A History of India, Third Edition

THE REPUBLIC

opposition parties engaged in their customary inter-rivalry and could find a
common denominator only in the rather inane battle cry ‘Indira Hatao’
(‘Beat Indira’). In this way they contributed to her resounding victory.
After her victory the steps that had led to it seemed to form a pattern. Had
she followed a well-planned strategy? Her break with the old guard, her
leftish moves of bank nationalisation and of the abolition of the privy purses
of the Indian princes, the bold coup of advancing the national elections—all
these now appeared to be calculated steps to the final goal. But in fact she had
rather reacted to challenges of the moment and had followed her political
instinct in deciding what to do next at every bend of the road. Bank
nationalisation and the abolition of the privy purses had been part of the pre-
Indira Congress programme and only had to be implemented. Indira Gandhi
was not the driving force in this respect: she merely executed the resolutions
of the party. She did, however, make use of the apparently radical tendency
implied by these measures in order to project her image.
Moreover, the social groups affected by these measures—the owners of
a few big banks and the Indian princes—could easily be taken on: they did
not have the political power to hit back. The conservative opposition
within the Congress was a more serious challenge. But it soon turned out
that the political strength of the right wing was waning. In 1970 the
elections for the office of the President of India were due, and the right
wing put up one of its most prominent members, the former Andhra chief
minister, Sanjiva Reddy. Indira Gandhi then sponsored an old trade-union
leader, V.V.Giri, as candidate of her wing of the Congress and when Giri
won this election she felt confident that she too could win an election. This
is how she decided on the advanced elections of 1971.

The ‘Green Revolution’ and the energy crisis

The choice of the year 1971 turned out to be a good move for economic
reasons, too. Agricultural production had greatly improved since 1967 and
the substantial peasants were happy. The previous price policy of the
Government of India, which had aimed at keeping food-grain prices low so
as to ensure cheap food supplies for the urban population, had completely
collapsed due to the drought of 1966–7. Grain prices had soared and those
peasants who produced for the market had made a good profit, enabling
them to invest in the fertilisers and irrigation required for the high-yield
hybrid varieties of rice and wheat. To begin with, this ‘Green Revolution’
was mostly a wheat revolution and the peasants of the Panjab and of
western Uttar Pradesh were the main beneficiaries. The year 1971 marked
the peak of radical change in agriculture and this greatly contributed to
Indira Gandhi’s victory. The successful liberation of Bangladesh in
December 1971 similarly added to her stature and one may well say that
this year was the high point of her political career.