Commentary/Kanchan Gupta

Yes, There Are Victors In This Battle For Uttar Pradesh

Nothing highlighted the crass manner in which the United Front government, at the goading of a reckless politician who passes by the name of Mulayam Singh Yadav and a duffer called Sitaram Kesri who at the fag end of his life has managed to grab the remains of the Congress, tried to defile the Constitution by showering contempt on the legislature of Uttar Pradesh, disowning its own commitments to the people and recklessly disregarding legal opinion as recorded in the famous Bommai case judgment, than Comrade Harkishen Singh Surjeet calling up the prime minister from Canada and insisting that the Kalyan Singh government should be dismissed in order to save 'secularism.'

The debate in the Union Cabinet, which stretched over several hours and numerous sessions, was essentially between those who were baying for the blood of democratic norms and conventions on the one hand, and one individual who was appalled by the very thought of such blatant misuse of that much-abused provision of the Constitution, Article 356. The former comprised Mulayam Singh Yadav and Beni Prasad Verma; the latter was Indrajit Gupta who, during the four days that shook the nation's conscience, stood like Casablanca, refusing to give into the threats and worse of the former.

The two other players in this obnoxious drama of low politics were the Congress and the CPI-M, both of which are not part of the Union Cabinet but would like to call the shots from their respective party headquarters. The Congress and its president, slighted as never before after the bulk of the party's MLAs in Uttar Pradesh walked over to the enemy camp, held out the threat of withdrawing support to the United Front unless the Kalyan Singh government was sacked.

The CPI-M, of course, saw this not as an issue of constitutional propriety, but of 'secularism versus communalism.' The remaining partners in the United Front were willing to appease Yadav, Kesri and Comrade Surjeet, at least till the President returned the recommendation for invoking Article 356.

Ironically, the CPI-M, which makes such a fetish of ideology, saw nothing wrong in taking recourse to abuse of Article 356, conveniently forgetting how the party in West Bengal and Kerala suffered during Indira Gandhi's days on account of repeated imposition of President's rule in order to keep the Marxists out of power.

That Comrade Surjeet, known for coming to the aid of Congress presidents at their moments of crisis, and his blue-eyed boy, Comrade Sitaram Yechury, the middle-aged hero of JNU's wane revolutionaries, should have backed the untenable demand made by Yadav and Kesri, indicates how far the CPI-M has travelled from its ideological moorings. The separation between Marxist politics and Marxist ideology would have been complete but for the intervention of Jyoti Basu who, like Indrajit Gupta, found the Cabinet's proposal absurd and unacceptable.

In a sense, the CPI, through Gupta's signal act of standing by political principles over political expediency, has redeemed itself while the CPI-M, thanks to Comrade Surjeet and Comrade Yechury, has covered itself with ignominy.

Conventional wisdom has it that nobody has gained from the entire murky episode that marked a new low in Indian politics; that there were no winners in this game of political brinkmanship that brought Indian democracy dangerously close to being converted into autocratic rule by a clutch of individuals who have been vaulted into positions of power and authority that they do not deserve.

But this is not entirely true; there is no doubt that the unabashed disregard for democratic norms and constitutional provisions that was on display from Sunday noon to Wednesday evening served to strengthen the cynicism that has taken grip of the common Indian, but the fact that right ultimately triumphed over wrong will go a long way in lessening the burden of this cynicism.

At the end of the day there are three clear winners: The President of the Republic of India; the Constitution of the Republic of India; and, the largest political party of the Republic of India.

K R Narayanan, in sharp contrast to the previous occupants of Rashtrapati Bhavan, has demonstrated that the President can act, if he so wants, in an independent manner and distance himself from the party in power. By returning the Union Cabinet's recommendation for the dismissal of the Kalyan Singh government, the dissolution of the Uttar Pradesh assembly and the imposition of President's rule, all on the basis of mendacious reports filed by Romesh Bhandari, President Narayanan has shown that constitutional propriety cannot be subverted to political expediency.

This is the first time that instead of paving the way to central rule, the President has proved to be an obstacle. Those who believe in republican ideals and cherish democratic norms, will unhesitatingly salute this man who, by this single act, has wiped out the tragic history of Presidents being used as nothing more than rubber stamps by unscrupulous Union governments.

With the collapse of various institutions that form the pillars of a civil society over the past two decades, the people at large had come to see the Constitution as nothing more than a book whose rules are followed by those in authority and power more in the breach than in practice. If the United Front had not allowed itself to be reined in by the President's cautionary advice and persisted with the dismissal of the Uttar Pradesh government, then this view would have been further strengthened.

But the fact that the Constitution has triumphed over politics will serve to reverse this view: India cannot be so easily held hostage by a handful of individuals. Gangsterism may be the way of life in Bombay's underworld, but it cannot be replicated in the corridors of governance.

The BJP has gained on two fronts: First, it has at last mastered the art of realpolitik and not allowed vacuous notions of 'political integrity' to get the better of commonsense; and, second, it has proved that the slogan of 'untouchability' is just so much nonsense. The 'secular' Congress, as its leaders have repeated ad nauseam, prided itself from keeping away from the 'communal' BJP. So much so, Kesri has unhesitatingly declared from a public platform that if his party has to choose between 'communalism' and 'corruption', it would happily opt for the latter choice. That slogan of the Congress today lies in a shambles: Kesri's colleagues in Uttar Pradesh have preferred to go along with 'communalism' instead of 'corruption'.

The losers in this episode are Kesri, Yadav and, of course, Inder Kumar Gujral. Kesri is today a worried man, spending sleepless nights wondering whether the Congress Parliamentary Party could go the Uttar Pradesh Congress Legislative Party way. After all, if what clinched the issue for the Congress MLAs was the fact that they did not want to face a mid-term election (more so with Kesri as the party president), the same consideration would find many takers among Congress MPs.

Yadav has suffered a tremendous loss of face among his constituents and party workers among whom he had built up this image of a strongman who can have his way on any issue by merely flexing his muscles and darkly muttering a threat or two. These muscles have now shown to be made of papier mache.

And Gujral, after his Race Course Road tenancy comes to an end -- which it will sooner rather than later -- will find it difficult to engage himself in debates on democracy, federalism and other such issues in the exalted confines of the India International Centre.

The IIC will not necessarily be worse off for that.

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