Convenient pragmatism
THE national executive of the Bharatiya Janata Party has formally committed itself to the menifest political realism of poll-time politics.

Crime’s VIP face
THE murder of model Jessica Lal at an upmarket meeting point of the gliteratti in Delhi has revived the debate on the cult of violence.

Killer crossings
IT happens with macabre regularity. At one or the other of thousands of unmanned crossings in the country, one rash driver surges ahead unmindful of the coming train and sniffs out scores of lives.

TRIBUNAL FOR MILITARY
Question of composition
by Harwant Singh
THE Law Commission’s recommendations for setting up a tribunal to review court-martial cases has not come a day too early. The services themselves have been clamouring for such a tribunal not only for a review of cases but also for the redress of grievances on the lines of CAT.

What manifestoes do not say
by Bharat Jhunjhunwala
POLITICAL parties will soon come out with their election manifestoes. We shall find the usual hype about increasing investment in infrastructure, creating employment opportunities, buoying the capital markets, etc.

National govt: Is it feasible?
by P. Raman
THE collapse of the Vajpayee regime and the Opposition’s failure to come together to provide an alternative government have touched off a fresh debate on the efficacy of the Indian political system to cope with emerging challenges.

Jaya’s sojourn: grand entry, quiet exit
FOR a political leader whose “political earthquake” upset the Vajpayee Government, the AIADMK leader, Ms Jayalalitha Jayaram, was described as an undemanding guest.

Letter to Pakistan
by Satyindra Singh
THE partition of India in 1947 caused one of the great human convulsions of history. It was a massive obscenity of religious slaughter. As Hindus and Sikhs made their escape from Pakistan, and Muslims hurried northward to the safety of Pakistan, perhaps nearly a million were butchered.

75 Years Ago

Rifle theft in Delhi
A THEFT of three bullet rifles has been reported in a house near Mackenzie and C. belonging to Mr Millicons, Personal Assistant to Mr S.C. Chatterjee. It appears that on Saturday night, Mr Millicons was awakened from sleep and he found a man carrying away a box whom he pursued.

Convenient pragmatism

THE national executive of the Bharatiya Janata Party has formally committed itself to the menifest political realism of poll-time politics. It has discarded the idea of having its own manifesto for the coming election. It will adopt a "national agenda for governance" which, of necessity, will have a refined, accommodative and modified form of its alliance agenda that worked fitfully during the 13-month-long rule. Now there will be "a joint manifesto for the alliance", the real contours of which are not quite clear. The new grouping will have a new name, indicating the feasibility of a durable and participatory or power-sharing coalition which will reconcile, to the extent possible, the contradictions of separate disparate groups to a certain consistency of purpose. This purpose is good governance. The BJP could have done nothing better at this juncture when returning to power is a more important issue than the preservation of its known saffron ideology. One may like to hope that the Sangh Parivar will understand the Vajpayee-Advani "dwaitavada" (dualism). The Parivar will prosper if its political engine will be on the rails with the propelling capacity of adequate steam. The three Ss — Swadeshi, Suchita and Samajik Samarasata — will yield place to the five Bs — the Bomb, the Bus (to Lahore), the Budget, Bihar and the (great) Betrayal (by false friends).

The central theme of the BJP campaign for the poll now is one leader, one alliance and one programme. And here lies the rub. What about the hurt ego of Mr Kushabhau Thakre? Can a multiple alliance leave sufficient scope for total agreement on the ways and means of non-partisan governance? In a regionalised polity, is it possible to achieve unanimity on diverse inter-state or inter-party issues? Jayalalitha is just one synonym for fickleness. What about the temperamental Mamatas? Where will Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav take his wit, wisdom and flock if, Fortune forbid, he turns out to be one of the allies? These questions cannot be answered impulsively and futuristically. There are more negative elements than the positive ones in the emerging alliance. One may like to congratulate Mr Vajpayee and Mr Advani on their achievement in sketching a synthesised electoral strategy. But the coming weeks will be crucial. The common leadership of 20-odd groups is a formidable business. The BJP-led governments have tasted defeat twice. Overenthusiasm, therefore, should yield place to sober expectations on the party's part. The national executive's labours appear to have yielded good results, generally speaking!

Crime’s VIP face

THE murder of model Jessica Lal at an upmarket meeting point of the gliteratti in Delhi has revived the debate on the cult of violence. Some see in it manifestations of a superbrat culture and seek to draw similarities between the model’s murder and the mowing down of unsuspecting pedestrians by a well-connected upstart driving a BMW, which kids his age from normal middleclass families get to see only in ads. But the debate has missed the point which has the potential to cause a national uproar. It is a rare case of the families of the victim and her alleged killer drawing their clout from the same famous address in Delhi. They may not even have been aware of the common bondage they shared; but it was their “well connected” status which made them acceptable to Delhi’s most famous socialite. She could serve liquor to her guests at the rendezvous for the bold and the beautiful and the rich and the famous on the strength of her “connections” in the right places. But the defendant’s clout goes beyond the address which may have contributed to the prosperity of his family. He has access to a former address which is held in high esteem and put beyond routine controversies. Since the incident, not entirely inadvertently, acquired political overtones it may be worthwhile to restate that politicians like most others too are known by the company they keep.

The difference between yesterday’s and today’s politicians is that the latter usually chose people of eminence from among the crowd seeking to establish social contact with them. Take Jawaharlal Nehru for instance. Chalapathi Rau, Josh Malihabadi, Raghupati Sahai “Firaq” and Harivanshrai Bachchan were part of his non-political inner circle. Not one of them ever thought of abusing his proximity to the first Prime Minister of India for a favour for the family or friends. In fact they were embarrassed to mention their friendship with Jawaharlal Nehru. Indira Gandhi modified the composition of the “inner-circle”. It was an odd mix of men and women of eminence and wheeler-dealers, power-brokers and political fixers. Towards the fag end of her amazing career the seats reserved for “eminence” remained vacant or were grabbed by the Yashpal Kapoors and the Dhirendra Brahmacharis or members of the Sanjay brigade. What the people think of the current crop of politicians is reflected in the opinion polls of magazines and newspapers. A cynical nation would be surprised if the cases against Chandraswami, Romesh Sharma, the tandoor killer, and the defendants in the BMW incident and the murder of the model at a party arranged by Delhi’s top socialite end in convictions. A heavy dose of deodorant is needed for removing the stink at the top.

Killer crossings

IT happens with macabre regularity. At one or the other of thousands of unmanned crossings in the country, one rash driver surges ahead unmindful of the coming train and sniffs out scores of lives. In the latest such incident earlier this week, at least 37 persons were killed and an equal number seriously hurt when a bus carrying a marriage party rammed into the Avadh-Assam Express train in Bahraich district of Uttar Pradesh. Such accidents have become a little too frequent even for the country's exceptionally sturdy conscience. And what happens after them has also become more or less standard. The crocodile tears shed over the tragedies dry up soon enough, except in the eyes of those who suffered a loss personally. After that, the entire setup goes back to the business-as-usual mode, as if lying in wait for another accident. There is no dearth of causes for the railway accidents, but the muddle at the unmanned crossings is perhaps the most dangerous and common one. That is why nearly each one of these spots has come to be known as a "killer crossing". The irony is that in spite of a large number of fatal accidents having taken place, only a handful have been manned so far, even 50 years after Independence. The country seems to find it easier to pay compensation to the victims than finding money for removing the root cause. A proposal was mooted by the Railway Ministry sometime back that members of Parliament should pledge some money out of their constituency fund for the crossings falling in their constituencies but nothing much has been heard of the scheme after that. The numerous death traps dotting every part of the country meanwhile continue to be in operation. What can go wrong does go wrong every now and then and innocent victims have to pay with their lives.

That also brings one to the larger issue of the fitness, training and screening of the drivers of heavy vehicles like buses and trucks. Most of the accidents at the crossings are caused by their negligence. Just a little caution and a little more attention to safety rules can make all the difference but that rarely happens. How can one be expected to follow a rule when he is not even aware of it? The late Rajiv Gandhi attempted to rectify the situation by trying to bring in a law under which every applicant was to have certain basic educational qualifications for obtaining a driving licence. But the vested interests raised such a hue and cry that the well-meaning rule had to be given a quick burial. The real culprits are those licensing officials who issue driving licences not on the basis of one's driving skills but on the basis of the illegal gratification that the applicant is able to cough out. As we wrote earlier also, an untrained or semi-trained driver who manages to get a licence is almost as dangerous as a killer with a revolver. With a large number of them actually let loose, there is jungle law on roads. And as far as reining in the licensing mafia is concerned, who can beard a fierce lion in its "sarkari" den? So what if hapless passengers continue to die like cats and dogs!

TRIBUNAL FOR MILITARY
Question of composition
by Harwant Singh

THE Law Commission’s recommendations for setting up a tribunal to review court-martial cases has not come a day too early. The services themselves have been clamouring for such a tribunal not only for a review of cases but also for the redress of grievances on the lines of CAT. The defence services have felt the need for such a tribunal because the civil courts take far too long to dispose of the cases, and this has an adverse impact on discipline and the functioning of the military.

It has been argued that the civil courts are generally not conversant with the military’s working, systems, conditions, ethos, environment and circumstances under which it is required to operate and discharge its duties both in peace and war. For this reason the civil courts on their own are generally reluctant to accept military cases. Therefore, to this end the Law Commission has erred in not including an officer from the general cadre of the defence services on the proposed tribunal.

Some from the legal fraternity have tried to articulate the view that the military law is unjust, and its dispensation unfair and arbitrary. Opinions have also been expressed that the military law in India lacks credibility and is primitive in its conception and use. They also contend that it is both biased and unjust. Such extreme views betray a constricted vision and lack of knowledge of military law, its operation and application. It has served the military well through many wars, prolonged periods of extreme stress in counter-insurgency operations and peace time. Any progressive law has to change with the times and so will the military law. The civil law in India too is a legacy of the British Raj framed to serve its ends and purpose. It is also in need of substantial changes. The very kafkaesque nature of dispensation of justice in India is crying for a change.

The system of court-martial (other than summary court-martial) is an amalgam of the “judge” and “jury system”. The members of a court-martial, as against those of a jury in a civil court, have reasonable knowledge of military law, the Indian Penal Code, the Evidence Act, etc, acquired during various courses of instruction and the promotion examinations. Over and above this, they possess a long work experience in relation to its application gained in the course of command and staff assignments. Besides being fair and just, the administration of military law in India has been speedy; a cardinal requirement of the dispensation of justice. On the other hand, cases in civil courts can drag on for decades, or the alleged offenders incarcerated in prisons and not brought before the courts for years.

On the issue of fairness of military justice, it would be interesting to note that of a total of 503 cases disposed of during 1992 by various high courts (482) and the Supreme Court (21), 90 per cent were decided in favour of the Army or in, other words, the dispensation of justice by the military courts was upheld in 90 per cent of the cases. These figures would compare very favourably with the difference in the judgements between the lower and higher civil courts. The military law and its application has succeeded in maintaining the discipline and morale in the Army during the last few decades of great turbulence and stress. Cases when taken up in civil courts get unduly highlighted in the media, and this gives the defence services unwanted adverse publicity.

It is the power of summary trials (summary court martial-SCM) by the commanding officer which has been the subject of debate and under virulent attack. Those opposed to these powers consider them arbitrary, excessive and against all cannons of jurisprudence and natural justice. What is often missed out is the fact that a commanding officer is a father figure in the unit, and he exercises the powers of SCM in extreme and rare cases where either every effort to correct the offender has failed or the nature of offence requires immediate disposal of the case to prevent it from having an adverse impact on the overall discipline in the unit. Powers vested in the commanding officer to hold SCM have contributed more than any other provision in the military law to maintaining discipline at the unit level.

If the number of military personnel approaching civil courts is on the increase, the reasons lie in areas other than any serious flaws in the administration and dispensation of military justice. They are rooted in changing values and attitudes towards soldiering, increasing aspirations, the socio-economic milieu in which the military man is striving to survive, and the gross mismatch between what he struggles hard to achieve and cannot get due to an extremely restricted scope for upward mobility in career. The increasing number of officers, some of very senior rank, are approaching the courts against the denial of promotion, and this trend does not augur well for the defence services.

The crime pattern in the Army reveals changing attitudes. As a general average, among the disciplinary cases against officers, 27 per cent pertain to offences related to being absent without leave, and in the case of other ranks the percentage is 57. In the case of officers, the percentage of offences against property (corruption) is 22, and in the case of other ranks it is 5. It may be interesting to note that many of the cases which got relief from the civil courts pertain to the misappropriation of funds, etc. This could be so because the standards demanded and the unwillingness to put up with malfeasance and corruption in the defence services and outside are at great variance.

Many cases that come up before the civil courts pertain to medical disability pensions. By strange bureaucratic wisdom, the powers to alter the findings on disability by a medical board have been vested in the medical officers with the Controller of Defence Accounts — CDA (Pensions) who never even get to examine the affected person. What frustrates a pensioner is that his disability (in many cases, attributable to battle injury), which actually aggravates with age, is progressively reduced in an arbitrary manner by the medical authorities with the CDA (Pensions).

Earlier military courts were not required to give any “speaking order” for the twin reasons of speedy disposal covering all contingencies of peace and war, and the nature and composition of these courts. Each court is constituted for a specific court martial and there is no permanency to these. While military courts are able to apply the law and administer justice, for the recording of “speaking order”, which is subjected to expert legal scrutiny and can be the causa sine qua non for the negation of the findings and award, they have to increasingly depend on the judge-advocate who may be tempted to exert undue influence on the court. This new element will tend to dilute the very raison d’etre of the concept and composition of military courts. Since the requirement of recording of “speaking order” has come into use, delays in the disposal of cases by military courts have occurred, without in any way improving the quality of justice.

For carrying out a review of sentence and or findings of military courts by the proposed tribunal, reasonable knowledge and experience of the environment conditions and circumstances under which the military operates and discharges its onerous duties is essential. In countries like the UK and the USA, while the generation that fought in World War II and later in Korea, Vietnam and the Falklands may be on its way out, there is far greater awareness of the military manners and mode of functioning, and military literature and war movies continue to be popular. In India hardly anyone outside the uniform displays interest in matters of military. Therefore, no parallel can be drawn between us and those countries in the composition of such tribunals.

In relation to the Law Commission’s proposal to set up a military court of appeal or a tribunal, two issues need close examination. One is the composition of the tribunal and the other relate to the early disposal of cases. As far as the composition of the tribunal goes, it must get related to the composition of the court whose verdict or finding it will be called upon to review. Military courts are composed of officers from the general cadre. Representative from the Judge-Advocate’s branch of the Army/Navy/Air Force, as the case may be, is there only for technical advice on various legal aspects of the case. Therefore, for the proposed tribunal to have a better understanding of the cases and their meaningful appraisal and appropriate disposal, not only officers from the JAG branch are necessary but a suitable senior retired officer from the general cadre must also be its member. The second issue pertains to the prompt disposal of cases. The delays of the civil courts, if brought into the tribunal, will surely defeat its very purpose.

(The author is a retired Lieut-General and Deputy Chief of Army Staff.)

What manifestoes do not say
by Bharat Jhunjhunwala

POLITICAL parties will soon come out with their election manifestoes. We shall find the usual hype about increasing investment in infrastructure, creating employment opportunities, buoying the capital markets, etc. But there are a few issues of grave concern that one can safely predict will not find mention: liquidating the national debt; providing the right to work; providing speedy justice from the judicial system; and review of our membership of the WTO. It is time our leaders stated their positions on these issues clearly.

National debt: Political parties habitually promise that they will take steps to contain the national debt, yet the debt continues to balloon from year to year. Only its form changes. The BJP, for example, did not borrow from the IMF but its Resurgence India Bonds too are a kind of national debt. Foreign investment, direct as well as portfolio, jas a similar effect on the economy as debt. The nation is honour-bound to let these investors take out their money as and when they so want.

The experience of East Asia, Russia, Mexico and Brazil gives us a hard lesson that such debt can become the cause of economic downfall. A crisis in the world economy can place our exports under pressure. Present indications are that the global trade will further shrink in the coming years. We would then be hard-pressed to meet our debt obligations.

In such a situation the IMF has usually bailed out the affected countries but only at the cost of their cutting domestic expenditures such as those on infrastructure. We would then use our limited surplus to service the debt instead of building roads and canals. Our future growth prospects would be badly hit.

Hitherto all parties have expressed themselves in favour of “controlling” the national debt. This is no longer adequate. We need a clear-cut policy for liquidating the foreign debt of about Rs 100,000 crore that stands like the Damocles’ sword on our heads. There are obviously no easy solutions. Perhaps we would have to sell our PSUs, government bungalows, wastelands and other unproductive assets. This is what the parties must specify. If they are going to liquidate the debt where will they raise the money from.

Right to work: Every party promises to “generate” employment, yet the ranks of the unemployed continue to swell day by day. Prime Minister Nehru had reportedly called Vinoba Bhave to comment on the First Five Year Plan. Vinoba had asked only one question: where is the provision of work to all? Not dinding it, he had rejected the plan in toto. All the plans and policies and election manifestoes of the past 50 years need to be rejected likewise.

The political parties must come out with a clear statement that no person willing to work will remain without a job. They must specify, like in the case of debt, where the money will come from.

Revenue expenditures: It is often repeated that justice delayed is justice denied. The Supreme Court calls for details of the pending cases from High courts at regular intervals and they are duly supplied. The Allahabad High Court informed that in addition to the present 641 courts, an additional 2841 courts would be required to dispose of the pending cases in one year. The number of judges is simply too small to take care of the mounting backlog.

Law and order is deteriorating all over, in part, because of the low rates of conviction. This too happens because the police does not have the resources to collect sufficient evidence and pursue the cases aggressively.

Yet every party commits itself to a reduction of the revenue expenditures. How will the government discharge its responsibilities if it cannot increase revenue expenditures? Reduction only makes things worse. It never dawns on the mandarins of North Block that the main task of the government is defence, law and order, justice, communications and currency. All these involve revenue expenditures. Yet all parties routinely parrot their commitment to reduce these expenditures. Or, they openly proclaim that they will not spend on defence, law and order and justice!

They must clearly state how they will discharge these essential functions of the government. And where would the money come from? It is time we recognised that these expenditures were not unproductive as usually made out to be Investment takes place only if law and order is sound.

Review of the WTO: All parties to safeguard India’s national interests in the WTO. But nobody, including our intellectuals, seems to be clear whether being in the WTO is better than being out of it.

The people of this country have the right to know where the political parties stand on these issues.

Letter to Pakistan
by Satyindra Singh

THE partition of India in 1947 caused one of the great human convulsions of history. It was a massive obscenity of religious slaughter. As Hindus and Sikhs made their escape from Pakistan, and Muslims hurried northward to the safety of Pakistan, perhaps nearly a million were butchered. Seventyfive thousand women were said to have been abducted and raped, families divided and much more. No one knows the correct details or ever will. Urvashi Bhutalia in her scholarly treatise The Other Side of Silence has chronicled much and with penetrating research answered many questions hitherto unanswered.

She details a very human story which appeared in the News of Pakistan. In 1947 twentyfour years old Iqbal Begum lost many members of her family in the violence of Partition. Like many others, she too was forced to leave her home in a small village, Kher Dikki, near Amritsar, and move to Pakistan. The horrors of Partition remained with her all her life. Many years later, when her grandson wanted to go on a peace delegation to Amritsar, she advised him against it. “Don’t go to Amritsar” , she said, “they will kill you”. But, while for Iqbal Begum, Partition called up stories of violence and loss, her daughter, Kulsoom, had a different experience. She too married into a family from Amritsar. Chaudhary Latif, her father-in-law, was a Partition refugee who had moved across to a house in Islampura (earlier Krishan Nagar) in Lahore. When Chaudhary Latif had moved into this spacious house in 1947, he had little idea of who the original owner was. One day, he received a letter from Jalandhar addressed simply to ‘The Occupant’. Opening it, Chaudhary Latif read in Urdu:

“I write to you as a human being; I hope you are not put off that a Hindu has written to you. We are human beings first and Hindu and Muslim only after that. I firmly believe you will oblige me by answering this letter in the name of the human bond we have”.

The letter went on to describe how its writer, Harikishan Das Bedi, who had earlier lived in the house Chaudhary Latif now occupied, had to leave suddenly when Partition became a reality. Bedi, a teacher at the Sanatan Dharam High School in Lahore, had loved nothing more than his books and papers. Forced to move without much notice, Bedi had left behind everything, including an incomplete manuscript of a book on geometry that he was writing, which lay on his table at home.

He established his credentials by telling Chaudhary Latif a little about himself: “My students included Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs. In my eyes there was no difference between them”.

Chaudhary Latif’s son described how his father replied to all of Bedi’s letters. They had developed a special relationship. For many years, the two friends maintained a correspondence and it was only much later, after Chaudhary Latif had died, that his daughter-in-law, Kulsoom, found all Bedi’s letters neatly tied up and kept in one corner of his cupboard. No one knows if Harikishan Das Bedi is alive or dead, but his letters to Chaudhary Latif provide a moving testimony to another side of the history of Partition. In his second letter to Latif, Bedi said:

“I read your letters over and over again and felt that it had been written by a true friend. I also read it out to many of my friends. All agree that had all Hindus and Muslims shared the feelings which you have expressed in your letter, the bloodbath would never have taken place and we, living in India and Pakistan, would have taken our countries to great heights. But God had other plans, I shudder to think of what Hindus and Muslims have done to their fellow countrymen .... And the worst part is that it was all perpetrated in the name of religion. No religion allows such bloodletting”.

Whether or not Bedi’s hopes would have been realised, the correspondence between him and Chaudhary Latif will remain, evident of the fact that borders can be crossed and friendships built and maintained.

National govt: Is it feasible?

by P. Raman

THE collapse of the Vajpayee regime and the Opposition’s failure to come together to provide an alternative government have touched off a fresh debate on the efficacy of the Indian political system to cope with emerging challenges. Already, interested political groups and concerned citizens have put forth several proposals. Some of them are well meaning and exhaustive and call for serious consideration. Others are merely aimed at extracting momentary partisan gains.

Keeping aside such frivolous demands, stability seems to be the theme of most proposals. For obvious reasons, this time few have suggested the introduction of the presidential form of government. This may be due to a difficulty in effecting sweeping constitutional amendments at a time when the Lok Sabha does not even exist. Therefore, most suggestions centre on seeking changes in the existing rules to provide an obligatory five-year term for the Lok Sabha. The BJP has officially stated that if elected it would introduce the necessary constitutional amendments to this effect. Its proponents, among whom are the friends of the BJP equate stability with the full life of the Lower House and full security of tenure to MPs.

Constitutions of some European countries are cited to establish its utility in the present volatile condition prevailing in India. But the critics of the “five-year lease” allege that this infringes on the citizen’s legitimate right to punish their elected representatives when they go astray. Such a long lease is feared to make them unresponsive to voters’ feelings. More than this, an assured five-year term for the Lok Sabha will turn it into an arena of shady deals and perpetual horsetrading. For, when the political parties lose the majority in the House, the only course open to them will be to manipulate support from MPs.

Former President R. Venkataraman has suggested a variant of this proposal. Under this, the Prime Minister of what he describes a “national government” will be elected by the Lok Sabha by single transferable vote. The incumbent will not remain nominee of any particular party. In case no candidate gets a minimum of 50 per cent votes from among the Lok Sabha members, there will be another voting between the top two contestants. Similarly, the ministers will also be elected by both Houses of Parliament by single transferable vote. Once elected, the Prime Minister and his ministers would continue for five years. During this period, they cannot be removed by a no-confidence motion. The Cabinet will strive hard to take every decision by consensus. In case a consensus move fails, decisions would be taken by voting by the ministers present.

However, under the Venkataraman package, Parliament will be the final authority on all matters. Thus the ministry will have to get the endorsement of the House. As in the USA this itself can lead to some kind of a protracted confrontation between the ministry, led by the Prime Minister, and Parliament. The friction between the US President and the House has blocked several crucial Bills and have often led to way and means crisis. Customarily, every MP in India aspires to be a minister. Such hopes make them to be ever active and remain on the right side of the Prime Minister. But under the proposed system, they will be left with no such hope for the entire term of five years. This is bound to make them more obstructive.

Though the five-year lease for the ministry is expected to ensure the government’s stability, it can lead to different sorts of instability. The proposed reform will also be essentially a negation of party-based system of parliamentary democracy. Its consequences on the party system, evolution of policies and organisation of elections will have to be studied in depth. Such a model may be ideal for a very brief emergency situation. But few consider it can be a permanent model. In the past few days, there have also been a few similar proposals from a few others for some sort of a national government of “eminent persons”. For obvious reasons, they have all left the details vague. And hence they do not deserve any detailed study.

Atal Behari Vajpayee has come out with his own proposal. Born out of his present predicament, he suggests borrowing from the German model. Under this system, a government could be toppled through a no-confidence motion only after the Opposition establishes enough numerical strength to form an alternative ministry. Had this been earlier transplanted into our system, his own government might not have been toppled by a divided Opposition. But a closer look will show that the much-acclaimed German model may not be as effective as it is claimed to be. For, even in the twelfth Lok Sabha, a little more compromise by, say the Congress, might have enabled the Opposition to cobble up a government. In that case, how could it have provided stability?

If one looks at it from a different angle, the Vajpayee proposal, made in his address to the nation, has the potential of providing a more favourable atmosphere for larger horsetrading and resorting to a more ugly sort of prior deals and power-brokering. Moreover, this borrowed model can have the effect of legitimising the distribution of the spoils of power by the topplers as part of an undertaking to pool votes. Escapism has been the common trait of all such alternative political models. Instead of eradicating the deeper malaise, they are trying to fight the symptoms. In the process, we ignore the basic problems like a highly fractured verdict imposed by a divided polity.

Unprincipled alliances based solely on local animosity and sustained by continuous deals and power-brokering have their own limitations. Jayalalitha’s revolt against Vajpayee, which had led to the government’s fall, has been the latest manifestation of this malaise. As a result, the present coalition became the shortest (13 months) one. The UF coalition, with the same partners, ministers and common minimum programme but under two Prime Ministers, had survived 18 months. This is the first time a coalition at the Centre collapsed due to revolts from within by a participating ally. All earlier coalitions were toppled by an outside supporter. The BJP, and not the Congress, as is widely believed, has been the first outside supporter to pull down a coalition (V.P. Singh). Since then the Congress had successively “betrayed” — if one borrows a word so commonly used these days — three of its allies.

The very strength of parliamentary democracy is built on strenuously evolved traditions and precedents. They should not be suddenly reversed just to suit the momentary interests of one group or other. Fortunately, Vajpayee himself had asserted his way at least on two occasions when some of his political managers, who are also ministerial colleagues, tried to denigrate the institution of President. The first was when K.R. Narayanan insisted on a confidence vote and the second when he denied another chance to the defeated Prime Minister to make one more bid. Clearly, both were against the established traditions. In parliamentary democracy, the rules of the game have sanctity.

A similar move is being made to wrest a free hand for the caretaker government in all matters. The media even merrily lapped up such stories as the coining of the caretaker was done by the Indian press during the 1979 crisis, without bothering to consult an English dictionary. (It is an old term meaning ‘interim government’). According to Mr Venkataraman, the President functions as an “emergency lamp” during caretaker rule. The moment a legitimate government takes charge, the emergency lamp automatically gets switched off. During the interregnum, the President functions as Parliament which, according to Article 79 “consists of the President and the two Houses”... . Thus the President is duty bound to function as an effective “emergency lamp” whenever caretaker governments are put at the helm.

In those caretaker days, Mr Venkataraman had frequently summoned the Cabinet and Home Secretaries, sought important files and took his own decisions on crucial matters after taking the respective Prime Minister into confidence. Chandra Shekhar had earnestly accepted this proposition. Mr Venkataraman had even directly heard from the chiefs of state police officers after their conference in Delhi. As for the international commitments awaiting urgent disposal, the ideal option will be to establish a system of regular consultation with Opposition leaders on all crucial issues. The President in his constitutional role as an integral part of Parliament, can act as a referee. This alone will set a healthy precedent.

Then we have so many curious political theses and surmises emanating from involved parties. Some of them go against the letter and spirit of the normal parliamentary practices and accepted norms. Among them are the theories of destabilisation, sabotaging of economy, opportunism and betrayal by rival sides. How can a negative voting on a confidence motion on the floor of the House suddenly turn into destabilisation of the system? In the past, there have been over two dozen confidence or no-confidence motions in the Lok Sabha. Every political party, regional or those claiming to be pan-Indian, had participated in such votings.

It is a legitimate right of the Opposition to challenge the majority of the Treasury Benches. Both Opposition and the ruling party are “power-hungry”. In fact, power is the sole motivation for the present-day politicians on both sides. Equally absurd has been the charge that by voting down a government, the Opposition had sought to “sabotage” the economy and caused a loss of Rs 50,000 crore to investors. The latter, at the most, is speculative in nature. We had five ministries since the reform began in 1991. Despite this, the process went on. Manmohan Singh, Chidambaram and Yashwant Sinha have been equally dear to the reformers.

Jaya’s sojourn: grand entry, quiet exit

FOR a political leader whose “political earthquake” upset the Vajpayee Government, the AIADMK leader, Ms Jayalalitha Jayaram, was described as an undemanding guest.

Ms Jayalalitha, whose list of demands virtually broke the back of the BJP-led government in the end, was polite and unassuming with the staff, according to hotel staff.

Her lifestyle was said to be spartan and the leader made sure that the Bar in the prestigious Chandragupta Maurya suite was removed. In her spare time she used to spend time feeding the birds which fluttered in the balcony while food was strictly vegetarian.

The luxury hotel close to Capital’s diplomatic avenue was one of the favourite haunts of the media what with hordes of camerapersons parking themselves in the expansive lobby — all for an occasional ‘sound-bite’ from the AIADMK leader or the political leaders calling on her.

Of course, the hotel management did their bit of public relations by serving tea and snacks to the large contingent of media personnel, many of whom were stationed right from crack of the dawn till close to midnight.

Incidentally, for a person who attracted media attention on her arrival on April 11, her exit was unexpectedly quiet, notwithstanding the 48 suitcases she was supposed to have brought in and taken back.

Of course, it is another matter that the AIADMK chief moves with her office which includes a computer, photocopier, fax machine and a satellite phone.

A ghost that haunts Cong

Despite the merger of the All-India Indira Congress (Tiwari), its ghost still seems to haunt the Congress and the country’s body-politic.

Recounting the fall of the Vajpayee Government and the events in the run-up to the premature dissolution of the 12th Lok Sabha, one party leader diagnosed it to be the making of the leaders of erstwhile Tiwari Congress.

The entire drama triggered after the Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Mr P.R. Kumaramangalam, questioned the AIADMK leader’s criticism of the government while being part of it. It may be recalled that Ranga, as the minister is popularly known, was in the Tiwari Congress and crossed over to the BJP before the last general elections.

On the Congress side, the man on whom the party chief, Mrs Sonia Gandhi, relied most were Mr Arjun Singh and Mr M.L. Fotedar, both of whom were readmitted to the Congress by Mr Sitaram Kesri, through a merger of the Tiwari Congress.

Bitten by cricket bug

For once politics in India seems to be taking a backseat to the all-popular game of cricket. With the World Cup nearing, one should not be surprised if politicians use cricket phrases to pep up their election campaign speeches.

The Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, is one of them who has been bitten by the cricket bug. Recently, at the inaugural function of the CII’s annual conference, the chamber gave a “scorecard” of the BJP-led Government’s performance in the last one year. Reacting to the report card, the Prime Minister remarked it was not for him to give a scorecard of what his Government did in the past 13 months before the “game” was interrupted — or disrupted?

“We did make mistakes when we began our ‘innings’ in March last year. We faced many difficult ‘overs’. There was much distraction, but we kept doing our duty with dedication and determination, learning from our mistakes as we went along,” he pointed out.

Going by the trend, the Indian people can look forward to lot of “googlies” and “bouncers” both off and on the “field”.

Where politics scores

Well if cricket scored over politics, then politics also scored over economics. The Confederation of Indian Industry, which has the dubious distinction of holding three annual conferences under three different Prime Ministers, found itself in a dilemma once again this year with the BJP-led coalition government being defeated on the floor of the Lok Sabha just a few days before its annual conference on April 28.

With uncertainty looming large over the fate of the next government, the CII authorities could not simply make up their mind on the topics to be taken up at the conference. They finally heaved a sigh of relief when the BJP-led Government was asked to carry on till alternative arrangements were made and Mr Vajpayee agreed to inaugurate their function for the second time in two years.

Mr Vajpayee, of course, got political mileage when he told the conference that he had broken the jinx and had become the first Prime Minister in the last four years to inaugurate the CII conference for the second consecutive time. He was confident that he would do so for the third time too.

His confident talk saw the stock markets reacting with optimism and the sensitive indices went up. Not only that, the CII made their annual conference a totally political one and the main speakers at the conference included Mr Lal Krishan Advani, Mr Sharad Pawar, Mr Yashwant Sinha, Mr George Fernandes and Dr M.S. Gill. Did somebody say that the Indian economy has got delinked to politics?

SP ‘feeding’ on BSP

That there is no love lost between the Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is an open secret. But what is surprising is the other day people at the Samajwadi Party office were literally eating out of BSP “packets”.

A discerning scribe noticing the initials “BSP” etched on the food packets served by the SP asked a senior party leader whether this was indication of a possible alliance between the two adversaries in the coming general election. The leader retorted it could mean anything: “We have to make a new beginning or we chew them up”. “BSP” is a fast food outlet in Central Delhi.

(Contributed by T.V. Lakshminarayan, K.V. Prasad, Girja Shankar Kaura and P.N. Andley.)

75 YEARS AGO

Rifle theft in Delhi

A THEFT of three bullet rifles has been reported in a house near Mackenzie and C. belonging to Mr Millicons, Personal Assistant to Mr S.C. Chatterjee. It appears that on Saturday night, Mr Millicons was awakened from sleep and he found a man carrying away a box whom he pursued.

Apparently, the thief, unable to run away with the box, left it in the middle of the staircase and ran away. Later on, Mr Millicons found his three rifles missing and complained to the police, on Friday morning, who are making enquiries.