The Dramatic Decade
Author : Pranab Mukherjee
Publisher : Rupa, Rs595
India’s President Pranab Mukherjee remembers the formative years of the Janata Party and addresses the fragments and disagreements the party had decades ago, in a chapter in his recently released book The Dramatic Decade. Excerpt:
The Janata Party came to exist formally after the election of 1977 but they fought the election as one party with one symbol. However, friction reigned supreme from the very inception. Charan Singh wanted to head the party but Morarji Desai was chosen as the Chairman. Thereafter, Charan Singh was nullified by being given charge of the northern States. After the election, he could not become the Prime Minster as the mantle fell on Morarji Desai again. Charan Singh wanted to have Karpoori Thakur as the first President of the Janata Party but, again, he was frustrated as Chandra Shekhar was chosen by JP as the first President of the party. From the very outset, Charan Singh became a disgruntled element and considered himself ‘cheated’. Hence it was no wonder that his camp followers started building up an anti-Desai campaign inside the party and outside.
In June 1978, the simmering difference came out in the open. Raj Narain, who described himself as the ‘Hanuman’ to Charan Singh, called a press conference and launched an attack against the party President Chandra Shekhar, as also against the party’s national executive and parliamentary board. All these were adhoc committees and must be scrapped, he said. Every other day he attacked Chandra Shekhar and brought new allegations against him.
Describing him as an ‘illegal’ President, accusing him of hobnobbing with those forces who were propagating the idea of the ‘third force’ as an alternative to Congress (I) and the Janata Party. Even Industry Minister George Fernandes, in a note to the National Executive Committee, admitted that there was a gradual erosion of the party and the Government and ‘all of us are guilty of thinking and acting as members of the merging parties rather than as members of one political party’. Referring indirectly to the working triumvirate at the top (Desai, Charan Singh and Jagjivan Ram), he urged them to exercise their political and moral authority to keep the party in shape.
This was a tall order for the leaders, quarreling continuously for their pounds of flesh and caring two hoots for the country or the people. ‘Desai was never tired of privately condemning Jagjivan Ram for private immorality and corruption; wrote Madhu limaye in the annual issue of Mainstream (1979): ‘Desai’s hypocrisy knows no limits. While publicly supporting Ram’s claim for forming a Government, privately he has been denouncing Ramji in strong words saying, “I shall never allow that man who lacks private morality and public integrity to become the Prime Minister”.
Such was the relationship of the three top leaders of the ruling party within a year of their coming to power. Therefore, when Raj Narain started a concerted attack against his Party President, there was little doubt that it was an early component in the master plan to remove first the Party President and then the Prime Minister. The Bharatiya lok Dal (BlD) faction of the Janata Party worked out its strategy on the basis of the support it expected from the Jana Sangh group of the party which had the largest number of MPs. In 1977, the two had arrived at deal for the northern States.
This plan was upset by a statement of Sunder Singh Bhandari, an important Jana Sangh leader. Bhandari pointed out that there was no in-built provision for the continuity of this arrangement and that ‘none of us can take each other for granted’ in our respective designs. He did riot agree with Raj Narain’s contention that the National Executive Committee was illegal and he made it clear that the Jana Sangh group would riot support any no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Morarji Desai. This was enough to shelve the scheme for the time being.
Raj Narain was publicly reprimanded by Morarji Desai at the Delhi airport when the former put ‘attar’ on him on his return from a trip abroad. Desai alleged that Raj Narain had been playing foul during his trip abroad. On 22 June, Raj Narain was accused by the National Executive Committee for going public with intra-party differences, thereby violating the directive of the National Executive of the party.
When Raj Narain was cornered in the party, his mentor Charan Singh came to his rescue. From a health resort in Surajkund, where he was recuperating from an illness, Charan Singh issued a statement at midnight on 28 June 1978, accusing, in strong words, a Government of which he was a part. But the subject of his statement was his favourite theme: ‘Indira baiting’. He said the Government could not govern the country as it was a ‘pack of impotent people’. ‘Perhaps, those who differ from me, do not realise sufficiently the intensity of feelings among the people of our country on the Government’s failure to put the former Prime Minister behind the bars by now.’ He said that a section of the people wanted Indira Gandhi to be detained under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA). If the Government did this, he said, ‘hundreds of mothers of Emergency victims would celebrate the occasion like Diwali...’
This was the proverbial last straw that broke the camel’s back.
Morarji Desai asked his Home Minister, Charan Singh, to resign from the cabinet for violating the principle of joint responsibility of the cabinet. Raj Narain was also asked to resign from the cabinet for his behaviour in Shimla, where, as a Minister, he violated the prohibitory order issued under Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
Madhu limaye, a parliamentarian and a socialist, was one of the General Secretaries of the Janata Party. He could not stand the RSS and resisted its growing influence in the Janata Party The occasion of enrollment for party membership gave him an opportunity. He knew that in the membership drive the organised RSS cadre would outnumber the rest and capture the party as and when organisational elections took place.
limaye convinced Raj Narain that once the Jana Sangh was isolated, Morarji Desai would be helpless and Charan Singh would emerge as the most powerful entity in the party.
The Jana Sangh faction did not remain idle during this period either. It knew its strengths and weaknesses, and was fully aware of the chances of a split in the party and the collapse of the Government. Given that it was the biggest beneficiary of the power-sharing arrangement at the centre it, understandably, tried to bring Charan Singh and Morarji Desai together. Some other leaders like Biju Patnaik and Chandra Shekhar, too, worked hard to bring Charan Singh back into the Government.
In such a situation, Charan Singh returned to the Government as Deputy Prime Minister (and as Finance Minister). Morarji Desai agreed to the arrangement but remained true to his game by making Jagjivan Ram Deputy Prime Minister (also Defence Minister) as well. Desai scored another point over Charan Singh by refusing to accommodate Raj Narain. Wiser in humiliation, Charan Singh accepted the offer and rejoined the Government in January 1978.
But even this arrangement could not save the Government from its inevitable downfall. It was just checked for a short while. Since Raj Narain was left high and dry, he spared no effort in pulling the Desai Government down.
Extracted from the chapter titled ‘Crisis in the Janata Party’. Excerpt taken with permission from Rupa Publications