Indira Gandhi as prime minister led India in a war that culminated in the creation of Bangladesh. She was titled “Empress of India” by the London Economist. Atal Bihari Vajpayee called her Durga. In a few years, she declared the Emergency, arrested most Opposition leaders and gave her second son, Sanjay, unbridled powers. Congressmen meekly consented to her dictatorial powers. She asked for a “committed” bureaucracy, and a “committed” judiciary. She succeeded with the bureaucracy. It became so powerful that in the Manmohan Singh years it had a stranglehold on government, with cushy post-retirement jobs, protection of corrupt colleagues, and engagement in increasingly blatant corruption. The Congress litany in the years of Indira Gandhi was that “there was no alternative” to her as leader of the Congress, and as one who could keep it together. Indira Gandhi marginalized competition in her party by inducting potential competitors to the Centre. They lost their support base. Y.B. Chavan was an example. Jayaprakash Narayan was the towering pre-Independence figure who opposed her. His opposition and the Emergency led to the creation of the Janata Party government into which other political parties, including the Jana Sangh, merged themselves. He died and the Janata formation fell apart into its earlier constituents.
Today, besides the failures of an inept Congress party, government and ministers, Narendra Modi’s election campaigning and the diligent fieldwork of thousands of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh volunteers have given the Bharatiya Janata Party an overwhelming majority in the Lok Sabha. In a few months, the BJP might well dislodge many of the remaining Congress and regional party governments in the states. It will take little time for the BJP to control the Rajya Sabha as well. With the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha and most state legislatures under BJP control, Modi will have unprecedented power over his party, and the Central and state governments. His election speeches showed that he had a vision and a plan for transforming India into a developed nation, abolishing poverty and making India a global power. We have to wait for decisive reform actions from this government, maybe two years away. As with Indira Gandhi, murmurs have already begun which will become a roar, that “there is no alternative” to Modi.
When Jawaharlal Nehru was prime minister, there were many potential successors. Many were powerful chief ministers or political leaders. Jayaprakash Narayan, S.K. Patil, B.G. Kher, B.C. Roy, Govind Vallabh Pant, Y.B. Chavan, S Nijalingappa, Devraj Urs, and many others could have succeeded him. Although he was immensely popular, with full control over the Central government and the party, the states had their own powerful leaders. He had to consult them. There were no comments that “there was no alternative” to Nehru.
There is one control over Modi. That is the RSS. In the last three months, it has demonstrated its clout. Ministerial appointments, top party positions, policies such as the ban on the introduction of genetically modified seeds, all had the RSS imprint. Even the 49 per cent cap on foreign investment in defence appears to have the RSS ‘swadeshi’ stamp. He has another consultant — the bureaucracy.
Through his brief period as prime minister, Modi has apparently consulted RSS on all important matters and there has been no reported conflict between them. Modi is a strong person, who listens carefully, studies issues, and makes up his own mind. He is a modern man and his record in Gujarat shows that he uses technology, education, skills development, safe water, sanitation, and better employment to usher in development. Policies to introduce them will at some time come into conflict with the RSS.
Modi seems to have compromised with the RSS on the opening of the defence industries to FDI. The budget announced a 49 per cent limit on foreign investment in defence. This may not attract FDI to defence soon. We can be confident that the limit will be raised to enable the foreign investor to have management control. The RSS will not like it. There will be other such situations where Modi, whose focus is on development, prevents actions that might constrain it.
At the same time, Modi knows that he needs RSS foot soldiers to fight and win elections. He will have to compromise on some of the antediluvian ideas of the RSS so that his progressive ideas in economic policy can be implemented to achieve development.
What are the likely RSS responses to important economic policy issues? Swadeshi is one of them. This could mean many things. Self-reliance was India’s policy from the 1950s to the 1970s. It led to severe import restrictions. Even technology collaboration was restricted by measly limits on royalty payments. This is one policy that Modi will never accept. As someone who has studied China’s development firsthand, he knows that foreign technology and investment are vital for India to develop to another level. The RSS will find a compromise.
The RSS will be hostile to foreign investment. Remember Murli Manohar Joshi in the first BJP government saying “yes to computer chips but no to potato chips”? He was obviously in synch with the RSS. But foreign investment in the 21st century might not be amenable to such discrimination. This is one area where there will be continuing conflicts between the RSS and the BJP government.
The RSS might compromise by demanding strict regulation of foreign investments. This fits Modi’s plans to clean the government of corruption and enable transparency. He might reform the whole system of departmental regulation by government and statutory regulation. Foreign investments will therefore be included under stricter regulation.
Another RSS bugbear is that of keeping foreign influences away. This would include attitudes to dressing, especially by women, foreign movies, television shows, books about Hinduism and its mythologies by foreign scholars like Wendy Doniger and so on. These ideas might strike a sympathetic chord in Modi and he will keep peace with the RSS.
It is with regard to the spread of foreign cultural influences that the RSS is likely to make the most of its power over the government. The RSS attempts will be to promote Hindu culture, Hindu prayers, epics, theology and so on. It will, at the same time, try to ban religious conversions. It might prevent Christian missionaries from spreading the gospel. There will be attempts to halt the incursion of foreign funds to Muslim madrasas. Certainly there will be attempts to make madrasas into regular, and not purely Quranic, schools. Modi might not resist these ideas.
There will be attempts to give a strong Hindu orientation to education. This will clash with Modi’s vision of expanding the reach and quality of education and bringing in science and technology to education for all. He may not object to the emphasis on the ‘past glories’ of the Hindu rashtra now being put into the school curricula in Gujarat. The RSS will attempt to rebuild Hindu monuments taken over or demolished centuries ago by Muslim invaders who built Muslim monuments there. To safeguard the image of India as a safe investment destination Modi may not permit such actions.
In the next five years of BJP rule we will see a more vocal and visible RSS. Its ideas will penetrate into government policies as long as they have no possible adverse effect on economic development. Modi’s vision of a new India will stay. It may be more of a Hindu India. But this India will be better educated, skilled, healthy, using innovative technologies, living in better houses, in clean environments and with better infrastructure.
The author is former director general, National Council of Applied Economic Research
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