ELECTIONS '98
COMMENTARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ARCHIVES

If only he had got rid of Advani, Joshi and Sinha!

If the motion in the Lok Sabha had been to seek a vote of confidence in Atal Bihari Vajpayee alone, he would have made it to the winning line. Even the weight of the BJP turned out to be light. But the other baggage he carried was uncomfortably heavy.

The luggage consisted of three main pieces. One was L K Advani, who brought fundamentalism to the affairs of the home ministry. Even during the confidence motion debate, he proudly recalled how a former British envoy in Islamabad told him that peace between India and Pakistan would be brokered when the BJP came to power in New Delhi. What Advani tried to convey was that the Islamic Pakistan regarded the BJP as the representative of the Hindu-majority India.

The second piece of luggage was Murli Manohar Joshi, who equated Hindutva with nationalism. He polluted the secular ethos of education by distorting history and appointing the RSS-oriented men at positions to guide the culture and literary activities in the country. His other distinction was that he had a series of booklets, titled Sanskrit Gyan, giving the RSS perspective of Indian history and culture, distributed in the 6,000-odd Saraswati Shiksha Mandirs, the Vidya Bharati-run schools.

Yashwant Sinha was the third odd piece of Vajpayee's luggage. He, as his dismissed adviser Guruswamy alleged, took such decisions in the finance ministry as benefited the selected elements in the corporate world, not India. The facts and figures he quoted about the country's development were only a figment of imagination. So said former finance minister Manmohan Singh, former defence minister Mulayam Singh Yadav and a few others. Sinha's Budget exempted the RSS and Vishwa Hindu Parishad from taxation.

Had Vajpayee jettisoned all the three pieces of baggage even a few days earlier, he would have won. Still he evoked sympathy. The Opposition singled him out for praise. His performance in the last two months stood out in the otherwise prosaic 13-month rule because he had begun to assert himself. The portion of the Budget, which got wide acclaim, was based on Vajpayee's suggestions. If only he had got rid of Advani, Joshi and Sinha!

Reliable quarters say that had Vajpayee survived the confidence motion, he would have dropped from his Cabinet two out of the three. Were he to push them into the background even now, the future of Vajpayee and the BJP would be better and brighter. Should he do it? This has been Vajpayee's dilemma.

His actions suggest his sensitivity to the pulls that a pluralistic society like India demands. But his odd observation that the RSS is his 'soul' betrays double thinking. Which is the real Vajpayee, the one who says publicly in Lahore that he accepts the partition of the Indian subcontinent or the one who stands in knickers before the chief of the RSS, an organisation which propagates the concept of Akhand Bharat (the reunited India)?

But Vajpayee alone is not uncomfortable. The combination, which defeated the Vajpayee coalition, too has some odd pieces of baggage. It just managed to cross the winning line because, like a panting runner, it made it to the tape in a finishing burst to throw out the government. But soon after it looked as if it lacked stamina. It was a dispersed lot rather than a group that stayed together till it won.

The scene witnessed after the Vajpayee government's defeat showed how personal ambitions were suppressed for a while, only for a while. Did the flight against communalism bring them together or the chance to make the government? In any case, it was a big show. A Pakistani professor was in the capital when the Vajpayee government fell. She said she was impressed by the peace and normalcy that prevailed in the wake of the one-vote defeat. Indeed, the democratic demeanor that India has developed on the change of governments is commendable. People see it all on the television. Even the wildest imagination does not go to extent of military takeover, something common in the region.

This is probably the only impressive part of our democracy. Maybe, we are democratic till the polls. Then the operators take over. That may be the reason why money and politics have come to be inseparably linked. When this happens, every dog has its price.

It was no different this time. Political parties on the fringe were on sale. The going rate of an MP was Rs 6 crore. In certain cases, there was an indication of rewards. For example, the Bahujan Samaj Party, which announced it would abstain from voting and later changed its mind, said after the government's defeat that there might be changes in the BJP-run UP. Such happenings naturally create instability. There have been six governments in the past 10 years. Out of which only one, headed by Narasimha Rao, completed its five-year term. What work could they have done when none survived even for a year? The Vajpayee government lasted the longest -- 13 months.

This is bad enough. But worse is its effect on the people. They are developing an attitude of disgust towards politicians. It does not matter to them who comes or who goes. They find no difference between the outgoing government and the incoming one. The climate of resignation does not suggest the emergence of a viable, purposeful government. People have to assert themselves. In the absence of it, there will always be permutations and combinations among political parties, to whom nothing seems to matter except power and greed.

True, fresh elections may be the only way out of the fluid situation, although practically every MP is against the polls. But India has gone over the exercise three times in the last four years. Even if there were polls once again, the outcome would not be very different except that the Congress would be No 1 party and the BJP, No 2. No party looks like winning more than 200 seats in a house of 546. It will be again a similar type of rag-tag coalition. Another Jayalalitha, another Mayawati, another opportunity for corrupt politicians. How will the scene be drastically different from that of today?

Still the bigger question is: how does India get a stable government? People keenly want it. Economic development too has come to be linked with political stability. For example, between the time Jayalalitha withdrew her support to the Vajpayee government till the confidence motion was voted, the shares lost Rs 40,000 crores in price. Some changes in the political system are a must. Many attempts have been made in the past to have a consensus on electoral reforms. But no concrete formula has emerged. The situation is more desperate than before.

People expect a government to rule for the full tenure for five years. One suggestion made by Information Minister Pramod Mahajan is that the removal of a prime minister should be on the basis of a two-thirds majority. If the proposal is to be accepted, the election of a prime minister should be on the basis of a two-thirds majority. People do not want frequent elections or frequent changes in the government. They want stability. If it does not come about, the very change in democratic governments, which evokes praise all over the world, may threaten the very fabric of democracy.

Kuldip Nayar