The Hindu : Too little, too late, Mr. Vajpayee

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Aug 26, 2002

Opinion

Opinion - News Analysis

Too little, too late, Mr. Vajpayee

By Supriya Roy Chowdhury

The Prime Minister's statement, criticising the Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi's outburst against the Chief Election Commissioner, could be interpreted as a voice of reason. Unfortunately, Mr. Vajpayee's response comes not only as too little too late, but, if one were to read between the lines, it is clearly a weak attempt at damage control, rather than a firm commitment to shifting the terms of political discourse.

Mr. Modi's utterances, linking the CEC's evaluations to the fact that he is a Christian, are of course notably obnoxious. But, Mr. Modi's statements are surely not out of character. In the course of a political campaign, he has expectedly attacked the CEC for refusing to recommend early elections in Gujarat. In this sense, what he has done is not starkly different from the kind of statements that were given by other BJP members, for example, Arun Jaitley, in response to the CEC's critical comments in Gujarat. Mr. Jaitley, it will be remembered, had stated that the CEC should stick to his own mandate, implying clearly that the CEC was going beyond his jurisdiction in criticising the inadequacy of the rehabilitation program for the riot victims in Gujarat. In this context, Mr. Jaitley had asserted strenuously that elections have been held in the past under similar circumstances, and were now going to be conducted in Jammu and Kashmir. As such, the riots were no ground for deferring elections in Gujarat. Mr. Modi's reference to Mr. Lyngdoh's religious affiliation brings out the underside of the BJP's political culture, but nothing more.

The Prime Minister has criticised Mr. Modi's unrestrained attack. But, the crux of the matter is that Mr. Vajpayee sees fit to uphold Mr. Modi's desire to conduct elections sooner rather than later in riot-torn Gujarat. Mr. Vajpayee, instead of accepting the CEC's report on Gujarat, has referred it to the Supreme Court. Thus, the BJP wishes to define in terms of a Constitutional debate, what is fundamentally a question of human justice. The writers of the Constitution could not have foreseen a situation such as the one prevailing in Gujarat at present. It is, therefore, not a question of a Constitutional debate whether elections can be deferred beyond six months after the dissolution of Assembly, but whether elections can be held in a context where thousands of Muslims are languishing in rehabilitation camps. Mr. Vajpayee, however, has taken recourse to the path of Constitutional nitty-gritty, in an obvious effort to salvage the possibility of elections on Gujarat despite the objections raised by the CEC.

The question, ultimately, is not whether elections will be held or not, but the complete disjuncture between truth and politics which the ruling party's posture on this question represents. In the public mind, there is no illusion that politics is about truth. In fact, it is all about falsehood, telling lies, acting out great deceptions, and success being measured in terms of whether you are able to carry the public with you or not along with your falsehood. But, the BJP's posture over the Gujarat elections possibly measures a certain uncharted distance in the exercise of untruth by politicians. For here is a case of a complete lie being told and retold, and being acted upon, by a Government to a nation, to its political allies and opponents, to institutions of the highest authority within a democratic system, such as the Election Commission, and the Supreme Court. The lie, very simply, is to support Mr. Modi's contention that the situation in post-riot Gujarat has been brought back to normal such that Assembly elections can be conducted in the State.

In refusing to accept the CEC report and referring it to the Supreme Court, the Prime Minister continues with his party's persistent refusal to acknowledge the truth about Gujarat. Implicit in this, also, is the refusal to recognise the need for dialogue with groups and institutions which have mounted a sustained criticism of the Modi Government's role in Gujarat. It is this broad context which makes the Prime Minister's public ticking off of Mr. Modi for the latter's verbal excesses resoundingly hollow. There is no attempt here to substantively affirm the legitimate authority of an institution such as the Election Commission over narrow, communalised political interests such as that represented by Mr. Modi's Government.

For clearly, the Prime Minister is admonishing the language, not the spirit, of the Gujarat Chief Minister's attack on the CEC. The Prime Minister would only like to cut down on confrontational language between his Government and the CEC. But what about the unbridgeable distance between the Government on the one hand, and institutions such as the Election Commission, the National Human Rights Commission, the Opposition parties, and the larger civil society on the other, where the question of Gujarat is concerned?

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Too little, too late, Mr. Vajpayee