A spectre haunts the political scene in Maharashtra, the spectre of Mr. AR Antulay. It will have to be exorcised, not through incense burning, ritual incantations and offerings but through tough action. Else there can be no political stability and order in the state.
Mr. Antulay resigned as chief minister on January 12 in the wake of a stinging indictment by Mr. Justice Lentin, of the Bombay high court, holding that there was a nexus between the allotment of cement quotas to some select builders and the contribution made by them to trusts set up and controlled by him. Mr. Antulay was not embarrassed by the verdict in the slightest degree. In fact, he boasted to all those who called on him that he would be stronger out of office than he was in office.
It is Mr. Antulay’s great strength that he does not feel guilty. He sees nothing wrong either in having collected money from those whom he helped to make money or in having used his official position to confer favours on those who were willing to engage in a trade-off. He belongs at once to the feudal order which did not distinguish between the public realm and the private realm and to the crass commercialism of Bombay which, as Andre Malraux said, is a bazaar and not a city.
Mr. Antulay has another strong point. Like gang leaders, he inspires dog-like loyalty among his cronies. The number of such individuals may not be particularly large. But they are there at his beck and call, ready to carry out his orders.
The former chief minister is, of course, immensely resourceful. No one is in a position to assess the resources at his disposal. And he has been known to be generous to those who are, or can be, useful to him. So it is difficult to say how many Congress (I) political activists continue to be beholden to him, not for old favours but for present ones.
Manipulated Consensus
Even so when these and other advantages have been listed and taken into account, the fact stands out that the myth of Mr. Antulay’s strength is the result of the weaknesses of others. And among the others is the country’s and the ruling party’s supreme leader, Mrs. Gandhi.
Let us begin at the beginning. She did not think too well of Mr. Antulay when she was returned to office in January, 1980 and kept him out of her cabinet. Yet six months later she acquiesced in his selection as leader of the Maharashtra Congress (I) legislature party through a manipulated consensus. Perhaps she could not help it. So let that pass.
Soon after consolidating his position, Mr. Antulay set up a host of trusts, one named after Mrs. Gandhi, and started to use his official position to collect money for them. Reports began to reach her. But she did nothing to restrain him, though she was concerned and showed it by asking pertinent questions of those who called on her from Maharashtra. All she did at the time was to ask for her name to be removed from the trust in question.
Meanwhile the matter went to the Bombay high court. While admitting the petition, the judge made observations which left no room for doubt that there was a prima facie case of abuse of office against Mr. Antulay. That was in September, 1981. Even then Mrs. Gandhi took no action, leaving it to the court to decide what was essentially a political issue.
Finally, she acted. Mr. Antulay had no intention of resigning on his own following Mr. Justice Lentin’s judgment. In fact, when he received orders from New Delhi to resign, he was busy masterminding a meeting of party legislators to demand that he continue in office pending disposal of his appeal first to a division bench of the high court and then, if necessary, to the Supreme Court. That could well have seen him through his term. He also talked in terms of defying the court and of taking on the judiciary.
By now enough damage had been done. The impression had spread that Mr. Antulay was so well entrenched that Mrs. Gandhi was afraid of taking action against him. As if this was not provocation enough for her to wish to rectify the situation, she compounded her mistakes.
Another Victory
It is difficult to say whether Mrs. Gandhi selected Mr. Babasaheb Anantrao Bhosale as Maharashtra’s next chief minister at Mr. Antulay’s instance. But when his supporters spread that this was the case, she did not take steps to negate this impression. Mr. Bhosale himself lent credence to those reports by protesting loyalty to Mr. Antulay and appointing him chairman of a public corporation.
This was not all. Within a week or so of Mr. Antulay’s resignation and Mr. Bhosale’s appointment, reports began to float that the governor would be shifted elsewhere in order to appease the aggrieved former chief minister. The governor, it was common knowledge, had submitted adverse reports on Mr. Antulay to the Union government. The reports turned out to be accurate. So another victory for Mr. Antulay, another feather in his cap.
It is difficult to say with any measure of confidence that Mr. Antulay inspired the campaign against Mr. Bhosale within days of his appointment. Former ministers kept out of his government by Mr. Bhosale could have initiated it on their own and so could some others who had been close to Mr. Antulay.
The episode exposes Mr. Bhosale’s weakness which has greatly contributed to the myth of Mr. Antulay’s irresistible power. He should have right then confronted his tormentors as he is doing now. He perhaps calculated that if he could keep Mr. Antulay in good humour, it would suffice to help him keep his gaddi.
By the end of February, it had once again become necessary for Mrs. Gandhi to intervene in Maharashtra. She should have got someone qualified for the job to look into the charges against Mr. Bhosale so that she could decide at least tentatively whether or not these were accurate. And if she was convinced that there was substance in the charges, she should have asked him to go. If not, she should have openly and fully backed him. She did neither. She allowed matters to drift. The result is there for anyone to see.
Timely action by Mrs. Gandhi could have prevented the rise of the anti-Bhosale coalition in which even one so thoroughly opposed to Mr. Antulay as Mrs. Shalini Patil is said to have joined. This is a powerful combination which can make it difficult for the chief minister to provide any kind of administration.
Extremely Active
Mr. Antulay will, of course, deny that he is master-minding the campaign. But that is not likely to convince anyone. For one thing, the campaign has taken its present intense form in the wake of Mr. Bhosale’s decision to remove some officials who were alleged to have been involved in Mr. Antulay’s shenanigans. For another, some of his close associates such as Mr. Suresh Jain and Miss Saroj Khaparde have suddenly become extremely active and vocal in attacking the chief minister.
It is too early to say whether there is a connection between Maneka Gandhi’s revolt in New Delhi and the dissident activities in Maharashtra. If Mr. Antulay is too shrewd to openly align himself with Maneka at this stage, he can also be quite reckless, as he was when he established half a dozen trusts and collected crores of rupees for them in return for special favours. Moreover, he and some of the other disgruntled elements may well have concluded that Mrs. Gandhi is too preoccupied to discipline them and Mr. Bhosale too weak and vulnerable to survive.
As a result of a series of developments, Maharashtra has become a test case for Mrs. Gandhi. If she does not squash the anti- Bhosale revolt in the Congress (I), it is bound to be regarded as a loss of nerve on her part and aggravate trouble in other states. She has not much time to lose.
The situation is dangerous beyond words. In our political life we have reached a stage where no crime is serious enough to discredit a politician in the eyes of his peers, where rumours freely circulate and are readily believed that judges have been fixed or sought to be intimidated, and where top civil servants become willing tools of chief ministers and ministers.
In Maharashtra, for example, the continuing influence of Mr. Antulay speaks for itself. He continues to be feared because he may stage a comeback. No one even asks how. Most people quietly assume that Mrs. Gandhi may not wish to resist the demand from legislators and, indeed, may not be in a position to do so.
Wages of drift and some wages these.
The Times of India, 7 April 1982