So the message of defeat in Andhra and Karnataka has gone home. Mrs. Gandhi has concluded that she can no longer ignore the warning signal if she is to survive after the 1985 poll to the Lok Sabha and protect the system which her father built with such fond care. The first indication that she intended to act without any loss of time came last Tuesday when Mr. Sitaram Kesri not only disclosed that he had resigned as minister of state for shipping but also suggested, almost demanded, that other Congress (I) leaders in office at the Centre and the states follow his lead. It was quite clear from his action and the tenor of his statement at the press conference that as in the past, Mr. Kesri had spoken for the Prime Minister. Subsequent resignations of all ministers have confirmed this prognosis.
Thus like Mr. Nehru in the wake of the Chinese aggression, Mrs. Gandhi appears to have decided to revamp drastically the Union and the Congress (I) state governments and the organisation in order to put the party’s defeat in Andhra and Karnataka behind her and demonstrate that she has both the will and the capacity to shake her party men out of the mire of physical and moral lethargy into which many of them have gradually sunk. Mrs. Gandhi is not the person to go down without a fight. She is also shrewd enough to know that this time she has to join issue, not with opposition parties which remain incoherent, directionless and purposeless, at least in all-India terms, but with many of her own followers in office who have attracted the wrath of the people on the Congress (I) through their brazenness, corruption and incompetence. But how determined is she?
We doubt whether anyone is in a position to answer it. We certainly are not. But we can say without hesitation that a few symbolic sacrifices will not suffice. The days of window-dressing are over. That will neither convince the people that the earlier Indira is back at work nor give the Congress (I) leaders the jolt they need to give up the five star culture and all that it implies. Even in relatively normal times, as Gladstone said, “the first essential for a Prime Minister is to be a good butcher”. In India, we are not living in normal times. The system faces a collapse and the ruling party an early burial (or cremation) unless Mrs. Gandhi shows the determination and capacity to salvage them. She shall have to wield the axe rather freely if she is in earnest.
This operation has to cover both the Centre and the Congress (l)-governed states. Mrs. Gandhi knows as well as anyone else the names of the corrupt and the incompetent. She knows that there are chief minister who treat governance as a series of commercial transactions. These men will need to be “pole-axed” (in Gladstone’s phrase). This is not going to be an easy affair. Party units in one state after another are full of adventurers who have come to politics in search of fortune. Indeed, that is one reason why some well-meaning persons have expressed serious doubts regarding the feasibility of restoring any kind of moral norms in the Congress (1). Mrs. Gandhi has often dismissed this criticism as partisan on the ground that the opposition does not have any qualms in accepting men from her party whom it has earlier condemned as being venal. This point is well taken. But in the present context, it is not particularly relevant. The people have reposed their trust in Mrs. Gandhi and they expect her to redeem her promises, or else …
However difficult the clean-up operation, this is only part of the task confronting the Prime Minister. She will have to attend to another problem immediately. She needs to restore authority to ministers. Once the proper men have been chosen and installed in office, they must be allowed, in fact encouraged, to function smoothly. Imagine ministers calling on individuals outside the government with files and signing on the dotted line. This has been happening for some time. Many ministers have been taking orders from those who claim to speak in the Prime Minister’s name. The result is rank inefficiency in the government, on the one hand, and the extraordinary growth in the number and influence of power brokers, on the other. These power brokers operate in New Delhi as freely as in any state capital. Patna or Bombay may be no worse in this regard than New Delhi. Mrs. Gandhi may not be fully aware of the damage these brokers are doing to her own and her government’s reputation. But she can take it that the damage is very considerable. It is as urgent to throw out these “gentlemen” as it is to expel corrupt and incompetent ministers. The integrity of the system cannot be allowed to be tampered with except at the risk of undermining it. The nature of the stakes is obvious. The effort has to be commensurate with the magnitude of the challenge.