Why Gowda Went Out, and Gujral Came In As The Prime Minister?
TAMIL TRIBUNE, September 1997 (ID. 1997-09-01)
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The 1996 parliamentary elections in India did not give a majority to any single political party. So a group of diverse political parties put together a coalition called the United Front (UF) and formed the government with H.D. Deve Gowda as the prime minister. The coalition did not have a majority and it survived only because of the support of the Congress Party (although the Congress Party is not a member of the coalition).
In April 1997, the Congress Party, under its new president Sitaram Kesri, declared that Gowda was not acceptable as the premier. The United Front coalition partners scrambled to find someone to replace Gowda. This individual has to be acceptable to the Congress Party. After much deliberation they came up with I.K. Gujral.
Gujral is not a heavy weight in politics, by any measure. Party stalwarts like Gowda, Karunanidhi and Moopanar, each have a block of committed MPs from their individual parties who will accept their dictates. Gujral is not considered a top boss even within the party he belongs to. Now that he is the prime minister, things may change. But he did not enter the picture as a heavy weight.
Gujral re-appointed every single minister from Gowda's cabinet. He also publicly stated that there would be no changes in the economic or foreign policies. If both Gowda and Gujral are pursuing the same policies, with the same cabinet of ministers, why did Kesri insist on the change? Did he personally dislike Gowda? No. Kesri is new as Congress president and he cannot simply do away with a prime minister at his whim. He needs to carry with him the support of at least some party big wigs. Then, what is the reason for Gowda's unceremonious ouster? Here is the real reason, as this writer has put together after talking with a few politically savvy individuals.
Politicians from the Hindi belt (states of Madya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, and some surrounding areas) prefer to have prime ministers from the north. However, after the 1991 parliamentary elections, there were substantially more Congress Party MPs from the south than from the north and there was no prominent northern politician to rally the support of southern MPs. With the balance of power tilted towards the south within Congress parliamentarians, the Hindi belt MPs had to grudgingly accept the veteran P.V. Narasimha Rao from the southern state of Andhra Pradesh as the premier. Rao, an astute politician, made sure to placate the Hindi belt MPs. He took his oath in Hindi, instead of his mother tongue Telugu. He is fluent in Hindi and gave great speeches in Hindi. Also, he made sure to allocate substantial funds for the International Hindi University. In spite of all these towing the line to the Hindi belt, there were attempts to oust him. But he survived the full term.
When the United Front (UF) government was formed in 1996, the coalition was loaded with MPs from outside of the Hindi belt. So Gowda, who hailed from the southern state of Karnataka, was elected prime minister. Unlike Rao, Gowda knew very little Hindi. But he knew the importance of appeasing the Hindi belt MPs. So he delivered the 1996 Independence Day address in Hindi. If his knowledge of Hindi is virtually nil, how did he do it? He had it written by someone, then had the Hindi words written down in his his mother tongue Kannada alphabet, and then had a Hindi teacher coach him how to pronounce the Hindi words correctly. Only then, was he ready to deliver the Independence Day address. What a waste of time! Did the prime minister of the most populous and one of the poorest democracies in the world have anything better to do with his time than go through this horrible exercise? This episode tells volumes about the power of the Hindi belt.
While Gowda did the "politically correct" thing to make the Independence Day address in Hindi, which is as foreign to him as Chinese or Russian, he made a political blunder in October 1996. When the Indian government television ("Doordharsan", as they call it) started the "Agro Channel", a channel devoted to providing farmers with timely information such as weather trends, markets, prices, and recent developments in cultivation techniques, Gowda ordered that the channel be broadcast in all Indian languages and not just in Hindi. Gowda said: "these programs are for the benefit of farmers. How many farmers in non-Hindi areas know Hindi? These programs will not serve their purpose if broadcast in Hindi alone". This angered the Hindi zealots. Their attitude is that "if you are an Indian, you SHOULD know Hindi. If not, too bad, you cannot follow Doordharsan programs. That's your problem!"
As long as Rao, a fellow south Indian, was at the helms of the Congress Party, Gowda was safe in his position. Once Rao was replaced by Hindi-belt Kesri, Gowda's days were numbered (south Indians did not have a majority within the Congress parliamentary group after the 1996 elections). Kesri insisted that Gowda be replaced. Coalition partners were power hungry and they were not about to lose power, standing up for Gowda. They chose someone acceptable to Kesri and company. Gujral was an ideal candidate to assuage the sensibilities of the Hindi belt. Gowda was ousted and replaced by Gujral in April 1997.
Gujral has impeccable credentials when it comes to Hindi. He used to be the minister of Communications and Broadcasting some year ago in an earlier cabinet. At that time he openly stated that "television will be used to spread Hindi". Most politicians sugar-coat things when they thrust Hindi into non-Hindi throats, but Gujral was blunt about it and earned the admiration of Hindi belt politicians.
Compare Gowda and Gujral. While the latter was all for thrusting Hindi down through non-Hindi throats via television, Gowda took the view that, in order for all Indians to reap the benefits of television, programs should be broadcast in the languages of the people. This irritated Hindi-belt politicians and this resulted in Gowda's ouster and Gujral's ascent.
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