Rise of Communalism and Corruption in High places
After the horrors of partition, there had been some attempt to keep religion away from the active and formal political sphere.This period, however, saw the emergence of new kind of political mobilisation which had communal overtones. This use of religion for political purposes and the partisan role of the government was going lead to disastrous consequences which would raise question marks on the issue of national unity and integrity.
protested against this judgement saying that it went against Islamic law and that if this was allowed then there may be further interference in the religious life of the community. The leaders of women’s movement and those who stood for reform within the Muslim society argued that it would help to reverse the gross injustice being meted out to Muslim women who were divorced unilaterally by their husbands. The government came under pressure of the orthodox sections and enacted a new law in 1986 which let off Muslim husbands and permitted Muslim religious bodies to pay maintenance to divorced women for a short period of 3 months.
This was widely seen as compromising before religious orthodoxy and ignoring the interests of women of the community. Around the same time, some sections of the Hindus had begun a campaign for building a temple for Lord Rama in Ayodhya, in the place of the controversial construction, Babri Masjid. They claimed that it was the birth place of Lord Rama and it has been built by destroying the earlier temple. The custodians of Babri Masjid denied this and claimed that this was a place of worship for Muslims.
This place had been under dispute for some time and the Court had ordered it be kept closed except on one day in a year till the final decision was taken. In 1986, the Court ordered that the mosque may be kept open on all days and allow Hindus to perform worship on a daily basis. It was widely believed that this could happen only because the central government approved of this decision. This opening up of the temple helped those groups who wanted to convert the mosque into a temple to mobilise a large number of people. To many observers, it appeared that the established political parties were losing popularity among the people. Large number of popular movements were emerging over a number of issues under non-political leaderships.
The large farmers producing for market were fighting for better prices for agricultural products and greater subsidy for inputs like diesel, fertilisers and electricity. Farmers of UP and Haryana agitated under the leadership of Mahendra Singh Tikait, while farmers of Maharashtra were fighting under the leadership of Sharad Joshi. In many States, movements of adivasis and farmers against displacement by development projects like dams and mines were also building up.
The observers felt that this decline in popularity led the national political parties to pander to religious feelings in both Hindu and Muslim communities so as to retain their support in elections. However, it weakened the secular fabric of Indian polity and made way for a rise of communal politics in the following decade. Around the same time, charges began to be levied against several leaders that they had directly or indirectly received bribes from the Swedish manufacturers of guns that were being supplied to the Indian army. Even though these charges could never be proved clearly, a powerful campaign was led by some former ministers of cabinet itself like V P Singh. The issue of corruption in administration and in political circles became the main plank of the election campaign for non-congress political forces in the next elections held in 1989. Once the non-congress parties, irrespective of their differences amongst themselves got together, it became difficult for the Congress to win. Though Congress returned with the highest number of seats, it did not have enough seats to form a government on its own. The first coalition government led by V P Singh’s Janata Dal was formed.
The Era of Coalition politics The 1990s were years of very significant change in the post Independence India. With the transformation to a competitive multi-party system, it became near impossible for any single party to win a majority of seats and form a government of its own. Since 1989, all governments that had formed at the national level have been either coalition or minority governments. A number of national and regional parties had come together to form governments at the centre. This meant that the political ideologies and programmes of a number of parties had to be accommodated and a common agreement had to be arrived at. Thus, no party could pursue its extreme agendas and had to tone down their approaches.
While this enabled the central government to become more sensitive to multiple viewpoints in politics and policy matters, it also caused considerable instability. Even small parties tried to gain undue advantage as the withdrawal of their support could cause the fall of the government. Sometime this also caused ‘policy paralysis’ – as the coalition could not implement any policy which called for serious change for fear of withdrawal of support by one or the other partners. While the early coalition governments were highly instable and did not last their full terms, the later coalitions have put in place multiple mechanisms like common minimum programmes and coordination committees to bring about greater understanding between the partners. Later coalitions like the BJP led National Democratic Alliance and the Congress led United Progressive Alliance have completed their terms. Moreover, the UPA was the first coalition to be re-elected.
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