The evolution of India’s foreign policy – Part IV

Some of us who were born in 1940s did not feel the impact of India’s independence. We felt as if the political power was transferred from the British Empire to the Nehru-Gandhi dispensation. Jawaharlal Nehru was a democrat as long as he was the undisputed leader. Indira Gandhi had no such pretensions, she ruled over India as an empress. There was no input from outside the government. Slowly people felt alienated from the political class. The government did not really have the consent of the governed. Indira Gandhi was removed from power at the right time. India has lost 30 precious years. 1977 was the year India really got its freedom, not only from the British but also the Nehru-Gandhi Empire! The world watched the drama in dismay.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee represented India from March 26, 1977 till July 28, 1979 as its foreign minister. During his tenure India’s image started changing around the world. He visited China in 1979 to break the ice in the frozen relationship since 1962 Indo-China war. He even visited Pakistan to normalize the relations between the two countries. Prime Minister Morarji Desai and Foreign Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, both had an open mind to have good relations with the United States of America without any cost to Indo-Soviet relations. Besides politics, the Janata Government was far more open to trade and commerce with international community. George Fernandes a socialist and a minister in Janata Party however kicked IBM and Coca Cola out of the country.

Janata Party was formed by a spectrum of opposition parties under the guidance of Jayaprakash Narayan. These parties ranged from extreme socialists to hard-core conservatives. It was almost impossible to hold them together without the glue provided by highly regarded Jayaprakash Narayan. Janata Party collapsed in July 1979 and was replaced by an ambitious Chaudhary Charan Singh as Prime Minister. Charan Singh was sworn in on July 28, 1979 and lasted for full 5 months till January 14, 1980. He was the ‘Trojan Horse’ planted by Indira Gandhi herself to destroy the Janata Party and she succeeded! This guy was a piece of work; his only ambition was to become the Prime Minister of India even if it was for just one day. Thank God!

Prime Minister Charan Singh was not in office long enough to have any major impact on India’s foreign policy. He never faced the Lok Sabha as a Prime Minister. Charan Singh opposed Nehru’s socialism and favored small farms to replace large land holdings. He was the major force behind Zamindari Abolition and Land Reform Act that ended the power of feudal land-lords. Charan Singh was a hawk on India’s relations with Pakistan and its nuclear ambitions. He also supported diplomatic relations with Israel and initiated some high level contacts through his Minister for Foreign Affairs Shyam Nandan Prasad Mishra. Charan Singh did not believe in pandering to the Muslim vote bank. He had enough support of the Indian farm lobby. He was forced to call for fresh elections and Indira Gandhi came back to power with a landslide majority. She took back the office on January 15, 1980.

The evolution of India’s foreign policy – Part III

Prime Minister Indira Gandhi defined India’s foreign policy like no other politician before her. She was not diffident of openly supporting the repressive regimes of the then Soviet Union, Cuba and any other communist country. She was not much enchanted by the communist China. She projected a robust national defense policy thereby keeping an expansionist China grounded in reality. Indira Gandhi fantasized being the leader of the ‘Non-Aligned Movement’, a group of losers founded by her father Jawaharlal Nehru, former Egyptian president Gamal Abdul Nasser and Yugoslav president Josip Broz Tito. She destroyed India’s financial infrastructure as she was extremely ideological when it came to economic policies. Indira Gandhi and her socialist friends around the world eventually faced national bankruptcies!

Pandit Nehru was a delusional democrat where as Indira Gandhi was an authentic autocrat. She split the congress party in 1969 when she couldn’t get her way and formed an alliance with the left parties to stay in power. Mrs Gandhi signed a security pack with the Soviet Union and then went to war with Pakistan in 1971. She demolished Pakistan and won independence for Bangladesh in 1971. Indira Gandhi signed a peace agreement with Pakistani President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto after a long summit in Shimla. She agreed to return 93,000 Pakistani prisoners of war without any concessions from a defeated Pakistan. She lost the golden opportunity to reunite Kashmir and settle the Indo-Pak border dispute once and for all. She might have given a secret assurance to the Soviet Union in that regard and sealed India’s fate!

Mrs Gandhi defied America in every which way and in 1974 India successfully conducted an underground nuclear test. Domestically, her electoral victory in 1971 General Elections was struck down by the courts and she was unseated as the Prime Minister of India. Instead of obeying the law of the land, Indira Gandhi decided to defy the law and imposed a ‘State of Emergency’. She was being advised by her younger son Sanjay Gandhi who had scant respect for the law in any case. The entire world was shocked by her illegal rule and she consolidated her power my putting all the opposition leaders in jail. Mrs Gandhi had converted India into a banana republic. India lost the reputation of being an authentic democracy like the United States or Europe. Indians have to live with this blemish for the rest of their lives!

During the emergency, the independent press was censured and all descent was muzzled. The remaining media was reporting what Indira Gandhi and her goons wanted to hear. She and her son believed the reports and called for elections under international pressure. Mrs Gandhi, her son Sanjay Gandhi and her party was soundly defeated by an angry electorate. My wife and I went out and voted against her. This is the only time we have voted in an election. Janata Party came to power in 1977 thus ending the 30 year long and torturous rule of Nehru-Gandhi family. Morarji Desai became the prime minister and Atal Bihari Vajpayee became the Minister of External Affairs. This was the defining moment for Indian democracy and also the role of the Ministry of External Affairs. Vajpayee became the first independent voice!

The evolution of India’s foreign policy – Part II

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s departure brought significant changes in India’s foreign policy as well as its national security. Lal Bahadur Shastri became the Prime Minister of India on June 9, 1964 when Jawaharlal Nehru died in office on May 27, 1964. Congress Party President K Kamaraj was instrumental in making Shastri the Prime Minister as he wanted to keep the more conservative Morarji Desai from becoming the next Prime Minister of India. Shastri was a self proclaimed socialist but his policies were far more pragmatic then his predecessor’s. Shastri’s legacy is the slogan, “Jai Jawan Jai Kisan”, simply put, food self-sufficiency and national security. India would always remain indebted to this modest man who gave so much to his country without the self-promotion like Nehru-Gandhi cabal. We were so proud of Shastriji!

Lal Bahadur Shastri was the Prime Minister and a de facto Foreign Minister of India for only 19 months but his tenure became significant in terms of India’s foreign policy. The 22 days war with Pakistan in September 1965 and a simultaneous naked threat from China convinced Shastri and a peaceful democratic India that our neighbors have nothing to keep them united except to wage wars to divert domestic attention. India had no choice but to postpone national development and share scarce financial resources with national security needs. Shastriji had no hesitation in calling a spade a spade and build a national consensus for India’s defense buildup. The second factor was the advent of ‘Green Revolution’ and the ‘White Revolution’ in India. Prime Minister Shastri changed a starving India into self-sufficient and proud nation!

Prime Minister Shastri suddenly died of a heart-attack in Tashkent on January 11, 1966. He was attending a peace summit with Pakistani President Muhammad Ayub Khan and had signed the Tashkent Declaration the day before. The Indo-Pak accord was facilitated by the erstwhile Soviet Union. Once again Gulzarilal Nanda took over as an interim Prime Minister for 13 days. Once again Kamaraj stiffed Morarji Desai and manipulated the election of Indira Gandhi as technically the 5th Prime Minister of India on January 24, 1966. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi continued with Sardar Swaran Singh as her Minister for External Affairs but replaced him with Mahommedali Currim Chagla on November 14, 1966. The whole gang of Mrs Gandhi was self-proclaimed socialist and leaned towards the Communist Block of countries.

Indira Gandhi was a chip of the old block in terms of her politics. Just like her father, Jawaharlal Nehru, She did not trust the private sector in India. She nationalized the banks of India in July 1969. She felt comfortable dealing with the former Soviet Union but distrusted the United States of America, especially President Richard Nixon. They disliked each other from the bottom their hearts. Indo-US relations nose-dived to the lowest level in the entire history of independent India. Nixon seriously contemplated using a nuclear bomb against India, a fellow democracy during Indo-Pak war in 1971! Indira Gandhi was ideologically close to her socialist father but was the toughest Prime Minister when it came to India’s national security. She crushed Pakistan.

Thackerays-the Muhajirs of Mumbai!

Some nerve this family has! The Thackerays are migrants to Bombay like everyone else. Hari Narke, professor and Mahatma Phule Chair at Pune University has written a strong worded article on the subject. This metropolis was not created by Marathis or any other local denomination. Bombay is the legacy of the British, whether you like it or not. Who cares? Goons like Bal Thackeray and Datta Samant have damaged the reputation of once a proud people. They have diminished the stature of national leaders like Shivaji, to a regional satrap.

The story of Thackerays began with the arrival of Keshav Sitaram Thackeray (also known as Prabodhankar Thackeray because of his articles in his fortnightly magazine named Prabodhan) to Bombay. Prabodhankar Thackeray (father of Bal Thackeray & Sitaram Thackeray) was a social activist and a prolific writer. The British tolerated him because of his progressive ideas about the empowerment of women and his strident opposition to the caste system. Keshav Thackeray was born in a lower-middle class Chandraseniya Kayastha Prabhu family.

The trouble started with his Marathi manoos ideology and his participation in Samyukta Maharashtra Chalwal (literally, United Maharashtra Movement) in the 1950s. They demanded to form a Marathi-speaking state of Maharashtra along with Bombay (the financial capital of India) as its capital. After much blood-shed the demand was finally conceded to by the erstwhile Chief Minister of Bombay State, Morarji Desai. This concession sealed the fate of cities like Nagpur and the rest of Maharashtra. Marathwada and Vidarbha remain neglected to this day.

Bal Keshav Thackeray (Balasaheb Thackeray) is the chip of the old block. He started his career as a cartoonist with the Free Press Journal, Bombay in the 50s. In 1960, he launched a cartoon weekly Marmik with his brother, Sitaram Thackeray (Raj Thackeray’s father). Balasaheb Thackeray launched Shiv Sena on June 19, 1966. The stated objective was to ensure job security for Maharashtrians against immigrants from Southern India. Rest is history. Twenty years of violence and intimidation finally got him the political power that he was looking for. Most of the Maharashtrians do not live in Bombay and Bal Thackeray does not care about the rest of Maharashtra.

The idea of Corporate India 500…

Corporate India was not a very popular theme when we decided to compile a book on the top 500 private sector companies in India. Rita (my wife) and I were at Syracuse University, NY when I thought of writing a book on Fortune 500 companies. The year was 1984 and since we were missing our family, and India, we decided to return back home and write a book on Corporate India 500 instead. There was hardly any starting point. The only list of top private sector companies in India was published by The Economic Times. The person responsible for that list was Kiron Kasbekar, former Editor of The Economic Times. We met Kasbekar and got from him the list of the top 100 companies published annually by The Economic Times.

Indian Corporate Sector was not in good books of the Nehru-Gandhi family. The country was governed by a group of socialists led first by Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru and later by his daughter, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Private sector led by the Tatas and the Birlas was an anathema to both. From 1947 till 1977, when Indira Gandhi was defeated by the Janata Party, Indian Corporate Sector was dormant. Janata Party led by Prime Minister Morarji Desai and his Finance Minister H. M. Patel were both pro-business and started encouraging the Private Sector. There were probably 100 business families in India who dominated the entire corporate sector.

Our aim was to find and put together 500 corporate companies, in the private sector, that had a sales of at least 10 crores or more. In 1984, that was a tall order. There were atleast 250 Public Sector Companies that dominated the industry. Besides the public sector there were a lot of Multi-Nationals, who controlled the consumer market. Most of the Indian Private Sector Companies were confined to areas like Textiles, Cement, Jute, Tea Gardens, Cables, Engineering, Power and Tyres. There were other big companies that were privately held and refused to release any information. We had no choice but to select only the companies listed on Stock Exchange . We wrote to all of them, some 250 companies responded and the rest of the information, we extracted from their Annual Reports. Since we wanted to incorporate their Corporate Identity, it was a nightmare. It took us 30 months to put the book together.

The book, “Corporate India 500”, a visual survey, was compiled by Pavan Gupta, V. K. Jagannathan and Rita Gupta. It was published by R.V. Pandit (publisher, Imprint) on March 20, 1987. It was a publication of Business Press Pvt. Ltd. The book was priced at Rs. 300. The print order was 3,000 copies, 300 of that was sent to the United States under PL480. In India it did not do well, probably because India Inc. was not in fashion then. It has been 21 years since we put that book together. We are seriously contemplating writing another book on the Indian Entrepreneurs of the 21st century.