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Unexpected things happen these days. No one expects any Union Home
Minister to be so 'frank as to declare that a state under
President's rule is heading towards "anarchy, chaos and
destruction." Even an extremely self-critical communist may not
allow himself the luxury of such lamentations. Yet that is
precisely what Indrajit Gupta did when he voiced in Parliament last
week his anguish over all that is happening in Lucknow. Neither
those on treasury benches nor opposition members would have been
ready to hear what they did from him.
Indrajit Gupta is an unusual communist. He speaks his mind. And
he knows how to speak it well. When what he feels is true becomes
an intense experience, he will not be bogged down by considerations
of political correctness. That streak of honesty, some may call it
naivete, had forced out of him in the past words which embarrassed
his party and his government and amazed even those who should have
been anxious to put his indiscretion to political use. The
statement on anarchy in Uttar Pradesh was still not expected from
him.
Not because it is not true. There is no reason to doubt its
truthfulness. The man who says India's largest state is heading
towards destruction is none other than India's Home Minister. The
Union Home Minister is supposed to be not only well-informed about
what goes on in a state under President's rule but also almost as
responsible as the Governor for the upkeep of order there. He
alone is answerable to Parliament. Given his position, Gupta's
statement was therefore particularly unexpected. Given his gentle
nature and good sense, he would not have planned to provoke
Governor Romesh Bhandari into a public expression of protest. Nor
would have anyone expected Bhandari to provide proof for Gupta's
statement. That has also happened.
What indeed can be better proof for anarchy and chaos than the
Governor of a state under President's rule joining issue with the
Union Home Minister? Governors and chief ministers had been at
loggerheads before - like Channa Reddy and J Jayalalitha. Governors
had faced incessant flak from their states' ruling parties
before-like Bhandari. But there is no known record of a Governor
vociferously setting out to disprove a Union Home Minister's
assessment of the situation of law and order in his state. For one
thing, such assessment should naturally be based on reports given
by the machinery under the Governor's control. For another, the
Governor of a state under President's rule is practically an agent
of the Union Government which acts, for purposes of law and order,
through the Home Minister.
It is perhaps not necessary to go into the veracity of the
conflicting statements of Gupta and Bhandari. It does not really
matter whether there has been one murder less or more under
Bhandari's rule in Uttar Pradesh than before. The gentleman who
has distinguished himself no less in politics and politicking than
in diplomacy is out to prove that he can be even more adept in
maintaining law and order. He would not forgive anyone, not even
Home Minister Gupta, for seeking to deny him such distinction. His
assiduous statistical projections of crime under his regime and
before need to be seen only as the exertions of a self-righteous
man.
Whether crimes in Bhandari's raj have increased or decreased, he
presents himself as a Governor who has presided over occasional
bouts of paralysis or deformity of law and immensely contributed to
chaos. Destruction naturally follows. Bhandari landed up in
Lucknow for wrong reasons. He had run out of goodwill in Tripura
where his gubernatorial tenure was marked by his flair for doing
and saying things for which he had no brief. When he was riding
roughshod on the sentiments of responsible leaders of the ruling
party there, Bhandari had a considerate regime in New Delhi. It
had perhaps seen in him the rudiments of an operator who could be
depended upon to execute with zeal what it might have felt
imprudent or dangerous to attempt. Even that considerate regime
was constrained to bundle Bhandari out of Tripura when it appeared
that he could no longer exist there as Governor with a measure of
credibility. In the event, he was lucky to land up in Lucknow
where he had more dirty tricks to play.
It was not entirely because of Bhandari that the people of the
state where he is Governor have had to live with a regime in which
they have been denied representation. The election was abortive
insofar as it gave no majority to any party. When no party wins
absolute majority, democratic convention demands that the single
largest party should be given a chance to explore the possibilities
of forming a ministry. The violation of that convention
constituted a grave miscarriage of law. Bhandari was happy to play
the role of the political midwife in that operation. And he was
its beneficiary too. He could wield enormous power which came to
him even without the mandate of the people.
If there was no chaos, Bhandari has created it by joining issue
with Home Minister Gupta. No one had expected him to blabber like
that after Gupta spoke his mind. The unexpected happened.
Conversely, something that should be normally expected just does
not happen. After Gupta saw Uttar Pradesh heading towards anarchy,
chaos and destruction, he should have logically looked for someone
who could save it. After Bhandari heard such an official
indictment, he should have honourably got out. Poor Gupta is
unable to sack an incompetent and insolent Governor. And the
defiant Governor stays put, invoking his fundamental right to wreak
chaos. The logical thing to expect is Bhandari's dismissal. just
as unexpected things happen, expectations go awry in our times.
Logical expectations are not necessarily realistic.
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