The Economic Times daily newspaper is available online now.

    The Wonder That Was Indira

    Synopsis

    Nehru and Indira had to navigate global politics in the absence of any military alliance or either of the two superpowers as a patron.

    ET Bureau
    Durga who broke Pakistan into two. Tyrant who suppressed democracy. Insecure leader who split her party to get rid of dissenters. Control freak who ran from Delhi a party that spanned the nation, as well as chief ministers. Dynast who foisted her progeny on her party as leaders. Cynosure of the sycophants. Beloved Amma of the poor. Deluded socialist who nationalised the banks, tightened bureaucratic control over industry and delayed, if not aborted, India’s journey to prosperity. Embodiment of exquisite grace and bearer of the magic woven by India’s traditional weavers.

    Descriptions of Indira Gandhi vary from ululations of worship to profanities of hatred. Which is par for the course for the longest serving prime minister of a country as varied and complex as India. The most sensible way to make sense of such diversity of assessment is to see how she contributed to the making of India as a nation.

    Those who write history tend to assign its great personalities the vision, will and leadership nous to shape the future. They benefit from hindsight, something the leaders in question lacked, as they grappled with challenges. At times, the solutions they stumbled on get glorified in terms of ideology and personal faith, while for the leaders themselves, these were pragmatic options open to them, on which they had to build popular consensus.

    Socialist, Secular
    Socialism in Independent India was just an expedient tool for securing popular acquiescence for measures designed to force-march an agrarian economy into an industrial one. It is ironical that Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi are accused of socialist ruination, while what they actually did was to build capitalist industry in India in the name of socialism. Nehru protected the domestic market for local industry, keeping foreign competition out. The public sector built the infrastructure and basic industries that the Indian private sector needed but was too feeble to build. Public sector outlays put purchasing power in the hands of a small but growing middle class, whose consumption demand fuelled the growth of the local industry.

    Farmers were squeezed by repressing agricultural prices even as industry got heavy protection: farmers had to pay more grain to buy a bag of fertiliser or cement than if the prices of these industrial goods had been pared down by international competition. Adverse terms of trade transferred surplus from farming to industry.

    This was not the only way Nehruvian socialism helped Indian industry lay its hands on scarce capital. The government set up term-lending institutions (IFCI, ICICI, IDBI), the bonds issued by which were counted as those the banks were obliged to buy, in order to meet the so-called Statutory Liquidity Ratio. Thus, the public’s savings were mopped up by the banks, funnelled into termlending institutions and then passed on to industry — in a socialist sleight of hand.

    Nehru and his daughter both believed modern industry was the only route to progress and prosperity. The state took up yet another vital task that India’s capitalists were too small and small-minded to undertake on their own – research and development. Nehruvian socialism founded the Indian Institutes of Technology, the atomic and space projects and assorted other specialised labs.

    Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia — all fast-growing Asian economies had an activist state strategising and enabling economic growth. Many of them had state planning agencies. What Nehru and Indira did was mainstream development economics, not socialist throttling of growth, till this kind of micromanagement had become irrelevant and, worse, degenerated into avenues for rent-seeking.

    Nehru and Indira had to manage something most other Asian economies did not have to: navigate global politics in the absence of any military alliance or either of the two superpowers as a patron. Nehru started the strategy of playing each superpower off against the other, to secure maximum advantage for India. Indira Gandhi finessed it, enough to forestall American intervention during the liberation of East Pakistan. In the process, they made India a champion of Non-Alignment and decolonisation in Africa. The goodwill this generated will serve India well over the next decade when African growth accelerates and throws up big opportunities. Subsequent generations of Indian leadership have tried to amplify the strategic autonomy secured then.

    Nehru started India’s nuclear programme, of course, for peaceful purposes. Indira carried out India’s first nuclear test, in 1974, again for peace. India became a nuclear power, but outside the unequal arrangement dominated by the superpowers. The technology denial that started then ended only with the Indo-US nuclear deal, to scupper which the BJP nearly voted out the Manmohan Singh government.

    Indira Gandhi provided the political leadership for bringing about the Green Revolution and, later, the White Revolution. India’s middle class loves to hate politicians and to celebrate technocrats. However, V Krishnamurthy, MS Swaminathan, Verghese Kurien and E Sreedharan would not be names that stand for outstanding achievement, if they did not have the political mandate to do what they did, and if the political leadership of the day had not backed them to the hilt.

    Indira Gandhi added the word secular to the Constitution. Yet, communal violence broke out often, during her rule. Her highhandedness in Kashmir played no small role in mainstreaming alienation. She could not forestall the Assam agitation, and her politics fanned Sikh radicalism, which finally took her life.

    India is the globalising world in microcosm, with its myriad identities, faiths, languages, ethnicities, political ideologies and hostile neighbours. Its potential for schism is immense.

    Indira Gandhi worked to meld India’s diverse elements into a unified global force. The task called for strong leadership and she was a big leader, by any yardstick. Dark stains of failure and failings do dot her canvas of glory. But being speckled does not altogether mar a butterfly’s wing, does it.


    (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel)
    (Catch all the Business News, Breaking News, Budget 2024 News, Budget 2024 Live Coverage, Events and Latest News Updates on The Economic Times.)

    Download The Economic Times News App to get Daily Market Updates & Live Business News.

    Subscribe to The Economic Times Prime and read the ET ePaper online.

    ...more

    (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel)
    (Catch all the Business News, Breaking News, Budget 2024 News, Budget 2024 Live Coverage, Events and Latest News Updates on The Economic Times.)

    Download The Economic Times News App to get Daily Market Updates & Live Business News.

    Subscribe to The Economic Times Prime and read the ET ePaper online.

    ...more
    The Economic Times

    Stories you might be interested in