Language Policy to Curb the Anti-Hindi Disturbances

Indira Gandhi assuaged the sentiments of the non-Hindi speaking states by getting the Official Languages Act amended in 1967 to provide that the use of English could continue until a resolution to end the use of the language was passed by the legislature of every state that had not adopted Hindi as its official language, and by each house of the Indian Parliament. This was a guarantee of de facto use of both Hindi and English as official languages, thus establishing the official government policy of bilingualism in India. The step led to the end of the anti-Hindi protests and riots in some states.

Centralisation of Power and the Socialistic Path After she came back to power in 1967, Indira Gandhi improved upon what Lal Bahadur Shastri had begun – having

a number of advisers to the prime minister in the prime minister’s secretariat (which came to be known as the prime minister’s office when Morarji Desai became prime minister in 1977). The real expansion of the prime minister’s secretariat and its emergence as a power centre in its own right occurred under Indira Gandhi with P.N. Haksar becoming the first principal secretary to a prime minister. There was an increase in the number of joint secretaries in the secretariat as well. Indira Gandhi needed to show her independence of the Syndicate within her party; she did not trust the politicians and was not sure when they may conspire to get her removed. She chose to depend on the advice of a team of advisers: besides Haksar, there were T.N. Kaul, a career diplomat, D.P. Dhar, politician turned diplomat, P.N. Dhar, economist turned into bureaucrat, and R.N. Kao, security analyst. Incidentally, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) was established in 1968 on the CIA model with Kao as its head.

Haksar, with a firm orientation towards the Left, was the principal influence in the socialist path taken by Indira Gandhi. Her other advisers were also enthusiastic about this as they believed in socialistic ideals. They felt that the State needed to have a greater role in the economy for social equity to be ensured and national integration to be nurtured and advanced. They were in favour of the public sector too for promoting social integration. It is not certain that Indira Gandhi held these ideals but she was pragmatic in her awareness that it was what she needed to follow. Her advisers helped develop her image as a socialist in economics, a secularist in religious matters and as one who was pro-poor and wanted development for all, says Ramachandra Guha.