RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN INDIAN POLITICS

As the decade of the eighties came to a close, the country witnessed five developments that were to make a long-lasting impact on our politics.

1. Era of Coalitions

• Elections in 1989 led to the defeat of the Congress party but did not result in a majority for any other party.
• Though the Congress was the largest party in the Lok Sabha, it did not have a clear majority and therefore, it decided to sit in the opposition.
• The National Front (which itself was an alliance of Janata Dal and some other regional parties) received support from two diametrically opposite political groups: the BJP and the Left Front.
• On this basis, the National Front formed a coalition government, but the BJP and the Left Front did not join in this government.
• The National  Front Government led by V. P. Singh was supported by the Left (represented here by Jyoti Basu) as well as the BJP (represented by L. K. Advani.

2. Decline of Congress

• Began an era of a multi-party system. To be sure, a large number of political parties always contested elections in our country.
• What happened after 1989 was the emergence of several parties in such a way that one or two parties did not get most of the votes or seats.
• This also meant that no single party secured a clear majority of seats in any Lok Sabha election held since 1989.
• This development initiated an era of coalition governments at the Centre, in which regional parties played a crucial role in forming alliances.

3. Alliance Politics

• The nineties also saw the emergence of powerful parties and movements that represented the Dalits and backward castes (Other Backward Classes).
• These parties played an important role in the United Front government that came to power in 1996.
• The United Front was similar to the National Front of 1989 for it included Janata Dal and several regional parties.
• The United Front government was supported by the Congress. This shows how unstable the political equations were In 1989, both the Left and BJP supported the National Front Government because they wanted to keep the Congress out of power.
• In 1996, the Left continued to support the non-Congress government but this time the Congress, supported it, as both the Congress and the Left wanted to keep the BJP out of power.
• BJP emerged as the largest party in the 1996 election and was invited to form the government. But most other parties were opposed to its policies and therefore, the BJP government could not secure a majority in the Lok Sabha.
• It finally came to power by leading a coalition government from May 1998 to June 1999 and was re-elected in October 1999.
• Atal Behari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister during both these NDA governments and his government formed in 1999 completed its full term.
•  Thus, with the elections of 1989, a long phase of coalition politics began in India. Since then, there have been nine governments at the Centre,  government.
• In this new phase, any government could be formed only with the participation or support of many regional parties.
•  This applied to the National Front in 1989, the United Front in 1996 and 1997, the NDA in 1997, the BJP-led coalition in 1998, the NDA in 1999 and the UPA in 2004.

4. Political Rise of Other Backward Classes

• The term ‘OBC’  refers to the administrative category ‘Other Backward Classes’. These are communities other than SC and ST that suffer from educational and social backwardness.
• These are also referred to as ‘backward castes’.The support for the Congress among many sections of the ‘backward castes’ had declined. This created a space for non-Congress parties that drew more support from these communities.
• Many of the constituents of the Janata Party, like the Bharatiya Kranti Dal and the Samyukta Socialist Party, had a powerful rural base among some sections of the OBC.

Mandal Implemented

• This period saw the emergence of many parties that sought better opportunities for OBCs in education and employment and also raised the question of the share of power enjoyed by the OBCs.
• These parties claimed that since OBCs constituted a large segment of Indian society, it was only democratic that the OBCs should get adequate representation in administration and have their due share of political power.

Mandal Commission 

• Reservations for the OBC have been in existence in southern States since the 1960s, if not earlier.
• However, this policy was not operative in the north Indian States. It was during the tenure of the Janata Party government in 1977-79 that the demand for reservations for backward castes in north India and at the national level was strongly raised.
• Karpoori Thakur, the then Chief Minister of Bihar, was a pioneer in this direction. His government had introduced a new policy of reservations for OBCs in Bihar. Following this, the central government appointed a Commission in 1978 to look into and recommend ways to improve the conditions of the backward classes.  This was the second time since Independence that the government had appointed such a commission.
• Therefore, this commission was officially known as the Second Backward Classes Commission. Popularly, the commission is known as the Mandal Commission, after the name of its Chairperson, Bindeshwari Prasad Mandal
• The Mandal Commission was set up to investigate the extent of educational and social backwardness among various sections of Indian society and recommend ways of identifying these ‘backward classes’.
•  It was also expected to give its recommendations on how this backwardness could be ended. The Commission gave its recommendations in 1980.
• By then the Janata government had fallen. The Commission advised that ‘backward classes’ should be understood to mean ‘backward castes’, since many castes, other than the Scheduled Castes, were also treated as low in the caste hierarchy.
• The Commission did a survey and found that these backward castes had a very low presence in both educational institutions and in employment in public services.
•  It therefore recommended reserving 27 per cent of seats in educational institutions and government jobs for these groups.
• The Mandal Commission also made many other recommendations, like, land reform, to improve the conditions of the OBCs.
• In August 1990, the National Front government decided to implement one of the recommendations of the Mandal Commission about reservations for OBCs in jobs in the central government and its undertakings. This decision sparked agitations and violent protests in many cities of north India.
• The decision was also challenged in the Supreme Court and came to be known Indira Sawhney case, after the name of one of the petitioners.
• In November 1992, the Supreme Court gave a ruling upholding the decision of the government.
• There were some differences among political parties about the manner of implementation of this decision.
• But now the policy of reservation for OBCs has the support of all the major political parties of the country. 
• MANDAL: M.P. from Bihar for 1967-1970and 1977-1979; chaired the Second Backward Classes Commission that recommended reservations for Other Backward Classes; a socialist leader from Bihar; Chief Minister of Bihar for just a month and a half in 1968; joined the Janata  Party in 1977.

5. Political Fallouts

• The 1980s also saw the rise of the political organisation of the Dalits. In 1978 the Backward and Minority Classes Employees Federation (BAMCEF) was formed. This organisation was not an ordinary trade union of government employees. It took a strong position in favour of political power to Bahujans SC, ST, OBC and minorities.
•  It was out of this that the subsequent Dalit Shoshit Samaj Sangharsh Samiti and later the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) emerged under the leadership of Kanshi Ram.
•  The BSP began as a small party supported largely by Dalit voters in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. But in 1989 and the 1991 elections, it achieved a breakthrough in Uttar Pradesh. This was the first time in independent India that a political party supported mainly by Dalit voters had achieved this kind of political success.
• The other long-term development during this period was the rise of politics based on religious identity, leading to a debate about secularism and democracy.
• After 1986, the party began to emphasise the Hindu nationalist element in its ideology. The BJP pursued the politics of ‘Hindutva’ and adopted the strategy of mobilising the Hindus.

Two developments around 1986 became central to the politics of the BJP as a ‘Hindutva’ party.

• The first was the Shah Bano case in 1985. In this case, a 62-year-old divorced Muslim woman had filed a case for maintenance from her former husband. The Supreme Court ruled in her favour. The orthodox Muslims saw the Supreme Court’s order as an interference in Muslim Personal Law.
•  On the demand of some Muslim leaders, the government passed the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986 which nullified the Supreme Court’s judgment.
• This action of the government was opposed by many women’s organisations, many Muslim groups and most of the intellectuals. The BJP criticized this action of the Congress government as an unnecessary concession and ‘appeasement’ of the minority community.

5.1. Ayodhya Dispute

• The second development was the order by the Faizabad district court in February 1986.
• The court ordered that the Babri Masjid premises be unlocked so that Hindus could offer prayers at the site which they considered a temple.
•  A dispute had been going on for many decades over the mosque known as Babri Masjid at Ayodhya.
• The Babri Masjid was a 16th-century mosque in Ayodhya and was built by Mir Baqi-Mughal emperor Babur’s General.
• Some Hindus believe that it was built after demolishing a temple for Lord Rama in what is believed to be his birthplace. In the late 1940s, the mosque was locked up as the matter was with the court.
• As soon as the locks of the Babri Masjid were opened, mobilization began on both sides. Many Hindu and Muslim organisations tried to mobilise their communities on this question.
• Suddenly this local dispute became a major national question and led to communal tensions. The BJP made this issue its major electoral and political plank.
• The BJP, to generate public support, took out a massive march called the Rathyatra from Somnath in Gujarat to Ayodhya in UP.

6. Demolition and After

• In December 1992, the organisations supporting the construction of the temple organised a Karseva, meaning voluntary service by the devotees, for building the Ram temple.
• The situation had become tense all over the country, especially in Ayodhya.
•  The Supreme Court had ordered the State government to take care that the disputed site would not be endangered.
• However, thousands of people gathered from all over the country at Ayodhya on 6 December 1992 and demolished the mosque.
• This news led to clashes between the Hindus and Muslims in many parts of the country.
• The violence in Mumbai erupted again in January 1993 and continued for over two weeks.
•  The events at Ayodhya led to a series of other developments. The State government, with the BJP as the ruling party, was dismissed by the Centre.
• Along with that, other States where the BJP was in power, were also put under President’s rule.
• A case against the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh was registered in the Supreme Court for contempt of court since he had given an undertaking that the disputed structure would be protected.

7. Gujarat Riots

• In February-March 2002, large-scale violence against Muslims took place in Gujarat.
• The immediate provocation for this violence was an incident that took place at a station called Godhra.
• A bogey of a train that was returning from Ayodhya and was full of Karsevaks was set on fire.
• Fifty-seven people died in that fire. Suspecting the hand of the Muslims in setting fire to the bogey, large-scale violence against Muslims began in many parts of Gujarat the next day.
• This violence continued for almost a whole month. Nearly 1100 persons, mostly Muslims, were killed in this violence.

8. Growing Consensus

However, on many crucial issues, a broad agreement has emerged among most parties. Amid severe competition and many conflicts, a consensus appears to have emerged among most parties. This consensus consists of four elements-

1. Agreement on New Economic Policies: While many groups are opposed to the new economic policies, most political parties are in support of the new economic policies. Most parties believe that these policies would lead the country to prosperity and a status of economic power in the world.
2. Acceptance of the political and social claims of the backward castes:  Political parties have recognized that the social and political claims of the backward castes need to be accepted. As a result, all political parties now support the reservation of seats for the ‘backward classes’ in education and employment. Political parties are also willing to ensure that the OBCs get an adequate share of power.
3. Acceptance of the role of state-level parties in the governance of the country:  The distinction between the state-level and national-level parties is fast becoming less important. As we saw in this chapter, state-level parties are sharing power at the national level and have played a central role in the country’s politics for the last twenty years or so.
4. Emphasis on pragmatic considerations rather than ideological positions and political alliances: without ideological agreement, Coalition politics has shifted the focus of political parties from ideological differences to power-sharing arrangements. Thus, most parties of the NDA did not agree with the ‘Hindutva’ ideology of the BJP. Yet, they came together to form a government and remained in power for a full term.