Batting for BJP
Amulya Ganguli
The Hindustan Times
May 3, 1999
Title: Batting for BJP
Author: Amulya Ganguli
Publication: The Hindustan Times
Date: May 3, 1999
In his autobiography, My American Journey, General Colin Powell,
describing his training as a paratrooper, says that "jumping into
nothingness goes against our deepest human instincts." In India,
however, the Congress party seems to have largely overcome this fear
so far as political adventures are concerned. It does not refrain
from taking a step simply because the con-sequences are uncertain. It
goes ahead regardless of what may lie in store, with a faith in the
future which parallels Micawber's.
Several examples demonstrate this remarkable capacity of the party not
letting Hamlet's problem of the "native hue of resolution" being
under-mined by the "pale cast of thought." In its case, action is
preferable to thought. The previous Congress chief, Sitaram Kesri,
brought down two United Front governments in succession for reasons
that have remained unclear to this day. The mystery was not so much
that Kesri rushed in where angels feared to tread as that everyone
else in the Congress and outside knew that the only beneficiary of the
antics of the "old man in a hurry" (a phrase which one of Kesri's
victims used to describe him in Parliament) would be the BJP. And yet
the president of a party whose main opponent supposedly was the BJP
did not grasp this simple fact of political life.
Instead of learning from that disaster, the Congress has made the same
mistake this time, too, thereby halting in mid-stride, as it were, the
party's slow process of recovery initiated by Sonia Gandhi and
generating a measure of totally undeserved sympathy for the BJP.
Rarely has a party been so generous towards its opponents. One
explanation for this curious behaviour - unless it is a strange
death-wish - is the Congress's impatience to regain power, a charge
which its opponents routinely hurl at it.
There may he some truth in this allegation, but what seems odd is that
the Congress should take recourse to this stratagem when experience
should tell it that it is invariably counterproductive. It may have
been understandable, though not excusable, in 1959 in Kerala or in
1968 in West Bengal for the Congress to have brought down fledgling
Leftist governments in order to reinstate itself in power because it
was still to learn that unethical practices do not pay in democratic
politics.
But subsequent elections showed that the Congress's adversaries could
not be swept aide in such a peremptory manner. In fact, they only
returned to power with a vengeance. The simple fact is that the
electorate does not like the politicians to usurp its special
privilege of voting in or voting out a government. The people like to
do it themselves and have done it on many occasions both at the Centre
and in the states, where the high and the mighty have had to bite the
dust, and the humble elevated to the throne. But it is a lesson which
the politicians are seemingly unable to imbibe.
The best way in a democracy to discredit a government is to let it
remain in power. Two recent examples will suffice. The BJP's Delhi
and Rajasthan governments were swept out of power after their
five-year terms with the Congress not having to lift a finger. But it
is a safe bet that had there been mid-term interventions by scheming
opposition politicians to oust these governments, their positions
would have been strengthened.
It is not that the people are bloody-minded. If a government deserves
to be re-elected, they do give it another chance - as in Madhya
Pradesh where Mr Digvijay Singh provided a measure of good
governance. Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav, too, was given a second chance in
Bihar, although for reasons quite dissimilar to those in Madhya
Pradesh, while Mr Jyoti Basu's government in West Bengal has appeared
virtually irreplaceable, presumably because the Congress leaders there
like Mr Somen Mitra and Mr Priya Ranjan Das Munshi have never quite
been able to grow out of their adolescent Youth Congress image to
become senior and responsible party leaders.
If it is an old habit with the Congress to short-circuit a process and
bring down a government, it is a new one with the CPI-M, whose general
secretary, Harkishen Singh Surjeet, has shown a rare genius in
exercising such manipulative skills. That the communists should show
a flair for underhand tactics is not surprising.
Democracy - "a useless and harmful toy", according to Lenin - is alien
to their creed. Besides, their creed is moribund at the moment, if
not dead. So the Indian communists do not really stand for anything
at present, neither for a forcible over-throw of the existing system -
their original thesis - nor for participating in the system to expose
its hollowness - their later tactical formulation.
Since they do not have the intellectual capacity to remould their
parties, as some of the European communists have done, their only role
at present is to try desperately to preserve their dwindling
groups of supporters - the lethargic working class and the confused
among the intelligentsia. But their basic undemocratic instincts,
denoting a distrust of the people, have remained. Hence, the frenetic
networking behind the scenes to undo an electoral verdict and prop up
alliances comprising prickly partners who are more capable of damaging
themselves than their avowed adversary. But to the communists, it
does not matter for they have never really believed in the concept (in
Churchill's phrase) of a little man putting a little cross on a little
slip of paper to determine the fate of governments.
The Congress's original plan of waiting till the November elections in
several states was the best one, for there was little doubt of the
party gaining in the polls and thereby further demoralising the BJP,
as it had done after its success in the Delhi, Rajasthan and Madhya
Pradesh elections. In the meantime, the BJP would have hobbled itself
further as a result of constant sniping by its allies and involvement
in defence and other scandals. Besides, Vajpayee might not have been
able to keep the extremist elements of the Sangh parivar under control
much longer. And, if he did, the contradictions within the parivar
would have reached a critical point, for fascism cannot be camouflaged
indefinitely by a mask. In any event, common sense would have
dictated that a tie-up with the likes of Jayalalitha, Subramanian
Swamy, Mulayam and Laloo was a prescription for disaster.
But, strangely, what is obvious to the casual observer is seemingly
beyond the comprehension of the professional politician. What makes
them oblivious of the wilting on the wall is difficult to say, but it
is probably the result of the Byzantine atmosphere of power,
privilege, luxury and intrigue in which they function. Besides,
theirs is a closed world of the same old faces in which mutual
antagonism flourishes with "all the bitterness" of old friends, as
Oscar Wilde said. Truth and frankness are at a discount even within a
party as its members try to fathom their leader's mind and guard
against being stabbed in the back by their dearest colleagues. So
even as a disaster approaches, few can summon the courage to utter a
warning.
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