Janata Experiment Failed As Post-Emergency Coalition Leaders Sought To Undermine Sangh's Role

News18

a day ago

As mere anti-Congressism proved to be a weak glue to keep the Janata Parivar parties together, similarly, anti-BJPism would not take the INDIA bloc very far
It's been about a week since the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the imposition of the Internal Emergency by the Government of India headed by Indira Gandhi started. Unfortunately, the posters and banners put up by the Bharatiya Janata Party units have already started to fade.
Newspapers in their own way tried to commemorate the dark chapter in post-Independence history by commissioning articles. These articles have been written mostly by those who were part of the movement itself and ended up being anecdotal in their write-up.
The best among the plethora of articles has been the one written by Kuldip Nayar, who was editor of The Indian Express when Emergency was imposed, and this article was published on the morning of June 26, 1975. Last week, The New Indian Express, one of the heirs to the Express legacy, reproduced the article on its editorial page.
Reels and posts on the social media handles on the atrocities of Emergency, too, have gone dry. What has really been missing are articles that could have indicated with firm references whether Emergency or the movement against it managed to change the trend of Indian politics, or was it just an aberration?
The imposition of Emergency and the valiant movement against it led by Jayaprakash Narayan did not bring a structural change in the Indian polity, as did the implementation of the Mandal Commission report for reservations in government jobs for candidates from the Other Backward Classes in 1990.
No wonder the role of the Mandal Commission has been much more discussed and debated, but again, not in as much quantum as the Ramjanmabhoomi movement. This is a very sharp indicator that the turmoil in society, which started with the Mandal report implementation, has somewhat settled for a stable polity following the political success of an essentially social Kamandal (Ramjanmabhoomi) movement.
This brings us to the question, was the decision to impose Emergency and the movement against it have a social quotient too? In the understanding of this writer, there was no element in either the action or the reaction which affected society the way it rattled the polity.
The biggest evidence of this premise is that the Janata Party got dismantled with the same speed and momentum with which it was formed. What was the main reason for it? The Janata Parivar disowning the contribution of the Sangh Parivar in the movement and the role it played in the electoral defeat of the Congress in the 1977 general elections.
In a recent newspaper interview, RSS sarkaryavah (general secretary) Dattatreya Hosabale mentioned that the Socialists and the Sangh had common ground in the movement against Emergency. 'The underground movement was sustained greatly because of the Sangh's personal contacts and through the help of their families. To run an underground movement, it is necessary to escape from the eyes of the police… The RSS had this informal contact and communication," Hosabale mentioned in the interview.
However, soon after coming to power, a struggle within the Janata government began. The lack of a cohesive ideology beyond anti-Congressism made it difficult to sustain the government and present a unified front, leading to its eventual collapse. Despite their shared goal of restoring democracy, the alliance, when it came to sustaining the government, fell prey to internal conflicts, particularly over the association of members of the government with the RSS.
In turn, it facilitated the return of the Congress to power within three years of being voted out. The Janata experiment, though in the short term contested a constitutional dictatorship vigorously, it failed to bring a long-term paradigm shift either in polity or in society. Without the organisational structure of the Sangh, the Janata Parivar was no match for the Congress's political behemoth, which was essentially built by Mahatma Gandhi during the freedom struggle.
Though in 1989, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) once again became part of the move to replace the Congress government, it kept a distance and did not settle to be part of the National Front governments, first led by Vishwanath Pratap Singh and later Chandra Shekhar. It instead focused on the social agenda of cultural nationalism and harvested the political fruits of the movement in the formation of the first NDA government in 1998 under Atal Bihari Vajpayee, which remained in office till 2004, and the second government in 2014 under Narendra Modi, which continues to rule.
There is a very strong message from the failure of the Janata experiment for the present-day Opposition too. As mere anti-Congressism proved to be a weak glue to keep the Janata Parivar parties together, similarly, anti-BJPism would not take the INDIA bloc very far. What's today called the BJP's election machinery is a synonym for the Sangh's well-entrenched social networking. There indeed are limitations to building political movements solely around an anti-incumbency sentiment.
The writer is author and president, Centre for Reforms, Development & Justice. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18's views.
tags :
BJP congress emergency rss
Location :
New Delhi, India, India
First Published:
July 02, 2025, 04:08 IST
News opinion Opinion | Janata Experiment Failed As Post-Emergency Coalition Leaders Sought To Undermine Sangh's Role