Word: ramming
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Across the Indian subcontinent, the people whom Mohandas Gandhi once lovingly called harijans (children of God) began to find their voices. The 85 million harijans, or Untouchables, who are the lowest in the rigid Hindu caste system, had thought for a brief moment last week that durable Jagjivan Ram, 71, the widely acknowledged leader of India's politically potent harijans, was soon to be Prime Minister. It was not to be. Their hopes were dashed by a bitter impasse in India's parliamentary system that culminated in an unprecedented constitutional crisis...
...resignation of Prime Minister Charan Singh, 76, only 15 minutes before a vote of confidence in the lower house of Parliament, the Lok Sabha, that would have sent his 24-day-old coalition government down to certain defeat. In line for the job, or so he thought, was Ram, also official leader of the opposition. But India's President Neelam Sanjiva Reddy bypassed Ram and heeded the advice of outgoing Charan Singh to dissolve the Lok Sabha and call new national elections. He appointed Charan Singh as head of a caretaker government until elections can be held...
Reddy's decision was furiously challenged on the constitutional ground that as Prime Minister, Charan Singh had never faced a vote in Parliament. For that reason, Charan Singh's opponents assert, the President was not bound, in the British tradition, to accept his advice. A disappointed Ram declared, "The country will not excuse the President for his undemocratic dissolution of the Lok Sabha." Certainly there was the danger that the Untouchables would not. In ignoring Ram, the President had offended millions of harijans, who suffer the humiliation of daily discrimination and harassment...
Reddy justified his move on the basis that it was the only way to bring in a government with a popular mandate. Former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had already informed him that she would not support Ram, and without the backing of her 71-member Congress Party branch, Ram would not have been able to form a government. Rarely before had India's parliamentary system been in such disarray...
...week's end, Desai resigned as head of the Janata Party, saying that he was withdrawing from politics. He was replaced by Jagjivan Ram, who served as Defense Minister and Deputy Prime Minister in Desai's government...