India 1974: Growing Political Crisis

Abstract

POLITICAL SYSTEMS FACE a major threat to their survival when their problem solving capacity-fragile and limited in some cases-is impaired by a gathering crisis concerning their legitimacy. Such, it seemed, was the case in India in 1974 when all through that year a combination of economic and political failures created a situation which posed, for the first time, a serious challenge to the system's legitimacy. A rising tide of popular discontent swept through Gujarat in the first quarter of the year and was running high in Bihar at the close of the year, threatening to spread to other areas in the coming months. In between, there were a series of industrial strikes of which the most serious was the 20-day stoppage of work by rail' waymen, paralyzing that important network of communications for the longest duration in the nation's history. Although these movements were initially occasioned by growing economic distress as indicated by soaring inflation, runaway prices and acute shortages of food and other essentials, they soon acquired partisan political overtones when they set as their targets the dismissal of state ministries and dissolution of state legislatures. It is true that the movements were largely confined to urban areas, were discontinuous, and had achieved a rather low level of aggregation. For example, according to the estimates made by a teacher in Gujarat University, all but 11 out of the 63 towns with a population of over 20,000 were affected by the movement in that state. But out of 143 towns of smaller size only 20 were affected. Again, during the long months of agitation, industrial workers were not drawn into it. It was not different in Bihar where the agitation also had an urban and middle class character. But it was significant that protest movements had begun and that they evoked the profoundest sympathies of ordinary people everywhere as they came to symbolize the common man's frustrations and silent anger. In contrast to the setbacks suffered in the domestic economic and political spheres, some significant advances were made in foreign relations, such as improvement in Indo-U.S. relations, a new era of extensive co-operation with Iran and the resumption of trade between India and Pakistan. Of the positive developments at home, the more significant were the May 18 ex-