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Muslims can change the destiny of governments, and so can the President

"The role played by some distinguished members of Parliament amply demonstrates that minorities (read Muslims) can, if they are determined, change the destiny of governments... We have before us the Congress president's intensified programme for minorities issued this year in February and will be eagerly looking forward to its translation into concrete and fruitful action..." That is Mian Tahir Mahmood, chairman of the National Commission for Minorities, gloating over the fall of Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee's government on Saturday, April 17.

Mian Tahir Mahmood, obviously, was referring to Mian Saifuddin Soz's vote against the government which gave the Opposition its crucial one-vote victory margin. Had Mian Saifuddin Soz not violated the whip issued by his party, the National Conference, then Mr Vajpayee would have still been the prime minister and Ms Sonia Gandhi nee Maino would have had egg on her face. But Mian Saifuddin Soz is not a man who believes in principles or party whips; his loyalty does not lie with the National Conference, but with the Islamists of Kashmir and beyond for whom the fall of Mr Vajpayee's government was an occasion to dance on the streets. Indeed, he justified his action by saying that a vote for Mr Vajpayee's government would have upset "predominantly Muslim Kashmir".

Therefore, Mian Tahir Mahmood has reason to celebrate. And he is not wrong when he says "minorities can, if they are determined, change the destiny of governments". Having changed the destiny of this nation in 1947, it is not surprising that Muslims should now seek to change the "destiny" of governments. But he is not entirely correct in giving full credit to Muslims for throwing India into a political and economic crisis of unparalleled magnitude. Nor has he brought credit to Muslims by attributing success in pulling down Mr Vajpayee's government to them. But we shall let that pass for the moment.

In all fairness, Mian Tahir Mahmood should share credit for pulling down Mr Vajpayee's Government with Selvi J Jayalalitha alias AIADMK, Ms Mayawati of the Bahujan Samaj Party, Ms Sonia Gandhi nee Maino of the Congress, Comrade Harkishen Singh Surjeet of the CPI-M and the Yadav warlords of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh -- Laloo Prasad Yadav and Mulayam Singh Yadav.

Parliamentary records of Friday, April 16, will show what Ms Mayawati said that evening -- that she and the four other BSP MPs would abstain from voting on the confidence motion. Since you are not expected to lie through your teeth on the floor of the House -- if you do, you are guilty of misleading the House, an offence for which you are guilty of breach of privilege -- her word was accepted in good faith. Everybody knows that on Saturday, April 17, she voted against the motion, thus proving that she had lied to Parliament the previous day.

What is not known to people is that at 2 am on Saturday morning, when word came through that Ms Mayawati and her mentor, Mr Kanshi Ram, were on the verge of striking a deal, or had already struck a deal, with Ms Sonia Gandhi nee Maino, BJP managers had contacted one of her MPs, Mian Arif Mohammed Khan, to get a confirmation. Mian Arif Mohammed Khan, who has just returned from Mecca after performing Haj and prefers that the prefix Haji should be added to his name -- he has travelled a long way from the days of his vocal opposition to the Muslim Women's Bill which contributed to his break with Ms Sonia Gandhi nee Maino's dear departed husband, Rajiv Gandhi -- told the BJP interlocutor: "I am a Haji... I won't lie... Main Haj ki kasam khaata hoon, hamara stand wahi rahega...(I swear by Haj that our stand will remain the same.)" At 10.25 am, Mr Kanshi Ram spoke to Mr Vajpayee on the telephone and reiterated his party's decision to abstain from voting.

Now of course, we have heard Ms Mayawati justifying the reversal of her declared stand. And Haji Arif Mohammed Khan is busy telling people how he is inundated by messages from Muslim organisations congratulating him for bringing down Mr Vapayee's government. So much for Haj ki kasam and about Hajis not telling lies.

Then there is Ms Sonia Gandhi nee Maino -- her contribution to the fall of the government needs to be recorded. At Pachmarhi, she had declared that the Congress would accept the verdict of 1998, that it would bide its time in the Opposition, that the party would go it alone. All that has now been thrown into the trash can of Indian politics. The Congress had derided regional parties in its 1998 Election Manifesto in downright derogatory words: "By their very nature, regional parties lack a national perspective and can never rise above local ethnic considerations... They incite narrow linguistic or ethnic sentiments... In the event of a conflict between national and regional or local interest, regional parties will choose the latter to the detriment of India..."

The Congress today is more than willing to collaborate with these regional parties in its effort to grab power without securing the people's mandate. As a result, we are witnessing the strangest of cohabitation. The CPI-M had denounced the Congress as a party of "poisonous creatures-snakes, scorpions, centipedes, blood sucking leeches and what not" who "have trooped out into the country's political world." Today, Comrade Surjeet and Comrade Jyoti Basu are in bed with the same "snakes, scorpions, centipedes, blood sucking leeches," exerting to procreate an illegitimate government.

No less amazing is that Ms Sonia Gandhi nee Maino should have forgotten what Selvi Jayalalitha had to say about her only a year and four months ago: "If she (Sonia) tries to become prime minister, we will oppose it tooth and nail. It is only in India that such an aberration can be thought of and it is shameful. The AIADMK will never accept a foreigner as prime minister." Today, Selvi Jayalalitha is rooting for that "foreigner" to take over as prime minister of India.

And what about the "foreigner" herself? When her dear departed husband told her that he was taking over as prime minister (Mrs Indira Gandhi's bullet-riddled body was lying in the adjacent room), she had clung to him and whimpered, "I would rather have my children beg on the streets than you join politics." Today, she is the chief instigator of the political turmoil unleashed in India; indeed, she is the pretender to the masnad of India.

The largest share of credit, however, should go to the present occupant of Rashtrapati Bhavan, Mr K R Narayanan. Had it not been for his initiative in asking Mr Vajpayee to seek a confidence vote, India would have been spared the agony of political and economic instability and the ignominy of being shown up as a fragile democracy yet to master the art of parliamentary governance.

Interestingly, about three weeks ago, the Prime Minister's Office had forwarded to Rashtrapati Bhavan a file seeking the President's approval to prosecute Madhavsinh Solanki for his role in the Bofors payoff scandal. Solanki, as Foreign Minister in P V Narasimha Rao's Congress government, had carried a mysterious letter to Switzerland, directing the Swiss authorities to stop investigating the Bofors bribery case. That file still sits pretty on the President's desk.

Could it be entirely coincidental that the game to topple Mr Vajpayee's government should have started around the same time?

Kanchan Gupta is a political analyst based at the Bharatiya Janata Party headquarters in Delhi and editor of the party's official organ, BJP Today.

Kanchan Gupta