HVK Archives: Get up, stand up-Gujral needs tough & fight wimp factor
Get up, stand up-Gujral needs tough & fight wimp factor - The Afternoon on Sunday
Vir Sanghvi
()
20 July 1997
Title: Get up, stand up-Gujral needs tough & fight wimp factor
Author: Vir Sanghvi
Publication: The Afternoon on Sunday
Date: July 20, 1997
No matter how well intentioned Prime Minister Inder Gujral may be, there is
now little doubt that he neither understands political timing nor
appreciates the need to seem tough and committed to what he believes.
The latest in a series of own-goals is the abrupt transfer of CBI director
'Tiger' Joginder Singh. Tiger should never have been appointed to the job.
His record as a police officer is undistinguished and his only
qualifications were his ability to speak to H.D. Deve Gowda in Kannada an a
recommendation from Harkishen Singh Surjeet.
Both men were quick to disown him. Deve Gowda claimed that Joginder
defected to Sitaram Kesri's side in the last three months of his government
and Surjeet now says that he had nothing to do with the appointment.
Deve Gowda would have sacked Joginder had his government not fallen.
Gujral had decided to move him within weeks of taking over because of his
hunger for publicity, his bumbling, bungling style and his mission to
transform the CBI from India's premier investigative agency to a rusty old
vessel that leaked scurrilous titbits to a credulous media.
But because nobody could agree on a successor - R.C. Sharma, the obvious
choice, was on extension and D.R. Karthikeyan's supporters were lobbying
hard to get him the job - Gujral put off the decision. In the interim,
Tiger, who knew that he was about to return to the wilderness, quickly took
defensive action.
Even though he had sought to scupper the investigation into the fodder scam
by acting against U.N. Biswas, the real investigator, last year, he now
recast himself as the scourge of Laloo.
By the time Gujral finally got his act together, the timing could not have
been worse. Joginder was in France representing India at an international
conference, the Janata Dal elections were due, the noose was tightening
around Laloo's neck and the press bought the line that the transfer was
sparked by the intrepid Tiger's investigative abilities.
Why would the media be so willing to believe that Inder Gujral, generally
regarded as a decent and honest man, would transfer officers in an effort
to shield a corrupt chief minister?
I suspect it is not because anybody regards Gujral as dishonest. They
merely regard him as unable to stand up to pressure. And they believe that
he is unwilling to state his case upfront.
Within a fortnight of assuming office, Gujral crumbled under pressure and
sacrificed Bhabani Sen Gupta even though he must have known that the
charges made by Chandra Shekhar against Sen Gupta were unfair.
It is possible to argue that Sen Gupta should never have been appointed.
But once Gujral had given him the job, it was the Prime Minister's duty to
stand by his man. To do anything less would be to give the impression of
weakness.
Gujral probably did not realise that the Sen Gupta episode hurt him more
than it hurt his appointee. A septuagenarian academic can always find
another sinecure. But a Prime minister who succumbs to pressure in his very
first month in office will find it difficult to ever regain his authority.
The same unwillingness to take stands is also apparent in matters of
policy. It is no secret that Gujral supports the Tata-Singapore airline
project. He opposed C.M. Ibrahim's aviation policy when he was part of Deve
Gowda's Cabinet and as Prime Minister wants to alter that policy.
But his behaviour has been distinctly un-prime ministerial. First, he
embarrassed India by attacking a domestic policy in a foreign country.
Next, he tried to sack C.M. Ibrahim but backed down in the face of pressure
from Deve Gowda. Then, he got the civil aviation secretary to draft a new
policy which was pro Tata-Singapore behind Ibrahim's back and to leak this
policy to the media.
When the Left and Ibrahim himself objected, the ministry quickly denied
that there was any new draft policy, only to be caught lying on the front
page of The Indian Express. To date, Gujral has never told his own civil
aviation minister that he wants to change the policy - which surely. is his
right as Prime Minister.
On broadcasts policy, the situation is only slingtly better. Gujral never
approved of Ibrahim's Broadcasting Bill. Within days of taking over, he
removed Ibrahim and gave the portfolio to Jaipal Reddy. Everybody assumed
that a new Bill was forthcoming. No such luck.
Reddy has said that he does not support Ibrahim's Bill but has forwarded it
to Parliament nevertheless. Why forward a Bill you don't like? Well,
because the new minister has an open mind'.
But surely, it is not an empty mind. Gujral and Reddy must know what kind
of policy they want. Why doesn't the Cabinet formulate a new broadcasting
policy and then send a Bill that it supports to Parliament? Largely, one
suspects, because the two men are too frightened to take a decision.
I could go on. There is no shortage of such instances. Is it any wonder
that other politicians believe that Inder Gujral can't take the heat?
I hope that the public perception of Gujral is wrong. He has demonstrated
courage in the past - most notably over Sanjay Gandhi and the Emergency.
But it is also true that his style is slow and consensual. And because he
is not street smart, the notion of political timing is alien to him.
But this is a special situation. Inder Gujral has only about a year in
office - at best. He does not have the time for consensus and for
prevarication. History has taught us that once people see a leader as a
man who will bend, they stop listening to him. And eventually, they stop
supporting him.
V.P. Singh bragged about managing contradictions but ultimately those
contradictions finished his government off in just nine months. George Bush
seemed so unwilling to take hard decisions that his defeat after jut one
term in the White House (despite the Gulf War triumph) was attributed to
the 'wimp factor'.
It is this wimp factor that Inder Gujral needs to combat, Once he is seen
as weak then people will believe the worst of him - as indeed they do about
his motives in transferring Joginder Singh.
Throughout his career, Gujral has cared too much about what his colleagues
and his friends think. But now that he has reached the pinnacle of
political achievement and has nothing left to lose, it is time to shed that
attitude.
In the end, it won't matter how the Janata Dal regards him. All that really
matters is how history will remember him.
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