THE REPUBLICpolitical target in this way. But the huge mob which accompanied the BJP
campaigners could not be stopped once it had got into a frenzy. The
destruction of the mosque by innumerable hands equipped with only the
most elementary instruments was an astonishing feat. It left the nation
dumbfounded. Most of those who vote for the BJP are middle-class people
who own some property and are disinclined to upset law and order. This
was obviously also in the mind of the Prime Minister when he advised the
President to dismiss all four BJP governments and not only that of Uttar
Pradesh which could be held directly responsible for the disaster. Initially
this appeared to be a hasty reaction which would help the BJP to recover
lost ground with a vengeance at the next elections. But for the time being
the BJP was on the defensive. In February 1993 it staged a big rally in New
Delhi, but taking on the central government on its home ground was not a
wise decision. The rally was a flop. The elections held in November 1993
in the four states in which the BJP governments had been dismissed led to
decisive losses for this party. Narasimha Rao’s calculations seemed to have
been right. He reached the zenith of his political power at this stage and
was able to entice a splinter party to join his government which thereupon
was no longer a minority government though its majority remained a
precarious one.
The next round of state elections at the end of 1994 and the beginning
of 1995 went against Narasimha Rao, who campaigned everywhere but
to no avail. His own Andhra opted once more for N.T.Rama Rao and his
party Telugu Desam, Karnataka was captured by the Janata Party and
Maharastra by a coalition of the local party Shiv Sena with the BJP. This
did not augur well for the federal elections due in the spring of 1996.
Therefore the programme of economic reform was put on the back
burner and all kinds of populist measures aimed at the masses of the
voters inevitably led to a new round of fiscal indiscipline. Some observers
therefore look back at the years from 1991 to 1993 when the
liberalisation programme was in full swing as a mere episode which was
soon followed by a relapse. Others stress that in a democracy like India
reforms are bound to be slow, but whatever has been achieved is firmly
grounded in democratic consensus and thus more stable than the
ephemeral success of autocratic regimes. There is some truth in both of
these points of view.
The results of the elections which were held at the end of April and the
beginning of May 1996 finally put an end to the old Congress system. The
Congress could no longer maintain its power and its position in the middle
of the political spectrum, making use of the polarisation of the opposition
parties. The contours of India’s political landscape had changed
dramatically. Of the 537 seats for which elections had been held 160 were
won by the BJP, whereas the Congress Party was reduced to a mere 136
seats. The most surprising feature was the sudden increase in the number