This chapter covers the major political changes that reshaped India after the Indira Gandhi years. It traces how the long dominance of the Congress party gave way to an age of coalition governments, how backward class and Dalit politics rose, and how debates over communalism and secularism moved to the centre of national life. Use these notes with the rest of our study-notes library for Class 12 Political Science revision.
What changed in Indian politics after Indira Gandhi?
After Indira Gandhi was assassinated in 1984, Rajiv Gandhi became Prime Minister. In the Lok Sabha election held soon after, in 1984, he led the Congress to a landslide victory.
Five developments in this period had long-term effects on Indian politics.
- The defeat of the Congress in the 1989 election. This signalled the end of the Congress system and was the most important event of the period.
- The rise of the Mandal issue in national politics. This led to anti-Mandal protests in several parts of the country.
- A sharp shift in economic policy. In 1991, the government introduced new economic reforms.
- The demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya in 1992. This is linked to the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Hindutva politics.
- The assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in May 1991, which changed the leadership of the Congress party. He was killed while campaigning in Tamil Nadu by a Sri Lankan Tamil linked to the LTTE.
The era of coalitions begins
In 1989 the Congress was defeated, but no other party won a majority on its own. The National Front, a coalition of the Janata Dal and several regional parties, was supported from outside by two very different forces: the BJP and the Left Front. The National Front formed the government on this basis, even though neither the BJP nor the Left Front joined the cabinet.
The decline of the Congress system
Why did the Congress lose its dominance?
The defeat of the Congress marked the end of the Congress system. Under Indira Gandhi the party had been challenged before, but it had managed to recover its position as the strongest political force in the country.
That strong position was challenged again in the 1990s, and a genuine multi-party era began. India had always had many parties contesting elections and many parties represented in the legislature. After 1989, however, a number of parties grew strong at the same time, and no single party could win a clear majority of seats in the Lok Sabha. This opened a new age of coalition governments at the national level, in which regional parties played a decisive role.
What was alliance politics?
In the 1990s, parties and movements speaking for Dalits and backward groups grew rapidly. They stood for strong regional assertion and helped the United Front win the 1996 election. Like the National Front of 1989, the United Front brought together the Janata Dal and several regional parties. This time the Congress supported the United Front from outside, which showed how unstable the political landscape had become.
The BJP steadily increased its strength through the 1991 and 1996 elections. After emerging as the single largest party in 1996, it was invited to form the government, but it could not prove a majority in the Lok Sabha because most other parties opposed it. It returned to power in a coalition from 1998 and again after the 1999 election. Both of these National Democratic Alliance (NDA) governments were led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who completed a full term as Prime Minister after 1999.
Since 1989, India has been governed by a series of coalition or minority governments that depended on the support of many regional parties. The National Front of 1989, the United Front of 1996 and 1997, the NDA of 1998 and 1999, and the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) of 2004 were all examples of this pattern. In a sense the older Congress had itself been a kind of coalition, holding together many interests, social groups and regions inside one party.
The political rise of the Other Backward Classes
The growth of the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) as a political force was one of the biggest long-term trends of this period. Besides the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, there are communities that are educationally and socially disadvantaged, often called the backward castes. As the Congress lost its hold over these groups, the door opened for non-Congress parties to win their support.
The Janata Party government of 1977 was the first national expression of this shift. Several of its units, such as the Bharatiya Kranti Dal and the Samyukta Socialist Party, had a strong rural base among the OBCs.
How was the Mandal Commission put into action?
In the 1980s the Janata Dal pulled together a similar coalition of parties with strong OBC support. The National Front government then decided to act on the recommendations of the Mandal Commission, which shaped the politics of the Other Backward Classes for years to come.
The heated national debate over reservation of government jobs made people from OBC communities more aware of their shared identity. It also helped leaders who wanted to mobilise these groups for political purposes. Several parties argued that because OBCs form a large share of Indian society, they deserved fair representation in administration and a proper share of political power.
The rise of Dalit politics
Dalit political organisation grew strongly in the 1980s. The Backward and Minority Classes Employees Federation (BAMCEF) was founded in 1978. It was not an ordinary trade union of government employees. It took a firm stand for the Bahujans, that is the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, OBCs and minorities, to gain political power.
Kanshi Ram founded the Dalit Shoshit Samaj Sangharsh Samiti, which later became the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). The BSP began as a small party in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, supported mainly by Dalit voters. It made a breakthrough in Uttar Pradesh in the 1989 and 1991 elections. This was the first time in independent India that a party drawing mainly on Dalit voters had won so much support. Since then the BSP has formed the government in Uttar Pradesh on several occasions, and it has slowly won backing from other social groups too. In many parts of India, Dalit politics and OBC politics have developed separately and at times in rivalry.
Communalism, secularism and democracy
The birth of the Bharatiya Janata Party
After the Emergency, the Bharatiya Jana Sangh merged into the Janata Party. When the Janata Party broke up in 1980, former members of the Jana Sangh created the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). At first the BJP adopted Gandhian Socialism as its ideology and tried to build a broad political platform. After 1986 its ideology began to stress the Hindu nationalist element, and it took up Hindutva politics and a strategy aimed at mobilising Hindus.
What is Hindutva?
Hindutva, which literally means Hinduness, was described by its author V. D. Savarkar as the basis of Indian nationhood. In his view, anyone who wished to belong to the Indian nation had to accept India not only as their fatherland (pitrubhu) but also as their holy land (punyabhu). Supporters of Hindutva believe that a strong nation can only be built on a united national culture.
Around 1986, two events became central to the BJP as a Hindutva party. The first was the Shah Bano case of 1985, in which a 62 year old divorced Muslim woman sought maintenance from her former husband. The Supreme Court ruled in her favour, but many orthodox Muslims saw the decision as an interference in Muslim personal law. On the request of some Muslim leaders, the government passed the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986, which set aside the effect of the court ruling. Many women's organisations, Muslim groups and scholars criticised this decision, while the BJP attacked it as appeasement of one community.
The Ayodhya dispute
The Babri Masjid in Ayodhya had been the subject of a long dispute. The mosque was built in the 16th century by Mir Baqi, a general of the Mughal emperor Babur. Some Hindus believe it was built after a temple to Lord Rama was demolished at what is thought to be his birthplace. The mosque had been locked in the late 1940s because of a legal case.
In February 1986, a court in Faizabad ordered that the site be unlocked so that Hindus could pray there. As soon as the locks were opened, mobilisation began on both sides, and a local dispute grew into a national issue that led to communal tension. The BJP took up the cause and, along with organisations such as the RSS and the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), organised many symbolic and mobilising programmes. One of the largest was the Rath Yatra, a long march from Somnath in Gujarat to Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh, meant to build public support.
The Supreme Court gave its final judgment in the Ayodhya land dispute on 9 November 2019. Before the verdict, security was tightened across the country, and Section 144 was imposed in several states.
The demolition of the mosque
In December 1992, supporters of the temple organised a Karseva, a form of volunteer service by devotees, to help build a temple at the site. The situation grew tense across the country, and especially in Ayodhya. On 6 December 1992, thousands of people gathered in Ayodhya and demolished the mosque.
The demolition set off clashes between Hindus and Muslims in many parts of the country. In Mumbai, serious violence broke out again in January 1993 and lasted for weeks. The BJP government in Uttar Pradesh was dismissed by the Centre, and BJP governments in some other states were also placed under President's rule. Most political parties condemned the demolition as a violation of the values of secularism.
The Gujarat violence of 2002
In February and March 2002, large scale violence against Muslims took place in Gujarat. The trigger was an incident at Godhra railway station, where a coach of a train returning from Ayodhya, carrying Karsevaks, caught fire and 57 people died. Blaming Muslims for the fire, mobs carried out large scale rioting against Muslims across several parts of Gujarat the next day. About 1,100 people were killed, most of them Muslims. The National Human Rights Commission criticised the state government for failing to control the violence. Like the anti-Sikh riots of 1984, the Gujarat riots showed how the machinery of government can be swayed by communal passions.
A new consensus after 1989
The period after 1989 is often described as the decline of the Congress and the rise of the BJP. In the 2004 Lok Sabha election, the NDA was defeated by a new coalition, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), which was supported from outside by the Left Front. The Congress saw a partial revival in 2004.
Despite fierce competition and many conflicts, most parties gradually reached a broad agreement built on four points.
- Acceptance of a new set of economic policies.
- Acceptance of the political and social claims of the backward classes.
- Acceptance of the important role of state level parties in governing the country.
- A focus on practical bargaining rather than fixed ideology, even between parties that were not natural allies.
Why it still matters today
The two big themes of this chapter, coalition politics and the Ayodhya dispute, are not just history. Both returned to the front pages in 2024.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha election the BJP won 240 seats, short of the 272 needed for a majority on its own. The BJP led NDA together won about 293 seats and formed the government, so Narendra Modi began a third term as Prime Minister, but this time he had to depend on allies such as the Telugu Desam Party and the Janata Dal (United). After ten years of a single party majority, India was back to genuine coalition bargaining. That is exactly the pattern this chapter describes when it explains why regional parties became so powerful after 1989.
The Ayodhya story also reached a new stage. On 22 January 2024, Prime Minister Modi led the consecration of the Ram Mandir built on the same disputed site in Ayodhya, following the Supreme Court verdict of 9 November 2019 that handed the land to a trust for a temple and ordered five acres elsewhere for a mosque. A dispute that runs through this chapter, from the locks opening in 1986 to the demolition in 1992, is still shaping national debate today. You can carry these threads forward on the Learnacy Hub, and revise the rest of the syllabus through our Class 12 Political Science notes.
Sources
- https://www.britannica.com/event/Indian-Lok-Sabha-elections-of-2024
- https://ddnews.gov.in/en/lok-sabha-results-2024-nda-secures-absolute-majority-with-bjp-emerging-single-largest-party-with-240-seats/
- https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ram-Mandir-Ayodhya
Key takeaways
- The assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984 led to Rajiv Gandhi's rise and a Congress landslide in the 1984 Lok Sabha election.
- The defeat of the Congress in the 1989 election marked the end of the Congress system and signaled the beginning of an era of coalition governments.
- The Mandal issue's entry into national politics triggered widespread anti-Mandal protests across India.
- The demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992 fueled the rise of the BJP and Hindutva politics in India.
- Post-1989, India transitioned into a multi-party system with coalition governments, where regional parties played a decisive role.
Test yourself
What major event in 1989 signaled the end of the Congress system?
The defeat of the Congress in the 1989 Lok Sabha election marked the end of the Congress system.
Which political development in the 1990s led to the rise of coalition governments in India?
The inability of any single party to win a clear majority in the Lok Sabha after 1989 led to the rise of coalition governments.
How did the Mandal issue impact Indian politics in the late 1980s and early 1990s?
The Mandal issue led to anti-Mandal protests in several parts of the country and brought backward class politics to the national stage.
What role did regional parties play in the coalition governments formed after 1989?
Regional parties played a decisive role in forming coalition governments, as no single party could secure a majority on its own.
Which political force emerged as a significant player in Indian politics during this period, challenging the Congress's dominance?
The Other Backward Classes (OBCs) emerged as a significant political force, shifting support away from the Congress.
