People's Democracy

IF the much-awaited cabinet reshuffle has disappointed some people, the reason is that many media reports preceding the event had made much ado about nothing, giving the impression as if something big was going to take place. According to The Asian Age, "The reshuffled team, announced with much fanfare, is desultory and lacklustre." But if, as the Hindustan Times says, the recast was "reduced to musical chairs," didn’t the media have high hopes about the proposed recast?

Yet what has taken place cannot be dismissed as meaningless, or even routine. It is much more than a game of musical chairs, with a much deeper meaning behind it. True the inclusion of Jana Krishnamurthi, Sahib Singh Verma and some others or the exclusion of Ms Menaka Gandhi or some non-entities may give one the impression that it was just an "uninspired expansion." But, all said and done, the RSS has made it plain that it wants complete control over the affairs of India’s governance.

Take the expansion itself, that has created the biggest ever union cabinet in independent India. The country is today saddled with a cabinet of 77 --- roughly one fourth of the ruling NDA’s strength in Lok Sabha --- and it means a lot of burden on the exchequer. But a more significant fact is that the BJP has further increased its already big tally in the cabinet and now has as many as 56 members in it. This comes to 73 per cent of the cabinet’s total size; the remaining two dozen parties have to remain content with a 27 per cent share.

Moreover, from the very beginning of the Vajpayee regime in March 1998, the RSS has seen to it that even if a ministry is given to a non-BJP man, a committed RSS-BJP man is attached to it as the minister of state. This has been their way of keeping a watch on the non-BJP ministers. The same tactic has been adopted this time also. In sum, true to the work style a fascist organisation adopts, the RSS is not inclined to leave any single ministry or department unmonitored by its committed cadres, to be run by the non-BJP ministers independently.

The ostensible reason for the reshuffle, as doled out by Vajpayee, was that he wanted to give the country a new-look cabinet. This is itself an oblique admission of the fact that the BJP-led government has so far failed the Indian people on all fronts. But that apart, what can the prime minister achieve by having thrown out a few non-entities like C P Thakur or Muni Lal as "non-performers" when his whole ministry has been a non-performer par excellence?

A significant case in this connection is that of the outgoing finance minister Yashwant Sinha, known as a World Bank man. During the last four years, Sinha never failed his masters abroad and did not miss a single opportunity of imposing fresh burdens on the toiling people while giving concessions to the well-to-do. Moreover, all his acrobatics had had full backing of his team leader. But it was precisely these policies that made him one of the most discredited ministers, so much so that even committed BJP cadres felt alarmed whether their party would at all win the next elections till Sinha persisted with his economic policies. That is why they began to bay for his blood in view of the next Lok Sabha elections that are approaching fast and will take place by September 2004 at the latest. Or, who knows, earlier!

This was the reason Sinha was shunted to the external affairs ministry and his seat given to Jaswant Singh who is equally pro-American, if not more. And to add insult to Sinha’s injury, Vajpayee has constituted a seven-man committee to manage our external affairs, though for all practical purposes it is Brajesh Mishra, Vajpayee’s Man Friday, who will be guiding Sinha. This shows the RSS hold on the foreign policy which has become totally servile to US imperialism.

In fact, with the same aim of winning the next Lok Sabha elections in view, the BJP has resorted to a few more antics. For example, in a move to keep the caste equation balanced, if the ousted C P Thakur was a Bhumihar, it has inducted another Bhumihar (Nikhil Chaudhary) into the cabinet. And what if Ram Vilas Paswan left the NDA and its government in disgust? Now there is another Paswan in the cabinet; only that his name is Sanjay.

Another gimmick the BJP has adopted is to induct film stars --- Shatrughan Sinha (who had been sulking for some time) and Vinod Khanna --- into the cabinet. This is the first time since the inception of universal adult suffrage in the country that a film star has been inducted into the cabinet. Is it not a proof of the BJP’s bankruptcy? Does it hope that the "star attraction" of these villain-turned-heroes of yesteryears would help it make up for the loss of its political credibility?

And if a large section of the media had grown critical of the BJP in the wake of the Gujarat riots, the BJP thinks it can win them over by making a clean-shaven, sophisticated Arun Jaitley its spokesman.

In short, in a clear-cut proof of its growing desperation, the BJP is adopting all the tricks that a discredited ruling party adopts. But history is witness that no such gimmick works when the discontented people get a chance to settle scores with their rulers. What to talk of other countries, the same thing happened in India during the 1977, 1989 and 1996 elections.

But the biggest jolt the reshuffle has given to the nation’s conscience is that Advani has been made the deputy prime minister. Technically speaking, it is not even a constitutional post and does not carry any extra weightage or power. Nor is Advani the first man to be made the deputy prime minister; before him the country has seen as many as six persons in this seat. But Advani’s elevation to the post means something different from what the earlier instances meant. It is, for example, not a product of any power tussle. What it means, pure and simple, is that a staunch RSS man has now been formally put in number two position in the government.

This means two things at the same time. First, the RSS has indicated that it would spare no effort to further tighten its grip on the administrative machinery. Secondly, if ever Vajpayee is not on the scene for one reason or another, the RSS has let it be known that Advani will take charge of the affairs of governance, provided the BJP is in control of the government.

This also means one more thing and that must not be lost sight of. Advani’s elevation to the post has come soon after it was announced that he would flag off the BJP's so-called "gaurav yatras" in Gujarat --- in yet another move to polarise the people of the state and the country on communal lines. It is another thing that the growing revulsion among the people against the communal drive, the pressure of public opinion and the indictment of the move by the National Human Rights Commission forced the RSS-BJP-VHP combine to cancel the move. But the very fact that persons like Advani and Modi were to be associated with the yatra, shows that the RSS-led outfits are not a bit ashamed of what they did in Gujarat. Moreover, the past history of Lal Krishna Advani is no secret. Not to talk of what he did in the pre-partition days, it was this man who took out a rathyatra in 1989, that left a trail of blood and mayhem in its wake and finally paved the way for the Babri demolition and the subsequent anti-Muslim pogroms in many parts of the country.

And now he has been elevated to the second highest position in the country’s executive! Moreover, in view of reports of Vajpayee’s failing health, rumours are afloat that it is really Advani who will be calling the shots.

That the RSS wants to revert back to its strident Hindutva line, is also clear from the fact that the BJP’s organisation is being revamped from top to bottom. Uttar Pradesh not only sends the maximum number of members to parliament, it is also a communally sensitive state and, moreover, includes Ayodhya, Varanasi and Mathura --- the places that have a key place in the saffron brigade’s scheme of things. Here, it is Vinay Katiyar, Bajrang Dal chief, who has been installed as the state BJP president. A similar change is on the cards in Madhya Pradesh and many other states. At the national level, BJP president Jana Krishnamurthi, widely perceived as ineffective leader, has been replaced by a much more saffronised Venkaiah Naidu.

It is clear that the BJP is thinking of contesting the next Lok Sabha polls on a rabidly communal platform. The recent RSS resolution demanding trifurcation of Jammu & Kashmir along communal lines further confirms the apprehension.

But this also means that the BJP is likely to dump its allies in the NDA somewhere along the line. This cannot be said to be altogether improbable.

After the BJP failed to muster requisite support in May 1996 and fought the elections alone in 1998, it came to realise that it could not come to power on its own. That is why it hurriedly cobbled a post-poll alliance and formed a government that fell after 13 months, due to its own contradictions, as manifest in Ms Jayalalitha’s withdrawal from the NDA. Then in September 1999, for the first time in its history, the BJP refrained from issuing a poll manifesto of its own, reiterated its promise to keep contentious issues on the backburner, and contested as a part of the NDA. But the recent history is replete with the instances of how the BJP cared a hoot for its allies.

Notwithstanding Vajpayee’s repeated moralising about "coalition dharma," and notwithstanding the BJP’s promise to abide by the NDA’s so-called "National Agenda for Governance," the party’s real attitude towards its allies was evident from the recent reshuffle as well. Here the party increased its weight in the ministry but plainly ignored the pleas made by others for a few more seats. The JD(U) kept begging that it has only one berth in the cabinet and must be given one more at least, but was not obliged. Having exposed the hollowness of her bombastic claim to dislodge the Left Front government of West Bengal, it seems poor Mamata too has lost her charm for the BJP which refused to concede her demands.

In sum, the BJP has demonstrated, not for the first time, that its allies are just so many pawns in its game, nothing more. The message is clear --- it is in fact the BJP’s government and the allies can remain in it only as long as the BJP allows them to remain. See how Bansilal was unceremoniously dumped in Haryana.

The BJP has thus turned the NDA into an anti-National anti-Democratic Alliance. And nothing more could be expected from a party that has no love for inner-party democracy and is controlled by an organisation in which one man is considered supreme. Be it Bangaru Laxman or Jana Krishnamurthi or now Venkaiah Naidu, it is clear that the BJP’s rank and file members have no role, direct or indirect, in electing their president. It is only a coterie at the top that makes the choice. Poor Krishnamurthi was not even consulted before an announcement about dropping him was made. He did raise a faint murmur but had to eat the humble pie when he learnt that the decision was Made In Nagpur.

But perhaps the allies deserve no better treatment. They swore by secularism and kept mum when the secular ethos of our national life was being attacked. They swore by federalism but kept mum when the country’s federal structure was under attack. They swore by non-alignment and kept mum when the country was being made an adjunct of the USA. They kept mum, even collaborated, when unbearable burdens were being imposed on the people. And for what? Just for the sake of a few loaves and fishes. The whole country saw the abhorrent spectacle of how Fernandes, that windbag, resigned one day, kept sulking in the wilderness and rejoined the ministry at the very first opportunity.

The question is: Can the beggars really be choosers?

One thing is clear. Let us concede that the non-BJP, non-Sena NDA partners do believe in secularism, federalism, non-alignment and other lofty values that have been guiding our political life so far. But then the question is: can these parties really contribute to taking the country forward as long as they are willing to pawn their values and stick to a thoroughly anti-democratic, anti-national party for the sake of ministerial gaddis?

It is up to the allies to ponder the issue or be prepared to perish. It will be worthwhile for them to recall how badly the NDA parties have fared in the by-elections, mid-term elections and state assembly elections during the last four years.

The role of the Left and democratic parties assumes critical importance here. If the NDA parties feign to be sleeping, these forces have to mobilise all the patriotic forces in the country --- those who follow some political party and those who are aligned to none. There is no dearth of secular-minded, democratic and patriotic people in the country, and it is they upon whom we have to bank for the country’s regeneration.