Janata Party
The Janata Party is an unrecognised political party in India. Navneet Chaturvedi is the current president of the party since November 2021, replacing Jai Prakash Bandhu.
The JP was established as an amalgam of Indian political parties opposed to the Emergency that was imposed between 1975 and 1977 by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of the Indian National Congress. They included the conservative Indian National Congress, the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the liberal to social-democratic Bharatiya Lok Dal and the Socialist Party, as well as later defectors from the Indian National Congress.
Raj Narain, a Socialist, had filed a legal writ alleging electoral malpractice against Indira Gandhi in 1971. On 12 June 1975, Allahabad High Court found her guilty of using corrupt electoral practices in her 1971 election victory over Narain in the Rae Bareli constituency. She was barred from contesting any election for the next six years. Economic problems, corruption and the conviction of Gandhi led to widespread protests against the government, which responded by imposing a State of Emergency. The rationale was that of preserving national security. However, the government introduced press censorship, postponed elections and banned strikes and rallies. Opposition leaders such as Narain, J. B. Kripalani, Jayaprakash Narayan, Anantram Jaiswal, Chandra Shekhar, Biju Patnaik, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, L. K. Advani, Satyendra Narayan Sinha, Ramnandan Mishra and Morarji Desai were imprisoned, along with thousands of other political activists. When the Emergency was lifted and a new election called in 1977, opposition leaders joined to form the JP. In the 1977 general election, the party defeated the Congress and JP leader Morarji Desai became the first non-Congress prime minister in independent modern India's history. Narain defeated Gandhi at Rae Bareli in that election. The new JP-led government reversed many Emergency-era decrees and opened official investigations into Emergency-era abuses. Although several major foreign policy and economic reforms were attempted, continuous in-fighting and ideological differences made the Janata government unable to effectively address national problems. In July 1979 Desai was forced to resign and was replaced by Charan Singh. Popular disenchantment with the political infighting and ineffective government led to the resurgence of Gandhi and her new Indian National Congress party.
JP's success was short-lived and, in the 1980 general election, the Congress was returned to power. JP's heterogeneous nature led to its fragmentation. The first major split occurred in July 1979 when Narain formed his own social-democratic Janata Party. Shortly after the 1980 election, Hindu nationalists regrouped in the Bharatiya Janata Party, meant as a successor to the Bharatiya Jana Sangh. In 1980 the Janata Party was merged into the Lokdal, which would finally merge into the larger Janata Dal, which led the government in 1989–1991 and later experienced a fragmentation similar to JP's. Direct or indirect spliter parties of the Janata Dal, some of which regional, have included the socialist Samata Party, the Samajwadi Janata Party or Janata Dal, the Janata Dal, the Janata Dal, the socialist Samajwadi Party, the Rashtriya Janata Dal, the Biju Janata Dal and the Rashtriya Lok Dal.
National units
Before Thakur Ji Pathak was in Janata party.History
Having led the Indian independence movement, the Indian National Congress became the most popular political party in independent India and won every election following national independence in 1947. However, the Indian National Congress bifurcated in 1969 over the issue of the leadership of Indira Gandhi, the daughter of India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Supporters of Indira Gandhi claimed to be the real Congress party, adopting the name Indian National Congress – where "R" stood for "Requisition." Congress politicians who opposed Indira identified themselves as the Indian National Congress – where "O" stood for "Organisation" or "Old." For the 1971 election, the Congress, Samyukta Socialist Party and the Bharatiya Jana Sangh had formed a coalition called the "Grand Alliance" to oppose Indira Gandhi and the Congress, but failed to have an impact; Indira's Congress won a large majority in the 1971 elections and her popularity increased significantly after India's victory in the war of 1971 against Pakistan.However Indira's subsequent inability to address serious issues such as unemployment, poverty, inflation and shortages eroded her popularity. The frequent invoking of "President's rule" to dismiss state governments led by opposition political parties was seen as authoritarian and opportunist. Political leaders such as Jayaprakash Narayan, Acharya Kripalani and Congress chief Morarji Desai condemned Indira's government as dictatorial and corrupt. Narayan and Desai founded the Janata Morcha, the predecessor of what would become the Janata party. The Janata Morcha won the elections for the Vidhan Sabha of the state of Gujarat on 11 June 1975.
Raj Narain, a leader of the Socialist Party, who had unsuccessfully contested election against Indira from the constituency of Rae Bareilly in 1971, lodged a case at the Allahabad High Court, alleging electoral malpractices and the use of government resources for her election campaign. On 12 June 1975 in State of Uttar Pradesh v. Raj Narain, the Allahabad High Court found Indira guilty and barred her from holding public office for six years. Opposition politicians immediately demanded her resignation and stepped up mass protests against the government. On 25 June, Narayan and Desai held a massive rally in Delhi, calling for a "Satyagraha" – a campaign of non-violent civil disobedience to force the government to resign.
Emergency
On 25 June 1975, the president of India, Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, accepted prime minister Indira Gandhi's recommendation to declare a state of national emergency. Indira argued that the political and civil disorder constituted a threat to national security. A state of emergency enabled the central government to issue executive decrees without requiring the consent of Parliament. Elections were postponed and public gatherings, rallies and strikes were banned. Curfews were imposed and police forces were empowered to make warrantless searches, seizures and arrests. Indira's government imposed "President's rule" in the states of Tamil Nadu and Gujarat, dismissing the governments controlled by opposition political parties. The central government also imposed censorship on radio, television and newspapers. Across the country, police forces arrested thousands of opposition political activists, as well as leaders such as Raj Narain, Jayaprakash Narayan, Jivatram Kripalani,Anantram Jaiswal, Kamaraj, Morarji Desai, Satyendra Narayan Sinha, Vijaya Raje Scindia, Charan Singh, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Lal Krishna Advani and others. Opposition political organisations such as the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Communist Party of India were banned and their leaders arrested. Only the Communist Party of India supported the state of emergency. Due to the advancing age and failing health, Narayan was released from prison, but remained prohibited from political activity.During the Emergency, Indira Gandhi implemented a 20-point program of economic reforms that resulted in greater economic growth, aided by the absence of strikes and trade union conflicts. Encouraged by these positive signs and distorted and biased information from her party supporters, Indira called elections for May 1977. However, the emergency era had been widely unpopular. The most controversial issue was the 42nd amendment to the Constitution of India, which deprived citizens of direct access to the Supreme Court, except when violation of the fundamental rights resulted from Union law. The Parliament was given unrestrained power to amend any parts of the Constitution. The Supreme Court was given exclusive jurisdiction as regards determination of the constitutional validity of laws passed by the Union government. It restricted the power of the courts to issue stay orders or injunctions. Almost all parts of the Constitution saw changes through this amendment. The clampdown on civil liberties and allegations of widespread abuse of human rights by police had angered the public. Indira Gandhi was believed, by the public at large to be under the influence of a clique of politicians led by her youngest son, Sanjay Gandhi, who had become notorious for using his influence in the government and the Congress party for alleged corrupt activities. Sanjay Gandhi had masterminded the Union government's unpopular campaign of family planning, which had allegedly involved forcible sterilisation of young men by government officials. Sanjay Gandhi had also instigated the demolition of slums in the Jama Masjid area of New Delhi, the national capital, which left thousands of people, mostly Muslims, homeless. Indian laborers, urban workers, teachers and government employees were also disenchanted by wage freezes and the curtailing of trade union activities and rights.
Creation
Calling elections on 18 January 1977 the government released political prisoners and weakened restrictions and censorship on the press, although the state of emergency was not officially ended. When opposition leaders sought the support of Jayaprakash Narayan for the forthcoming election, Narayan insisted that all opposition parties form a united front. The Janata Party was officially launched on 23 January 1977 when the Janata Morcha, Charan Singh's Bharatiya Lok Dal, Swatantra Party, the Socialist Party of India of Raj Narain and George Fernandes, and the Bharatiya Jana Sangh joined, dissolving their separate identities. Although the political ideologies of Janata constituents were diverse and conflicting, the party was able to unite under the over-reaching appeal of Jayaprakash Narayan, who had been seen as the ideological leader of the anti-Emergency movement and now the Janata party. Chandra Shekhar became first president of Janata Party. Ramakrishna Hegde became the party general secretary, and Bharatiya Jana Sangh politician Lal Krishna Advani became the party spokesperson.The Janata manifesto was released on 10 February, which declared that the coming election presented voters with:
As it became clear that Indira's Emergency rule had been widely unpopular, defections from the Congress government increased. The most significant was that of Jagjivan Ram, who commanded great support amongst India's Dalit communities. A former Minister of Defence, Ram left the Congress and along with his supporters formed the Congress for Democracy on 2 February 1977. Other co-founders included the former Chief Minister of Orissa Nandini Satpathy, former Union Minister of State for Finance K. R. Ganesh, former MP D. N. Tiwari and Bihar politician Raj Mangal Pandey.
Although committing to contest the election with the Janata party, Ram resisted merging his party organisation with Janata. It was ultimately decided that the Congress for Democracy would contest the election with the same manifesto as the Janata party and would join the Janata party in Parliament, but would otherwise retain a separate identity. On 30 January 1977 the Communist Party of India announced that it would seek to avoid a splintering in the opposition vote by not running candidates against the Janata party.