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From alliance to victory

CAN alliances win at the hustings? Most such analysts focus on 1977 and rightly so. The first-ever defeat of the ruling party was remarkable; it had won every election since 1952. But it was defeated only when virtually all its adversaries came together under the Janata banner.

From alliance to victory

FLASHBACK: Indira Gandhi effectively combined patronage with sustenance of a new socio-political base.



Mahesh Rangarajan

CAN alliances win at the hustings? Most such analysts focus on 1977 and rightly so. The first-ever defeat of the ruling party was remarkable; it had won every election since 1952. But it was defeated only when virtually all its adversaries came together under the Janata banner.

Yet, it is often forgotten that there was another occasion when an alliance had won. Anchored by a strong all India party, it picked up key allies who punched way above their weight. These alliances included seat sharing and common cause for victory. The leader was Indira Gandhi, the year 1971. The ally was the CPI, but the other critical player was the DMK of Tamil Nadu. 

The ruling party secured a clear majority, 352 seats in a House of 521, up from 283 four years earlier. But the win in 1971 by the Congress (R) led by Indira Gandhi was built not only on Garibi hatao, but also drew on alliances at the electoral level. 

Of these, the CPI was well known, as it had a nationwide tie-up with her party. From 1969 on, it had chosen to support her and was now rewarded with seats in many states such as Bihar, where the Congress did not field its candidates. In Punjab the tie-up helped the smaller party win Sangrur and Bathinda.

Far more crucial was the alliance with the DMK. Its CM had taken oath of office in 1969, the same year as the historic Congress split. 

The DMK struck a deal to its advantage at the state level. In March 1971 it backed the Congress-Communist alliance. A year later in the state Assembly polls, the Congress (R) backed Karunanidhi’s party. They fell out and in 1976 his government was dismissed.

What is crucial is that facing a grand alliance of the non-Communist Opposition, Indira Gandhi chose to withdraw from Tamil Nadu, cede ground to regional forces and save her forces to fight other battles. This, despite the long and deep significance of the Madras region in the history of her party. It may have been symbolic but one direct victor was the MP from Puducherry: the Communist lawyer-turned-left wing-Congress man, Mohan Kumaramangalam. 

It had been a rough ride. Indira had risked a split in the party. It was a gamble, but it paid off. Just four years earlier it had been possible to drive from Diamond Harbour, West Bengal to the Wagah border post without crossing the constituency of a single Congress Lok Sabha MP. 

The leader was seen as architect of a personalised one-party rule and a centralised style of government, who pioneered an alliance with a regional party. 

More than that was her reading of the 1967 polls in Tamil Nadu.  She reconciled to a regional party dominating the political space in the state. This helped undercut Kamaraj Nadar, the titan who cut the deal to make her PM in 1966, but parted ways with her. Yet, this pulling back from a region to make gains in New Delhi was her unique and new contribution to the book of realpolitik.

Similarly, she also shifted base within the party. Even prior to the split she courted and worked with the ex-socialists in Congress, most crucially Chandra Shekhar, to push back the cabal of regional satraps who had made her PM in the wish that they could control her. By doing so, she did more than carve a left-of-centre image.

She effectively combined patronage with sustenance of a new social and political base. This emerges in a closer analysis of the 1971 results. The most marginal social groups in India are the Scheduled Tribes and they voted strongly for the Congress in this critical general election. 

It was the late (and great Professors Lloyd and Susan Rudolph) who showed in their remarkable book The Pursuit of Lakshmi how bank nationalisation helped not only an emergent middle class, but also the bullock capitalists to acesss credit, expand production and incomes. The kisan, as much as the Adivasi, made the Congress a formidable force.

It was these groups who sensed the shift in the polity and voted for a ruling party that had stolen the slogan of change from its rivals. But the alliance was key: at the all India level the Communists, a party seen as idealistic, had yet to come to power on a lasting basis outside of Kerala.

No pan-India party has won a state Assembly election in Tamil Nadu since 1962. In 1977, the Congress aligned with MG Ramachandran (then nascent AIADMK) and won all Lok Sabha seats. She stood tall in the state even as her party lost in the country at large. Ever since, regional nationalists have been key players in New Delhi — most so between 1999 and 2014.

This leads to the question: does a larger BJP and less space for its allies not mean an opportunity for the Congress, still its premier adversary? In 2014, the latter sunk to its nadir. 

Logically, this means it can enter into alliances in more states with a wider range of parties. This will, often, not be on terms where it can pretend to be an equal. But it can try to be a thread that links these forces together. The reason is simple: even a weakened Congress will take on Mr Modi’s party in more seats and states than anyone else. There can be no anti-BJP front sans the Congress.

But the latter faces an uphill task. It is virtually absent in Tamil Nadu, Bihar, UP, and West Bengal. In 2014, it came third, or worse in Delhi, Sikkim, Odisha, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Add all these and we get 272, half the Lok Sabha.

The Tamil Nadu formula in 1971 was simple: cede the state, play for the country. But if the party plays second fiddle in half the seats, will it still be the key player or merely one of many? There is no easy answer. The big shift is that regional players are key to the all India configuration of power. 

But a careful parsing of its history may throw up the ultimate irony. It was this alliance with leftists and regionalists that led to a government where she put her stamp of authority. The regional allies then helped get the key to power. Will they now help get past the doorstep? 

Odd as it may be, the 1971 strategy may be key, moving beyond Indira’s legacy and forging a plural federal alliance. It sounds counter-intuitive but hers was the first alliance victory in a general election in India. 

The writer teaches history and environmental studies at Ashoka University, Sonepat

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