(January 1980 to October 1984)

In the 1980 General Elections for the Seventh Lok Sabha, the Congress (I) was returned to power with a strong majority. Indira Gandhi won from Rae Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh as well as from Medak in Andhra Pradesh. She chose to keep the Medak seat. Chosen as the Congress parliamentary leader, she became the Prime Minister of India once again.

Indira Gandhi trusted very few and had come to rely more and more on her son, Sanjay, who had also been elected to the Lok Sabha. She was not ready to share power with anyone else. But in June 1980 Sanjay died when he tried out some stunts in the plane he was flying and lost control. And Rajiv Gandhi, Indira’s elder son, an airline pilot with no experience in politics, was reluctantly forced into politics. Soon enough he was elected from Amethi to the Lok Sabha and most people knew he was their apparent to the Congress leadership.

Economy

Indira Gandhi paid immediate attention to the economy. The Janata Sixth Five-Year Plan was curtailed and a new Sixth Year Plan (1980-1985) was launched. The objectives of the new Sixth Five Year Plan India were mainly focused on increasing growth and industrialisation and reducing poverty and unemployment. There was to be promotion of efficiency in the use of resources and improved productivity, besides the strengthening of the impulses of modernisation for the achievement of economic and technological self-reliance. A minimum needs programme was envisaged for the economically underprivileged, designed to ensure that all parts of the country attained, within a prescribed period, nationally accepted standards.

The Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP)

was launched on October 2, 1980 all over the country. The National Rural Employment Programme (NREP), launched in October 1980, became a regular programme under the Plan from April 1981.

The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development was established for the development of rural sector in 1982 on the recommendation of the Shivaraman Committee.

The Sixth Plan is considered to have initiated the first steps towards economic liberalisation, with the government subsequently launching Operation Forward in 1982. They were the first cautious attempt at reform but they were too cautious to have much effect. Indira Gandhi was wary of the multinational companies eroding the country’s self-reliance.

Improvement in the ecological and environmental aspects of the country was also to be given attention, according to the Sixth Plan. It is worth recalling that Indira Gandhi had attended and spoken at the first UN conference on environment in 1972. In her earlier stint as prime minister, she was behind the implementation of the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972 and the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act of 1974. The Wildlife Protection Act facilitated the establishment of wildlife sanctuaries and national parks, and Project Tiger was launched in 1973. Now, in her second stint in power, the Forest (Conservation) Act of 1980, and the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act of 1981 were enacted.