Swatantra Newsletter

Summary

Swatantra Newsletter No. 70 (October–December 1970) is an internal party bulletin issued from the Swatantra Party’s headquarters at 145 Mahatma Gandhi Road, Bombay. It opens with ‘An Expression of Disappointment’ — a sharp response to the AICC’s June 28 resolution dropping the Statement of Views on Democracy (SVD) that had earlier undergirded the party’s opposition-unity conversations with the Congress (O), Jana Sangh and other democratic parties. The bulletin then reports the party’s decision to nonetheless extend support to Shri T. N. Singh’s ministry in Uttar Pradesh through Shri Munshi Lal, records the first slate of parliamentary candidates nominated by the Central Parliamentary Board for the coming General Elections, and notes the by-election arrangements in Dakala following the assassination of General Secretary Sardar Basant Singh.

A second cluster of items announces the Sixth National Convention (Bombay, 29–31 January 1971) with a full programme and delegate quotas; the winding-up of the Mysore SVD in the state Assembly so as to let the party function as ‘a distinct group in the name of the Swatantra Party’; and the National Executive’s expulsion of Mr. Nugehalli Shivappa (M.L.A., Hassan) for defying the whip on the Constitution (24th Amendment) Bill on Privy Purses. Political Resolutions unanimously adopted on November 8 attack the Attorney General’s doctrine that a coalition government cannot be treated at par with a single-party majority government in the matter of ministerial dismissal, demand a nonpolitical quasi-judicial commission to review controls and licences (‘the licence, permit, quota raj is primarily responsible for the seething corruption in our public life’), and place the blame for ‘growing unemployment’ and a collapsing per-capita income squarely on ‘the Central Government’s ruinous economic and industrial policies’. Further resolutions demand publication of the Henderson-Brookes Report on the 1962 China war and a White Paper on the Government’s exchanges with Moscow over the Soviet maps showing Aksai Chin as Chinese territory.

An extended note on the Chanda Committee Report reiterates the party’s long-standing call for All India Radio and Doordarshan to be freed from government control and placed under autonomous corporations, framing state monopoly of broadcasting as ‘a forum for disseminating biased and lopsided information’. Organisational reports from Orissa, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Punjab, along with the inauguration of a Youth Wing at Bhubaneswar (led by Convenor Shri Tribikram Tripathy) and Women’s Wings in Mysore and Bombay, round out the party’s state-level activity. Two obituary notices honour General Secretary Sardar Basant Singh (assassinated by ‘Naxalites and other anti-social elements’) and Mr. K. B. Jinaraja Hegde, President of the All India Agriculturists Federation. A signed letter ‘From the General Secretary’s desk’ by R. E. Cooper urges MLAs and rank-and-file to mobilise for the National Convention, and an annexure carries the summary of Mr. Masani’s inaugural address to the Mysore State Convention, which frames the coming election as a straight choice ‘between Gandhi and Marx’.

Key points

• The party formally records its ‘disappointment’ at the AICC’s June 28 resolution dropping the Statement of Views on Democracy (SVD), the platform that had underpinned opposition-unity negotiations with Congress (O), Jana Sangh and DMK.
• The Central Parliamentary Board has begun nominating parliamentary candidates for the next General Elections, with a first list covering Andhra, Mysore, Maharashtra and Himachal Pradesh.
• The Sixth National Convention is fixed for 29–31 January 1971 at Shanmukhananda Hall, Bombay, with delegate quotas capped at 200 per State/Region and a Bombay Organising Committee under Mr. Lalchand Hirachand.
• Mr. Nugehalli Shivappa, MLA (Hassan), is expelled for defying the party whip on the Constitution (24th Amendment) Bill 1970 concerning Privy Purses; the Mysore SVD is dissolved and the party’s legislators re-form as a distinct Swatantra group.
• Political resolutions attack the Attorney General’s opinion in the UP crisis, demand public release of the Henderson-Brookes Report and a White Paper on Soviet maps of Aksai Chin, and denounce controls-and-licences as the root of ‘seething corruption’.
• The National Executive reiterates the party’s Election Manifesto (1967) demand that All India Radio and TV be freed from government control and placed under autonomous corporations following the Chanda Committee Report.
• A Youth Wing named ‘Swatantra Youth’ is launched at a preparatory convention in Bhubaneswar (23–25 October 1970) with 150 delegates from 12 states, and Women’s Wings are inaugurated in Mysore and Bombay.
• Obituaries record the assassination of Punjab General Secretary Sardar Basant Singh by ‘Naxalites and other anti-social elements’ and the death of Mysore founder-member Mr. K. B. Jinaraja Hegde; Mr. Masani’s annexed address frames the coming election as a choice ‘between Gandhi and Marx’.