Book summary - India after Gandhi - part 2
Continuing from part 1, Lal Bahadur Shastri became the PM after Nehru in 1964. As a Gandhian socialist he continued with most policies of the day. Pakistanis attacked India again in 1965 but were repelled. Ayub Khan underestimated the pacifist Shashtri and the resolve of the Indian army. India was going through a food shortage and Shashtri urged people to voluntarily give up a meal to save resources. The white revolution and green revolution were kick started under his watch. Under duress India has managed to reform and innovate. We see similar examples after the 91 economic crisis and establishment of nuclear research after China’s bomb tests. Shashtri passed away suddenly in early 66.
Indira Gandhi, chosen as heir by Congress, was elected as the next Prime Minister. However Congress was slowly declining in popularity and lost in states like Tamil Nadu. The communist party won Kerela. Riots across religious lines were still common across the country.
Indira lacked political experience and ended up relying on an inner coterie of bureaucrats, the so-called "Panch Pandava” who were all Kashmiri Pandits. These were principal secretary P.N Haksar, the diplomat T.N Kaul, diplomat D P Dhar, economist PN Dhar, and R N Kao (spymaster who formed RAW). I found it fascinating that the marginal kashmiri pandit community held so much leverage at one point in India’s political history. Based on the advice of this group Indira pivoted to a socialist ideology with nationalization of banks and also a nationalist ideology by removing titles and privileges of the princes. She won another election and continued consolidating power in the party and central government.
By 1971, discontent was brewing in Bangladesh erstwhile East Pakistan. Mujibir Rahman was the local leader who won the election in Pakistan but was not granted power. Instead the military decided to squash protests by force. A distance of over 2000 kms between West and East Pakistan made military logistics a nightmare. Under the leadership of Indira, India was sympathetic to the cause of Bengalis in East Pakistan. They were helped with various resources to gain independence. Pakistan did attack India again, but this time we were much better prepared. With support from the local population India was able to force the surrender of the Pakistani army and negotiate independence of Bangladesh. The Simla agreement was signed to return over 90,000 prisoners of war back to Pakistan.
The victory over Pakistan unleashed a huge wave of patriotic sentiment. Elections followed soon after and in 1972 Congress won comfortably. Indian economic growth was still limited and corruption was on the rise. Jayaprakash Narayan (JP) started an agitation and political movement against Indira and the government. Indira was found guilty of electoral laws. Rather than give up power Indira declared an emergency and co-opted most rights citizens had. This was claimed to be necessary for the greater good of the nation since the unity of India was being threatened by various forces. Across India, people were put in jail under the MISA (Maintenance of Internal Security) act. It seems like India has always flirted with autocratic leadership and wanted to have strong leaders. Freedom of the press was also stamped on. The government needed to scrutinize and approve news reports. Sanjay Gandhi, the elder son of Indira was a rising star. He helped with a five-point program to complement the national 21 point progress plan. One amongst these was a family planning to control India's burgeoning population. The positive side of this program was raising awareness and valuing the girl child. The darker side was forced sterilization of citizens. In 1977 the emergency ended. In 1980 Sanjay, apparent heir to Indira died in a plane crash and after that his brother Rajiv who had no interest in politics till then filled his shoes. Already the congress party had completely been transformed into a crony institution where nepotism paid richer dividends over merit.
By 1978, trouble was brewing in Punjab. Between the various groups of Sikhs, there was a section that was looking at independence from India. Their leader was Bhindranwale and he was able to build a massive following. They took refuge in the holiest site for Sikhs, the Golden Temple in Amritsar and proclaimed Khalistan as their new independent state. Violence amongst groups was escalating slowly with various incidents across north India. There were many negotiations with the Government to restore normalcy, but tensions amongst Hindus and Sikhs kept rising. In 1984 Indira signed off on Operation Bluestar to flush out Bhindranwale and his acolytes out of the temple using force. The operation was led by Sikhs from the army. Astonishingly the militants had access to heavy machinery like machine guns and grenades. Tanks needed to be brought in to subdue the forces. In the end hundreds of deaths were reported and unfortunately there was extensive damage to the religious site. As revenge, Indira was murdered by her Sikh bodyguards. Her son Rajiv was sworn in as prime minister and riots erupted across India. The congress party actively and passively enabled the riots.
We’re somewhere in the 90s now. Many other major events were unfolding across the nation. Terrorism in Sri Lanka by the LTTE leading to Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, rising tensions in Ayodhya over the Ram temple, reservations as proposed by the Mandal report, and more. LK Advani started the rath yatra to bring up the Ayodhya temple cause leading to massive riots and the demolition of the Babri Masjid. Kashmir riots took place with genocide against the Kashmiri pandits, showing a complete failure of the government and the community. Pakistan continued to ferment anger in India be it the Sikhs, the Muslims in Kashmir or any other marginalized group.
The Indian economy had been sluggish since independence because of its tilt towards socialist policies. Finally by 1991, India was close to defaulting on its foreign payments obligations. The government accepted an emergency loan from the IMF and pledged Indian gold reserves as collateral. Gold from India was flown to other countries and this information leaked out to the press. This shameful incident caused real reforms to take place with Manmohan Singh as the finance minister. The 1991 Indian economic crisis triggered liberalization of the policies and a meaningful shift towards an open growing capitalistic economy.
By late 90’s BJP took over the central government in an alliance with other parties called National Democratic Alliance. Atal Bihari Vajpayee was prime minister and called for nuclear tests to complete India’s military research and nuclear weaponization. Pakistan followed almost immediately with their own tests showing the race between the two rivals.
After the tensions thawed, Atal met the prime minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif in Lahore with a peace proposal for Kashmir. They wanted to start off with bilateral trade and other confidence building measures. However at this same time, the generals in Pakistan were executing on a plan to infiltrate and capture areas of Kashmir. This led to the Kargil war with the Indian armed forces taking back all of their territory across the line of control. The war was fought with conventional weapons at a heavy price of soldiers fighting in treacherous conditions. However India finally prevailed both militarily and diplomatically.
India has continued to progress economically at better rates. Foundations laid have started paying dividends. These include progress in IT, telephony and more. BJP’s rise under Modi and use of religion and riots is also covered in my edition of the book.
Even though the book is a long read, from a timeline perspective it is actually very concise. Looking at such a broad range of time, it is easy to see how infrequent riots have become. They are still a major problem but scope and lethality definitely seems to be reducing. It’s astounding how similar I felt Indira and Modi would have been in personality. Both of them are strong leaders, but pushing the limits of the constitution and very capable of undermining institutions to reach their goals and greatly diminished the power of the free press. I doubt that their followers would be ready to accept this similarity though.
Read the book - it’s a great read about history without being judgemental. There are notes on how India has survived many existential crises and matured over time. We’re finally entering the big leagues.