Author: Kuldip Nayar
Publication: Dawn
Date: August 28, 2004
URL: http://www.dawn.com/2004/08/28/op.htm#2
Manmohan singh's government is 100
days old. It is too short a period to judge its performance, particularly
when the BJP has not allowed even parliament, much less the administration,
to settle down to normal functioning.
Another limitation the Congress
has faced is that since it has never been part of a coalition, it has not
been aware of its constraints. Still 100 days are 100 days.
What strikes one straightaway is
that there is no focus on governance. Manmohan Singh is the prime minister
but Congress president Sonia Gandhi is all over. She is the main power
and her policy, tailored by the coterie around her, counts.
Long before the elections, whenever
people thought of ousting the BJP-led government, they would wish if Sonia
Gandhi were to stay as the Congress president and nominate Manmohan Singh
to be the prime minister, things would work perfectly. Both are in position.
But what has raised the eyebrows
is that Sonia Gandhi has come to combine the two positions, the Congress
presidentship officially and the prime ministership unofficially.
People want to see Manmohan Singh
visibly ruling. But when she goes to Chennai to release a stamp in memory
of Murosali Maran, she usurps the territory which belongs to the prime
minister. An official function becomes the DMK show. It is not a healthy
precedent to set.
The real criterion to assess 100
days is to find out how far the common minimum programme (CMP) has been
implemented. How many jobs have been created and how less arduous is the
life of the common man than before? Inflation has nearly doubled since
the new government has taken over.
The budget was supposed to be cutting
new grounds. But it has not set the Yamuna on fire. The government has
not yet been able to decide the quantum of FDI to be allowed in the insurance
or telecommunication sectors.
Two other disconcerting developments
are that too many retired hands have been recruited and too many committees
have been constituted. Both tell upon the government's performances. One
lacks the dynamism which the prolonged experience kills, while the second
delays the decision that retards growth.
Understandably, the Congress had
to accommodate many power-seekers because the party has been in the wilderness
for over a decade. Even after many undeserving appointments, the list has
not been exhausted yet. The inner party quarrel continues over the distribution
of loaves.
There is some weight in the allegation
that those who have been loyal to Sonia Gandhi have been rewarded, whether
in or outside the party. Some old hands have come to be preferred because
they were the ones who came into contact with her when her husband was
prime minister more than 15 years ago.
But the biggest problem is that
Sonia Gandhi is restricting the space of the prime minister. One, the process
of nominating Manmohan Singh when the Congress party wanted him was bound
to lessen his stature. The other frighteningly true is that she has institutionalized
her position which is one rung above the prime minister.
Sonia Gandhi does not have to prove
anything. Nor does she have to suffer from the paranoid of insecurity.
Her mother-in-law Indira Gandhi had the same obsession and split the Congress
in 1969.
The country has suffered a lot since
because the split provided the Jan Sangh, the BJP's predecessor, an opportunity
to make room in the name of religion. Secular forces, divided as they were,
did little to put up a fight against communalism or casteism.
Manmohan Singh can never be a threat
to her. He does not even have a political base. Nor has he ever sought
to build one. He has been a civil servant all his life, disciplined and
devoted to file work. He has more facets, not merely of an economist.
But Sonia Gandhi's attitude has
not given him a level playing field. He knows that the party president
is above the prime minister but this does not have to be dinned in every
time.
On the Independence Day, when all
eyes were fixed on the prime minister, she arranged the Congress session
in Delhi. It is to the media's credit that it did not give her publicity
but otherwise she imagined that her speech would have more prominence than
that of Manmohan Singh.
The Congress president trying to
assert supremacy over the prime minister is nothing new. Congress president
K. Kamaraj made Lal Bahadur Shastri the prime minister but the latter was
soon pushed into the background. Indira Gandhi did even worse.
She ousted the old guard, including
Congress president Nijalingappa, and reduced the party to a personal fiefdom.
Sonia Gandhi has no such compulsions because Manmohan Singh has no ambition
to build his own base. He would serve the government as long as she wants
him to do and then withdraw.
The two unofficial committees, which
Sonia Gandhi heads, dilutes the authority of the cabinet. The first one
to ensure the implementation of CMP enjoys untrammelled authority.
It is an extension of the PMO, maybe,
because of financial and procedural difficulties. But the result is that
the PMO as such has suffered. So much so, the Congress leaders, including
ministers, pursue the committee members who reportedly enjoy the real power.
I recall Prime Minister Jawaharlal
Nehru constituting a Citizens Committee during the India-China war in 1962.
He made Indira Gandhi its chairperson and former Madhya Pradesh chief minister
D.P. Mishra secretary. As days went by, the committee became powerful because
it basked in the glory of Nehru.
Still another unofficial committee
is for coordination. The prime minister is only a member. What message
is it supposed to send? When the ruling United Progressive Alliance is
already there, discussing and debating the implementation of CMP, the creation
of the coordination committee only suggests that key decisions will be
taken there first and in the cabinet later. Sonia Gandhi's authority comes
to be entrenched further because she is the chairperson.
On the other hand, Manmohan Singh's
own diffidence comes in the way. He does not let any minister feel that
the prime minister is more than a leader among the equals. Even otherwise,
Congress leaders like HRD Minister Arjun Singh and defence minister Pranab
Mukherjee do not think that they are answerable to the prime minister.
They consider Manmohan Singh much junior to them.
Manmohan Singh should realize that
he represents the tone and tenor of governance. It is his business to ensure
that the government does not give the public a distorted picture.
At present, the government looks
too dispersed, too disseminated and too diffused. Sonia Gandhi's pre-eminence
does not do any good. But the unfortunate part is that the prime minister
prefers to take the back seat. This affects the government's prestige.
This makes it all the more necessary
that Manmohan Singh should seek election to the Lok Sabha which represents
the house of the people. He will not be challenging Sonia Gandhi but only
proving his popularity among the people. A prime minister cannot stay as
the Rajya Sabha member for long.
Nonetheless, Sonia Gandhi did well
by standing in the line of ministers and some other VIPs for saying bon
voyage to Manmohan Singh on his first trip abroad as prime minister. Such
gestures are necessary because the unimportance of Manmohan Singh is beginning
to be noticed.
The writer is a leading columnist
based in New Delhi.
