United Front Government: Deve Gowda and I.K. Gujral

In the end the United Front, composed of some 13 parties including the National Front, Tamil Maanila Congress, the DMK and Asom Gana Parishad, and led by Deve Gowda, formed the government with outside support extended by the Congress party. The Communists later joined the government. The government, however, fell in April 1997 when the Congress party withdrew its support.

During its short tenure, the government signed an agreement on confidence building measures with China and the Ganga water accord with Bangladesh. The government maintained its refusal to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

The government, however, fell in April 1997 when the Congress party withdrew its support. A compromise was reached so as to avoid elections: the Congress agreed to support a government led by a new leader. The United Front elected I. K. Gujral as the new leader, and he was sworn in as prime minister on April 21, 1997.

I.K. Gujral is best known for what has come to be known as the Gujral Doctrine. This was a policy which sought friendship, on the basis of sovereign equality and non- interference, with the neighbouring countries of India. Its aim was to create an atmosphere of peace in South Asia.

It enunciated five principles:

(i) With the neighbours like Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives and Sri Lanka, India does not ask for reciprocity but gives all that it can in good faith and trust.

(ii) No South Asian country will allow its territory to be used against the interest of another country of the region.

(iii) None will interfere in the internal affairs of another.

(iv) All South Asian countries must respect each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.

(v) All South Asian countries will settle all their disputes through peaceful bilateral negotiations.

Though theoretically praiseworthy, critics have pointed out that it may not work very well to believe in the ‘inherent goodwill’ of openly hostile neighbours.

Gujral managed to maintain good relations with the Congress, which supported his government from outside. Trouble, when it came, came from within his party. The Governor of Bihar gave the Central Bureau of Investigation the permission to take up a corruption case against the chief minister of the state, Lalu Prasad Yadav in the matter of the purchase of fodder (what has come to be called the Fodder Scam). Yadav refused to resign in the face of demands from within and outside the United Front. Gujral personally told him to resign. In the end, Lalu Yadav left the party and formed his own party, the Rashtriya Janata Dal in July 1997. However, as the new party extended its support to the United Front, the government did not fall.

The Gujral government took a controversial decision when it recommended to the president that president’s rule be imposed in Uttar Pradesh which was then under Kalyan Singh of the BJP when violence marred the assembly. President K.R. Narayanan sent it back to the government for

reconsideration. A decision by the Allahabad High Court also went against the idea of president’s rule in Uttar Pradesh.

Then the Jain Commission which had inquired into the conspiracy aspects of the Rajiv Gandhi assassination submitted its report to the government. The government finally tabled the report in Parliament in November. The report criticised the DMK for tacitly supporting the Tamil militants accused in the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. This created uproar in the House and the Congress demanded that the prime minister dismiss the DMK ministers from his government. Gujral refused and the Congress party finally withdrew support from the government on November 28. 1997. Gujral resigned as a result, tough he continued to be caretaker prime minister till the next government took over.