Commentary/Kanchan Gupta
Yes, There Are Victors In This Battle For Uttar Pradesh
Nothing highlighted the crass manner in which the United Front
government, at the goading of a reckless politician who passes
by the name of Mulayam Singh Yadav and a duffer called Sitaram
Kesri who at the fag end of his life has managed to grab the
remains of the Congress, tried to defile the Constitution by showering
contempt on the legislature of Uttar Pradesh, disowning its own
commitments to the people and recklessly disregarding legal opinion
as recorded in the famous Bommai case judgment, than Comrade
Harkishen Singh Surjeet calling up the prime minister from Canada
and insisting that the Kalyan Singh government should be dismissed
in order to save 'secularism.'
The debate in the Union Cabinet, which stretched over several
hours and numerous sessions, was essentially between those who
were baying for the blood of democratic norms and conventions
on the one hand, and one individual who was appalled by the very
thought of such blatant misuse of that much-abused provision of
the Constitution, Article 356. The former comprised Mulayam Singh
Yadav and Beni Prasad Verma; the latter was Indrajit Gupta
who, during the four days that shook the nation's conscience,
stood like Casablanca, refusing to give into the threats and
worse of the former.
The two other players in this obnoxious drama of low politics
were the Congress and the CPI-M, both of which are not part of
the Union Cabinet but would like to call the shots from their
respective party headquarters. The Congress and its president,
slighted as never before after the bulk of the party's
MLAs in Uttar Pradesh walked over to the enemy camp, held out
the threat of withdrawing support to the United Front unless the
Kalyan Singh government was sacked.
The CPI-M, of course, saw
this not as an issue of constitutional propriety, but of 'secularism
versus communalism.' The remaining partners in the United
Front were willing to appease Yadav, Kesri
and Comrade Surjeet, at least till the President returned the recommendation for invoking Article 356.
Ironically, the CPI-M, which makes such a fetish of ideology,
saw nothing wrong in taking recourse to abuse of Article 356,
conveniently forgetting how the party in West Bengal and Kerala
suffered during Indira Gandhi's days on account of repeated
imposition of President's rule in order to keep the Marxists out
of power.
That Comrade Surjeet, known for coming to the aid of
Congress presidents at their moments of crisis, and his blue-eyed
boy, Comrade Sitaram Yechury, the middle-aged hero of JNU's wane
revolutionaries, should have backed the untenable demand made
by Yadav and Kesri, indicates how far the CPI-M has travelled
from its ideological moorings. The separation between Marxist
politics and Marxist ideology would have been complete but for
the intervention of Jyoti Basu who, like Indrajit Gupta,
found the Cabinet's proposal absurd and unacceptable.
In a sense,
the CPI, through Gupta's signal act of standing by political
principles over political expediency, has redeemed itself while
the CPI-M, thanks to Comrade Surjeet and Comrade Yechury, has
covered itself with ignominy.
Conventional wisdom has it that nobody has gained from the entire
murky episode that marked a new low in Indian politics; that there
were no winners in this game of political brinkmanship that brought
Indian democracy dangerously close to being converted into autocratic
rule by a clutch of individuals who have been vaulted into positions
of power and authority that they do not deserve.
But this is not
entirely true; there is no doubt that the unabashed disregard
for democratic norms and constitutional provisions that was on
display from Sunday noon to Wednesday evening served to strengthen
the cynicism that has taken grip of the common Indian, but the
fact that right ultimately triumphed over wrong will go a long
way in lessening the burden of this cynicism.
At the end of the
day there are three clear winners: The President of the Republic
of India; the Constitution of the Republic of India; and, the
largest political party of the Republic of India.
K R Narayanan, in sharp contrast to the previous occupants
of Rashtrapati Bhavan, has demonstrated that the President can
act, if he so wants, in an independent manner and distance himself
from the party in power. By returning the Union Cabinet's recommendation
for the dismissal of the Kalyan Singh government, the dissolution
of the Uttar Pradesh assembly and the imposition of President's
rule, all on the basis of mendacious reports filed by Romesh
Bhandari, President Narayanan has shown that constitutional
propriety cannot be subverted to political expediency.
This is
the first time that instead of paving the way to central rule,
the President has proved to be an obstacle. Those who believe
in republican ideals and cherish democratic norms, will unhesitatingly
salute this man who, by this single act, has wiped out the tragic
history of Presidents being used as nothing more than rubber stamps
by unscrupulous Union governments.
With the collapse of various institutions that form the pillars
of a civil society over the past two decades, the people at large
had come to see the Constitution as nothing more than a book whose
rules are followed by those in authority and power more in the
breach than in practice. If the United Front had not allowed itself
to be reined in by the President's cautionary advice and persisted
with the dismissal of the Uttar Pradesh government, then this
view would have been further strengthened.
But the fact that the
Constitution has triumphed over politics will serve to reverse
this view: India cannot be so easily held hostage by a handful
of individuals. Gangsterism may be the way of life in Bombay's
underworld, but it cannot be replicated in the corridors of governance.
The BJP has gained on two fronts: First, it has at last mastered
the art of realpolitik and not allowed vacuous notions of 'political
integrity' to get the better of commonsense; and, second,
it has proved that the slogan of 'untouchability' is
just so much nonsense. The 'secular' Congress, as its
leaders have repeated ad nauseam, prided
itself from keeping away from the 'communal' BJP. So much so, Kesri
has unhesitatingly
declared from a public platform that if his party has to choose
between 'communalism' and 'corruption', it
would happily opt for the latter choice. That slogan of the Congress
today lies in a shambles: Kesri's colleagues in Uttar Pradesh
have preferred to go along with 'communalism' instead
of 'corruption'.
The losers in this episode are Kesri, Yadav
and, of course, Inder Kumar Gujral. Kesri is today a worried
man, spending sleepless nights wondering whether the Congress
Parliamentary Party could go the Uttar Pradesh Congress Legislative
Party way. After all, if what clinched the issue for the Congress
MLAs was the fact that they did not want to face a mid-term election
(more so with Kesri as the party president), the same consideration
would find many takers among Congress MPs.
Yadav has suffered a
tremendous loss of face among his constituents and party workers
among whom he had built up this image of a strongman who can have
his way on any issue by merely flexing his muscles and darkly
muttering a threat or two. These muscles have now shown to be
made of papier mache.
And Gujral, after his Race Course Road
tenancy comes to an end -- which it will sooner rather than later -- will
find it difficult to engage himself in debates on democracy, federalism
and other such issues in the exalted confines of the India International
Centre.
The IIC will not necessarily be worse off for that.
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