and dissenting views were expressed by P. Sundarayya first general
secretary of the CPM.60
The 1978 draft resolution nevertheless went on to suggest that
the struggle against emergency helped in resisting forces of dictatorship
in favour of democracy, That the ‘danger of authoritarian dictatorship’
had been lifted with the electoral defeat of the Congress and restoration
of democratic rights and civil liberties. That it was a struggle for res-
toration of the rights of people and civil liberties. It also described the
pre-emergency and emergency period as the biggest upheaval since
Independence. On the other hand it said that the post-emergency
ruling Janata Party was one which had yet to develop a coherent ideology
and organization. With its conflicting traditions and heritage of its
constituents it was riddled with ideological and organizational prob-
lems. The draft predicted that those internal conflicts within the Janata
party would continue, as would conflicts with the Congress since the
latter had considerable strength among the people. In this assessment
it proved to be accurate.
The anti-emergency struggle and the electoral victory did not lead
to a shift in the in the balance of forces in favour of the working class,
they were not moving away from the influence of the bourgeois parties
and rallying around an alternative leadership. As in 1971, in the 1979
elections too, there was polarization around the two bourgeois-landlord
combinations, the Congress and the Janata Party, the left had not
emerged as a viable force. Attempts to unite the left forces before the
262 Tipping Point

emergency proved less than successful as the CPI stayed away and the
socialists joined the movement led by JP.
The final assessment of the CPM was that in the Janata govern-
ment, communal and obscurantist ideology of the RSS was in a position
of influence within. The Janata government did not alter the economic
policies of the Congress in any significant way other than those directed
by the WB. It acknowledged that the antecedents of the main constit-
uents of the Janata Party were anti-democratic and reactionary. They
were the same parties that represented the grand alliance in 1971, and
those whom the party had then characterized as extreme reaction, right
reaction. While the Congress-O was the representative of the land-
lords-monopolist combine, the ideology of the RSS-Jana Sangh was
reactionary in the extreme. The Congress-O had taken a position on
the sacredness of the right of private property, against abolition of the
Privy Purse, bank nationalization, etc. Both were avowedly anti-com-
munist. The draft resolution of the CPM ended with a call to struggle
for a left-democratic alternative. Seizing power in West Bengal seemed
to have been the principal gain for the CPM from the entire
cataclysm.
But then in 1978, who could have foreseen the manner in which
forces of religious fundamentalism would be unleashed on the subcon-
tinent and gain momentum so rapidly? Under code name ‘Operation
Cyclone’, CIA funded mujahideen (Islamic militants from 1979-89) to
fight in Afghanistan against soviet influence.61 In neighbouring Pakistan
politics was sucked into the vortex of Islamic fundamentalism that
threatened that country up to the present times. Arms and militants
in the neighborhood escalated militancy in Kashmir and enthused
Sikhs in Punjab for a separate homeland, with alleged CIA assistance.62
The long standing organization of the far right Hindu fundamentalists
in India, with generous funding from its sympathizers in the west, was
also electrified in the 1980s. Was it all just a coincident?
While Sikh militants waged a war for a separate state in Punjab,
the RSS went all out with programmes of religious agitations to
communalize society (that journey will be charted in the last chapter).
An overlapping surge of religious fundamentalism, in cycles of reaction
and response engulfed Indian politics through the 1980s. By the end
of that decade the left was caught in the claws of caste and communal
 Gradualism, Marginal Redistribution 263

politics with diminishing scope for class action. In less than two decades
after the collapse of the Janata Government the RSS would make a
major bid for political power on the national stage, through their
political front.
In time, with the collapse of the Soviet Union and its disintegration
after 1991, there was an even more serious forfeiture for the Indian
communist movement. Communist movements all over the region had
to face not just questions about the failures of the USSR but also about
of their own relevance and existence. Then the blitz of neoliberal
propaganda began with great intensity. What happened next was a well
orchestrated international broadcast of various critiques of socialist
ideology, public sector and labour rights, tailed by a valourizing of
economic efficiency, profit motives, free markets by professional classes
like economists and technocrats, often trained in the western world.
This created the setting for the arrival of a belligerent variety of capi-
talism which was by now well-developed as the ruling doctrine in the
America and the Anglo-Saxon world. It was swept directly into Indian
policy making. In the west, capital had perfected the art and organiza-
tion for harnessing the elected governments to their cause. India would
not lag behind.
Consequently, in the colonial past, communists who had in com-
parison with the Congress and RSS, struggled with teething troubles
through early years, suffered much in the post-liberalization era as well.
They struggled, first for recruiting members and creating a dedicated,
skilled, tightly knit revolutionaries able to work among labour and
peasants. This was a challenge inherited from the past, locals were
difficult to recruit and train given the overall rate of illiteracy and social
backwardness in the villages. The social and economic condition among
the workers and peasants was adverse but the challenges of organizing
them as a class across the divisions of caste was even more so. Funding
full time party workers was the second challenge as cost of living rose
rapidly. Paucity of cadre would also slow down the penetration of CPI
into other social and cultural forums or to create new mass fronts. The
late start, fierce competitive opposition and shortage of high-quality
recruits were to become a cumulative problem, a problem, that was
highlighted as early as 1953 in a party document, evaluating its weak-
ness in the face of the enormous task of shifting social consciousness
264 Tipping Point

through movements, cultural interventions while simultaneously

participating in elections. ‘To discharge even a fraction of the new
responsibilities, to carry out even a part of the immense tasks, the party
needs cadres . . . cadres ideologically trained and politically developed
who have capacity for initiative and leadership. . . . Of such cadre we
have too few. And those few are overburdened with work’ (pp. 185-6).63
This was also the reason that in the early years it could not stand alone,
independent of ideological guidance and support from CPSU and
Communist Party of China (CPC). It was only in the 1950s that it
could begin a departure from ‘revolution by analogy’, away from placing
all debates about the revolution in India in terms of Russian path or
Chinese path.
The Congress was the largest and best organized anti-imperialist
front in India before Independence and remained the largest albeit a
diminishing political opposition to the far right (RSS and its political
front) after 1980s.

Socialists Disintegrate
The idea of a distinct socialist ginger group working within the
Congress trying to push it leftwards, was floated in meetings in 1933
between JP, Achhut Patwardhan, Yusuf Meherali, Ashok Mehta and
Minoo Masani in Nasik jail. Some of these names came up in Chapter
2 and 3 as part of the JP saga. In April 1934, the UP-Congress leader
Sampurnanand drew up a tentative socialist programme for India, and
the CSP was formally started the very next month, at a conference
chaired by Narendra Dev. ‘The ideology of its founders ranged from
vague and mixed up radical nationalism to fairly firm advocacy of
Marxian ‘scientific socialism’, which Narendra Dev at Patna meeting
distinguished sharply from mere ‘social reformism’ (p. 285).64 Its
activities created tensions within the Congress, midst the dominant
right wing. In June 1934, the Congress Working Committee condemned
its ‘loose talk’ about confiscation of private property and the necessity
of class war, as contrary to non-violence. Gandhi wrote to Narendra
Dev to say that Nehru, who gave Indians the mantra of socialism and
would be the natural successor for the leadership of the Congress,
would not hasten to talk of class war. Historians of modern India
 Gradualism, Marginal Redistribution 265

suggested that CSP activities and discussions did force the Congress
to think of issues like agrarian reform, problems of industrial labour,
future of princely states and non-Gandhian methods of mass mobili-
zation and struggle. CSP activists were able to develop a close
relationship with Kisan Sabha movement and its training in Bihar and
Andhra. It also acted like a bridge that was used by some activists to
cross over to full fledged Marxian communism, particularly in Andhra.
Numerous young people were attracted to the ideology and its theo-
retical base. The educated classes led and the masses followed. This
was because of the real problems of exploitation and injustice they
faced in their livelihood and daily existence which corresponded to the
creed or at least what they thought the leaders were talking about. At
no point was there a widespread grasp of the basic ideas in the Congress
let alone its absorption among the masses.
According to Sarkar, the late 1930s were marked by an interesting
pattern in Indian politics which would be repeated often, before and
after Independence. Outwardly, all the signs were of a significant lurch
to the left; growing socialist and communist activity (despite 1934 ban
on CPI), numerous labour and peasant struggles, the formation of
several left led all India mass organizations, and Congress presidential
addresses by Nehru at Lucknow and Faizpur (April and December
1936) which seem to formally embody all the radical aspirations and
programmes of the left. ‘Yet in the end, the right within the Congress
was able to skillfully and effectively ride and indeed utilize the storm,
and by the summer of 1937, Congress ministries were being formed
to work a significant part of the Constitution which everyone had been
denouncing for years’ (p. 290).65
Later, another event that caused much confusion about the nature
of Congress under Nehru was the Avadi session of the party, mentioned
above.
Like the communists, CSP formed in 1934, began its career within
the Congress, and remained a part of the Congress but with its separate
constitution, membership, and ideology. It remained a minority and
faced discrimination at the local levels within the Congress; more so
after Independence since the common task of Independence that united
everyone was no longer at hand. It also sensed the reluctance of the
Congress to make a purposeful, programmatic commitment to
266 Tipping Point

socialism. In March 1948, most members left the congress although

some stayed on. Historians have lamented that decision. It weakened
the socialist left within the Congress and Nehru was surrounded by
conservatives and right wing congressmen. ‘Neither the socialists nor
the communists or the two together – an impossibility at that time
– were capable of replacing Congress or bringing about socialism or
social change in opposition to Congress’ (p. 254).66 However, socialist
leaders claimed that immediately after the death of Gandhi the
Congress amended its constitution in a way that the socialists had no
choice but to leave and Nehru did not stop them. Some non-Congress
ministers like Dr. Ambedkar resigned and so did C.D. Deshmukh.67
They were isolated and this divorce occurred despite the fact that most
socialists concede that Nehru was the best among the leaders within
the Congress. Nehru ‘s proverbial loneliness within the organization
probably had something to do with their exit.
Personal agendas and ambitions played no mean role in the socialist
muddles throughout. It took them multiple ways and into many
unseemly alliances. While the larger questions, like the necessary
structure of a socialist state and means to create such a state in the
context of the real existing balance of social forces in India, remained
unresolved. It needed theoreticians and leaders that socialists could
neither generate in large enough numbers nor hold on to. Besides with
all and sundry pretending to be a socialist, the term lost its special
meaning and eventually sounded hollow.
In the general elections of 1952, the Socialist Party won 12 seats
in the Lok Sabha and 10.6 per cent of the popular vote. Many of their
important leaders however lost. Meanwhile a Kisan Mazdoor Praja
party formed by some Congress dissidents and led by J.B. Kriplani also
performed poorly with only 9 seats in the Lok Sabha and 5.8 per cent
of the votes. The two later merged to form the PSP with Kriplani as
chairman and Ashok Mehta as general secretary. But since its formation
in 1953 and up to 1964, it was rife with dissidence and factional dif-
ferences on the nature of its position against the Congress, its own role
in nation building and correct means of protesting. The stance of Dr
Rammanohar Lohia was of aggressive opposition to both Congress
and communists. Unable to arrive at any consensus or lasting agreement
among the leaders, there were splits and departures. Jayaprakash
 Gradualism, Marginal Redistribution 267

Narayan withdrew soon afterwards from active politics. Lohia and his
group left the party in 1955. He formed his own party which was
markedly militant and extremely anti-Nehru.
After 1962 elections, the socialists were an even more dejected lot.
In 1963, the socialist leaders were struggling to educate the public and
create an alternative to Congress. They justified their existence with
the argument that more than one national party was necessary for
parliamentary democracy to function at all, and, perennial hegemony
of Congress was unhealthy. In 1967, Lohia was seeking support from
Swatantra and Jan Sangh and the communists to defeat the Congress;
by 1971, the electoral fortunes of the PSP had waned. In 1971, half
members of the PSP joined the Congress.

Was there a ‘Liberal’ Right in India?

Was there ever a self-confessed liberal right wing in India on the lines
of conservatives in Britain? Sixty years after it was formed, the digital
press in India was celebrating the birth of a right liberal political party,
called the Swatantra Party, little known and non-existent today.
Recalling how it challenged Nehru’s socialism, prevented the famine
in India that would have followed collectivising land (what was pro-
posed at the Nagpur Congress was actually cooperative farming) and
claimed that India was finally put on the road first mapped by the
Swatantra Party in 1991,68 referring to neo-liberal reforms, which in
less than a decade brought the far right to power as dominant partner,
in Delhi for the first time.
Scholars like Erdman present the Swatantra Party as the closest
parallel to a right liberal that India ever had. He then highlighted
significant differences. To quote,
‘It has been part of the conventional wisdom about Indian politics
that right-wing political activity has been extremely ineffectual.
Certainly, a few writers, apart from Marxists, have argued to the
contrary’ (p. 10).69 Hardly any commentators thought that the ancient
regime, the princes, and aristocracy could generate a reaction in 1947
or even after the first two general elections. . . . Nehru, however, was
more circumspect; he thought that that the resistance of those attached
to the old aristocracy and princely states was passive not active. ‘No
268 Tipping Point

one denied that that there existed privileged classes with a vested
interest in maintaining the ancient regime, but they seemed quiescent;
and the passivity and inarticulateness of these groups were paralleled,
ostensibly, in the case of modern elite in land and industry’.70 The
Congress remained the dominant party for 25 years after Independence,
whether or not it was capable of forging a long term unity of purpose
out of divergent social, linguistic, caste and religious groups, or, if it
could overcome the weight of centuries of tradition necessary to
modernize was another question.
From the late 1920s, Nehru had given enough cause for the con-
servatives to be apprehensive, he aligned himself with the more radical
elements and against the defenders of socio-religious orthodoxy and
stagnation in rural India. It was obvious and Eardman also mentioned
that an effective government led by Nehru could have provided a
formidable threat to several important privileged social groups. As it
was, post-Independence, the princes lost their states, and then gradually
their residual political power as their status suffered and economic
position deteriorated severely. The same was substantially true for the
landed aristocrats, the big zamindars, both within and outside the
princely states, who were eliminated as intermediaries between the
peasant and state. The middle peasantry had to confront prospects of
ceilings on land holding, higher taxation, vague threat of (Nagpur
Congress session) cooperative agriculture and measures to improve the
condition of the lower classes. Similarly, the industrial licensing system,
attacks on the managing agency system, intimations of nationalization
and higher corporate tax, quotas and demarcation of some sectors for
public sector, could not have failed to cause some unease even if not
seriously regarded.
Rajagopalachari, or Rajaji as he was called, launched a new political
party called Swatantra Party in 1959. Backing it were the initiatives of
two lobbies; one was the Bombay based Forum for Free Enterprise and
the other, the All India Agriculturist Federation formed in 1958, a
body of large land owners formed to oppose Land Ceiling Laws and
alarmed by the Nagpur resolution of the Congress on cooperative
farming. Many feudal lords and princes joined it. These elements
together adopted party principles at its first convention that stated,
‘The party holds that the progress, welfare and happiness of the people
 Gradualism, Marginal Redistribution 269

depend on individual initiative, enterprise and energy.’ The party also

declared that it stood for maximum freedom of the individual and
minimum interference by the state.71 Rajaji who was at its helm declared
that it rejected the techniques of socialism which brought forth statism
which meant that democracy run by a single party quickly became a
tyranny.72 The actual party formation was announced in Madras and
its first convention was in Bombay in June 1959.
But all the groups within the Swatantra Party were diverse, with
inter and intra group cleavages, far from aggregated and divided by
caste and region. The same was the case of modern industry organized
largely on family and caste lines. Federation of Indian Chambers of
Commerce and Industry (FICCI) was the first pan-India business
organization of any kind.
The Congress, was the only successful relatively well organized
pan-Indian institution based on coalitions of interest groups. It proved
to be the broadest possible rallying point for a long time. Under Gandhi,
this unity of purpose was maintained tapping into some traditional
currents of thought in India while providing no direct threat to class
or caste interest. Only the aristocrats and princely states viewed the
Congress with some unease and remained aloof from the nationalist
movement, more so as the party broadened its base among the middle
and lower-castes and classes.
The princely groups turned to the British to defend their interest.
Their capacity for mischief was great and the possibility of spinning
the new country into anarchy and chaos was clear, so much so, that
Sardar Patel also commented on the privileges (like tax free privy purse,
right to personal property and wealth, succession, etc.) that were granted
to them constitutionally in exchange for merger, as being a small price
for a ‘bloodless revolution’ that affected the lives of millions of their
subjects.
Perhaps the same caution against the possibility of reactionary
resistance, drove the land reforms. ‘. . . The anti-colonial struggle drove
a wedge between the indigenous aristocracy and industrial commercial
classes, precluding the emergence, at least in the short run, of a fascist
type alliance between them. It is significant, too, that while there was
a growing concern over the rise of socialist elements, the threat from
the left was not so acutely felt that the gap between these classes was
270 Tipping Point

bridged’ (p. 18).73 This is the foundation of the moderate elements in

the Congress coalition. None of the elements that Nehru had inveighed
against were driven to the wall without compensation and this is the
reason why what happened after Independence, was far from radical
in the revolutionary sense. None of the government legislations in
actual implementation provided a real or imminent danger to the landed
classes. No coercion would ever be used to bring about any redistribu-
tion or reorganization of agriculture. Thus, diverse methods to
democratize and improve the lot of the lower-classes in the villages
were heavily bounded by the considerations for the property owning
classes. In many cases, projected reforms remained totally unimple-
mented. The same security was available to the business-classes. In
fact, the public sector eventually provided inputs and infrastructure to
the private industrial groups and private industrial clusters prospered
around giant public enterprises. In due course some aristocrats did join
the Congress as ministers and the system tried to and managed to
absorb its opposition in its drive for electoral victories but not without
damaging its coherence.
Indian conservative ideology had multiple intertwining strands.
For the privileged castes and aristocrats, their divine rights were
sanctioned and embedded in religion, dharma and hereditary. Among
the rest of the conservatives the following strands of beliefs can be
noticed, firstly, that real India was to be found in the unchanging village
communities, secondly, that these self-governing village communities
had been the nucleus of Indian life since the ancient times and thirdly,
that the ideal traditional family (endorsed by religion) and community
were located within these villages. Somehow in that notion these villages
were also the bastion of Indian spiritualism and resistance to western-
ization of education, legal and democratic political processes. They
were simultaneously fortressing against competitive politics brought
on by ideas of socialism, democracy and against the new order emerging
out of dislocations caused by early industrial, commercial economy.
This conception entered mainstream discourses of nationalism
when it recalled the ‘lost golden past’. It is a part of Indian variations
of Gandhian socialism as well. Here it got tied up with the brahminical
idea that piety and high thinking was inconsistent with complicated
material life, and voluntary restriction of material wants was a hallmark
 Gradualism, Marginal Redistribution 271

of high civilization. This strand was often mixed up with preference

for spiritual solutions to problems rather than administrative or material
ones. The sum of these was an inevitable cloud of nostalgia, muddle,
and preference for status quo at all levels. Given overlapping caste and
class segments and multiple levels of hierarchy in Indian society, only
those at the lowermost levels of the hierarchy would stand to gain and
not lose anything from a reversal of this status quo. And they did not
know anything about the possibility of a new order.
For the conservative, revivalist RSS agglutination (whose social
base comes from the various dislocated and dispossessed remnants of
the ancient system) whose notions of past Hindu glory was founded
not on the self-sufficient village but on another tradition of military
might, a monarchical state founded on religion, culture of obedience
and discipline in the service of the hierarchy. Its particular champions
here were the ‘Chitpavan Brahmins’ of Poona area- a specially militant
and political class associated with the Maratha kingdom; its closest
allies in the conservative spectrum were the usual, princes and the high,
brahmin caste.
The new capitalist class of India formed only in the last few decades
of colonial rule, did not represent a significant liberal position. It had
prospered in tightly monitored colonial environments.They were rooted
in caste and regional centres. They supported the Congress to overcome
the constraints of British control and competition of foreign capital,
and quickly gained state support in the post-colonial period. Born as
it was under colonial rule and (later maturing under the shadows of
Marxist revolutions in Russia and China) it never confronted the feudal
order but simply tried to align itself wherever its gains could be
maximized. For at least a decade or two after Independence, the
Congress was an adequate vehicle for them. Besides, no political party
comparable to the Congress could emerge on the national scale.
That a strong right-wing opposition outside the Congress did not
emerge does not imply that right wing forces (and their support base)
did not exist outside the Congress. By 1959, Erdman noted that there
were at least five political parties which had been classified as right
wing, the Hindu Mahasabha, the Jan Sangh, the RRP, the Gantantra
Parishad (GP), and the Janata Party, but, except for the GP which had
ruled for a few months in Orissa with the Congress as coalition partner,
272 Tipping Point

none of the others had any experience even at the state level, they were
poorly organized, mainly local, and confined to the north. The first
three were of a cultural communal ideology. Only the Jana Sangh backed
by the para-military RSS had a more extensive and disciplined orga-
nization. The RSS was also the only organization of its kind with a
large, disciplined cadre before Independence and with prospects as
vehicle for the militant far right.
In 1951-2 and 1957 elections, these parties did not do well. But
then, these electoral outcomes did not reflect the depth and width of
the right wing sentiment in India. As long as the Congress could garner
votes based on its historic role, it remained the ruling party. Early
defections from the Congress were to the left. This is one indicator of
the well entrenched right wing within.
Interestingly, it was the Hindu Code Bill (discussed in Chapter 1)
introduced in the Parliament in 1949 which brought heterogeneous
strains in Indian conservatism closer together inside and outside the
Parliament. It was this Bill by which relations and property of Hindu
families was affected that challenged the orthodox in every social class
by granting property rights to women. It was resisted across the country
by upper-castes from the village to the Presidential level. The first
President, Rajendra Prasad, refused to give his accent to the Hindu
Code Bill without modifications. The episode caused significant unease
for Ambedkar (and Nehru who supported Ambedkar’s Bill). One has
only to revisit the sequence of events over the passage of the Bill to
grasp the conservative, right wing clout. The business of codifying
Hindu law had through time grown into a complex web that defied
codification. It was an onerous task to which PM Nehru had committed
Dr Ambedkar and himself. It sought to reform the whole gamut of
laws that governed Hindu marriages, divorce, adoption, inheritance of
property in favour of women, a major step in the direction of gender
equality. But it was opposed and the bogey of ‘Hindu religion in danger’
was raised. An old editorial said ‘The gesture of accommodation he
(PM) showed to the House was prefaced by the challenge that the
Government would make an issue of it, and would be prepared to
resign if the Hindu Code Bill was thrown out. . . . That the Government
of the day should think of making an issue of the bill, when the
Congress, which is supposed to run the Government, is so much divided
 Gradualism, Marginal Redistribution 273

about it is a mystery that has never ceased to surprise students of

parliamentary procedure. It is not the President of the Congress alone
who has openly opposed the measure. The erstwhile President of the
Constituent Assembly Rajendra Prasad made no secret of his own
feelings on the measure’ (p. 3).74 The article goes on to say that the
President threatened to use his power of veto unless the Bill was
withdrawn. It was altered and passed in 1955 with many within the
Congress still reluctant to support it. The episode is proof of the fact
that society is shaped and changed by forces largely outside the legis-
lative chambers, and law plays a limited part in the process. Indian
statute books were full of laws that did not change social customs and
equations fundamentally. Comparable cases from land reform, protec-
tion of untouchables, economic policies reflect the powerful clout of
the right wing within the Congress.
Four years later the Swatantra Party was formed, its ideology
stressed importance of market economy, freedoms, constitutional rights,
and rights to compensation in the event of nationalization or appro-
priation. It did not project a Hindu militant image and had greater
acceptability as a conservative party. One of its prominent leaders,
Masani, is reported to have said ‘that the Planning Commission was
usurping the democratic powers of the cabinet and that the party sought
to abolish the five year plans and return to planning by the annual
budget’.75 Interestingly, this was one of the first major policy decisions
of the Hindu nationalist BJP government that assumed power as the
single largest party in 2014. Masani was also to become a collaborator
and colleague of JP the Gandhian Socialist in the CIA backed CCF
and in the anti-Indira movement led by JP.
Another leader was K.M. Munshi, a Cabinet Minister in the
Congress government in 1947 whose role in the campaign for rebuilding
of Somnath temple soon after 1947 (amid the worst communal riots
and human migration in modern history) is recorded in his book
Pilgrimage to Freedom. In joining this temple campaign, he had disagreed
with the PM, and followed his own convictions. He had declared that
his own Hindu faith, and the ‘collective subconscious’ of India was
rooted in Hindu dharma. Later, he started the journal of Bharati Vidya
Bhavan and institutions for eclectic education to further the Hindu
cultural cause. So his association with Hindu revivalism was not
274 Tipping Point

surreptitious. Munshi’s book and its description of Somnath recon-

struction was invoked by the general secretary of the RSS in 2018 for
the reconstruction of a Ram temple at Ayodhya.76 Others in the
leadership included C. Rajagopalachari, N.G. Ranga, B.R. Shenoy,
Piloo Mody and V.P. Menon who were anti-communists of various
hues. The fact that the party as such did not project the Hindu religious
view is the only reason why it is often categorised as a liberal party in
a ‘classical sense’.
In 1962, general elections, the Swatantra Party established itself
as a significant and a controversial political force. It was composed of
feudal, communal, and conservative elements. Its financial backers were
capitalists from western India and rich peasants in the south. Polling
about 8 per cent of votes, it formed the third largest contingent to Lok
Sabha and the second largest total of state assembly seats. It became
the main opposition party in Bihar, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Orissa.
Barely a month later, an editorial in the American magazine Life declared
that ‘the Swatantra program could really get that huge country moving
in a different direction favourable to free institutions. The free world
can wish this little party a big future’.77 The CPI labelled it as the dark
forces of right reaction. Later when CPI split in 1964, the Swatantra
Party became the main opposition in the Lok Sabha as well. Swatantra
Party now represented the first successful right wing electoral aggre-
gation but in its specific performance, there was little to recommend
it as a liberal democratic force. Its founding leader was C. Rajagopalachari
a veteran leader of the independence movement and associate of
Gandhi. Senior Vice-President was K.M. Munshi, constitutional lawyer
and Hindu revivalist. Other leaders included N.G. Ranga, an Oxford
educated economist, conservative and anti-communist. Its General
Secretary was Minoo Masani, another Oxford educated economist,
ex-socialist and now anti-socialist, Treasurer Homy Mody prominent
businessman and financer, V.P. Menon, retired senior bureaucrat as
well as other retired civil servants, judges and military men were among
the other high profile members. Minoo Masani described it as a ‘national
democratic party of all elements and communities in India which could
not agree with Jana Sangh, Hindu Mahasabha, DMK and Akali Dal
in so far as they are sectarian parties’. It was projected as devoid of
 Gradualism, Marginal Redistribution 275

defenders of Hindu orthodoxy and its 21-point fundamental principles

are predominantly classical liberal in tone.78 It tried to position itself
as a progressive liberal party distinct from ‘messiahs of backwardness’
like RRP, Hindu Mahasabha and Jan Sangh at the same time, posi-
tioning themselves as different from the Congress, PSP and socialists.
In Masani’s view, communists were the dark forces and most if not all
non-communist opposition parties, were acceptable electoral allies. The
party, however, was so constrained by its leadership, its conservatism,
poor organizational ability, and finances that it did not survive the test
of time. Although in some modest degree, some liberal ideas were
articulated by a section of its leadership, the party was by no means a
liberal right-wing force. In the north its membership was in fact,
dominated by traditional conservative forces of landlords, aristocracy
and princes.
‘The Swatantra liberals have consistently emphasized the statist
threat and have understated or ignored the weight of tradition and
dangers which lie to the right; and in so far as they continue to do so
they will represent at best a very truncated form of liberalism’
(p. 257).79
In 1967 elections also Swatantra Party made gains. It secured 44
seats in the Lok Sabha as against 18 in the 1962. It improved its
standing in its strongholds of Gujarat, Orissa and Rajasthan. Gains
were made in Mysore, Madras and Andhra. In Gujarat, Orissa and
Madras the Swatantra Party gained more seats than the Congress. In
Andhra, Rajasthan and Mysore it occupied the second place. In state
legislatures the Swatantra Party improved its position although it lost
the second place to Jana Sangh in terms of total seats won. It was the
largest single party in Orissa. By now it was freely making alliances
with RRP, Jana Sangh, and Hindu Mahasabha admittedly to defeat
the Congress. It was also making foreign policy statements against
neutrality in the Cold War and against China.
The Swatantra Party and Jana Sangh came to represent the right;
the struggle between them would define the ideological orientation of
the right and the nature of struggle it would mount.
‘A most obvious fact is that there is more to Indian rightism than
meets the eye – at least the eye which scans only electoral data and
276 Tipping Point

official party propaganda. In the future, there should be ample scope

for both moderate and militant rightism . . . although it is impossible
to specify what the balance will be’ (p. 258).80
N.G. Ranga of the Swatantra Party joined Golwalkar (RSS chief
at that point) in addressing the RSS annual meeting in Nagpur on 30
September 1968.81 According to observers, the RSS gained a foothold
in the countryside through its appeals to religious group and through
the Swatantra Party at least in the north. Eventually, social forces and
their balance in different states would lead to mergers of the Swatantra
Party and Jana Sangh and the right wing of Congress. Eventually
Swatantra Party was dissolved, and most members joined Congress
(O) after its 1969 split, while some others might have drifted off to
other parties including Jana Sangh. C. Rajagopalachari leader of the
party had famously said ‘The heart of the rich is with us but their
money is with the Congress’.82 Social forces that had supported right
wing parties had hedged their bets well. Since, the Swatantra Party did
not focus on building a team and cadre nor could it attract the vast
masses of mostly poor people, with its ideas, its early electoral success
lasted as long as, its feudal leaders could command a vote in their
constituencies and till their hereditary social influence endured. By
1971 that grasp had weakened.
Erdman analysis suggests that the Swatantra Party could not equal
the task of fighting the religious conservative right basically because
‘broadly liberal classes simply do not exist in India and the impact of
colonialism and worldwide Marxism have probably thrown India into
a situation in which classical liberalism is not likely to flourish’. The
Swatantra Party lasted as an independent political entity till 1974.

The Bombay Model, Daybreak for the Far Right

Bal Thackeray, the first far right politician of national repute was born
and brought up in Bombay (now Mumbai). He is famously known to
have said,‘I don’t want to read books and spoil my thinking’.83 He did
not find it difficult to raise a legion of like minded people in the
metropolis of Bombay.
It was in the cities of India that the first fascist groups based on
religion emerged.
 Gradualism, Marginal Redistribution 277

Mumbai is the capital city of the western Indian state of

Maharashtra, a state that is the highest tax contributor to the national
kitty and home to two very successful far right movements – the RSS,
with its centre in Nagpur and outpost in Pune and the Shiv Sena (SS)
with its centre in Bombay and reach into, Raigadh, Konkan and parts
of rural Maharashtra. Both are deeply anti-left, and both use represen-
tations of national and local history to project a ‘sense of living as a
historical being, rightful inheritors of the deeds of the past’ (p. 20).84
The past is most often portrayed as a righteous, religious war. Both
maintain a ready to use army of rubble rousers and muscle men. The
RSS is undoubtedly a more elaborate and ambitious organization, but
it was the SS that first made a dramatic political breakthrough and
that too in India’s most cosmopolitan city, its industrial and financial
centre, Bombay.
Stories of the eighteenth century warrior, Maratha king Shivaji,
whose armies created a Maratha confederacy and went on to play a
leading role in subcontinental politics from its capital in Pune are the
most important inspiration for the SS and RSS too. So is Shivaji’s
emblem, the saffron flag. Nativism of various scopes and anti-enlight-
enment rhetoric were central to both organizations. For an all India
appeal, the RSS eventually reached out to include accounts of glory of
other erstwhile Hindu kings. Their wars against ‘Muslim’ domination
are a common source of pride. Ultimately upon the formation of the
state of Maharashtra in 1960, Shivaji was depicted as the father of the
state and the original source of its clout and numerous statues of him
were put up.
This reclaiming of a past began in the nineteenth century, perhaps
soon after the kingdom was lost and annexed by the British. High-caste
intelligentsia in Pune originally advanced the notion of a single Marathi
linguistic identity rooted in what was represented as a relatively
homogeneous culture of the Deccan plateau. Gradually, a consortium
version of interpretations of ethno-history and Maharashtra dharma
emerged. Much later in 1939, an organization called Samyukta
Maharashtra Sabha was formed by a group of writers and intellectuals
with diverse political orientations, among them was K.S. Thackeray
father of SS chief, Bal Thackeray. The continual, often violent assertion
of this identity however seemed to indicate that a shared identity was
278 Tipping Point

unreal. The divide between the Marathi speaking Brahmins and

lower-caste Marathas is sharp enough. Marathas, who do not form a
homogenous jati in a typical sense, have significant differences among
themselves, as the brahmins differ in their ambitions and among
themselves, not to mention the sharp divide between Dalits and
everyone else. A very recent instance of such bitterness among the
Marathi speaking society was the inter-caste violence at Bhima
Koregaon on 1 January 2018, Mahars (Dalit caste) were celebrating
the bicentennial anniversary of defeating Peshwa brahmins in a regiment
under British leadership. This celebration by Dalits was violently
opposed by other castes under an RSS front.
Be that as it may, the first successful far right political advance was
made in Bombay by the SS. The reasons for this are not hard to
understand, the city had grown under the influence and encouragement
of the British rule into a huge, cosmopolitan centre of textile, chemical,
mechanical and other industries, with analogous growth in immigrant
labour. The ownership of industry was not local but mainly in the
hands of non-Marathi speaking business communities like Marwaris,
Gujaratis and Parsis, the traditional business castes of India. People of
different regions and religions coexisted in this business centre. The
first influx of manual, industrial labour was mainly from neighbouring
Konkan, a relatively poor agricultural region of Maharashtra. They
came in the latter-half of the nineteenth century and later the labour
came from other parts of the state and other parts of India. In the
post-Independence period (1950s) when states were divided on lin-
guistic lines, the issue of carving a Maharashtra for Marathi speaking
people was the focus of a mobilization called Samyukta Maharashtra
Movement (SMM) under a wide umbrella leadership of P.K. Atre,
B.R. Kothari, S.M. Joshi, Senapati Bapat, Madhav Rao Bagal, Appa
Pendse, S.A. Dange, Keshav Thackeray (Prabodhankar) and other
leaders. It was a multi-party front, the PSP and CPI played a visible
role. The SMM was formed to give a focus to the demand for a uni-
lingual state of Maharashtra to be carved out of a bilingual province
of Bombay with the city of Bombay as its capital. The SMM played a
catalytic role in cementing the demand, from 1955 to 1960. By invoking
history, culture, language and citing progressive leaders like Ambedkar,
 Gradualism, Marginal Redistribution 279

Phule, and nationalists like Tilak, Gandhi and above all Shivaji, they
managed to rally locals.
The boundaries of the state with Karnataka and the inclusion or
exclusion of Bombay became prickly and a source of complex disputes.
Eventually the movement succeeded in carving out a state and obtaining
Bombay as its capital. The city was by now even more so, the industrial
and financial core of India. This prize of Bombay could be obtained
only after an intense and emotive struggle marked by riots, mass activity
and violence in which over a hundred lives were lost.
Maharashtra was carved out on 1 May 1960. The movement had
however acquired a sharp regional, chauvinistic, nativist turn, even
though the communist left played a leadership role in it as part of its
strategy for regional growth. A class divide between a largely Marathi
speaking working class population and Gujarati speaking and Marwaris
who formed the capitalist class existed before the movement began.
This gave it a linguistic regional angle. The communists could either
remain part of the popular mass movement and influence it or stand
isolated, they chose to remain. The SMM as a political front had fought
the assembly elections of 1957 and gave a hard fight to the Congress,
which could only scrape through because of its support in Vidarbha
and Gujarat.The same year it swept the Bombay Municipal Corporation
polls, routing the Congress. But soon after the formation of the state,
fissures appeared in the ideologically disparate SMM. The Congress
helped engineer a split in it to isolate the CPI, raising the Indo-China
border dispute in 1962 to malign it.85
Six years after the state was formed, in 1966, the Shiv Sena was
born. There followed by coincidence, some years of drought and
industrial stagnation. SS made the most of the emotional storm that
had just abated over state formation. They claimed that formation of
the state had not yielded any concrete benefits for the Marathi speaking
working class in Bombay and their problems were compounded by
food price rise and industrial slowdown.
At that point, a little less than 43 per cent of the population of
Bombay was Marathi speaking followed by 19 per cent Gujarati
speaking persons, the rest were from southern states and the north. 64
per cent of the 4.5 million residents of Greater Bombay were born
280 Tipping Point

outside of the city. 59 per cent of this population was literate. Although
the literacy rate in the city was high, among the Marathi speaking
population it was the lowest. The highest level of literacy was among
the south Indians who were hence selected for most of the white collar
and higher-grade supervisor jobs.
Distress of Marathi speaking immigrant labour was owed to the
push factor in rural Maharashtra where poor investments in social
sector, irrigation, infrastructure like electricity were causing waves of
distress migrations to Bombay. Bombay along with the Bombay-Pune
belt was guzzling the bulk of investments in industry and infrastructure
(at that point almost 70 per cent of the infrastructure development
budget). Southern states on the other hand were investing more in the
social sector and hence migrants had a higher level of literacy and
education. They were better equipped for urban life, qualified for white
collar jobs and in general were over-represented in better jobs. This
point was highlighted very comprehensively by a faculty member of
the Mithibai College, Bombay, R.S. Sabnis in his pamphlet published
in 1967.86
The upper-caste, Marathi speaking family of Thackeray, well
connected, living in a relatively affluent quarter of the city had been
associated with the SMM. In the aftermath of the struggle for a lin-
guistic state, they brought out a weekly publication called Marmik.
Through this publication, the family played a leading role in arousing
the awareness of Marathi speaking people about their subordinate
position in the city, a situation they claimed did not exist in any other
state capital. All the major business enterprises and all senior positions
in banks and other institutions were held by non-Marathi speaking
people. Gradually the publication turned to incitement and provocation
on a regular basis. The literacy level in the city was high (38 per cent
for Marathis, but over all 59 per cent) and the approach of the publi-
cation using a mixture of simple cartoons, humour, satire and rancour
appealed to the Marathi speaking population. Dhawale said ‘The Target
of the Marmik was never the Congress government policies; nor was
it ever the anarchic capitalist development that was turning Mumbai
into a stinking cesspool of misery; the target was invariably the “out-
siders” who were snatching away the jobs from the “sons of the soil”’.87
The anniversary functions of the magazine were attended by various
 Gradualism, Marginal Redistribution 281

Congress chief ministers and ministers, names like Vasantrao Naik,

Balasaheb Desai, and Vasantdada Patil, A.R. Antulay are often men-
tioned.88 With these leaders Thackeray and family built strong relations,
received much support and protection.
By 1966, the Thackerays had formed an organization called Shiv
Sena (SS) to fight the injustices done to the sons of the soil and promote
their aspirations. Bal Thackeray, the son of Keshav Thackeray was
chosen to be at the helm of SS. The young man was 39 years old, a
cartoonist by training, had attended RSS Shakhas for a few years and
had dropped out of school in the sixth grade. Paucity of funds is the
explanation available in his biographies.89 This is hard to imagine given
the option of cheap municipal schooling (first-rate in those days) would
have been available to the family. He had worked briefly in the Free
Press Journal, which was a leading newspaper, had resigned more than
once, and then had branched out into the family publication in 1960,
soon after formation of the Maharashtra. Once shaped in June 1966,
the Shiv Sena grew very rapidly immersing itself in Marathi religious
functions, cultural and social activities. Exhorting Marathi youth to
educate themselves, seek jobs and establish businesses across the city.
SS formed self-help groups and local assistance centres and shakhas
(branches) in localities where the community dominated. By a successful
combination of local self-help groups, who gave ready assistance, Mitra
Mandals (friendship groups), gymkhanas which were already a part of
male social life they spread their presence. Religious-ethnic appeal,
populism, and clever strategy where the ruling Congress leaders were
seen to provide support (Chief Minister, V.P. Naik was the chief guest
at its inaugural public function in Prabhadevi) the organization
flourished. Almost instantly the SS found an object of hate and began
a campaign against south Indians. Within four months of its formation
a public meeting was announced in their publication Marmik in the
form of an appeal to pay obeisance to Maharashtra’s deity Chhatrapati
Shivaji Maharaj; the meeting itself was to be held on the issues of
injustice at Shivaji Park on Dussehra day. The meeting was packed and
grew when a massive Dussehra processions joined it, it swelled to an
estimated crowd of over a lakh. Congress leader Ramrao Adik addressed
it. This was just four months after the formation of SS and it was
achieved with a handful of seconds in commands. By 1967, SS had 60
282 Tipping Point

centres/shakhas formed all over Bombay and Thane. Thackeray went

about building an organization, with followers most of whom were
younger than him. The average Sena member in the early days was 26
years old, literate, often educated and an enthusiastic. They were
admirer of the supreme leader’s crusade against injustices they perceived
to be against their kind. Lumpen proletariat was not the dominant
category. What was required of the young male followers was uncon-
ditional loyalty, discipline, eagerness to do anything commanded. The
entire organizational set up was one of tight command, control and
orderliness.
But ‘Even the meeting of Thackeray and his confidants with vibhag
pramukhs [department heads] and shakha pramukhs [branch heads]
was characterized by orderliness: office bearers were asked to sit in a
particular order, individuals were asked to report their division and
branch activates and voting was not even the exception to the rule’ (p.
34).90 Here the resemblance between the RSS and Shiv Sena is striking.
Bal Thackrey had indeed attended the Dadar Shakha of the RSS from
1941to 1944 at his father’s urging to get some physical training.91
Thacheray went to the Dadar shakha for three to four years as young
lad. Scholars also think that since Thackeray was a one-time member
of the RSS, the first model that came to his mind was that of the RSS,
and so he asked his supporters to open shakhas and his associates
went about organizing them.92 Among the young men in shakhas
however there was a cheerful club like male bonding. Thackeray
openly demanded that he be recognized as the leader and derided
democracy.
By 1968, the SS was contesting municipal elections in Bombay, it
won in 42 wards, a phenomenal feat within two years. In 1969, one
Datta Pradhan joined the SS moving from the Jan Sangh but retained
his strong ties to the Jan Sangh. He was appointed the sangathan
pramukh and given the task of formalizing and expanding the organi-
zation. Later he was removed and an advisory body with nine members
loyal to the chief was appointed and the student wing was disbanded
perhaps because it was harder to control.
These measures were probably directed at consolidating the control
of the chief and preventing conflict of loyalties. He looked upon the
 Gradualism, Marginal Redistribution 283

sainiks as his children. A family can only run when one man makes
the decisions, he is known to have said.
Like the RSS, no formal records of membership are available or
mentioned, however, according to their leaders, at this juncture in time,
there were 80,000 Shiv Sainiks. But unlike the RSS no formal process
of training or screening of members seemed to be in place except for
a selection interview with senior leaders for electoral posts in the
corporation or state assembly. Five major organizational components
of the SS were the shakhas that were local branches, used along with
the party mouthpiece Marmik, for passing information downwards-up-
wards and mobilization through group leaders, the corporation
members, the Bharatiya Kamgar Sena (labour union which worked
assiduously to cut the membership and break strike actions of the
communist run unions), the employment bureau which worked actively
to promote employment of Marathi speaking people and the Chitrapat
Shakha which established a Sena front in the prosperous and influential
Bombay film industry ostensibly to promote Marathi language films.
This organizational set up was supplemented by groups of bodyguards
and toughs from the gambling and liquor dens, which was by no means
a thin or fragile network in Bombay. The SS soon got access to huge
funding.
The 10 September 1967, issue of Marmik, declared that one of
the main objectives of the SS was emasculation of the communists.
Till that was achieved, any violent attack on the communists was
justified including murder. The chief had on numerous occasions voiced
his ambitions in that direction as well as openly congratulating Sainiks
at public gatherings for murdering communist MLA Krishna Desai.
He was vehemently opposed to the class struggle and declared that
anyone who gave employment to locals was to be respected. So, he
condemned all forms of strikes and industrial actions.
In 1969, the SS chief visited the RSS headquarters and met the
RSS chief Golwalkar, it is not clear if this meeting was before or after
Datta Pradhan left the Jan Sangh to join the SS. After that meeting,
Thackeray delved wholeheartedly into Hindu-Muslim confrontations.
The conflicts were woven around sites of worship, and to raise the
temperature, Bhiwandi riots of May 1970 were organized, in which
284 Tipping Point

both Jan Sangh (the political wing of the RSS) and Shiv Sena were
reported to be deeply involved. After emulating the model this is early
evidence of collaboration with RSS.
On the other side, it raised its profile among the workers with its
union Bharatiya Kamgar Sena (BKS), and, set about confronting the
left trade unions. This it did in predictable ways by creating discord
among workers on lines of identity. It succeeded well in the 1970s
economic environment where food prices were rising, as was migration
into the city and employment was shrinking. Many of these issues had
been underscored for fuelling unrest among students and workers in
the rest of the country.
The industrialist-Congress nexus was reported to have helped SS
in breaking up the left unions. A furious and destructive battle among
the unions ensued that wrecked the left presence. Hansen said, ‘The
sustained, though informal proximity to the Congress party has,
throughout Shiv Sena’s tumultuous life, proven to be valuable for the
consolidation and survival of the party’ (p. 66).93 This was valid in its
early years specially, as local Congress leaders used the organization to
decimate the communist hold over industry, SS leaders including Bal
Thackeray himself were treated with velvet gloves. He saw the inside
of a jail only once in his long career despite provocative statements
inciting violence and SS involvement with large scale violent acts. All
this while the Congress ruled the state and the centre.
Within three years of its formation, on the issue of a border dispute
with neighbouring Karnataka, the Shiv Sena engineered a major state
crisis. There were riots and deaths, the city of Bombay shut down for
five days in 1969. Finally, Bal Thackeray was arrested, and more violence
rocked the city. The army was put on alert and the CRPF was brought
in from other states. Eventually, Thackeray had to issue an appeal from
the jail. The issue was raised in the Parliament and later in the state
assembly. In the Parliament the Congress government of the state was
criticised vehemently by the opposition. The Communist party was
vehement in its criticism accusing the state level Congress ministers
and the Home Minister (Y.B. Chavan, a Maharashtrian) of having
sympathies for the Sena. The Chief Minister had not even mentioned
the Sena in his radio address to the state after the crisis. Bhupesh Gupta
of the Communist party alleged that the American embassy provided
 Gradualism, Marginal Redistribution 285

funds to the Sena. Chief ministers from the south demanded that their
people working in Maharashtra should be safe. And so, the SS acquired
a nationwide recognition by the end of the drama as yet another arrival
in the free market for political enterprise that liberal democracy in
effect was in India. This was to be the only time in his career that Bal
Thackrey was incarcerated.
While Indira Gandhi and her home minister condemned the Sena,
they did nothing to stem the rise of the organization. It was the period
during which Indira Gandhi was fighting for control over her own
party as the Congress was edging towards a split, personal loyalty and
electoral utility might have counted for more than ideology. Chavan
was known to be loyal while other leaders from the state like S.K. Patil
were known to be otherwise. Immediate survival needs and utility of
SS might have overcome disquiets about possible future dangers of
sheltering such an organization, a pattern to be repeated continually
by all parties to the extent that there remained no constant partners
or allies and no collective national objectives.
In December 1967, the CPI headquarters in Parel was attacked
by SS and savagely damaged. It became increasingly obvious that the
SS agenda was buttressed by powerful people. By 1967, the SS fought
the Thane Municipal elections (a suburb of Bombay), made a break-
through by winning 17/40 seats and installed a Mayor. The next year,
they made a bid in the Bombay Municipal Corporation. The SS and
the PSP made an alliance of opportunity.
By May 1970, the Bhiwandi communal riots flared up, 43 people
died and 39 in Jalgaon as the riots spread far beyond to include Mahad.
The Madon inquiry commission found that SS leaders including
Thackrey made inflammatory and provocative speeches. The SS and
Jan Sangh and other fronts of RSS, Hindu Mahasabha, Muslim fronts
like All India Majlis Tamir-e-Millat were all involved. At a fast and
furious pace the SS established itself as the muscle power of the city.
To proclaim its arrival, in June 1970 a prominent Communist
MLA, four times municipal corporator, union leader Krishna Desi was
murdered by SS henchmen in a brazen attack. The boldness of the
attack and the reaction of the state was evidence of the fact that
communists were now a common enemy. From then on, SS agenda of
burning the red flag, ushering in Thokshahi and Shivashahi (force and
286 Tipping Point

autocracy) were to proceed with diminishing obstacles. They made on

and off alliance across the political spectrum with Socialists, Congress
and eventually the BJP to make successful bids in the Municipal
Corporation and state elections.
By January 1974, they had turned on to other Marathi speaking
people; there was a clash between the SS and Dalit Panthers in the
Worli Bombay Development Department (BDD) chawls. (The Dalit
Panthers, modelled on the Black Panthers of America, were a breakaway
group of the RPI; they took up class and caste issues more militantly).
Riots spread to other parts of the city and continued for a week.
Bhagwat Jadhav their leader was also murdered by SS.
The early rise of the SS was thus marked by frequent, energetic
and bold action against their opponents with support from the ruling
party and big industrialists of Bombay.
In 1984, for the first time, SS had an alliance with the BJP for the
Lok Sabha elections. They launched this alliance with yet another
Bhiwandi communal riot in May 1984. This riot was even more massive,
258 people were killed. Jamaat-i- Islami and the usual RSS and its
fronts were involved. According to Dhawale, this time the carnage did
not even meet with basic condemnation from all opposition parties
except the Left.94 By 1985, SS was ruling the corporation of Bombay,
the largest in Asia. They leveraged this clout to spread out into the
state. For a long time, they had remained a Bombay phenomenon. Their
aggressive thrust into rural Maharashtra was staged around both the
symbols and trappings of Shivaji’s rule and Hindutva. In 1986, it
organized a saffron week across the state in a move choreographed
with the escalation of communal fervour by the BJP, RSS and its larger
Sangh family. Its use of religion for elections was quite barefaced by
now, as was the use of its honorific title of ‘Hindu Hriday Samrat’ for
Bal Thackrey. Around this point the leader also changed his formal
garb to saffron with religious beads around his neck. Convergence of
strategy between the BJP and SS becomes more obvious in the 1980s.
Ten years later in 1995, they were ruling the state in alliance with the
BJP, whom they had embraced wholeheartedly in a saffron blaze of
agitations that led up to the destruction of the Babri Masjid in 1992.
There were deadly Hindu-Muslim riots in Mumbai thereafter. In an
issue of their daily newspaper Saamna, right in the midst of the Bombay
 Gradualism, Marginal Redistribution 287

riots of 1992-3, Bal Thackeray had announced the beginning of an era

of retaliatory war which would change the history and geography of
the country and the world to create an Akhand Hindu Rashtra. Either
he was an oracle, or he was an insider to the grand strategy. Among
the electorate, blood letting and machismo seemed to get them more
admirers than brickbats.
The mayhem and rioting made it possible for the SS to win the
next state elections (in a partnership with the BJP) in 1995. The riots
had left more than 500 people dead, destroyed state and private property
worth lakhs of crores of rupees. After the Babri Masjid demolition,
BJP leaders were arrested but there was no such trouble for Bal
Thackeray, the Chief Minister Naik did not touch him. Thus, while
the Congress Chief Minister V.P. Naik was a well wisher at the SS
inauguration in 1966, another Congress Chief Minister, Sudhakar Rao
Naik was to let them run amuck in the 1992-3 riots.
Justice B.N. Sri Krishna headed an inquiry into the circumstances
of the riots and that process itself lasted many years. It came up with
a significant 700-page report, indicted 31 policemen and top leaders
of the Sena including Bal Thackeray. The leader and his organization
seemed to remain well sheltered throughout. In the 1970s they were
useful to break up the control of left unions over working class in
Mumbai and later, by the 1990s they were too big to tackle perhaps.
During 1992-3 riots across India, mayhem, bloodshed and public
anxiety was the background midst which policy shifts towards liber-
alization, globalization and their repercussions for working people
became blurry.

RSS, BJP and SS

Looking back, it is worth recording that almost all through their early
rise, the bulk of SS top leadership (in the advisory group for example)
came from the upper-caste and the bulk of their following came from
the Other Backward Castes (OBC) category, with some exceptions.
Thackeray used to bemoan the caste-oriented positions and cultural
purism of the RSS; he positioned himself at variance from this caste
purism from the beginning but he could not shake it off completely.
SS had larger number of OBC leaders then RSS. Thy did managed
288 Tipping Point

to combine the upper and lower castes in Maharashtra within the SS

fold under the Marathi Manoos (people) banner. The Maharashtrian
community came to support what was ultimately a one-man’s power
gambit in large numbers.
Although RSS preceded the SS by some 40 years, they had an all
India presence before the SS was even formed but the SS had quickly
maneuvered an urban caste consolidation and made electoral gains,
first in the richest corporation of Asia and then used it to leverage a
rural expansion. It emerged as the dominant partner of BJP in
Maharashtra state politics by 1995. But this family run enterprise
suffered on multiple fronts, during its uninspiring governance while in
power, the SS lost reliability because it could not solve the job crisis of
Marathi Manoos, it eventually split in its ranks especially between the
son and nephew, both intended inheritors of Thackeray, allegations of
corruption and finally from the death of its charismatic leader Bal
Thackeray in 2012. It remained a largely Maharashtra presence and
became the firm junior partner of the BJP that swept the whole nation
in 2014. Caught in the wedge of BJP’s national presence and its own
need to preserve a hold in Maharashtra, SS wriggled till 2019. It fought
the 2019 state elections with BJP but formed the government in alliance
with election rivals Nationalist Congress Party (another mainly local
party) and Congress to oust the BJP.
There were some skills the SS leader had perhaps learned in the
RSS Shakha he attended as a boy. But the RSS was much better
developed as an organization than the SS; it had worked harder and
longer on cultural fronts. It had wrapped its thrust to power in some
more fantastic recalling of past glory and it had all the more familiar
emblematic features of a far right movements95 like systematic identi-
fication of the ‘other’, anger, hate, drive for discipline, authority,
anti-communism and union busting. But above all else it was committed
to training cadres of noticeably young people and harnessing frustration
of the unemployed. All those looking for a saviour were inducted and
trained for various jobs, the rough ones into the militia and storm
troopers for Hindutva.
Like all the ultra right wing parties of our times, the RSS is devoid
of sophisticated social theory or reasoning and modern expertise needed
to govern efficiently. The SS had even less in that department. Over a
 Gradualism, Marginal Redistribution 289

period of time RSS/BJP also became more dependent on outside

expertise and funds like other (non-left political parties) mainly big
business – as the SS had before them. What it could deliver to its
constituency became more and more unsubstantial and questionable.
It must rule by delusion and polarization.
The riots of 1992-3, the worst that the city had ever seen, had
marked a deep change in Bombay. It actually changed Bombay to
Mumbai,‘from being the preeminent symbol of India’s secular, industrial
modernity to become a powerful symbol of the very crisis of this vision
(p. 8).96 A shift in the social consciousness, created a dominant public
discourse of antagonistic confrontations; it pitted one religious com-
munity against another. A communal consciousness in the public
administration and police force arose, a phenomenon that every observer
of the city commented on. It was an occurrence which no subsequent
government could summon the will and executive ability to combat.
No truth and reconciliation worth its name ever took place. It was in
no one’s immediate interest.
Administrative bias and social perceptions shifted so much that
although, during 1992-3 riots of Mumbai, 900 people were killed in
mob rioting and police firing, 2036 people were injured and thousands
of people were forced to move into relief camps, the administration
did not swing in for relief work. Most of the relief work was done by
Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and individuals.97 Another
precedent that would be repeated continually across the country, the
state wilted and the citizens became fearful and cynical at once.
‘The riots have led to many people going to live in the extended
suburbs of Mumbai or in the neighboring Thane district. New colonies
were created by this migration, which in the course of time developed
their own identity and culture. These areas are now labelled as terrorist
hot beds and many people accused of ‘anti-national’ crimes are picked
up from these localities . . . Indian Muslims to, being targeted because
of the perception created that it is the Muslim terror that poses the
gravest threat to India and that there is no differentiation between the
individual and the community’ (p. xii).98
The riots were followed by serial bomb blasts on 12 March 1993
that killed 257 people and injured 713. These blasts were a revenge for
the riots and the public discourse that followed was converted into a
290 Tipping Point

contest. The Congress government appointed Sri Krishna Commission

to investigate the riots and an extensive document was produced and
shelved while the serial blast accused (whose victims were mainly
Hindus) were arrested under Terrorist and Disruptive Activities
(Prevention) Act (TADA) (now repealed). The state conducted a
highly publicized and prolonged trial which began on 30 June 1995
and resulted in 100 convictions including death sentences.
Menon recounted that in the Dadar police station out of a total
of nine cases against the SS mouthpiece and its editor Bal Thackeray,
six cases ended in acquittal, while three were closed. Applications
against acquittals were fielded in the Bombay High Court and were
dismissed in 2007 on the grounds that no ends of justice would be
served by digging up the old cases after seven years, they would only
revive communal tensions. Even appeals in the Supreme Court led to
disappointment. There was a huge difference in the law, order and
justice system between the treatments of what was labelled as terror
versus rioter. Application of law and justice was so uneven that 15 years
after the riots, only one political leader of the SS, a former MP, was
convicted and awarded one-year simple imprisonment and fine of
Rs 500. The Sri Krishna report had listed 31 policemen who partici-
pated actively in the riots, communal incidents; looting, etc., police
firing had been a major cause of deaths. One of them was a former
Joint Commissioner of Police. The court acquitted the police for lack
of adequate evidence against the named policemen. The SS projected
themselves against Muslims, non-patriots, and outsiders so successfully
that they went on to win the 1995 state elections.
Observers say that not just Mumbai, but the entire state was
engulfed in cycles of violence increasing tension and antagonism
between Hindus and Muslims, Adivasis and communities of high caste
persons. During the entire period leading up to the Ram Janambhoomi
movement, demolition of Babri Masjid, riots, bomb blasts, political
tensions mounted and what followed in Maharashtra was a far right
joint government of the SS and BJP. The shadow of that gory past
hung so low and dark over the state that many years later it was still
being talked about in mainstream media seventeen years later and this
time in relation to a police officer who was the target in an attack from
both Islamic and Hindu terrorists.99
 Gradualism, Marginal Redistribution 291

The SS stint in power was marked by cultural chauvinism, attacks

on artists like M.F. Hussain, authors like Vijay Tendulkar, Y.D. Phadke
and films like Fire by Deepa Mehta, or attacks on Dilip Kumar, Sunil
Dutt, deemed objectionable only a decade earlier, became routine during
the SS rule. So did disruption of the cricket match between India and
Pakistan. Inserting regional history with a bias in school curriculum
was another cultural intervention. Rumour was that no major cultural
activity could be organized in Bombay without the approval of the SS.
All of this provided much distraction in the media. The Maharashtra
model was tried out in Gujarat next. The 2002 riots in Gujarat became
the pivot around which extreme polarization of society occurred. The
same strategy was launched on an all India basis in 2014 by the BJP,
this time targeting minorities and attacking anyone who objected to
their treatment of minorities or their notion of nationalism.
It is significant that economic agenda of the SS, while in power,
was replete with promises of jobs, housing for the poor; it remained
largely unfulfilled. Personal corruption of their ministers was quick to
take off and much has been said about it.100 There was a flurry of
projects with foreign collaborators and sale of public assets to private
parties. The earlier Congress government had negotiated a deal with
Enron for power generation. The SS renegotiated the deal, expanded
its scope and guaranteed a higher purchase price by Maharashtra State
Electricity Board (MSEB). Deals were signed with Monsanto to partner
with private companies like Mahyco to sell seeds and agricultural inputs.
Sale of mill lands to private builders and infrastructure projects were
initiated – all this was integral to their far right wing agenda. Not much
transformation or innovation was observable in social or economic
sectors.
Hold of the SS over the vote banks of Mumbai and Maharashtra
was fragmented only by the arrival of BJP as the principal far right
wing political player after the 2014 election. The SS thereafter became
the junior partner in Maharashtra. The RSS appears to have learned
from the early triumph of SS and eventually used this caste management
of the upper-caste leading the lower into a saffron horizon- on an all
India scale. Lower-castes, craving for upward social mobility and rec-
ognition joined both organizations in large numbers. Upward mobility
was not realized quite as easily with neoliberal economic growth as
with Hindutva politics. This type of politics helped more enterprising
292 Tipping Point

members to acquire or grab property, displace minorities and their

enterprises over and above the direct benefits of state power and
privilege. On the whole Hindutva did unite and continues to unite as
it made the believers and followers experience enhanced psychological
encouragement, social influence, and political power.

Conclusion
The significance of the coming together of SS and BJP in the late 1960s
in collaborative action and in altering political discourse cannot be
disregarded. It built into events that eventually led to the destruction
of Babri Masjid and biggest post-Partition riots. The cumulative effects
were such that Indian polity was ripped apart.
Looking back, political scientists studying the long term trend said,
‘Communal forces kept under check under Nehru’s leadership surged
forward. . . . The last phase of Indira Gandhi era witnessed a marked
polarization of Indian society on communal and sectarian lines’.101
Thereafter, in the period 1980-4 alone, deaths in communal riots was
four times higher than in 1970s. The number of districts affected
increased from 61 in 1960 to 250 in 1986-7. Rioting previously a
mainly urban phenomenon spread to rural areas. In Uttar Pradesh
alone, 60 major and minor riots occurred between early 1986 and 1988.
The SS did not participate in the JP movement perhaps because
in 1973 it fell out with the Jana Sangh over electoral issues. The SS
did not join it in the anti-emergency movement either.102 The SS chief
said that a Congress – SS alliance was necessary in Maharashtra to
keep the communists at bay. He received a lot of flak from his friends
and Hindutva proponents. His decision apparently demoralized the
rank and file. He praised Indira Gandhi’s leadership during the emer-
gency and paid heavily when she lost the next election. The period after
the emergency saw a shift in the political balance, with the Congress
system temporarily scattered after its 1977 defeat. It managed to
regroup somewhat under Indira Gandhi. After winning the election
again in 1979, having spent some years out of power, she tried to follow
a more ‘pragmatic’ course. The pragmatic course had shifted to the
right. She moved into ‘terrains which was traditionally occupied by the
 Gradualism, Marginal Redistribution 293

right-wing parties’ to draw in the social support garnered by them in

1977 (p. 144).103 More about that in the last chapter.
After her assassination, under her son Rajiv Gandhi the pragma-
tism persisted, to it was added inexperience. Both were returned to
power with resounding majority because of the popular leadership
provided by the family. Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination on 21 May 1991
vacated the political arena to opposition.
Speaking to students in 1969, Indira Gandhi had said, ‘In India
we have too long sought individual salvation. Perhaps that is why as a
country we came to grief. We now realize that there cannot be salvation
for the individual without social salvation’ (p. 155). But that road to
social salvation needs to be thought out and prepared with mass
campaigns, movements, political education, priority goals and planning.
Implementation and monitoring capability are indispensable compo-
nents. That in turn needs capable human resources and leadership from
the local to national level. It cannot be conjured up in a social and
cultural vacuum.
History of revolutionary changes has shown us that much. Even
gradual change that the Congress leadership was hoping for, needed
that same ingredient in perhaps smaller but dependable measures.
Besides, the change ought not to be so gradual or slow as to be over-
whelmed by reactionary movements even before it is strong enough to
resist it successfully. Indira Gandhi was leading a party organization
incapable of substantially disturbing a social and cultural order that
it embodied, no matter what its party manifesto said. Its leadership
was mainly upper-caste, upper-class and far from radical in its own
private vision. That had been the case since its inception, apparent in
Chapter 1.
The left position was a minority position within the Congress.
Even the socialists of inexact hues as there were, broke away soon after
Independence and some went on to play a suspicious role. Indira Gandhi
alone with a hand full of loyalists would be incapable of reconstructing
the Congress National Party from within, while participating in
recurrent elections and at the same time resisting the pressures from
electoral competition. All this within shifting domestic and interna-
tional troubles. As Chapter 2 highlighted, the anti-Indira movement
294 Tipping Point

was typically from the right. Though the Communist left, for a while,
was the principal opposition in Parliament, it saw itself as a major
political challenger in the electoral system. That with the benefit of
hindsight, turned out to be an ‘objective illusion’.
The left was no doubt the principal opposition in the Parliament
when Mrs Gandhi took the left turn. But it is well known that interest
group formation among the few, wealthy, and powerful is quick. The
logic of collective action favours smaller cohesive interest groups. A
study of the anti-Indira agitations in the days leading up to the emer-
gency confirms that logic. On the other hand, methods of the left in
liberal democracy – mass education, shifting social consciousness, mass
mobilizations – takes an exceedingly long time.
The logic of collective action has been the entire reasoning and
defence for radical revolutionary change. Revolutions too are made by
well-knit, well organized, creative thinkers. But they need revolutionary
patience, revolutions need to be preceded by shifting social conscious-
ness and followed through with mass movements and political
education. Electoral systems in parliamentary democracy create pres-
sures, compulsions and urgency to maneuvre quite incompatible with
a ground breaking approach or persistence.

NOTES
1. Amartya Sen (2018), ‘Marx 2.00’, Indian Express, 5 May 2018.
2. Mary C. Carras (1980), Indira Gandhi: In the Crucible of Leadership,
Bombay: published in arrangement with Beacon Press, Boston by Jaico.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. I. Habib (1998),‘The Left and the National Movement’, Social Scientist,
vol. 27, nos. 5-6, May-June 1998.
6. A. Smedley (1972), The Great Road, Monthly Review Press, New York.
7. I. Habib (1998), ‘The Left and the National Movement’, op. cit.
8. N.E. Balaram (1967), A Short History of the Communist Party of India,
Trivandrum: Prabhatam Publishing.
9. P. Bidwai (2015), The Phoenix Moment, Noida: Harper Collins.
10. G. Adhakari, ed. (1974), Documents of the History of the Communist
Party, vol. 2, 1923-5, New Delhi: Peoples Publishing House.
11. P. Karat, ed. (1999), A World to Win, New Delhi: Left Word.
 Gradualism, Marginal Redistribution 295

12. D. Chakrabarty (1976), ‘Communal Riots and Labour: Bengal’s Jute

Mill hands in the 1980s’, Centre for Study in Social Science, Occasional
Papers no. 11, Calcutta.
13. S. Sarkar (2014), Modern India, Noida: Pearson India Education
Services.
14. A. Mukherjee (1983),‘The Workers and Peasants Parties 1926-30: An
Aspect of Communism in India’, in Bipin Chandra (ed.), The Indian
Left, Ghaziabad: Vikas Publishing House.
15. Ibid.
16. Muzaffar Ahmad (1961), The Communist Party of India and its Formation
Abroad, Calcutta: National Book Agency..
17. Ibid.
18. S. Sarkar (2014), Modern India, op. cit.
19. http://cpiml.org/library/communist-movement-in-india/introduction-
communist-movement-in-india/peshawar-and-kanpur-conspiracy-
cases/
20. S. Sarkar (2014), Modern India, op. cit.
21. G. Adhikari, ed. (1979), Documents of the History of the Communist Party
of India, vol. iii B, New Delhi: Peoples Publishing House.
22. S. Sarkar (2014), Modern India, op. cit.
23. Ibid.
24. B. Chandra, M. Mukherjee and A. Mukherjee (2008), India Since
Independence, New Delhi: Penguin Books.
25. Wilson Centre, Digital Archives, ‘Meeting of Top CPI and CPSU
Comrades’, 4 February 1951, History and Public Policy Program, http:/
digitalarchive,wilsoncenter.org/document/119262.
26. S. Sarkar (2014), Modern India, op. cit.
27. Ajoy Ghosh (1954), Communist Answer to Pandit Nehru, Communist
party publication, revd. and rpt. from New Age Weekly, New Delhi: New
Age Printing Press.
28. Ibid.
29. B. Chandra, M. Mukherjee and A. Mukherjee (2008), India Since
Independence, op. cit.
30. E.M.S. Namboodiripad (1974), Conflicts and Crisis, Pune: Orient
Longman Ltd., Sangam Press.
31. Ibid.
32. V. Ramakrishnan (2012), ‘Long Way from Avadi’, Frontline, vol. 29,
issue 19, https://frontline.thehindu.com/static/html/fl2919/stories/
20121005291902500.htm
33. RBI (1973), Report on Currency and Finance 1972-73.
296 Tipping Point

34. E.M.S. Namboodiripad (1974), Conflicts and Crisis, op. cit.

35. Economic Weekly (1959), https://www.epw.in/system/files/pdf/1959_
11/13/the_rice_deal.pdf, Our Kerala Letter, March 28, 1959, pg
435-436.
36. E.M.S. Namboodiripad (1974), Conflicts and Crisis, op. cit.
37. H.B. Schaffer (2014), Ellsworth Bunker: Global Troubleshooter, Chapel
Hill, North Carolina: Vietnam Hawk, The University of North Carolina
Press.
38. D.P. Moynihan and S. Weaver (1978), Dangerous Place, Columbus, USA:
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39. J. Ramesh (2018), Intertwined Lives, New Delhi: Simon & Schuster.
40. P. Bidwai (2015), The Phoenix Moment, Noida: Harper Collins.
41. J.A. Curran Jr (1951), ‘Militant Hinduism in Indian Politics, A Study
of the RSS, Institute of Pacific Relations’, New York; D.E. Smith, ed.
(1960), South Asian Politics and Religion, Princeton: Princeton University
Press.
42. C. Baxter (1969), The Jana Sangh, Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press.
43 M. Sen, ed. (1977), Documents of the History of the Communist Party of
India, New Delhi: Peoples Publishing House.
44. R. Guha (2017), India After Gandhi, New Delhi: Picador, pp. 324-35.
45. E.M.S. Namboodiripad (1974), Conflicts and Crisis, op. cit.
46. D. Hiro (1976), Inside India Today, New York: Monthly Review Press.
47. CIA (1966), ‘The Communist Challenge in India, Special Report’,
Current Intelligence Weekly, https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/
docs/CIA-RDP79-00927A005500090002-3.pdf
48. E.M.S. Namboodiripad (1974), Conflicts and Crisis, op. cit.
49. J. Basu (1999), Memoirs: A Political Biography, Calcutta: National Book
Agency.
50. B. Sengupta (1972), Communism in Indian Politics, New York: Columbia
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51. R. Gupta (2004), Crimson Agenda: Maoist Protest and Terror, New Delhi:
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52. EPW (1972), Editorial, 25 March 1972, p. 663.
EPW (1972), Editorial, 1 April 1972, p. 691.
53. D. Hiro (1976), Inside India Today, New York: Monthly Review Press.
54. Jayaprakash Narayan (2009), Selected Works, ed. Bimal Prasad, vol. 10,
NMML, New Delhi: Manohar.
55. E.M.S. Namboodiripad (1978), Put Them in the Dock, Communist
Party of India (Marxist).
 Gradualism, Marginal Redistribution 297

56. P. Bidwai (2015), The Phoenix Moment, Noida: Harper Collins

Publishers.
57. P. Sundarayya (1991), My Resignation, New Delhi: Indian Publishers
and Distributors.
58. https://www.cpim.org/content/excerpts-10th-congress-pol-resolution.
More extensive form in Peoples Democracy
59. Ministry of Home Affairs (1975), Why Emergency? GOI, pp. 5, 10, 16,
55.
60. P. Bidwai (2015), The Phoenix Moment, Noida: Harper Collins
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61. https://www.counterpunch.org/1998/01/15/how-jimmy-carter-
and-i-started-the-mujahideen/
62. B. Raman (2013), The Kaoboys of R&AW: Down the Memory Lane,
New Delhi: Lancer Publishers and Distributors.
63. M. Sen, ed. (1977), Documents of the History of the Communist Party of
India, New Delhi: Peoples Publishing House.
64. S. Sarkar (2016), Modern India 1885-1947, Noida: Pearson India
Education Services.
65. Ibid.
66. B. Chandra, M. Mukherjee and A. Mukherjee (2008), India Since
Independence, op. cit.
67. S.M. Joshi (1963), Socialist’s Quest for the Right Path, Bombay: Sindhu
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68. J. Rao (2019), ‘60 Years Ago, a Right Liberal Swatantra Party had
Challenged Nehru’s Socialist Raj’, The Print, 7 June 2019.
69. H.L. Erdman (1967), The Swatantra Party and Indian Conservatism,
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, UK. Digitally printed
version 2008.
70. Ibid.
71. D. Hiro (1976), Inside India Today, New York: Monthly Review Press.
72. C. Rajagopalachari (1959),‘The Case for the Swatantra Party’, Illustrated
Weekly of India, 16 August 1959.
73. D. Hiro (1976), Inside India Today, op. cit.
74. Editorial (1949),‘The Hindu Code Bill’, Economic Weekly, 24 December
1949.
75. N. Rajadhyaksha (2019), ‘The Contemporary Relevance of Swatantra
Party’s Liberal View’, LiveMint, 28 May 2019.
76. M. Vaidya (2018),‘Temple, Then and Now’, Indian Express, 1 December
2018.
77. Life (1962), ‘For Nehru: An Opposition,’ 16 March 1962, p. 4.
78. H.L. Erdman (1964), ‘India’s Swatantra Party’, Pacific Affairs, vol. 36,
298 Tipping Point

no. 4 (Winter, 1963-4), pp. 394-410.

79. H.L. Erdman (1967), The Swatantra Party and Indian Conservatism,
op. cit.
80. Ibid.
81. Lasse Berg and Lisa (1971), Face to Face, Fascism and Revolution in
India, Berkeley, California: Ramparts Press, p. 103.
82. Sawantra Newsletter (1960), March.
83. T.B. Hansen (2001), Wages of Violence, New Jersey: Princeton University
Press, p. 214.
84. Ibid.
85. D. Gupta (1982), Nativism in a Metropolis: The Shiv Sena in Bombay,
New Delhi: Manohar.
86. R.S. Sabnis (1967), Some Issues Raised by the Shiv Sena, Ahmedabad:
Seth Printers (available in the Gokhale Institute’s Servants of India
Library Pune).
87. A. Dhawale (2000), ‘The Shiv Sena: Semi-Fascism in Action’, The
Marxist, vol. 16, no. 2, April-June 2000.
88. Ibid.
89. V. Purandare (2012), Bal Thackeray & The Rise of the Shiv Sena, New
Delhi: Roli Books.
90. Ibid.
91. J. Maharav (1995), Thackeray Family, Prabhat Prakashan.
92. D. Gupta (1982), Nativism in a Metropolis: The Shiv Sena in Bombay,
New Delhi: Manohar.
93. T.B. Hansen (2001), Wages of Violence, New Jersey: Princeton University
Press.
94. A. Dhawale (2000), ‘The Shiv Sena: Semi-Fascism in Action’, The
Marxist, vol. 16, no. 2, April-June 2000.
95. Rosenberg (1934), Fascism as a Mass Movement.
96. T.B. Hansen (2001), Wages of Violence, op. cit.
97. M. Menon (2018), Riots and After In Mumbai, New Delhi: Sage.
98. T.B. Hansen (2001), Wages of Violence, op. cit.
99. S.S. Virk (2019), ‘Rest in Peace, Hemant’, The Indian Express, 23
April, https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/hemant-
karkare-sadhvi-pragya-mumbai-attack-lok-sabha-elections-
5689220/
100. V. Purandare (2012), Bal Thackeray & the Rise of the Shiv Sena, New
Delhi: Roli Books.
101. Z. Hasan (1991),‘Changing Orientation of the State and the Emergence
of Majoritarianism in the 1980s’, in K.N. Panikkar (ed.), Communalism
 Gradualism, Marginal Redistribution 299

in India, New Delhi: Manohar.

102. V. Purandare (2012), Bal Thackeray & The Rise of the Shiv Sena,
op. cit.
103. Z. Hasan (1991),‘Changing Orientation of the State and the Emergence
of Majoritarianism in the 1980s’, op. cit.
 CHAPTER 5

Far Right at the Centre

A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out
from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a
nation, long suppressed, finds utterance. It is fitting that at this solemn
moment we take the pledge of dedication to the service of India and
her people and to the still larger cause of humanity.
–Jawaharlal Nehru
Surely history is one of the most important things for us to imagine
and to realize that we are imagining.
–Wendy Doniger
Hinduize all politics and militarise all Hindudom.
–Savarkar

Long March to the Centre of Political

Power through Culture
While the origins of RSS were discussed in Chapter 1, its colossal
growth to become the world’s largest ‘cultural NGO-cum-para-
military’ are sketched here. But this growth without any scrutiny and
noisy public debate of its agenda against the Indian Constitution is
remarkable so are the lack of transparency about its financial accounts.
This remarkable growth happened even though its plan of a ‘Hindu
Rashtra’ or religious nationalism violates the letter and spirit of the
Indian Constitution. Its ethos of ‘hate thy neighbour’ violates the spirit
of religion itself. That should have caught the attention of the guardians
of the Constitution and raised national alarm if not its incitement in
various commissions of inquiry set-up after communal riots.
 Far Right at the Centre 301

Organizations and social groups that buoyed the RSS within and
abroad are described as well. Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) was
spawned by RSS in 1964 as a cultural outfit to follow migrant Indians
into America and UK and created a successful worldwide web of
temples, supporters and devotees. Here too the RSS had the advantages
of an early force abroad. Non-resident patriots, devotees, their skills
and their wealth were harnessed through global NGOs. Projection of
temples, rituals, priests, festivals and conjectures about a pre-historic
past as the sum of Indian culture did not raise too many heckles. Some
of these NGOs like Overseas Friends of BJP (OFBJP) started delivering
foreign citizens and material on Indian soil for elections in India by
2014.1 The VHP and its activities are charted in the final chapter.
Why was its expansion unbridled? Nehru had warned and Indira
Gandhi too battled them for a while. Yet it is as though it had always
been around, like our past, our shadow. Perhaps that is why the entire
maneuvre was invisible, imperceptible. And all the while, first the
Congress and later, after 1989 a debilitated Congress with coalition
partners ruled at the centre.

Why does this Narrative Ends with 2002 and Not 2019
From the demolition of the Babri Masjid to the Gujarat riots (often
described as a pogrom for its scale and design) of 2002 all the way to
2014 is a rather straightforward trajectory where the Gujarat model2
is just scaled up, public opinion is prepared, law and institutions of
democracy circumvented or seized from within and patronage of biggest
business houses consolidated for political power first at the state level
and then propelled to the centre. Ten years before the Gujarat model
was put together there had been a comparable experiment in what was
then, Bombay.3
For the last leg leading up to 2014, at hand were some of America’s
largest Public Relations (PR) agencies, social media, mobile phones,
voter data base and record-breaking election budgets and Non-resident
Indians (NRIs) calling themselves Overseas Friends of BJP. The rest
is obvious. Power at the centre in 2014 was used to acquire power in
the states, where the battle continues to this day between an opposition
302 Tipping Point

that is splintered into regional players and BJP the behemoth. There
was hardly any surprise in their route or policy this far except perhaps
effortless capitulation of institutions and rather notably poor quality
of economic policy making and implementation, so that Indian eco-
nomic growth rate slowed down. Contraction in the COVID-19
scenario has been the most marked not just among emerging nations
but in South Asia as well.
Moreover, the more recent developments in the ascent of the far
right are all around us in India now; they have been a subject of extensive
media coverage and scholarly commentary on the end of secularism,4
attacks on minorities and Dalits;5 cut back in effective government
spending on public education, health, welfare, blindsiding of informally
employed and the end of liberal democracy itself as it has been seized
by the extreme right from end to end through its very institutions.6
Over the last few years, they have been the subject of international
news as well.
But with hindsight, it appears that not just Gujarat 2002 but the
audacious act of destroying Babri Masjid in 1992, in defiance of the
law, with television projecting the spectacle on the national scene, was
the symbol of arrival. It also marked a significant shift in the public
perception of what it means to be a Hindu and what may be considered
legally wrong but not morally wrong. Public opinion was fashioned
and formed then.
Gujarat disturbances went further, divided the people of the state
very deeply, corrupted and perverted many law makers and law enforcers
by making them complicit in the murder of 1044, 223 missing, 2500
injured people (majority being Muslims) that it was impossible for the
people, state functionaries and political class to extract itself from its
immediate past, even if they wanted to. Nobody (who mattered) was
blameless. The Supreme Court and Indian Human Rights Commission
were annoyed, ‘In the aftermath of the riots, independent observers
and human rights groups accused the Gujarat Government led by the
Hindu nationalist BJP of turning a blind eye to the riots. The police
were alleged to have simply refused to intervene or, in many cases,
arrived too late to prevent the violence. More than a year later, the
Gujarat Government is being accused of doing little to bring the rioters
to justice. . . . In July, the US-based group Human Rights Watch said
 Far Right at the Centre 303

that more than 100 Muslims had been charged with involvement in
the alleged attack on the train at Godhra. In contrast, no Hindus have
been charged over the violence against the Muslims’.7 Cases being tried
in Gujarat courts fell apart as witnesses withdrew under pressure of
intimidation. Some cases were moved out of the state. Western press
covered the issue extensively as did sections of the Indian press only
to find that not more than the usual left, secular intellectuals were
distraught within India. Gujarat violence did help BJP electorally and
it won the next state election with many more seats.
Indeed, within the next ten years, the Chief Minister whose
administration had been reprimanded by none other than the Supreme
Court, was projected a prime ministerial candidate of the BJP. In that
decade courts and weak institutions of the state muddled around the
issue and hardly any of the guilty were punished.8 In 2008, Congress
government at the centre announced compensation of $80 million (Rs
560 crores) to the victims. But the business of going to the roots of
the pogrom to bring to book all the guilty was not accomplished. A
compelling account of the extensive cover up induced through fear of
punishment and rewards for complicity both in the pogrom and
encounter deaths of alleged terrorists that followed has been made by
many journalists.9 For the far right, the road ahead was illuminated.
Events like the Babri Masjid and Gujarat communal riots also
produced images that are unforgettable. The spectacle too stayed etched
in memory for its strangeness. Most of the images were a compelling
display of how surplus humanity, the poor and partially literate may
be used in the name of religious identity, images of tens of thousands
of the ‘unwashed’, ash and tilak smeared ‘Kar Sevaks’ who appeared to
be acting as foot soldiers of the assault on the mosque. Urging them
on, it appeared were various well-groomed, well fed, upper caste/class
leaders. This was an impression that was confirmed many years later
by former ‘Kar Sevaks’.10 Meghwanshi, described his training in RSS
and journey as a young, Dalit boy of 15 from Bhilwara, Rajasthan to
Ayodhya in October 1990. They were going to build the temple midst
a fever pitched campaign.
‘As the train started to slide out of the station, all the important
functionaries slid out of the train. . . . I saw how one by one the big
folk, the industrialists, the Sangh pracharaks, the leaders of VHP and
304 Tipping Point

BJP, all excused themselves. Having wished us well they went back to
their homes. Only people like me remained-impassioned Dalits,
Adivasis, other young people from the lower-castes, and a few sadhus
and sants, sages and ascetics’ (p. 18). Later, he described how the sad-
hu-sant category got high on intoxicating substances in the jail.
A similar use involving tribal populations urged on by various RSS
based organizations transpired in Gujarat. An analysis of the cover up
that followed suggests that lower-caste police officers were used to
break the law and then made scapegoats. This is not to say that the
upper-castes were not involved directly, they were simply outnumbered,
an ominous prospect foretold not just by seasoned politicians,
Jawaharlal Nehru when he flagged the fascist potential of communal
organizations in the subcontinent, but even by prescient scholars of
Indian’s labour market, has come to pass.11 The spectre of social
backwardness had slipped out from under the mat, too large to be
hidden away. It was converted with zeal into a frenzied mob.
After the Babri Masjid demolition a small circle of intellectuals
were truly alarmed (small even in terms of the size of the university
educated population in India) but even as they took every public
platform to caution the nation, their minority position on secularism
was truly exposed. The thriving far right called them ‘Pseudo secularists’
and the label seemed to stick. Secularism was being shaken to its
foundations in the 1980s and was tottering in the 1990s (in a sequence
described later); so there was no mass public outrage after destruction
of the mosque nor was there any significant civil protest. Instead,
communal riots ripped across India. These were the worst since the
Partition of the sub-continent in 1947.
A sizable majority had also come to accept that while it might be
legally wrong to break the mosque, it was a valorous act of restoring
Hindu confidence and prominence in India. By attacking the symbols
of historic Muslim rule, Hindus were getting even. In their uncompli-
cated imagination it manifested itself as a step onward in their individual
ascent. This alteration and capture of Hindu perception was the single
most important achievement of a rather long march by the far right
over time, culture and institutions. Not just the generation that suffered
the horrors of country’s Partition in 1947, but (thanks to the cultural
exertions of the RSS) even the ones that followed were not released
 Far Right at the Centre 305

from this manner of constructing their identity in post-colonial India.

RSS had effectively moulded public perception over half-a-century, at
first by positioning themselves as saviours of Hindus in the tumultuous
period before 1947; then through regular interventions on cultural
issues – the national language issue, cow protection and temple reno-
vations after Independence. In the 1980s, they ramped up their presence
by intervening more and more aggressively through religious-cultural
agitations and using narratives, images on TV, and more recently on
computers and cellular smart phones.
Colour television arrived in India only in 1982; the govern-
ment-controlled channel was the only one. Secular TV programmes
were the norm. By the late 1980s, TV access had spread to many more
middle-class households. Two TV programmes, the Ramayana (1987)
and the Mahabharata (1989), based on religious epics, were TV series
produced and broadcast for three years in a row. They made some sort
of world record in viewership numbers. This broadcast of a dramatic
version of Hindu religious epics, to spellbound audience was notewor-
thy. It was telecast in 55 countries (wherever Hindus lived one
presumes) and at a total viewership of 650 million, it became the highest
watched Indian television series by far. News reports declared that
when the series was telecast every Sunday morning, ‘streets would be
deserted, shops would be closed, and people would bathe and garland
their TV sets before the serial began’.12 Others recalled that ‘In villages
across South Asia, hundreds of people would gather around a single
set to watch the gods and demons play out their destinies. In the noisiest
and most bustling cities, trains, buses, and cars came to a sudden halt,
and a strange hush fell over the bazaars. In Delhi, government meetings
had to be rescheduled after the entire cabinet failed to turn up for an
urgent briefing’.13
This astonishing popularity of religious mythology on TV laid
bare the cultural code of ‘modern’ India. Why was public broadcast
used in this cultural projection and who did it benefit? Was it simply
a revered epic which was televised? Was it a coincidence that the RSS
had already adopted Ram and his temple in Ayodhya as its mission?
Narasimha Rao’s (Congress PM when the mosque at Ayodhya was
demolished in 1992) lucid account of the events leading up to 6
December 1992 mentioned that dispute over Ayodhya had remained
306 Tipping Point

at low ebb till 1986.14 Through this period, in fact from 1982 up to
1989, the Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry was held
mostly by ministers of the Congress. It is however worth recalling that
the president of the Jana Sangh LK Advani (an old RSS member) had
opted for the I&B Ministry in his Janata Party stint in the late 1977-9s
(astute politician that he was, he remained interested in the functioning
of the I&B even during his stint as Home Minster during the BJP rule
in the period 1998-2004). The director of Ramayana, Ramanand Sagar,
was acknowledged with a high national honour in 2000 and awarded
the Padma Shri by the BJP government. The other religious epic
televised, B.R. Chopra’s Mahabharata too had a similar effect in terms
of the viewership, but it is a more complex epic of battle, mass destruc-
tion and death. It did not have a central hero who could be useful as
an immediate religious mascot nor was its director similarly rewarded.
Though Krishna, its central figure, might well be the next electrifying
deity of the Hindutva movement now that the Ram temple at Ayodhya
is being built exactly where the RSS wanted it.15
BJP used the popularity of the TV serial and Lord Ram for their
political purpose, fairly swiftly. After having preserved the cultural war
on the ground, they grasped it on TV. Subsequently their use of TV
and other modern technologies of communication anticipated the trend
in India. Their rise was inexorable since.
Meanwhile a class of big wealth owners had grown much wealthier
and more ambitious since economic liberalization began in the 1990s;
they might have found the authoritarian structure of the RSS, its
conservative ideology and storm troopers much more useful than the
disorder of the ruling Congress coalition governments. Ironically, in
the age of the global free market competition and opportunity the state
played an even more fundamental role in safeguarding the capitalist.
State capture was crucial for capitalists to endure. RSS and BJP seemed
to have been attracting funds nationally and internationally like never
before, what was it that they deliver to their financers that other political
parties could not? This will be discussed later in the chapter.
Six years after Babri Masjid demolition and riots that followed,
the BJP was the single largest party in the Parliament in 1996 and two
years later it was in a position to form the government in an alliance,
claim power at the centre and hold on to it till 2004. ‘After 1989, the
 Far Right at the Centre 307

BJP did not stop or look back. So the question naturally arises: what
was . . . the extraordinary ocean of service that the BJP continued to
drown the people in (unmatched anywhere in the world presumably
at any time in the history of democracy) so that its Lok Sabha tally
soared from 2 (in 1984) to 88 (in 1989) to 119 (in 1991) to 161 (1996)
and to 181 (in 1989) in almost geometric progression? . . . It is crystal
clear that there was a strong emotional religious dimension constantly
assisting the BJP and motivating the people in a manner that was not
available to other parties . . .’ (pp. 186-7).16 Writing his side of the story
(which was published after his death as per his wishes) the ex-PM
raised serious questions about the constitutionality of this manner of
winning elections and was pessimistic about the future. It appeared
that the BJP and Hindu Mahasabha had not been functioning within
the frame of the same constitution as the Congress, communists, and
other parties. He felt it would be impossible to set things right after
allowing this trend to continue for such a long time.
Indeed, it had been allowed for too long .

A Shadowy Organization Becomes an

Immense Shadow of Our Past in Our Present
Two Swedish journalists travelled through Indian villages and cities in
third class train compartments through 1968-9. They talked to the
toiling class and political leaders of varied persuasion and wrote,‘Since
the Hindus are the largest single group in India, the Hindu fanatic
group now operating in the country constitute the greatest potential
danger’ (p. 93).17 In the cities they saw the growth of several fascist
groups. Not too many Indian’s saw what they saw. If they did see, too
few cried ‘wolf ’ or else, one would have heard them.
Fifty years later, loyal chroniclers of the RSS, Anderson and Damle
write,‘The RSS has grown into one of the world’s largest non-govern-
ment association with an estimated 1.5 - 2 million regular participants
in its nearly 57,000 local daily meetings, 14,000 weekly meetings, 7000
monthly meetings across 36,293 different locations nationwide as of
2016’ (p. xi).18 When their political affiliate the BJP won with a historic
margin the 2014 general elections,‘Some fifteen months into Narendra
Modi’s new BJP’s ideological godfather, the Hindu nationalist RSS
308 Tipping Point

held a widely reported “coordination” meeting with some two dozen of

its affiliates in New Delhi in September 2015; their purpose was to
consider a wide range of significant, and sometimes controversial-public
policy issues facing the Indian nation. At the end of this conclave several
of the most senior government ministers including Prime Minister
arrived to discuss these issues in person . . . what lent this meeting its
singular significance was the confluence of three unprecedented factors;
the unusually wide spectrum of often contentious policy issues that
were included in the discussion, the organizers’ willingness to publicize
these meetings, and the difference of opinions on display, both among
the RSSs affiliates and between them and the government proper
(Introduction, pp. ix).’ Insiders told the author that the Modi govern-
ment was more willing to discuss policy concerns of affiliates. These
36 full affiliates and over a hundred more subsidiaries, almost all the
affiliates had ‘Pracharaks at the helm – senior level fulltime members
who had gone through extensive training. There were 6,000 such
Pracharaks who worked among a wide variety of groups that included
its political wing the BJP, its largest student group ABVP, its trade
union BMS as well as among farmers, journalists, entrepreneurs, health
workers, elementary and high school teachers and so on. The 1990s
witnessed rapid economic and social changes and it was also the phase
of rapid growth in RSS affiliates, as it hastened to customize its appeal
to various sections and sectors of the changing society and economy.
Oddly, the British government of India was perhaps the last
government in India to keep a very keen eye, recorded and filed the
activities of the far right in some detail. The RSS was identified as a
political movement by the British Government well before the Congress
banned its workers from participating in RSS.
On 15 December 1933, there was a famous gazette notification
that advised government employees not to participate in activities of
the RSS followed by one more notification that teachers in government
schools should not belong to the Sangh. The Home Department
prepared a report in 1943 detailing the growth of the RSS. It had
grown rapidly during the war years. Its membership stood at 76,000,
one-half in Central Provinces, followed by Bombay and Punjab.
Moreover, it had established a presence in every province. Officer
 Far Right at the Centre 309

training camps of a military nature were held in different places, the

largest in Pune.19
Strangely, in post-Partition India, despite its role in the partition
of the subcontinent, its association with the assassination of the father
of the nation M.K. Gandhi, the RSS seems to have grown in a fairly
safe environment and with little scrutiny. It had been banned only
thrice, once after Gandhi’s assassination, once during the emergency
and once after the demolition of the Babri Masjid. Except for the Indira
Gandhi years the bans were short term and the ban followed serious
crimes with which it was associated. There were numerous episodes
of riots in between where commissions of inquiry in fact noted that
the Jana Sangh was teaming with RSS members to ferment
trouble.20
Was it the result of a ‘soft’ state? Or was the state softened by the
RSS? The answer to this question is perhaps incomplete without
acknowledging popular support for its ideology among the elite who
had captured state power almost across the entire country soon after
Independence. The RSS also softened the state by a wily use of state
machinery and its own usefulness to political allies in electoral
shenanigans.
Much of India’s internationally celebrated spirituality, rituals,
religiosity, and guru ethos are in fact wrapped around this culture that
RSS supposedly upholds. The RSS, while consolidating this cultural
appeal slowly transfigured it into support for its political arm. It is
indeed difficult to outwit one’s own shadow. The RSS has without
doubt played a masterly role as an apex organization.
Examples of popular support and sympathy among the bureaucracy
are penned in almost every account of the goings-on of the RSS. Not
just by Anderson and Damle who had privileged access to senior RSS
leadership, but insider recounts too. In a more recent and home-grown
account of happenings in his village Ayithara, a village ten km from
Kuthuparamba town in Kannur district of Kerala, the author a member
of the RSS, described the Theyyam (local religious festival) and growing
animosity between the RSS and the CPM. In these accounts the RSS
was protecting the local landlord, Thampuran (feudal landlords),
against the redistribution of land to the farmers. In exchange they
310 Tipping Point

obtained his patronage and donations. In another episode a takeover

of the local deity Madappura, temple and lands allocated to the deity
was the subject of planning and aggression by the RSS. It succeeded
in that with the help of landlord-cum-businessmen who made dona-
tions, they joined the temple committee, become the main organizers
of the local religious festivals and acquired some land for the RSS.
There are accounts of planned aggression, teaching of martial arts and
bomb making outfits in Bombay and Bangalore.21 The position of the
RSS in the north was even more firm. It was ensconced and unchal-
lenged in the feudal system, caste hierarchy and support for it came
mainly from the rich and upper-castes. All through, running parallel
to the story of acquisition of land, money and weapons by the RSS,
there are stories of poor accounting, misappropriation of funds from
the local shakha up to the district level (pp. 62-3).22 In a similar manner,
donations of money and materials from its international arms were
used and erratically recorded. It would be difficult to believe the account
of a deserter without a rider. Other insiders like Kelkar who spent 45
years within wrote about its leaders, lamenting the lost years of the
RSS under some leaders, the unquestioned supremacy of Sarsanghchalak,
the lack of rich intellectual, internal dialogue, respect for expertise and
engagement with modern social issues.23 However no one highlighted
the work of the foot soldiers or the financial aspect.
Accounts of their infiltration of local shrines, maneuvres around
popular local landmarks and violent strategies of intervention from
Ayodhya to present times that appeared sometimes in the neutral
mainstream press, seemed to follow a time tested scheme, that also
Minni, who has written an insider’s account, described in detail. The
same method is noted for the violence in the Bhima Koregaon region
near Pune around a landmark.24 The Mumbai bomb making factories
busted in recent raids was run by a group linked to RSS by ideology
but not directly,25 this distancing of cultural work from ‘other’ more
dangerous activities was also a time-tested design. All these are familiar
tactics now.
Moreover, this sympathy for the RSS among the elite is old and
entrenched. Memoirs of ICS officers record it (in the context of
incriminating evidence based on police investigations during communal
tensions) in United Provinces before the assassination of Mahatma
 Far Right at the Centre 311

Gandhi, ‘It was no doubt a matter of political delicacy as the roots of

the RSS had gone deep into the body politics. There were also other
compulsions as RSS sympathizers, both covert and overt, were to be
found in the Congress party itself and in the Cabinet. It was no secret
that the presiding officer of the upper house, Atma Govind Kher, was
himself an adherent and his sons were openly members of the RSS’.26
No timely arrests of RSS leaders were permitted then. These sympa-
thies are reflected in the reopened trial of the conspiracy to assassinate
Gandhi as well (discussed in Chapter one).
With hindsight it appears that RSS grew for almost a hundred
years in India (2025, will mark the hundredth year) in a rather favour-
able environment with plenty of sympathy, funding as well as manpower.
Observers writing about it used to refer to it as a shadowy organization
earlier, because of its association with Gandhi’s assassination, its obvious
lack of transparency, verifiable data or official scrutiny. Its clout is more
on display now. Recently when the BJP Government in Maharashtra
openly created a new civil service called honorary animal welfare officers,
in each district, the news was printed. All applicants for these posts
were cow protectors called gau rakshaks from various RSS spawned
militias that intercepted alleged transporters of beef and cows.27 In
several cases, these vigilantes killed Muslim truck drivers ferrying cattle.
However, interestingly a similar attempt to hire RSS linked academic
faculty in the university system was not as successful for the paucity
of suitable applicants.28 Influencing the process of recruitment and
qualifying examination for public sector institutions has long been both
an ideological and mercenary enterprise in India. In the BJP ruled state
of Madhya Pradesh (2005-18) it reached an enormous and sinister
proportion.29 Eventually a BJP MP, the state’s Technical Minister
In-charge and some 2000 others were arrested in 2015 but not before
delayed, long drawn out investigation and a series of mysterious
deaths.30 The investigations into irregularities in process of recruitment
and qualifying examination began only after a Public Interest Litigation
(PIL) was filed requesting investigation of the scam in 2009.
Be that as it may, achieving its first political victory over the
principal political force (Congress) in the mid-1970s seemed to boost
RSS’s activities and funding very substantially but not its transparency.
Most scholars of RSS still quote Anderson and Damle as authority on
312 Tipping Point

details of organization and membership, but these authors simply

reproduce RSS sources. For example, all the appendices in their 2018
book ‘RSS, A View to the Inside’, quoted the RSS mouthpiece, the
readily available Organiser magazine, for data on number of training
camps, growth in the number of shakhas. In appendix (vii) the authors
provided data on the expansion of the labour affiliate of the RSS and
the source said ‘BMS is one of the few RSS affiliated organizations to
maintain comprehensive membership records’ (p. 270).31 This was
perhaps because labour unions functioned in a more competitive,
transparent manner and labour laws required it of them to maintain
membership and finance data. Even its own publication Organiser seems
to provide approximate figures. This absence of details and records of
over 90 years of its existence is baffling to say the least but it might be
a deliberate smoke screen. It is also a commentary on our fuzzy
administrative system.

Number of RSS Shakhas by Source

Source / Year 1975 1978 1982 1985 1997 2014 2019

Spitz 8,000 20,000 30,000
per cent rise 60.0 33.3
Anderson Damle 8,000 14,000 43,000 70,000
per cent rise 42.9 67.4 38.6
Vaidya 43,000 70,000
per cent rise 38.6
As per Spitz (1997)
• As per Anderson and Damle (2019)
• As per Vaidya, Mukh Pracharak RSS
• Data as per RSS official data, which does not have verifiable sub details. It
seems patchy.
Source: Compiled by the author.

According to Spitz (1997),‘RSS membership has increased rapidly

since 1975, when the number of shakhas was between 7,500 and 8,500.
By 1985, there were approximately 20,000 shakhas, and in 1993 India
Today estimated the number at 30,000. The most rapid growth since
1977 has been in the four southern states, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka,
 Far Right at the Centre 313

Kerala and Tamil Nadu. By 1982 there were approximately 5,600

shakhas in these states’.32 According to Anderson and Damle’s latest
book, 43,000 shakhas across India in 2014 is approximately correct,
they were using the very same insider RSS data source. By 2016, they
had close to 57,000 shakhas (p. 260).33 In this book they have a chart
which shows the meteoric rise after 1978 when they had already
increased in number from Spitz’s estimate of 7,500-8,500 in 1975 to
14,000 shakhas, almost double the number in three year period after
the emergency. But they claimed that the 1990s was the decade of the
most rapid numerical growth. In a recent article Anderson says that
the RSS now has 70,000 shakhas with 2 million members.34 So, it
appears that the phase of rapid growth is going on and on! It is also
likely that these numbers are inflated, other scholars of Sangh Parivar
organizations cross verifying numbers of participants in functions, from
the literature of the Sangh suggest that compared to earlier, later Sangh
publications have inflated numbers, between double and three times.35
According to Manmohan Vaidya, Prachar Pramukh, the RSS had
43,000 shakhas all over the country in 2014 with 14 lakh Swayamsevak,
3,000 Pracharaks and 35 front organizations working in different
fields.36 By 2018 its leaders claimed that 57,000 shakhas were func-
tioning across India, and in 2019 its loyal chronicler said there were
70,000! These numbers are not as important as the fact that now the
Prime Minister, the President of India, and almost all the major
ministers in the government are products of this organization. Its
current head Mohan Bhagwat’s annual address to this organization
was relayed to the nation on government television, telecast for the first
time in Indian history.
Can one be certain of the data handed out by the RSS itself? There
is no alternative record based on official scrutiny of their data, mem-
bership, registrations, funding and organization. If it is still referred to
as a ‘cultural’ organization; it appears to have remained so only because
they have come to occupy such a special position that no government
wanted to upset them by a financial and physical audit.
But India’s largest ‘non-government organization’ has no audited
accounts available to the public.
It was rumoured to be unregistered; its donations were allegedly
all informal donations of volunteers and admirers hence no audit
statements of accounts can be found in the public domain. In November
314 Tipping Point

2016, Prakash Ambedkar, grandson of B.R. Ambedkar, spoke to the

press asking how the RSS was going to account for its informal
donations in the post-demonetization period since it was not registered
with the election commission as a political party, or as a company under
the Companies Act or as a charitable trust under the state Trust Act.
He cited a 1980s case during V.P. Singh’s government when one of the
RSSs fronts called VHP had received Rs. 700 crores of foreign funds
mainly from America and it went unexplained (This is interesting since
it was described the manner in which BJP was aligned with V.P. Singh
government and given it outside support).
In August 2017, a Nagpur based social activist Janardhan Moon,
started an organization and filed online application with the Nagpur
Charity Commissioner to register the name RSS for his new organi-
zation. He claimed that the application was accepted because on
government records RSS was not a registered body. Later a lawyer for
the RSS objected to it and Janardhan’s claim was rejected.37 In October
he submitted a writ petition in the Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High
Court over the Local Charity Commissioner’s decision to reject regis-
tration of his organization as RSS as no other organization by that
registered name existed. His petition stated that the persons who had
raised an objection to his claim had not substantiated with any evidence
that an organization by the same name existed. His petition was
admitted.38 Nagpur has been the headquarters of the RSS since 1925
as an ‘off the records’ organization.
The lawyer filing an objection on behalf of the RSS claimed that
the organization was registered long time ago in Delhi, he claimed to
have submitted a registration number and code and an old certificate.
A newspaper report stated that the registration had a Chandrapur
address for correspondence and was registered under the Indian Public
Trust Registration Act 1860 and the Societies Registration Act 1950.
However, the lawyer on behalf of RSS said that the registration did
not imply legal necessity of any financial report and audit. The case
was unresolved even in July 2018. Regardless of what the lawyer claimed
in his submission, registered societies must file their memorandum of
association, fees and membership, governing body as per rules and
submit accounts. The annual list of managing body has to be filed.
 Far Right at the Centre 315

Given that the rules require so much from a society; how could there
be any ambiguity about the name, registration and status of a huge
organization like the RSS persist as late as 2018? That too in the city
and the state where the RSS headquarter has been located for a long
time? It is as though no one needed to know the birthday or name of
something that has always been comfortably around. The organization
obviously had no antagonists; no one was wary or suspicious about it.
No details were revealed to the public for discussion even after the case
over the name surfaced. Till this skirmish in Nagpur court in 2017
and that brief encounter with the income tax department during Indira
Gandhi’s government, the RSS seemed to live a charmed life!
According to RSS sources the most common explanation for
opacity, is the Kendriya Karyakari Mandal. It is the highest executive
authority of the Sangh. It decides what is to be done both on policy
and finances. Funds are collected during some (six) festivals and Vyas
Poornima also known as Dakshina Day (donation day) where member
volunteers offer donations in envelopes marked with their names. The
RSS does not accept donations or sponsorships from non-members.
These donations are collected from every unit/shakha, half of the
donations are retained by the unit and half are sent to Nagpur. The
shakhas can receive additional funds if the highest executive body thinks
it is necessary. However, according to Article 9 of its Constitution,‘Any
voluntary offerings made with devotion before the Bhagwa-Dhwaj shall
exclusively constitute the finances of the shakha and shall belong to
and be solely managed and distributed by the shakha for the promotion
of the Aims and Objectives of the Sangh . . . ’ reproduced in Anderson
and Damle (2018).39
But then again, if descriptions of the situation provided by insiders
who have left the RSS are to be believed, it would appear that there is
much financial mismanagement, confusion and perhaps inevitable if
70,000 shakhas exist and keep unaudited accounts. The opacity is
perhaps deliberate.‘The Sangh gets crores every year as Guru Dakshina
and this is tax free. . . . The Sangh will get a minimum of seventeen
crore rupees from one district in Kerala. The state contribution will
be more than 250 crores. Top business tycoons, contractors and highly
placed officials of the state contribute enormous amount to the Sangh
316 Tipping Point

as Guru Dakshina. In Kerala only a tiny portion of that amount is

retained, here, and the rest is sent to Nagpur Centre.The largest amount
is collected from Gujarat. There the Guru Dakshina amounts to Rs
1,000 crores’ (p. 107).40 This is extracted from the narrative of a
Pracharak from the Kannur district of Kerala, who eventually exited
the RSS. His proficiency in mathematics, particularly Vedic mathe-
matics, resulted in him being useful to the RSS in various capacities
but particularly in the shakha and district level accounting. His mis-
givings about the methods of income generation and accumulation
began early in his career. Meghwanshi’s recollections on the money and
accounting procedure is similar, expenses of functionaries are met out
of offerings made to the flag on Guru Poornima. Amounts collected
from various shakhas are deposited at district headquarters. The total
collection is apparently kept secure by some wealthy individual
swayamsevak but not in a bank directly by the RSS. This individual,
usually a prosperous local bania (trader) then releases money to the
pracharaks against a letter (p. 37).41
The section is largely based on such book and media reports.
Efforts to cross check these RSS finances on their website or with tax
official sources drew a blank. However, an annual report of their
organization is available for the year 2019 with extensive coverage of
their activities, meetings and photographs but not their accounts.42
Only one beam of official light can be thrown on the situation
based on a court case against the RSS by the revenue department of
the income tax department dated sometime in the early 1970s (during
the period when Indira Gandhi was Prime Minister) the case was filed
in Bombay and another one later in Patna.
The Commissioner of Income-Tax, Patna in Bihar was the appli-
cant in all cases. The same assessee (RSS) was the respondent. The
matter relates to the assessment years 1967-8 to 1975-6. The Income-
tax Appellate Tribunal in R.A. nos. 1 to 9 (Patna) of 1981 referred
the following common questions of law for the decision of this court
in the above cases. The questions referred to this court are, whether,
on the facts and in the circumstances of the case, the principle of
mutuality exists in the RSS? Whether, on the facts and in the circum-
stances of the case, the amount received from members and devotees
can be taken to be gurudakshina and held to be tax exempt?
 Far Right at the Centre 317

The court observed that the assessments were made on the

respondent-assessee in the status of an association of persons for the
years 1967-8 to 1975-6. The assessments were of a protective nature.
The assessee’s income was by way of receipt from members as guru-
dakshina. It was also seen that gurudakshina was also received from
devotees. The income-tax officer held that gurudakshina received by
the assesse is taxable under the provisions of the Income-Tax Act.
He computed the income of the assessee for the respective
assessment years from 1967-8 to 1975-6 respectively as Rs 48,000,
71,000, 50,000, 20,000, 25,000, 20,000, 15,000, 20,000 and 15,000.
The RSS appealed the verdict.
In the appeal, it was noticed that the RSS had its head office at
Nagpur and hence the assessments on the respondent-assessee should
be done only there as a protective measure. The Appellate Assistant
Commissioner held further that the gurudakshina receipts from
members of the organization were exempt from taxation on the ground
of mutuality. In coming to the conclusion, he placed reliance on
instructions of the Central Board of Direct Taxes contained in letter
no. 290/26/ M.O. /I.M. (Inv.), dated 19 December 1978. On the above
basis the assessments were cancelled.
So, the case dragged on and the decision to exempt the RSS from
paying taxes on donations received from volunteers was judged to be
not applicable, by Central Board of Direct Income Tax department in
1978. This exemption decision was delivered when Janata Party was
ruling at the centre with outside support of BJP in the post emergency
period.
During this saga the following aspects of the organization emerged.
• It claimed before the High Court that it was a charitable institution
under the Section 10 (22) of the Income Tax Act 1961.
• And before the Charity Commissioner that the RSS was not a
charitable trust but a political institution under Section 12 (13)
of the Bombay Public Trust Act, 1950.
To the public at large it was a cultural/educational body.43 In the
course of the litigation it took legal advice to amend its constitution of
1949. The amendments give legal status to the term ‘Guru Dakshina’
and its division into individual shakhas and branch funds.
318 Tipping Point

• ‘Guru Dakshina received for Sangh purposes by a Sangh Shakha

shall constitute the funds of that Shakha’. Hence tax liability cannot
be fixed on Nagpur.
• It also claimed that branches were independent units and their
funds were independent of Nagpur.
The organization was, therefore, trying to avoid registration and
tax payments and the ITO, Central Circle III, Nagpur made an
assessment order 1971-2 against the RSS overriding their claims. It
was estimated that their income from gurudakshina to be Rs 20 lakhs
in 1974. There is no figure for the present that one can provide except
claims of their publication, Organiser that volunteers can contribute
up to lakhs of rupees and no one except the shakha office bearers know
about these amounts.44

Not without Enduring Support from the other

Shadow of the Past, the Ancient Regime
To this day, newly weds across social classes in India aspire to dress as
up as royalty and sit on gilded thrones, often on an elevated platform
like princes and princesses did. Guests line up, climb the platform one
by one, with wishes and gifts. But this is not all that remains of our
feudal past.
The situation in the princely states under the British and soon
after Independence has been discussed at length earlier. No general-
ization would do justice to the variety of policy and administrative style
among the 565 monocratic kingdoms. The larger ones like Hyderabad
had a Muslim ruler but a large Hindu population and Kashmir had a
largely Muslim population with a Hindu king.
Historically, the princely states and the RSS came much closer in
the decade before Independence. The affinity between the princely
states and the Sangh Parivar was by no means deep rooted in time nor
was it a very pervasive phenomenon even though it might appear to
be a natural class alliance partnership of the ruling class. The association
of the RSS with the Maratha kingdoms is well known, the RSS shakha
in Nagpur was founded on land donated by the royal family, the shakha
in Kolhapur was named after the local ruler, similar help came from
 Far Right at the Centre 319

some other princely states but it was by no means a pervasive phenom-

enon in other kingdoms like some of the larger ones like Kashmir and
Hyderabad in the 1930s.
It is also well argued that in princely India rulers sought religious
legitimacy and also practiced religion-based selection in their admin-
istration, consequently increasing long-term religious differences.45 The
two just came close to each other in the decades before Independence
and in the post-Independence period when old certainties gave way.
The most well developed alliance was in central western India. Princes
had been protected by the British, ruled as they wished if they remained
loyal to the empire. They were a strategic buffer and impending
Independence, caused natural anxieties.
The 565 odd princely states (comprising a third of Indian territory)
were areas largely not prone to communal mobilizations, or mob
violence. Although it is difficult to give a generalized account of causes
or estimate incidents accurately, leading up to communal clashes in
India in 1920-40, Copland found that the princely states reported only
79 incidents and 172 deaths against 322 incidents and 2,273 deaths
in the British provinces.46 He said that after 1929 the difference between
the two shrank and by 1947 the scale of communal violence in the
northern princely states would parallel and exceed that which was
experienced in adjoining British provinces. Even if religious differences
particularly regarding rights over religious objects, space and rituals
were no less acute in these princely states. It appears that they did not
lead to acts of excessive aggression, resulting in injury or death in the
early days. Within these localities and communities, resolution mech-
anism worked to sort out the problems since there were no great benefits
in disruption of peace to any party. In these princely states, larger towns
were less industrialized, had fewer migrants. They were not well
connected with railways and did not have too many newspapers.
Exceptions in the north were Indore and Jaipur. This made for static
homogeneity among their subjects, relatively ‘backward’, isolation –
adherence to traditional forms of community and non-competitive
monarchical polities. They did not have what Copland called a riot
prone environment. Given the environment, most historians suggested
that riots were to a large degree planned events by agencies, more often
political than religious.
320 Tipping Point

There were other reasons too that explained why the princely states
remained islands in the storm. The northern princely states were
considered largely Hindu strongholds ruled by Hindu kings, with
relatively smaller Muslim populations compared to the provinces, except
for Kashmir, ‘. . . which is principally why, in the 1930s, the Indian
Muslim League set its face against the British government’s scheme for
an all-India federation even as the Hindu Mahasabha warmly embraced
it’ (p. 27).47 However, majorities were threatened only by significant or
strategically important minorities and that too in times of significant
socio-economic shifts. The arrival of modernity both in the form of
technology (railways, newspapers, telegraph, telephones) and ideas
(democracy, equality, and secularism) was the larger background of
these changes in more recent times. On both counts, the British ruled
provinces were ahead of the princely states and it was in the latter that
the arrival of representative government caused the most concern among
old elite.
The growth of communalism in provinces during the 1920 and
1930s is parallel to reforms initiated by the government and reli-
gion-based quotas (this is discussed in Chapter One). Electoral
competition was a significant force in strengthening and sometimes
formations of group identities. Modern administration also implied
larger recruitments and expenditure on welfare and infrastructure.
These were opportunities for power and resources that could be
foregone only at the expense of losing social position. Princely states
were less exposed to these modern developments (political represen-
tation and sharing executive power however minor) where people largely
held on the vestiges of premodern culture, lived in self-sufficient villages
and neighbourhoods dependent on groups or parochial communities
within them for essential goods and services with reciprocal obligations,
with the exception of a few states like Baroda and Travancore where
reforms in minor forms of political representation and education took
place. Baroda introduced compulsory primary education in 1906 and
both states spent relatively a large part of their revenue on education,48
the majority remained entrenched in old feudal customs.
Personal, often autocratic rule of the princes was the norm. Division
of labour was historical, caste and religion based. Religious minorities
existed everywhere but were an integral part of the ecosystem and
 Far Right at the Centre 321

communal violence could make it difficult for all to subsist. This

changed but slowly. For the rest, the princely states were ruled with a
darbari (court) culture, edicts, and ‘fatherly’ despotism under the
watchful eye of a British resident but without substantial legislative
and judicial intrusion.‘The Church-state relationship remained direct
and intimate in the princely states (p. 49).49 They upheld the traditions
and practice of their own religion with enthusiasm but needed to
promote an ethos of tolerance and harmony within which minorities
could practice their religion and did so. They were enjoined by dharma
to set a salutary example. This was the version of ‘secularism’ and not
the modern one which was most familiar to the majority of Indians-
where the ruler as part of the divine cosmic order, participated publicly
in acts of religion to establish his legitimacy. This is the version which
is being reintroduced with the participation of the BJP Prime Minister
and the Brahmin RSS chief in launching the construction of a new
Ram temple in Ayodhya 28 years after the demolition of the Babri
Masjid.50
Some of the rulers of these princely state were unaffectedly devout
Hindus who worshipped idols every day, performed rituals and
undertook years of pilgrimage. Some of them, also associated with the
Hindu Mahasabha orthodox wing Sanatan Dharma. Coreligionists of
the ruler would inevitably have access to larger number of administrative
jobs, education, or scholarships. Dominant communities expected their
princely patrons to do so. The minorities were accustomed to accepting
this as normal and to compromise in exchange for religious tolerance.
Scholars have argued that in the context of British rule of the subcon-
tinent, Hindu nationalists held up the native princely states as ideals
of ‘tradition,’ as territories unspoiled by foreign hands and thus repre-
sentative of the ‘true India’.51 The idea of Akhand Hindustan came from
a Gujarati writer, K.M. Munshi who was an admirer of the Maharaja
of Baroda, Aurobindo Ghosh and Gandhi. Munshi left the Congress
in 1959 to launch an Akhand Hindustan movement and became one
of the founders the right wing Swatantra Party and later joined the
Jana Sangh and presided over the founding of the VHP in 1964.
It is a vision of lost state power, caste privilege and some version
of ‘tolerance’ that is to this day the essential substance of India’s far
right vision for the future. The RSS did eventually forge an alliance
322 Tipping Point

with the princely states. In the 1930s and 40s princely states attempted
to secure their future with reforms and alliances with provincial political
parties, a hedge, in the event of British exit from the subcontinent.
‘Ideally they would have liked to come to an agreement with the
Congress. This might have been possible had Gandhi still controlled
Congress policy. By the mid-1940s, however, it was Jawaharlal Nehru
who increasingly spoke for the Congress on the states. . .’ (p. 101).52
His pronouncements at conferences regarding the majority of these
states, referring to their autocratic powers, reactionary politics, stag-
nation and incompetence would have frightened the rulers and advisers
in the states. Thus, they set about making networks with Congress
rivals like AIML and the Hindu Mahasabha, Akali Dal and Punjab
Unionist Party. These had not been their allies earlier, in more secure
days. The Hindu Mahasabha was eager to forge this alliance and
presented itself as a defender of Hindu kings while appealing to populist
and nationalist ideals. Under Savarkar, who had acquired some fame
and reputation as a revolutionary freedom fighter and was elected the
president of the Hindu Mahasabha in 1937, the Mahasabha and princes
saw an opportunity.
The Mahasabha needed powerful friends after their candidates
were decimated at the 1937 elections. The party had won just 17 seats
in all. It now needed strategic alliances with powerful people who had
resources and influence with locals and officialdom. The princes could
provide both. Besides, the Princes had police and some military forces
and, in some cases, quite substantial revenue, territories and population
under their control. For the leaders of the Mahasabha this was an
ideological fit as well; the princes represented the protectors and sur-
vivors of the Hindu Raj which their ideologues were trying to revive.
Savarkar was quick to spot the potential for his project of Hindutva;
his writings and speeches and those of other members of the Mahasabha
reflect this. Religion is not safe without political power. In 1941, the
Mahasabha and Akali Dal who, ideologically, had much in common
formed a loose understanding against the Muslims which included the
militarization of Hindus. All this was to be done with the generous
resources of the princely states.
Not all the princely states jumped into alliances with the
Mahasabha and Akali Dal, they preferred to keep their options open.
 Far Right at the Centre 323

The princes of the following states did, however, do so enthusiastically,

Alwar, Bharatpur, Bikaner, Bilaspur, Charkhari, and Dholpur, Dewas,
Gwalior, Kota, Rewa with Mahasabha and Patiala with the Akalis.
Here the princes involved were often young, impressionable men,
struggling under the pressures of royal life, expectations of a lineage
and hoping to make a mark.
However, the principal participant, the Raja of Bikaner was an
exception, neither young nor impressionable. In 1941, he invited
Savarkar, Moonje and S.P. Mukherjee to Bikaner for a private visit and
in March, the following year had the three Sabha leaders back in Kota,
Jaipur, Gwalior, Alwar and Dholpur. None of these alliances and
understanding was within closed doors. A similar closing of ranks
between the Muslim rulers and the Muslim League took place. The
Chamber of Princes became divided on communal lines.
Later this communal alliance was to infiltrate their realm and cause
communal riots and thwart democratic movements within what had
been relatively peaceful zones. In doing so they also thwarted the growth
of the Congress within these states somewhat. The Mahasabha lobbied
on behalf of the princely states, for their autonomy within a loose
Indian federation. In return they expected the princes to further their
agenda within and outside their realm on issues like reduction of
employment of Muslims, adoption of Hindi, Hindi radio stations, set
up a Hindi medium university, remove Urdu words, communalizing
police and bureaucracy. The princely states were soon to become prey
to communal riots (the 1930s and 40s). Their connection to the far
right was sustained even during the post-Independence period.
The Indian Independence Act, 1947, provided for the lapse of
paramountcy of the British Crown over the Indian states. Each ruler
had the option to accede to the dominion of India or to Pakistan or
continue as an independent sovereign mini nation. Some Congress
members were opposed to the privy purses because the princely states
were viewed with suspicion of aligning with the British during the
freedom movements, of remaining largely as centres of tyranny and
despotism. However, as part of settlements to remain within India, a
privy purse had been promised.
Around 1959, when the proposed land ceiling law threatened them,
erstwhile princes formed the Swatantra Party to protect their land,
324 Tipping Point

and privy purses. In 1962, Vijayaraje Scindia was in Congress and BJS
had only three MPs from Madhya Pradesh. But in 1967, she contested
the Parliament seat on Swatantra Party ticket and assembly on BJS
ticket. Such was the distinction, between the two political fronts! In
that election BJS won seven parliamentary seats and six independent
MPs were supported by her. Areas dotted by anti-Congress rulers and
jagirdars were extensive and covered Bastar, Kanker and Jashpur in
Chattisgarh, Dhenkanal, Kalahandi, Keonjar, Mayurbhang in Orissa
and Patna; Udaipur, Alwar, Bharatpur, Dholpur, Karauli, Dungarpur,
Jhalawar, Kota, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Bikaner and Jaisalmer in Rajasthan.
Gwalior, Rewa, Dhar, Narsingpur, Satna. Jagirdars in MP lent their
princely status to seek votes for the Swatantra Party, BJS and later the
BJP, as did the princelings of Gujarat. (This is almost a belt from
western border through central India ending close to Orrisa and
Bengal).53 In the same report, Vijayaraje’s political advisor Sardar Angre
says,‘The RSS made progress entirely because of the so-called Samants.
Though ideologically affiliated to the Sangh, most princes were nervous
about supporting BJS because of the allegations over Gandhi’s assas-
sination. There was a baseless allegation that the revolver used came
from Gwalior. And Swatantra was better funded by Bombay’s indus-
trialists. But Rajmata was braver than the rest and joined Jan Sangh
while most others opted for Swatantra.’
In the Gandhi assassination case, princes of Alwar and Bharatpur
were under the cloud of suspicion; the Alwar’s Prime Minister N.B.
Khare later became the Hindu Mahasabha president. Although
Congress was well ahead of the others in public acceptance, yet, many
princes opted for the Swatantra Party. Angre called Swatantra a
‘good steppingstone for rulers and BJS’.54 His brother-in-law, Finance
Minister, Jaswant Singh, was in Swatantra Party – a bigger Opposition
party than BJS in Rajasthan, Orissa and Gujarat. In 1967 Lok Sabha
elections, the Swatantra Party had 44 seats and was the second largest
party and it was leading in Gujarat, Orissa, and Mysore and second in
Rajasthan. After Indira Gandhi nationalized banks and abolished privy
purses, the Swatantra Party, BJS, Congress (O) and some socialists
formed a grand alliance. In Madhya Pradesh alone there were 8 princes
who contested elections under BJS banner or were supported by it as
independents.
 Far Right at the Centre 325

The condition of the princes changed rapidly after 1971 when

Indira Gandhi used her parliamentary majority to end the privy purse.
Then it seemed that they did not have too many sympathizers in the
Parliament. ‘On 2 December she introduced a bill to amend the
Constitution and abolish all princely privileges. It was passed in the
Lok Sabha by 381 votes to six and in the Rajya Sabha by 167 votes to
seven. In her speech, the Prime Minister invited ‘the princes to join the
elite of the modern age, the elite which earns respect by its talent,
energy and contribution to human progress, all of which can only be
done when we work together as equals without regarding anybody as
of special status’ (p. 441).55 She had perhaps moved rapidly to circum-
scribe an opposition because here was one growing quite steadily since
1967.
‘Gandhi won her first election in 1971 crusading against poverty,
and the noble families were a ripe target. She also withdrew the princely
privileges because she feared the vestiges of their old authority. After
Independence, many Indian noblemen had ventured into politics and
were opposed to Indira Gandhi’s mix of populism and socialism’.56
In the 1967 election, several rulers had joined the Swatantra Party
headed by C. Rajagopalachari and many of them had defeated Congress
candidates. Indira Gandhi was, therefore, determined to soften their
money-muscles – the privy purses. On 25 June 1967, the All India
Congress passed a resolution to abolish them. The 24th Constitution
Amendment Bill 1970, which was introduced and passed in the Lok
Sabha by a majority of 332:154 votes, but it was defeated in the Rajya
Sabha by 149:75. Having failed in the Parliament, Indira Gandhi asked
President V.V. Giri to derecognize all the rulers via an ordinance. This
de-recognition was successfully challenged by N.A. Palkhivala before
the Supreme Court in the historic privy purses case. Indira Gandhi’s
landslide victory in the 1971 election enabled her to amend the
Constitution itself to abolish the privy purses and extinguished all
rights and privileges of the rulers.57 In the Parliament, Indira Gandhi
stated that the concept of privy purses and special privileges were
incompatible with an ‘egalitarian social order.’ One can only imagine
the kind of foes she collected. This financial downsizing and the
electoral process eventually diminished the princely aura and influence
significantly.
326 Tipping Point

Today the Sangh Parivar no longer depends on the princes in these

areas. The RSS and its fronts like Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, Bharatiya
Kisan Sangh and VHP have penetrated these areas. The anti-conver-
sion campaign has spread and if anything, the jagirdars of the area need
the Parivar and its ideology to remain politically relevant. Decades later,
a lone legal battle to restore the privy purse was initiated and reported.
It described the changed circumstances of the princes and their
diminished social influence and control. Although much diminished
one assumes, that the prince still enjoy some social influence and control
that they may like to preserve.58

Who was Watching our Growing Shadow?

In a previous chapter, Craig Baxter (1969) was cited as having provided
one of the initial and most comprehensive accounts of Jana Sangh
(earlier avatar of the BJP). Baxter, a US Foreign Service official wrote
that the political party was on the ascent since it had consistently
improved its vote share since the first general elections in 1952 and
after the 1967 elections emerged as a potent force on the political scene.
The most authoritative account of the RSS is also co-authored by
a pair of authors both located in America at present. One of them by
the name of Walter K. Anderson (also cited in previous chapters) is
currently placed in Johns Hopkins University. His biography on the
university website states that he had served as special assistant to the
American Ambassador in New Delhi and also in the US State
Department. It says, ‘Walter Andersen served as Senior Adjunct
Professor of South Asia Studies at Johns Hopkins University, and was
concurrently affiliated with Tongji University, Shanghai as a professor
in the Graduate School of International Relations. He had been the
Administrative Director of the South Asia Studies Program from
2012-17 and Johns Hopkins University Representative to the American
Institute of Indian Studies. Prior to that Andersen served as chief of
the US State Department’s South Asia Division in the Office of
Analysis for the West Asia or Near East and South Asia. He had held
other key positions within the State Department, including Special
Assistant to the Ambassador at the US Embassy in New Delhi and
as a member of the Policy Planning Staff in Washington, DC.’
 Far Right at the Centre 327

His association with the RSS seems to be extensive and long term,
dating back to his years as a student in the late 1960s when he came
to India with a group led by the late Susanne and Lloyd Rudolph
of Chicago University, the same University that had drawn P.N.
Haksar’s annoyance and attention to its activities in India referred to
in Chapter 2.
Anderson’s interest in Indian politics, particularly its far right has
been dogged. His early articles include one, published in two parts on
student politics in Allahabad University (in the Economic and Political
Weekly) as early as June 1970. It is co-authored with Alok Pant. It
contains questionnaire based primary scrutiny on caste and political
views. It is a detailed survey of the history of Allahabad University and
student background followed by various political groups, their connec-
tions and leadership in student politics are analyzed. The reasons for
violence and alienation of students emerging from problems within
and outside the University are analyzed.59 Student politics was soon
to turn into a political cauldron in which forces opposing the Congress
and Indira Gandhi would pour and coalesce. That development and
what led to the imposition of a national emergency has also been
described in Chapter 2.
The other four articles that Anderson wrote followed each other
in early 1972 and were a serial account of the RSS, which was to play
the role of superglue in the same cauldron. In the first article on the
RSS subtitled ‘Early Concerns’ he began,‘This is the study of the most
potent organized Hindu cultural group of the twentieth century in
India – The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)’.60
Other articles followed in quick succession, in what was a singularly
insightful, remarkable description of the history of the Indian far right
by a young American who clearly had access to and confidence of the
foremost leadership of the RSS. It was remarkable because Anderson
arrived as a student in 1969 armed with some knowledge of Hindi/
Urdu. He then traced the history of the RSS, interviewed the RSS
general secretary, Bala Rao Deoras, on 16 April and December 1969,
met and interviewed its chief Golwalkar himself, Eknath Ranade
Golwalkar’s secretary in December 1969, interviewed the general
secretary of the Jan Sangh and some of the founding members of the
student wing of the RSS (ABVP) like Ved Prakash Nanda and Balraj
328 Tipping Point

Madhok in July and September 1969. He also interviewed leaders of

the Arya Samaj. He thumbed through Savarkar files in Dadar, State
Department, files of the British period, and Moonje files in Nehru
Memorial Library, not to mention archives of local newspapers like the
Mahratta, Leader, and Amrit Bazar Patrika. He also met the brother
of Nathuram Godse and interviewed him in May 1969. All this seems
to have been accomplished by 1970 and these sources were referenced
in the four articles that dwelt on contentions about who represented
the Hindus, RSS participation in politics and Jan Sangh along with
other organizations spawned by the RSS.61 The fourth and last article
reviewed the advances made by the student wing of the RSS in a vacuum
created by the exit of the Congress from student politics, changing
socio-economic composition of the student body as more students
from lower and middle income came into colleges and the entry of
communists into student politics since 1930s.‘The RSS and communist
had, since Independence, competed for loyalties of the college popula-
tion of India – particularly in the Hindi speaking areas of north India’
(p. 726). Anderson concluded the Economic and Political Weekly series
with,‘The RSS has succeeded in building a cadre which can be mobi-
lized for whatever tasks the leadership sets before it. Moreover, it has
provided the recruitment pool for a large number of organizations (i.e.
Jan Sangh, Vidyarthi Parishad, etc.) providing these groups with a
disciplined cadre’.62 It is a remarkable report all through with a dispas-
sionate, utilitarian conclusion.
Anderson said that he spent three extended periods in India in
the later 1960s, early 1970s, mid- and late-1980s. His mentors, the
Lloyds told him to pay close attention to Vajpayee, a Jan Sangh MP,
who two-and-a-half decades later became the first BJP Prime Minister.
In an article penned in the memory of Atal Bihari Vajpayee,
Anderson recounts how he came to India with his mentors, the famed
couple, Lloyd and Susanne Rudolph from Chicago University.63
‘Among the Indian politicians that fascinated them was Vajpayee
and they told me to pay close attention to him. . . . My next phase in
India was in the mid-1980s and I came to do research on a book
analyzing the RSS – at that time a rather marginal group on the fringes
of the India I interacted with. But I recalled Rudolph’s’ admonition
that this group had a message that was likely to appeal to large sections
 Far Right at the Centre 329

of the Indian population … I next came to India in the late 1980s and
was assigned to the US Embassy in part because of my knowledge of
India and I worked as an advisor to Ambassador William Clarke who,
like Vajpayee, combined a friendly personality with a work ethic.’ He
went on to describe frank and amicable meetings between the ambas-
sador and Vajpayee which he witnessed as part of his official duties.
It is important to remember that the mid-1980s were yet another
traumatic period. The RSS was whipping up communal fires, Indira
Gandhi was assassinated in 1984, Rajiv Gandhi, her son, who succeeded
her had entered politics reluctantly and was relatively inexperienced.
By 1989, BJP’s MPs had gone up from 2 to 86, and it was supported
from outside by a non-Congress government, with Mr V.P. Singh as
PM.
V.P. Singh had served as Finance and then as Defence Minister
under Rajiv Gandhi. He stirred up a political storm ostensibly against
corruption when he hired Fairfax, an American detective agency, to
investigate illegal overseas accumulation of foreign exchange by Indians.
The agency was headed by one Mr Michael J. Hershman, another
intriguing person, who, as his company website states,‘began his career
in intelligence and investigations in Europe during late 1960s as a
special agent with U.S. Military Intelligence, specializing in count-
er-terrorism. After leaving the military, he moved to investigations of
government misconduct and financial fraud for the New York State
Attorney General’s Office and the Office of the Mayor of New York
city. Just prior to founding the Fairfax Group in 1983, Hershman served
as Deputy Auditor General for the Foreign Assistance Programme of
the U.S. Agency for International Development (AID), where he led
investigations and audits of major U.S. funded projects overseas and
was responsible for worldwide scrutiny at all foreign AID missions’.64
What his website forgets to add is that he was almost certainly the
Deputy Staff Director of the CIA till as late as 1978.65 It does not say
when he exited the CIA or that he was in fact stationed in Bombay
for a while.
Anyway, this hiring of an American detective agency by Finance
Minister V.P. Singh, without the consent of his PM, raised many heckles
as it implicated some people close to Rajiv Gandhi. V.P. Singh was too
senior to be fired but was shifted to the Defence Ministry; this was
330 Tipping Point

followed by revelations of some dodgy defence deals. In both cases he

was acting independently without consulting the PM. In the Parliament
Rajiv Gandhi talked of a CIA conspiracy against his government.66
Eventually a cloud of corruption charges descended on Rajiv Gandhi,
Mr V.P. Singh was expelled from the Congress in 1987 and emerged
as a hero for the anti-Congress forces (like JP emerged in the 1970s).
Like JP, his single-minded campaign against corruption first of hawala
and then in defence deals particularly the Bofor gun deal resonated
with the public, since corruption was, and remains the short cut to
wealth and power, much sought after from the highest to lowest levels
in society. Like JP, he became a messiah, for he was a local raja who had
given up his land, was avowedly secular, and the left was ready to ally
with him. Dexterously he went on to cultivate all kinds of social
organizations and groups; familiar ones like Sarvodaya workers (from
JPs time), the farmer’s movement led by leaders like Sharad Joshi in
Maharashtra, ambitious trade unions led by leaders like Datta Samant;
he then found allies among the Congress rebels and those alienated by
Rajiv Gandhi, like Arif Mohammad Khan, Arun Nehru, V.C. Shukla
and others to form a core group called Jan Morcha in October 1987.
He formed a front of secular non-Congress parties at national and
regional levels and then made seat adjustments with the BJP and the
left, maintained close relations with the BJP leaders and spoke against
communalism, he called the left his natural partners. After the 1989
elections, unlike JP, V.P. Singh went on to become the PM in a National
Front government. The BJP had already increased its parliamentary
seats from 2 to 86. For the second time a non-Congress government
was formed at the centre and it brightened up the fortunes of the far
right yet again. The National Front won 146 seats, supported from
outside by the BJP with 86 seats and the left with 52 seats. He became
the saviour with another added dimension as well. Based on the rec-
ommendations of the Mandal Commission he pushed through a bill
reserving 27 per cent of the government and public sector jobs for
backward castes. The manner and quantum of the reservation that
brought the total reserved to 49.5 per cent (including SC and ST
candidates) and its impact on the upper-caste aspirations for the jobs,
created a storm especially among students. Agitations broke out for
and against the reservations. Those against it were the upper-castes
 Far Right at the Centre 331

who consolidated behind the BJP rather rapidly as it aired its disap-
proval. Just then L.K. Advani announced his 6000 km long Rath Yatra
from Somnath to Ayodhya to lay the foundation stone for the Ram
Mandir. He was arrested in Bihar and the BJP withdrew support from
the government. The episode ended in police firing on crowds trying
to reach Ayodhya and rioting but not without igniting communal
passions. The government collapsed under its contradictions and
conflict among its top leaders. The second non-Congress government
ended within 11 months.
As late as 2018 nobody was much wiser about the alleged corrup-
tion or the Bofors scam. This despite the high-profile role that had
been played by Mr Hershman. He had co-founded Transparency
International, the largest independent, not-for-profit coalition promot-
ing transparency and accountability in business and in government, he
served Interpol as a member of the International Group of Experts on
Corruption and sat on the Board of the International Anti-Corruption
Conference Committee for more than a decade. This mystery of Bofors
remained unsolved, he alleged, because nobody in India was interested
in the truth. He told a journalist, ‘Why are you chasing the truth? No
one is interested in the truth – your government, your CBI chief, or
your investigating agency. No one came or even approached to record
my statement’.67
Rajiv Gandhi had steered an independent foreign policy like his
mother, worked for the non-aligned movement by giving it a new
purpose – nuclear disarmament, promoted the idea of a G-15 approx-
imating G-7 and anti-apartheid movement till he was assassinated in
1991. The direction of India’s foreign policy, not to mention its eco-
nomic policies turned quite sharply thereafter with the implosion in
USSR on the one hand and an unusual political void in India.
After Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination a minority Congress government
was formed at the centre under P.V. Narasimha Rao and it ushered
reforms that came to be characterised as Liberalization, Privatization
and Globalization (LPG) they went about opening India to the global
supply of capital, goods and services.
The buoyant account, Anderson and Damle give of the far right
in their first book Brotherhood in Saffron in the 1980s is distinct and
detailed, the first such account jointly by a foreigner and an RSS
332 Tipping Point

activist.68 The association between the authors was old. Damle arranged
for Anderson meeting with head of RSS, Golwalkar in the 1960s and
went on to become the RSS face in Chicago as the Sanghchalak of the
HSS as it is known in America.69 The same tone and the same theme
persisted in the second book, published in 2018. The second book also
seemed to have been made to order by the Prime Minster, Narendra
Modi himself.70
Anderson, recalling a review in the magazine, India Today, said
that the Brotherhood in Saffron was favourably reviewed by a prominent
Indian political analyst and the general point argued by the reviewer
was that the book was a welcome, unbiased – and needed – study of
the RSS.71 Both books are indeed a particularly unbiased, sanitized
account of the rise of the far right. They do not grapple with the claims
nor provide counter points to views provided by the RSS about its
cadre and activates, saying nothing about its well documented role in
communal riots or its version of history. It leaves the social consequences
of the far rights ideological position or the nature of the communal
activities it organizes untouched. The effect of the RSS on not just its
targets but on its own mass base is blindsided. The authors are indif-
ferent to the army of foot soldiers who are used as mobs, crowds,
organizers of events, foot soldiers in violent communal battles, rowdy
agitations, as internet soldiers whose language is an exceptional window
to their precarious, frenzied minds72 and whose intentions can turn a
fairly passive society into a battle ground.73 The authors avoid men-
tioning that even after 94 years of the existence of the RSS, it is hard
to name even half-a-dozen brilliant artists, authors, academics or
statesmen of calibre fashioned within its training encampments. To
stay unbiased, indeed buoyant about them is indeed an exceptional
stance unmatched by any other comparable author. Anderson and
Damle, simply and subtly project the RSS might and irresistible future
recurrently.
Christophe Jaffrelot is the only other widely quoted, non-Indian
specialist on the issue; he viewed the RSS with disquiet. His first book
was dated much later in the 1990s, by which time the RSS was on the
top of a wave and drawing attention of international scholars. The
book ‘The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian politics’ has two
 Far Right at the Centre 333

themes. One, that the Hindu nationalist movement defined an ideo-

logical identity founded on a process of‘stigmatization and emasculation’
of what it represents as ‘threatening others’ (Indian Muslims or
Christian proselytizers, and the British or the West), which threaten
their idea of the ‘One Nation’. The second, was the ‘instrumentalist’
strategy of ethno-religious mobilization, which he called the
‘Sanghatanist pattern’ of embedding, infiltrating every section of society
and aspect of culture and political party-building. He continued writing
on the theme74 and in the mainstream Indian media on the conse-
quences of their rise, with a distinctly different concern.

World Wide Web of Priests and Temples

Wherever Indians go, their favourite things follow, trailing them just
like their shadows. It is well recognized that there are more temples
and shrines in India than hospitals, schools and colleges put together.
These temples are now linked to Indians abroad through internet
services. Before this invention, numerous grand temples were built
abroad to preserve Indian culture, particularly in America and UK.
The wealth and social power of Hindu temples can be estimated
from the huge amount of gold, silver, land, and annual donations
(amounting to billions in dollar estimates) that the prominent ones
alone receive annually.75 India Today ran an article in 2016 which listed
the wealth (and donation after demonitization) with a title that said,
‘if ten temples give away their wealth India’s poverty would be solved’.
But the influence of these temples is far greater, gauged from the fact
that 65 year long court battles have been fought over their control and
entry norms - from Somnath, Ayodhya to Tamil Nadu and Sabrimala
in Kerala.
The RSS has been unceasingly involved in struggles to ‘liberate’
the temples form ‘State control’ and reconstruct temples on disputed
historical sites. They have also organized manpower recruitment of
temple priests overseas through their front VHP.
Tamil Nadu for example has a history based on the Dravidian,
anti-brahmanical movement. This lower-caste movement fought for
state control of vast number of temples to deploy their power and
334 Tipping Point

wealth for social causes. By 2016, Tamil Naidu state came to control
36,425 temples, 56 maths or religious orders (and 47 temples belonging
to maths), 1,721 specific endowments and 189 trusts. Tamil Nadu
holds the distinction of having ‘nationalized’ most of the temples, and
by doing so some commentators say that ‘It has misused temple
property, promoted politically expedient programmes using temple
funds, and emasculated the mainstream religion in that state and even
the country’.76 There are instances where temple funds have been used
to finance mid-day meals with the Chief Minister’s picture painted on
the walls of the venue where these meals are served.
In 2009, the Madras High Court single judge and division bench
upheld the constitutionality of the order of the Tamil Nadu government
of 2006 mandating the government takeover of the Nataraja temple
as well. On 6 January 2013, the Supreme Court delivered a favourable
judgment based on Subramanian Swamy’s (president of the famous
Janata Party of the 1970s) special leave petition that sought the
quashing of the order. Swamy said,‘There are several large temples in
Tamil Nadu under government control for several decades. If the
Supreme Court judgment is applied, then the government is in illegal,
unethical and unfair control of these temples, apart from being answer-
able for innumerable acts of dereliction of duty and defiling of temples
that has resulted in loss of several thousands of crores of rupees to the
temples and to their antiquity. That is my next move – to liberate all
Hindu temples presently in government control on expired Government
Orders. In the future we need to bring some mosques and churches to
rectify the mismanagement going on in these places. Then the secular-
ism of India’s intellectuals will be truly tested’.77 The flow of his
argument here goes rapidly from corruption in government manage-
ment of temples to how a secular socialist country nationalised only
Hindu places of worship and not Muslim and Christian places of
worship. He made no mention of the sheer scale of temple wealth in
India. Swamy offers his services frequently to far right causes. He finally
merged his Janata Party into the BJP in 2013 and was nominated to
the Rajya Sabha in April 2016 by the BJP led NDA government. It
was noted then that he was recommended by the Sangh/RSS.78 Ever
since he returned to India (from America) inspired by Jayaprakash
Narayan he has occupied a strange position as ambassador at large.
 Far Right at the Centre 335

N.T. Rama Rao, former Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh,

‘nationalized’ the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (Tirupati Trusts),
which administered the fabulously wealthy collection of temples
educational and social organizations under the Tirupati banner. All
over the state devotees’ offerings to temples are appropriated as gov-
ernment revenue; and are not used for the Hindu community, or, to
promote Hindu religious activities. The Government of Maharashtra
similarly ‘took over’ the management of important Hindu shrines like
Shirdi and temples like Siddhi Vinayak.
Many other states have followed similar practices and have
‘nationalized’ temple trusts. In all cases, the trusts have been Hindu
temple trusts and gradually all well known Hindu temples including
those at Puri, Tirupati, Guruvayoor, Sabrimala, Kashi, Mathura,
Ayodhya, Badrinath, Kedarnath, Vaishno Devi, Mumbai, Shirdi,
Amarnath, Srisailam, Madurai and Rameshwaram have been placed
under Trusts (government control – earlier used to be under the family
control of priests and patronage of elite or princes). Kerala too has
brought them under state control and redistributed temple lands. Since
religious trusts of other denominations and religions have not been
nationalized, the RSS has been vocal saying that secularism is against
the Hindus and they have lost the most important source of funding
of community welfare programmes. The argument against pseudo-sec-
ularism of every political party except BJP has been thus enhanced.
The real facts may be more complex, Hindu temples are far greater in
number, wealthier and socially powerful (being the majority religion).
They were not exactly well-known for humanitarian, egalitarian,
progressive role. There are restrictions on the entry of dalits and women
to this day. Even their welfare function, their schools and colleges or
hospitals are not well established as the Christian educational institu-
tions and hospitals so far. Further, only the large temples are
nationalized, there are innumerable smaller ones in every neighborhood
and locality, supported by local populations, run by priests with likely
sympathies for the Hindu world view if not directly for the Hindutva
ideology.
This is the domestic end of the web and it is well connected within,
throbbing with spiritual gurus and political enterprise. Two recent
events, both in Kerala, India’s leading progressive state will flag this.
336 Tipping Point

The story begins with the fact that erstwhile ruling families of
Malabar had in fact provided help to RSS to start branches/shakhas
in Kozhikode and Kannur districts in the 1940s.79
Lord Padmanasvami the tutelary deity of the erstwhile princely
family of Travancore, has a temple dedicated to it and in the temple
compound are a number of vaults supposedly with immense amounts
of gold and wealth. The Kerala High Court ordered the opening of all
the vaults, A to F in January 2011. Marthanda Varma the titular head
of the family referred to divine objections to the opening of Vault B.
The Supreme Court later intervened to order the opening of all the
vaults in March 2012. When interviewed, the Raja gently but firmly
refused to answer the questions, as the matter was by then was sub-ju-
dice but ‘under western systems of jurisprudence . . . the tenets of the
principles of someone else’s law’,80 thereby implying, perhaps that his
allegiance remained somewhere else. Narendra Modi, then aspiring
Prime Minister of the BJP, in his campaign run up to the 2014 election,
visited the temple in 2013. He accepted a crown of gold and red silk,
met the titular Eliya Raja, while the president of the Guruvayoorappan
Bhaktha Samithi drew the Raja and temple into the narrative of
Hinduism under attack.81 The recent Sabarimala temple controversy
revealed the same enthusiasm over temples. In 1991, the Kerala High
Court had formalized the traditional ban on entry of women between
the ages of 10-50 inside the temple. In 2006 a group of women lawyers
and Indian Young Lawyers Association filed a writ petition challenging
the High Court order. The RSS filed suits in the Supreme Court
supporting the writ petition. On 28 September 2018, the Supreme
Court struck down a ban on the entry; the RSS affiliates became active
in fighting the decision of the court and called for seven different
shutdowns in the state leading to mob violence. The RSS mobilized
its women to stop other women from entering. Kerala was then still
dodging the BJP hegemony, by then established over much of India.
A significant advance has been made in the web of temples in the
era of the internet and global citizens.‘If you are a Hindu in America,
it is now possible for you to make an offering on the banks of the
Ganges without leaving Atlanta or wherever you are; you pay someone
else in India to do it for you. . . . One website that offers this service is
shrikashiwishwanath.org another is ww.webdunia.com/kumbhuinfo
 Far Right at the Centre 337

written in Hindi and run by state government of Utter Pradesh; yet

another, bangalinet.com/epuja.htm, builds itself as ‘a home away from
home’. Eprathana.com will send someone to any temple you choose,
and most of them are small local temples, suggesting that people far
from home miss the little shrine at the end of the street as much as
they miss the big pilgrimage temples’ (p. 641).82 A broad range of such
religious services, with multiple options displayed on websites are paid
for and performed in India for overseas clients.

Migration, Hindus Abroad:

Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP)
Temples are not our only source of inspiration. Afflatus can be provided
by a corpus of saints, gurus and swamis, some of international fame,
hundreds of thousands local ones are agents in the ‘spiritual free
enterprise’ economy of India. Some belong to monastic orders and
cults, but many are freewheeling and self-employed. Households across
classes have their favourite family deity, guru, priest for rituals, astrol-
oger, and palmist for consultancy. Levels of education or wealth have
little bearing on this inclination. The largest spiritual get-together
occurs perhaps during the Kumbh Mela attended by about 300 million
people.
They serve a composite function of psychological counselling,
psychiatric treatment (of which there is a desperate shortage), business
and wealth-management advice, career guidance and of course spiritual
union with God. When Indians immigrate their godmen follow.
Migrants carry memories. Adapting to alien culture and norms is
stressful and holding on to comforting memories appears to be one
way of coping. Though they modify themselves to fit into a new society,
dealing with racism, forging a new identity is traumatic. They struggle
to find broad social acceptance and alienation is a probable state of
being. Migrants gravitate to symbols of the culture and ideology that
they have been exposed to back home. For many NRIs the message of
the VHP was familiar. So were temples and rituals.
Vishva Hindu Parishad’s history, people who founded it, partici-
pated, and endorsed its activities is a story of how well the RSS read
the migrants’ mentality and prospect . And how VHP became a
338 Tipping Point

seamless joint between conservative economics, religiosity, identity

politics and globalization of a certain class interest.
Vivekananda, Osho, Mahesh Yogi, Prabhupada are a few of the
numerous who found followers abroad. In 1893, Swami Vivekananda
a Hindu ascetic had attended and impressed some in the Parliament
of Religions in Chicago. His group founded the Vedanta movement
in 1897. This was a phase described in Chapter 1 when Hindu reviv-
alism and nationalism was welded in India. A little later Swami
Prabhupada founded the ISKCON, and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
founded transcendental meditation. These Hindu movements attract
many foreigners who often travel to India looking for more local flavours
of Hinduism, more potent godmen and their instructions. But the bulk
of Indian migrants abroad are more devoted to the orthodox temple,
ritual and festival format, quite unlike some foreigners who explore
Hinduism freely for what it has to offer them.
Long before globalization became the norm for organizational
growth in India, the RSS, under their second leader Golwalkar, spawned
an international network under the umbrella of VHP in 1964. The
parent organization RSS would concentrate on the broad socio-cultural
front nationally, its political arm was to be BJS and the international
arm VHP.
Their oft repeated assertions at Hindu gatherings abroad were
– Hinduism is under threat from proselytizing missionaries; Muslim
have been wreckers of places of their worship and given their birth
rates the Hindus will be reduced to a minority; Western civilization
and norms were undermining the great, ancient culture of Indians and
hence restoration of a Hindu Rashtra was imperative. This narrative
was woven into all their religious-cultural activates. There was no need,
and in fact RSS-VHP did not delineate in modern terms what the
Hindu India should be like, instead they promised, some vague Elysian
world, a utopia going back in an imagined history. As it turned out it
was an astute move to tap into needs of Hindus abroad. Quite a few
upper-caste migrants would be predisposed and sympathetic. Eventually
they generated goodwill, funds and members for the political mission
of the RSS in India.
Describing American Hindus, Doniger said,‘They are an import-
ant presence in America, where, in 2004 there were 1,478,670 Hindus
 Far Right at the Centre 339

(0.5 per cent) of the total population; and in a land where over a quarter
of the population has left the religion of its birth . . . Hindus convert
from their religion less than any other religious group and are the best
educated and among the richest religious groups (according to one
survey). There are more than two hundred Hindu temples in America,
three-quarters of them built in the last three decades’ (p. 637).83 One
of the largest Hindu temples in the world is in a suburb of Atlanta,
Georgia. This Swaminarayan Mandir is modelled on a temple in
London and Hindus in America collected more than 19 million dollars
to build it.
But long before this international display of presence and wealth,
the religious and cultural conferences of the VHP took place. They
did not attract so much attention. But their content reveals a steady
trajectory and almost monotonous vision. Gradually it became a conduit
that fed into the political gambit of its political front (first BJS and
then BJP). As the political wing made gains, the VHP expanded and
even when it lost ground it grew more aggressive, as after the 1984
general election. They worked in well choreographed moves.
In 1964, when the VHP was founded as the religious wing of the
RSS, with an eye on the non-resident Hindu, the measures were ini-
tiated in the city of Bombay. The choice of Bombay is significant; it
was the premier industrial city with both large capitalists and a large
migrant urban industrial work force. The city is cosmopolitan; citizens
have had extensive national and global social networks both at personal
and organizational levels. Katju said it was formed by those who were
themselves well established in an urban culture and were political or
religious activists or both – drawing sustenance from a largely mid-
dle-class urban base.84
Discussions had taken place in Chinmayananda’s, Sandipini ashram
in Bombay in August 1964 on the initiative of the RSS chief, M.S.
Golwalkar and S.S. Apte. A group of 150 political and religious leaders
were invited, of whom 60 attended. The agenda was to revitalize
Hinduism, its ancient traditions and protect Hindus against alien
ideologies like Christianity, Islam, and communism.
By 1966, the VHP organized its first World Hindu Conference
and later two more. The occasions became more elaborate and large
scale. It is not clear who sponsored these mega events; VHP literature
340 Tipping Point

mentions dignitaries who sent messages or attended. These include

names of King of Nepal, PM of Mauritius, industrialists like J.K. Birla,
D. Khatau, V.H. Dalmia and Dalai Lama. The President of India
Radhakrishnan sent a message to the first event.85 Maharana Bhagwat
Singh Mewar of a princely family presided over the first event. The
first phase was marked by a very broad appeal to Hindu dharma and
rituals, to expand its social base nationally and internationally. It suc-
ceeded in drawing in princes, conservative ex-congressmen, Hindu elite,
sadhus, Shankracharayas and saints. Among the notables was the former
Maharaja of Mysore, Jaya Chamraj Wadeyar who was its president in
1965-9. K.M. Munshi the Congressman and Home Minister of
Bombay (now Mumbai) resigned from the Congress in 1959 to form
the liberal Swatantra Party against socialism, he too played an important
role as a founding member of the VHP. Similarly, the Diwan of
Travancore state, a former congressman, was another founder member
of the VHP. According to the website of VHP the organizers of the
First Hindu Conference were Golwalkar, Dharmacharayas, sadhu,
saints, four Shankaracharyas, and representatives of the Bharat Sadhu
Samaj. Those who attended included the governors of Uttar Pradesh,
Bihar, West Bengal, the Prime Minister and ex-Prime Minister of
Nepal, delegates from England, Fiji, Nepal, Africa, Aden, Sri Lanka,
Mauritius, Trinidad, America, and Thailand. 75,000 people took part.
President S. Radhakrishnan sent a message and so did the Dalai Lama,
and the King of Nepal who was represented by the Vice Chancellor
of Tribhuvan University. The conference was chaired by the retired
Chief Justice West Bengal High Court Ramaprasad Mukherjee (brother
of Shyamaprasad Mukherjee founder of BJS).
Its expansion into America was almost direct, ‘VHP became the
first RSS affiliate to enter USA in 1970. Just six years after its formation
in India’ (p. 50).86
Katju quotes Shivram Shankar Apte, the first general secretary of
the VHP who declared that the aim was,‘To take steps to consolidate
and strengthen Hindu society, to protect, develop and spread Hindu
values – ethical and spiritual – in the context of modern times, and to
establish and strengthen, contact and help all Hindus living abroad.’
He went on to say that ‘the declared object of Christianity is to turn
 Far Right at the Centre 341

the whole world into Christendom – as that of Islam is to make it ‘Pak’,

besides these two dogmatic and proselytizing religions, there has arisen
a third religion, communism. For all of these the major target of
conquest is the vast Hindu society living in this land and scattered over
the globe in small and big numbers . . . it is, therefore, necessary in this
age of competition and conflict to think of and organize the Hindu
world to save itself from the evil eyes of all the three’ (p. 10).87
The first conference was just a collection of priests and pundits
who found it difficult to agree on anything significant. But in the face
of a perceived decline of faith among people, confrontation with science
and technology, and with deft maneuvering of the RSS chief Golwalkar,
the gathering resolved to form a four point common agenda for con-
solidating Hindus across regions within India and the globe. VHP
kept up its efforts to round up the Shankaracharyas, sants and swamis
and after 1986 they proved handy. They were kept at the forefront of
the Ram Janambhoomi agitation strategically.
A proposal was presented for preparing a comprehensive code of
conduct for all Hindus to establish unity among diversity in modern
times. The Jagatguru of Puri cited various examples and to the need
of meeting the conspiracy of Christians resolutely. Eleven resolutions
were passed, ranging from re-conversion (back to Hinduism), restoring
glory of the temples (calling upon all administrators and trustees of
temples, maths and ashrams to make efforts to reestablish the signifi-
cance of these places by effecting modification in these places with
cooperation of the common masses as protective centres of dharma
and culture). This was to become a key local activity, cow protection
(prevailing upon the government to stop cow slaughter in India),
promotion of Sanskrit as a language, consolidation of Hindus in foreign
countries who were getting alienated from their culture and religion
(these were to prove to be a valuable source of funds in years to come,
through the network of temples where the priests were recruited and
supplied mainly by the VHP). These eleven resolution were to remain
an unwavering alignment of social agenda till present times.
The Second World Hindu Conference was held in January 1979
when the Jana Sangh was part of the government. It was held at the
specially erected Maharshi Vedavyas Mahanagar venue at Prayag.
342 Tipping Point

President of the VHP, ex-prince Bhagwat Singh of Mewar, presided

over the conference. Besides the usual Dharmacharayas, Jagatgurus,
Swamis and Shankaracharyas; the website claimed that apart from one
lakh participants from India and 18 countries, three lakhs attended or
visited. Residential accommodation for more than 50,000 delegates
was provided in 19 tent townships spread over 120 acres. Each township
provided accommodation for about 3,000 delegates. Every township
was allotted to different provinces and was named after noted saints
and great personalities of those provinces. Each was decorated according
to the taste and traditional style of the respective province. 250 media
persons, national television and radio were present. The scale up was
evident. In 1979, when its political arm the Jan Sangh had 90 seats in
the Parliament. Some observers said that large funds were also sanc-
tioned to the VHP by the friendly government for social welfare
schemes during this period.88
Dalai Lama inaugurated the conference. This marked a concerted
attempt to aggregate the religions and religious-spiritual cults of Bharat
under the umbrella of VHP and its Hindutva agenda. This conference
marked a growth in audience, influence and organizational capacity.
According to the reports of the VHP, ‘This sammelan (conference)
kindled a sense of self-confidence among the workers of the Parishad
that they can manage such a mammoth programme. It was in this
sammelan, that the VHP earned the approbation as the real represen-
tative body of the entire Hindu society’. This also coincided with the
first ever participation in central government by BJS in the post-emer-
gency period.
Four goals were accepted during this event, protection of the Hindu
wherever he was, promotion of Hindi, Sanskrit and the cow. There
appeared to be a narrowing of differences and increasing focus of the
movement. 13 other resolutions were passed like eradication of castes
and untouchability, protection of temples, awakening of mother power,
protection of the interests of Hindus, etc.
Decades later, the issues remain unchanged but there were few
takers for Sanskrit scholarship that were instituted by the first BJP
government, use of Hindi has spread but the administrative and gov-
ernmental work is carried out mostly in English with translations in
 Far Right at the Centre 343

Hindi or regional languages. English medium schools are preferred by

the elite and aspired to by all. Religious conversions especially by
Christian missionaries are negligible. Conversion back to Hinduism
has not been popular. What remains very visible is, cow protection
and ‘protection’ of Hindu women from marrying men of their
choice, especially non-Hindu men and all the attendant vigilante
enforcement.
Prime Minister Morarji Desai (of the coalition government in
which BJS was then a partner) sent a message which said that customs
and traditions of the Hindu religion that were against inequality and
injustice should be eradicated at the earliest possible time so that mutual
goodwill and brotherhood could be established in the society. Defence
Minister Jagjivan Ram (an ex-congressman and of the untouchable
caste) also sent a message that, born as a Hindu; he knew that the
Hindu dharma did not consider other religions as inferior to it. It
believed in secularism, equal respect for all religions.
In this second conference, a decade after the first one, there was a
manifest hardening of stance aimed at political control. Having achieved
greater unity among the Hindus in and outside India, members revealed
a deeper antipathy for other religions and resolved to repossess Ram
Janambhoomi.
Through the 1970s, domestically and internationally, the VHP
had raised the very same issues – conversions from Hinduism to other
religions, preservation of temples and their lands, use of Hindi and
Sanskrit, and cow protection. It had started the Vanvasi Kalyan Kendra
in 1971, for proselytization of tribal people by spreading VHP sup-
ported schools, orphanages, hostels, clinics, etc. Funds came through
various NGOs.
By the mid-1980s it initiated a more intense domestic, mass based,
politico-religious action plan. Recalling its development, Anderson and
Damle also said that in 1984 the VHP held a rally in Maddison Square
and ‘announced its intention to aggressively propagate Hindutva as a
spiritually based universal ideology. Thereafter, it started and expanded
several projects including India Relief and Development Fund (IRDF
– more about it later), The Hindu Student Council, support a Child
and Ekal Vidyalaya. Ekal Vidyalaya has developed into a major source
344 Tipping Point

of funds for its parent groups, projects in India and claims to have
received donations of some 6 million dollars in 2016’ (p. 51).89
Meanwhile VHP had many conferences in America. It’s ninth
American conference was greeted by messages from the Mayor of Los
Angeles and President Ronald Regan. By the 1990s, it had heightened
the agenda to a fervoured pitch. For decades one of its founders Swami
Chinamayananda travelled the globe, building up VHP among
migrants, often upper-caste and affluent Hindus. In 1993 he declared
in America that it had indeed become a ‘mighty force. It is all over the
world (p. 102).90 Realizing that the condition was suitable, L.K. Advani,
then BJP president, commissioned one such enthusiastic recruit of the
VHP, to create an organization to counter the negative press BJP was
getting for its ‘Ram Janmabhoomi’ campaign in April 1992. This
organization was called Overseas Friends of BJP, their job was later
expanded to campaign for elections in India. This began with training
camps in 2011, tours by BJP and RSS members in 2012 and video
conferences. They recruited volunteers in America, were manning phone
banks that made calls canvassing for support and also sent volunteers
to India for campaigns in 2014 and 2019.91 They had 18 chapters in
13 states and 4000 members.
By 2003, the VHP had branches in 80 countries but most impor-
tantly in UK and USA, where it had a large following among NRIs
and close links with Hindu temples. It acted as an umbrella organization
for other Hindu organizations like the Swaminarayan Mission, Pushti
Margis, the Arya Samaj and the Council of Hindu Temples. The VHP
is one of the most active and largest among such organizations.
According to Katju there are four main issues that VHP tried to address
from the beginning, the media image of the community, the perception
of Hindus in academia, lack of confidence among Hindus as a religious
community and the issue of conversion to Islam and Christianity.92
They tried to inculcate and bolster the Hindu identity through
various religious festival activities, religious marches, sports, discussions
on community issues and collective public interventions. Thus, it goes
beyond the usual community links that originate around rituals
associated with temples, birth, death and marriage to build an active
identity by more frequent association. For example, the VHP presence
in UK is as old as 1972 and by 1989 it coordinated and organized a
 Far Right at the Centre 345

massive gathering of all big Hindu organizations in that country. The

programme had an attendance of 55,000 (70,000 as per VHP). Around
that time the VHP had 14 branches and 2000 members there. The
highest representation was of Guajaratis who migrated to UK from
Africa. They also intervened in the formation of syllabus to teach
Hinduism in UK schools, conducted Gujarati and Hindi language
classes and imparted instructions on culture and religion.
In America, the VHP (started in 1970) had branches in 40 states
by 2003. In Swami Chinamayananda, it found an active missionary to
solidify Hinduism and attract the youth. The high point of its func-
tioning was celebrations to mark the occasion of the centenary of
Vivekananda’s address to the Parliament of Religions in Chicago held
in 1993 in Washington DC. Another gathering of 3,000 people cele-
brated the event ‘Global Vision 2000’. VHP leaders arrived and hailed
the demolition of the Babri Masjid, as an event to be inscribed in the
letters of gold. It was widely publicized.
In the 1990s, VHP became a distinct vehicle to garner political
and monetary support from the NRIs. It drew the attention of keen
American scholars effectively using marketing and publicity, the Hindu
spiritual leaders were playing influential roles in India as businessmen
and government officials. This led them on to explore the complex
interrelations in the political economy of India, global capitalism and
Hindu religion.93
Meanwhile all decisions came from VHP leadership in India as
per a decision taken in 1984. Elaborate training camps using various
mediums of instruction and communication from photographs to
videos, were organized in India for Indians abroad to attend and acquire
a political orientation. Conservative NRIs remained connected to the
RSS through its extended arm. In 2002, VHP held the first Hindu
temple conference to promote coordination among 800 odd Hindu
temples in USA and eight years later organized the first conference of
Hindu priests. Pravasi Bharatiya Divas was an initiative started in 2003
to link Indians abroad to India, an annual event and now supported
by the country’s apex business organizations; FICCI and Confederation
of Indian Industry (CII).
NRI based activity acquired so much traction that in 2005 (soon
after it came back to power replacing a BJP led government at the
346 Tipping Point

centre) the Congress government enacted the Overseas Citizens of

India (OCI) category legislation, which provided NRIs multiple entry
and life time visas, granting a range of privileges similar to those of
Indian citizens by calling them OCI.
The third World Hindu Conference was held in February 2007
again at Prayag. 1980s was an important period for the rise of BJP, a
reincarnation of BJS, the decade was marked by communal riots, the
most favoured tool for consolidating the Hindu vote bank. As a fall
out of the strident campaign launched by the VHP, demolition of Babri
Masjid had taken place in 1992. The event was followed by widespread
communal riots, collapse of the Congress hegemony, and the formation
of the first coalition government which proved to be unstable; but the
BJP was its largest party. By 1999, a BJP lead government was firmly
in place and ruled a full term till 2004 and in the next election lost to
a Congress led coalition with and outside support of the left party. The
BJP was the largest opposition party and the thus the third world
Hindu conference was organized in the background of a significantly
more consolidated political base compared to the first and second one.
It had two lakh participants.
These world conferences and numerous state and district level
ones were platforms for the training of the RSS cadre in organization,
conducting of large events besides being focused on political consoli-
dation. The unwavering purpose according to the VHP was,‘to device
ways and means to achieve a powerful Hindu organization to surmount
the challenges faced by the Hindu Society’. In these tasks worldly and
other worldly saints were joined. Resolutions were passed regarding
Ram temple to be built by Ramjanam Bhoomi Trust and Shri
Ramanand Sampradaya, no mosque would be built within the boundary
of Ayodhya, no mosque in the name of Babur would be built in India.
Bharat was a Hindu Rashtra and it was important to build a powerful
Hindu vote bank and build an ‘Akhand Bharat’, removal of untouch-
ability since all were children of one Bharat Mata, Hindutva was the
basis of Hindu Rashtra, the follow up activity was to bathe Lord Shiva
with the holy Ganges water in many villages and take an oath to
establish Hindu Rashtra. They distributed 42,000 idols of Shiva, on
Hindu new year’s day, 19 March 2007 and appealed that all Hindu
 Far Right at the Centre 347

homes should fly a saffron flag, celebrate Ramnavami and participate

in Hindu Ekat Yatra in November-December. There were references
to ‘Islamic Jihad’ and need for Hindu youth to protect Hindu society
against that. In keeping with the line and guidance of the parent RSS,
Ramnavami celebrations consisting of processions of young men car-
rying traditional weapons through Muslim habitations had acquired
a new vigour at the local level and became the basis of creating
confrontations.
On 28 September 2014, when 20,000 people of Indian origin
gathered in the same Madison Square Garden to cheer for Narendra
Modi on his first official trip to USA after becoming Prime Minister,
it was the result of years of work by the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh
(HSS, the American counterpart of RSS) and VHP. It was in Madison
Square that the VHP had announced its intention to propagate
Hindutva aggressively as a spiritually based universal ideology in 1984.
This event for Narendra Modi was arranged by HSS.
The Prime Minister addressed dozens of similar rallies, visited
several Hindu religious places in several countries, a fact that led to
frequent absences from the Indian Parliament and numerous adverse
comments. No earlier Indian PM had shown such a passion for overseas
temples or Indians. Perhaps he was compensating for the earlier ban
on his travel to USA, imposed by USA after communal violence in
Gujarat in 2002. He urged Hindus everywhere to come together, help
the community and help India’s development effort. The details of the
intended development were not spelled out.
Modi had learned the value of overseas Indians, their nostalgia
and long distance nationalism. After three terms as Chief Minister in
Gujarat, for 2014 elections, the BJP had named him their Prime
Ministerial candidate; HSS with its presence in 36 countries and
considerable strength in USA, UK and Australia, supported his
campaign very energetically and became more politically active leading
up to his Prime Ministerial bid.
RSS inspired groups are today strongest in America, UK and
Australia outside of Nepal. In 2015, the first meeting of OCI was
attended by 4,000 delegates and a grand exhibition spread over one
million square feet was organized. PM Modi was seeking a flood of
348 Tipping Point

NRI investments which did not materialize despite the pull of the
motherland.
To mark the 125th anniversary of Swami Vivekananda’s address to
the World Parliament of Religions, a Hindu Congress was organized
by the Sangh Parivar and its affiliates in Chicago in 2018. Its website
claimed that it was attended by 2,500 delegates from 60 countries and
addressed by 220 speakers, However, there were reports of protests
outside the venue of the Congress. Mohan Bhagwat the RSS chief
addressed it and spoke of the threat to the lonely Hindu. Reports in
the Indian press about its speakers and their message were far from
fresh or inspiring. Vivekananda was just a peg for hanging old RSS
concerns, the only new concern, midst the longstanding ones about
dwindling and threatened Hindu population, the need to be wary of
‘fake news’ and the need to look at news with a Hindu perspective.94
Hosting large events, on an international scale, managing them,
public relations and media projection is a skill that the RSS has fostered
in its cadre and the more ambitious among them had grasped it as a
most useful tool. This is the cadre base on which RSS has achieved
remarkable organizational innovations. The ideas projected from their
organizations, however, remain monotonous.

Globalization, Foreign Funds, Technology

and Non-Government Organizations
Katju said VHP built two main centres within, the board of trustees
and governing council. The Board of trustee has a maximum strength
of 101 members, 71 from India, and 30 from abroad. It is an advisory
body that attends to VHPs programmes and helps the organization;
trustees are appointed for lifetime and most of them are not members
of the RSS. VHP has a president and three general secretaries in India
and three overseas. At the Indian level secretaries and joint secretaries
are members of the governing council. Its organizational set up includes
departments such as publications, accounts, external affairs, Sanskrit
promotion, celebration of festivals, temple protection and the religious
leaders division, each looked after by a joint secretary. It has also
spawned other organizations/fronts like Bajrang Dal for the youth,
Durga Vahini for women and for tribal welfare. There seem to be no
 Far Right at the Centre 349

shortage of support and funding. VHP penetration into western,

particularly American Indian diaspora through its temples-priest, and
cultural networks had been successful.
India’s per capita government expenditure in the social sector has
been inadequate, but, in 1990s it began shrinking at the margins. The
effects were visible in areas related to health and education. Privatization
or NGO-ization of development and welfare has been the norm in
neo-liberal times. This created more space for NGOs of all kinds. Their
presence and sway in the poor quarters of large cities, in remote rural,
Adivasi regions increased quickly. The RSS was not slow to use the
space. Given the sociology of poverty in India, this implied that its
reach and influence among the lower-castes has risen briskly as a result.
In 2002, media reported that IDRF, a US-based charity had
misused American corporate philanthropy to fund RSS-affiliated
organizations here for at least 13 years.95 For example, the IDRF
obtained large sums from CISCO, a leading technology company in
the US (with a substantial number of NRIs on its rolls) by saying its
activities were ‘secular’ since company rules prescribed donations to
organizations of a ‘religious’ nature. The Campaign to Stop Funding
Hate (TCTSFH) was a coalition of professionals, students, workers,
artists and intellectuals who made this report. In the first phase of its
campaign ‘Project Saffron Dollar’, Biju Mathew, a spokesman for the
TCTSFH had said, the TCTSFH had plans to write to large American
corporates to guard against funding the IDRF.96
The campaign report explained the dynamics of IDRF’s corporate
funding as follows – over the last decades, as professional Indian
migration to the US boomed, particularly in the software sector, Sangh
operatives in large hi-tech firms worked to put IDRF on the list of
grantees of corporate philanthropy. They then promoted IDRF as the
best and very reliable agency for funding development and relief work
in India, resulting in other unsuspecting employees, as well as the
corporations donating to fund the Sangh in India.
The TCTSFH report said that though the IDRF claimed to be a
non-sectarian, non-political charity that funded development and relief
work in India, it filed a tax document (at its inception in 1989) with
the Internal Revenue Service of the US, identifying nine organizations
as a representative sample of organizations it would support. According
350 Tipping Point

to the report, the IDRF applied for tax exemption certificates to the
Internal Revenue Service of the US. The Form 1023 filed by the IDRF
in 1989 identified organizations like Vikas Bharati (Bihar), Swami
Vivekananda Rural Development Society (Tamil Nadu), Sewa Bharti
(Delhi), Jana Seva Vidya Kendra (Karnataka), Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram
(Madhya Pradesh), Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram (Gujarat), Vanvasi Kalyan
Ashram (Nagar Haveli), Girivasi Vanvasi Sewa Prakalp (Uttar Pradesh)
and G. Deshpande Vanvasi Vastigrah (Maharashtra), that the IDRF
sought to support in India. All nine were Sangh organizations.
The report also says that 82 per cent of IDRF’s funds went to
Sangh organizations. 70 per cent of the money are used for ‘hinduiza-
tion/tribal/education’ work, largely with the view to spread the
Hindutva ideology among tribal people. Less than 20 per cent was
used in ‘development and relief ’ activities, but the report concluded
that since there was a sectarian slant to how the relief money was
disbursed, these were sectarian funds, too. Disbursement of about $4
million took place between 1994 and 2000 to dozens of Sangh orga-
nizations by the IDRF. These were used mostly for persecuting Muslims
and Christians. In 2000 alone, using US government tax exemption
status for charities, it collected $1.7 million (The Milli Gazette also
reported this).
Whenever collecting money, the IDRF professed that it was doing
so to `fund relief and development work’. For example, the IDRF
website claimed that it was a charity organization that has helped the
victims of the Gujarat earthquake of 2001. However, the fact remains
that it used the funds to help only Hindu victims.
The pro-Hindu stand of the IDRF was not new. In the past, it
collected funds for Bangladeshi Hindus, Kashmiri Hindus and for
those whose family members had died in the attack on the World Trade
Centre in New York. In all three cases, the people allegedly responsible
for perpetrating the disasters belonged to the Muslim community. In
contrast, the IDRF had not announced any relief for victims of the
communal violence in Gujarat. In fact, it contributed to the violence
by channeling its funds to the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram (VKA) and the
Vivekananda Kendra, which had been working to communalize tribal
people and create an anti-Muslim ethos. (The Campaign to Stop
Funding Hate’s report noted that a ‘surprise element’ in the anti-mi-
 Far Right at the Centre 351

nority violence in Gujarat was the ‘active participation’ of tribal people

in it.) A similar role was played by the IDRF in supporting organiza-
tions like the Sewa Bharati and the VKA, which were accused of using
violence against Christians in Madhya Pradesh in 1998. It also sup-
ported projects like Ekal Vidyalayas (One Teacher Schools), a VHP-run
project aimed at the indoctrination of students in remote tribal villages.
Links between the IDRF and the RSS go beyond financial support.
Several office-bearers of the IDRF were associated with Sangh Parivar
organizations in India. The founder members of the IDRF include
Bhishma Agnihotri, an RSS ideologue and a leader of the HSS, the
equivalent of the RSS in the US and the United Kingdom. He was
last in the news when his candidature for the position of the point man
for NRIs was opposed by the New York-based Indian National
Overseas Congress, an organization which represents the Indian
community in the US. Agnihotri had said that he was proud of his
association with the Sangh Parivar.
The report of the TCTSFH had placed the spotlight on the larger
question of growth of Hindutva outside India. In the US, the Sangh
Parivar and its affiliates had grown over the years, entrenching them-
selves in the west coast, the north east and the southern States of
Florida and Texas – pockets of concentration of Indian professionals.
Besides disseminating its ideology, the Sangh Parivar concentrated on
collecting funds from the NRI community. They also planned system-
atic infiltration of US universities and to focus on second-generation
Indian American communities, for bringing them under Hindutva
influence. The meetings of the Sangh Parivar organizations, National
Students Forum in the UK and the Hindu Students’ Council (HSC)
in the US have grown from innocuous get-togethers to meeting places
for right wingers. The HSC, which has branches in more than 50
universities in the US, was launched in 1988, when its first chapter
was set up in the University of Maryland. In this context, it is not
surprising that voices against the propagation of the Hindutva ideology
have also come from the universities in US. Members of the ‘Saffron
Dollar’ project emphasized that the presence of a vociferous group was
imperative to stem the RSS growth outside India.
Other organizations and groups too have criticized the activities
of the Sangh Parivar outside India. For instance, the Indo-US
352 Tipping Point

Entrepreneurs, an organization of business people from south Asia,

has asked the US corporate world to be careful when contributing to
charity organizations. When the president of the organization, Kanwal
Rekhi, wrote an article in The Wall Street Journal about the money
being sent to anti-minority organizations, he had to face criticism from
right wing groups.
Biju Mathew said, ‘What we have investigated is the day-to-day
working of the RSS in the US. This will help change the perspective
that it exists as an empty shell.’
RSS spokesperson Ram Madhav, when contacted about the IRDF
case had said, ‘There is no specific organization which collects funds
for the RSS. However, certain projects run by RSS-affiliated organi-
zations do get money from NRIs for specific projects such as the Ekal
Vidyalaya scheme (one-teacher schools run in tribal areas). This
organization (that you have mentioned) may have given some money,
too. I have not heard much about it.’ Nor had the government of India
it appears, since no national outcry, inquiry or public debate seems to
have followed.
Professionals in software sector, a particularly wealthy sub-set of
immigrants, are the most active fund-raisers of the IDRF. This is a
section which has often received a ‘technical job-oriented education’
popular in India and were riding on the IT job boom of 1990-2008.
They often have no education in humanities and social sciences. The
only culture they have directly experienced is associated with their
caste, region, and religion in India. In the virtual world that they occupy,
they are most susceptible to fantastic, manufactured histories partic-
ularly those that glorify a golden past and promote its renaissance albeit
using modern technologies and political parties. To that disposition
add the self-assurance of their new-found class power. In September
2014, as the Prime Minister addressed 20,000 NRIs many wearing
T-shirts with his picture on it while he himself was dressed in saffron,
a colour now associated with his far right ideology. A cheering, adoring
Madison Park gathering was chanting his name. In his rather simple,
hour-long speech he referred to the exceptional prowess of India in
information technology and the special contribution of NRIs in this.
Not surprising, given the close similarity and continuous connec-
tions with their counterparts in the west and vice-versa, IT sector
 Far Right at the Centre 353

employees in India have been active supporters of Hindutva. As IT

sector jobs at the middle and lower skill end have also become precar-
ious, these digital workers and their start ups are now available for
relatively cheap hiring by all political parties. But since the BJP, with
the RSS organization and planning backup, was a frontrunner in the
virtual spcace, this enabled it to flood the internet with their versions
of past and present concerns. They were able to circumvent the main-
stream media early in their rise, they were also the first to ride the social
media wave in India and have maintained a lead.
In 2006, an American lobby that doubles as a public relations
company, called ‘Apco Worldwide’ came to set up office in India. It is
described as a very muscular business lobby group in Washington DC.
In 2009 it was contracted to selling a business meet in Gujarat marketed
as ‘Vibrant Gujarat’. Up to that point this had been a small meeting,
thereafter it was projected as the Indian Davos and soon Apco was
de-facto public relations manager and marketing Modi himself. Having
worked for American Presidents earlier, they had the connections and
experience.‘Enter Apco and in 2009 and 2011, the promises of invest-
ment grew to $253 billion and $450 billion. The 2013 edition – from
11-13 January – is billed as the biggest yet. The United States-India
Business Council (USIBC), along with counterparts from the UK and
Australia, are sponsoring the event’.97
Soon electioneering strategy also changed armed with professional
PR firms, technology, and manpower. Immense increase in TV
viewership, internet users, smartphones and the expansion of 4G to
rural villages has amplified the number of connected viewers, and the
potential reach of messages including fake news and propaganda to
users in India. According to experts, the 2014 general elections marked
a shift in electioneering strategy, with the use of data and digital
platforms becoming significant. The role of powerful PR firms became
dominant and even more effective. While initially the campaign was
compared to the Barak Obama campaign, Prime Minister Modi is now
the subject of case studies in ‘digital media and the rise of right wing
populism’ along with the American President Donald Trump,98 not to
mention the close, in fact, even ardent relationship that emerged
between India and America thereafter.99
According to a Time report about the 2014 Indian general election
354 Tipping Point

‘The nation’s politicians are expected to spend around $5 billion on

their campaigns, which, in terms of expense, makes these polls second
only to the U.S. presidential elections (actually they hit the $7 billion
mark)’. 100 The entire advertising expenditure went up three-
and-a-half times compared to the previous general elections. A bulk
of that expenditure was by BJP. The Congress party had not spent on
digital advertising before 2014. The benefits of a powerful PR system
won great benefits as BJP formed the first majority government in 30
years in 2014. The lesson was well learned, and Modi’s government
spent an unprecedented Rs 5,726 crores between May 2014 and March
2019 on publicity.
The 2019 election that followed, relied even more heavily on social
media than that in 2014, with video content playing an even more
prominent part.101 A veritable war of misinformation broke out among
the cyber armies of political parties as they raced to catch up with the
strategy of the BJP for the 2019 general election.102 The cogs in the
wheel of course were the PR specialists and digital workers, manufac-
turing and supporting false information. Only some of them could
have believed it themselves. The rest were likely mercenaries.
However, since regular internet users are at best one-third of the
population, infrastructure, availability, cost and time being deterrents,
no serious bid for the imagination of the Indian voter can be made in
the virtual world alone. Real, ground level action must be the mainstay.
The action has to be calculated, controlled but it can also be quite
drastic, vandalism, assassinations, mob lynching or riots that automat-
ically get covered by the main media and word of mouth and, therefore,
have a multiplier effect.
Groundwork in the 1980s included grinding down Congress
dominance, episodes of communal tensions in the south and then across
India and floating Hindu identity with Ram.

Hectic Groundwork in the 1980s

After the collapse of post-emergency Janata Party at the centre, elections
were announced. The Congress underwent a revival in 1979. Given
the cult of individual leadership, Indira Gandhi had been target of
attacks from the ruling Janata party and from within the Congress.
 Far Right at the Centre 355

Several commissions and courts had been set up to inquire into the
emergency specially the Shah Commission. Senior leaders like Y.B.
Chavan and Devraj Urs thought of her as a spent force and a liability.
Indira Gandhi split the Party once more in 1978 into Congress (I) and
the other became Congress (U). After the split Congress (I) fortunes
lifted on the basis of revived support from the urban and rural poor
and a popular perception that the Janata party had spent too much
time on persecuting Indira Gandhi, rather than governance. And so,
while no one could deny the need for a strong opposition in a democracy,
the quality of that opposition in India, their programme had been
dubious and they had been quite disappointing while in power, to say
the least.
General elections were held in January 1980. Cutting across
regions, caste and religion, people voted Congress (I) back to power;
to get a two-third majority with 353 out of 529 parliamentary seats.
After the election old Janata party split again and Jan Sangh leaders
formed BJP.
‘After having been out of office for 34 months, Indira Gandhi was
once again the Prime Minister and Congress was restored to its old
position as the dominant party . . . Indira Gandhi was no longer the
same person she had been from 1969 to 1977. She no longer had firm
grasp over politics and administration. Despite enjoying unchallenged
power, she dithered in taking significant new policy initiatives or dealing
with number of disturbing problems. She did, however, still manage
some success in the fields of economics and foreign policy but, generally,
there was a lack of direction and a sense of drift, which led to a feeling
among the people that not much was being achieved. The emergency
and Janata years had left their mark on her. She was suspicious of
people around her and trusted none but her son Sanjay’ (p. 337).103
The fact that she was a changed person was repeated by others, and
Jayakar, her biographer said, ‘She was once again Prime Minister of
India, but her years in wilderness had left deep scars that were to inhibit
her actions. A suspicion of people, a sense of betrayal and a lack of
trust were to journey with her for the rest of her life’ (p. 394).104
On 7 October 1979, JP died in Bombay where he had been ill for
months, a man largely forgotten by the Janata party for the two-and-
a-half years when it had been in power. Indira Gandhi flew to Patna
356 Tipping Point

to attend his funeral despite the havoc he had wrecked on her and the
nation.
In a letter to Fori Nehru, after his passing, Indira Gandhi had this
to say about the man who went about creating a storm against her,
‘Poor old JP! What a confused mind he had, leading to such a frustrated
life; he was a sufferer of what I can only call Gandhian hypocrisy. Not
that Bapu was hypocritical, but he did not prevent its breeding all
around him, by forcing people to take vows which they could not
possibly fulfil, and standards which they had no intention living up to.
While claiming to be a devoted Hindu, his negation of the wholeness
and totality of life as envisaged by our seers was more akin to Christian
view of original sin’ (p. 391).105
Her colleagues of the past had deserted her during her days out
of power, while unaddressed organizational weaknesses and factional-
ism of the Congress accumulated. This affected the performance of
the government in multiple ways. The growth of regional parties was
a significant feature of this period. For the first time since Independence
Congress lost Karnataka and Andhra. Kashmir, Assam and Punjab
were states in local turmoil. This period also witnessed a surge of
communal, caste and linguistic conflicts. None of these could be dealt
with firmly and were to weigh the country down for years.
‘Communalism grew stronger because of the momentum it gained
during 1977-9. Its overt manifestation was communal riots, which
spanned all the years 1980 to 84 and beyond and which began to engulf
even south India’ (p. 338).106
Indira Gandhi however remained sure footed about international
relations, the salience of the non-aligned movement and the relationship
of India with other developing nations and Soviet Union.
She was assassinated in October 1984 by her Sikh bodyguard and
her son Rajiv Gandhi succeeded her. He was relatively inexperienced,
took on the heavy mantle but the decay within the organizational
structure, ambitions, and machinations of his senior colleagues in the
Congress proved too heavy a burden. Nevertheless, he started on a
positive note of preparing India for the twenty-first century with various
technologies and modernizing missions. On the other hand, he kept
up and increased the anti-poverty programmes of Indira Gandhi’s time
with considerations about better delivery. However, despite the many
 Far Right at the Centre 357

economic and technological achievements, by the end of the decade,

power brokers and estranged leaders within the Congress had sabotaged
his leadership. V.P. Singh a powerful, ambitious and later estranged
Congress minister (finance and later defence) launched a vicious
anti-corruption campaign having hired foreign investigators (Fairfax,
mentioned before) without even consulting the PM. Later he was
expelled from the Congress. He engineered an anti-Rajiv political bloc
called Jan Morcha in October 1987. With the RSS stirring the com-
munal pot on one side and the anti-Congress bloc maneuvering on the
other, Rajiv Gandhi stumbled and made a series of mistakes.
Supreme Court granted maintenance to a Muslim woman (Shah
Bano) divorced by her husband. It became very controversial when it
was opposed by orthodox Muslims on the ground it interfered with
Muslim personal law. A young secular Muslim leader of the Congress
Arif Mohammad Khan and Rajiv Gandhi put up a brilliant defence of
the judgement in the Parliament. A strong orthodox Muslim agitation
was organized. On advice of close advisors, Rajiv Gandhi, agreed to
introduce a Bill to negate the judgement. Now, by Hindus, he was seen
to be appeasing Muslims. Hence, he was caught between the two
orthodox, communal wings that continued to nourish each other. Arif
Mohammad Khan resigned.
Several parties joined to form a National Front for 1989 elections.
The far right BJP won 86 seats from earlier two. This election perfor-
mance was a result of their growing strength, extensive coordination
and seat adjustments with other opposition forces. Both V.P. Singh
and the left had indulged in make believe that the BJP, as in 1977,
would not be able to gain much. BJP had estimated that displacing the
Congress was a necessary step on its road to power. The left too had
seriously miscalculated the strength and capabilities of the BJP. Perhaps
the activities of RSS affiliates were not collectively examined to com-
prehend the larger picture. Exigencies of electoral politics made strange
bed fellows repeatedly.
After that rather momentous election of 1989, Congress was much
diminished but still the largest party with 197 seats. Both the left and
far right of erstwhile national front, supported the Janata Dal from
outside. Chandra said, ‘The association with Left and secular forces
gave it [BJP] the credibility it lacked by removing the stigma of
358 Tipping Point

communalism that ensured it remained on the fringes of Indian politics’

(p. 363). The government formed at the centre lacked a clear leader
and stability. Differences caused by clashing egos of aspiring prime
ministers as in the previous government of the Janata party persisted.
As it played out, once again, the only group that had long term clarity
of vision and perseverance was the far right!
V.P. Singh was deeply rattled by infighting and egos within the
senior leadership of the National Front. Amid infighting on 7 August
1990, V.P. Singh declared in the Parliament that the report of the
Mandal Commission appointed by the earlier Janata government
(ignored by Indira Gandhi) would be implemented. This implied
reservation of 27 per cent of jobs in government services and public
undertaking to be reserved for candidates belonging to backward classes,
thus, bringing the total in reserved category of positions to 49.5 per
cent; already 22.5 per cent had been reserved for schedule castes and
tribes. The recommendations included as a second stage reservation
in educational institutions and promotions as well; this caused wide-
spread anger and resentment, eventually leading to violent student
protests; and upper-caste students associations were formed for the
first time since Independence. It marked caste against caste in the name
of social justice. Anti-Mandal protests raged across the country espe-
cially north India.
Witnessing the strong upper-caste emotions against Mandal
Commission report, the BJP had started threatening to withdraw
support to the government. On 25 September 1990, L.K. Advani of
BJP set off on a 6,000 mile long Rath Yatra from Somnath in Gujarat
to Ayodhya to lay the foundation stone for Ram Mandir. This ended
on 23 October at Samastipur in Bihar with his arrest and withdrawal
of BJP support to the government in the centre. On 10 October there
was firing on crowds trying to reach the spot in Ayodhya chosen for
the laying of the foundation stone for the Ram Temple. Thus the Rath
Yatra, Advani’s arrest and firing in Ayodhya aroused communal passions
and the ensuing riots led to many deaths in north India. On 5
November, Janata Dal split and 58 legislators elected Chandra Shekhar
as the leader.
Between the implementation of the Mandal Commission by V.P.
Singh and Advani’s Rath Yatra, India’s political fortunes spun and took
 Far Right at the Centre 359

a sharp turn to the right. The political organizations of the Left could
not create a mass movement to counter the far right, or even provide
an effective political tactic to keep them out of power. On the contrary,
they made electoral adjustments with them as late as 1989. It is dis-
turbing that the left did not examine the far right seriously even at this
juncture. Eventually the left found it was severely constrained by the
social and cultural acceptability and political effectiveness of the far
right.
More than one force seemed to push the organized left to the wall,
neo-liberalism itself, escalating role of money and criminals in politics,
not to mention social divisions and cultural backwardness of the toiling
masses they wanted to represent, a backwardness that did not recede
with the decline in income and consumption based absolute poverty
through the 1990s. Some sobering cultural indicators of the neo-liberal
times were; the rush around temples, gurus and religious festivals; no
significant decline in marriages based on caste and religion; an extrav-
agant rise in expenditure on marriage, on birthdays, conspicuous
consumption and entertainment; rising crime against women and the
female child, educational deprivation; rising communal episodes and
all manners of social polarization. The high mark was reached in the
2002 Gujarat riots in a state singled out for high growth and business
friendliness as social regression was deepening midst display of
wealth and severe income inequality. Twenty-five years into neo-liberal
reforms, social implosion and political shift looked like a distinct
possibility.
The far right did not just wait around for the right opportunity
they were working hard on the ground.

Stirring the Communal Pot through the 1980s till it

Overflowed in the 1990s and a Tedious Trick is Reused
‘ The images of the mass hysteria that accompanied the wanton
destruction of that obscure little mosque in Ayodhya were flashed, over
and again, in the mass media . . . a fascist spectacle in the classic sense’
(p. 1).107 That was 6 December 1992.
Congress leaders had agreed to the Partition of the country in the
hope that endemic communal violence would come to an end. In
360 Tipping Point

Vallabhbhai Patel’s word it was akin to ‘cutting off the diseased limb’.
But the disease was deep within.
In the first decade-and-a-half after the Partition, communal dis-
turbances were not frequent, but they resumed in 1962. Amid the
agitations organized against Indira Gandhi’s government particularly
in the year 1975, there were 238 episodes of communal riots. By the
1980s, the annual deaths from riots had reached four figures and in
the 1993 riots the toll was more than 3,000. Scholars mark the latter
part of the 1980s out, for a very sudden increase. A new more aggressive,
glitzy, overtly Hindu campaigning style emerged under L.K. Advani.
Gujarat till then was not as notorious for communal riots as was Uttar
Pradesh and Bihar. Till the late 1980s, in fact, there were few such
episodes in the state. Communal aggressions increased first in south
India and then across the country, these are listed by various observers
and scholars.108 What got the attention of the national media was the
conversion of hundreds of Harijans of Meenakshipuram (Tamil Nadu)
in February 1981. This was followed by other conversions of Hindus
in Tamil Nadu. This seemed to be occurring among the economically
and politically upward mobile Harijans. The RSS projected it as the
result of foreign financed and Marxist supported conversion activity
aimed at disruption of Hindu society. Conversions were projected as
divisive and separatist. The Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Parishad (RSS
central assembly) urged the central government to intervene. They set
up an association of Hindu groups to build up the morale, unity and
steer the state-wide movement of protest by Hindus. Conferences,
demonstrations, processions in Nagercoil and similarly in Karnataka,
Kerala and Andhra Pradesh were organized. One of the main themes
in these was the need to establish a Hindu Raj in India.
In Kanyakumari there were clashes between the RSS and Roman
Catholics. In Kerala, in 1983, Nilackal was the centre of similar tensions
between Catholics and Hindus. As in Tamil Nadu, the RSS took a
leading role in organizing the Hindu fronts. They also began putting
out data on demographic shifts that were reducing the Hindu popu-
lation in favour of minorities in Kerala. The Hyderabad city also became
a centre of repeated and increasingly severe communal riots from 1978
to 1984, following the introduction of Hindu Ganesh immersion
festival. These culminated in two massive communal riots in September
 Far Right at the Centre 361

1983 and July 1984. Both Hindu and Muslim communal organizations
fed off each other and had a hand in causing riots or tension during
religious festivals and leading up to elections. Offensive episodes
involving desecration of local deities were another commonly used
method to instigating clashes. Hindu-Muslim riots also flared up in
Karnataka in May 1983, over a case of a Muslim boy allegedly molesting
a Hindu girl. According to reports, the RSS organized a meeting to
avenge the episode and hundreds of youths went on a rioting rampage
looting Muslim property. The RSS resumed a strident narrative that
the Hindu majority was treated shabbily and minorities could flourish
at their expense in states like Kerala and Tamil Nadu. These charges
were repeated in the media and penetrated the tribal and rural areas
through RSS organs.
According to Spitz, the far right movements spread to the north
almost simultaneously, the first was month long Ekatmata Yatra Yajana
chariot procession, a religious sacrifice for national unity during
November-December 1983. It was organized by the VHP with RSS
cadre. It consisted of three main Yatras, two crossed India from north
to south, the third from east to west along pilgrimage routes. One
began from the Pashupatinath temple in Nepal to the Rameshwaram
temple in Tamil Nadu. Another journeyed from Ganga Sagar in West
Bengal to the Somnath temple in Gujarat. A third, started from
Haridwar in the north via Delhi and went on to Kanyakumari in the
south. They met at Nagpur and were felicitated by the RSS chief
Deoras. On their route they were joined by subsidiary processions,
estimated at 2,000 in all. The central objects of attraction were two
motorised chariots, one carried a portrait of Bharat Mata (Mother
India), the other bore two huge bronze urns, one filled with water from
the holy Ganges, the other collecting water from all sacred rivers, lakes,
tanks and wells of India in its path. Each Yatra travelled about 60 miles
a day with stops every 15 miles for programmes in which people from
surrounding towns and villages brought sacred water from their
localities and in return took the Ganges water for the local temple gods.
Religious symbolism underscored the nature of the motherland as a
holy land. According to the VHP literature, it involved an estimated
60 to 100 million participants from all over the country. The altar for
this ‘pilgrimage of sacrifice’ was set in a temple in the same year by a
362 Tipping Point

guru (associated with the VHP). Consecrated in 1983, this temple

touched all the nodal images of Hindu nationalism; it was eight storeys
tall, towering over the city of Haridwar, dedicated to floor wise,109
1. The map of India on a raised platform and an idol of Bharat Mata
(Mother India) portrayed as a four armed Hindu Goddess wearing
saffron colored robes, holding a book, sheaves of rice, a mala, and
a white cloth. Abanindranath Tagore (nephew of Rabindranath
Tagore and a proponent of swadeshi had sculpted it. The image
of Bharat Mata had been an icon to create nationalist feeling among
Indians during the freedom struggle).
2. Dedicated to heroes, mostly activists in the Indian Independence
movement (such as Bhagat Singh), but including some earlier
Hindu heroes (for example, Shivaji).
3. Matri (Mother) – women from Hindu mythology and recent
history.
4. Saints – Hindu, Sikh, Jain, and Buddhist religious figures though
not Muslim and Christian.
5. Assembly Hall.
6. Shakti Shrine – female goddesses.
7. Vishnu Shrine – incarnations of Lord Vishnu.
8. Shiva Shrine – incarnate forms of Shiva and of gods and goddesses
associated with him.110
The Bharat Mata Mandir was founded by Swami Satyamitranand
Giri who had been active in the VHP, having served on its Central
Margdarshak Mandal (a council of religious leaders). The scale of this
mobilization can be gauged from the fact that Indira Gandhi the PM
inaugurated it on 15 May 1983, the same PM who distrusted and was
deeply apprehensive of the RSS; such was the tightening grip of their
‘cultural agenda’.
Six months later the VHP commenced the Ekatmata Yatra Yajana
chariot procession across the country.
The sheer scale of cultural swing in the country can be estimated
from the fact that the original Bharat Mata temple was built in Varanasi
in 1936. Built by nationalists, it was dedicated to the motherland and
displayed no other images associated with any religion. Instead it was
dedicated to secular nationalism. It was inaugurated by the father of
 Far Right at the Centre 363

the nation, Mahatma Gandhi. There were two Bharat Mata temples
then, one in a university, the Mahatma Gandhi Kashi University,
inaugurated by Mahatma Gandhi in 1936 and another the antithesis,
in Haridwar, 47 years later, awash in the Hindu pantheon, covered
with Hindutva totems, and built by the VHP.
Ekatmata Yatra had two key events, one in Nagpur where the
yatras crossed one another in Delhi at India Gate. 150 press conferences
were held and during the first day, the radio and TV made 14 announce-
ments. The affair was covered extensively in the media and reportedly
collected Rs 30 million rupees for VHP missionary work. Participation
and events were reported in VHP literature along with statements that
attributed the success of the event to full cooperation of the government
and bureaucracy.111 This display had two objectives, firstly, a massive
demonstration of all India Hindu solidarity, with the message that this
and Bharatiya culture are the key to India’s national integration, sec-
ondly, to raise funds throughout India for VHP sponsored missionary
work among Harijans and tribal people to keep these weaker sections
within the Hindu fold.
Another episode that provided grist for the RSS mills, was the
Shah Bano case, mentioned earlier, in which the Supreme Court in
1985 granted alimony to an elderly Muslim lady in contradiction to
the Sharia law. This, the orthodox Muslims felt was an infringement
of their constitutional right to freedom of religion which, in their view,
was the right to observe their personal law. The directive principle of
the constitution commits country to a common Civil Law Code. The
Hindu Code Bill had been passed in the 1950s. In 1986, when the
Congress government yielded to orthodox Muslim pressure and passed
a Bill nullifying the Supreme Court decision, it was projected by the
RSS as an act of appeasement of the minority in the face of Muslim
bullying, and somehow they attached to it the fear that Muslims were
bound to outbreed Hindus and reduce them to a minority status.
The biggest episode however was the revival of the long standing
Ram Janam Bhoomi – Babri Masjid over the control of mosque in the
Hindu pilgrim centre of Ayodhya. The VHP had reiterated it at their
World Congress. The mosque was constructed in 1528 by Mir Baqi,
a noble in Babur court. It was the RSS position that it was built over
a razed Hindu temple which many Hindus believe to be the site of
364 Tipping Point

Lord Ram’s birth. This supposedly was the basis of a long standing
dispute. At some point some portion of the outer compound of the
mosque was occupied by Hindu structures of worship. The presence
of these was marked by court documents relating to a suit filed by one
Mahant Raghuvir Das of Ayodhya in 1885 praying for permission to
re-erect a temple in the outer compound, the permission was rejected.112
The dispute was also the cause of communal riots in 1934. A monk
of the Gorakhpur math, by the name of Mahant Digvijay Nath (1894-
1969) who was a militant Hindu nationalist and a Hindu Mahasabha
politician, organized a week long recitation of Ramayana to strengthen
his support base in Ayodhya, in December 1949. An idol of Ram was
secretly placed in the mosque, that created a hubbub and enhanced
popular support at the site. It is said that almost a decade earlier, two
of the most capable RSS Pracharaks Nanaji Deshmukh (then in charge
of eastern Uttar Pradesh) and Murlidhar Deoras (Uttar Pradesh state
Pracharaks) had forged close relations between the RSS and Mahant
Digvijay Nath.113 Soon after this incident locks were installed at the
disputed site and Deshmukh organized nonstop bhajans, which
impressed religious leaders of Uttar Pradesh. (Digvijay Nath eventually
established himself as a political force in eastern Uttar Pradesh and
won seats to the Parliament first on the Hindu Mahasabha ticket and
later the BJP ticket. The current BJP Chief Minister, Adityanath of
Uttar Pradesh, is a successor of that legacy and belongs to the same
order). Anyway, the frenzy of 1949 led to Hindu-Muslim riots and in
response the government closed the site/mosque to both communities
who took their claims to court. Next year, in 1950, a Hindu Ram
Janambhoomi Seva committee was formed, and it obtained permission
to have limited access to the mosque once a year to worship the idol.
The committee organized regular devotional singing in front of the
mosque, this was to be continued until the ‘liberation’ of Lord Ram’s
birthplace.
In 1984 the VHP, played up its favourite theme of thousand years
of slavery of Hindus to Muslim rulers and alleged that it was the pseudo
secularism of the post-Independence regime that denied permission
to the Hindus to worship at their most sacred site in their own country.
It overtly organized a campaign to recover control of the site and replace
the mosque with a Ram temple. To broaden the onslaught, it also
 Far Right at the Centre 365

resolved to remove a mosque allegedly built on the site of Lord Krishna’s

birthplace in Mathura and on the site of the Vishwanath temple in
Varanasi. Bajrang Dal a youth front, was formed to awaken the masses.
According to anti-RSS writers it was a front to recruit lumpen elements
to intimidate the Muslim community. Beginning in October 1984, in
support of the VHP programme, increasingly intense Hindu nationalist
campaigns of Rath Yatras, mass meetings and protests demanding
justice from the government, were organized. The basic theme was
reiterated continuously and embedded in public imagination- it was
essential for Hindu self-respect to recover the space. On 25 September
1984, the first motorized Rath Yatra from Sitamarhi to Ayodhya was
stopped by the state authorities in Bihar.
In October 1984, PM Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh
bodyguard. In the midst of the crisis that followed, Hindu-Sikh riots
erupted. A section of Sikhs had been demanding a separate homeland
which they called Khalistan, the demand had led to great deal of gun
violence in the state and antagonism between Sikhs and non-Sikhs in
Punjab and the rest of the country. The large quantities of ammunition
that the separatists had, they seemed to have collected from across the
border in Pakistan.114 The association with CIA funding and activities
in Pakistan was a matter of suspicion while tension within India
continued almost right through the 1980s.115 The government in Delhi
was struggling to end the separatist movement for many years although
there was another view that the Congress had used a religious leader
by the name of Bhindranwale and his organization to weaken the
Akali-Janata Party rule over Punjab in 1979. The Akalis were the
natural allies of the oppositions parties and in the quagmire of electoral
compulsions this might have been a short-term strategy that went awry.
The magnification of that faction into a full-blown, violent separatist
movement was also attributed to a strategy by a coterie within the
Congress led by Indira Gandhi’s powerful son, Sanjay Gandhi.116 This
was a cabal that was only to grow stronger in the post-1980s, with the
entry of players like the Washington DC based American national
Ganga Singh Dhillon known to be close to some influential American
senators and congressmen and to Pakistani President Gen Zia-ul-
Haq.117 Quite quickly the ISI got involved and the situation in Punjab
grew out of control. The final stage of confrontation led to an army
366 Tipping Point

assault on the seat of Sikh religious order at the Golden Temple. It is

alleged that RSS-BJP members were also involved in the anti-Sikh
riots that followed. A total of 14 FIRs were registered ‘against 49 BJP-
RSS leaders for their role in anti-Sikh riots of 1984’.118 Although many
Congress leaders have been charged and the party itself as the govern-
ment in power, has been the object of all criticism so far, it is not
implausible that RSS-BJP leaders employed their proficiency.
Meanwhile, the Ram temple fever was also kept alive. Under some
pressure, a District Judge in February 1986 granted Hindus free access
to the mosque for public worship of Lord Ram. The VHP set up a
trust to collect 250 million rupees to build the temple on the site of
the mosque. Communal tensions increased steadily in the background.
A Muslim Babri Masjid Action Committee was formed to mobilize
the community, in March 1987 a massive Muslim demonstration was
organized to pressurise the government to give Muslims complete
control over the site. As expected, north India was rocked by Hindu-
Muslim riots. In at least some of these, Muslims seem to have been the
victims of Hindu aggression aided and abetted by the provincial armed
constabulary. In 1989, the VHP campaign entered a new mass contact
phase to focus national attention on the Ram Janambhoomi issue.
Brushing aside government assertion that resolution should be left to
the courts, VHP leaders announced that the foundations of the Ram
Mandir would be laid on 9 or 10 November. To escalate public partic-
ipation all districts were asked to make bricks for the construction of
the temple with ‘Sri Ram’ inscribed on them. Local and district RSS
shakhas played a critical role. The bricks, six lakhs in all, were to be
distributed to half-a-million Indian villages and urban districts. On 30
September, they were consecrated in each locality in a nationwide Ram
Shila Pujan. Inhabitants of each household were asked to make a
minimum offering of Rs 1.25 (considered an auspicious sum) towards
the construction of Ram Mandir. The bricks were taken to 6600 block
centres, and in several hundreds of them Ram Shila Yajanas were held.
From these centres’ bricks were hauled in the midst of celebrations and
crowds of enthusiastic devotees to the temple site despite government
efforts to prevent it. The foundation ceremony took place on the dis-
puted site on 10 November 1989, in the presence of thousands of
Bajrang Dal volunteers, sadhus and devotees in what was called a Hindu
 Far Right at the Centre 367

Renaissance. 14 February 1990 was announced as the date for beginning

construction.
By now, V.P. Singh was the PM, and he wanted the date to be
postponed allowing negotiation between all concerned parties. L.K.
Advani, while supporting the government from outside defied the PM,
led a massive Rath Yatra from Somnath temple in Gujarat to Ayodhya
and called upon lakhs of voluntary workers – kar sevaks – to come to
Ayodhya by 30 October. The idea was to occupy the site and commence
the temple construction. On 23 October 1990, Advani was arrested
in Bihar and his rath (vehical) was impounded. The RSS, VHP kar
sevaks were arrested and turned back. The general secretary of RSS
delivered a sharply worded message to anti-Hindu forces warning them
of dire consequences. Confrontation reached a crescendo between 30
October and 2 November, some kar sevaks were able to break through
police barricade and break parts of the mosque.
Breaking of the police barricade resulted in the death of 50 kar
sevaks in police firing, plus the part breaking of the mosque offered
enough material for new propaganda, media excitement and repeated
propagation of the refrain of Hindu victimhood. Mulayam Singh of
Samajwadi Party lost the assembly elections between the first and final
assault on the mosque. The eventual culmination in the destruction of
the mosque on 6 December 1992 was a result of this relentless drive,
a well planned strategy. And what followed in repeated rounds of
communal violence and counter violence, was inescapable. India was
deeply divided again (this time deeper down south as well). A trans-
formation that Bal Thackrey, the Shiv Sena chief, and partner of BJP
had predicted so accurately. Presciently, Arun Shourie, a BJP leader
said that after the vandalism in Ayodhya brought Babri Masjid down,
BJP leaders tried to distance, even disown what had happened. Hindus
of India however appropriated the destruction and owned it up. They
saw it as a bending of the state to their combined will.119
As the RSS succeeded through the 1980s, seized the narrative
with every act of bellicosity, they consolidated the Hindu vote and the
Congress was cornered. The Congress reacted slowly, often incorrectly
to the changing political scene and public mood. The popular support
for Ram Janambhoomi was becoming so hysterical that neither the
Uttar Pradesh state government nor the Central Government, both
368 Tipping Point

controlled by the Congress Party, moved to somehow reverse the

decision of the Sessions Judge on 1 February 1986 to open the gates
of Babri Masjid (locked since 1949), enabling Hindus to conduct
prayers within the structure of the Masjid.
Rajiv Gandhi seemed to be caught, tangled and twisted between
Ram Temple sympathizers within the Congress (who has been specially
cultivated by the RSS for this purpose), and the heightened Hindu
sentiments and possibility of a Muslim backlash. In a seemingly con-
fused move he allegedly colluded with the RSS in 1989 to permit the
foundation stone laying ceremony for the Temple inside the Babri
Masjid, a tacit permission to build the temple in return for electoral
support for Congress candidates in the forthcoming election. However,
that agreement fell through for fear of a Muslim backlash.The imbroglio
ended but the BJP improved its position in the next general election
from 2 to 86 in the Parliament. It has since then, effectively combined
this strategy of communal incitement, cultural infiltration through
affiliates. Occasionally, charges of corruption are also thrown about, as
a supplementary tool against the Congress to weaken it.
And so, once again the BJP improved its electoral performance in
1996 elections to win 161 (up from 86), more seats than the Congress
at 140, but, could not form the government. An interim non-BJP
government with Congress support from outside was formed for a few
months. The Congress withdrew support and fresh elections were held
in February 1998 and the BJP won 182 seats and formed the govern-
ment with the help of secular parties like Telegu Desam Party (TDP),
AIADMK, and Trinamool Congress (TMC) which proved to be
unstable as AIADMK withdrew support. Fresh elections in 1999
resulted in a more sizable and stable margin for NDA (BJP led alliance)
although BJP’s own seats did not increase.
The vital victory of the BJP lay in the fact that ‘it also created a
situation where almost every party – notably the Congress – was forced
to include a reference to the Ram temple in its 1991 Lok Sabha election
manifesto. It is also significant that between 1984 and 1989 some
decisive steps were taken by the Congress government in Uttar Pradesh,
which demonstrated that the concern with the temple issue had become
very real with the Congress under Rajiv Gandhi’ (p. 180).120 During
the build up to the Babri Masjid demolition there were two other
 Far Right at the Centre 369

temples that were being disputed while another three thousand disputed
temples could be lined up. The majoritarian communal orientation was
now available as an evergreen source of votes. The RSS had enough
support within the institutions of the state to defy all the affidavits
and guarantees to the contrary (given by the BJP state government of
Uttar Pradesh at that point), disregard assessments by the Governor
of the state and go right ahead with a secret design.
After the BJP led government was formed, cultural and other
activities were kept up by the VHP, Bajrang Dal and RSS. The ideo-
logical agenda of rewriting history and influencing education was
pursued with vigour by the Minister for Human Resource Development
(HRD), another bit of evidence demonstrating the RSS capacity to
keep a long term vision in place.
The agitation for building Ram Mandir at Ayodhya became more
intense in early 2002, despite the refusal of the Supreme Court’s to
allow construction on the disputed site and the surrounding land. This
agitation had a direct effect on the communal situation in Gujarat,
which witnessed a genocide lasting two months from February 2002
onwards. For some reason since then, the Ram Temple issue had lost
its edge, steadily declined in significance from the RSS agenda, perhaps
to be picked up at an opportune moment. The BJP lost the 2004 general
elections and even a decade later when it won the general elections
again in 2014, this time with a strong majority, the Ram Temple was
just a whisper in the wind. Instead, old themes like ghar wapasi, love
jihad, and ban on cow slaughter have been promoted leading to episodes
of localized mob lynching and acts of vandalism against anyone who
might resist or seek to dissent from the Hindu nationalist narratives.
Poor people, particularly Dalits and Muslims have been specially
marked out for oppression with state acquiescence on various pre-
texts.121 Even the much awaited (and controversial judgement) of the
Supreme Court in November 2019, in favour of constructing a Ram
temple in the place of the razed mosque did not lead to as much
exhilaration in the far right camp followers as one would expect. Instead
the government had moved on to an altogether new excitement by
amending the Citizenship Act in violation of the spirit of the Indian
Constitution. It amended the Act of 1955 by providing recourse to
Indian citizenship for illegal migrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh
370 Tipping Point

and Pakistan who arrived in India before the end of December 2014.
The law does not grant such eligibility to Muslims from these three
countries all of which are Muslim-majority countries. This act was the
first time that religion has been overtly used as a criterion for citizenship
under law. It raised a storm of public protest over the constitutional
violation. Participation grew wider and lasted longer than any other in
recent history. But the RSS could not have passed by an opportunity
to spite Muslims and the BJP has remained adamant on
implementation.
In February 2020, in the Lok Sabha, ‘Prime Minister Narendra
Modi personally announced the trust’s [mandated by the Supreme
Court and named Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Tirth Kshetra by the
government] formation and plan to build the temple in a speech he
made in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday, days before Delhi holds a
February 8 election that mainly pits the BJP against the ruling Aam
Aadmi Party. Chants of, ‘Jai Shri Ram,’ were heard from the treasury
benches’.122 By now the temple frenzy had faded. Amid the Covid 19
pandemic, on 5 August 2020 the PM, Chief of the RSS Mohan
Bhagwat, Governor and Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh arrived in
Ayodhya for the inauguration of the temple. Bhagwat spent much of
his address on recalling the thirty year long dogged struggle for the
temple, how this temple would not just be one among lakhs of temples
but a symbol of the great Bharatiya traditions and personality. He urged
all to immerse themselves in the heritage and build an Ayodhya in their
own hearts.

Scaling it up-Gujarat Version 2002

In 2012, The New York Times, Manu Joseph wrote, ‘On 27 February
2002, almost 60 people, most of them Hindu pilgrims, were burned
alive in a train compartment near the town of Godhra. Various inves-
tigations into the event came up with conflicting conclusions as if to
suit every ideology and associated theories. Secular Indians, whom Mr
Modi sometimes refers to as “pseudo-secularists”, wanted to believe a
report that determined that the fire was a tragic accident. Others wanted
to believe the reports that said a Muslim mob had planned the attack
and set the train on fire, a line that Mr Modi took in the aftermath of
 Far Right at the Centre 371

the incident. Last year, a special court convicted several people of murder
and sentenced them to death or to life in prison’.
In the days that followed the burning of the coach, riots broke out
in Gujarat that left hundreds dead, most of them Muslims. As the
massacre continued, journalists, activists and several senior police
officers in Gujarat who spoke to the news media on the condition of
anonymity said that Narendra Modi’s government was complicit in the
violence. Narendra Modi, for his part, asserted that the violence was a
spontaneous reaction of the Hindus. ‘While reporting from Gujarat
on the aftermath of the riots, I stumbled upon the fact that a senior
minister in Mr Modi’s cabinet, Haren Pandya, had testified in a shroud
of secrecy before a tribunal that was investigating the cause of the riots.
When I approached Mr Pandya about this, he told me that he had told
the tribunal that on the night of 27 February, Mr Modi held a meeting
with senior police officers and bureaucrats during which he is alleged
to have instructed the police to allow the mobs to vent their anger on
Muslims. It is a charge that Mr Modi has consistently denied’.123 Haren
Pandya was murdered a few months later.
In the same article Manu Joseph says,‘When the violence had just
subsided in Gujarat, I met Praveen Togadia, a leader of Vishva Hindu
Parishad, a rightist Hindu organization, at his home in Ahmedabad.
But he told me he would not let me enter his house because, he pre-
sumed, I was Christian. (Weeks later, in a telephone conversation, he
seemed friendlier). He gave the interview sitting on a swing outside.
He said that the English language news media had demonized Mr
Modi, but that he was happy about that portrayal. Every minute of
criticism on the television channels, he said, would win Mr Modi
thousands of votes in the approaching state elections’.124
He was right. In 2002, Mr Modi emerged from the state polls
stronger than before.
Local and foreign press reported that Hindu rioters in Gujarat
were accusing Muslims for the deaths of the pilgrims without evidence;
mobs of Hindus rampaged and killed brutally. This went on for two
months. The state administration remained inactive. Between 1,000-
2000 people, mostly Muslims, died. Some 20,000 Muslim homes and
businesses and 360 places of worship were destroyed and roughly
150,000 people were displaced. There was no dearth of fearless and
372 Tipping Point

real news reporting on the issue in the months that followed. None of
it dented the electoral fortunes of BJP; on the contrary, BJP in Gujarat
managed to create an image of a Chief Minister haunted by the pseudo
secular press and institutions even as he tried to save the Hindus from
the predatory Muslims. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee (BJP)
did not dismiss Narendra Modi for his handling of the riots. Mr Modi
called for early elections and began a fight based on Hindutva that
aimed to unite Hindus, and consolidate their votes, around a fear of
Muslims. During the campaign, he regularly mentioned the pilgrims
who died in the train fire at Godhra, was never apologetic about the
riots and never spoke of the Muslim victims in the riots. According to
Ahmad,‘Before the Pogrom began BJP had suffered a series of setbacks
in state level, local elections and by elections. Then, in December 2002
some nine months after that pogrom and spearheading a culture of
cruelty and politics of hate, Modi stomped to electoral victory with
126 seats out of 181, improving the previous tally 117. Congress trailed
10 percentage points in popular vote winning barely 37 seats, down
from 48. In the process Modi demonstrated that violence, especially
communal violence pays huge electoral dividends. Indeed, the violence
itself had been unleashed with an eye on electoral gains, so that only
the Congress (I) strongholds in north and central Gujarat had been
targeted. After the pogrom, BJP won 52 out of 65 constituencies in
which the pogrom had been concentrated, leading the Congress by 19
percentage points in these specific constituencies. BJP won every single
seat in the vicinity of Godhra, in central Gujarat’s Panchmahal, Dahod
and rural Vadodara, which had witnessed the worst violence, and it
won 10 out of 12 seats in Ahmedabad itself, which had been home to
some of the most heinous Hindutva crimes’ (Introduction, p. 12).125
He went on to describe how all the secular allies of the BJP, Mayawati
of BSP campaigned for Modi in Gujarat, AIADMK offered encour-
agement to him in his election.
Eventually as the drama and narrative evolved, during Modi’s tenure
as Chief Minister, Muslim threat took on the veil of terrorists who
wanted to assassinate him. Muslims took on an even larger role of
anti-national extremists who were a challenge to the patriotism of every
Indian. In the meanwhile, an alternate image well-crafted by public
 Far Right at the Centre 373

relations firms was also forged, that of a leader devoted to capitalist

development, a leader of a business-friendly state. Indeed, many con-
cessions and subsidies were granted to leading capitalists who in turn
saw in him a patron par excellence and backed him to the hilt in his
bid for the centre stage in 2014. It was a classic marriage of convenience
made in neo-liberal times, the far right and the largest capitalists, with
a public driven into another frenzy for ‘development’ and ‘good times’
by the media blitz.
Journalists and scholars who have studied this phase in contem-
porary history affirm that communal violence continues to pay large
electoral dividend in India. The record suggests that the far right
certainly rides not just the existing social backwardness but also
administrative frailty of the Indian state to punish the guilty after every
riot.
What Gujarat 2002 meant for Indian political history is best
summarized here,
‘The debacle was there for all to see. However, the liberal media
and even sections of the Left contrived to believe that Gujarat was a
special case; it could possibly not be repeated elsewhere, hoping that
the nightmare would just go away and the ghost would exorcise itself.
Unfortunately, Praveen Togadia, the international secretary of VHP
and one of the more crude fascist even by the standards of his own
organization, proved more prescient: ‘the Hindutva laboratory has
started functioning’, he exulted, ‘the BJP has won all the three seats in
Rajasthan bye elections too, a Hindu Rashtra can be expected in the
next two years . . . we will change India’s history’ (Introduction,
p. 13).126
BJP repeated the winning streak in three more states, Madhya
Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh creating a block of power in
west and central India. For a while, they expanded without a pogrom,
normalizing their version of aggressive Hinduism in politics and society.
Occasionally, ‘development’ as an agenda was introduced in their nar-
rative. Most often they used willing allies in the so called regional
secular parties ranging from BSP, Samajwadi to Janata Dal to the far
right Shiv Sena (in Maharashtra) to consolidate the non-Congress vote
and strengthen their own political base. Caste analysis of the BJP vote
374 Tipping Point

showed its expanding reach from princely feudal base to the Other
Backward Castes (OBCs)and Adivasis. For this the credit would go to
the Sangh Parivar’s missionary work, its multiple cultural and religious
organs working away quietly according to a plan that came out of
Nagpur. ‘A new generation of Hindutva politicians, born on the ruins
of Ayodhya, was being trained for political attainment. Some would
have the mettle to make the big gambit for power at the centre like Mr
Modi’.127 The old peers, trained by the same RSS who brought them
to the threshold of power, would soon have to step aside and make
way for them, an even more belligerent, more ambitious generation.
Nobody watching L.K. Advani on TV in the 1990s, riding across
India, high on the Rath proceeding to extinguish the mosque at
Ayodhya would have imagined that his successor could be even more
accomplished, a successor able to manufacture adoration with the raw
material of the very same mass hysteria, sell a dream of good times,
and sponsor the most outstanding alchemists of digital media. The
next major communal riot was engineered in Muzaffarnagar in
September 2013, closer to the time Narendra Modi made a bid for
power at the centre. The Chief Minister of Gujarat along with another
prodigy of the far right became a winning pair; the duo would go on
to become the most powerful leaders of neo-liberal India. They say
every country gets the fascism it deserves; it reflects the national popular
will.

Conclusion
An account of the journey of the far right, to the centre of power cannot
ignore the compounding factors historically available in the socio-eco-
nomic ambience. The considerable organizational skill of the far right
would have been less fruitful without these preconditions.
At the turn of the twenty-first century most Indians had come to
live in a forbidding milieu created by immense pressure of population
on resources and institutions. It was home to the world’s largest
population of ‘absolutely’ poor people, and they lived besides great
accumulation and disparity of wealth. One out of three Indians were
poor. There was no urgency to make a new society. Traditional empathy
 Far Right at the Centre 375

deficit just endured. After all, not very long ago popular, nationalist
leadership had rejected revolutionary changes for gradualism on
grounds of social instability and brutality it might provoke.
Poverty eradication was not a national priority number one, except
briefly in the early 1970s. Some socialism was injected from above in
the form of legislation and policies again mostly in the 1970s; some
redistribution was indeed attempted even earlier, but only at the
margins. The far right helped organize a national political force against
the left turn in Indira Gandhi’s polices, during the anti-emergency
movement they tasted early success, that was the tipping point in India’s
political history.
Post liberalization too there was no resolve to accelerate employ-
ment and speed up trickle down benefits of growth. The degree of
discomfort some citizens might have ever felt about enduring depriva-
tion and widening inequality had numbed, largely forgotten. Instead,
the situation had cemented a perverse social psychology – a mentality
of exclusion by omission or by commission.
The people had assumed the idea of gradual change of everything
that was appropriate. Across classes people held on to social conserva-
tism and culture mixed up with traditions and religious rituals. Even
as they focused on wealth accumulation. Absence of a home grown
equivalent of anything resembling the scale and scope of European
enlightenment and its impact on culture meant a widespread under-
standing of modernization as merely a technological and infrastructural
project. Arrival of dams, electricity, computers, electronic gadgets,
internet, and smart phones perhaps only strengthened the belief in
miracles of the modern kind.
Celebration of the world’s largest parliamentary democracy became
common even though it was primarily a vote for all adults and a ‘first
past the post’ game. Elections became a national carnival. Robust
institutions to safeguard democracy, well-informed debate, dissent, and
local participation remained largely unknown. Outside the narrow
educated, liberal or left circles there was hardly any engagement with
policy issues or democratic reforms. At the local level, capture of
democratic institutions like Panchayats, and Zilla Parishads (Panchayati
Raj Institutions) by the locally dominant castes was the norm and
376 Tipping Point

involvement of people an exception. Reservations brought the lower-

castes into the government but only after they learned to play the system
so to say. As the role of money tightened its grip, elections increasingly
became a manipulative game. The processes of democracy did encourage
some freedoms of expression and association, but a society, largely
bereft of philosophies of rationality, fraternity even individual liberty
let alone equality came to exist. Social backwardness manifested itself
in multiple ways, in the inferior status of women, caste discriminations,
compulsions of intra-caste marriage, poor education and health care.
Strange irrationality, superstitions even obscurantism under different
tags like vastu, astrology, elaborate temple rituals and taboos abounded
not to mention godmen and their innumerable cults. They are defended
vigorously, to this day by people who make peculiar, vehement assertions
that modernity and Indian tradition can coexist perfectly. Temples
continue to outnumber hospitals, schools and attract a large number
of pilgrims, festivals, and funds. No government has felt alarmed enough
to address this imbalance. Even butchery of the Partition had not forced
reassessment of the deep social miasma within; such was the enchant-
ment with heritage among ruling classes. It persisted from those early
days described in the first chapter, when Indian nationalism was born.
Even then social reformers were stalled by those who simply wanted
to aggregate political power. Traditional heritage was a vehicle to power.
Consequently, social and cultural reform movements have been scarce
and undervalued. They were historically limited to some relatively small
regions. But where they did take root, social and even economic
indicators are far better today.128
Human development indices, gender-based indices, health indices
are abysmally low as they are only the symptoms of a long cultural
trajectory of elitism and exclusion. Tracking these lagging indices, it
would appear simple enough to finish off in the twenty-first century
what could not be done in 1950s, given the resources and technology
available. But what has been conspicuous by its absence throughout
our modern history is the political and, therefore, popular will to do
so. General hope of even the few liberal, progressive elite in India was
and remains that growth and modernization of technology will solve
problems in the social sector and renovate society which it obviously
did not do, at least, not in the desired direction.
 Far Right at the Centre 377

Born in this socio-economic environment, the apparatus of the

state had grown but was incapable of effective execution of even its
own minimal welfare programme, primary education and health care,
let alone of upholding the lofty ideals of the Constitution. The state
machinery, from the very beginning, just did not move fast enough
given its own basically elite caste and class composition. After four
years on the job in 2019 even the Chief Economic Adviser to the BJP
led Government (imported from America) was to say, ‘But how can
state capacity be improved? This is a mystery. After all the Indian state
has for decades been unable to deliver basic health and education’
(p. 52).129 While the Indian state can obviously do other things more
efficiently like create Unique Identification Systems, capital market
controls, launch satellites and implement complex tax laws, what stops
it from carrying out welfare programmes?
A soft state and citizenship with negligible entitlements had
become a living reality and opportunities to exploit a huge mass of the
poor by a few expanded quickly.This created and concreted a substantial
vested interest in the status quo. And once neo-liberal ideology took
hold, governments were quick to privatize or weaken whatever little
welfare or public education and health care that was available. Before
long, the social space was occupied by private enterprises, religious and
other identity based organizations.
When neo-liberal policies to stimulate growth were endorsed as
an alternate road to reduce poverty by job creation, growth occurred
but did not create as many jobs as needed nor did it spread evenly.
With one million youth entering the job market every month, anything
short of a national obsession with job creation would fail. Growth itself,
before long became labour displacing. The phenomenon was debated
and called ‘jobless growth’, but no real alternative was suggested. After
the 2008 global recession even growth rates gradually started tapering
off in India. Instead of a serious rethink, the task ahead was simply
reiterated, it was to be ‘economic growth’ and more growth. In the shrill
discourse of neo-liberalism, even the agenda for welfare and human
development was sidelined for ‘growth’. It was even more difficult to
convince administrations and educate the public. There were few takers
for the argument that marginalization of vast sections is perilous for
the social order. A good society is built bottom upwards. Welfare for
378 Tipping Point

a brief spell between 2004 and 2014 was a talking point again and
some good legislations were enacted but the backlash was swift, as it
had been in the early 1970s.
A parallel development also tipped us over. As soon as the Cold
War subsided, in this God intoxicated sub-continent, religious wars
raged. Fundamentalist Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism all surged in waves
through the 1980s, ever so often feeding off each other. The surge was
rooted in the ten-year battle for Afghanistan, between America and
USSR which ended only in 1989. America fought that war using proxy
warriors trained in Pakistan. By using religious vocabulary these proxies
were made to believe they were fighting to save Islam from Godless
communists. Pakistan as the host country eventually descended into
military dictatorship and chaos.130 It heaved the neighbourhood with
it. The area became a conduit of weapons, mercenaries, and fundamen-
talists; it was engulfed in religious hostilities. While the subcontinent
struggled, USSR collapsed and country after country was drawn deeper
into the neo-liberal paradigm. Hindu nationalism was in good health,
well-funded, well poised, to take advantage of the historic conjuncture.
Far right agglomerate had already grown under the tutelage of the RSS,
in the post 1990s it become the largest and most long standing far right
movement of its kind anywhere in the world. The ambitions of the far
right have soared ever since. If the 1980s was the decade of innovative,
belligerent experimentation and action it ended well for them, culmi-
nating in a prodigious spectacle of destruction and communal rioting,
the most widespread in post-Partition era. The demolition of Babri
Masjid was a sign of their ascent and the eclipse of the ‘secular project’.
The demolition of the masjid was not the cause of the eclipse. It was
simply the loutish gesticulation of an end. None of the top leadership
of the BJP involved in the planned and well recorded vandalism of 6
December 1992 has been punished to date. What does that say?
Within a decade of neo-liberal reforms, in an archetype state of
neoliberalism – Gujarat – a new leadership arrived in the far right
which seized the bull by its horn. It built on both, neo-liberal style
incentives, subsidies for big business and conflicts of religious identity.
Both were effective for vote gathering. A violently polarizing electoral
strategy was implemented in 2002 and it succeeded enormously. Gujarat
 Far Right at the Centre 379

2002 was the triumph of the even more virulent Hindutva strain; its
strategy for political power, using new technology, old ruses, and
capital131 owning class has not stopped succeeding in gathering votes
yet.
Subsequently the strategy was only scaled up for the nation leading
up to 2014. In the scaling up, Indian diaspora particularly in America
has played a striking role.132 The party in power at the centre is now
more intimately connected with the RSS. Policy directives often come
directly from the RSS.133 The BJP is likely to remain a major political
player for the foreseeable future. Since it came into power in 2014 with
a landslide victory, the BJP has done much to accumulate wealth in
party coffers and push the RSS social agenda of intimidating minorities.
Electoral bonds introduced in the budget was one of the innovations
and the most controversial and contested, both by the Election
Commission and Association for Democratic Reform.134 They enable
unseen flow of funds. As, declared by the parties, BJP has received Rs
1,027 crores, the Congress followed far behind with Rs 199 crores in
2017-18.135 93 per cent of the electoral bond-based funding went to
BJP. These bonds are classified as ‘source unknown’ because the donors’
name need not be disclosed. The net effect is that the BJP leads the
pack of political parties in wealth many times over, skewing the political
contest and promises to remain a major political player beholden to
deep purses. And there is little so far, to break its grip inside the
framework of our liberal democracy.
When such a formidable far right force rises and there has been
no immediate catastrophe preceding it, the truth must lie deeper in
our history and all around us in our cultural milieu; in our shared,
interconnected pattern of beliefs and behaviour, in the spirits and
shadows that follow and permeate all institutions, formal and informal.
‘When the water of a river flows through different channels and unites
again on a particular point, becomes an irresistible mighty flow’.136 Like
the River Ganges, RSS cadres had been moving through our culture
channels forming different fronts and penetrating establishments,
touching several cords in the historical tradition, forging a social animus
so to say into a formidable force.
380 Tipping Point

NOTES
1. P. Friedrich (2020), ‘Saffron Fascists’, Self-published, pp. 23-9.
2. R. Ayyub (2016), Gujarat Files, Anatomy of a Cover Up, published by
Rana Ayyub.
3. S. Gatade (2011), The Saffron Condition, Gurgaon: Three Essays
Collective, pp. 87-9.
4. C. Jaffrelot (2019), ‘The Fate of Secularism in India’, in M. Vaishnav
(ed.), The BJP in Power: Indian Democracy and Religious Nationalism,
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
5. S. Gatade (2011), The Saffron Condition, Gurgaon: Three Essays
Collective.
6. A. Ahmad (2016), ‘Liberal Democracy and the Extreme Right’, in L.
Panitch and G. Albo (eds.), The Politics of the Right, Socialist Register
2016, London: The Merlin Press.
7. S. Majumdar (2003), Gujarat and the Judges Anger, BBC News, http://
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3104280.stm
8. C. Jaffrelot (2012), ‘Gujarat 2002: What Justice for the Victims? The
Supreme Court, the SIT, the Police and the State Judiciary’, Economic
and Political Weekly, vol. 47, no. 8 (25 February 2012), pp. 77-8.
9. R. Ayyub (2016), Gujarat Files, Self-Published.
10. B. Meghwanshi (2020), I Could Not be Hindu, New Delhi: Navayana.
11. J. Breman (1997), Footloose Labour: Working in India’s Informal Economy,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
12. Soutik Biswas (19 October 2011), ‘Ramayana: An “epic” Controversy’,
BBC.
13. W. Dalrymple (2008),‘All Indian Life is Here’, The Telegraph, 23 August
2008.
14. P.V.N. Rao (2006), Ayodhya, New Delhi: Penguin Random House.
15. https://thewire.in/law/mathura-krishna-birthplace-idgah-mosque-
janmabhoomi
16. P.V.N. Rao (2006), Ayodhya, op. cit.
17. Lasse Berg and Lisa (1971), Face to Face, Berkeley, CA: Rampart Press.
18. W.K. Anderson and S.D. Damle (2018), The RSS: A View to the Inside,
Gurgaon: Penguin Viking.
19. File no. 28/3/43 Pol (1) of the Home Department.
20. A.G. Noorani (2019), The RSS, New Delhi: Left Word.
21. Sudheesh Minni (2016), Cellars of the Inferno, Thiruvananthapuram:
Chintha Publishers.
 Far Right at the Centre 381

22. Ibid.
23. S. Kelkar (2011), Lost Years of the RSS, New Delhi: Sage Publications
India Pvt. Ltd.
24. https://thewire.in/caste/a-reporter-saw-the-bhima-koregaon-violence-
coming-now-he-fears-for-his-life
25. Hindustan Times (2018), https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/
hindu-right-wing-group-sanatan-sanstha-planned-blast-at-pune-sun-
burn-festival-cops/story-67nsqrsoA6ESLB299fNMVK.html, 29
August 2018; https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/
ats-names-sanatan-sanstha-members-in-arms-haul-case/article-
show/66962157.cms
26. R. Dayal (1998), A Life of Our Times, Orient Longman, pp. 93-4.
27. S. Nair (2016),‘Refrain in Sangh Turf: Cards Will Give us Power,’ Indian
Express, 23 August 2016, https://indianexpress.com/article/india/
india-news-india/maharashtra-government-beef-ban-gau-rakshak-id-
cards-animal-husbandry-modi-sangh-turf-2991489/
28. H.S. Bal (2019), The Takeover in The Caravan, April 2019, pp. 22-32.
29. A. Sethi (2015), ‘The Mystery of India’s Deadly Exam Scam’, The
Guardian, 17 October 2015.
30. Pradipti Jayaram and Apuurva Sridharan (2015),‘All You Need to Know
about the Vyapam Scam’, The Hindu, 9 July 2015.
31. W.K. Anderson and S.D. Damle (2018), The RSS: A View to the Inside,
Gurgaon: Penguin Viking.
32. D. Spitz Sr (1997), ‘The RSS and Hindu Militancy in 1980s’, in T.J.
Sienkewicz and J.E. Betts (eds.), Festschrift in Honor of Charles Speel
Illinois: Monmouth College.
33. W.K. Anderson and S.D. Damle (2018), The RSS: A View to the Inside,
op. cit.
34. Anderson (2019),‘Is RSS Still a “Cultural” Organization?’, BusinessLine,
21 May 2019, https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/is-rss-
still-a-cultural-organization/article27198964.ece
35. L. McKean (1995), Divine Enterprise, Gurus and the Hindu Nationalist
Movement, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
36. Indian Express (2014), ‘RSS Claims its Registered Rapid Growth in
Recent Years’, 22 December 2014.
37. Ramu Bhagwat (2017),‘RSS Objects to Claim Over its Name’, TOI, 8
September 2017.
38. Sarfaraz Ahmed (2017),‘HC Admits Moons Plea to Register his Society
as RSS’, TOI, 11 October 2017.
382 Tipping Point

39. W.K. Anderson and S.D. Damle (2018), The RSS: A View to the Inside,
op. cit.
40. Sudheesh Minni (2016), Cellars of the Inferno, Thiruvananthapuram:
Chintha Publishers.
41. B. Meghwanshi (2020), I Could Not be a Hindu, New Delhi: Navayana.
42. Annual Report of RSS presented by the Sarkaryavah at the Akhil
Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha at Gwalior on 8 March 2019 at 9 a.m.,
http://rss.org/Encyc/2019/3/8/rss-annual-report-2019.html
43. A.G. Noorani (2019), The RSS, New Delhi: Left Word.
44. Ibid., Organiser, 11 December 2016.
45. A. Verghese (2016), The Colonial Origins of Ethnic Violence, Redwood
City, CA: Stanford University Press.
46. Ian Copland (2005), State Community and Neighbourhood in Princely
North India, c.1900-1950, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
47. Ibid.
48. D. Kooiman (1995),‘Communalism and Indian Princely States’, Economic
and Political Weekly, 26 August, pp. 2123-33.
49. Ian Copland (2005), State Community and Neighbourhood in Princely
North India, op. cit.
50. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/ayodhya-ram-tem-
ple-ground-breaking-ceremony-live-updates/article32273442.ece
51. M. Bhagavan (2008), ‘Princely States and the Hindu Imaginary:
Exploring the Cartography of Hindu Nationalism in Colonial India’,
The Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 67, no. 3 pp. 881-915.
52. Ian Copland (2005), State Community and Neighbourhood in Princely
North India, op. cit.
53. Rajesh Ramachandran (2004),‘Princes and the Parivar’, Times of India,
17 April 2004.
54. Ibid.
55. R. Guha (2007), Indian After Gandhi: The History of the World’s Largest
Democracy, New York: HarperCollins.
56. Tim Mc Grick (1992), ‘Maharajas do Battle to Restore their Honour’,
The Independent, 19 December, Independent Online.
57. Arvind Datar (2013), ‘Who Betrayed Sardar Patel’, The Hindu, 19
November.
58. Tim Mc Grick (1992), ‘Maharajas do Battle to Restore their Honour’,
op. cit.
59. D. Anderson, Alok Pant (1970), ‘Student Politics at Allahabad
University-II’, Economic and Political Weekly, 13 June 1970, pp. 941-7.
 Far Right at the Centre 383

60. W. Anderson (1972), ‘The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-I’, Economic

and Political Weekly, 11 March 1972, pp. 589-97.
61. Walter Anderson (1972), ‘The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-II, III,
IV’, Economic and Political Weekly, 18 March, 25 March, 1 April 1972
respectively.
62. Ibid., 1 April 1972, p. 727.
63. W.K. Anderson (2018), Remembering Atal Bihari Vajpayee: His Poetry
and His Pauses, 19 August. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/
news/politics-and-nation/remembering-atal-biharivajpayee-his-poet-
ry-and-his-pauses/articleshow/65455584.cms
64. http://www.fairfaxgroup.us/bio_hershman.php
65. https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP81M00980R000800100017- 5/
page/n0
66. Sumit Kumar Singh (2017), ‘Found Millions from Bofors in Overseas
Accounts’, DNA, 19 October 2017.
67. Sumit Kumar Singh (2018), ‘Nobody Wants to Know Truth, Says
Michael J. Hershman, First Investigator in Bofors Case’, DNA, 2 July
2018.
68. Walter K. Andersen, Shridhar D. Damle, (1987), The Brotherhood in
Saffron: The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Hindu Revivalism, Delhi:
Vistaar Publications.
69. D. Jha (2018),‘Instead of Offering Objective Analysis, Andersen-Damle
Book Helps RSS Perpetuate Convenient Myths’, Scroll-In, 20 August
2018.
70. D.K. Jha (2018), ‘Shridhar Damle: Modi Gave Idea for RSS Book;
Promotions Deliberately Focused on White-skinned Andersen’, The
Caravan, New Delhi, 6 September 2018.
71. https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/society-the-arts/books/
story/19880831-book-review-the-brotherhood-in-saffron-by-walter-
k.-anderson-and-shridhar-damle-797638-1988-08-31
72. S. Chaturvedi (2017), I am a Troll: Inside the Secret World of the BJP’s
Digital Army, New Delhi: Juggernaut Books.
73. N.J. Villatt (2019), ‘The Saffron Siege’, The Caravan, pp. 44-63.
74. C. Jaffrelot (2019), The Fate of Secularism in India, in BJP in Power,
Indian Democracy and Religious Nationalism, Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace. https://carnegieendowment.org/2019/04/04/
fate-of-secularism-in-india-pub-78689
75. https://www.indiatoday.in/fyi/story/siddhivinayak-hundi-rich-tem-
ple-india-demonetization-352322-2016-11-16
384 Tipping Point

76. R.N. Bhaskar (2016), ‘Courting Gods: The Supreme Court Attempts
to Rescue India’s Temples’, The Hindu.
77. Subramanian Swamy (2014),‘Freeing Temples from State Control’, The
Hindu, 20 January.
78. S. Singh (2016),‘At Last: Subramanian Swamy gets nominated to Rajya
Sabha’, Firstpost, 22 April 2016, https://www.firstpost.com/politics/
subramanian-swamy-rajya-sabha-nda-narendra-modi-mp-bjp-con-
gress-2744102.html
79. N. Villatt (2019), ‘The Saffron Siege’, The Caravan, pp. 43-63.
80. J.S. Hirst (2016),‘Negotiating Secularity: Indira Gandhi, Anandamayi
Ma, and Eliya Raja of Travancore’, International Journal of Hindu Studies,
20, 2, pp. 159-98.
81. Ibid.
82. W. Doniger (2015), The Hindus, New Delhi: Speaking Tiger.
83. Ibid.
84. M. Katju (2003), Vishva Hindu Parishad and Indian Politics, New Delhi:
Orient Blackswan.
85. L. McKean (1995), Divine Enterprise, Gurus and the Hindu Nationalist
Movement, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
86. Damle Anderson (2018), The RSS: A View to the Inside, Penguin Viking.
87. M. Katju (2003), Vishva Hindu Parishad and Indian Politics, op. cit.
88. H.K. Vyas (1983), Vishva Hindu Parishad, New Delhi: Communist
Party of India Publication.
89. Damle Anderson (2018), The RSS: A View to the Inside, op. cit.
90. L. McKean (1995), Divine Enterprise, Gurus and the Hindu Nationalist
Movement, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
91. P. Friedrich (2020), Saffron Fascists, self-published, pp. 15-16.
92. M. Katju (2003), Vishva Hindu Parishad and Indian Politics, New Delhi:
Orient Blackswan.
93. L. McKean (1995), Divine Enterprise, Gurus and the Hindu Nationalist
Movement, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
94. Varghese K. George (2018), ‘World Hindu Congress Ends with
Calls for Hindu Unity, Resolves to Fight “Fake News”’, The Hindu,
10 September 2018.
95. Times of India (2002), ‘ Where do RSS Funds Come From?’,
20 November 2002.
96. ‘The Foreign Exchange of Hate,’ http://www.stopfundinghate.org.
97. B. Prabhakar (2012), ‘How an American Lobbying Company Apco
Worldwide Markets Narendra Modi to the World’, Economic Times,
 Far Right at the Centre 385

9 December 2012. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/

news/company/corporate-trends/how-an-american-lobbying-
company-apco-worldwide-markets-narendra-modi-to-the-world/
articleshow/17537402.cms
98. R. Schroeder (2018), Social Theory After the Internet: Media, Technology,
and Globalization, London: UCL Press.
99 J. Ashley Tellis (2018), Narendra Modi and US: India Relationship,
https://carnegieendowment.org/2018/11/01/narendra-modi-
and-u.s.-india-relations-pub-77861
100. Time (2014), ‘The 2014 Elections are the Most Expensive Ever Held
in India’, 11 April, 2014 https://time.com/33062/india-
elections-expenditure/
101. https://ourdataourselves.tacticaltech.org/posts/overview-india/
102. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/04/
india-misinformation-election-fake-news/586123/
103. B. Chandra, M. Mukherjee and A. Mukherjee (2008), India Since
Independence, New Delhi: Penguin Books.
104. P. Jayakar (1992), Indira Gandhi, New Delhi: Penguin.
105. Ibid.
106. B. Chandra, M. Mukherjee and A. Mukherjee (2008), India Since
Independence, op. cit.
107. A. Ahmad (2004), On Communalism and Globalization, New Delhi:
Three Essays Collective.
108. Ibid.
109. L. Mc Kean (1996), Divine Enterprise, Gurus and the Hindu Nationalist
Movement, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
110. Ibid.
111. Ibid.
112. P.V.N. Rao (2006), Ayodhya, New Delhi: Penguin Random House.
113. W.K. Anderson and S.D. Damle (2018), The RSS: A View to the Inside,
op. cit.
114. https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/special-report/story/
19860515-pakistan-involvement-in-sikh-terrorism-in-punjab-based-
on-solid-evidence-india-800879-1986-05-15
115. h t t p s : / / w w w. c i a . g o v / l i b r a r y / r e a d i n g r o o m / d o c s / C I A-
RDP06T00412R000606740001-7.pdf
116. G.B.S. Sidhu (2020), The Khalistan Conspiracy, Noida: HarperCollins,
p. 6.
117. Ibid.
386 Tipping Point

118. https://www.dailypioneer.com/2014/state-editions/amarinder-names-
bjp-rss-leaders-involved-in-1984-riots.html
119. R. Guha (2017), India After Gandhi, New Delhi: Picador India, p. 623.
120. P.V.N. Rao (2006), Ayodhya, New Delhi: Penguin Random House.
121. I.K. Cheema (2017), ‘Constitutional and Legal Challenges Faced by
Religious Minorities in India’, US Commission on International
Religious Freedom (USCIRF)
K. Schultz (2019), ‘Murders of Religious Minorities in India Go
Unpunished, Report Finds’, New York Times, 18 February 2019. https://
www.nytimes.com/2019/02/18/world/asia/india-cow-religious-at-
tacks.html
BBC (2019), ‘India’s Muslims Fear for their Future Under Narendra
Modi’, 16 May 2019. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-
48278441
R. Ayyub (2018),‘Mobs are Killing Muslims in India. Why is No One
Stopping Them?’, The Guardian, 20 July 2018. https://www.theguard-
ian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/20/mobs-killing-muslims-
india-narendra-modi-bjp
E. Griswold (2019),‘The Violent Toll of Hindu Nationalism in India’,
The New Yorker, 5 March 2019.
122. Poulomi Saha (2020),‘Sri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra: PM Modi
Announces Formation of Ayodhya Temple Trust’, 5 February 2020,
https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/ayodhya-ram-temple-trust-
pm-narendra-modi-announces-in-lok-sabha-1643403-2020-02-05
123. Manu Joseph (2012), ‘Shaking Off the Horror of the Past in India,’
New York Times, 15 February 2012.
124. Ibid.
125. A. Ahmad (2004), On Communalism and Globalization, New Delhi:
Three Essays Collective.
126. Ibid.
127. Ibid.
128. A. Kalhan (2018), A Brief History of Poverty Alleviation in Neo Liberal
Times, New Delhi: Manohar.
129. A. Subramanian (2019),‘What about Developing Countries,’ in J. Cohen
(ed.), Economics After Neoliberalism, Cambridge, MA: Boston Review.
130. A. Rashid (2008), Descent into Chaos, London: Allen Lane.
131. A. Mohan (2019), ‘Data Shows BJP Bagged 92 per cent of Corporate
Donations to Political Parties. https://www.business-standard.com/
article/economy-policy/data-shows-bjp-bagged-92-of-corporate-
donations-to-political-parties-119011701405_1.html
 Far Right at the Centre 387

132. P. Friedrich (2020), Saffron Fascists, self-published, pp. 23-9, 113-26.

133. W.K. Anderson and S.D. Damle (2018), The RSS: A View to the Inside,
op. cit.
134. https://www.livemint.com/news/india/supreme-court-agrees-to-hear-
issues-related-to-electoral-bonds-1554463480995.html
135. Association for Democratic Reform, 2019.
136. Sudheesh Minni (2016), Cellars of the Inferno: Confessions of an RSS
Precharak, Thiruvananthapuram: Chintha Publishers.
 Glossary

Aam Aadmi Party Common man’s political party

Aaya ram, gaya ram Mister come, mister go
Ahimsa Non-violence
Akalis A political party of Sikhs
Aryavarta India as the land of Aryas
Ashram A hermitage, monastic community
Bania Trader
Bhagwa-Dhwaj Saffron flag, assumed to be a symbol of
Hindu kings
Bhajans Devotional songs
Bhakti Devotion
Bharat Mata ki Jai! Salutions to mother India
Bhoodan Gift of Land
Biradri Kinship related groups
Brahmo Samaj Hindu reformist movement in Bengal
Chhatra Sangharsh Students struggle committee
Samiti
Chokri Unimportant young girl
Dalit Backwards class lower caste
Darbari Pertaining to the court
Dharma Duty
Dharmacharayas Followers of righteousness
Garibi Hatao Remove Poverty
Gadar Betrayer – name of a party
Gau Rakshaks Cow protectors
Ghar Wapasi Reconverting muslims to hinduism
Gram Adalat Village level court
390 Glossary

Gram Jana-Sangharsha Village level people’s struggle committees

Samitis
Guru Teacher
Guru-Shishya Teacher-Student
Gurudakshina Donation to the teacher
Hatao Remove
Hindu Hriday Samrat Emperor of hindu hearts
Hartals Strike
Hijrat Migration
Inquilab Revolution – a common slogan
Jagatgurus Teachers to the world
Janmabhoomi Birth place
Janta-Sarkar People’s government
Jat Land owners or tillers
Jatis Lineage related groups
Karma Work occupation
Kar Sevaks Volunteer-workers
Khaksars A political party in Punjab
Khalifa Supreme political head of muslims
Lathi Baton
Loknayak, Loknayakji People’s leader or director
Love Jihad A muslim marrying a hindu female and
thereby converting her
Manoos Men/people
Mantra Chant
Messiah Saviour
Mitra Mandals Friends circles or groups
Mlecchas Foreigners or impure ones
Moksha Transcednent state, enlightenment,
emancipation
Muhajir Migrants
Mujahideen Those who fight on behalf of the faith in
Allah
Mukh Pracharak Principal leader – literally preacher
Nav Nirman New rebuilding of something, here
politics
Navayug New Age newspaper
 Glossary 391

Panchsheel India-China agreement based on 5

principles
Parishad Council
Parivar Family
Pravasi Bharatiya Divas Non-resident Indian Day
Pracharak Preacher/Teacher
Pujan Worship
Purna Swaraj Complete independence
Qurbani Sacrifice usually of a animal or person’s life
Raiyatwari Tenants
Raja King
Ram Shila Pujan Worship of foundation stone for Ram
temple
Ramjanambhoomi Place of birth of Ram (hindu deity)
Ramraj Hindu utopia
Rashtraya National
Rath Chariot
Razakars A political party in Hyderabad
Ryots Tenant
Sadhus Ascetics
Samitis Committees
Samrat Emperor
Sammelan Convention
Sanatana Eternal
Sanatanis Of the eternal faith/Orthodox Hindus
Sanghatanist Member of RSS
Sant Saint – an ancient Hindu word
Sanskritization Process by which lower castes emulate the
practices and beliefs of the upper castes in
Hindu society
Sanyasi Hermit
Sarsanghchalak The chief administrator
Sarvodaya Welfare Association
Satya Truth
Satyagraha Policy of passive political resistance
Shakha Branch
392 Glossary

Shankaracharyas Head of a particular, influential Hindu sect

founded by Shankar in 10 th Century
Shila Stone, here foundation stone
Shivashahi Rule of Shivaji/reign of Shivaji
Shuddhi Sabhas Religious reconverting societies
Suchna ke elawa sochna Information and nothing else
nahin hai
Swamis Hindu male religious teacher
Swaraj Self government
Swayamsevaks Volunteers
Thokashai Rough physical power
Tirth Kshetra Pilgrimage place
Tilak Mark worn by Hindus on the forehead
Trishuls Trident – a hindu symbol of lord Shiva
Vastu Object
Vastu shastra Science of architecture in Hindu
tradition
Vasudeva Kutumbh God’s family
Vishva World
Vishva Hindu Parishad Hindu World council
Yajana Formal ceremony
Yashasvi houn ya Be successful and come back
Yuva Jan Sabha Youth committee
Zamindar Landlords big and small, big one socially
very influential in 80% rural society
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 Index
1952 general elections 242, 244,
266, 326
1962 general elections 122, 274
1966 general elections 253
1967 general elections 131, 136
1980 general elections 355
1989 elections 330: National Front
formed 357
2004 general elections 369
2014 general elections 50, 307, 353,
354, 369
24th Constitution Amendment Bill
1970 325
ABVP (Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi
Parishad) 79, 149, 157, 181,
308, 327: role in the Gujarat
mobilization 151
Act of 1919 49
agenda of unity (essential for
Independence) 118
ahimsa (non-violence) 40
Aiyar, C.P. Ramaswamy 200
Akhand Hindu Rashtra 287
Akhand Hindustan 321
All India Muslim League (AIML) 59
Ambedkar, B.R. 44-5: 1936 lecture
‘Annihilation of Caste’ 45;
Annihilation of Caste to Riddles
of Hinduism 44-5; myriad
changing jatis 45; social reform
45; social status and property
46; society, egalitarian structure
of 45; static meaning of dharma
as custom or tradition 45
American Hindus 338-9
Ananda Math 61
Anderson, Walter K. 149, 152, 307,
326-8, 331-2, 343: association
with the RSS 327; Bala Rao
Deoras 327; fascination with
Atal Bihari Vajpayee 328-9;
interest in Indian politics 327
Angre, Sardar 324
anti-colonial movement 41, 94, 135
anti-Imperial struggle 41, 227-8
anti-Indira agitations 294
anti-Islamic rhetoric 117-18
Anti-Mandal protests 358
anti-Stalin literature 154
Apco Worldwide 353
Arya Samaj reform movement 62
Auto-Pin (India) in Faridabad 169
Baroda 75, 87, 111, 320, 321:
compulsory primary education
320
Bauer, Otto 37
Baxter, Craig 326
Bharatiya Jan Sangh (BJS) 75, 78,
79, 151, 155, 157, 324, 338-40,
342, 343, 346
408 Index
Bharatiya Kisan Sangh 326
Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS)
78, 79, 169, 308, 312
Bhave, Vinoba 165, 177, 182, 184,
195
Bhima Koregaon region 278:
violence in 310
Bhoodan movement 177, 204, 205
Bihar Chhatra Sangharsh Samiti
(BCSS) 180-1
Bihar movement 155, 178, 181,
183, 189, 190, 191, 193, 210
Bofors scam 330, 331
Bolshevik agents 229
Bolshevik menace 230
Bolshevik Revolution 91, 224, 230
Bombay Model 276-87: Bombay
Municipal Corporation 285;
Dalit Panthers 286; era of
retaliatory war 287; far right
political advance 278; fascist
groups based on religion 276;
high-caste intelligentsia in Pune
277; Hindu Hriday Samrat 286;
industrialist-Congress nexus,
helped SS in breaking up the left
unions 284; inter-caste violence
at Bhima Koregaon 278;
Jamaat-i-Islami 286; K.S.
Thackeray 277; Lumpen
proletariat 282; Marathi
speaking immigrant labour,
distress of 280; Mitra Mandals
(friendship groups) 281; RSS,
Dadar Shakha of 282; Samyukta
Maharashtra Movement (SMM)
278-9; Samyukta Maharashtra
Sabha 277; Shiv Sena (SS),
formation of 281; upper-caste,
Marathi speaking family of
Thackeray 280; wars against
‘Muslim’ domination 277
British rail companies 52
Brotherhood in Saffron 331-2
Carras, Mary 219
Chatterji, Bhola 178, 179
Church-state relationship 321
civilization 39-40
class-based projects 38
colonial status 36, 227
Comintern 230, 231, 233-5, 237
Commissions of Inquiry against
political leaders 221, 300, 309
common culture 38, 80
commonality 37
Communal pot through 1980s to
1990s 359-70: 1991 Lok Sabha
election manifesto 368-9; Akhil
Bharatiya Pratinidhi Parishad
360; anti-Sikh riots of 1984
366; Bajrang Dal 365; Bharat
Mata Mandir, served on its
Central Margdarshak Mandal
362; Citizenship Act 369-70;
Communal aggressions 360;
Ekatmata Yatra Yajana chariot
procession 361-3; endemic
communal violence 359-60; far
right movements spread to the
north 361; Hindu Code Bill
363; Hyderabad city, communal
riots from 1978 to 1984 360-1;
Ram Janam Bhoomi – Babri
Masjid 363-4, 366;
Kanyakumari, clashes between
the RSS and Roman Catholics
360; Karnataka, May 1983,
Hindu-Muslim riots 361;
Kerala, 1983, Nilackalas centre
 Index
of tensions between Catholics
and Hindus 360; Muslim Babri
Masjid Action Committee 366;
October 1984, PM Indira
Gandhi assassinated 365; Ram
Shila Pujan 366; Shah Bano case
363; Shri Ram Janmabhoomi
Tirth Kshetra 370
Communist Left, travails and
dilemmas of 223-36: Bengali
literary resurgence 224;
Bolshevik agents 229-30;
Calcutta jute mill riots of the
mid-1890s 226; Central
Executive Committee (CEC)
231-2; class based rebellion
223-4; class based trade union
consciousness 226; communist
existence in India 230;
communist ideology, class
abhorrence of 230; Communist
Party of Soviet Union (CPSU)
235; dominant ideology within
the Congress 233; Draft
Platform of Action of the CPI
235; far right position 224;
fledgling communist groups
functioned independently across
India 230-1; Gandhi-Irwin Pact
of 1929 233; General Council of
the International Working Man’s
Association 224; Indian working
class, tendency for 226;
International Socialist Congress,
1904 224; intra-party
dissentions 236; League against
Gandhism 233; limited and
delayed civil disobedience 236;
local leadership, pool of 227;
Marxism Leninism 227;
409
middle-class philanthropy 226;
muhajirs 228; multi-class fronts
232; Namboodiripad 225;
national liberation, forces of 227;
pre-industrial societies 226;
restrictions on the communists
231; Revolutionary left wing
parties 227; Soumyendranath
Tagore 225; The Home Political
Files of 1920s 230; The United
Front 236; theoretical education
and debate 225; urban identity
226; Workers and Peasants
Parties (WPP) 232; working
class strikes 226
Communist Manifesto 40
Communist Party of Great Britain
(CPGB) 234
Communist Party, rupture in
250-4: anti-Congressism’ in
1965-6 252; breakdown in the
Congress hegemony through the
1960s 253; charge of
international alliances beyond
nationalism 251; Hyper-
nationalism 251-2; Indian
monopoly capital 254; Intra-
party situation 250; radicals
within the movement rejected
the possibility of peaceful
transition to socialism 250
Communists in Free India 237-50:
anti-imperialist sentiments 241;
Bombay Plan 245; Chou-Nehru
(Panchsheel) declaration for
peaceful co-existence and
sovereignty 241; Comintern
(International Communist
Movement) 237-8; Comrade
Ranadive 237; CPI accepted
410 Index
parliamentary democracy 242;
CPM did not believe that
parliamentary means were
enough 243; Education Bill to
put some curbs on the private
management of education
institutions 246; Food deficiency
in Kerala 247; India sided with
the Anglo-American block in the
Security Council of the UN
240; political leadership against
the communist state government
in Kerala 247-8; South East
Asian Treaty Organization
(SEATO) 241; struggle against
imperialism 237; Telangana
struggle 237
Communists, self-analysis by
259-64: 1978 Draft Resolution
(for tenth Congress of CPM)
260-1; anti-democratic measures
taken by the Central
Government against working
people 260; anti-emergency
struggle and the electoral victory
261-2; Communist movements
all over the region 263; CPM
collaboration with other parties
both in pre- and post-
emergency period 260;
deterioration in the CPI-CPM
relations 259; Operation
Cyclone 262; opposition parties
chose extra parliamentary
activity 260; RSS, programmes
of religious agitations to
communalize society 262-3;
tendencies of one-party
dictatorship 260
competitive liberal democracy 220
comprehensive anti-poverty agenda
218
Congress (I) 259, 355, 372
Congress (R) 137-8
Congress Forum for Socialist
Action (CFSA) 129
Congress split in 1969 133-41:
AICC and Congress working
committee adopted a radical Ten
Point Programme 137; All India
Congress Committee (AICC)
135; All India Railway strike
141; anti-Indira movement 141;
Arab-Israel war of June 1967
134; Congress Working
Committee 135; Haksar, P.N.
136; managing agency system
139-40
controversial-public policy issues
308
COVID-19 scenario, contraction in
302
Communist Party of India (CPI)
92, 94-5, 101, 102, 136, 149,
151, 154, 164, 166, 169, 181,
195, 197-8, 211, 228-31, 233,
238-40, 242-8, 250-4, 259,
261-3, 265, 274, 278, 279, 285:
AITUC of the Congress Party
234; expected to launch
convergent movements 152
CPI (M)/CPM 132, 151, 152, 161,
167, 197, 243, 248-9, 251-4,
256-62, 309
CPI (ML) 230, 257
Dange, S.S. 92, 225, 238
Das Kapital 40
Depressed classes 50
Desai, Morarji, Prime Minister 125,
 Index
127, 134, 137, 143, 150, 155,
167-1: Antyodaya 170; centre
modified the 47th amendment
167; food for work programme
170; internal bickering 170-1;
JPs total revolution 168;
propertied intermediate castes in
the Gangetic plain 170; Public
Law (PL) 480 170; Rural
Employment Guarantee scheme
170; support for Janata party
began to evaporate 167; TPP
167-8; urban areas, Janata party’s
support 168
Descent of Man 40
direct and indirect taxes, evasion of
222
Division of labour 46, 71, 320-1
early left-wing 90
egalitarian social order 325
Ekal Vidyalaya scheme (one-teacher
schools run in tribal areas) 352
Ekal Vidyalayas (One Teacher
Schools) 351
electioneering strategy 353:
professional PR firms 353
electoral competition 21, 100, 242,
249, 294, 320
elite propertied society 39
emergency of 1975 21, 159-67, 177,
213, 258: anti-emergency
movement 164-5; anti-
emergency sentiments thrived in
the jails 162; bureaucracy and
police became increasingly
authoritarian 162; central family
planning board created 163;
exposed fundamental fault lines
in India’s liberal democracy 160;
411
four-point programme 162-3;
fragility of its new democratic
institutions 160-1; Indira
Gandhi, precipitous dependency
on her younger son 163-4; Jana
Sangh 165; Janata Party 165;
prolonged infatuation with
strong, charismatic leaders
161-2; speed with which mass
protests and resistance died
down 161; Swamy, Subramanian
165-6
Essentials of Hindutva 70
Executive Intelligence Review 212-13
Far Right, doctrines of 79-85:
Golwalkar 82-5; Golwalkar’s
lifetime communism 84; impact
of Muslim invasions 80;
resentment against the Muslims
83; Savarkar 79-82; western type
of parliamentary democracy 83
Far right wing 18, 21-5, 28-9, 119:
during 1967-77, ambitions of
120; Hindu formations of 119
Far right will 111, 118
Far right, recent developments 302:
Babri Masjid and Gujarat
communal riots, unforgettable
images 303; Babri Masjid in
1992 302; BJP, single largest
party in the Parliament in 1996
306-7; economic liberalization
306; global free market
completion, state role in
safeguarding the capitalist 306;
Gujarat 2002 302; Gujarat
disturbances 302-3; Gujarat,
tribal populations urged on by
various RSS based organizations
412 Index
304; Pseudo secularists 304;
religious mythology on TV 305;
secular TV programmes 305
First Indian War of Independence,
The 81
Food for Freedom shipments 222
Foreign Exchange Regulation Act,
1973 138
Gandhi assassination case 108, 324
Gandhi Peace Foundation 212
Gandhi, M.K. 38, 40, 41, 77, 87,
309: assassination and trial
102-11; assassination,
widespread condemnation for
the RSS 107-8; economic basis
of exploitation 105; Gandhi’s
appeal lay in his vague economic
ideas 104-5; Indians, ‘inner
environment’ of 40-1; rebuffing
modern ideas of the nation 40;
Kapur Commission 109-10;
Non-violence and Satyagraha
104; passive resistance
(Satyagraha) campaigns 104;
shrewd tactician 106; study law
in England and return to assume
premiership 103-4;
unquestioned leadership of the
Congress 41; working class
localities in England 105-6
Gandhi, Indira 119, 121, 124, 125,
126, 140, 154, 161, 163, 254,
257-9, 292-3, 325, 354-6, 365,
375: and JP 187-94; broadcast
to the nation 142; developed a
precipitous dependency on
Sanjay Gandhi 163-4, 166-7;
did not use her emergency
powers to set about
implementing liberalizing polices
212; discredited for the
Emergency rule 121; emerged as
a world leader in magnificent
style 136; government of,
confrontation by JP 151;
limitations of socialism by
legislation 219-20; Nagpur
resolution 121-2; Nagpur
session Congress in 1959 121;
period after the Indo-Chinese
war 122; persuasion and
legislation, restructuring social
and economic relations 220;
recalled substantial financial
support for the opposition
campaign 143; removing from
office, democratic process to
‘total revolution’ by JP 182;
socialism, limitations of 219-20;
used her parliamentary majority
to end the privy purse 325; voted
PM 127-33
Gandhi, Indira, voted PM 127-33:
Jan Sangh organized a fierce
country wide agitation 129; paid
immediate attention to Punjab
128
Gandhi, Rajiv 293, 329-31, 356-7,
368: as Prime Minister 356-7;
non-aligned movement by giving
it a new purpose 331; talked of a
CIA conspiracy against his
government 330
Gandhi, Sanjay 156, 161-4, 166,
212, 365
Gandhian hypocrisy 356
Garibi hatao 218
Gau rakshaks 311
Girni Kamgar Unions 97, 234
 Index
Glimpses of World History 94
Golaknath judgment 219
Government of Maharashtra: took
over the management of
important Hindu shrines and
temples 335
Green Revolution 126, 170, 211,
218
Gujarat model 22, 180, 301
Gujarat movement 177
Gujarat Version 2002 370-4: caste
analysis of the BJP vote 373-4;
Hindu rioters in Gujarat 371;
Modi’s tenure as Chief Minister
372-3; Muslim threat to Modi
372-3
Guru Dakshina 75, 86, 315-18
Hershman, Michael J. 329, 331
Hind Swaraj 38, 104
Hindu civilization 19, 84
Hindu Mahasabha 43, 59, 63, 64,
73, 74, 75, 77, 81, 87, 100, 107,
108-11, 117, 119, 244, 271,
274, 275, 285, 307, 320-2, 324,
364
Hindu Mahasabha, representation
of 66-71: aggressive Hindu
nationalism 69; Bengal, reform
and Hindu revival 66; Central
Khilafat Committee 67; Haj
pilgrimage to Mecca 67; Hindu
Sangathan 70; idea of Hindu
Rashtra 70-1; Khilafat
movement, support of Gandhi
67; Moplas in Malabar, uprising
of 67; Morley-Minto
constitutional reforms 66;
non-brahmin movements 69;
non-cooperation movement 68;
413
Punjab Alienation of Land Act
66; Sanatanis 66; Swaraj Party
68; V.D. Savarkar 70
Hindu majoritarian consciousness
119-20
Hindu movements 69: attract
foreigners who often travel to
India 338
Hindu nationalism 43, 55, 69, 70,
72, 79, 82, 100, 378
Hindu Nationalist Movement and
Indian Politics, The 332-3
Hindu Rashtra 70, 72, 300, 338,
346, 373
Hindu right wing organizations 98
Hindu Sabha movement 66-7
Hindu Students’ Council (HSC) in
the US 351
Hindu temples 333-5, 339, 344,
345: wealth and social power of
333
Hindutva politics 292
Human development indices 376
IDRF 349-52: and the RSS, links
between 351; applied for tax
exemption certificates 350;
Bhishma Agnihotri 351;
corporate funding 349-50;
pro-Hindu stand 350; technical
job-oriented education 352;
Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram (VKA)
350
imagined nation 38-9
IMF (International Monetary
Fund) 223, 260
INC (Indian National Congress)
24, 36, 39, 48, 51, 52, 54, 55, 63,
65, 66, 89, 99, 122, 224, 234:
leadership of 36
414
India’s far right 79-85: Aryan
habitation 80; economic
inequality 84; Gandhian socialist
movement ‘Bhoodan’ as
‘reactionary’ 84; Golwalkar as
RSS chief 82; Golwalkar’s
lifetime communism 84; Hindu
Mahasabha, presidential address
to 81; idea of dignity of labour
84; Indian Christians and
Muslims 80; mlecchas 82;
parliamentary democracy,
western type of 83; pro-Hindu
tradition postures 79;
resentment against the Muslims
83; Rig Veda and its myths 80;
Savarkar and Golwalkar’s views
85; ‘self ’ against a ‘non-self ’
80-81; upper-caste racism 82;
V.D. Savarkar 79; Viceroy’s
report to the Secretary of State
for India 81; vision for the future
321-2
Indian Constitutional Reform 49
Indian domestic economy 256-9:
alliance with USSR 258;
complicated international
situation 256; Naxalbari
movement for land
redistribution 257; urgency to
create an alternative to the
Congress at the centre 259;
West Bengal elections soon after
the 1971 war 257; West Bengal
Pradesh Congress Committee
258; West Bengal, situation in
256-7
Indian Independence Act, 1947 323
Indian Iron and Steel Company
(IISCO) 218
Index
Indian National Congress (INC),
Hindu revival movements 55-66:
1917 episodes of rioting 60; Age
of Consent Act of 1891 (against
child marriage) 60; alliance of
conservatives 59; ancient Aryan
mystique 61; Bengal religious
revivalism 61; Bhakti movement
in Europe 58; Bhakti movement,
egalitarian and emancipatory
elements in 57; Brahmanical
versions of Hinduism 58;
Brahmo Samaj 60; British
Orientalists 55; communal
groupings 63; defence of
tradition 61; electoral seats
based on religion 56; eventual
inclusion within the Hindu
hierarchy 57; first Battle of
Independence by nationalists 56;
Hindu and Muslim nationalism,
competitive nature of 62-3;
Hindu Mahasabha 64; Hindu
nationalism 55; Hindu religious
systems 55-6; Hindu revivalist
groups 64; Hindu revivalist
movements 56; Hindu
symbolism of cow protection
58-9; Hindu symbolism, hectic
use of 58; Hindu-Muslim
harmony 65; in the late
nineteenth century 60;
inclusiveness with its antinomian
attitudes towards pariahs and
women 57-8; Indian revivalist
religious movement 58;
indigenous scholarship 55;
Khilafat movement 59; mid-
1920s Hindu-Muslim riots 60;
Morley-Minto Reforms 63;
 Index
Montague-Chelmsford reforms
63-4; Muslim religious leaders,
spread awareness and developed
Muslim participation 64;
Muslim revivalism led by
religious conservatives 62;
mutiny by the Imperialists 56;
Neo-Vaishnavism 61-2;
Non-cooperation Movement 64;
pan Islamic Khilafat 64; rallying
masses using religious
symbolism 59; reform
movements 56-7; religious
community 63; representation of
the masses from election to
election 58; Sanatan Dharma
Sabha 64; Sanskrit of the Vedic
Age 55; Semitic religions 56-7;
Tilak, aggressive and busy
stonewalling social reformers 62;
upper-caste property 55; Varna
system 57; Vedic traditions 58
Indian National Congress (INC),
who represented 50-4: A.O.
Hume 50-1; caste movements
54; class based movements 54;
colonial rule, economic
foundations of 52; Congress
leadership, core of 50; Dadabhai
Naroji, influence of 50;
economic issues 51; electoral
politics 54; feudal trimmings 54;
Hindu revivalism 53; Indian
aspirations, legitimacy as
representatives of 51; Indian
Civil Services (ICS) or law in
England 50; local associations
50; managing agency system 52;
microscopic minority 51; native
business men, exclusion of 52;
415
Partition of Bengal in 1905 53;
professional intelligentsia 52;
social divisions, basis of 54;
social precedence 53-4; white
supremacy type of racism 52
Indian political consciousness 118
Indian Public Trust Registration
Act 1860 314
Indian Young Lawyers Association
336
Indo-Soviet Treaty of Friendship
and Cooperation 255
Indo-US Entrepreneurs 352
industrial capitalism 37
Industrial Revolution in England 52
ISKCON 338
Islamophobia 118
Jaffrelot, Christophe 332-3
Jan Sangh 123, 124, 127, 129, 133,
137, 140, 151, 155, 171, 185,
186-7, 267, 271, 275, 282-5,
324, 327-8, 342, 355
Janata Party 167-71, 202, 261-2, 271,
306, 317, 334, 354-5, 358, 365
JP, and Mrs. Indira Gandhi 187-94:
communications with 187;
convergence of opposition
parties occurring around her left
ward turn 189; enforcement of
three day Bihar bandh 192;
possibility of involving
Sarvodaya workers in model
self-governed ashram-like
prisons 187-8; Prison Diary 187;
single-minded attack on the
person of Indira Gandhi 191
JP, and the Congress for Cultural
Freedom (CCF) in India
200-10: CIA had funded CCF
416
to counter the Soviet
propaganda 203; Information
Research Department (IRD)
207-8; JP’s anti-communism vs
Nehru’s staunch neutrality 206;
Mr S.H. Vatsyayan, Secretary
201-2; Plimpton downplayed
the concerns of Humes 203-4;
public disclosures about the fact
that CIA money had funded the
CCF 209-10; Radio Free Europe
205; Soviet propaganda
establishment of the late 1940s
208; strategy of promoting the
non-communist Left 208;
western funders tried to control
Quest through editorial orders
206
JP, purpose and the appropriate
manner of opposition in a liberal
democracy 180-7: Bihar
movement 183-4; events leading
up to the emergency 185-6;
Gandhian communitarian
democracy 183; Gram Jana-
Sangharsha Samitis 181; left
students’ unions 181; liberal
parliamentary democracy 183;
parliamentary democratic system
from within the 1970s 182;
post-Independence break from
politics 182; validity of a call to
civil disobedience 184; village
level Janata Sarkars 181
JP movement 152, 154, 157, 160,
163, 165, 171, 176, 178, 211,
213, 221, 292
Kanpur Bolshevik Conspiracy Case
92
Index
Kar Sevaks 303, 367
Karaka, D.F. 200
Kendriya Karyakari Mandal 315
Kerala’s Land Reform Act 219
Khilafat movement 59, 64, 67, 117,
229
Khilafatists 79, 231
Komitet Gosudarstvennoy
Bezopasnosti (KGB) 198
land ceiling law 268, 323-4
Left position 93: minority position
within the Congress 293-4
Left wing, perils by legislation
144-58: 1956, Life Insurance
was nationalized 146; ABVP
149-50; All India Railwaymen’s
Federation (AIRF) Union 148;
Bharatiya Jan Sangh (BJS) (RSS
political front) 149-50; big
banks were nationalized 144;
Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) 149; Coal Mines
(nationalization) Act, 1973 145;
coal mining, nationalization of
145; Defence of India Rules
(DIR) 149; financial system
144; General Insurance Business
(nationalization) Act 146;
General Insurance Corporation
(GIC) 146; Government actions
against the strike 149; Indira
Gandhi, strategy of legislation
146-7; Indira Gandhi’s reforms
146; Industrial Development
and Regulation Act (1951) 145;
Maintenance of Internal
Security Act (MISA) 149;
managing agency system 144-5;
Monopoly Inquiry Commission
 Index
145; MRTP Act 1969 145;
National Coal Development
Corporation 145; National
Coordination Committee for
Railwaymen’s struggle 148; Nav
Nirman Movement led by
Gujarat students 149; Nav
Nirman Samitis 149-50; Non
Performing Assets (NPA) 144
Left Wing Movements 90-5: All
India Students Federation,
Progressive Writers Association
94; All India Trade Union
Congress (AITUC) of the
Congress Party 94; Communist
Party of India (CPI) 92, 94-5;
Depression years after 1929 94;
Hindu socio-political-economic
caste hierarchy 91; Indian
Communist Conference 92;
Indian Peoples Theatre
Association (IPTA) 94, 95;
Kanpur Bolshevik Conspiracy
Case 92; pro-zamindar and
capitalist stances of the Congress
93-4; Public Safety Bill 93; Red
Trade Union Congress (RTUC)
94; social reform agenda 91
Liberal’ Right in India 267-76:
1962, general elections, the
Swatantra Party, controversial
political force 274-5; All India
Agriculturist Federation 268;
Chitpavan Brahmins’ of Poona
area 271; Federation of Indian
Chambers of Commerce and
Industry (FICCI) 269; Forum
for Free Enterprise 268; Hindu
Code Bill 272-3; Indian
conservative ideology, multiple
417
intertwining strands 270; Land
Ceiling Laws 268; Munshi, K.M.
273-4; Nehru had given enough
cause for the conservatives to be
apprehensive 268; neo-liberal
reforms 267; Rajagopalachari or
Rajaji 268; revivalist RSS
agglutination 271; right-wing
political activity has been
extremely ineffectual 267;
socialist elements, rise of 269;
strong right-wing opposition
outside the Congress 271-2;
Swatantra liberals 275;
Swatantra Party 268-9, 273;
temple campaign 273-4
London vegetarian society 40
long war in Indochina 255-6
Lord Chelmsford 49
Lord Padmanasvami 336: vaults
supposedly with immense
amounts of gold and wealth
336
Madras Hindu Sabha 68-9
Madras Hindu Religious
Endowments Bill 69
Maharashtra State Electricity Board
(MSEB) 291
Mahatma 40
Mahatma Gandhi National Rural
Employment Guarantee Act
(MNREGA) 158
Mandal Commission,
recommendations of 330-1, 358
Mandal Commission report 358
Masani, Minoo R. 200
mass appeal 37, 103
mass communication, machinery of
37
418
material conditions 37, 51, 231
Meerut conspiracy trials 233, 235
Mehta, Asoka 130, 134, 156, 187,
200, 264, 266
Menon, M. 290
Menon, V.K. Krishna 122, 123, 139
Menon, V.P. 274
middle-classes 42, 51, 52, 54, 61,
162, 164, 246: intellectual strata
of 42
mixed economy 101, 124, 220, 222
Moksha 176, 202
Monopolies and Restrictive Trade
Practices Act (MRTP), 1969
138, 140
Montagu, Edwin S. 49, 63, 65
Moon, Janardhan 314
Muslim League 43, 64, 77, 94, 100,
102, 119, 120, 236, 320, 323
Namboodiripad, E.M.S. 40, 41, 117,
123, 151, 225, 235, 244, 259
Narayan, Loknayak Jayaprakash. See
also JP 101, 109, 111, 122, 140,
143, 148, 176-214, 257, 334:
1962 general elections 122;
addressed the second conference
of the Praja Socialist Party
(PSP) 195; and his favourite
variety of socialism 194-7;
Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan 176;
came to abhor communists
153-4; decentralization in 1970s
196; democratic socialism 178;
Gandhi-Subhas Bose dispute
179; gave a call to students to
revive a no-Tax campaign 153;
Gujarat and Bihar movements
178; ideas of Trusteeship of
Property 196; Janata government
Index
established after the 1977
elections 178; knew senior
leaders of the Awami League
198; leadership of the Bihar
student agitation 150-1;
opposed bank nationalization
195; role in the CCF 154; Social
ownership and trusteeship of
workers 196; violent anti-
government agitation 178
Natarajan, S. 200
nation 37
nation building 37, 266
national boundaries 37
National Congress 43, 45
national destiny 42
National Emergency 141-4: India,
state of emergency 141-2;
Indo-Pakistan war for the
creation of Bangladesh 142;
Monopoly and Restrictive Trade
Practices Act (MRTP Act) 143;
Monopoly Capitalism 141;
princely privileges, abolition of
143; resounding success of
Indira Congress in the 1971
general election 143; soft state
syndrome 142; split in the
Congress 143; substantial
financial support for the
opposition campaign 143; two
successive droughts and oil-price
shock 143; United Progressive
Alliance (UPA) 143
National Programme Committee 156
National Students Forum, UK 351
Nationalism 38
nationalist mission 36
nationalist movement 42, 43, 98,
231, 269
 Index
nationalist terminology 43
nationalized temple trusts 335
Nationhood 43
natural resources, nationalization of
218
Nehru, Jawahar Lal 35-6, 41-3, 47,
51, 65, 67, 72, 78, 88-90, 92, 94,
98-100, 106-8, 118-26, 129-30,
135, 166, 183, 194, 200, 206,
217-18, 220, 233, 236-7, 240-2,
244-5, 251, 253, 264-8, 270,
272, 292, 304, 322: empathy of
36; foray into the history of
India 42; pan Indian public
appeal 41-2; political activity
and electoral campaigns 43;
relations with JP 205
Nehru-Mahalanobis model 125
neo-liberal policies 377
neo-liberal reforms 378
neo-liberalism 27, 29, 359, 377:
cultural indicators 359; shrill
discourse of 377
Niyogi, Shankar Guha 168
northern princely states 320
no-Tax campaign 153
Organization of the Petroleum
Exporting Countries (OPEC)
countries 171
organizational rules 119
Ottoman sultan 59
Overseas Friends of BJP (OFBJP)
301, 344
panchayats 36, 170, 375
parliamentary democracy 36, 79,
83, 146, 155, 183, 237-50, 257,
267, 294, 375
path dependencies 38
419
Patil, S.K. 125, 126, 127, 285
per capita earnings 221-2
political conservatives 223
post liberalization 263, 375
post-emergency Janata Party 354
Poverty eradication 375
Privatization or NGO-ization of
development and welfare 349
pseudo-secularists 370
Public Relations (PR) agencies 301
Public Safety Bill 235
Purna Swaraj 89
Rao, P.V. Narasimha 305:
Liberalization, Privatization and
Globalization (LPG) 331
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
(RSS) 59; across India 119;
alliance with Akali Dal 322-3;
alliance with Hindu Mahasabha
322; communal alliance 323;
devoid of sophisticated social
theory or reasoning 289;
finances 316-18; hate thy
neighbour ethos 300; Hindu
Rashtra or religious nationalism
300; linked academic faculty in
the university system 311;
making networks with Congress
rivals 322; membership 312-13;
organization and project of,
85-90; popular support and
sympathy among the
bureaucracy 309; position in the
north 310; post-Partition India,
growth of 309; representation of
71; role as an apex organization
309; shakha in Kolhapur
318-19; shakha in Nagpur 318;
VHP 338
420 Index
RSS, BJP and SS 287-92: 1992-3,
riots of 289; administrative bias
and social perceptions 289-90;
anti-national crimes 289-90;
caste-oriented positions and
cultural purism of the RSS 288;
Maharashtra, engulfed in cycles
of violence 290; Maharashtrian
community 288; Marathi
Manoos 288; social
consciousness, shift in 289; SS
stint in power 291; Terrorist and
Disruptive Activities
(Prevention) Act (TADA) 290
RSS, representation of 71: Civil
Disobedience Movement of
1940 176; Golwalkar, direct
conflict with the government
during the WW2 76; growth,
expansion and activities of 75-6;
Gurudakshina 74; Hedgewar,
strategies to expand the RSS
74-5; Hindu cultural
nationalism 76; Hindu
nationalism 72; Hindu
nationalism, re-inventor of 72;
justification for its members 77;
Maharashtrian Brahmins 71;
national ‘Hindutva’ culture 73;
observers of 71; principle of
‘follow one leader’ 74; Quit India
Movement of 1942 76; Shakha
programme 73
RSS, organization and project of
85-90: Calcutta session of INC,
1886, composition of delegates
89; hierarchical line of control
and command 86; Hindu
communal agitation 89-90;
Malaviya-Lala gang 88;
membership 85-6;
organizational structure 85;
pracharaks 85-6; RSS funds
86-7; shakhas 85; state people’s
movement 89; swayamsevaks 85
RSS finances 316-18: Gurudakshina
receipts from members of the
organization 317; Gurudakshina,
held to be tax exempt 316;
Income-tax Appellate Tribunal
316
Rath Yatra 331, 358, 365, 367
reactionary pan-Islamic movement
117
representation and electoral politics
47-50: 1892 Act 49; Dadabhai
Naroji thesis 48; ideal Hindu
nation 47; INC, formation of
48; Morley-Minto Reforms/
Indian Councils Act of 1909 49;
nationalism, early articulation of
48; Right wing 47; Right wing
or left wing forces 47
reserved subjects 50
resource mobilization 222
Right wing or left wing forces 47
Right Wing within Congress
96-102: Bombay Plan 101;
Congress Socialist Party (CSP)
101; Congress Working
Committee barring dual
membership 100-1;
constitutional reforms of 1919
97-8; end of the WW1 96;
global depression 97; Indian
capitalist class 97; Indian
capitalists and Congress right
wing, resilient relationship
 Index
between 101; Karachi session of
the Congress 98-9; participation
in actions like Gandhian
Satyagrahas 99; Tripura session
of the Congress in 1939 101-2;
Walchand Hirachand Papers 99;
war of 1914-18 96; working
class organizations 97
Sabarimala temple controversy 336
Saffron Dollar project 351
Samants 324
Sampooran Kranti 211
Samyukta Maharashtra Movement
(SMM) 278-80
Samyukta Maharashtra Sabha 277
Sandipini ashram 339
Sarsanghchalak 310
Satya (truth) 40
Scindia, Vijayaraje 324
Shah Commission of Inquiry
213-14
Shared class interests 119
Shastri, Lal Bahadur, Prime
Minister 122, 125-7, 218:
balance of payment situation
125; time in power 125
Shiv Sena (SS): did not participate
in the JP movement 292;
economic agenda of 291;
Shiv Sena (SS), formation of 258,
277, 279, 281, 282, 284, 373:
Bharatiya Kamgar Sena (BKS)
283, 284; Chitrapat Shakha 283;
major organizational
components 283
Singh, Harnam 168-9
Singh, V.P. 314, 329-30, 357-9,
367: hiring American detective
421
agency without consent of the
PM 329-30
Social backwardness 22, 58, 106,
263, 304, 373, 376
social elite 36, 48, 66
social reformers 46, 60, 62, 376
Socialism 35, 40, 79, 84, 92, 94,
106, 119, 120, 124-5, 127, 146,
167, 181, 182, 185, 188, 195,
197, 199, 201, 219, 225, 242,
244, 249-50, 264, 266-7, 269-
70, 325, 340, 375: in India 124
socialists 18, 45, 46, 90, 101, 123,
129, 130, 138, 148, 149, 150,
171, 195, 197, 199, 201, 205,
207, 208, 223, 244, 252, 254,
262, 275, 286, 293, 324
Socialists, disintegration of 264-7:
Congress under Nehru, Avadi
session of the party 265; CSP
activities and discussions forced
the Congress to think of issues
265; distinct socialist ginger
group working within the
Congress 264; personal agendas
and ambitions 266
Societies Registration Act 1950 314
socio-cultural field 120
Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) 223
State Food Trading Corporation
126
Swaminarayan Mandir 339
Swaraj 40-1, 53, 233
Swaraj Party 65, 68, 69
Swatantra Party 127, 131, 137, 207,
219, 254, 260, 267, 268, 269,
273-6, 321, 323-4, 340
Tagore, Rabindranath 35, 44: Cult
of the Charkha 44; Indian
422
history, generalized
representation of 44; lecture on
nationalism 44; E.P. Thompson
views of 44
Tamil Nadu: large temples 334;
Dravidian, anti-brahmanical
movement 333-4
The Campaign to Stop Funding
Hate (TCTSFH) 349, 350-1:
growth of Hindutva outside
India 351; Internal Revenue
Service of the US 349-50
The Discovery of India 42
The Syndicate 122, 126, 128,
133-4, 137
Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams
(Tirupati Trusts) 335
Trade Disputes Act 235
transcendental meditation 338
transferred subjects 49
Transparency International 331
Twenty Point Programme (TPP)
137, 158-9, 162, 167, 211-12:
rural segment of 158; Wage
Freeze Act 159
U.S. Agency for International
Development (AID) 329
United States-India Business
Council (USIBC) 353
unity of India 44
Vande Mataram 61
Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram 326, 350
Vanvasi Kalyan Kendra 343
Vedanta movement 338
Vibrant Gujarat 353
violently polarizing electoral
strategy 378-9
Index
Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP)
301, 303, 314, 321, 326, 333,
337-48, 349, 351, 361-7, 371,
373: aim of 340-1; Bajrang Dal
for the youth 348; Board of
trustee 348; Durga Vahini for
women and for tribal welfare
349; elaborate training camps
345; expansion into America
340; first World Hindu
Conference 339-40; Hindu Ekat
Yatra 347; Hindu Rashtra
346-7; history 339-40; India’s
per capita government
expenditure in the social sector
349; Indian level secretaries and
joint secretaries 348; Maharshi
Vedavyas Mahanagar venue at
Prayag 342; mid-1980s, intense
domestic, mass based, politico-
religious action plan 343;
Migrants, gravitate to symbols of
the culture and ideology 337-8;
NRI based activity 345-6; Ram
Janmabhoomi’ campaign, April
1992 344; Second World Hindu
Conference 341-2; Shivram
Shankar Apte 340-1; Swami
Chinamayananda, found an
active missionary to solidify
Hinduism 345; third World
Hindu Conference 346; training
of the RSS cadre in organization
346
Vyas Poornima/Dakshina Day
(donation day) 315
wage freeze 147, 223
Waze Freeze Act 159
 Index 423

We or Nationhood Defined 76 White Papers in the Parliament

western countries 128: serious 123-4
economic crisis for 256 Who is a Hindu? 79
White Paper 123, 252 World wide web of temples 336-7