India after Gandhii

World Cultures: Mr. Lewin

The Nehru Era

Jawaharal Nehru:Prime Minister of India1947-1964

Independent IndiaMore than anyone else, after Gandhi’s assassination, it was Nehru whose vision for independent India became reality.

The following slides will depict that vision.

Nehru: Defense of Kashmir

During Partition, the status of the northern region of Kashmir (claimed by both India and Pakistan) was unresolved…as it still is today.

Although Kashmir had a Muslim majority, Nehru insisted it remain part of India. This made good relations with Pakistan difficult, but it satisfied Hindu nationalists who worried that Nehru (like Gandhi) was too pro-Muslim.

As in 1947, Pakistan controls north and west Kashmir, and India controls its south and east. The situation remains tense.

Nehru: SocialismA Brahmin who distrusted businessmen, Nehru assured that the government would play a large role in India’s economy.

This created middle-class factory jobs and industrialized the country making it more self-sufficient, but the system was inefficient and generally held back economic growth.

Nehru: Self-SufficiencyWanting to make India less dependent on other countries, Nehru allowed few imports of foreign goods and had Indians make everything themselves.

This created jobs for Indians, but hurt exports and created often-inferior goods.

Nehru: SecularismNehru was an atheist who believed “Religion as practiced in India…has not only broken our backs but stifled and almost killed all originality of thought or mind.” (Luce 17)

He made sure India’s Muslim minority would not face government-sponsored discrimination, and that all castes and religious faiths—even the smaller ones—would be represented in the secular government.

Nehru: NonalignmentWith the Cold War rivalry between the capitalist USA and Communist Soviet Union determining the fates of many countries, Nehru declared India to be “nonaligned” and it allied with neither side and accepted aid From both.This act greatly limited the superpowers’ influence on India.

Nehru: BureaucracyNehru encouraged most British officials to stay and help administrate independent India. He also greatly expanded the Indian National Service—a huge bureaucracy that kept order in the huge, diverse country.

These government jobs guaranteed hundreds of thousands of Indians a guaranteed middle-class life (and more if one became corrupt), but created unnecessary hassles restricting economic growth.

The fact that it was next to impossible for a government worker to be fired all but ensured these workers would become corrupt, inefficient and lazy. Over time, they became a drain on the Indian economy for those without government connections.

The Indira Gandhi Era

Indira Gandhi:Prime Minister of India1966-1977, and1980-1984

Note on Indira

Indira Gandhi is the daughter of Nehru—NOT the daughter of Gandhi. Her name comes from her marriage to Feroze Gandhi, whom she met while studying in London. He was of no relation to Mohandas K. Gandhi, and the name (a fairly common one) is a mere coincidence.

Indira: War with Pakistan In 1971 Indira sent India’s army to help East Pakistan become the independent nation of Bangladesh. This was done to gain an ally and lessen Pakistan’s position on the subcontinent. This brought India closer to the Soviet Union, as the US was friendly with Pakistan.

Bangladesh became independent, but relations with the US and Pakistan worsened, the death toll was high, and the already poor city of Calcutta was flooded with refugees fleeing the war.

Indira: Independence MovementsIndira faced and fought separatist movements trying to seek independence from:

Kashmiris in the North wanting either independence or India to retake Pakistani-held lands,

Communist/Maoist “Naxalites” in the East,

Sikhs in the North-Central state of Punjab, (who would eventually assassinate her),

Tamils in the Southeast (who would assassinate her son who replaced her).

Indira: Green RevolutionAs drought, lessening of US aid, overpopulation and inflation put the country on the verge of starvation, Indira’s “Green Revolution” made India self-sufficient in food.

The government allowed smaller farms to merge into larger ones, invested in irrigation, infrastructure, insecticide and fertilizer production, and introduced high-yield seeds.

While this has solved India’s food crisis, it has worsened pollution, caused the population to increase more rapidly, and had the unintended result of helping richer farmers at the expense of poorer ones. For instance, new deep wells have only helped those who could both afford water pumps and have access to electricity.

Indira: State of Emergency

In 1975 Indira declared a “State of Emergency” in which the constitution and civil liberties were suspended, making her a dictator.

Indira claimed she was doing this to “save the country” to implement reforms to combat rural poverty and to clamp down on separatist threats.

During the Emergency measures were passed to help the poor, but thousands of political opponents were arrested.

Her opponents claimed it was a power grab meant to save herself from anger at her political party’s widespread corruption and revelations of her forced sterilization policies. (See next slide).

Upon removal of the “Emergency”, in 1977, her political party (The Congress Party) was voted out of office, thus ending her reign as Prime Minister, but she became Prime Minister again in 1980 when Congress was voted back into power.

Indira: Forced SterilizationWith India’s population having doubled since independence and the government unable to find jobs for everyone, Indira took the drastic and highly unpopular measure of allowing doctors to sterilize poor and low-caste women (often without their knowledge), thus ruining their ability to have babies.

During the Emergency, India began offering financial incentives such as cash, loans, or housing to women who agreed to be sterilized.

Indira: Operation Blue Star

In 1984 Indira put An end to the SikhSeparatist Movementby ordering an all-out assault on the religious complex being used to store weapons. This violent attack on their holiest religious sites outraged India’s 9.4 million Sikhs and killed almost 500 civilians not involved with the Sikh independence movement.

Indira: AssassinationThe Sikh’s Golden Templewas rebuilt, but theevent led to revengeas in 1984 IndiraGandhi was assassinated byher own Sikh bodyguards.Hundreds of Sikhs around India were murdered inrevenge killings.

Since Indira:Indira was replaced by her son Rajiv, who started India on a path away from socialism and towards a more modern free-market economy. India has elected a series of Prime Ministers since Rajiv was assassinated by Tamil separatists in the late 1980s, but the following trends have been hard to miss:

Movement away from a planned, socialist economy and towards a free-market economy,

Greater acceptance of global culture,

A boom in the high-tech sector,

An end to separatist movements (the current Prime minister is a Sikh) and a lessening of caste discrimination,

Relative peace, but flashes of Hindu/Muslim violence,

Poverty in the villages and the growth of urban slums to house those fleeing the villages.