As it prepares to meet in Madras next week-end, the BJP leadership has good reason to be fed up with the Janata Dal government. It could not have been treated with greater contempt if its representation in the Lok Sabha was a mere 18 and not 88, as it happens to be, and if the government was not critically dependent on it for its survival, as it in fact is.
On the repeated testimony of the BJP leaders themselves, they have not been consulted on vital issues, such as the removal of Jagmohan as Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, notification of the Valley and certain border districts of the state as disturbed areas under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, the proposal to hold elections in Punjab in the face of the rising tempo of terrorist activities there and the new industrial policy. And they feel so badly cheated on the question of statehood for the Delhi Union Territory that they are planning a month-long agitation.
The BJP leaders have reaffirmed their support to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad in its plans to build the temple to Bhagwan Rama in Ayodhya. But they must know that millions of those who voted for them in the last two polls no longer take such declarations on their part at their face value. The impression has spread that they have allowed themselves to be outmanoeuvred by V.P. Singh and that in view of Mulayam Singh’s opposition the temple may not be built so long as the present dispensation prevails in New Delhi and Lucknow.
The Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Mosque issue can in a sense be said to have been relegated to the background by developments in Jammu and Kashmir since last December and the possibility of war with Pakistan. The BJP itself has concentrated its resources on mobilising public opinion on the twin issues of Pakistan-backed terrorism and the plight of the Hindu and the Sikh refugees from Kashmir. But it cannot wish away the VHP and the Janata Dal government has shown no interest in helping ease the painful dilemma it faces.
On top of it all, Devi Lal has declared war on the BJP and threatened a mid-term poll in Haryana in order to wipe it out, as he claims to be in a position to do. This may remain an empty threat but the Deputy Prime Minister’s estrangement must render infructuous the ‘cosy’ relationship L.K. Advani thought he had built with V.P. Singh.
Though V.P. Singh had made no secret of his ‘feeling of discomfort’ in the company of the BJP during the election campaign last November, it is possible that he flattered Advani with a show of consultation and confidence and that Advani was sufficiently flattered to be willing to be taken for a ride, as on the question of the removal of Jagmohan. Be that as it may, however, things have clearly changed. If nothing else, Devi Lal has made it difficult for V.P. Singh even to pretend to consult Advani and Advani in turn cannot possibly pretend that he has any say in the formulation and implementation of policies on critical issues. Advani has also to carry his cadres with him and they are angry because the JD-BJP relationship has turned out to be a one-way street.
Another disturbing reality has surfaced from the BJP’s point of view. Which is that V.P. Singh leads from behind (and not from the front) if he can be said to lead at all. The Janata Dal, as a party, does not appear to have interested him much after he had secured the coveted office of Prime Minister; perhaps he had by then concluded that the Janata Dal bore comparison not so much with a coherent political organisation as with the Sikh Misls before the rise of Ranjit Singh, with their own troops and commanders; and that it was neither possible nor necessary for him to try to play Ranjit Singh, not possible because he was not cast in that mould and not necessary because the office of Prime Minister gave him all that he had so calculatingly and cold-bloodedly sought. Now it transpires that he has reduced the office of Prime Minister as well to a nullity, with Ministers free to say and do what they like. This means that Advani’s ‘special relationship’ with him would be meaningless even if it survives the onslaught on it by Devi Lal.
A discussion of V.P. Singh’s ‘leadership’ style, even if a brief one, is pertinent in this context. As I see things, if Rajiv Gandhi had caused considerable damage to the office of Prime Minister by at once concentrating too much power in it and choosing as his aides men wholly inadequate for the job by any criterion whatsoever, V.P. Singh has more or less abolished it and in the process delivered another powerful blow at the concept of collective responsibility and therefore of the Cabinet system.
The Ministers are, of course, having a wonderful time. The Home Minister, Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, for example, feels free to make one bizarre pronouncement after another; one day he ‘orders’ that no more migration of Hindus and Sikhs would be allowed from the Kashmir Valley and that the refugees already in Jammu would be taken back to Srinagar and put in specially protected camps there; on another day, he declares in unison with George Fernandes that the political process would soon be resumed; and he follows it up with another fiat that vacancies in the state administration and public sector enterprises resulting from the flight of thousands of Hindu and Sikh employees to Jammu for fear of their lives must be filled.
And, of course, he is not the only one who is having a whale of a time. Inder Gujral pronounced soon after he took over as Minister for External Affairs that India would never ever again intervene in Sri Lanka and Ajit Singh has quietly (indeed not so quietly) ignored the Planning Commission and announced his own industrial policy; the policy was endorsed by the Cabinet only after Chandra Shekhar, the CPI-M-CPI combine and the BJP had raised a howl against it on the ground that it especially favoured multi-national corporations; for, then alone did the new-style Raja Prime Minister think it necessary to convene a meeting of the Cabinet. Incidentally, that has not prevented George Fernandes from continuing to voice his opposition to the policy.
V.P. Singh is right when he says that political leadership is above all the art of managing contradictions. But he is not managing contradictions. He is abdicating his responsibility as Prime Minister. He presides over what may be called ministerial government and not over a Cabinet system of government. The latter calls for leadership. That Rajiv Gandhi interfered too much with the functioning of his Cabinet ministers does not, and cannot, legitimise total non-interference and absence of a collective application of mind even by the outdated concept of the Prime Minister being no more than primus inter pares (first among equals).
All this must worry the BJP leadership not only because many of the ministerial pronouncements happen to run against its approach to the relevant issues but also because it cannot possibly favour fragmentation of the Union government. The party has moved a long way from its previous incarnation when it favoured one government for the whole country, with the states disbanded and suitably divided into districts. But it is still far away from accepting the proposition that India does not need a strong central authority in New Delhi.
All in all, the BJP finds itself in an unenviable position. Apparently it has worked out a two-track strategy to cope with it and it looks as if the National Executive will endorse this approach in Madras next week-end. Thus it will, on the one hand, express vigorously its differences with the government’s policies and even campaign against some of them and, on the other, it will continue to support the government and allow itself to be described as the Janata Dal’s ally.
The BJP’s critics will argue that it is trying to have the best of both worlds. My own assessment is that it is in danger of getting the worst of both worlds. Those in power are not likely to worry unduly about its criticism so long as they are assured of its continuing support in Parliament and the people are not likely to be greatly impressed by its criticism of official policies and actions so long as they are not convinced that it means business and would at some stage be ready to end the ‘alliance’ with the Janata Dal.
What then is the way out?
A neat solution is not in sight. But I for one see no good reason why the BJP should not think in terms of announcing the end of its automatic support for the V.P. Singh government in Parliament even if it does not think it advisable to risk an early fresh poll. For, while there is no such risk in effective terms because Rajiv Gandhi too is not ready to bring down the government even if he can, the proposed approach offers the twin advantages of winning for the BJP the freedom it desperately needs and of denying to the Janata Dal government the complacent sense of security that the immobilism of other parties has given it. The political stalemate needs to be broken in the interest of the nation and the BJP is under grave enough provocation to be willing to perform this task.
Sunday Mail, 15 July 1990