In this AGE of fast-breaking news, even faster forming opinions and lightening speed judgements on social media, peculiar and interesting historical parallels might appear redundant. But Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as he completes two years in office, would do well to look back and make plans for his remaining three years at the helm.
The fact is, since the Congress monopoly in the Indian politics ended with the 1967 Lok Sabha elections, every Prime Minister — who has ruled for five years — has been confronted with disaster after two years. In all these cases, the consequences have been unexpected political upheavals.
Let’s start with Indira Gandhi. She won a historic mandate in 1971 and was even idolised as ‘Goddess Durga’ after the Indian military ‘liberated’ Bangladesh and split Pakistan into two. She appeared truly invincible. And yet, within two years, the magic faded and Indians started protesting against her. Crippling shortages of food and other items and galloping inflation (thanks to massive oil price hikes by OPEC) made her regime quite unpopular.
We all know what happened after that: student protests in Gujarat and Bihar, the Total Revolution called by Jai Prakash Narayan, the Emergency and her humiliating defeat in the 1977 Lok Sabha elections. To give her credit, Indira bounced back with a vengeance to become Prime Minister again in 1980. But this time, within two years, the Khalistan movement and the rise of terrorism in Punjab indelibly blemished her sheen. Tragically, she was assassinated and her son Rajiv Gandhi took over.
The two-year itch of Rajiv Gandhi is even more fascinating. In December 1984, he won a mandate that even his grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru had never won. Ask anyone with memories of that era and they will tell you how incredibly popular he was. Pundits refer to the first two years of his term as the Camelot era — referring to the charisma of American President John F. Kennedy.
And yet, many felt bewildered and angry when he used the brute majority of the Congress to overturn the Supreme Court verdict in the Shah Bano case that entitled divorced Muslim women to alimony and maintenance. The simmering anger turned into a sense of outraged betrayal, when the Bofors scam hit the headlines. Across India, voters felt betrayed and delivered their verdict in the 1989 Lok Sabha polls. The Congress tally plummeted from more than 400 to less than 200. Tragically, Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated, while attempting a comeback in the 1991 polls.
Not much was expected of the next Prime Minister P. V Narashima Rao — a man elevated to the post to check the soaring ambitions of many Congress leaders. But within a few weeks of assuming office, Rao and his finance minister became darlings of the chattering classes as well as global media for the economic reform policies they unleashed. A large portion of the superstructure of “command and control” driven economic policies erected since the days of Nehru were dismantled. Economic historians still regard those frenzied few weeks of 1991 as the primary reason for high growth rates and declining poverty in India. But the two-year itch struck with a vengeance. Family members of Rao were embroiled in a fertiliser scam and Rao faced personal allegations of corruption in the Harshad Mehta scam. He never really recovered politically after that. (Pundits might add the demolition of the Babri Masjid — the subsequent riots, and the 1993 Mumbai blasts to the list).
After that, it was the 1999 Lok Sabha elections that threw up a decisive verdict with the NDA led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee winning a comfortable majority. Vajpayee was immensely popular and even more after the Indian military had “won” the Kargil war.
But the two-year itch was inevitably waiting to strike. In 2001, India was hit by the Ketan Parekh scam, where thousands of crores of bank money (including that of Unit Trust of India) disappeared. But more unedifying was the spectacle of the Tehelka “sting”, where the then BJP president Bangaru Laxman was shown accepting cash. Historians will argue over why Vajpayee-led NDA lost in 2004. But the stench of crony capitalism must have played a role. (Not to forget the 2002 Gujarat riots)
His successor Manmohan Singh is the only one to win a second successive term in 2009, after Indira Gandhi in 1967 and 1971. But even he was a victim of the two-year itch. Two years into his term, India signed a nuclear deal with the United States that still remains controversial. The Left Front withdrew support, and we saw the “cash for votes” scam that still remains a mystery. It was during the second term that Singh was well and truly hit by the two-year itch. Two of the biggest scams ever in India, 2G and Coal Gate hit the headlines with a vengeance in 2011. The Congress is yet to recover from that. Interestingly, both the scams have their genesis in 2006, two years into the first term of Singh.
Prime Minister Modi might well be wondering: what next?
sutanu.guru@businessworld.in
