Original sin

In his outgoing address to the nation, Atal Bihari Vajpayee declared the election results a “victory for India”. It was a recognition of the electoral process as an expression of the collective will of the Indian population, however painful the consequences for him personally and for his party. His younger cohorts have demonstrated less wisdom or grace. In a television interview on the morning the results were coming in, with a clear verdict against the Bharatiya Janata Party and the likelihood of a Congress-led government, Pramod Mahajan stated that it was a “sad day for India”.

The night before last, Sushma Swaraj went a step further and said that she and her husband would resign from the Rajya Sabha rather than face the prospect of having to call Sonia Gandhi “Madam Prime Minister” in parliament. (The TV commentator aptly followed it with a quip questioning how Ms Swaraj would then address her outside parliament). And the indefatigable Uma Bharti is stated to have said at a press conference some evenings ago, “I make an appeal to all parties to create whatever hurdles they can to prevent Sonia from becoming the prime minister”. Never mind the fact that the representatives of the political parties who constitute a majority in the new Lok Sabha have already given their explicit support to Sonia Gandhi’s premiership. Never mind that those parties in turn represent the votes of the Indian public who have voted the non-BJP alliance to an overwhelming majority. Never mind that those votes have made the Congress the single largest party which, like the BJP or any other party, has the right to choose its own leader. What greater expression of arrogance could there be than these three statements of BJP leaders questioning the right of the Indian public to democratically express their choice rather than fall in line with what would be comfortable to Mahajan, Swaraj and Bharti individually? It is as if to say, “Well, the Indian public’s opinion is OK as along as it agrees with mine; otherwise it must fall in line with my greater wisdom”.

The argument goes on that Sonia Gandhi was not declared in advance as the Congress’s candidate for prime minister. The Congress was one of the members of a pre-poll alliance. The party’s statement, sensibly, was that the leadership issue could only be addressed once the results had been declared and the composition of a non-BJP alliance could be explicitly explored. Sonia Gandhi was campaigning for the Congress and, surely, those crowds who attended her rallies and road shows had no illusions as to who she was and who was the leader of the party she represented. To appreciate the depth of the arrogance which underlies these arguments, please recall that Sushma Swaraj stood against Sonia Gandhi in Bellary at the last general election and had the advantage of being able to campaign there throughout (with the claim that she had learnt Kannada specially for the purpose) while Sonia Gandhi necessarily had to campaign for the Congress elsewhere in India. Sushma Swaraj lost to Sonia Gandhi nevertheless. Presumably, the Bellary voter knew who they were voting for. And still Ms Swaraj feels that she knows better than the public.

Recall also that Sushma Swaraj was the incumbent chief minister of Delhi in 1998, and lost soundly to the Congress led by Sonia Gandhi in the election that year. The Delhi voter has reinforced that opinion further this election with six of the seven members of parliament voted in being Congress, in spite of the hazards of the anti-incumbency factor. If Ms Swaraj suspects that the Bellary voter did not know who Sonia Gandhi was, there can be no doubt that the Delhi voter knows exactly who she is and who leads the Congress. And yet Ms Swaraj retains the right to question the will of the public.

In this arrogance you can sense the cause for the growing disquiet amongst the thinking public about the “we know better” attitude which has silenced public debate in the last few years on so many contentious issues — the corporate candidates for disinvestment, on the changes in educational curricula and schoolbook texts, on the unilateral lowering of fees in the Indian Institutes of Management, on the tinkering with appointments in national research institutes, on the stifled enquiries into the Godhra incident and what followed, and so much else where the BJP cognoscenti “knew better” than the public.

So there are lessons to be learnt. In a sense, perhaps, this vociferous group which “knows better”, and which is now about to lead an agitation against Sonia Gandhi’s appointment, may be doing us, the public, a good turn. Given the nature of such agitations in India, there will be no opportunity for a honeymoon period for the next government, no chance to rest on euphoria. In fact, there may be an imperative need to get on with the job as quickly as possible. And with consensus.

Sonia Gandhi’s speech in front of her parliamentary party spoke of the Congress being “pivotal in a coalition”, a subtle and sensitive change from the dictatorial posture of previous Congress-led alliances. If they are not just words, it would seem that the party is learning. If the younger parliamentarians are listening and watching, perhaps they will appreciate the nuances of this new relationship. The Left Front is a crucial participant in the new government formation, whether from within or with “outside support”. They are a formidable thinking group — experienced, and ideologically disciplined — and will not be seduced by power. They will want substance. Other associates like the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam have already said that they will wait and watch. So, the key to support has to be performance.

Embedded in some of this is an underlying message for the West Bengal intelligentsia as well. The rules of our democratic system are that elected representatives are empowered to act on behalf of the voting public wholly on all matters until they are recalled or voted out. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) had explicitly stated before this election that it would support the Congress-led alliance and, in the event of its winning, the alliance’s elected leader. Jyoti Basu has also expressed on several occasions that he had no objection to Sonia Gandhi becoming prime minister. There is no scope for the electorate to have any doubts about the CPI(M)’s position on this issue.

The West Bengal electorate has just voted in their communist party MPs with an emphatic majority. Implicit in that increased vote of confidence is support for the party leaders, the present chief minister and his justly-revered predecessor, to take pragmatic decisions on the public’s behalf. That confidence surely stretches to the mandate that these leaders have been given to consider and support the government and its leader at the Centre. That mandate has been conveyed as support for Sonia Gandhi’s premiership. Beware the arrogance of “knowing better”.