Nehru’s death in 1964 aroused concern that Indian democracy
was dependent on the Nehru mystique. When
his successor, a Congress Party veteran, died in 1966,
Congress leaders selected Nehru’s daughter, Indira
Gandhi (no relation to Mahatma Gandhi), as the new
prime minister. Gandhi was inexperienced in politics, but
she quickly showed the steely determination of her father.
Like Nehru, Gandhi embraced democratic socialism
and a policy of neutrality in foreign affairs, but she was
more activist than her father. To combat rural poverty,
she nationalized banks, provided loans to peasants on
easy terms, built low-cost housing, distributed land to the
landless, and introduced electoral reforms to enfranchise
the poor.
Gandhi was especially worried by India’s growing population
and in an effort to curb the growth rate adopted a
policy of enforced sterilization. This policy proved unpopular,
however, and, along with growing official corruption
and Gandhi’s authoritarian tactics, led to her defeat
in the general election of 1975, the first time the
Congress Party had failed to win a majority at the national
level.
A minority government of procapitalist parties was
formed, but within two years, Gandhi was back in power.
She now faced a new challenge, however, in the rise of religious
strife. The most dangerous situation was in the
Punjab, where militant Sikhs were demanding autonomy
or even independence from India. Gandhi did not shrink
from a confrontation and attacked Sikh rebels hiding in
their Golden Temple in the city of Amritsar. The incident
aroused widespread anger among the Sikh community,
and in 1984, Sikh members of Gandhi’s personal
bodyguard assassinated her.
By now, Congress politicians were convinced that the
party could not remain in power without a member of the
Nehru family at the helm. Gandhi’s son Rajiv, a commercial
airline pilot with little interest in politics, was persuaded
to replace his mother as prime minister. Rajiv
lacked the strong ideological and political convictions of
his mother and grandfather and allowed a greater role for
private enterprise. But his government was criticized for
cronyism, inefficiency, and corruption, as well as insensitivity
to the poor.
Rajiv Gandhi also sought to play a role in regional affairs,
mediating a dispute between the government in Sri
Lanka and Tamil rebels (known as the “Elam Tigers”)
who were ethnically related to the majority population in
southern India. The decision cost him his life: while campaigning
for reelection in 1991, he was assassinated by a
member of the Tiger organization. India faced the future
without a member of the Nehru family as prime minister.
During the early 1990s, Congress remained the leading
party, but the powerful hold it had once had on the
Indian electorate was gone. New parties, such as the militantly
Hindu Bharata Janata Party (BJP), actively vied
with Congress for control of the central and state governments.
Growing political instability at the center was
accompanied by rising tensions between Hindus and
Muslims.
When a coalition government formed under Congress
leadership collapsed, the BJP, under Prime Minister A. B.
Vajpayee, ascended to power and played on Hindu sensibilities
to build its political base. Rajiv Gandhi’s Italianborn
wife Sonia has taken over the leadership of the Congress
Party to improve its political fortunes.
World History
