Author: Editorial
Publication: Free Press Journal
Date: December 22, 2004
URL: http://www.samachar.com/features/221204-editorial.html
A gentleman is also known by the
people he shuns. Given some of the company the gentleman Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh keeps, there is every danger of his own clean image going
for a toss. For, it is not enough for the PM to be personally clean; the
onus that his ministers too adhere to the minimum acceptable norms of good
conduct clearly lies with him.
Singh's continuous failure to discipline
the wayward, nay, tainted lot of ministers is bound to reflect poorly on
him. And would raise the vital question whether being a gentleman is qualification
enough to be the PM of a diverse and always difficult to govern nation
like India which is beset by myriad problems of lawlessness, poverty, insurrection,
economic and social inequalities, et al.
Singh does not give the impression
that he is in control of the Government of which he is but a mere notional
head with the real power vesting in people outside the Government or with
various group leaders who have cornered plum ministries inside.
Increasingly, the PM comes across
as a meek and well-meaning head clerk who occasionally issues homilies
on such relatively minor matters as the check on ministerial junkets abroad
or a ban on reappointment of superannuated bureaucrats (with he himself
retaining a retired bureaucrat as his principal secretary).
The point is that to be an effective
PM he has not only to assert his authority but he is also required to be
seen to be so doing in order for the people to feel reassured that he is
not a prisoner of the dubious elements who dominate the UPA and his own
Cabinet.
The latest affront to good sense
and good governance from Singh's esteemed Railway Minister, Laloo Prasad
Yadav, in normal circumstances would have automatically led to his ouster
from the Government. Even now were the PM to allow his gentlemanly considerations
a full play, instead of adopting the opportunistic stance which his Parliamentary
Minister did on the sordid matter, Yadav would find himself ejected out
of the Cabinet.
It is, of course, specious nonsense
to suggest that the actions impugned by the Chief Election Commission were
those of the RJD chief and not of the Railway Minister. Did Yadav cease
to be the Railway Minister when he hit the dirt trail in Bihar armed with
wads of mint-fresh one- hundred rupee currency notes and was seen distributing
them to emaciated men and women in a clear bid to buy support for his party
for the forthcoming elections to the Bihar Assembly?
Should the inquiry into the FIR
lodged against him at the express direction of the CEC result in his being
imprisoned, can the gentleman PM persist with him as Railway Minister on
the ground that the person jailed is the party president and not the Railway
Minister?
Let us not delude ourselves with
this arrant nonsense, this sophistry, and come to terms with the sobering
thought that a person like Yadav is unfit to be a member of any civilised
government. For, he is a law unto himself, saying and doing things which
defy established norms of acceptable ministerial behaviour.
It is another matter that given
the huge strides made by Bihar under the Laloo-Rabri raj in the last decade,
there will be no dearth of simple but gullible people in that benighted
State who might be willing to be fooled by his antics and brazenness.
Yadav's riposte that he was only
handing over money to Dalit women who wanted sweets to celebrate his rise
as the Railway Minister might still fool the simple village folks who have
been denied the fruits of good governance thanks largely to venal politicians
like him and his wife, The two between them have misruled Bihar with a
rare vengeance.
The pull of caste and community
having become the sole determinant of electoral politics in the State,
Yadav has done precious little to pull Bihar out of the morass of back-breaking
poverty and backwardness. The belated announcement about the cancellation
of the scheduled December 23 rally in Patna has, admittedly, come as a
concession to good sense, albeit inspired by the tough attitude of the
CEC who had ordered the dismantling of the RJD billboards appealing to
voters to attend the rally and the cancellation of the special trains and
buses which the party had commandeered to ferry people to it.
Notwithstanding its embarrassment,
it is remarkable that neither the PM nor his boss, Sonia Gandhi, has uttered
a word edgeways in disapproval of the antics of the RJD boss. Their silence
is further testimony to the kind of forces which hold the gentleman PM
to ransom almost daily.
This was the second time in a week
that Yadav had engaged the attention of Parliament for his misconduct.
Earlier, he had called certain railway employees murderers without caring
to come to the House to make a statement on the railway accident near Jallandhar
in Punjab. Yadav can be relied upon to cast his ugly spell on the Government
of gentleman-PM.
