The emergence of Deve Gowda as India’s prime minister means, first and foremost, an end to the domination of Brahmans on the highest executive post in the country, The earlier three attempts Lal Bahadur Shashtri in 1965, V.P, Singh in 1989 and Chander Shekhar in 1991 had ended in a fiasco, The reason was that the appointments did not follow a clear Polarization between the upper castes on the one hand and the Dalits, Minorities, and backward communities on the other. The situation at present is different; the polarization now is sharp, clear and pronounced, light at the ground level.
The BJP represents Brahmans and other upper castes. It raised the slogans that seek to strengthen the Hindu raj: a Ram mandir at Ayodhya, Abrogation of article 370 for Kashmir, a uniform civil code for all Indians and abolition of minority commissioned. The third front partners, on the other hand, were returned on the planks of clean administration and secularism. Nevertheless, it is a good beginning. Gowda’s government does not have majority support. It has to depend on Congress (I)’s backing to survive. The Congress (I) men are no angels, their faith in secular: is skin deep. What compels them to support the third front government is the fact that a vast majority of Congress members of Lok Sabha have a sizeable population of minorities and Dalits. In the event of their immediately seeking fresh election, these segments of the population are likely to go out of the Congress fold and turning in favor of the third front. This fear has compelled Congress leadership to extend support to the Deve Gowda government.
It is; however, clear that the government cannot hope to last its full term of five years. The Congress will be on the lookout for an opportunity to vote out the government and seek fresh elections; The Congress will thus try its best to sabotage all efforts of Gowda to advance the cause of Dalits, minorities and backward communities. The party’s main vehicle of sabotage will be bureaucracy. The government will have to undertake major administrative reshuffling to overcome the hurdles. The BJP, too, will try to create problems for the government through open confrontation. The government must not allow any disturbance of communal peace. Gowda should have a live wire home minister to deal with the emerging situation, First and foremost, the new government must release call political detainees who in an overwhelming majority of cases happen to be members of Muslim and Sikh communities. Secondly, the government must put an end to the poll farce in Jammu and Kashmir where the army has tried to pull people out of their houses to vote. Instead, the government should initiate dialogue with the people of Kashmir to resolve the problem.
‘The real agenda of the new government, however, pertains to the center state relations, No patch work will do. The Sarkaria Commission report should be thrown into the waste paper basket. Instead, a genuine restructuring of the federal relations is called for. Such central services as I.A.S., I.P.S. etc. have no place in the states. States should be allowed to have their ‘own way to deal with urgent problems of economy and politics in their regions. This will pave the way for the introduction of genuine liberalization in the economic sphere and end corruption associated with India’s bureaucratic socialism.
A big war on the social, political and economic fronts has begun, An array of possibilities has opened up, India could end up as a vast federation; the south could leave India to from independent federation the south could leave India to form an independent federation of its own: or the army and the police could join hands to reintroduce the Brahman ‘Supremacy to bring India back at square one. Instead of taking advantage of the situation, the Badal Akal Dal has taken an opportunist and narrow-minded view. It has jumped on to the BJP bandwagon. It has totally forgotten the Sikh struggle for restructuring the Indian polity. Badal Bamala Tohra trio have had a replay of the Rajiv Longowal accord which had political power as the key unwritten clause. No wonder, Tohra announced: “The Brar government will not stay in power on June 1.” Sikhs «will have to punish these shortsighted leaders in not too distant a future.
Article extracted from this publication >> May 29, 1996
