1975    EMERGENCY AND AFTER  

Authoritarian Danger Remains

Prakash Karat

JUNE 26, 1975 was the date on which internal emergency was declared in India, 28 years ago.  This event will always remain significant in the country's political history as, for the first time since independence, it ushered in a short period of authoritarian rule.  During the nineteen months of the emergency, thousands of leaders and activists of the opposition political parties were arrested and put in prison. Democratic rights and civil liberties provided in the Constitution were suspended.  The Parliament was virtually defunct and speeches made on the floor of Parliament  were censored.  Censorship on the media was imposed.  The right of citizens to move the courts for enforcement of certain fundamental rights were suspended.  All this was done by Indira Gandhi on the grounds that the security of India was threatened by internal disturbances.

REPRESSIVE REGIME OF 1970s

The serious attack on democracy was sparked off by a sharp conflict between the ruling and the opposition bourgeois-landlord parties which in itself was a manifestation of the deep crisis within the  bourgeois-landlord system.  The experiment in truncated democracy and the repressive regime could not be sustained for very long.   The stifling of democratic rights and the atrocities carried out in the sterilisation programme created the conditions for a mass  upsurge. 

The popular anger against the authoritarian regime burst out and found expression in the March  1977 elections, which was suddenly called by Mrs Gandhi.  She had miscalculated that with a cowed down opposition, the Congress would easily come back to power. Instead, for the first time, the Congress was swept away from power at the centre.  Then followed the first non-Congress coalition government headed by the Janata Party.  The Congress party, in one sense, never recovered from this adventurist decision to attack the cherished democratic rights of the people.

More than a quarter of a century later, the politics in the country and the nature of the successive bourgeois-landlord governments  have shown that the threat to democracy and the potential of authoritarianism has not ended.  The CPI(M), in its Political Resolution of 10th Congress held after the emergency, while reviewing the emergency experience warned: "The growing dependence of the economy on western imperialist aid and the world capitalist market, and the invitation to multinationals strengthen the forces of dictatorship. So long as the domination of the monopolists, big bourgeoisie and landlords continues to hold the Indian economy in its grip, attempts will be made by one combination or another to install a dictatorship to make its rule viable. It will be erroneous to ascribe loyalty to democracy and commitment to resist dictatorship to a particular group or party."

The warning given in this resolution is especially relevant today.  The fight back and the rejection of the emergency rule in the seventies signified the democratic consciousness of the people.  It was a warning to the ruling classes that any attack on democratic rights and the parliamentary  democratic system  would be resolutely opposed by the people.  However, in the last two decades, the impact of bourgeois-landlord rule has resulted in the steady erosion of the institutions of parliamentary democracy  and provided fertile grounds for the growth of the communal and divisive forces. 

AUTHORITARIANISM OF THE BJP

On every anniversary of the imposition of the emergency, the BJP-RSS combine proclaims its anti-emergency credentials.  Yet, there is  no getting away from the fact that the danger of authoritarianism today  emanates from this very source.  For the past five years,  since 1998, the country has been ruled by a BJP-led government.  The BJP itself is an instrument of the RSS which is inherently  anti-democratic and authoritarian.  Its fascistic ideology glorifies militarism and majoritarian rule by force. The Hindutva ideology gained currency at a time when the country began the process of liberalisation and the tailoring of its economic policies to suit the interests of international finance capital. More and more, the demands of international capital and the domestic big capital allied to it, are to limit and narrow democracy to create a hospitable climate for its operations.  The potential of authoritarianism arises from these two sources -- the rise of majority communalism and the onslaught of liberalisation.

The BJP is leading a coalition government for the past five years. It is unable to get a majority of its own in Parliament.   Despite this handicap, the BJP has been working systematically to push forward the long term agenda of the RSS. In doing so, the BJP is not in any way hesitant to undermine democracy or to utilise those provisions of the Constitution  which can help it to undemocratically consolidate its power.  The BJP has been unable to use Article 356 of the Constitution against its political opponents in the state governments not for  want of trying, but because it is unable to get a majority in the Rajya Sabha to ratify such an act.   If the BJP had that majority in the Upper House, many of the non-BJP state governments would have been endangered.  Neither is the BJP able to push through its pet aim of rewriting the Constitution as it cannot command a two-thirds majority in Parliament. If it was in a position to do so, the BJP would change the parliamentary system of government and bring in a Presidential form of government.   Some of the recommendations of the Commission to review the working of the Constitution would have been selectively taken up, if it had the requisite strength.  Already the principle of secret ballot for election is eroded by the legislation to have open voting for Rajya Sabha members in the state legislatures.

More dangerous is the exercise of power by a communally motivated regime.  Gujarat has shown the havoc that can be caused by State-sponsored pogroms against minorities.  Alongwith the general erosion of democratic rights for citizens, the minorities are dispossessed  of even the right to live, unless they are prepared to be second-class citizens.

The use of preventive detention under MISA was widespread during the emergency.  The BJP rulers who, opposed MISA and later TADA, have now fashioned a more repressive and draconian law, POTA.  To get this passed, the Vajpayee government went to the extent of convening a joint session of Parliament last year.   POTA is now being used to lock up people who are not liked by the governments in power.  Whether it be Mayawati in Uttar Pradesh, or, Jayalalitha in Tamilnadu,  POTA is used against  political opponents. In the  case of the BJP, POTA is a potent weapon against the minorities as its large-scale application in Gujarat testifies. 

The symptoms of authoritarianism under the BJP regime have grown  and invaded all spheres.  The attacks on the media are becoming more vicious.  The tehelka.com was shut down by a campaign of  harassment and persecution of its  promoters and journalists. The number of attacks on  journalists and newspapers by various state governments have grown too.

What is attempted by the BJP regime is to institutionalise various  authoritarian measures whose total result will be to seriously  curb the democratic rights of the working people.  There are proposals to amend the laws which would restrict trade union rights of the workers.  In the meantime, to please foreign capital, in the special economic zones, trade union rights are being  prohibited. Increasingly, police authorities are intervening to restrict the right of association and protest. Prohibitory orders against demonstrations and meetings in many public places has become a  permanent feature. 

The climate of liberalisation has pervaded all the institutions of the State.  The judiciary is no exception. In the recent years,  the higher judiciary has banned bandhs and hartals.  Some judgements have  limited the time when demonstrations take place and the elementary democratic right of the people to assemble and  submit  their demands to the authorities have been severely curtailed.  The Kerala High Court has, in a recent order, empowered managements of educational institutions to prohibit political activities by student organisations on the campus.  This has been eagerly seized upon by the private managements.

NATIONAL CHAUVINISM

The BJP has been consciously promoting an atmosphere of jingoism and national chauvinism.  In the words of L K Advani, India is in a  permanent state of war.  The BJP-RSS combine  seeks to utilise the fight against terrorism, especially after the United States'  proclaimed "war against terrorism",  to strengthen the repressive machinery of the State and to use it against all those who stand in their way. 

The danger of authoritarianism is not only confined to this direct  attack on democracy but takes place more insidiously in the ideological and cultural spheres.  The  exertions of Murli Manohar Joshi and his cohorts to mould  the educational system and the distort culture to suit the interests of Hindutva constitutes a grave threat to intellectual freedom and democratic cultural  values.  A corollary  of this authoritarian drive is the witch-hunting of intellectuals, artists and institutions  who do not conform to the world view of the Hindutva forces.

ROLE OF BOURGEOIS LANDLORD SYSTEM

The pervasiveness of the authoritarian danger originates from the  processes of the bourgeois-landlord  system itself.  More and more the ruling classes find it necessary to resort to anti-democratic and anti-people measures to push through policies designed to  consolidate  their hegemony.  That is why the authoritarianism of the Hindutva project is supplemented and strengthened by the needs of different factions of the ruling classes who themselves may not share  the Hindutva outlook.  The degeneration of public life and democratic institutions  is taking place in the background of the growing hostility among sections of middle classes to democratic mass  political activities. The sharp rise in inequalities  have heightened the stakes for the affluent who  wish to perpetuate the  highly iniquitous system ushered in by liberalisation.

At a time when there is deep distress among the urban and rural sections of the working people and especially the rural poor, every attempt to mobilise the people and organising them  for their rights is being met with greater hostility and repression. While the BJP pursues its mega authoritarian project, many bourgeois-landlord parties are complicit in this drive by practicing their  own forms of little authoritarianisms.

While the Left and democratic forces in India are conscious of the growing danger  to democracy posed by the recent developments, the weakness of the Left at the all-India plane is utilised by the BJP-led government and other rightwing forces to push ahead with measures  which threaten democracy further. The Congress with its own record of anti-democratic policies is in no position to effectively counter the BJP on this count.  It is, therefore, imperative that immediately the attack on democracy in various forms and the longer term project of imposing an Hindutva-based authoritarian regime be fought back with all the resources available. The CPI(M) and the Left forces have a key role in this endeavour and their success depends on their ability and effort to mobilise the widest forces in this struggle.