Fifth Column: Dark Corner of India

India Today
October 19, 1998

FIFTH COLUMN
Dark Corner of India

Laloo's bihar exemplifies how a self-obsessed ruler can ruin a state

Tavleen Singh

The Bihar fiasco came as an unexpected gift for the Opposition. Things have been difficult lately for the soldiers of "secularism". For a start, Atal Bihari Vajpayee's Government has been annoyingly "secular". If this weren't bad enough, there is the additional problem that it is actually showing signs of surviving for a full term. This could be bad news for the Congress because it would establish the existence of an alternative national party. It would be just as bad for the Yadavs and Marxists who coalesce around the Congress in secularism's fair name because if the BJP does not behave in suitably fascist fashion, what will they go to the people with the next time round?

Already, some of my secular friends are scrabbling for anything that could be put in the "fascist" category. When Sushma Swaraj had our phones singing Vande mataram to us around Independence Day, the Christian wife of a Muslim Congress leader informed me this was her idea of fascism. "You may as well have our phones saying Heil Hitler," she said angrily. Vande Mataram the exact equivalent of Heil Hitler? Really?

So nothing better could have happened from the viewpoint of our secular Opposition than the BJP Government recommending the dismissal of Rabri Devi's Government. It resulted in instant galvanisation. Laloo on TV, waving his arms about, shifting his tobacco menacingly from one side of his mouth to the other, threatening through it that the "peepool of Bihar bhill rise". Sonia Gandhi announcing in high moral tones that nothing more unconstitutional could have happened, conveniently forgetting the first time a government was dismissed unconstitutionally (and wrongly) was courtesy mummy-in-law. Many others followed.

Of course, we had the leftovers of the United Front in fine fettle. Everyone expressing noble sentiments about democracy and secularism and the injustice done to Laloo and Rabri, democracy's new hero and heroine. For a while it was beginning to look as if Laloo's prediction about the people rising was imminent. But then the President refused to accept the Government's proposal to dismiss the Bihar Government and Vajpayee was saved by the bell.

It was a stupid move in the first place. Rabri Devi is a joke chief minister. Everyone knows Bihar continues to be (dare we use the word) governed by Laloo and what is going on in the state is a terrible fraud on the people. The state Government faces charges of misappropriating Rs 2,870 crore of public money. When the courts have tried to intervene, the Government has ignored them so many times it faces an outrageous 1,200 cases of judicial contempt. Violence is rampant and thousands of government employees, including teachers, have gone without salaries for months.

If this is what the people want -- Rabri Devi proved it by winning the confidence of the Bihar assembly recently -- this is what the people deserve. It may be true that with 56 per cent of the population living below the poverty line and with the highest illiteracy rates in the country, Bihar's people may not really know what they want. But since they continue to vote for a government that deprives them of even minimum development, that is the sort of government they deserve. It is not for the Centre to intervene in the fashion it did but considerable good can come out of what happened if L.K. Advani is serious about initiating a debate on Article 356 of the Constitution which has been misused so flagrantly over the years.

The Home Ministry may find there is nobody on the other side to debate with. After the public beating of breasts that the Congress did on Rabri's behalf, its spokesmen are now quietly pointing out they do not want any change in Article 356. Ajit Jogi made it clear this past week that the party wanted the article to continue dealing with what he described as extraordinary situations. Nor did the Congress want the governor's post abolished.

In fact, nothing better could happen than for governors to disappear. Of all the administrative excesses we taxpayers pay for, this is one of the worst. The governor is, by and large, a functionary who does little more than cut ribbons and make boring speeches all year round. But we provide him with a palace to live in, a small army of domestic staff and also submit ourselves to the nuisance of putting up with his motorcade as we get shoved off city roads to let him pass.

Then, when there is "an extraordinary situation", the governor usually ends up behaving like a political agent for the Central government, invariably doing what he is asked to do and creating more trouble instead of less. I have often wondered why nobody has thought of abolishing the post altogether. The only conclusion I have been able to arrive at is that there would be nowhere to put ex-bureaucrats and ex-ministers to grass. Surely, they should quite simply be allowed to retire in a country as poor as ours.

The debate on Article 356 needs to go beyond governors. We ought to think whether we need a provision that allows Delhi to dismiss state governments. If there is a situation of insurgency, as we have seen in Kashmir, Punjab and the North-east, then the chief minister has full access to Central Government help. And if he becomes an insurgent or secessionist himself he is unlikely to retain the confidence of the assembly. So what are we doing with a constitutional provision that has nearly always been used wrongly?

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