Sitting On The Fence

Poor Deve Gowda! They mocked him as the sleeping prime minister merely because at a couple of public functions, clever lensmen had caught him napping. No one gave him any quarter as he volunteered the explanation that he invariably worked 22 hours a day in the service of the nation. Gowda was soon sent packing, not for sleeping in public but for working with his eyes fully open to fix his potential fixers. In the event, the Congress president was quicker on the draw. Sitaram Kesri got him out before Gowda could land him in trouble on account of the many investigations against him and his party.

 

Those who had sniggered at the unprepossessing Gowda were delighted when a thorough city-bred like I K Gujral took over. Never mind that Gujral had no constituency of his own. Never mind too that he got the prime ministers job not for being the most powerful leader among the motley crowd of mutually antagonistic United Front chieftains but for being the weakest among them. For opinion makers, what seemed to matter most was that he was a good man, a gentleman and therefore ideal to lead the nation.

The widespread relief in the cities at Gujrals enthroning could only be explained by the general disgust with the entire political class. Gujral, the dominant media and the class it represented hoped, would be different. Why? Because he was one of us. He was happy speaking their language, ate with fork and knife instead of using his fingers and supposedly had no whiff of scandal about him. In short, his credentials for ruling India were first-rate.

The chattering classes were, of course, in for a shock. In their naivete yet again they had persuaded themselves that Gujral filled the bill to the hilt, especially in comparison to Gowda. But little did they reckon that not long ago virtually the entire nation had gone overboard over the anointment of another member of the urban elite Rajiv Gandhi, the original Mr Clean, and the darling of the media. There was nary a discordant voice when the Doon School educated scion of the Gandhi family first took over the reins of the nation. We know what a disaster he turned out to be. He too had promised to lead the country into the twenty-first century on an inspiring charter of clean and orderly public life.

Gujral, of the Nehruvian visionary speak, may have already given enough notice that he will be the real sleeping prime minister. Unlike Gowda, who merely enjoyed an involuntary shuteye, Gujral, the most famous India International Centre alumnus, may have consciously chosen to sleep through the myriad problems confronting the nation. He is already proving to be a prisoner of indecision. For, he is putty in the hands of minor league players of the UF. The retention of virtually the same council of ministers which Kesri had rubbished in his chargesheet to the President was one of the early signs of his weakness.

The la affaire Bhabani Sengupta has laid bare Gujrals flawed character. He was unable or unwilling to defend his convictions. He brought up front from behind the shadows a controversial academic who had done much to fashion what passes for the Gujral doctrine. And at the first sign of motivated resistance by the critics, he crumbled. Since his short-lived appointment in the PMO, the press may have declared an open season on Sengupta. But Gujral emerged from the fiasco equally bruised.

In the process, one of the cardinal principles of the Westminster model of governance might have been jeopardised. For Gujral surrendered, first, his prerogative to choose his own ministerial team, and now, to appoint an aide in his own office. It was not as if he was inflicting an outside expert on another minister. The prime minister wanted Sengupta close on hand to monitor the conduct of Indias diplomacy, even as he engaged himself in keeping the tottering coalition in working order. It would have been truly in the fitness of things had Sengupta been allowed to occupy his high perch in the PMO, for he was widely credited to be the real author of the Gujral doctrine.

Alas, the Gujral doctrine is now being extended to the domestic sphere too. So we have the prime minister issuing post-haste clarifications that not a word escaped from his lips about the Bihar chief ministers arraignment by the CBI in the Rs 950 crore fodder scam, when the hapless state governor A R Kidwai called on him recently. Ditto for his meeting with the CBI chief.

All these are ominous signs of a prime minister who might have decided that inaction is the best policy for his survival. He has chosen to sit on his hands for fear of annoying the various leaders of the Front or of the Congress. How pitiable indeed is the Gujral governments condition can be gauged from the fact that the law minister, Ramakant Khalap, had to rush to Kesri to explain that they had nothing to do with selective leaks in the press about the CBI investigations in the Bofors case. Clearly, the real cause of the Congress ire was that the CBI had found evidence of wrong-doing against Rajiv Gandhi.

Some brief points can be made here. One, 50 years after Indias tryst with freedom, democratic spirit has trickled down to the people. In our system of adult franchise it is only natural that the great unwashed majority asserted its right to master its own destiny. Two, and more important, seemingly good people do not necessarily make good prime ministers. The elite should come to terms with the post-Mandal, post-Mandir reality. Gujral is an aberration of the system and not its true product. Therefore, he would go down in history as the do-nothing prime minister. Its time the elite stopped clutching at straws.