It often been said in criticism of the press that it exercises power without responsibility which “is the privilege of the harlot.” The time has perhaps come when it may be legitimate to pose the question whether the same criticism can apply to the Congress (I) leaders in office.
As things are, Mrs Gandhi wins the election for the party on the sheer strength of her personality— her appeal to the people, her skill in keeping her opponents off balance and her stamina which enables her to travel all over the country day after day and night after night with at best a couple of hours of rest. She ensures that ministers and chief ministers, once chosen and appointed, are not harassed by party legislators. This makes them virtually invulnerable to criticism from not only the opposition and the press but also from their own partymen.
Advantage
The chief ministers have an additional advantage. They enjoy enormous powers of patronage. In addition to their right to appoint ministers, ministers of state and deputy ministers and reshuffle their cabinets whereby they can reward their cronies and punish their critics in the ruling party, they can create a large number of well-paid jobs for legislators as chairmen, executive directors and directors of government-controlled and government-supported corporations and committees. This can help even the most incompetent among them to keep a majority of party MLAs on their side.
Mr Jagannath Pahadia, former chief minister of Rajasthan, is a case in point. Hardly anyone will dispute that it is difficult to recall a more incompetent chief minister since independence. Yet he had managed to assure himself of the support of a majority of Congress (I) legislators. Thus, but for the Congress high command’s firm decision to insist on his resignation, he could have stayed on.
On the face of it, Mr Pahadia’s case disproved the theory that the chief ministers are in effect not accountable to anyone. After all, Mrs Gandhi, it can be argued, finally removed him just as she had earlier removed Mr Kamlapati Tripathi and Mr VC Shukla from the Union cabinet. But while Mr Pahadia’s lack of qualities of leadership was evident within weeks of his appointment as chief minister, it took Mrs Gandhi a whole year to make up her mind to pack him off. During that one year, he could have done almost whatever he liked. The Congress (I) legislators in the state could not have restrained him. Many of them may not even have been interested in restraining him, so permissive has become the political climate in the country.
Despite her reputation for ruthlessness, Mrs Gandhi is essentially kind-hearted towards those who have stood by her and swear loyalty to her. She is prepared to ignore their weaknesses for a long, long time and forgive them a lot. She has appointed as Central ministers, chief ministers, ambassadors, governors and members of the Rajya Sabha men and women of less than average ability just because they have been persistent in pressing their claims on her. She generally reserves her ruthlessness for those who challenge her position, above all from within the party – the so-called syndicate in 1969 and the critics of the emergency and its excesses in 1979.
Mrs Gandhi also does not possess an adequate machinery which can keep her fully posted with the doings of ministers and chief ministers. On the face of it, this is an untenable proposition. She meets a large number of people day after day and is willing to listen to them. And then the intelligence bureau is at her disposal. But how many of those she meets are willing to speak freely and frankly? How many of them can claim to be reasonably well informed and sufficiently objective, dispassionate and non-partisan in their assessment? How many of them is she willing and able to trust? How free do IB men feel to collect information on the doings of Congress (I) leaders and the IB chief to communicate it to her?
One with long experience in the intelligence bureau tells me that while its officers keep an eye on the activities of the luminaries of the ruling party in order to find out whether the latter are in any way compromising national security, they do not as a rule put their findings on record as they do in the case of opposition leaders and others who attract their attention. They communicate the information they collect on the ruling party leaders to the director who may or may not pass it on to the home minister or the Prime Minister. He has access to the Prime Minister. But how often does he meet her and how far does he feel free to tell her what he may think she may not wish to hear? All an outsider can say is that the atmosphere in the corridors of power is not conducive to frankness. Fear and uncertainty have strengthened the tendency to play safe among bureaucrats.
Competence
Then there is the question of the competence of the intelligence agency itself. It is difficult to take the IB’s efficiency for granted in view of the harassment its men have gone through since 1977 when there was a change of government in New Delhi, the manner in which its former director was pilloried at the Shah Commission hearings, the large-scale transfers in recent years, their natural reluctance to court the displeasure of those in office and the rise of trade unionism in its ranks.
In India, as in China under Chairman Mao Zedong, politics has been in command, though mercifully not to the same extent. The result in terms of the demoralisation of the administration has perhaps not been as disastrous as in China but it has been serious enough. Time-servers and sycophants willing to disregard or bend the rules at the behest of their political masters have prospered while men of ability and integrity have got pushed aside. Not to speak of ministers and chief ministers, even legislators have come to enjoy the power to manipulate the administrative machine to their advantage. It will be highly surprising if the IB has escaped this corrosive process.
So effective has been the campaign against Mrs Gandhi that even those not ill-disposed towards her tend to assume that she does not mind wrong-doing by ministers and chief ministers. The theory is that since they owe their office to her, they would not dare act the way they do if she disapproved. This is accompanied by the belief that she is fully aware of what is going on not only in New Delhi but also in state capitals. The reality is quite different.
Mrs Gandhi is not a front behind which clever men and women can feather their own nests. This description of her by a fairly good observer of the Indian scene for two decades is an exaggeration. But no one individual can effectively enforce accountability on such a vast army of ministers without resorting to Stalinist terror which is, of course, out of the question in a “soft” democracy like India.
The cleverer among the Congress (I) leaders have also developed a technique of keeping Mrs Gandhi reasonably well disposed towards them. Till June last year they spoke highly of Sanjay Gandhi day in and day out. Now they proclaim Rajiv Gandhi to be their leader despite his reluctance to accept the honour from them. Mrs Gandhi is critical of the press and the judiciary. So they make it their business to denigrate these institutions in the strongest possible language. This may or may not endear them to her. But it creates the impression among the people that they enjoy her favour and this is enough to protect them for a long time because Mrs Gandhi is never in a hurry to let the people know what she in fact thinks of a particular individual.
The Congress (I) leaders are able to take advantage of another trait in Mrs Gandhi’s character. When one of her colleagues comes under attack from the opposition or the press or both – for example, Mr LN Mishra and Mr Bansilal before the emergency – she regards it her duty to come to their rescue, however serious the charges against them. In 1974 she could perhaps have taken the wind out of Mr Jayaprakash Narayan’s sails if she had dropped Mr Mishra who had clearly become a big liability for her. But she refused to do so.
Since her return to office in 1980, she has dropped Mr Kamlapati Tripathi, Mr VC Shukla and Mr Jagannath Pahadia. In none of these cases can either the opposition or the press claim to have played a significant part. The press was critical of Mr Pahadia. But that did not seal his fate.
Danger
The rise of men who exercise power without being accountable poses a serious danger to the Indian political system. A way out has to be found if the crisis that already grips the system is not to become uncontrollable, leading either to the rise of authoritarianism or to anarchy, most probably the latter in India’s conditions. And the only way out is to create an atmosphere in which those in authority find it necessary to function within the parameters of the system and to observe well-established norms.
A great responsibility rests on Mrs Gandhi’s shoulders. As the country’s supreme leader, she has to accept the responsibility of seeing to it that those she places in authority do not act like the satraps of the Mughal emperors who could do whatever they liked so long as they professed allegiance to Delhi.
The Times of India, 2 September 1981