CHANGING ORIENTATION OF THE STATE 29 \ Over 500 militant organisations have an active membership which runs into several millions.4 At the level of the political process, the imposition of the Emergency, followed by the defeat of the Congress party and the election of Janata Party in 1977, brought immense changes to the party system and the strategies of mobilisation. Defeat caused the Congress party to disintegrate. Indira Gandhi's answer was to reconstitute the Congress in an increasingly personalised direction. Another tendency was the attempt to move into the territory on the political spectrum which was normally occupied by right-wing parties and to draw the social support garnered by them in the 1977 elections. From the late 1970s the Congress tried to move into the terrain which was traditionally occupied by the rightist parties. It is difficult to regard the rightward shift as something that happened without the Congress realizing its consequences. Why did these changes take place and what were the political consequences? The orientation has to be seen as part of an overall political shift in the Congress leadership. This involved a move away from the left of centre values of secularism and socialism and toward an ideological discourse, hitherto identified with right wing parties, such as the BJP. In India's political culture, these are two packages that have tended to offer two alternative strategies for mobilising support. There were significant changes in political discourse. The shift in orientation was most noticeable in the realm of communalism. The closing years of the Indira Gandhi era were marked by the breakdown of the secular consensus moulded by Nehru. In the event, the leading ruling class party was apprehensive that its close identification with the minorities bore the risk of alienating many of their constituents. For their part, Muslims had begun to drift away from the Congress in states like UP, Bihar and West Bengal. In the 1980 elections in Bihar and UP, the Lok Dal carved out victories in Muslim dominated constituencies. The gradual diminishing of the Congress base made it possible ^or communally oriented groups to step in to the political vacuum. The congress responded by appropriative communal themes, especially themes of Hindu hegemony that appeal to the Hindi heartland. Such themes and symbols gained currency in Indira Gandhi's speeches. Sometimes during 1982, Congress leaders recognised that a confrontational posture towards the National Conference and the Sikh extremists might gain them support of many Hindus in Kashmir and Delhi.5 An evocative theme of a national chauvinism seemed all the more useful because the party organisation was in complete disarray. This rightward shift was even justified as a 'creative strategy' by a general secretary of the AICC.6 The logic of the move to the right was somewhat similar to Indira Gandhi's adoption of radical slogans after 1969. Then it was a means of undermining the parties of the Left, while, now, move to the right was an attempt to