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Reduced to Ashes
Jaswant Singh was happy to observe that the democratic change of the regime
in Delhi was beginning to inspire, in the regional circles of Indian politics, an avid
debate on the necessity to decentralize the constitutional framework of the state to
give the provincial governments more powers. Many leaders of the peripheral states
of the Union advocated major changes. They included Sheikh Abdullah of Jammu
and Kashmir, Jyoti Basu, Marxist chief minister of West Bengal; A. K. Antony,
Congress chief minister of Kerala and M. Karunanidhi of Tamil Nadu. These states,
together with Punjab, had suffered the Center’s highhandedness in three decades of
Indian federalism. In particular, they hated the prerogatives the Constitution gave
to the Union government to dismiss elected governments in provinces and to exercise
control over their finances. 51 To Jaswant Singh’s dismay, the government of
Akali Dal in Punjab, with Prakash Singh Badal as the chief minister, seemed unwilling
to rake up trouble with its Hindu coalition partners to whom the very word
autonomy was an anathema. Centrist hawks, representing the Hindu heartland of
India, had arrayed themselves against advocates of decentralization who represented
India’s peripheries. They cut across party affiliations in believing that a strong Center
was coterminous with a united India. Morarji Desai, the conservative Prime
Minister of the coalitional government, announced that he would not even discuss
the proposals for a Constitutional review with their protagonists.
Incongruous Alliances:
the Akalis and Jarnail Singh Bhindrawale
This is the historical background in which Indira Gandhi’s Congress party chose
Punjab for new sinister experiments in the manipulation of collective prejudices
that would lead to the June 1984 military assault on the Golden Temple of Amritsar
and the calamitous events of the next decade: Her own assassination and the organized
carnage of the Sikhs in its wake nearly five months after the military assault,
radicalization of the Sikh unrest and the separatist violence, state terrorism on an
unprecedented scale, ‘enforced disappearances’, arbitrary executions and secret
51 Article 356 (1) of the Constitution says: “If the President, on receipt of report from the governor of a
state or otherwise, is satisfied that a situation has arisen in which the government of the state cannot
be carried on in accordance with the provisions of this Constitution, the President may by proclamation
– [a] Assume to himself all or any of the functions of the government of the state and all or any of the
powers vested in or exercisable by the governor or any body or authority in the state other than the
legislature of the state; [b] Declare that the powers of the legislature of the state shall be exercisable
by or under the authority of Parliament; [c] Make such incidental and consequential provisions as
appear to the President to be necessary or desirable for giving effect to the objects of the
proclamation, including provisions for suspending in whole or in part the operation of any provisions of
this Constitution relating to any body or authority in the state.”
In 1951, Punjab became the first victim of this provision when the state government under chief
minister Gopi Chand Bhargava did not take strong measures to put down the Akali agitation for a
linguistic reorganization of the state. The next state to suffer the abuse was Kerala in 1959 when it was
ruled by the Communist Party under E. M. S. Namboodaripad’s chief ministership.
From 1967 to 1969, seven state governments run by parties inimical to the Congress government at
the Center were dismissed. Between 1970 and 74, 19 state governments were subverted. During
Emergency, the state government of Tamil Nadu was toppled on the ground that it did not implement
the Central directive to censure the Press and refused to detain anti-Emergency activists.
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