Author: P. Raman
Publication: Free Press Journal
Date: April 7, 2006
URL: http://www.samachar.com/features/070406-features.html
For a whole one week last month, the entire
political elite behaved as if a severe disaster had befallen on this great
nation. The Manmohan Singh government suddenly decides to suspend the Parliament
session sine die; drafts an urgent ordinance literally at midnight; a panicked
BJP sees ghosts of a second emergency intended to save another authoritarian
Mrs. Gandhi; and the latter retaliates with her second renunciation.
Though Sonia Gandhi's curt retaliation has
put an abrupt end to the whole political drama and the issue of office of
profit pushed into the background it has in the process exposed a whole lot
of Indian political tragedy.
A government that functions in splendid isolation
from its own party establishment, an ill-equipped opposition which abruptly
retreats when found its own counter-attacks boomeranging on them in Jharkhand,
Rajasthan and MP and the Emergency era operators imposing their crude game
plans in the murky corridors of power all have contributed to the collapse
of the country's party system which is the corner stone of parliamentary system.
It is now ten days, and we have no answers
to the countless goofups of the sordid events. Every one, the Cabinetwallas,
Congress establishment and the aides and speech writers try to stonewall crucial
questions.
Who had actually initiated the sine die and
ordinance move? Were its political repercussions discussed in the Union cabinet
and/or political affairs committee? Did the prime minister and his senior
cabinet ministers endorse them without so much as a discussion? Did the brinkman
claim 10 Janpath's blessings which had silenced all others as being talked
about in the Capital's power corridors?
Were Sonia Gandhi and her aides really in
the loop or the operators wanted to make it look like a surprise gift to her?
These are questions that go beyond the drawing room gossips.
The answers in bits and pieces tickling in
reveal the changing political management style of the Sonia Congress. It sadly
shows up the growing disconnect between the party chief, her prime minister,
his cabinet colleagues and a hundred hangers on around this vast power satellite.
The casualty has been a healthy system of consultation and coordination between
the different arms.
The PM camp detests pre-decision consultation.
Prior clearance on sensitive issues with deep political implications is avoided.
Heads might have rolled had this kind of bunglings happened under an Indira
Gandhi.
This speaks volume of the erosion of the present
party system on which our democracy works. What further bares the main ruling
party's disjoined organizational structure has been that after all such disastrous
brinkmanship there has not been any serious inhouse introspection to fix the
accountability.
All that had happened was some idle blame
shifting among the ministers to settle score with the rivals. To this day,
the prime minister, the centre of decision making, and the see-noevil PM have
maintained a stoic silence.
The bane of the Sonia Congress has been its
absence of a holistic approach, a unified command system. It functions in
compartments. It is not so much due to the compulsive division of the posts
of the prime minister and party president.
It has been more due to the isolationist style
of the incumbent prime minister and the protective structure constructed around
the party chief. This functional segmentation has been the cruel irony of
a party that survives on the strength of its lone super boss or a super family.
Unlike the BJP which is riven by competing
claimants for control, the Congress has a single power centre. Yet it functions
in watertight compartments. The prime minister manages the government, and
the party establishment hardly bothers about his actions until the Left raises
a controversy. Then, verily, Sonia Gandhi acts.
Bodies like the coordination panel and core
group come into play only when the opposition forces a sudden crisis or the
Left pushes it into the corner. The PM who enjoys the popular mandate only
through his party president, hardly bothers to take the party establishment
into confidence even on politically highly sensitive administrative decisions.
There are compartments even within the government.
While the prime minister is determined to
have his way on reform-related decisions and his `enlightened' foreign policy,
he hardly bothers about other ministries unless, of course, it raises some
one's hackles and thus leaving the colleagues to do as they chose.
This is the general pattern of this government's
functioning. This explains the absence of prime ministerial scrutiny to insure
against disastrous deviations, lack of coordination and the much needed political
fine-tuning.
Here is a prime minister who takes pride in
saying that he won't interfere in the action of the CBI which he did soon
after in another case. It was at a time when the opposition was pinning down
the government on its decision to help Bofors accused Octavio Quattrocchi.
To this day, no one has explained who was
responsible for creating such a muddle and thus tarnishing the government's
image. The abdication of prime ministerial responsibility is based on the
thesis that economic performance and good governance are key to the popular
mood.
Once the government could show it could achieve
prosperity through economic reform, people would stand by it in elections.
A performing government need not bother too much about politicization and
communalization whether in government policies or diplomacy.
Within the Congress establishment, Sonia Gandhi
has added an inner compartment comprising herself and her two children. Sonia
Gandhi made it clear and Rahul reasserted that the former's crucial decision
to quit the Lok Sabha was not taken after consultation with the party or prime
minister but by the family. Others were simply informed barely an hour before.
Another crucial fact no one denies is that
Sonia was not in the loop when the cabinet under Manmohan Singh decided to
suspend Parliament session and issue the controversial ordinance.
At the moment, things may not be better in
the opposition BJP. But that is no consolation for the main ruling party.
When in power, the BJP had a far superior decision making machinery. Its power
centres worked in unison to scan every government move to avert political
pitfalls.
The ruling party's political interests and
electoral prospects had played a major role in all government decisions right
from the Pokhran II. There may have been some miscalculations but nothing
was done without political screening by its large number of smart operators.
As against this, clumsy style and refusal
to accommodate popular sentiments are integral to the present dispensation's
compartmentalized functioning.
