The feat of the Indian Parliamentary system lies in the defeat of titans in the Lok Sabha polls caused by very drastic swings in the political mood of the masses occurring at different junctures of history since the first general election of 1952.
The first Lok Sabha, constituted on April 17, 1952, showed that political ideology cum party affiliation can differ even between man and wife. We are talking of J. B. Kripalani and Sucheta Kripalani. While the man was an avowed anti-Congress leader, the wife happened to be a goliath of the very same party.
An extremely witty man, Kripalani also showed on the floor of Parliament how to convert controversy into a source of laughter, proving that even the ‘new born’ Indian democracy was quite a prodigious one. Being a leader of Praja Socialist Party, he often attacked Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru whom his wife always defended.
The official records of First Lok Sabha tell us a very interesting anecdote. In the Parliament, Congress-members once tried to perturb Kripalani by asking him how was it that he always attacked them while Sucheta happened to a Congress leader. Kripalani’s reply to this query was so witty that it is remembered to this day. The Socialist leader said with a very serious visage, as if he was just about to unleash a tirade on Nehru and the Congress, only to make all Members break into loud laughter, including, of course, his own wife. To quote him verbatim he said, “All these years, I thought Congressmen were stupid fools….I never knew that they were gangsters too who run away with other’s wives…”
Like Kripalani, the political titans too took their defeats sportily and naturally. The great defeats of Sucheta, J. B. Kripalani, Ashok Mehta, Jamnalal Bajaj and other titans show that the Indian electorate can cut anybody down to size if the political mood swings drastically. Ram Vilas Paswan, who at one time bagged the highest number of votes from Hajipur was defeated when contesting from the same constituency in 1984. He is however, trying his luck again this time around.
Newspapers have a vital impact on the opinions of voters, but this does not mean that barons of the industry can always take the electorate for granted to be in their favour. Even a great industrialist and owner of Hindustan Times Group, K. K. Birla was defeated from Rajasthan’s Jhunjhunu in the Lok Sabha polls of 1971 when he contested as a candidate of the Swatantra Party.
In that very poll, Ramnath Goenka of The Indian Express Group was elected from Vidisha of Madhya Pradesh as a nominee of the Janasangha. On the other hand, M. J. Akbar and Inderjit, men of pen and paper, won with comfortable ease respectively from Bihar and West Bengal though they never were politically active in the two states. Mind you, both Akbar and Inderjeet were carpet baggers in the politics of Bihar and West Bengal. They never were active there. While Akbar, though originally from Bihar, neither lived nor was ever active in that state, Inderjeet chose the Queen of Hills Darjeeling to try his electoral luck. Mass moods do swing to turn apolitical persons into political entities.
This is Indian democracy vis-à-vis electorates: yes, the popular mood in our political set up can make or mar anybody, howsoever high or low their statures might be. It is due to this that ‘Raja’ Karni Singh won all the Lok Sabha elections as an independent candidate from Bikaner. He never joined any political party yet, he always won with thumping majorities.
The poll of 1971 is a landmark in the electoral history of India as the defeat of great political personalities in it could not even be imagined by the people in normal circumstances. Except for Morarji Desai, ex-premier, most of the stalwarts of Congress (O) were defeated in different parts of India, after the split of Congress resulting in the ‘Indira Wave’.
The frontal leaders of Praja Socialist Party, Socialist Party and Swatantra Party suffered very rude jolts with only 13 seats captured by all them after gaining only 6.5 percent of votes polled. All these three parties had fielded 215 candidates out of which 132 lost their deposits. Really, the defeat of titans is a major feat of Indian democracy.
Well known Socialist leader Madhu Limaye was defeated in 1971 and 1980 from Bihar’s Munger and Banka seats respectively. He, however, had won from both the constituencies in 1967 and 1977 respectively.
In 1967, the favourable swings of masses helped Janasangha bag 35 seats. But the party could retain only 22 seats in the Lok Sabha polls of 1971. Obviously, the public opinion had gone against it. In fact, a close study of people’s mood, right from the first general election of 1952 up to date, shows that the Indian mass never was hyper loyal to any particular political party.
The Indian voters, however, happened to be quite sentimental, as evinced at different junctures of the country’s electoral history. The anti-Congress waves of 1967 when Samyukta Vidhayak Dal governments or coalition governments were formed in several states, in the Indira-wave of 1971, Sampoorna Kranti Movement bugled by Jayaprakash Narayan, post-emergency anti-Indira wave, massive Congress waves after Indira Gandhi’s assassination, pro-Congress wave after Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination and anti-Congress waves after Narasimha Rao government’s fall show that the Indian mass is quite conscious politically.
The ‘regional’ loyalty of masses showed to Marxism in Tripura, West Bengal and Kerala prove that the traditional rice-belts may be infatuated with the political colour ‘Red’ while the rest of the country, particularly the wheat belts, are not pro ‘Das Kapital’ overwhelmingly.
The growth of regional parties and trend of formation of the coalition governments immediately after 1967 show that the masses also got disenchanted with the traditional national parties, cutting across ideological barriers after experimenting with them for a long time. Regional economic disparity, apparent supremacy of the Hindi-heartland in the political affairs due to its numerical strength in the Lok Sabha and snowballing of narcissism for socio-cultural cum linguistic ‘identity’ propelled the people in different parts of India to shun the national parties.
Naturally, the great success of Indian democracy lies in the rise or fall of political icons, irrespective of their political ideology. As a result, no political party can claim its overwhelming supremacy. A natural political check and balance by masses had been the special feature of Indian democracy since 1952.
In England, we always expect either the Whig or the Tory to win or lose in the polls. The Americans on their part know only Democrats or Republicans. In multi-racial and multi-lingual India, the people are heterogeneous and thus it is no wonder when one witnesses the great defeats in the Lok Sabha polls which epitomizes the colossal success of Indian democracy.
The trend of hero worship is extremely overt in India despite the dominance of regional bias, existence of feudalism and caste consciousness. In the cases of Acharya Kripalani, Chandrasekhar, George Fernandes, Madhu Limaye, Sharad Yadav and other icons, we find that they made lawless Bihar as their political careers though they were not sons of its very ancient soil.
Strangely enough, the local Biharis might have been kissing the dust at electoral battles, but the track record of these non-Biharis weigh more to success than to failures. Take George Fernandes as an example. Imagine a man emerging victorious since 1977 in the polls from two Lok Sabha seats to which he does not belong: mind you, he trekked to Muzaffarpur from far off Mumbai. He also won successfully from Nalanda.
An American would certainly have said, “By Jove, George is a carpet bagger both in Muzaffarpur and Nalanda, but not the local electorate there.” Just imagine, Fernandes has never been defeated in Bihar.
Herein lies the supreme maturity of Indian democracy. Indeed, lingua-cultural gap hardly matters in India’s version of democracy.
The drastic swings of the mood of the electorate very often saw the defeat of political goliaths by little known of persons: such famous defeats and success by practically unknown persons resulted from political reactions when the voters chose the party rather than the person.
The defeats of Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy by A.R. Ponnapatti from Anantapur seat of Andhra Pradesh, Ashok Mehta by Jwala Prasad Dubey from Maharashtra’s Bhandara seat and Jamnalal Bajaj by Ganapatrai Kadam from Wardha of Maharashtra show that the masses in 1971 did not welcome the split in Congress and formation of Congress (O).
In that poll, very famous politicians like Sucheta Kripalani, Atulya Ghosh and Madhu Limaye were defeated by politically little known of persons. The defeat of Aruna Asif Ali by Satish Chandra Samanta from West Bengal’s Tamluk seat in 1971’s poll show the electorate sometimes likes to ‘try new faces’.
The loyalty of the people towards the kings and feudal lords is a global phenomenon. However, no ex-prince or former ruler can vie in India with its master shooter Karni Singh of Bikaner. As an independent candidate, he won the Lok Sabha seats from Bikaner for five terms in 1952, 1957, 1962, 1967 and 1971. In his case, no political waves were effective.
Truly the great defeats and strange victories show that the world’s biggest democracy still remains in the hands of the masses. Will the coming poll battle be poised to witness great defeats or feats of success by little known persons? Let us wait, watch and see.

Amlan Home Chowdhury