Chapter I

Political Parties and Elections in India:

An overview

India achieved independence from British rule on August 15, 1947

under the leadership and non-violent resistance of Mahatma Gandhi

following the Indian Independence Movement. During the three-year

period, the country drafted its constitution under the chairmanship of

Dr B R Ambedkar and became Republic on January 26, 1950. The then

Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru was eager to adopt a

democratic form of government (Ramachandra Guha, 2007:133), and

an Election Commissioner, Sukumar Sen, was appointed to conduct

elections which were held in 1952 to elect 500 representatives to the

lower house(the Lok Sabha) of the Parliament. Although many

political parties contested the elections and as many as nine political

parties were prominent among them. They were the Indian National

Congress, Socialist Party, Communist Party of India, Jana Sangh,

Dravida Khazagham, Shiromani Akali Dal, Jharkhand Party, Hindu

Mahasabha, and Ramarajya Parishad (Ramachandra Guha, 2007: 138).

Nevertheless, a number of political parties have grown over the years,

and at present, there are about 1866 political parties which are

registered with the Election Commission. Out of these 1866 parties,

only six are considered national level parties. Interestingly, between

March, 2014 and July 2015 year, as many as 239 parties have

1
registered themselves with the Election Commission. Although these

parties are registered with the Commission, they are considered to be

unrecognized political parties as they do not have the privilege of

contesting elections on a symbol of their own. They have to choose

from a list of 'free symbols' issued by the poll panel.

The present chapter is divided into two parts. Part I details a brief

history of significant political parties that were in the election fray in

2014 Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh. Uttar Pradesh is the

largest state in India which elects 80 members of parliament (Lok

Sabha). Since the present study is confined to newspapers that were

published in Uttar Pradesh, a brief profile of significant political

parties that contested the elections from Uttar Pradesh, is presented

here. In the present context, the significant political parties are four

parties that ruled the state of Uttar Pradesh, viz., Indian National

Congress, the Bharatiya Janata Party, Samajwadi Party, and Bahujan

Samaj Party. Part II outlines the history of elections in India and the

role of media in democracy.

Part I: Brief profile of political parties

A political Party is a group of people who come together to contest

elections and hold power in the government. They agree on some

policies and programmes for the society with a view to promoting the

collective good. In every polity that aspires modernity, political parties

are an indispensable link between the society and the institutions of

2
the government (Brass, 1966). Just as social identities influence the

organizational form of political life, so do political organizations shape

the form of social identification (Weiner,1975). Moreover, the

emergence and functioning of the political parties are largely

determined by the structure of the society in which they origin and

operate. Sometimes cultural and ethnic diversities, forces of tribalism,

traditionalism, regionalism play powerful manifestations in giving rise

to the fragmentation and proliferation of parties in the developing

countries. Various scholars, however, have classified political parties

in different categories. According to Gunther and Diamond (2001),

political parties are divided into five broad categories: elite parties,

mass-based parties, ethnicity-based parties, electoralist parties, and

movement parties. The first type of Party is formed by the notable

personalities who mobilize support through personal resources (ex:

Socialist Party of India). The second type of Party, mass-based Party is

a nationalistic Party which has mass membership (ex: Congress Party

in India). The third type of Party is ethnicity-based Party which

consists of multi-ethnic groups (ex: African National Union), but which

is not found in India. The fourth type of political Party is electoralist

Party which is launched by individuals with an intention to contest

elections (ex: Aam Aadmi Party- Kejriwal, Congress-Tiwari, and

Shiromani Akali Dal- Mann. Lastly, the fifth type of Party is movement

Party which comes into being to achieve an issue or a cause (ex:

Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, Telenganan Rashtra Samiti and so on).

3
However, in the Indian context, Douglas Verney (2004) argued that

only two parties in India — Congress (I) and the BJP qualify for being

as national parties, while other parties in the country are only regional

parties. Further he divided the regional parties in India into five

groups. The first group is the Communist Left that is currently allied

with the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPM) which has a static

support of 4.8 percent of the popular vote and is largely confined to

West Bengal, Tripura, and Kerala. Despite continuing efforts, the

Communist Left has been unable to expand much beyond these

traditional areas of strength. A second group of regional parties is

composed of the large number of ephemeral and transitional parties

that tend to disappear after one or two elections. A third group of

parties are those that are based on group appeals to religion, caste, or

tribe. Most of these parties are found only in a single state. They

include parties like the tribal-based Jharkhand Mukti Morcha in

Jharkand; the Shiromani Akali Dal, a Sikh Party in the Punjab; and the

caste-based Rashtriya Janata Dal in Bihar. A fourth group consists of

parties that focus on ethnic and regional identities such as the Telugu

Desam Party (TDP) of Andhra and various Tamil parties in the Tamil

Nadu. The fifth type is represented by potential national parties like

the Bahujan Samaj Party and Samajwadi Party that cater to the Dalit

and Otherwise Backward Class. According to Bannerjee (1984),

regional parties draw their influence from two major sources. First the

concentration of their supporters in a particular geographic area

4
which become a source of the stability they enjoy. Second they avoid

fielding candidates in constituencies where they do not have a

marginal support base. Against this background, the profiles of two

national parties, viz. Congress Party, and Bharatiya jananta Party, and

two regional parties, Samajwadi Party, and Bhahujan Samaj Party in

Uttar Pradesh are presented below. The profiles of remaining political

parties are discussed in Appendix I.

Congress Party

The Indian National Congress (INC), known as the Congress Party is

the national major political Party in India, the other being the

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The Congress Party is the largest and one

of the oldest of the political parties in the world, committed to

‘democratic ideology’ (Kothari, 2012). The Congress was founded by

Indian and British members of the Theosophical Society movement,

notably A.O. Hume (Ramachandra Guha, 2007:xiv). The Party was

founded in 1885 with an objective of obtaining a greater share in

government for educated Indians and also to create a platform for

civic and political dialogue of educated Indians with the British Raj.

Indeed, it was a Scotsman, Allan Octavian Hume, who brought about

its first meeting in Bombay, with the approval of Lord Dufferin, the

then-Viceroy. Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee was the first President of

the Congress Party. The first meeting was scheduled to be held in

Pune, but due to a plague outbreak there, the meeting was later shifted

to Bombay. The first session of the INC was held from December 28–

5
31, 1885, and was attended by 72 delegates. In the pre-independence

era, prominent political figures like Dadabhai Naoroji, Bal Gangadhar

Tilak; Bipin Chandra Pal; Lala Lajpat Rai; Gopal Krishna Gokhale; and

Mohammed Ali Jinnah played a crucial role in the Party. Over a period

of time the Congress was transformed into a mass movement by

Surendranath Banerjea and Sir Henry Cotton during the partition of

Bengal in 1905. Subsequently, Mohandas Gandhi after returning from

South Africa in 1915 participated in the freedom movement. In the

1920s and ’30s the Congress became a mass movement (Kothari,

2012), led by Mohandas Gandhi who promoted nonviolent non-

cooperation to protest against the British rule. Many leaders

associated with the Party in different parts of the country led protest

movements and courted arrest fighting the foreign rule.

After Indian independence in 1947, the Congress became the

dominant political Party in the country. After the assassination of

Gandhi in 1948, and the death of Sardar Patel in 1950, Jawaharlal

Nehru played a key role to the electoral success of the Party. Nehru led

the Congress to consecutive victories in the elections of 1952, 1957

and 1962. After Nehru's death in 1964, soft-spoken Lal Bahadur

Shastri remained Prime Minister until his death in 1966, and a broad

Congress Party election opted for Indira Gandhi, over conservative

Morarji Desai. Electoral defeats in eight states in 1967 and a reduced

majority in the Lok Sabha revealed a breakdown in the Congress

system of reconciliation and consensus and set in motion a series of

6
schisms that led to a historic split in the Party in 1969 (Hardgrave and

Kochanek, 2008). Although the electoral defeats suffered by the

Congress in 1967 led to internal dissension, defections, and increased

tension between Indira Gandhi and Morarji Desai. However, a

compromise was reached by both the parties whereby Mrs. Gandhi

was unanimously re-elected Prime Minister, while Morarji Desai was

appointed Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister. Mrs. Gandhi

sought to re-establish the pre-eminence of the Prime Minister within

the Party and hence ‘she sought to transform a factional conflict

within the Congress into a populist ideological crusade by demanding

nationalisation of major commercial banks, effective implementation

of land reforms, ceilings on urban income and property, and curbs on

industrial monopolies’ (ibid). Because of his notable lack of

enthusiasm for her new policies, the Prime Minister relieved Morarji

Desai of his finance portfolio and announced the immediate

nationalisation of all major banks (Nihal Singh, 1978)

Party split. The split in the Congress was result of growing differences

between the old guard of the Party and Indira Gandhi. Indira Gandhi

took control of the finance portfolio and passed bank nationalisation

ordinance. After the death of President Zakir Hussain in May 1969, the

Syndicate or old guard faction chose Sanjiva Reddy as the Congress

candidate for the presidentship. The Vice President of India at that

time, V.V. Giri, also filed his nomination as an independent candidate

for the post of President. Mrs Gandhi openly supported Mr. Giri
7
against Mr. Reddy. After the victory of Mr. Giri, Mrs. Gandhi was

served with a show-cause notice for her indiscipline. She did not reply

which led to the Party split in late 1969(Nihal Singh, 1978). The

conflict led to a split, and Indira launched a separate INC. Initially this

Party was known as Congress (R), but it soon came to be generally

known as the New Congress. The official Party became the Indian

National Congress (Organization) (INC (O)) led by Kamaraj. It was

informally called the Old Congress and retained the Party symbol of a

pair of bullocks carrying a yoke. Mrs. Gandhi's breakaway faction was

given a new symbol of a cow with suckling calf by the Election

Commission as the Party election symbol (Nihal Singh, 1978). As a

result of the split, the Indira-led Congress lost its majority in the Lok

Sabha and became dependent upon the support of the Communist

Party of India (CPI) and the Dravida Munnetra Khazhagam. (DMK)

With a resolve to secure a new mandate, the Prime Minister dissolved

the Lok Sabha and called for a fresh election for March 1971. The

campaign was aimed at attracting the support of disadvantaged

groups, especially the Scheduled Castes and Tribes, Muslims, and the

young. Mrs. Gandhi banked upon a slogan: Garibi Hatao, (Abolish

Poverty). In their attempt to personalize the campaign, opposition

parties responded with their own slogan of Indira Hatao, the removal

of Mrs. Gandhi. The results of the 1971 elections were known as the

Indira wave. With 44 percent of the vote, Mrs. Gandhi’s Party won 352

of the 518 seats in the Lok Sabha. In March 1972 she held new

8
elections for the legislative assemblies in all but four states and won a

second landslide victory. Although the Congress had won 70 percent

of assembly seats, it received only 48 percent of the popular vote. On

the surface, Indira Gandhi appeared to have restored the pattern of

one-Party dominance that had characterized the Nehru era. In

practice, however, the new pattern of dominance was very different

and contributed to a severe political crisis in the midst of the greatest

economic crisis in post-independence India (Ramachandra Guha,

2007). Under Indira Gandhi’s leadership, authority within both the

Party became highly “centralized and family-centered political

organization” (Zoya Hasan, 2014). At the Center, cabinet positions

were regularly reshuffled to keep possible rivals off balance; key

portfolios were held directly by the Prime Minister; and from 1969 to

1977 the Congress Party had five different Presidents. Mrs. Gandhi

also sought to transform the social base of Congress support by

recruiting Party members from the weaker sections of society—youth,

women, Muslims, Scheduled Castes and Tribes, and the poor. These

newly mobilised sectors, however, were too weak to wrest control of

the Party organization from formerly dominant Party factions.

The Emergency (1975–77). Although the Indira wave succeeded, she

failed to deal with the troubled economy. The 1971 Bangladesh war, a

severe drought in 1972–73, food shortages, spiraling prices, and the

world energy crisis of 1973, forced the country to suffer, and

deepened economic turmoil. Further, Congress rule especially in the

9
states was ineffective. Processions and demonstrations took place

almost daily, university campuses were torn by indiscipline, and a

wave of strikes threatened the economy with chaos, especially the

1974 railway strike. The situation exploded in Gujarat in 1974, with

widespread student agitation against the Congress government of the

state resulting in President’s Rule. In Bihar, as discontent erupted into

mass agitation, Sarvodaya leader Jayaprakash Narayan (JP), assumed

leadership of the movement against the corrupt Congress government

and he called for a ‘total revolution’ for the fundamental

transformation of Indian society (Ramachandra Guha, 2007,

Singh,2013). In this context, in June 1975, Indira Gandhi suffered two

political blows. On June 12, Mrs Gandhi was found guilty by the High

Court of Allahabad of election malpractice of violating the election

code. The High Court decision was the result of charges of corrupt

election practices brought against Mrs. Gandhi for actions that had

taken place during the 1971 elections (Kuldip Nayar, 1978, Bipin

Chandra, 2003).

Although the Court dismissed the more serious charges of bribery and

intimidation, it found the then Prime Minister guilty of two relatively

minor technical violations of the election law, declared her election in

1971 invalid, and barred her from holding any office for a period of six

years. In order to permit an appeal to the Supreme Court, however,

the Court sentence was stayed for 20 days. The Court ruling was

followed by a second blow a day later when the Congress suffered a

10
massive defeat in the state assembly elections in Gujarat. The

combined court verdict and the Congress defeat in Gujarat led major

opposition parties, national newspapers, and even a few members of

her own Party demand Mrs. Gandhi to step down as Prime Minister,

but she refused. The political situation further worsened when on June

24 Justice V R Krishna Iyer, the vacation judge of the Supreme Court,

rejected the Prime Minister’s request for a ‘‘complete and absolute’’

stay of the High Court judgment against her. Instead, he granted a

conditional stay until the Court could convene to consider her appeal.

He ruled that Mrs. Gandhi could remain as Prime Minister, but she

could neither vote nor participate in the proceedings of Parliament.

On the following evening, June 25, a mass rally was held on the

Ramlila festival grounds in New Delhi by leaders of the opposition,

including Jayaprakash Narayan and Morarji Desai, who called for a

nationwide movement to unseat the Prime Minister. Denouncing

Indira Gandhi as ‘‘moving toward dictatorship and fascism,’’

Jayaprakash Narayan called upon the people of India to resist the

corrupt and illegitimate government. As he had done before, he urged

the police and the armed forces to refuse to obey ‘‘illegal and

immoral’’ orders and to uphold the Constitution against those who

would destroy it. That night, across the city in the home of the Prime

Minister, final plans were made for the declaration of emergency

(Kuldip Nayar, 1978, 2013). No Cabinet member had been consulted,

and even the Home Minister was not informed until late on the night

11
of June 25, 1975. On the morning of June 26, the Government of India

assumed extraordinary emergency powers under Clause (1), Article

352 of the Indian Constitution.

Earlier that morning, before the Proclamation was issued, the

principal leaders of the opposition were arrested under the

Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA)—676 people by the

official tally. On orders of the government, at 2:00 a.m., electricity to

the major newspapers in New Delhi was also cut off, imposing a news

blackout on the city. At 8:00 a.m. Indira Gandhi addressed the nation

on All-India Radio (see details in Kuldip Nayar, 1978). However, after

vehement criticism from all quarters, and the opposition Emergency

was lifted was lifted on March 20, 1977, and the rules of the

emergency were relaxed, press censorship lifted, public meetings

permitted, and thousands of opposition politicians released from jails.

Indira Gandhi unexpectedly announced that parliamentary elections

in March. Soon after the announcement, two decisive events upset

Mrs. Gandhi’s calculations. The first was the formation of the

opposition Janata Party (Ramchandra Guha, 2007). Mrs. Gandhi was

even less prepared for her second jolt—the defection of Jagjivan Ram

from the Congress fold. Ram, a senior member of the Cabinet and the

leader of the weaker sections had long nursed ambition to be Prime

Minister. Having seen his power eroded during the emergency, he

resigned from the government; denounced Indira Gandhi for the

destruction of democracy in India; and formed his own Party, the

12
Congress for Democracy (CFD). The combination of opposition unity

and Congress defections posed a serious threat to continued Congress

dominance. The CFD and the Janata Party agreed on common

candidates and, in effect, waged the campaign as one Party. But Mrs.

Gandhi’s expectation to stage a come-back was reversed and the

Congress was able to win only 154 seats and the Janata and its allies

won an absolute majority of 298 out of the 542 seats in Parliament

(Graham, 2012)

The results led to the split again in January 1978 and a breakaway

group of Congress (I)—for Indira—was formed. The March 1978

assembly elections in five states gave Indira Gandhi her first

opportunity to test her claim of popular support and attempt a

political comeback. In the southern states of Karnataka and Andhra

Pradesh where popular chief ministers sided with Mrs. Gandhi at the

time of the split, the Congress (I) won overwhelming majorities.

Overall, the Congress (I) won 394 seats in the five states, compared to

271 for Janata and 147 for the old Congress. Eight months later, in

November 1978, Indira Gandhi was elected to Parliament in a by-

election, returned to New Delhi and took her seat in Parliament as

leader of the opposition (Hardgrave and Kochanek, 2008). Yet, Mrs.

Gandhi, was facing problems within her Party while attempts to expel

her from Parliament, and efforts to jail her for misconduct and abuse

of authority were continuing. On the other hand, the Janata victory in

1977 had been greeted with euphoria and hailed as a democratic

13
revolution. Twenty-eight months later, however, amidst drift,

discontent, and defection, the Janata government collapsed. In its

place, an uneasy coalition came to power under Charan Singh, leader

of the breakaway Lok Dal faction. Less than one month later, unable to

face a parliamentary vote of no confidence, Singh submitted his

resignation as Prime Minister, and the President called for new

elections. Both the Janata Party and the Congress Party were torn by

schism, the prospect of any single Party emerging with a

parliamentary majority appeared bleak. Mrs. Gandhi alone

commanded the status of an all-India leader. In 1980 elections, Mrs.

Gandhi restored Congress (I) dominance by winning 351 seats, a two-

thirds majority, and 43 percent of the popular vote(Graham,2012).

Rise of Rajiv Gandhi. Indira Gandhi’s return to power brought back to

the Congress fold many who had defected from the Party during its

time in the political wilderness. In February 1980, Mrs. Gandhi re-

enforced her mandate. Following the 1977 precedent set by the Janata

Party in dismissing Congress state governments on the ground that

they had lost their mandate, Mrs. Gandhi instructed the President to

dissolve nine opposition-controlled state assemblies. The state

elections provided an opportunity for Sanjay Gandhi, her son who had

been instrumental in engineering his mother’s return to power, to

establish his own independent base of political power. Securing 60

percent of the seats, the Congress (I) took power in eight of the nine

states. On June 23, 1980, Sanjay Gandhi, heir apparent to the prime

14
ministership of India, died at the age of 33, in a crash of a single-

engine stunt plane he piloted. Deeply shaken by her son’s death, Indira

Gandhi seemed to lose interest in the affairs of both Party and state.

After some six months, she gradually regained control of the events,

with her elder son, Rajiv. With no experience in politics, it was only

upon the death of Sanjay that Rajiv made his reluctant entry into

public life (Ramachandra Guha, 2007). In 1981 Rajiv was elected to

Parliament from Amethi, Sanjay’s constituency in Uttar Pradesh. Six

months later, he accepted leadership of the Youth Congress. Following

Sanjay’s death, Mrs. Gandhi began to ease out of some of her more

serious liabilities in the states and increasingly distanced members of

the Sanjay brigade from power and influence (Sitapati, 2016). In

March 1982 the most disgruntled among them Maneka Gandhi,

Sanjay’s young widow, challenged the Party leadership. In a dramatic

confrontation with her mother-in-law, Maneka was thrown out of the

house. In the following months, Maneka formed her own political

Party, the Rashtriya Sanjay Manch. Against the backdrop of Party

disarray, Congress looked to the next parliamentary elections with

increasing apprehension. Indira Gandhi’s imperial style had weakened

the Congress organization, fuelled regional resentment, and spawned

the rise of local state parties (Hardgrave and Kochanek, 2008)

On the morning of October 31, 1984, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi

was assassinated by two Sikh members of her security guard. Within

hours of Mrs. Gandhi’s death, Rajiv Gandhi, at the age of 40, was sworn

15
in as Prime Minister. It was widely believed that only Rajiv, as bearer

of the Gandhi name and the Nehru legacy, could lead the Congress to

victory in the forthcoming elections. Adhering to the schedule believed

to have been set before his mother’s death, Rajiv announced that

parliamentary elections would be held on December 24 (Sitapati,

2016).

Rajiv in office. Less than two months after taking office as the

youngest Prime Minister to serve India, Rajiv Gandhi won a massive

electoral victory. The massive victory at the polls in December 1984

appeared to have given him sufficient reassurance and hence

promised to clean up public life. Settlement of the Punjab and Assam

problems, which his mother had mishandled, became one of his

highest policy priorities. The first major action taken by the new

government was the enactment of an anti-defection1 bill, passed

unanimously by both houses of Parliament in January 1985 as the 52

Amendment to the Constitution. The legislation was designed to clean

up public life and, in the words of Rajiv Gandhi, put an end to ‘‘politics

without principles.’’ Rajiv Gandhi’s initiative in passing the long-

promised anti-defection law2 was hailed as ushering in a new era of

1
Defections, or ‘‘floor-crossings,’’ had long been the bane of Indian politics, with
more than 2,700 recorded cases since 1967, most within the state assemblies. As
the dominant Party, the Congress had been the principal beneficiary, with as many
as 1,900 defections to its ranks.
2 The act, however, also gave Rajiv a powerful weapon to maintain discipline
within his own Party. Under the Amendment, which applied to both Parliament
and the state assemblies, legislators would lose their seat if they quit their Party to
join another; if, without prior permission or subsequent approval, they voted or
abstained from voting in the house ‘‘contrary to any direction’’ issued by the
16
politics (Sitapati, 2016). Like his mother’s victory in 1972, Rajiv’s

massive mandate in the December 1984 Lok Sabha elections gave him

considerable freedom in selecting Congress candidates for the March

1985 Assembly elections in 11 states and one of the Union

Territories(Hardgrave and Kochanek,2008).

Further, Rajiv continued his conciliatory approach in an attempt to

solve ethnic and religious conflicts in the Punjab and Assam. In July

1985, he signed an accord with Akali president Longowal on the

Punjab, and a month later reached an agreement with students in

Assam to end their anti-immigration agitation. Rajiv’s reform agenda

also embraced a programme to make the economy more dynamic,

rejuvenate the Congress (I), and prepare India for the 21st century.

Popular euphoria reached an all-time high as Rajiv was hailed as the

messiah of a new, modern India and as a man of courage, integrity,

and vision (Ramachnadra Guha, 2007). However, the euphoria did not

last. By 1986 Rajiv’s apparent solutions of India’s seemingly

intractable problems began to unravel. The scheduled transfer of

Chandigarh to the Punjab, which was to take place on January 26,

1986, was deferred. Communal violence erupted over the Babri Masjid

in Ayodhya; Rajiv was accused of placating Muslims by supporting a

political Party to which they belong; or if they were expelled from their Party ‘‘in
accordance with the procedure established by the Constitution, rules, or
regulations’’ of such Party. Splits were permissible only if it involved at least one-
third of the legislative Party. Mergers would require two-thirds approval (Hargrave
and Kochanek, 2008).

17
bill that would reverse the 1985 Shah Bano case and limit the financial

responsibility of Muslim men in divorce cases; and violence intensified

in the Punjab. One of the few bright spots was the Mizoram Accord of

July 26, 1986, which ended a 20-year insurgency in the Northeast.

Even this accomplishment was offset by renewed trouble in Kashmir

and a Gurkha agitation in West Bengal for the creation of a separate

state of Gurkhaland.

As Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi centralized power to an even greater

extent. The Cabinet was subject to frequent changes, and power

became concentrated in the hands of a very small, narrowly based

group of inexperienced personal advisors in the Prime Minister’s

Secretariat (Yadav and Palshikar, 2014). In less than three years, the

Union Cabinet was reshuffled at least a dozen times, and each change

was accompanied by a promise that additional adjustments would

follow. Every Cabinet minister was transferred at least once, and some

ministers changed jobs four times. No one was in office long enough to

learn the job or to take any meaningful action. While Rajiv’s relations

with the President created a credibility crisis, his handling of a series

of corruption scandals substantially tarnished his image of

incorruptibility. Rajiv had given V. P. Singh, his new Finance Minister,

a broad mandate to weed out corruption and reduce the size of the

black economy. Singh attempted to implement this mandate by cutting

tax rates while simultaneously launching a major enforcement effort.

Tax raids, court cases, and the arrest of leading industrialists became

18
the hallmarks of his new regime. V. P. Singh’s rigorous enforcement

efforts generated enormous resentment among India’s top

industrialists (Hardgrave and Kochanek, 2008). On January 24, 1987,

Singh was suddenly removed as Finance Minister and made Minister

of Defense. On April 9, 1987, Singh announced that he had ordered an

inquiry into an alleged commission paid on the purchase of two

submarines from Howaldt Deutsche Werke (HDW) of Kiel, West

Germany (Verghese, 2005). In response to repeated attacks Singh

resigned from the Cabinet on April 12, 1987, and was later expelled

from the Congress Party. Further, on April 15, 1987, a state-owned

Swedish radio station broadcast a story alleging that a commission of

$4.92 million had been paid to Indian intermediaries on a $1.3 billion

defense contract to purchase Swedish Bofors 155-mm howitzers (See

details in Verghese, 2005). Later reports confirmed the payment of an

estimated $38 million in commissions. When Rajiv and his Cabinet

denounced the report as part of a foreign conspiracy to destabilize

India, the Swedish radio station not only repeated the charge, but

added that it had documentary proof that four payments were made

into a Swiss bank account code named Lotus. Rajiv’s repeated denials

and refusal to cooperate with any further investigation led to the

resignation of Arun Singh, Minister of Defense Production and one of

Rajiv’s closest advisors. In an effort to defuse the crisis, Rajiv agreed to

appoint a Congress-dominated parliamentary committee to

investigate the charges. In addition, for the first time since

19
independence an Indian Prime Minister felt compelled to make a

disclaimer before Parliament that neither he nor his family had been

involved in any cases of corruption (Ramachandra Guha, 2007).

Although Rajiv survived the political crisis of the summer of 1987, the

issues of alleged corruption and of relations with the President of

India continued to haunt him. New disclosures involving his relations

with the former President of India and charges of corruption,

however, blunted his attempts to regain lost image , gave new life to

India’s divided opposition, and threatened to undermine his political

recovery (Verghese, 2005). In late February 1988, former President

Zail Singh publicly claimed he had been offered money and the

political support from dissident Congress MPs and ministers to

contest for re-election but had refused (Sitapati, 2016). These charges

breathed new life into India’s divided opposition, and in late January

1989 the Congress (I) suffered a crushing defeat in the key South

Indian state of Tamil Nadu (Hardgrave and Kochanek,2008). The

defeat was especially humiliating for Rajiv because of the highly

visible and direct role that he played in the campaign. By the summer

of 1989, the defense kickback scandals that had plagued Rajiv since

1987 surfaced once again. In May the opposition in the Indian

Parliament charged the Congress (I) with stalling the publication of a

report by its Public Accounts Committee on the purchase of West

German submarines by the Indian navy. Another issue arose in July

when the Controller and Auditor General issued a report highly critical

20
of the government’s handling of the defense contract to purchase

Swedish Bofors howitzers. Charging that the report was a clear

indictment of the Congress (I) and Rajiv, the opposition stalled the

proceedings of Parliament for three days, demanded Rajiv’s

resignation, and shouted ‘‘Rajiv is a thief” (Verghese, 2005).

The Congress (I) entered the fray of November 1989 Lok Sabha

elections in a severely weakened position. Rajiv’s tarnished image, the

absence of a major policy success, kickback scandals, and Party

factionalism, combined with a newly formed National Front of

opposition parties, produced a stunning defeat for the Congress (I).

The defeat of the Congress (I) was accompanied by a hung Parliament.

For the first time since independence, no single Party was able to

secure a majority in the Lok Sabha. The National Front, a group of

centrist and regional parties, was finally able to cobble together a

minority government under the leadership of V. P. Singh with the

support of the Communists and the BJP. The National Front became

embroiled in factional conflict and V. P. Singh was forced to resign

after less than a year in office (Chakravarty and Hazra, 2016). A new

government led by Chandra Shekhar was formed with the support of

the Congress (I). However, Chandra Shekhar’s government was unable

to survive and was forced to resign in March 1991. India was forced to

go to the polls for a second time in less than two years. Although no

Party was expected to secure a clear majority in the 1991 Lok Sabha

21
elections, public opinion polls pointed to the Congress (I) likely win as

the largest Party(Hardgrave and Kochanek,2008).

On May 21, 1991 Rajiv was assassinated by a Sri Lankan Tamil

guerrilla, probably in retribution for his role in sending Indian troops

to Sri Lanka in 1987. In the wake of Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, and

in fear of widespread violence, the Election Commission postponed

the second and third phases of voting until June 12 and 15

respectively. The assassination had a dramatic effect on the election

results. In the first round of voting held prior to the assassination,

polls showed a growing shift of support away from the Congress (I). In

the second and third rounds that followed the assassination, however,

there was a major swing of sympathy votes in favour of the Congress

(I). The Party won 227 seats—just 29 seats short of a majority. On

June 21, Narasimha Rao was sworn in as Prime Minister and given

four weeks to prove in a vote of confidence that the Congress (I) could

command the parliamentary support necessary to govern. The vote of

confidence came on July 15. Since no Party was prepared to face new

elections, the Congress won the vote of confidence when 112 National

Front and Left Front MPs abstained and opposition parties indicated a

willingness to support the government on an issue-by-issue basis

(Sanjay Baru, 2016, Sitapati, 2016). Although he held a tenuous hold

over his own Party and headed a minority government, Narasimha

Rao began his term quite well and his first 18 months in office were

impressive. His non-assertive political style and willingness to

22
accommodate appeared to be ideal leadership qualities to lead a

minority government and to rejuvenate the post-dynastic Congress

(Hardgrave and Kochanek, 2008).

With the passage of time, however, Rao’s authority began to erode.

The exposure of a series of corruption scandals, his handling of the

Ayodhya crisis, and an increasingly indecisive style diminished his

stature and support. Rao’s problems began in April 1992 when news

broke of a major stock market scam involving a massive diversion of

bank treasury funds (Sitapati, 2016). It was followed by the forced

resignation of one of Rao’s ministers for passing on an anonymous

letter to the Swiss government suggesting that the Bofors payoff

investigation did not enjoy much of a priority with the government of

India. These incidents were followed by the publication of Central

Bureau of Investigation (CBI) documents in a major news magazine

implicating Rao in a major corruption scandal. Even more devastating

than the charges of corruption was Rao’s poor management of the

Ayodhya crisis (Ramachandra Guha, 2007). He seemed to be

convinced that he could negotiate a satisfactory solution to the

problem. In the midst of the negotiations, however, thousands of

militant Hindus marched on Ayodhya and on December 6, 1992,

stormed the mosque and demolished it. As communal riots spread

across the country, however, Rao was forced to act (Sanjay Baru,

2016). He banned five communal organizations, dismissed four BJP-

led state governments, and dissolved the BJP-controlled legislative

23
assemblies. In addition, the challenge to Rao’s leadership came from

Arjun Singh and a group of pro-Rajiv dissidents who were unhappy

with Rao’s handling of the Ayodhya crisis. The growing charges of

corruption in the Rao government added to the friction. Although Rao

was able to contain the challenge of the dissidents, his leadership

position within the Party was gradually undermined by a series of

state assembly defeats in November 1993 and November– December

1994 (Sitapati, 2016).

Although Rao’s control of the Party machinery enabled him to defeat

the challenge to his leadership, the clash led to another split in the

Party (Sanjay Baru, 2014). Dissidents led by Arjun Singh resigned

from the Congress (I) and later launched a new Party in May 1995.

Having marginalized his opponents, Rao moved quickly to try to

regain the political initiative. Rao’s recovery, however, proved to be

short-lived. In March 1995 the Congress (I) suffered another series of

state assembly election defeats and Rao’s enemies saw a chance to

renew their assault on his leadership. Although Rao tried to portray

himself as a corruption-buster by forcing several of his accused

ministers to resign, in late 1996 he himself became implicated when

his name came up during the police investigation into the scandal

(Sitapati, 2016). As India went to the polls in May–June 1996 the

prospects for the Congress (I) looked bleak. The elections marked the

first time since independence that the Congress (I) had to go to the

polls without a member of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty at the helm; the

24
Party was divided as Rao’s alliance strategy had heightened internal

factionalism and led to a large number of defections and 5 years of

Congress rule had reignited anti-Congress opposition unity. On the eve

of the elections a group of leftist and regional opposition parties came

together to form a National Front-Left Front coalition that attacked

Rao for corruption and called his economic reform policies anti-poor

and anti national. Although the elections resulted in a hung

Parliament, the Congress (I) suffered the worst defeat in its history.

The Congress (I) was able to win only 140 seats. The 14-Party United

Front government that was cobbled together, however, had to depend

on Congress (I) support to remain in power. The post-election period

proved to be especially devastating to Narashima Rao. Rao’s position

as leader of the Congress (I) was severely undermined by the Party’s

electoral defeat and by a tarnished past that began to catch up with

him. In the months following the 1996 elections, a variety of

corruption charges were levied against Rao and he became the first

former Prime Minister in Indian history to appear before a court of

law for trial (Hardgrave and Kochanek, 2008). These corruption cases

involved charges of having bribed four MPs to gain their support on a

no-confidence motion against the government in 1993. As a result of

these corruption charges, Rao was forced to resign as Congress (I)

President and was replaced in September 1996 by Sitaram Kesri. A

few months later Rao was also forced to resign as Leader of the

Congress (I) Parliamentary Party. At the age of 77, Sitaram Kesri was

25
not prepared to wait for the 14-Party United Front coalition to

collapse on its own weight. He immediately embarked upon an effort

to win back Party defectors, strengthen his hold over the Congress (I),

topple the United Front government and become Prime Minister.

Suspecting that Prime Minister H. D. Devi Gowda was conspiring with

Narasimha Rao against him, Kesri attacked Gowda for being

overzealous in pursuing corruption cases against Congress (I) leaders

and suddenly withdrew Congress (I) support from the United Front

government (Kidwai, 2011). As a result of the withdrawal of Congress

(I) support, Gowda lost a vote of confidence on April 11, 1997, and

was forced to resign. After a prolonged crisis the Congress (I) was

forced to concur with the United Front and allow the coalition to select

a new leader that would be more acceptable to the Congress (I). On

April 22, the United Front elected I. K. Gujral as Prime Minister. who

survived for only a few months and was forced to resign on November

30, 1997, when the Congress (I) again withdrew support. The new

crisis erupted when a commission that had been appointed to

investigate the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi issued a report

implicating the DMK, a key constituent of the United Front, in the

assassination. The Congress (I) immediately demanded that the DMK

be ousted from the coalition. When the United Front refused, the

Congress (I) withdrew its support on November 28, 1997; the

government collapsed and the country once again went to the polls.

26
Return of Gandhi family. The climate changed dramatically in early

January 1998 when Sonia Gandhi agreed to campaign on behalf of the

Congress (I). Her decision had the immediate effect of stemming the

tide of Congress (I) defections, raising Party morale, increasing

financial flows to the Party, and blunting the seemingly irreversible

pro-BJP electoral wave. Sonia’s election rallies attracted large crowds

and appeared to alter the outcome of the elections. The Sonia effect

had only a limited impact on electoral fortunes of Congress (I),

however, as the large campaign crowds she attracted failed to

translate into increased votes for the Party. Still, the 1998 election

results seemed to have slowed, at least temporarily, the decline of the

Congress (I) that had begun in 1989. The Party was able to win 141

seats (Yadav and Palshikar, 2014).

The election also brought a return of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty when

following the polls, the 52-year-old Italian-born Sonia Gandhi replaced

Sitaram Kesri as President of the Congress (I). Sonia immediately

began a major attempt to rebuild the Congress (I) organization, win

back Party dissidents, and develop plans to bring together a coalition

capable of replacing the highly unstable 14-Party BJP government.

Sonia did possess a variety of positive strengths that gradually

enabled her to consolidate her position. She enjoyed a high degree of

personal integrity, proved to be a fast learner, consulted widely, was

decisive, and over time came to master the complexities of Indian

politics. Although Sonia’s leadership provided the glue to keep the

27
Party together, she seemed incapable of rebuilding it. Sonia inherited a

Party organization dominated by power brokers and corrupt Party

bosses who had been in power for decades (Kidwai, 2011). She also

inherited a Party whose secular image had been tarnished by decades

of Indira, Rajiv, and Rao’s soft Hindutva policies that attempted to

cater to Hindu voters and whose center-left image had been

undermined by its economic reforms of 1991(Hardgrave and

Kochanek,2008). These organizational and policy problems were

further compounded by Sonia’s botched efforts at toppling the BJP

coalition government in April 1999 and by her failure to muster the

necessary majority to replace it. This failed bid to win power made her

appear inept and power hungry and was followed by the worst defeat

in the Party’s history in the 1999 Lok Sabha elections, when the Party

was able to win only 114 seats. Sonia’s political ineptitude, the poor

showing of the Congress (I) in the 1999 elections, and continued

uneasiness over her foreign origins were reinforced by a growing

sense of resentment within the Party over Sonia’s coterie rule, her

failure to consult with senior Congress leaders, and her failure to

articulate a coherent policy or vision for the Party (Ramchandra Guha,

2007) . By the summer of 2002, popular opinion polls and a

resurgence of support for the Congress (I) revealed a continuing

erosion of popular support for the BJP-led NDA government.

Following its victory in the 1999 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP had lost

power in five of the eight states it had controlled. By contrast, under

28
Sonia Gandhi’s leadership, the Congress (I) had increased its control

from five states in March 1998 to 16 of India’s 28 state governments in

2002 (Yadav and Palshikar, 2014). In 1998 the shy, inexperienced

Sonia Gandhi merely read speeches prepared by others, her speaking

style was awkward and stilted, and her speeches lacked real substance

(Hardgrave and Kochanek, 2008). By 2002 she pored over files on

major policy issues, was more capable of speaking extemporaneously

from notes, and her speeches were more substantive and complex.

Her change in style was accompanied by a greater grasp of substance.

She began to play a major role as leader of the opposition in the Lok

Sabha, became more independent of her coterie of advisors, no longer

relied on any one person for advice, consulted a wide range of

specialists on various issues, and began to act more independently. In

an effort to reinvigorate the Party organization Sonia called a series of

national level conferences and hired an independent consultant to

recommend changes in the Party organization designed to enhance its

performance. The national level conferences included a three-day

meeting of block and district level Congress (I) leaders in March 2003

and a conference of Congress (I) chief ministers in June. At the block

and district Party meetings in March, Sonia attended all sessions of the

conference and later emphasised the Party’s renewed commitment to

poverty reduction, farmers, and oppressed communities. The most

important action taken by the chief ministers’ conference in June was

to further clarify the Congress Party’s 1998 policy toward the

29
formation of alliances (Chakravarthy and Hazra, 2016). This

clarification of Congress (I) alliance strategy drew upon a report

prepared by a group of consultants that had concluded that the

Congress (I) could win a clear majority of 293 seats in the Lok Sabha if

it negotiated the right set of strategic alliances with regional

parties(Hardgrave and Kochanek,2008). Most importantly, the

Congress (I) entered into a series of strategic alliances with state and

caste parties in critical states to enhance its electoral prospects (Yadav

and Palshikar, 2014). Despite Sonia’s initiatives, most political pundits

and public opinion polls predicted a Congress (I) defeat in the April–

May 2004 national elections, which would be its fourth time in a row

since 1991. The first signs of a possible election upset came in late

April 2004 when new public opinion polls indicated that the Congress

(I) and its allies were gaining momentum. Conversely, the BJP suffered

a major defeat and the Congress (I) was returned to power after 8

years in opposition when the communist Left-Front agreed to support

the coalition based on a Common Minimum Program. Following its

victory, the Congress (I) and its allies formed a coalition government

called the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) under the leadership of

Manmohan Singh. Manmohan Singh became the first nominated

Congress Party Prime Minister of India since independence. His

appointment, however, raised the fundamental issue of dual

leadership and the relationship between Party and government.

Although the relationship between Sonia and Manmohan Singh was

30
far from equal, the two leaders appeared to have worked out a

successful power-sharing arrangement (See details in Sanjay Baru,

2014).

Aware of the dignity of the Prime Minister, Sonia provided Manmohan

Singh considerable leeway in running the affairs of the government. As

Congress President, Sonia became the chairman of the National

Advisory Council (NAC), a coalition coordinating body designed to

ensure the smooth functioning of the alliance. Sonia Gandhi and

Manmohan Singh developed a complex consultative process that

included frequent meetings, private briefings, and informal contacts.

Sonia projected herself as chairman of the UPA and not the Congress

President. Sonia Gandhi’s leadership of the coalition, however,

provoked a sudden crisis when it was determined that she was in

violation of the law by holding an ‘office of profit’ as chairman of the

NAC, which had provided her with a government staff and office(ibid).

She defused the crisis by resigning as chairman of the NAC and as a

Member of Parliament only to win a massive victory in a new by-

election in 2006. The Party came back to power in 2009 elections and

Manmohan Singh continued to be the prime minister. However, the

Congress Party lost 2014 elections and won 44 seats, the historic low

in the Party’s long existence. Zoya Hasan (2014) comments: “Judging

by its past history, it would be hasty to write off the Congress. Yet, it

would be unwise to underestimate the seriousness of the political

challenges that confront it as this point in the course of India’s

31
democracy. In the long road ahead, the Congress will have to rebuild

itself as a credible alternative to the BJP, repositioning it as genuinely

left-of-centre Party”.

Bharatiya Janata Party

The BJP was founded in April 1980 as a reincarnation of the old Jana

Sangh, which had been incorporated into the Janata Party in 1977.

With the break-up of the Janata Party government in 1979, a group of

former Jana Sangh leaders endeavoured to build a new political Party

that would attract wider popular appeal (Achin Vanaik, 2012). The

new Party remained closely allied with the larger Hindu nationalist

movement and relied heavily on the Rashtria Swayam Sevak Sangh

(RSS) and its cadre for political and organizational support. Perhaps

the most controversial issue confronting the newly created Party,

however, was its close association and identity with the RSS (ibid). In

1965 the Jana Sangh officially adopted the doctrine of Integral

Humanism as its guiding principle. The concept of Integral Humanism 3

was developed by Deendayal Upadhyaya, an RSS organizer, and drew

heavily on Gandhian principles of swadeshi, sarvodaya (welfare for

all), decentralization, and the morality of politics (Graham, 2012).

As a result of these changes in Party doctrine, the Jana Sangh was

welcomed by other opposition parties as an acceptable coalition

3
The concept of Integral Humanism was designed to expand the Jana Sangh’s
appeal, strengthen its traditional base of electoral support in North and Central
India, and enhance the Party’s legitimacy by enabling it to participate as an
acceptable partner in coalition governments with other parties.
32
partner in several states, it was able to secure intermittent control of

the Delhi Municipal Council, and it was able to gain some degree of

governing experience at the local level. It was this pragmatic strategy

that also ultimately enabled the Jana Sangh to cooperate with the JP

Movement, enter into a coalition with the Janata Party in the post-

emergency 1977 elections, and to merge with the Janata Party

following the Congress defeat. Despite this shift in strategy, however,

the Jana Sangh failed to become a major political force in India. The

overwhelming dominance of the Congress Party in Indian politics; the

overpowering charismatic personality of Nehru, with his repeated

attacks on Jana Sangh and the RSS; and the strong popular support for

the Congress Party’s left-of-center social, economic, and development

policies continued to isolate the Jana Sangh in the Indian political

system during most of its two decades of existence (Hardgrave and

Kochanek, 2008). The Jana Sangh also suffered from a variety of

internal problems that further weakened its popular appeal, including

the Party’s close identity with the Hindi-speaking North, its limited

religious and social base, its restrictive Brahmanic interpretation of

Hinduism, its image as a Party of North Indian Brahmins and banias

(small petty traders), and its lack of a coherent economic policy. With

the break-up of the Janata Party in 1979, a group of former Jana Sangh

leaders came together under the leadership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee to

form the BJP. Under Vajpayee’s leadership the BJP stressed its

moderation, emphasized its Janata roots, and adopted a Gandhian-

33
oriented set of principles called the five commitments. These five

commitments were (1) nationalism and national integration; (2)

democracy; (3) positive secularism; (4) Gandhian socialism; and (5)

value-based politics (Hardgrave & Kochanek, 2008). By positive

secularism, the BJP meant a common set of moral values distilled from

Indian civilization. The most important new element in the new BJP

program was the new Party’s commitment to Gandhian socialism

(Geeta Puri, 1983).

Although the BJP’s moderate programme was designed to attract a

broader, more centrist base of electoral support, it alienated the more

militant RSS whose cadre formed the core of the Party’s organizational

strength. The RSS demonstrated its displeasure by withholding its

support from the Party in the 1983 assembly elections in Delhi and in

Jammu and Kashmir. During the 1984 parliamentary elections, the

RSS4 went even further in demonstrating its displeasure. Due to the

erosion of RSS support, the BJP suffered a massive defeat in the 1984

parliamentary elections (Hardgrave and Kochanek, 2008). Although

the BJP was able to win 7.4 percent of the popular vote (the most for

any of the opposition parties), the Party was able to win only two

seats and even Vajpayee, went down to defeat. Congress inroads into

the BJP’s traditional base of support among urban, lower-middle class

4
The Organizer, an official organ of the RSS, publicly announced its support of
Rajiv Gandhi for the prime ministership and some elements of the RSS actively
worked on behalf of the Congress (I) in the elections (Hardgrave and
Kochanek,2008)
34
Hindu traders and civil servants, however, proved to be only

temporary, and the BJP remained an important political force

especially in North India. The BJP’s stunning defeat in the 1984 Lok

Sabha elections forced the Party back to its more militant roots. After

considerable soul searching, the BJP made major changes in its

leadership and programme. In May 1986 it selected L. K. Advani, a

Party leader who was known for his close relations with the RSS, as its

new president and reincorporated many of the more militant Jana

Sangh ideological principles into its program including the promise to

build a strong, modern, progressive, and enlightened country that was

inspired by India’s age-old culture and values (Graham, 2012).

The BJP’s renewed emphasis on Hindu nationalism in the mid-1980s

coincided with a series of dramatic events that threatened the stability

and unity of the country and triggered an acute sense of insecurity and

uneasiness among Hindus. These events included the rise of Sikh

separatism in the Punjab, the assassination of Prime Minister Indira

Gandhi, the movement for secession in Kashmir, the conversion of

Hindu untouchables to Islam in various parts of the country, the

Congress government’s response to the Shah Bono case, and a growing

sense of resentment over the disputed status of the Babri Masjid/Ram

temple5 shrine at Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh. These events not only

5 The status of the Babri Masjid at sAyodhya provided an especially powerful

symbolic political issue that the BJP could employ as part of its ethno-religious
mobilization campaign to unify the Hindu community under the banner of
Hindutva (Hinduness). Hindus claimed that the 16th-century Babri Masjid had
35
heightened communal tensions but also triggered a growing sense of

anxiety within the majority Hindu community that created fertile

ground for BJP appeals to Hindu nationalism and ethno-religious

mobilization (Hardgrave and Kochanek, 2008). In the 1989

parliamentary elections the Ayodhya issue helped the BJP make a

dramatic electoral recovery by winning 85 seats and 11.4 percent of

the vote compared to only two seats and 7.4 percent of the vote in

1984. The BJP repeated this success in the February 1990 when the

Party won 556 seats out of a total of 1,616 seats at stake in several

state assembly elections. Increased electoral support enabled the

Party to form BJP controlled governments in Madhya Pradesh and

Himachal Pradesh and to become a major coalition partner with the

Janata Dal in Rajasthan and Gujarat. By the time of the Tenth Lok

Sabha elections in the summer of 1991, the BJP’s efforts to use the

Ramjanmabhoomi/Mandir issue to galvanize Hindu support was

suddenly threatened when V. P. Singh attempted to split the Hindu

community along caste lines by announcing that he would implement

a new job quota system for Other Backward Castes (OBCs)

recommended by the Mandal Commission (Achin Vanaik, 2012).

been constructed on a site that marked the birthplace of the god Rama
(Ramjanmabhoomi) and wanted the shrine restored. Although both the Congress
(I) and the BJP attempted to use the Ayodhya issue to garner Hindu support during
the 1989 parliamentary elections and the 1990 state assembly election campaigns,
the BJP’s commitment to the cause of Ramjanmabhoomi proved to be much more
convincing to many Hindu voters.

36
In late August 1990, in an effort to offset V. P. Singh’s Mandal (caste)

initiative on the political debate, L. K. Advani launched a 10,000-

kilometer rath yatra (chariot pilgrimage) across India to the Babri

Majid at Ayodhya. As thousands of Hindu militants joined the

pilgrimage led by Advani and converged on Ayodhya to witness the

promised beginning of construction of the new Ram temple on

October 30, 1990, the procession was halted by the police and Advani

was arrested. Attempts by the militants to assault the Babri Masjid,

the proposed site of the temple, were also thwarted by the police.

Advani’s rath yatra, the Ayodhya campaign, and the Mandal issue led

to a rising tide of Hindu fundamentalism that came to dominate the

1991 parliamentary election campaign (Chakravarty, 2008). To the

shock and surprise of many politicians and commentators, the

electoral popularity of the BJP soared in response to the Party’s

emphasis on its Hindutva agenda. The BJP almost doubled its popular

vote from 11.4 percent in 1989 to 21.0 percent in the 1991, and the

Party increased the number of seats it held in Parliament from 85 to

119(Hardgrave and Kochanek, 2008). For the first time in post-

independence India, a Hindu nationalist Party had emerged as a major

political force on the national scene and had come to challenge the old

secular Nehruvian political consensus. The issue of the Babri Masjid at

Ayodhya reached its climax on December 6, 1992, when some 200,000

Hindu militants converged on the mosque, stormed through the police

barricades, and demolished the Muslim shrine. The police and

37
paramilitary forces guarding the mosque offered no resistance. The

destruction of the Babri Masjid touched off a political fire storm.

Congress (I) Prime Minister Narasimha Rao denounced the action as

‘‘a betrayal of the nation’’ and attacked the BJP for exacerbating

Hindu-Muslim tensions in a bid to ‘‘grab power, whipping up

communal frenzy to undermine the secular fabric of the nation’’

(Hardgrave and Kochanek, 2008). As reports of the destruction of the

mosque spread across the country, Muslims retaliated by attacking

Hindus, Hindu shrines, and temples in various parts of the country.

Despite curfews, six days of rioting erupted across India and more

than 1,200 people were killed in rioting and police firings—the vast

majority Muslims (Ramachandra Guha,2007). In Bombay, the riots

were the worst since India became independent in 1947. In the wake

of the upheaval over the destruction of the Babri Masjid, the BJP Chief

Minister of Uttar Pradesh resigned; the state was placed under

President’s Rule; and Indian troops cleared the site of Hindu devotees,

leaving behind only a temporary shrine to Rama. Although Prime

Minister Narasimha Rao promised that the mosque would be rebuilt,

he was clearly shaken by the events. The unexpected defeat of the BJP

in a series of state assembly elections across North India in November

1993 brought the Party’s seemingly unstoppable Ayodhya wave to a

sudden halt and demonstrated the limits of ethno-religious

mobilization. By November 1993 the appeal of Ayodhya seemed to

have run its course, caste polarization eroded BJP support, and the

38
Party became weakened by internal conflict. In an effort to win back

its supporters, broaden its electoral base, and break out of its isolation

the BJP again adopted a more moderate approach, placed greater

emphasis on policy issues, and focused on extending its alliance

strategy in preparation for the 1996 parliamentary elections. Although

the 1996 parliamentary elections ended in another hung Parliament,

the BJP’s shift in strategy enabled the Party to win 20 percent of the

popular vote and 161 seats to emerge as the largest single Party in the

Lok Sabha. Although the BJP’s allies won an additional 26 seats and

four percent of the vote, the alliance still fell well short of a majority.

Further, following established tradition, the President of India called

upon the BJP as the largest Party in Parliament to form a government.

The newly formed BJP government, however, lasted only 13 days

(Ramachandra Guha, 2007). Unable to win support from any other

parties in Parliament, the BJP found itself to be totally isolated and

was forced to resign. The BJP’s 13-day government was replaced by a

United Front coalition of 14 parties that lasted 18 months. Determined

to avoid the isolation and humiliation that led to the fall of its 13-day

government in 1996, the BJP entered into a major series of

opportunistic alliances with over a dozen regional and caste based

parties in preparation for the 1998 Lok Sabha elections. Although the

elections produced another fractured mandate and a hung Parliament,

the BJP was able to win 25.5 percent of the popular vote and 179 seats

to emerge once again as the largest single Party in the Lok Sabha. Even

39
with an additional 40 seats won by its electoral allies; however, the

BJP still fell short of a majority. On March 10, 1998, following an

intense period of maneuvering, uncertainty, and bargaining, the

President of India agreed to ask the BJP to form a government. This

time, however, the BJP leadership succeeded in cobbling together a

coalition of 13 parties and a handful of independents that fell just

short of a majority. The apparent deadlock was broken when the

Andhra based Telugu Desam Party (TDP) broke with the United Front

and agreed to abstain on the vote of confidence. Based on these

slender guarantees, Atal Bihari Vajpayee was sworn in as Prime

Minister on March 19, 1998. On March 28 the newly formed BJP

government succeeded in winning a vote of confidence by a vote of

274 to 261 when the TDP decided to vote for the coalition rather than

remaining neutral. In return for this support the BJP helped elect a

member of the TDP as speaker of the Lok Sabha. The resumption of

the upswing in support for BJP in the 1998 elections was a result of

the personal popularity of Vajpayee, a toned-down Hindutva program,

a split in the anti-BJP vote between the Congress (I) and the United

Front, and, most important of all, the success of the Party’s alliance

strategy. The formation of a BJP government, however, was not cost-

free. The Party was confronted with the difficult task of holding its

fractious coalition together and was forced to make substantial

compromises in its program. The fragile, inexperienced and divided

BJP-led coalition government that came to power in March 1998 was

40
confronted by an economy in turmoil (Hardgrave and Kochanek,

2008). The economic problems facing the new government included

the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98, large fiscal deficits, inadequate

infrastructure, slow economic growth, high unemployment, and a

stalled process of economic reform. These problems became further

compounded by the government’s decision to conduct a series of

nuclear tests in May 1998 that led to the imposition of economic

sanctions by the United States and Western Europe. The Prime

Minister, however, continued to encounter stiff resistance from his

coalition partners and the RSS. The government was unable to pass a

bill that would have opened the Indian insurance sector to foreign

direct investment (FDI), enact the Women’s Reservation Bill that was

designed to reserve one-third of all seats in the Lok Sabha and state

assemblies for women, or adopt an investment friendly budget

designed to deal with the economic crisis. In a desperate bid to offset

the impact of economic sanctions and reign in the government’s fiscal

deficit, Vajpayee’s first budget submitted in June 1998 attempted to

reduce tariffs, attract foreign investment, and increase petrol and

fertilizer prices. The budget proposals met with such stiff resistance

from within the governing coalition that the press labelled it the

rollback budget as the government was forced to retreat on almost all

fronts. The government, however, did succeed in passing a revised

Patent Bill in March 1999 and a bill to create three new states. The

Prime Minister also ruled out legislation that would ban religious

41
conversions. Just as it appeared to be recovering some initiative, the

BJP-led government collapsed following the withdrawal of AIADMK

support. On April 17, 1999, the government was forced to resign when

it lost a no confidence motion in the Lok Sabha by one vote, and India

went to the polls again for the third time in three years. The 1999

parliamentary elections marked a new stage in the development of

multiparty coalition politics in India. The BJP, a national party, went to

the polls as the leader of a 24 Party National Democratic Alliance

(NDA) based on a common program. The election became a

personality battle between Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Sonia Gandhi and

was dominated by the May–July Kargil war between India and

Pakistan and the arithmetic of caste. Despite a slight decline in BJP

voter support from 25.5 percent in 1998 to 23.7 percent in 1999, due

to its new alliance arrangements the BJP won 182 seats, an all-time

high for the Party. Since the BJP’s allies succeeded in winning an

additional 118 seats, the NDA emerged with a clear mandate and

controlled a total of 300 seats in the new Parliament. The NDA’s

stunning victory was attributed to the popularity of Prime Minister

Vajpayee, resentment over failed Congress (I) tactics in toppling the

previous coalition government, the Kargil war, the BJP’s soft Hindutva

policies, a divided anti-BJP opposition, and the Party’s highly effective

coalition strategy. The victory of the NDA in the 1999 elections was

marked by a restoration of political stability as the BJP-led coalition

became the first non-Congress government to survive a full five-year

42
term in office. Following its re-election, the new NDA government

declared that it would embark upon a second wave of economic

reform designed to accelerate the country’s rate of economic growth

(Yadav and Palshikar, 2014). One of its first initiatives was to re-

introduce a series of economic reform proposals that had been

blocked in 1998-99 due to resistance from within the coalition and

opposition from the RSS swadeshi lobby. Given the broader electoral

mandate of 1999, the NDA succeeded in passing an Insurance Bill that

opened up the insurance sector to FDI, replacing the highly restrictive

Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, creating new regulatory authorities

for the securities and telecommunications industries, and attempting

to move ahead on liberalisation and privatization by creating new

ministries for disinvestment and information technology. A major

economic and political turning point for the NDA, however, came

toward the tail end of its five-year term in office. Following a year of

devastating drought, the Indian economy was buoyed by a good

monsoon and grew at an unprecedented rate of 8.5 percent, and in

December 2003 the BJP scored a major victory in several key state

assembly elections. While many economists attributed the country’s

remarkable economic performance to the ‘‘rain and pain’’ of a good

monsoon and a decade of painful restructuring of the Indian economy,

the BJP proclaimed a new era of ‘‘India Shining’’ that had transformed

the ‘‘Hindu rate of growth’’ of 3.5 percent in the past into a ‘‘Hindutva

growth rate’’ of 8.5 percent under BJP leadership (Hardgrave and

43
Kochanek, 2008). Vajpayee’s popularity soared, and the Indian press

began to herald him as second Nehru. The BJP became so confident of

its re-election that it decided to hold an early election in 2004 to

renew its mandate — only to go down to a surprise defeat. The

stunning defeat of the BJP in the 2004 elections brought the

remarkable rise of the BJP to a sudden halt. The Party turned in its

worst performance in over a decade. In the 2004 elections the BJP was

able to win only 22.2 percent of the vote and 138 seats compared to

23.7 percent of the vote and 183 seats in 1998. The BJP’s allies

suffered an even bigger defeat and were able to win only 13.7 percent

of the vote and 51 seats compared to 17 percent of the vote and 118

seats in 1998 (Yadav and Palshikar,2014). The defeat of the NDA was

attributed primarily to the anti-incumbency sentiments of the Indian

electorate. Moreover, the BJP though expected to come to power in

2009 elections, it lost owing to various factors. However, the BJP

under the Narendra Modi leadership came to power in 2014 elections

by winning 282 sets on its own.

Samajwadi Party

The Samajwadi Party (SP), one of a group of parties representing

Other Backward Castes, claims itself as a national Party. The Party was

founded in November 1992 by Mulayam Singh Yadav. Singh was rural

bred, attended village schools, and received a higher education at a

district college in U.P. He began his political career as a supporter of

Ram Manohar Lohia’s socialist Party, and joined Charan Singh’s

44
peasant Party, and finally became a member of the Janata movement.

The Samajwadi Party started as a caste-based Party representing the

Yadav community, a middle peasant caste in U.P (Asmer Beg, 2014).

‘Using the Yadav community as his base, Singh sought to shed his

caste-based identity by adopting a programme of socialism and

welfare populism and attempted to mobilize a broad base coalition of

OBCs, Dalits, and Muslims’(Hardgrave and Kochanek,2008). Singh had

won the support of Muslims when, as Chief Minister of U.P., he tried to

save Babri Masjid at Ayodhya from demolition by Hindu militants.

Despite efforts to mobilize Dalits, however, Singh found his ambitions

held in check by the rise of the BSP. As a result, the SP became a Party

of Yadavs and Muslims. The electoral support for the SP in U.P. peaked

in 1996 when the Party won 29 percent of the vote. Since then, Party

support has stalemated. In the 2002 state assembly elections the SP

received only 26 percent of the vote. In an attempt to extend its reach

beyond its base in U.P., the SP fielded 237 candidates in 23 of the

country’s 35 states and union territories in the 2004 Lok Sabha

elections. Although the Party won 26.7 percent of the vote and 36

seats in the 2004, 35 of the seats were from U.P. and the other one in

Uttaranchal, which had formerly been part of U.P. Subsequently, the

Party came to power in the state assembly elections held in 2012 by

winning 224 seats. However, the Party could win only 5 seats out of 80

seats for parliament in 2014 elections.

45
Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP)

The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) was founded in 1984 by Kanshi Ram, a

former government employee and an ardent follower of Dr. B. R.

Ambedkar, to espouse the cause of the Scheduled Castes, backward

castes, and Muslims (Sudha Pai, 1993). Initially, conceived as a loosely

structured body putting Dalit government employees in touch with

each other, the organization had expanded and become more formally

structured with a central office in Delhi, regular publications and a

programme of activities and campaigns which emphasised the

importance of self-activity by Dalits and allied groups (Joshi, 1987; Pai,

1993: 63-7; Mendelsohn and Vicziany, 1998: 218-26). According to

Ian Duncan (1999), the origins of the BSP can be traced to the

formation in the late 1970s of the Backward and Minority Central

Government Employees Federation (BAMCEF). This organization

started in 1971 as a co-ordinating committee of Dalits based in a

government scientific research institute in Pune and the key figure in

its leadership was Kanshi Ram. Kanshi Ram represented a tendency

within BAMCEF that advocated giving priority to electoral

participation and for this purpose he formed an allied organization

popularly known as DS-4 (Dalit Shoshit Samaj Sangharsh Samiti) in

1981 which contested elections in Haryana in 1982. The launch of the

BSP followed in 1984 and it seems that these organizational

transformations were accompanied by considerable internal Party

strife [Joshi, 1987,Mendelsohn and Vicziany, 1998) . Ian Duncan

46
(1999) says, ‘Its aim was to bring about a revolution in the socio-

economic plight of Dalits (oppressed)’. The Party began making its

presence felt but scored its first big success in the 1993 state elections

in Uttar Pradesh when it won 67 seats and 12 percent of the vote and

formed a coalition government with the Samajwadi Party (Hardgrave

and Kochanek, 2008). This Dalit and backward caste alliance,

however, disintegrated in June 1995 and the BSP formed its own

government with the support of the BJP. The BSP government,

however, lasted only a few months and the state was placed under

President’s Rule. The BSP won 10 seats in the Lok Sabha elections of

April–May 1996 and 67 seats in the October 1996 state assembly

elections. Since the state elections resulted in a hung assembly, Uttar

Pradesh was again placed under President’s Rule. In March 1997 the

BSP and the BJP entered into a unique coalition arrangement whereby

the cabinet would be based on equal representation of each Party and

the chief ministership would rotate between the two parties.

Leadership for the first six months was to be provided by Mayawati

6of the BSP in Uttar Pradesh and close confidant of Kanshi Ram.

Mayawati first met Kanshi Ram when she was a student in 1977 and

after working as a teacher she gave up her job in 1984 to become a

full-time activist for the BSP. From an early stage, her political ability

and commitment impressed just about everyone with whom she came

6
Mayawati comes from a Jatav/Chamar family which moved to Delhi after living
in Western UP. The family was involved in Ambedkarite politics but the extent of
this activity is not clear. She gained degree from Meerut University and later a
further law degree from Delhi University.
47
into contact. As the former Governor of UP was later to remark: 'Her

political antennae are indeed very finely tuned. She has a political

sense and uncanny intuitive reactions' (Bhandari, 1998). Mayawati

strengthened her claim to the leadership of Dalit politics in UP in

March 1987 when she contested another Lok Sabha by-election in

Haridwar and came second to Congress and took nearly one-third of

the total vote. In addition to Uttar Pradesh, the BSP also has some

support in the Punjab and Madhya Pradesh. Unlike other largely state-

based parties, the BSP believes that it represents the all-India voice of

the Dalit community and has attempted to broaden its appeal and

extend its geographic scope (Asmer Beg, 2014). Because of its

increasing electoral strength, the BSP was recognized as a national

Party by the Election Commission in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections.

The Party put up 435 candidates in 25 states and union territories and

won 19 seats and 5.35 percent of the popular vote.

Ian Duncan (1999) observes:

What is distinctively new about the BSP is that it has

achieved an electoral success, particularly in the state of
Uttar Pradesh (UP), never experienced before by a
political Party seeking to represent predominantly the
interests of ex-Untouchables. The unprecedented
success of the Party can also be measured by the fact
that it has been able, albeit in alliance with or
depending upon the support of other parties, to take
power in governments in UP on three occasions during
the 1990s and in the process bring to power the first
Dalit Chief Minister of the state, Ms Mayawati. Although
these administrations have proved to be extremely
unstable and short-lived they mark a dramatic break
from the pattern of coalitions of social forces that have
ruled the state previously
48
The BSP in this respect can be seen as a part of the growing

politicisation of caste in India in recent times that has resulted in a

changed focus of claims and demands on the part of mobilized groups

with more attention being given to social status and political power

than to economic advancement (Kothari, 1994). When in government

the BSP relentlessly pursued projects to promote the Dalit identity

and presence in public life. To this end in its three periods of

government it has initiated such programmes as the installation of

thousands of statues of Ambedkar in towns and villages across the

state and the creation of a massive commemorative Ambedkar Park in

the state capital Lucknow. The Mayawati regimes also saw massive

transfers of civil servants and police personnel, a common practice in

UP, but on a scale that led the then Governor of UP to conclude that

there 'was no doubt that officers of the Scheduled Caste had been

favoured' (Bhandari, 1998, Mendelsohn and Vicziany, 1998).

Government's policy of transfer of officials may have been

questionable, in the eyes of many Dalits Mayawati had done them a

service by replacing officials who were perceived to have been corrupt

(Pai and Singh, 1997) and she 'dealt particularly severely with officials

judged to have failed to protect the most vulnerable people in a

particular District'(Mendelsohn and Vicziany, 1998).

The Mayawati governments also expanded the special welfare and

development programme of the 'Ambedkar Villages'. These villages

49
were chosen on the basis of having a high proportion of Dalit

inhabitants and received special infrastructural development funds

that were usually spent in the Dalit quarters of the villages on public

amenities and housing (Pai, 1997). Over 25,000 Ambedkar villages in

UP were designated and participation in the scheme was often cited

by Dalits as a reason for supporting the BSP (Brass, 1997). Sometimes

land that had been allotted to Dalits many years before, but never

actually transferred, was finally handed over during the Mayawati

regime (Pai and Singh, 1997).

The arrival of the BSP has transformed the political landscape of UP. It

has made enormous steps in terms of the construction of a new

political identity for the SC and it has succeeded in electoral politics to

an extent not seen before. The Party has played a central role in this

construction as a consequence of its own practice in political

mobilization and through its conduct and policy in government. It has

benefited many thousands of Dalits through reservations and village

programmes.

Part II: Elections in India

Since independence in 1947, the Indian Party System has been

transformed from a stable, one-Party dominant System to an

increasingly fragmented, federalized, less stable, multiparty System.

Increasingly, political parties in India have come to reflect the social

pluralism and cultural diversity of the country, and the powerful

50
arithmetic of caste, community, language, tribe, and region lies behind

Party labels.

The first General elections were conducted during the 1951-52 ,

second Lok Sabha elections in 1957, third in 1962, fourth in 1967, fifth

in 1971, sixth in 1977, seventh in 1980, eighth in 1985, ninth in 1989

and tenth in 1991, eleventh Lok Sabha elections in 1996, twelfth Lok

Sabha elections in 1998, thirteenth Lok Sabha elections in 1999,

fourteenth Lok Sabha election in 2004, fifteenth Lok Sabha elections in

2009. The sixteenth Lok Sabha elections took place in 2014. The five

year term of the 15 th Lok Sabha expired on 31st May, 2014. Article

324 of the Constitution of India bestows the relevant powers, duties

and functions upon the Election Commission of India while Section 14

of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 provides for conduct of

the elections to constitute a new Lok Sabha before the expiry of its

current term. Taking into account these Constitutional and legal

provisions, the Election Commission of India has made comprehensive

preparations for conduct of elections to the 16th Lok Sabha. Elections

to world’s largest democracy pose immense challenges with respect to

logistics, men and material management. The Commission’s endeavor

in this direction was to consult all stakeholders, invite inputs from all

relevant departments/ organizations and evolve a coordinated

framework for smooth delivery of General Elections (Quraishi, 2014).

This time elections to the 543 Parliamentary Constituencies (PCs) in

all were planned. There has been a remarkable increase in the

51
enrollment of electors in the age group of 18 to 19 years. Over 23

million electors are in this age group. Commission allowed enrollment

of transgender as "Others" in the electoral rolls since 2012. Parliament

amended the Representation of the People Act, 1950, allowing

enrollment of Indian citizens living overseas as electors.

According to Bella Mody (2015), the Election Commission of the

world’s largest democracy has been rightly praised for how well it

conducted the 2014, 16th general election where 66 percent of over

800 million eligible voters cast their ballots. More than 10 million

polling officials and security personnel staffed around 930,000 polling

stations. Results were announced as scheduled on May 16, 2014. The

2014 Lok Sabha elections had the highest voter turnout of 66.4%,

surpassing the 64% poll turnout in 1984 elections (The Times of India,

May 13, 2014). The general elections cost the government Rs. 3,426

crore which is 131% more than Rs 1483 crore spent in 2009 polls. The

2014 elections were held in 9 phases, with BJP, winning 282 out of

543 seats in the Lok Sabha with 31 percent vote share. The Party

doubled its strength from 116 seats it had won in the 2009 elections.

Since independence, the Indian Party system has evolved through two

distinct phases from a period of one-party dominance from 1947 to

1989 to an era of fragmented, multi-party, coalition politics after 1989

(Hardgrave and Kochanek,2008). During the era of one-Party

dominance, India was ruled by the Congress Party. Congress

52
supremacy during these four decades was challenged only once in

1977 when the Party suffered a stunning defeat at the hands of the

Janata Party, a newly formed coalition of non-Communist opposition

parties that had coalesced in response to the declaration of emergency

from 1975 to 1977. Having restored India’s democratic order,

however, the Janata Party disintegrated into its constituent elements

within two years. The defeat of the Congress Party in the elections of

1989 signaled a major break with the past and a significant turning

point in the development of the Indian Party system (Graham, 2012;

Sridharan, 2012).

The Congress Party again formed the government in 1991 at the head

of a coalition, as well as in 2004 and 2009, when it led the United

Progressive Alliance. The Congress victory is attributed to its strategic

resort to populist or plebiscitary politics in terms of electoral and

mobilization strategies. The Lok Sabha elections held so far since 1971

have been decided by a single slogan that appeared decisive at a

particular point in time because of peculiar historical circumstances

(Vanaik,1990) as evident in parliamentary elections: in 1971 it was

‘garibi hatao’ (remove poverty); in 1977 ‘Emergency hatao’ (remove

politicians responsible for the 1975–77 Emergency); in 1980 ‘Janata

hatao’ (replace the Janata Party government for its chronic

instability); in 1984 ‘Desh bachhao’ (save the country), which acquired

a new majoritarian connotation following the assassination of Indira

Gandhi in 1984; in 1989 the campaign ‘corruption hatao’ (remove the

53
Congress government for its involvement in the Bofors scandal) titled

the verdict against Congress, which had a two-thirds majority in the

lower house of the Indian Parliament in 1984 elections. In 1999

general elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party used the slogan of 'India

shining' and was defeated in the elections.

Incidentally the Party became the first Party to win a majority in Lok

Sabha since 1984. The UPA won less than quarter of 206 seats it won

in 2009 elections winning in 44 constituencies with 20 percent of vote

share. The regional parties secured 45.7 percent of vote share. The

elections marked a significant development in which single Party

gained majority after two decades of collation and minority

government. The BJP ran a highly effective national election campaign

backed up by strong local and state level leadership which enable the

Party to register big wins in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh,

and Madhya Pradesh. In Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh the BJP was

aided by strong performance from its alliance partners; TDP and Shiva

Sena. The BJP highlighted the issue of corruption, governance and

rising inflation. The BJP’s success was made possible, among other

factors, due to its electoral strategy of reinventing social engineering

in what may be termed as its second transformation. As a result, it

secured significant support among Other Backward Classes as well as

scheduled Castes and scheduled tribe voters to gain an edge. Besides

this, its promise of development and the projection of Modi as a strong

54
and decisive leader attracted support among the lower and middle

classes ( Palshikar and Suri, 2014)

The BJP made extensive use of online media, including the social

media networks, for dissemination of their ideology and points of

view. After Modi was anointed as the BJP’S Prime ministerial face, he

took control of the Party’s campaign. His team spared no resources to

hire the best talent from marketing and advertising world to deluge

social media. The strategy was to flood every single virtual space and

advertising bill board with Narendra Modi and his face (Harish Khare,

2014). Modi’s successful campaign is being given to corporate public

relations agencies and youth adherents, particularly those who are

proficient in using the information technology tools to aid in campaign

(Badri Narayan, 2014).

Politics and print media

Politics is defined as ‘the decision making process combined with a

struggle to gain access over that decision making positions. Also,

politics is used to legitimize those processes’ (Louw, 2005: 14). Since

politics is viewed as control of decision-making process, the key

players in this decision-making process are politicians; and thus their

communication in the public is considered very important. Since their

communication is regarded as political communication which is

defined by McNair (2011: 4) as 1) all forms of communication

undertaken by politicians and other political actors for the purpose of

55
achieving specific objectives, 2) communication addressed to these

actors by non-politicians such as voters and newspaper columnists,

and 3) communication about these actors and their activities, as

contained in news reports, editorials, and other forms of media

discussion of politics. In fact, the whole gamut of political process and

consequent decision making depends on the media to influence the

public or voters during the elections. Moreover, the politicians try to

create an impression about themselves in the public that they are

working for the welfare of the people and in the process they indulge

in impression management7. Nevertheless, the role of media

particularly newspapers is significant in the political processes as the

media disseminate information related to specific events or issues to

create awareness among the population and also among the

politicians. In political communication, political organizations, media

and citizens interplay and interact with each other. The various

elements through which this interaction takes place have also been

described by McNair (2011) as shown in Figure 1.

Since the modern democracy thrives on information that is

disseminated by the mediatized communication, political leaders

depend on the mass media to disseminate their views on varied issues.

Thus, Schudson (1989:304) observed that ‘any transmission of

messages that has or is intended to have an effect on the distribution

7
‘Impression management is an attempt to portray and claim a desired image in
social interactions’ (Connolly-Ahern, 2009:326).
56
of use of power in society can be considered political communication’.

Politics is a social activity, as noted by Heywood (2005:20) which is

conducted through the medium of language. Hence, language used in

books, pamphlets and manifestoes or daubed on placards and walls, or

spoken in meetings, shouted at rallies or chanted on demonstrations

and marches conveys the message of a politician or a political activity.

Indeed, language is understood as a simple thing as it is used everyday

by common people or politicians. Yet, the language includes physical

objects, feelings, ideas and so forth. However, Heywood (2005:3)

points out that ‘politicians are less concerned with the precision of

their language than they are with its’ propaganda value.

57
 Figure 1

Source: McNair, B (2012). Introduction to political communication.

London: Routledge

Parties
Political organization
Public organizations
Pressure Groups
Reportage Terrorist Organizations
Editorial Government
Commentary
Analysis

Media
Appeal
Programs
Advertising
Public Relations
Opinion Polls
Letter Blogs
Citizen
Journalism

Citizens

Language is therefore not simply a means of communication, it is a

political weapon, it is shaped and honed to convey intent’. Since the

language employed by politicians reveals the intent of the user, often

political message is conveyed through a flag, the badge, the seal, the

token or other insignia and even modes of dress (Lang and Lang,

1989: 322). For instance, Mahatma Gandhi in India used a dress that

he wore was a symbol of his simplicity as well as his identification

58
with the masses (Gonsalves, 2010:25-26). Gonsalves noted that the

‘dress worn by Gandhi such as loin cloth transformed him into a

leader who was saintly and attached himself to common people. His

final clothing most represented the values he lived by; to be among the

poorest of the poor , to hold no official government position, to live

detached from material wealth, to sacrifice his family life for the birth

of a nation and most courageous of all to lead with an appearance of

ineptitude’. Further Suchitra (1995) too observed that Gandhi used

common symbols to communicate his ideology. For example, the

Dandi March undertaken by Mahatma Gandhi in 1930 for abolition of

tax on salt used by common people was considered an instrument of

protest to communicate the feelings of the common people to the then

British government, and he identified himself with the majority of the

people. ‘Gandhi used common salt, which cuts across religious, caste

and class differences. It offered Hindus and Muslims a platform for a

joint struggle on an economic issue; for the poor, it was a symbol of

exploitation, for the rich a struggle against the salt laws gave an

opportunity for symbolic identification with mass suffering’ (ibid).

Moreover, Lang and Lang (1989) noted that ‘political symbols were

not a specific type or sign with destructive characteristics. Rather,

what made them political was the way they were used in political

process to establish, consolidate or alter power relationships’. For

instance, two film personalities in South India used their popularity in

films to establish themselves as popular politicians in the country, and

59
also used their charisma to consolidate their positions among the

people. Two personalities are M G Ramachandran 8 (MGR) in Tamil

Nadu and N T Rama Rao (NTR) in Andhra Pradesh. Pandian (1997) in

his analysis of MGR career wrote that ‘MGR’s role as an individual

adjudicator unfolded itself with particular emphasis on the stunt

sequences that were present in any MGR film’. He further wrote that

these sequences were an articulated expression of his struggle against

oppression: an unarmed MGR fought an adversary single-handedly or

engaged in fighting the landlord’s hirelings…Every time a new MGR

film was released; film magazines carried letters from MGR’s fans

expressing their admiration of MGR’s fighting skills’. Further Pandian

argued that the large-scale circulation of a constructed imaginary

biography of MGR that projected his real life as not being different

from his life on screen. Political platforms, newspapers, pamphlets,

films, calendars and Party posters were used with remarkable skill in

considering his biography’. Such propaganda consolidated his

popularity in Tamil Nadu, and MGR ruled the state even when he was

on the death bed. The masses venerated him as their messiah.

8
With the formation of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in 1949 after a split
in the original political Party, Dravidar Kazhagam, the DMK defeated the
Congress Party in 1967. C N Annadurai became the chief minister and after two
years he died in 1969. M K Karunanithi succeeded him, and a crisis in the Party in
1972 resulted in the expulsion of M G Ramachandran, the treasurer for his
criticism of the Party leaders of indulging in corruption. MGR launched a new
Party, Anna Dravida Munetra Kazhagam (ADMK) which was later renamed as All
India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK). In 1977, AIADMK swept
the polls and MGR became the chief minister. He continued to be the chief
minister till his death on December 25, 1987. He won the 1980 and 1984 election.
He became a “legend” in his life time (Vaasanthi, 2006).
60
The other film personality, N T Rama Rao (NTR) too utilized his

popularity in films to gain power in Andhra Pradesh in the early

1980s. During the 1983 elections in Andhra Pradesh, NTR’s campaign

was centered on the issue of Telugu nationalism and self-respect. He

called upon the people to hold high the Telugu people’s honour

(Telugu jati gowram) and self-respect (atma gowram) by defeating the

then Congress Party. Suri (2006:287) aptly observed that the

‘charismatic appeal of NTR was the crucial factor in the TDP’s success

in 1983. People reposed faith in him…he also worked with great zeal

and conviction. His idealism, determination, cine popularity, and work

mesmerized many. He was looked upon with admiration and awe; as a

leader with superhuman capacities. He knew that people hardly care

for what the speaker speaks but are only interested to see how the

leader speaks. He spoke in chaste Telugu. The histrionics were perfect.

The delivery was excellent. His exhortations fell on receptive ears.

NTR, the cine idol for millions of people, known more for his excellent

performances in mythological films, especially in the divine roles of

Rama and Krishna, used his celluloid image most effectively to carry

his political message to the people’. The study of these two leaders

reveal that they were effective as political communicators and the

newspapers at that point of time gave wide coverage to them paving

the way for their victory in the elections. Thus, newspapers too play a

vital role in political communication. For instance, Eenadu, the largest

circulated daily in Andhra Pradesh, turned issues of importance to the

61
people into issues that won votes for the Telugu Desam (Prasad,

2014). The most famous instance of this was the way in which the

newspaper turned women’s demanded for restriction of arrack sales

into massive, state-wide campaign against arrack, leading to the

imposition of prohibition in the state.

62