An in-depth analysis of the former Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi’s reign and the challenges ahead, broadcasted on the day of her assassination on BBC Newsnight, featuring Indian Sikh MP, Khushwant Singh and author, Salman Rushdie, Ashis Ray, President of the Indian Journalists in Britain and David Selbourne, Lecturer in Politics at the Ruskin College, Oxford.
Donald MacCormick: “So, Rajiv Gandhi inherits a number of daunting political challenges as he assumes power in the world’s largest democracy. In the wake of the assassination, his most immediate domestic problem is of course the state’s relationship with the Sikh community.
Earlier tonight I telephone the independent Sikh MP Khushwant Singh. First of all, I asked him whether he agreed that the killing of Mrs Gandhi was a Sikh conspiracy to avenge the storming of the Golden Temple in June.
There’s been enormous and widespread resistance amongst the Sikhs community, and I think assassination of the leaders was on the cards. Because there’s been severe repressive measures taken by the Army, the police and all kinds of political agitation have been repressed, so there wasn’t anything left for these hot heads except to go picking up these leaders and killing them. I would not describe it as a Sikh conspiracy as most Sikhs are appalled and horrified at what has happened.
Khushwant Singh MP
Donald MacCormick: What do you think the reaction of the Sikh community in India will be to the confirmation of Mrs Gandhi’s son Rajiv as the new prime minister because if anything he took an even tougher line against Sikh militants than his mother.
Khushwant Singh: Well, I’m not sure if that is true because his succession was almost inevitable there wasn’t another leader waiting in the lines. He was the most acceptable leader to the party in power. So, I don’t think that’s unexpected, and I don’t think the Sikhs will react to that in any particular way and it’s too early to tell.
Donald MacCormick: And yet I think I’m right in remembering that at the time of the occupation in Amritsar he went on record much earlier than his mother in favouring a tough line in occupying the building by the army.
Khushwant Singh: That’s quite right he is connected with a stronger line against the Sikhs and therefore not very popular amongst the Sikhs. But I won’t go any further particular after the killing of Mrs Gandhi and I think there is a general sense of revolting against the use of violence to settle political problems.
Donald MacCormick: Well with me now to discuss the future for the new Prime Minister are three close observers of Indian politics. First of all, Salman Rushdie do you accept the reassurances of Mr Singh there that really the Sikh problem the conflict between the Sikhs and the central government is likely not to boil over now.
Salman Rushdie: Well, I think we just have to wait and see. I think it depends crucially on whether the new Administration can learn from some of what I would describe as the errors of the previous administration because…
I think there’s no doubt that in the Punjab as in some other states in India, the efforts of the central government that’s to say Mrs Gandhi’s government to remove power from the States was a factor in the growing extremism in those States
Salman Rushdie, author
and I think that if Rajiv Gandhi’s government can show a desire to cooperate with the state governments more fully and even to undertake a program of devolution of power then I think we can expect the situation to be defused.
Donald MacCormick: Ashis Ray, do you think that the previous government Mrs Gandhi herself has been responsible for creating some of the problems of centrifugal dangers in India that the new prime minister has to cope with?
Well to a certain extent the central government did create the problem of Punjab but then it attempted to solve it in a rather drastic fashion by sending in the Army to the Golden Temple.
Ashis Ray, President, Indian Journalists in Britain
It was a temporary solution, but the final solution has to be a political one and therefore it has to be a certain amount of give and take between the two warring parties and basically, I think Indian democracy is still in an evolutionary stage and there has to be constant give and take for a final suitable democracy to emerge.
Donald MacCormick: Yes, we saw in our introduction to this discussion just how regionally based many of the power structures in Indian politics are do you agree with Salman Rushdie that one of the main hopes is for a devolution of power away from the centre against the trend set by Mrs Gandhi?
Ashis Ray: I’m in favour of a certain amount of financial powers being given to the states which is very important because the structure in India being what it is and India being such a vast country, unless financial power is decentralised efficiency cannot be achieved.
Donald MacCormick: David Selbourne do you think that kind of thing can happen without the whole thing unravelling and India virtually disintegrating.
David Selbourne: I think the problems are much deeper than the two previous speakers have suggested.
The concentration of powers in Delhi has been intensifying for the last 10 years and it’s at this very juncture as a result of the extent of the control of the black polity as I call it if there’s a black economy there’s also black polity.
David Selbourne, Lecturer in Politics, Ruskin College, Oxford
The extent of it concentrated in Delhi means that it’s at this point that counsels to devolve for example, to give great regional self-determination are quite impossible to fulfil, particularly in the period of instability in crisis such as this. Indeed, the authoritarian tendencies in the so-called Indian democracy are much more powerful than any countervailing trends that we might wish to see and even though it might be argued that Rajiv Gandhi is weak and inexperienced, I think that he’s going to fit into this web of intrigue and patronage and coercion which has been left behind by his mother with a greater facility than some people suggesting.
Donald MacCormick: On the point of the new Prime Minister’s own character and makeup how do you think he will play the succession and how in particular do you think he’ll succeed first of all in establishing his authority inside his own party?
David Selbourne: Well, I think he’s much tougher than has been suggested he’s not the delinquent that his brother was and he hasn’t got the same kind of gang around him who led and ruled during the emergency. But he has been collecting a quite impressive entourage who will sustain him in the coming period. He’s been engaged in this for the last six or nine months, he was I believe the architect of the siege and sacking of Amritsar, and he probably had a large hand in the attempt to remove the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh. So that we can’t assume that he’ll exercise authority with the kind of gentle sophistication some might wish for.
I think the same procedures will continue ruling India with wads of banknotes and a rod of iron .
David Selbourne, Lecturer in Politics , Ruskin College, Oxford
Donald MacCormick: A much tougher Prime Minister than people might have expected Salman Rushdie?
Salman Rushdie: Yes, I think it is certainly true.
He is a Nehru you know and this is a dynasty which is trained from the cradle to run the country and you must remember that these are people who make the Kennedys look like amateurs. For 31 out of the 37 years of the independent state of India they’ve been in charge and now they’re entering the third generation of their power.
Salman Rushdie, author
I think there’s no doubt that this is a formidable family and I think one of the things that has been to my mind it’s rather regrettable that the Congress Party has left to appoint him because I think that one of the things that would have been pleasant to see is the family going out of power. It would be nice to see India not becoming a family business.
Donald MacCormick: Do you think the fact that the family hasn’t gone out of power confirms what David Selbourne says which is that that the new Prime Minister is likely to want to retain the reigns of government in India firmly in his own centralized hands which is against what you think should happen?
Salman Rushdie: Well, I mean sadly I think that’s so and what’s happened in New Delhi if you go to New Delhi, nowadays the atmosphere in New Delhi is not that of a democratic capital.
The atmosphere in New Delhi is rather like that of a medieval court of like a Mogul Durban where crowds of courtiers have been floating around the central power and that’s to say around Mrs Gandhi and now Rajiv, seeking her ear, one day who ever has a ear one day is in power and the next day he doesn’t.
Salman Rushdie, author
Sometimes it’s a holy man, sometimes it’s an astrologer sometimes it’s this or that visiting British Asian businessman. All kinds of people not elected people in many cases have exercised real power in India well whereas the actual elected cabinet in many cases does not. Now I think that little crowd of courtiers is going to be rather hard to disband.
Donald MacCormick: One of the first tactical decisions Ashis Ray which Mr Gandhi will have to make is whether or not to call the elections which are due in January at that time do you think he will?
Ashis Ray: Well I suppose it would be politically astute to call the election as and when scheduled, which is before the 19th of January because he can cash in on the sympathy which is which he has no doubt acquired as a result of this tragedy.
Donald MacCormick: And that would presumably help him to win?
Ashis Ray: I would presume so unless there is total unity in the opposition because if there is total unity then mathematically the Congress Party can’t win. Yes, if he does win however and gets elected as Prime Minister presumably that will mean that his own authority not only in the country as a whole but in his own party will be greatly strengthened because he won’t just be the protégé of his mother he’ll have been elected in his own right. Yes, but he still has to prove himself as an administrator because he has very little in fact no experience as an administrator, he’s never been a minister he’s merely been a Member of Parliament for three years and so although one would hope that he’s successful I am not as confident as my two colleagues here because he seems to have bungled on a couple of occasions in recent years. Politically he has not been as skilful as his mother and so it remains to be seen how successful he is.
Donald MacCormick: What about that?
Salman Rushdie: Yes, I just wanted to say that I was not confident of his success or his potential success only of his, only that he is rather more ruthless as a customer than has been suggested today. It seems to me actually on the matter of the election but what I hear from India today is that the opposition is in a state of complete despair and panic and that if he’s got any brains he’ll hold the election as fast as he possibly can and win a landslide and I think his problems will arise very shortly after that.
Donald MacCormick: David Selbourne, is that how you would read his intentions?
David Selbourne: Well, I think the real constraints on him are the volatility of the political system and though we may go to the polls and win, the last 10 to 15 years show that the reign of office or the stability of a particular for of rule is shortening in its period, down between two and three years. So that I too am not confident of his staying power I’m certain of his strength of character and his potential ruthlessness, but I doubt whether you’ll be able to hold office if the previous form is any guide for longer than two years without a good deal of trouble.
Donald MacCormick: That’s as far as the domestic political scene in India is concerned what about foreign policy what will his impact be there?
David Selbourne: Well Mrs Gandhi had remarkable skills in being able to keep the superpowers at arm’s length, to play one off against the other and to create what is in effect a kind of division of labour between the superpowers in India. The Soviet Union, the Eastern Bloc has been very helpful in military supplies and in helping India’s public sector. The West, the capitalist West in the private sector, and in a sense that’s the way I would define the real heart of Mrs Gandhi’s non-alignment it’s been a kind of peaceful coexistence in India between the superpowers now I doubt whether Rajiv Gandhi will have the skills to manage foreign policy as she did.
Donald MacCormick: With what result?
David Selbourne: Well, this is a very turbulent period in foreign affairs for India. There is increasing fear of Pakistan’s strengths, Pakistan’s bomb. There is of course a need for a certain shrewd saber rattling against Pakistan as the election approaches, we mustn’t confuse the two the real fear and the paranoia, Afghanistan is not very far away and of course there is the great submerged crisis of Sri Lanka in which India is going to have to play an increasing role so this complex of events is obviously going to increasingly turn India into a theatre of conflict of other powers and interests.
Donald MacCormick: Salman Rushdie, finally, do you think that the new Prime Minister has the skill or the experience to deal with that international complex?
[Rajiv’s] performance so far is not terrific it must be said I think the piece of saber rattling he did about Pakistan earlier this year when he claimed that the Pakistanis were trying to start a war seems of transparent nonsense.
Salman Rushdie, author
So, it seems to me that that even a general such as General Zia must notice the fact that it would be rushed to start a war against India when her enormously powerful ally Russia was sitting on your other frontier. So, it seems to be to be kind of rot really and he needs to start talking more sense than that.
Donald MacCormick: Do you agree with David Selbourne that if instability develops domestically under his regime that could spread because of all these surrounding instabilities on the subcontinent to the rest of them?
Salman Rushdie: It’s always been the case India is the key nation in Asia and India which is which is shaky you know is not very good for the geopolitics of the region which is why everybody is so concerned.
Donald MacCormick: Last comment Ashis? Ashis Ray: An important step for him would be to restore democracy in his party, which means that democracy which had deserted the party must be brought back. Better people must be brought back to the party and to the government which I think would help him considerably. Also, we have an inherited a rather unsuitable system of government which I think we should try and review.”
On the day of the assassination, 40 years ago, BBC Newsnight panel discuss Mrs Gandhi’s legacy, on the day of her assassination. Featuring Indian MP Khushwant Singh and author Salman Rushdie.
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