Opinion: The Story Of Raj Narain, Who First Led To Indira Gandhi's Ouster, Then Return

In the midst of a flurry of articles on the 50th anniversary of the imposition of internal Emergency, little has been written about Raj Narain, whose election petition, decided in his favour by the Allahabad High Court on June 12, 1975, set in motion a process that changed India's polity.

In the five years that followed, he was to be the fulcrum of change. The fall of two Prime Ministers, Indira Gandhi and Morarji Desai - as well as the (short-lived) anointment of a third, Chaudhary Charan Singh - is attributed to Narain.

Narain ousted Indira Gandhi and later paved the way for her return to power in January 1980. His activism put an end to the ambitions of Jagjivan Ram, who had aspired to be Prime Minister since the death of Jawaharlal Nehru in 1964. He even used some compromising photographs of Ram's son, Suresh, which surfaced in 1978, to lead a campaign against vyabhichar, that is, adultery.

The Coming Of Morarji Desai

Narain's court victory in 1975 unsettled Indira Gandhi, and within a fortnight, the Emergency was imposed. In 1977, he defeated Gandhi from Rae Bareli. He had a say even in the choice of the successor, Morarji Desai. Narain joined the Janata government eventually but soon fell out with Desai as he objected to the business dealings of the Prime Minister's son, Kanti Desai.

Narain was the one, along with fellow socialist Madhu Limaye, who raised the 'dual membership' issue that ultimately resulted in the split and later the fall of the Janata regime. In 1977, erstwhile Opposition parties had merged to form the Janata Party, wherein members of Bhartiya Jan Sangh - precursor of today's Bharatiya Janata Party - retained their allegiance to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). This 'dual membership' became a bone of contention.

The 23-Day Government

In July 1979, the Janata regime's short run ended with the resignation of Desai and the split of the party. Along with Deputy Prime Minister Chaudhary Charan Singh, Raj Narain, who fancied himself as Chaudhry's 'Hanuman', launched Janata Party (Secular), which, with the support of the two Congress factions - Congress (Indira) and Congress (S) - formed a 23-day government that never could prove its majority in Parliament.

Erstwhile Jan Sangh members, along with some Janata Party leaders, launched the BJP in April 1980, and the association of the RSS with the new party was never denied. Thus, Narain may be credited for being the fulcrum of the process that launched India's current ruling party and which challenged the hegemony of the Indian National Congress.

The Life Of Narain

Narain, who belonged to a wealthy zamindar family of Moti Kot near Varanasi (related to the erstwhile Maharaja of Benares), had plunged into the socialist movement in 1934. Initially, he was referred to as 'Raja Sahab', but socialist icon Ram Manohar Lohia, impressed by his organisational abilities, gave him the moniker 'Netaji'. Having been elected to the Uttar Pradesh Vidhan Sabha in 1952, he served as the state's Leader of Opposition for a decade. A true socialist, he even gave away his vast landholdings to the peasants who tilled that land.

Dressed in a red or green bandana, Raj Narain was often seen leading militant demonstrations in Lucknow, staging a sit-in to prevent the police from arresting him. He acquired a limp as a result of a lathi charge. A generation of Samajwadi Yuvjan Sabha activists was trained by him in agitational politics.

Narain was one of the last to be released from jail when the Emergency was relaxed in 1977. Though he enjoyed the reputation of being a 'Giant Killer', having won the election petition for his 1971 defeat in Rae Bareli, he did not fancy himself as the candidate who should stand against Mrs Gandhi in 1977. He sent two letters from jail through his trusted socialist colleague, Prof. Raj Kumar Jain, addressed to Chandrashekhar and Atal Bihari Vajpayee, urging either of them to stand against Mrs Gandhi. But when they demurred, Raj Narain agreed to contest Rae Bareli. He won that election by 55,000 votes, changing India's political trajectory.

The Minister Who Defied An Order

In the summer of 1978, Narain went to Shimla to address a rally. He was stopped by Janata Chief Minister Shanta Kumar (later a BJP stalwart) from addressing a rally from Shimla's Ridge, the traditional rally venue for VIPs. But Narain defied the order, in what became the first instance of a Union Minister violating a prohibitory order. The controversy on 'dual membership', raised by him at Shimla, flared up, leading to his dismissal by Morarji Desai in January 1979.

The eight months thereafter saw Raj Narain set the tone for change once again. Though he had defeated Gandhi in 1977, he had opposed her arrest by the Janata regime thereafter. He spoke in Parliament to oppose her expulsion as MP, saying that the act was an affront to the popular mandate of the people of Chikmagalur, who had elected her in a by-election in November 1978. Gandhi's expulsion from Parliament ultimately helped her politically.

Friends With Sanjay

After quitting the Morarji cabinet, Narain struck up a friendship with Sanjay Gandhi. The two met at a family function at the West Delhi residence of the owners of Mohan Meakins, a group known for its distilleries and breweries, and for Old Monk. After some initial acrimony, the two struck a strange partnership that led to the emergence of Charan Singh's 23-day regime and, ultimately, the mid-term poll of December 1979, which saw Gandhi return to power with 353 seats,199 more than her 1977 tally.

Narain did not try to retain Rae Bareli in that poll. Instead, he contested Varanasi and lost to Congress stalwart Kamlapati Tripathi. He had made no effort to nurse Rae Bareli, going there only once after his victory to thank the electorate. Then itself, he had announced that he had no plans to return, telling the electorate that if they had not been loyal to Indira Gandhi, whose largesse to the constituency he mentioned in detail, then he, too, did not expect to get their support. That was typical Raj Narain, blunt to a fault.

Neighbours With Motilal Nehru

It is little known that Raj Narain enjoyed a strange personal equation with Indira Gandhi, which dated back to the days when he was a young lieutenant of Humboldt-returned scholar Dr Ram Manohar Lohia, who lived as an activist of the Congress Socialist Party at Allahabad's Swaraj Bhavan. Notably, that property was adjacent to Anand Bhavan, which Motilal Nehru had bequeathed to Congress as its headquarters. In today's time, such bonhomie amidst rivalry is difficult to imagine.

On October 31, 1984, as the news of India's Gandhi's assassination spread, Opposition leaders, including Janata Party president Chandrashekhar, Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna, Babu Banarsi Das and Mulayam Singh Yadav, were among those who gathered at Raj Narain's home at Teen Murti Lane. A tearful Raj Narain told Chandrashekhar, "Adhyakshji, aaj se desh ki rajniti bauno ke haath mein chali gayi" (nation's politics from today will be dominated by dwarfs).

(Shubhabrata Bhattacharya is a retired editor and a public affairs commentator)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author

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