By
S Narendra
(Immediately, after the death of prime minister Nehru, there was a vacuum in
political communication caused by political drift. Lal Bahadur Shastri who
succeeded Nehru was not a mass leader, and his Congress backers chose him more
for his perceived weakness. He unexpectedly came into prominence and gave
memorable nation rallying slogans thanks mainly to the misadventure of Gen. Ayub
Khan of Pakistan....Read on S Narendra's column on Political Communication )
When
Shastriji pipped Morarji Desai to the post for the prime ministership after the
death of
Jawaharlal Nehru in May 1964, most observers commented that the
powerful Congress working committee chose Shastriji over Desai as a more
pliable, compromise candidate. In fact, British media invited Indian ire when
they referred to Shastriji as a sparrow. Shastriji was a self- effacing,
diminutive political leader not much known in large parts of India. Although
the transition of power from Nehru to Shastriji had been smooth, a sense of
political uncertainty prevailed and remarkably there was no attempt to dispel
this mood with effective political communication. There were several reasons
for this state of affairs.
The
1962 Chinese aggression seemed to have broken Nehru’s spirit that in turn told
on his health. As criticism of his China policy mounted inside and outside the
Congress party, Nehru’ s credibility also had been damaged, along with that of
the political communication emanating from him. The two main planks of his and
the government’s policies forming the core of the political communication had
fallen off.
The
first was them was the promise of faster development through five year plans. As
resources had to be diverted to defence, III Plan suffered. The other plank, foreign
policy rooted in non-alignment received a severe setback. In the aftermath of
the Indo-China, Nehru’s frantic appeals for US military assistance (as
recounted by J.K.Galbraith US Ambassador in New Delhi in his memoir) had raised
questions about the benefits his foreign policy. In one sweep, the unifying
message of hope and security that he had managed to convey had disappeared when
his successor Lal Bahadur Shastriji stepped into his big shoes.
Economic and
Political challenges: As
the media said, Nehru was a great banyan tree under which not a blade of grass
could grow. Though Shastri had emerged as Nehru’s trusted lieutenant but certainly
wasn’t a second in command by any imagination. During the
first few months of his tenure as prime minister, Shastriji had to deal with
one of the worst economic conditions marked by drought sweeping north India.
The country had to rely on concessional food imports, mostly from the US. The
new prime minister tried to shift the III Plan focus to agriculture and his new
slogan ‘grow two grains where one grew before’ did
not pick up steam. However, Shastriji is remembered more for his call to make Mondays
a cereal-less day for saving scarce cereals. This had not gone down well with
the people, especially with the restaurant and food business. In order to
promote the prime minister’s call, the government publicity machinery hastily
put together pamphlets giving out dozens of recipes for cereal-less meals and
snacks and the government advertising wing created a dedicated cell for mailing
the pamphlets in large numbers (I was associated with this exercise).
Notably,
the Congress party itself was inactive
on the political communication front,
Its President, K.Kamaraj, could speak only Tamil and was known as
‘parkalam,Kamaraj’ (most questions put to him
elicited this response, meaning ‘Let’s see’).The party was a divided
house, after the implementation 1963 Kamaraj Plan in which prime minister Nehru
had asked senior cabinet ministers-Moraji Desai, Jagjivan Ram, Biju Patnaik, S.K.Patil,
Lal Bahadur Shastri and several chief ministers to step down. However, Nehru
had brought back Shastriji into the cabinet later, that had not gone down well
with the seniors. Now Shastrijim had succeeded Nehru. Even Mrs Indira Gandhi,
inducted into Shastriji’s cabinet as I&B minister was reportedly sulking, according
to senior journalist Inder Malhotra. In an an article in the Indian Express written
a few years before his death, Malhotra
wrote that Mrs Gandhi was unhappy that she was not given the foreign ministry.
Another sore point with her was that Shastriji was not consulting her on
important policy decisions. Such political differences were sufficient to slow
down the government machinery as well.
Agni Pariksha:
While Shastriji was grappling with domestic economic problems and the Congress party’s
latent dissensions, there suddenly loomed an external threat as well. Gen:Ayub
Khan who had usurped power in Pakistan, sent in army men disguised as Kashmiri militants to the Srinagar valley. When the
defence chiefs proposed a massive Indian counter attack on the western front,
the prime minister without any hesitation gave them the go ahead, according to Sharad Kelkar, who
was the private secretary to the then defence minister Y.B.Chavan.
In
the ensuing 17 days full scale war, India gained the upper hand, with
significant territorial inroads into Pakistan. In the meanwhile, US and Soviet
Union applied pressure on both the countries to go for a truce. The Soviet
Union hosted a meeting between India and Pakistan at Tashkent for hammering out
a peace pact. The prime minister who had travelled to Tashkent suffered a fatal
cardiac arrest soon after signing this agreement. According to media persons
who had accompanied the PM,
Shastriji was extremely worried
about the possible adverse public reaction back home to terms of this agreement, according to which
India had to give up the gains made in the war.
Jai Jawan-Jai
Kisan: The effect of this war on India’s politics was
that it had put the limelight on Shastriji’s quiet but firm leadership and the
nation had rallied behind him. Amidst the crisis Shastriji had come out with a
memorable slogan ‘Jai Jawan-jai Kisan’ that resonated with the people. In a
simple desi idiom Shastriji had communicated a strategic policy shift-development
and defence, not Either ,Or ( Nehru was
criticised for his alleged neglect of defence )-that was to define his
government’s approach for strengthening India’s security. It further
emphatically signalled that his government would accord priority to agriculture
that had not received the importance it deserved in the five year plans thus
far. For a people fighting hunger and food scarcity this was a welcome message.
Alas, Shastriji was not there to carry forward the political communication riding
on his very popular slogan that had won him public support.
 |
| The author: Former PIO and Govt Spokesperson |
This
was a pre-election year and the Congress party monolith was cracking not only
in Delhi but also in many states. This was at a period when the country was facing
daunting challenges - one of the severest droughts, it had to recover from the
costly Indo-Pak war and the prospect of one of the worst BoP or
balance of payment crisis. There was no political leadership in sight that was
capable of dealing with such mighty challenges.
