the feudal spirit marked by deference and noblesse oblige outlived the abolition of zamindari and uneven land reforms hindu resistance to the secularisation of society and the pampering of minorities flowered in small towns among the dispossessed from pakistan and followers of veer savarkar and guru golwalkar and nehrus drive to enlarge government and the public sector to the detriment of private initiative encountered pockets of resistance from the notables of another era politically the right occupied fringe status the bharatiya jan sangh was driven by the rss but embraced other representatives of the cultural right including the likes of raghu vira and rc majumdar it was ambivalent in its opposition to nehruvian economics but was unambiguous in its prohindi anticow slaughter and antipakistan thrust on its part the swatantra party founded by crajagopalachari was more akin to a traditional conservative party it was unequivocal in its denunciation of nehru prosperophobia and espousal of free enterprise its ranks included the glamorous gayatri devi of jaipur farmers leader ng ranga former ics officials such as the legendary vp menon and pillars of industry like sir homi modi its fellowtravellers included constitutional lawyer nani palkhivala the indian right got a fillip in 1969 when the congress split the breakaway congresso derisively dubbed the syndicate trained its guns on indira gandhis authoritarianism and her marked prosoviet tilt but in essence it encapsulated the urges of earlier pragmatists such as sardar vallabbhai patel and rajendra prasad who had been thwarted by nehru in alliance with the jan sangh and swatantra the congress o forged the grand alliance to take on indira the enterprise proved an unmitigated disaster indira was able to paint the grand alliance as a front for the princes the capitalists and hindu communalistshence the injection of vested interests into the political vocabulary her promise to eradicate poverty won the day handsomely the 1971 defeat was a body blow to the very idea of an indian right opposed to socialism statesponsored development and curbs on the private sector became the basis of a new political consensus even the janata party made up of the earlier grand alliance plus a clutch of additional defectors from the congress ranks didnt dare depart from this path when it won the referendum on the emergency in 1977 in the three years it was in power it persisted with indiras regressive populism the failure of the indian right in the 1970s owed to a multitude of factors first at the international level socialism appeared as the idea of the future the defeat of american power in vietnam and cambodia and the youth rebellion in the west rendered any critique of the left singularly unattractive indeed the debate now centred on which particular variety of socialism was most appealing secondly the association of the right with the defenders of archaic rights of the erstwhile maharajas the opponents of nationalisation and discredited political bosses stood in sharp contrast to the youth power indira unleashed finally