India: The Leadership Crisis

Abstract

Optimists and pessimists have both been wrong about India if 1968 is to be taken as a year illustrative of the Indian political system. Developments during the year did not evidence a strengthening of democratic processes, yet neither has increasing political instability reached the point where a basic reordering of the political framework seems imminent. Groping toward new or altered political patterns is underway as political forces continue to react to the changed circumstances engendered by the loss of Congress dominance in the February 1967 elections. What is most notable about the past year is the failure of personal or institutional leadership to emerge in response to the altered political landscape. The tall leaders who achieved independence and guided India through the two decades since 1947 are gone. Similarly, some centralizing forces manifested through both party and governmental channels have perceptibly weakened.' A relatively sophisticated brokerage system of group alliances, in which all political parties participate, has not prevented an unprecedented degree of political instability at the state level. And the Union government has been characterzed as our functioning anarchy and nonGovernment.2 As 1968 ended, four states of Northern India containing approximately one-third of the country's population were under President's Rule. Serious political problems also confronted Madhya Pradesh, Haryana and Kerala, while stability in the rest of India was present only in comparative terms. Resiliency or muddling through, nonetheless, remains a hallmark of Indian politics and government. Congress Party weaknesses are matched in equal measure by the lack of cohesion in non-Congress groupings. Neither political paralysis nor authoritarian rumblings have resulted. Political crises are yet to be equated with disaster in India. Any emphasis on the fluidity and lack of leadership in the political system, however, should not obscure the constants or ordering factors that continue to provide basic strength. First and most elementary is a majority party in parliament which has enabled the Congress ministry to provide at least mini-