Columns: Fifth Column

Columns

India Today, April 26, 1999
April 26, 1999

FIFTH COLUMN
Two Ladies and Their Mess

In India to be in Opposition means to be irresponsible

By Tavleen Singh

It must be bad karma. What other explanation can there be for the fact that it is ordinary Indians -- you and I -- who continue to pay through our noses for the antics and ambitions of our political leaders. On the stock market alone, the cost of Jayalalitha's "political earthquake" is estimated at Rs 40,000 crore. This money belonged to average, nameless Indians who must have invested post-budget when they saw hope in the markets after five gloomy years. Had Dr Jayaram not decided, overnight, that she had wasted a year supporting a useless government, this money would not have been lost. And it is only a small fraction of the damage she has done.

There has been virtually no work in Central government offices since Dr JJ last rumbled into Delhi with menace in her eyes and dark plots in her head. No sooner had she and Sonia sipped tea together and smiled for the cameras than bureaucrats went scurrying off to their offices to pack things up. They are by nature a nervous breed and have become particularly jittery since governments started falling once a year. One senior official confided, "We are prepared for the Government to fall. We have no pending files in our office."

This was before Dr Jayaram indicated she had definite plans to withdraw support to Atal Bihari Vajpayee's fragile coalition. So the Government of India, despite Agni-II, has been at a virtual standstill since the week of the tea parties. We cannot even begin to quantify the cost of that. Instead of governance we have had politics. And politics of such a shameless kind that it isn't at all surprising most polls indicate a majority of Indians do not think it is right for Vajpayee's Government to fall. In the old days, the worst of our political leaders would try and cover naked ambition and hunger for power in fine words. In recent times the fashionable word has been "secularism".

This time, please note, even self-righteous Marxists like Harkishan Singh Surjeet have not bothered to clothe their actions. They have made it clear that as far as they are concerned all they want is the BJP-led coalition out of power and another government in its place. Occasionally, Mulayam and Laloo Yadav have mumbled the word "secular" and Subramanian Swamy even dared say that what we are seeing is a fight against "fascism". But he looked embarrassed saying it.

It's just as well that we do not have to listen to any more rubbish about ideals and ideology because it should be clear to everyone that the power game we have seen played out this time in Delhi is an ugly and evil one. It is a game that has served mainly to politically destabilise the country at a time when even the budget hasn't been passed by Parliament.

And its amorality lies in the fact that behind the game lies nothing noble or exalted but only the naked ambition of two women: Jayalalitha and Sonia Gandhi. Both have been behaving for several months as if they were prime minister already. And the reason why they have been behaving this way is because both appear to believe the job is within reach.

While Jayalalitha has made little attempt to hide her ambitions, Sonia has made every effort possible to publicly distance herself from the toppling game. She has continued to iterate though that if the Government fell of its own accord, then the Congress -- like a knight in shining armour -- would take over the "responsibility" of running India.

Funny, isn't it, how our politicians continue to think we can be fooled all the time? Funny how in the world of illusions in which they live and hatch plots they are no longer able to see the anger in the eyes of "the people" or notice that even reality has for them become only an illusion.

If Jayalalitha were not deluded she would have noticed she is completely unacceptable as prime minister, whether she comes to Delhi with 48 suitcases and stays in the presidential suite of the Maurya Sheraton or not. And if Sonia were not deluded she would have noticed everyone sees through her game. Even the most naive voter knows Jayalalitha would not have made the smallest move if she had not been assured Congress support.

On the surface there has been all that talk about behaving like a responsible opposition party and not being "hungry for power". But behind the scenes there have been endless meetings between the Congress and the likes of Swamy. Contacts between senior Congress leaders (including the new Mrs G herself) and the two Yadavs and the Marxists have also been nurtured.

If plans to form an alternative government did not fructify earlier it was mainly because, even with Jayalalitha and her18 MPs, the numbers were simply not working out. They may not work out even now, in which case we will see the usual MP meat market. Already we have seen formerly faceless MPs suddenly appearing on television to indicate they were unhappy with the BJP but did not want mid-term elections and so would be happy to participate in another government. You don't need me to tell you what that means.

So where does all this leave us? In a bad way. Even if we end up having another general election before the year is out, we are unlikely to see a clear mandate. If it's the Congress that ends up forming the government, the BJP will behave as irresponsibly in opposition as the Congress has. And so we will carry on and on until we realise that -- whatever the constitutional changes required -- we can no longer afford to have governments that don't have minimum fixed terms. Then perhaps we will get governance rather than politics.

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