HVK Archives: The BJP addressed a mandate to rule
The BJP addressed a mandate to rule - (no publication)
Sundheernra Kulkarni
()
20 June 1996
Title : The BJP Addressed A Mandate To Rule
Author : Sundheernra Kulkarni
Publication :
Date : June 20, 1996
IT is said that history repeats itself, first as a
tragedy and then as a farce. We have seen the truth of
this statement in the case of two accidental prime
ministers India has had in a span of five years. When P V
Narasimha Rao became India's Prime Minister in June 1996,
it was necessitated by a tragedy. But when Deve Gowda
became the Prime Minister, it was facilitated by a farce.
The entire spectacle of the government of a truncated
United Front, which has two separate fronts within it - a
Left Front and a regional Front which is resting on an
opportunist prop called the Congress, is nothing if not a
farce. India has to suffer this farce only because the
country cannot remain without a government, nor can fresh
parliamentary polls be held immediately.
The accidental nature of Deve Gowda's rise to the
country's highest executive office has left everyone,
including the incumbent himself, amused and startled.
Deve Gowda could not have imagined that an ingenious
interpretation of the electoral verdict would make him
India's Prime Minister.
The farcical nature of Deve Gowda's government is evident
from the desperate coming together of disparate forces.
What exactly will be the gestation period for the
internal contradictions among the parties and within them
to ripen and rip the United Front government apart? It
is difficult to predict But it doesn't need gifted
political intelligence to predict that this farcical
interlude in Indian politics will come to an end sooner
rather than later.
But what about the other interlude which the country
witnessed: the government of Atal Behiari Vajpayee which
lasted for only 13 days? It too was unnatural, but
only on one count: It did not have the mandate of the
Lok Sabha. As soon as it became evident that it had no
chance of proving its majority inside the House, it
gracefully bowed out of office. Thus, there is a
fundamental difference between the unnaturalness of the
Deve Gowda government continues to rob it of its
legitimacy even after it has secured the vote of
confidence in the Lok Sabha.
There is. however, yet another important difference.
When Vajpayee became the Prime Minister, it was the
fulfillment of the collective desire of a wide cross
section of Indian people, including those who might not
have voted for the BJP. If democracy is about the
manifestation of the choice of the largest number of
people, then Vajpayee has been India's natural choice
for many years now. Besides a clean personal image, he
carries with him decades of selfless service to the
national cause, often rising above his party's interests
to serve the larger social interest. If India has entered
the era of coalition governments, which can function
effectively only on the basis of the broadest possible
national consensus, then Vajpayee is by any reckoning
the most suitable person to lead such a government of
consensus.
On the other hand, what are Deve Gowda's credentials for
heading such a government? The most charitable thing that
can be said about his becoming the Prime Minister is that
the prestige of the August office has been lowered. Isn't
it a little odd that a person who remains an unknown and
unfamiliar entity all over India, save within the borders
of Karnataka, should have come to occupy a chair which
was once graced by the like of Pandit Nehru or Indira
Gandhi?
But such episodic displays of the unnatural and the
farcical are only to be expected when the entire
political order of India is undergoing a churning
process. The moot question are: What is likely to happen
from now on? Is the fragmentation of the Indian polity a
permanent or semipermanent state, or are we going to see
a new alignment of forces? In the latter eventuality,
how will the struggle on the question of secularism play
itself out? And after the internal contradictions in
different camps resolve themselves to a reasonable
degree, who will emerge the winner: The BJP or the
Congress?
These questions defy definitive answers, but one
assertion can be made right away. The anti-communalism
plank of the limited Front and the Congress is nothing
but a camouflage for their hunger for power.
It shrouds the real purpose and clouds the real issues.
What are the real issues? The real issue is India's
development - why does this ancient country of enviable
natural and human resources find itself at the bottom of
the heap? The real issue is the wretched conditions in
which a vast majority of our countrymen are condemned to
live. The real issue is corruption and shocking
levels of misgovernance at all levels.
During the debate on the confidence motion on June 11,
Rajesh Pilot admitted that nearly 40 per cent of the
population still lives below the poverty the line. Who is
responsible for this dubious achievement? Is it the BJP's
alleged communalism? Or is it the many decades of
Congress misrule? It is unlikely that the leaders of the
United Front will show the honesty and courage to
question this misrule.
At least the suffering people of India do not believe
that this entrenched misrule will suddenly turn itself
into good governance if only the United Front leaders,
along with their Congress supporters, chant the slogan of
anti-communalism.
Another Congress leader, A R Antulay, spoke in the Lok
Sabha as if there no longer exist any differences between
the Congress and the United Front, and as if it is
already a UF-Congress joint government, since the two are
united in their burning desire to save secularism.
Antulay, however, cannot escape some simple question: If
the Congress were so concerned about the minorities, why
are million upon millions of Muslims languishing in
poverty and backwardness? Is it because the "communal",
"anti-Muslim", "anti-secular" BJP ruled this country all
these years after 1947? Why is Muslim representation in
the IAS less than 2 per cent? Why is literacy among
Muslim women less than 15 per cent? Why is educated
unemployment more rampant among Muslims? Why are
loans
from banks and financial institutions to Muslim
businessmen so pitifully low? Why is the housing problem
more acute among middle class Muslims than among
other
middle classes?
Does all this prove that the Congress cared for the
Indian Muslims all these years? Or does it just prove
that the Congress cared only for Muslim votes?
This is not to say that, communalism and nationalism are
not among the real issues before the nation. In the
entire debate during either the first motion of
confidence, moved by Vajpayee, or the second one moved by
Deve Gowda, neither the United Front nor the Congress
speakers were able to effectively counter the BJP's
concept of secularism and nationalism, or offer a
superior concept.
In the months and years to come, only those political
forces will gain ascendancy which can successfully
address the two basic issues facing India: Pro-people
economic development: and advocacy of that concept of and
advocacy of that concept of secularism and nationalism
which unites Indian society on the strength of our great
multi-religious, multi-lingual and multi-regional
cultural heritage.
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