The Usual Suspects

India Today
Nov 16, 1998

THE USUAL SUSPECTS
Those Ugly Rumours

Vajpayee can't be all things to all people

Swapan Dasgupta

Earlier this month Ugly Rumours by '60s radical Tariq Ali and playwright Howard Brenton opened in London. It is a political satire about a clash between a teflon Prime Minister Tony-Boy and his dour Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Macduff. Tony-Boy won power by discarding his party's long-cherished ideals and became a prisoner of sound- bites, upbeat slogans and the ghost of Margaret Thatcher. Macduff, who dreams of upstaging Tony-Boy, is on the other hand inspired by the ghost of a former leader desperate to avenge the betrayal of Old Labour.

In a week that has left the Government of India shaken by ugly rumours of a different kind -- of all things a shortage of salt -- the temptation to discover analogies is irresistible. Not that these hold entirely. The BJP is too intensely loyal to itself to entertain treacherous thoughts a la Macduff, even if the leader's thundering soundbites fail to move voters on November 25. If anything, saffron loyalists are probably taking heart from Bill Clinton who demonstrated last week that no election is lost until it is actually lost. Yet, deep down, the despondent Hindu army that dreamt of reinventing India has begun asking: what went wrong?

That something has gone wrong is undeniable. If incredible stories of salt shortages can create widespread panic, it signals that the credibility of the Government has touched rock bottom. There is a certain logic to the rumours: people believe what they want to believe. Today, a widespread belief is that the A.B. Vajpayee Government personifies ineptitude. There is no virulent backlash against the "hidden agenda" that sceptics spoke about with meaningful smiles during the general election. The only facet of the BJP programme that this Government upheld -- the nuclear blasts -- has been resoundingly endorsed by public opinion. Nor is there any widespread gripe about corruption, although the integrity of one or two ministers has been questioned in informed circles. At the same time, if a recent DRS opinion poll in eight metros is any guide, Home Minister L.K. Advani and Defence Minister George Fernandes enjoy performance ratings higher than the Government.

The poll is revealing. Advani and Fernandes are two ministers who have coupled job involvement with political clarity. This is where Vajpayee has faltered. The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) has not functioned as an effective nodal point of the Government. Its approach has been bureaucratic, ad-hoc and casual, a reason why it took a good 36 days for meaningful action to stem the onion crisis. There are also times when the PMO has conveyed an impression of being run as an extension of the dining table of 3 Race Course Road. This amateurishness has been compounded by Vajpayee's natural dilatoriness. Mamata Banerjee's resignation from the coordination committee was, for example, an outcome of letting a problem fester. Consequently, the Government has allowed the initiative to pass to a naturally obstructionist bureaucracy that thrives on political indecisiveness.

Like Tony-Boy looking to the ghost of an ideologically incompatible Thatcher for endorsement and alienating Old Labour, Vajpayee too got his priorities wrong. In trying to be all things to all people, he has left his own party dispirited and confused. In upholding continuity, he forgot he was elected to change things. No wonder the ancien regime is breathing more easily these days. Next month they may be laughing.

Issue Contents | Write to us | Subscriptions | Syndication