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'Sangh-mukt Bharat' to back in NDA: Nitish Kumar has ushered in a new era of political immorality

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Anand Kochukudy
Anand KochukudyJul 30, 2017 | 12:53

'Sangh-mukt Bharat' to back in NDA: Nitish Kumar has ushered in a new era of political immorality

Nitish Kumar has won the vote of confidence without much fuss after taking oath for a sixth time as the chief minister of Bihar. With the overnight switching of partners to cling on to power after a farcical resignation, Nitish Kumar joins that illustrious league of opportunistic politicians of the socialist pedigree.

Indian political history is littered with tales of "Aaya Ram, Gaya Ram" - a term coined by YB Chavan inspired by a couple of gents in the Haryana Assembly who frequently switched sides - midnight coups and spectacular defections.

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But Nitish Kumar’s overnight switching of allies can only be compared to Charan Singh’s epic somersault to topple Morarji Desai’s Janata government in partnership with Indira Gandhi in 1979. It was the culmination of Charan Singh’s lifelong ambition to become the prime minister, a position he reckoned would fall into his lap after the Janata alliance’s spectacular victory in the 1977 post-Emergency General Elections.

Nitish Kumar is also probably the only challenger to Charan Singh’s feat of more than a dozen resignations in his political career.

On June 30, 1978, deputy prime minister Charan Singh resigned as the home minister from Morarji Desai’s Cabinet protesting the soft treatment meted out to Indira Gandhi. A week later, Charan Singh wrote to Desai accusing the prime minister and his Cabinet colleagues of being “a pack of impotents” and that left to himself he would have had "Mrs Gandhi whipped in public”.

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If corruption was the ruse for Nitish’s overnight jumping of fronts, secularism had come to the rescue of Charan Singh and fellow socialists in 1979.

As home minister, Charan Singh had ordered the arrest of Indira Gandhi in October 1977, that massively backfired on the Janata government and Morarji Desai was treading cautiously on the matter thereafter. Despite the Shah Commission finding Indira Gandhi and her son Sanjay guilty of many Emergency excesses, punishing her had to be through the legal route and courts.

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Charan Singh, now out of power, began to plot his way back to power with co-conspirator Raj Narain, who was also eased out of the government by Desai after Singh’s exit.

In December 1978, shortly after Indira Gandhi’s re-election from Chikmagalur, the House privileges committee held her guilty of contempt of Parliament and a resolution was passed by the House (then fully under the control of Janata party with their brutal majority) to send her to jail.

Indira Gandhi’s jail term of a week in Tihar coincided with a huge rally organised in Delhi by Charan Singh to mark his birthday. The politically astute Gandhi used the occasion to send a bouquet to Charan Singh through one of her loyalists. That set in motion the process of Janata party’s unravelling. Soon, Raj Narain was having regular meetings with Sanjay Gandhi to get Charan Singh installed in Desai’s place.

Desai brokered peace with Charan Singh eventually and persuaded him back into his Cabinet - this time as the finance minister - though the truce was short-lived.

If corruption was the ruse for Nitish’s overnight jumping of fronts, secularism (the issue on which Nitish seemingly ditched BJP in June 2013, after it became evident that Narendra Modi is BJP’s prime ministerial candidate) came to the rescue of Charan Singh and fellow socialists in 1979. Starting May 1979, socialist politicians such as Madhu Limaye and George Fernandes apart from Charan Singh himself, turned on the heat to demand the ouster of the then Jan Sangh (now the BJP) leaders Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani over their primary allegiance to the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS). The no-confidence motion against the Desai government on July 11, 1979, led to its fall and Charan Singh staked claim to form the government with his faction of Janata Dal (Secular) by getting a large number of MPs to defect from the Janata party and with the backing of Indira Gandhi.

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The same man who earlier reckoned "Mrs Gandhi will sink further into oblivion" and had prepared "a historic Nuremberg-type trial" for her was now using her support to form his government.

There was militant socialist George Fernandes, Nitish Kumar’s mentor, who had time and again vowed to fight Indira Gandhi’s political comeback, among the people seeking her support along with Charan Singh and Raj Narain.

The Charan Singh government didn’t last long as Indira Gandhi withdrew her support after her demand to scrap special courts to try emergency excesses was turned down. And that brought to an end a saga of venal opportunism and power game.

Nitish Kumar’s volte-face within days after pledging to work for a "Sangh-mukt Bharat", has ushered in a new era of political immorality. Kumar’s opportunism is only different from his mentors to the extent that if secularism was seen as the bigger plank then, corruption seems to have replaced it in new-age India.

(Suggested Reading: Indira Gandhi: A personal and political biography by Inder Malhotra.)

Last updated: July 30, 2017 | 18:12
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