The Hindu : Does mere survival mean good governance?

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Oct 16, 2002

Opinion

Opinion - News Analysis

Does mere survival mean good governance?

By Inder Malhotra

For the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance Government in New Delhi, headed by Atal Behari Vajpayee, to have survived for three years is quite an achievement in itself. No non-Congress Government so far — there have been as many as nine of them over the last quarter of a century, with the Congress having had a monopoly on power at the Centre until 1977 — has managed to last that long.

Not even the Janata Government led by Morarji Desai that rode to power on the crest of the anti-Emergency tidal wave, amidst phenomenal goodwill and with a comfortable majority in the Lok Sabha. It collapsed ignominiously in less than 28 months. Charan Singh who toppled Desai and thus fulfilled his "life's ambition" to be Prime Minister — ironically, through an unspeakably crass deal with Indira Gandhi — could not face Parliament even for a single day. The way was thus clear for her spectacular return to power. Between them, she and her son Rajiv Gandhi ruled for another decade.

Rajiv Gandhi's staggering victory in 1984 was followed by his expected defeat five years later. Even so, renewed hopes for a stable non-Congress coalition were dashed to the ground by the then Prime Minister, V.P. Singh, in 11 months flat. Chandra Shekhar's subsequent Government — propped up by Rajiv Gandhi— lasted precisely 120 days.

Rajiv Gandhi's assassination in the middle of the 1991 elections enabled the Congress, under P.V. Narasimha Rao's leadership, to form a minority Government. Though seemingly ineffectual, he skilfully kept it afloat for a full five years. Some of the unorthodox means he employed landed him in trouble later, but that's a different story.

Mr. Rao lost the 1996 poll. Mr. Vajpayee was appointed Prime Minister for the first time. But his Government turned out to be a 13-day wonder. The United Front Government, under the leadership of H.D. Deve Gowda first and then under Inder Kumar Gujral, could drag on for barely 18 months. Mr. Vajpayee was Prime Minister again, but his second Government fell in 13 months for want of a single vote in the Lok Sabha.

Now, barring some utterly unexpected development, Atalji looks like matching Mr. Rao's record of being the only Prime Minister not belonging to the Nehru-Gandhi family to have completed his full tenure. To be sure, some unruly sections of the Sangh Parivar have been attacking Mr. Vajpayee intemperately. But even these hotheads cannot be so mad as to destroy the greatest asset the BJP-led Government has.

However, the key question is whether mere survival for five years plus is enough. What have the Vajpayee Government and the party supposedly "with a difference" to show for themselves?

A hell of a lot, according to the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, who initiated the third anniversary celebrations at a press conference held only seven hours before the Prime Minister's return home from London. To some of the BJP's habitual critics, this is an indication of the continuing power struggle within the Parivar, but the conclusion is unfair. Atalji was landing at Palam rather late at night. For a party that returned to power on October 13, 1999, it was surely important to have some festivity on that very day. Moreover, Mr. Advani took care to pay due obeisance to the Prime Minister and even repeat the pro forma statement that Mr. Vajpayee would be the BJP's prime ministerial candidate in the Lok Sabha elections due in 2004.

Mr. Advani's claims about the country's rapid strides during the last three years in all fields — from foreign policy and security to food production and infrastructure — may be exaggerated but are not baseless. Unfortunately, on all of them falls the shadow. What is the point, for instance, in having about 60 million tonnes of grain in the Government's godowns (much of the stock, being eaten by rats, pilfered or rotting) when millions of children go to sleep hungry? A five per cent growth in the GDP and soaring foreign reserves are doubtless impressive in an era of global economic slowdown. But they are cold comfort to the populace tormented by rising prices and declining employment.

As for security and foreign policy, why is it necessary for the Prime Minister to lament — at a gathering of NRIs, not Englishmen, in London — that the Western countries are adopting "doubling standards" about terrorism troubling them and that afflicting India?

To have held free and fair elections in Kashmir is surely a feather in the BJP's cap. But negative entries in the balance sheet are appalling. These include the shame of Gujarat, the disgraceful string of scams and the comprehensive degeneration of governance so cruelly advertised by the Indian state's impotence in the face of a measly forest brigand named Veerappan.

Is it purely coincidental that since 1999 the BJP has not won a single election, its marginal victory in the Goa Assembly poll being of no consequence? Its rout in its bastion of Jammu has a message that is loud and clear and cannot be drowned in the drumbeat of the third anniversary jubilation.

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