BY PRABHU CHAWLA

Demise of the Doctrine

Gujral jeopardises his position like other former PMs.

A friend-in-deal is a friend indeed. But not for India's donnish Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral. For this particular political deal between the prime minister and his trusted friend in the Congress party turned out to be a very bad bargain. When Congress President Sitaram Kesri failed miserably to bail out the United Front (UF) Government without extracting a heavy price, it was a classic case of a friend turning foe. Forced by the hawks in his faction-ridden party, Kesri finally turned the screws on the Government which he had not only sired but had also vowed to nurture.

It was a secret pact between former prime minister V.P. Singh and Kesri under which Gujral was anointed prime minister in May last after H.D. Deve Gowda was hounded out of office by the old-man-in-a-hurry. As long as this troika was working in tandem, it was smooth sailing for Gujral's Government. But six months later, when Gujral and Kesri chose to dump an honest broker and strike a new understanding, it boomeranged on both of them.

If the prime minister lost whatever little control he had over other UF constituents, Kesri was reduced to just a pawn in the hands of various factional leaders in his own party. But the predictable snapping of the cosy Congress-UF relationship has exposed the pathetic plight of all such prime ministers who demolish institutional frameworks to save their tottering governments.

Unfortunately, Gujral -- a man without a tainted past -- didn't prove the rule by being an exception. During the past four months, his has been a saga of compromises, capitulation and crafty convictions. By his novel political engineering the prime minister survived five crucial crises:

• Bowing to regional satraps by retaining all the ministers of the Deve Gowda government.
• Surrendering his prerogative when it came to choosing his own team and while allocating portfolios the only time he expanded his council of ministers.
• Letting Laloo Prasad Yadav split the Janata Dal, yet retaining the Rashtriya Janata Dal ministers in his Cabinet and delaying sanction to prosecute Laloo in the fodder scam.
• Backtracking on his own Cabinet decision to dismiss Kalyan Singh's Government in Uttar Pradesh.
• Confining the explosive Jain Commission report to the Home Ministry archives for over two months, and delaying permission to launch prosecution of former Congress ministers and pro-Congress civil servants.

Gujral could merrily indulge in this game of survival-at-any-cost because most of his ministers and allies were allowed to strike their own individual deals and pursue their own political agenda. When he took over as prime minister, Gujral asserted that he would strengthen the institutions of governance and ensure collective responsibility. But during the past six months, half of his ministers skirted many crucial cabinet meetings, ridiculed the prime minister in public and struck private deals even with their sworn enemies. In the end, it appears to be a case of the demise of the Gujral doctrine.

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