The Hindu : Opinion / Leader Page Articles : The Centre must hold

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Sep 01, 2004

Opinion

Opinion - Leader Page Articles

The Centre must hold

By Harish Khare

The Manmohan Singh Government should not allow itself to be swept off its feet by the frivolous public discourse.

THE FIRST real good news in over hundred days. The Prime Minister of India is no pushover. Heartening, indeed. Incredulous though it may sound that Manmohan Singh was rude to George Fernandes and showed the National Democratic Alliance delegation the door in two-and-a-half minutes flat, the allegation itself is to be welcomed if the country gets to see this gentle person as a man occasionally capable of ticking off someone. By overstating their ill-advised encounter with the Prime Minister, the NDA leaders have done Dr. Singh a great favour, proving wrong the critics who said he was more gentle than was good for the country. But it is not simply a matter of manners. Just when it looked like — to borrow the words of W.B. Yeats — "the worst are full of passionate intensity" and "the best lack all convictions," the NDA's allegation is a reassuring sign that after all, some convictions and some kind of indignation are still in play.

If to the Opposition's cultivated cantankerousness these hundred days we add the pettiness displayed during the Lok Sabha campaign, it is obvious that a sizeable section of the political class is not prepared to play by the rules of the game. Leaders who till 100 days ago used to preach the virtues of moderation and reasonableness from the official podium have now cheerfully taken to the streets. Confrontation, agitation, struggle, dharna, drama, and political rowdiness are all pursued with passionate intensity. Take for instance Manohar Joshi. A man who till the other day was presiding over the Lok Sabha and had to be addressed as "Hon'ble Speaker" is now seen armed with a chappal, gleefully waiting his turn to administer a beating to an effigy.

Yet those who find themselves invested with the authority to govern have an obligation to see to it that the Centre holds. The business of governance cannot be put off; there can be no vacuum at the Centre. Admittedly, the task has never been easy but it has now to be carried out in an increasingly unhelpful atmosphere, at home and abroad. Governance has become even more burdensome because a deeply divided political class has abetted a perverse culture of public discourse. This discourse is mindlessly cranked up and sustained by sections of the media that have long squandered their capacity to distinguish between right and wrong, between the moral and the immoral, between decency and indecency in public sphere.

This new culture of public discourse demands that the "authority" give in to every demand — be it a morally defensible one by the Manipuri agitators that a draconian law be repealed or by the Iraqi kidnappers out for a ransom or by truckers who do not want to pay any taxes. In this new culture, anyone who provides footage or quotes or bytes is, ipso facto, entitled to sympathy and understanding. The new culture invokes grand principles of transparency, the public's right to know, objectivity, and fair play; in return, the public is gratuitously treated to nuggets of controversy and confrontation. What is more, everyone gets reduced to the same level of moral disrepute. The Foreign Minister of India must be castigated because he had the courage to say publicly that the Iraqi kidnappers are demanding ransom; those in authority are invariably deemed to be wrong, and those who take liberties with law and lives are treated with consideration and understanding.

As a historical rule, those who find themselves having to wield authority at the Centre invariably inherit a matrix of happy and unhappy equations: insurgents, militants, naxalites, secessionists, jihadis, foreign powers, nervous neighbours, greedy global bankers and speculators, globally-linked criminals and smugglers, all out to make distracting demands on national attention and resources. Then there are any number of domestic players who have demands against the Centre. Each one of these demand-makers, domestic or foreign, makes his or her own calculation about the Centre's capacity or incapacity to deal effectively and efficaciously with difficult customers. Those who assess the Centre to be weak or incapacitated move in with artillery.

After 100 days, it is therefore time to recoup the lost momentum and the sense of élan. The governing regime in New Delhi gets defined by a number of relationships: the Prime Minister and his Cabinet; the party and the Government; the internal dynamics within the coalition; the equation between the Centre and the States; and the nature of interaction between the Executive and the Judiciary. On all these counts, the ruling arrangement at the Centre appears essentially stable and firm; nor are there any insurmountable impediments.

The only thing needed is that the Manmohan Singh Government should not allow itself to be swept off its feet by the frivolous public discourse.

A checklist of the state of equations proves the point. First, in the best of parliamentary times, a Prime Minister must be seen as the master of his own Cabinet. But this is a rather tall order in a coalition government and Dr. Singh is no exception to the rule. His predecessor, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, was never the total master of high government. In the very beginning (1998), he was not allowed to have the Finance Minister of his choice (Jaswant Singh) and towards the end of his innings it was the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh that was dictating to him whom he must have as his deputy. And Bal Thackeray was putting in and taking out Shiv Sena nominees from the Union Cabinet on a whim.

Mamata Banerjee was mostly going out, that is when she was not going in. And Mr. Vajpayee too had his share of controversial Ministers and aides. Buta Singh, the Communications Minister, had to leave within weeks; and Pramod Mahajan had to be told to be quiet.

So far, the Manmohan Singh Government has been a relatively stable arrangement. There is no Number One-Number Two schism, despite an attempt to prop up this or that person as Number Two. The allies have behaved responsibly, with the Left parties providing wholesome support from outside.

The critics have naturally sought to raise doubts about the Prime Minister's relationship with the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi. This line of contention is eminently attractive to those who had long argued that "Sonia is not acceptable as Prime Minister" but who now find themselves deprived of a potent argument. They want to maintain the fiction of Sonia Gandhi as the real and extra constitutional authority behind the Government.

Secondly, the government-party relationship. After the recent AICC session, the Congress leaders can be said to have begun to come to terms with the idea that the Prime Minister need not be the party boss or vice versa. Ms. Gandhi, on her part, has gone out of her way to signal to one and all that she wants every Congressman to accord Dr. Singh the respect and deference he deserves as Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister has dealt candidly, honestly and decently with the coalition partners. The United Progressive Alliance partners as also the Left parties have come to develop a respect for Dr. Singh. In fact, the Manmohan Singh Government is in the same happy position as was the Vajpayee Government after 1999 insofar as that except the Telugu Desam Party, none of the coalition partners had the numbers to bring the Government down.

The federal equation is reasonably balanced. After the Supreme Court has virtually read out the riot act to the Modi Government, the message is clear to all State Governments that whatever their political affiliations, they must perform the raj dharma. By changing the blatantly pro-RSS Governors, the Centre has served notice that it will not be a silent observer if a State Government does not live up to its constitutional obligation. Political differences between the Centre and the States need not necessarily lead to a constitutional standoff.

Last, the Executive-Judiciary equation. This is a crucial relationship in the making or unmaking of the Centre. Over the years, the Judiciary at various levels has had its moments when it has been tempted to overplay its hand. This tendency could become much more pronounced in an atmosphere where the political class at the highest level continues to bring by its deeds and words collective disrepute to itself.

The political fundamentals are sound. Competence in administrative performance and integrity in personal conduct become the key to enhancing the collective capacity for political management, in spite of a corrosive discourse. The Centre has to shut out the cant and slogan of the hour and instead work out its convictions. Democracies generate a lot of noise but the din cannot be allowed to drown the substance of democracy and governance.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Opinion

News Update

Stories in this Section

WHAT'S NEW IN TRADE POLICY?

THIS IS PARADISE?

The Centre must hold

Threat to historic sites

Uma Bharti's case

Kerala politics

Opposition & Parliament

Appalling

The Olympics