It would, on the face of it, be grossly unfair to compare Rajiv Gandhi with Saddam Hussein. For while the Iraqi leader has brought disaster on at least two countries, Kuwait and his own, Rajiv Gandhi has hurt, however badly, only himself and his party.
There are other significant differences as well. If Saddam Hussein is known for his brutal ruthlessness and obstinacy, Rajiv Gandhi enjoys the reputation of being fickle-minded and indecisive. Even so, the two share a lot in common.
Saddam Hussein was guilty of a grievous miscalculation when he invaded Kuwait on August 2 last in the belief that he could get away with it, Rajiv Gandhi has indulged in a similar illusion when he has sought to use the presence of two Haryana CID men outside his residence to get rid of the state government and its de facto boss, Om Prakash Chautala.
If the Kuwait rulers had become an eyesore for the Iraqi President because they would not cough up the billions he needed to keep his people contented and to augment his military machine for an assault, among others, on them, Chautala and his millions in Chandigarh had come to irritate the former Indian Prime Minister because they were not willing to go along with Devi Lal’s plans to cross over to the Congress and help him win over the necessary one-third of the Janata Dal (S) MPs.
Saddam Hussein could not have been interested in a war with United States; indeed, he occupied and annexed Kuwait in the conviction that Americans, fearful of a repetition of Vietnam, would baulk at the challenge at some stage. Rajiv Gandhi has not been keen on an early poll; in all probability he blew the so-called surveillance issue out of all proportion in the firm belief that Chandra Shekhar, out of office during all his long political career spanning almost half a century, would yield to be able to stick to the chair in V.P. Singh’s words. Devi Lal’s passionate ‘commitment’ to power and consequent willingness to sacrifice the now inconvenient son must have reinforced Rajiv Gandhi in his calculation that he had picked the right stick to beat the Prime Minister with.
The Iraqi leader got a wrong measure of President Bush and came a cropper. The Indian ‘counterpart’ has failed to grasp that there are still some Indians, Chandra Shekhar among them, who cannot be blackmailed, at least not beyond a point.
I am rather surprised that no communist leader, or ‘Marxist’ intellectual, has so far come up with the theory that Saddam Hussein has all along been a CIA-Zionist agent; for objectively speaking (Stalin’s phrase) he would not have done what he has, if he did not wish to help the US to establish its hegemony in the oil-rich Gulf region, discredit the PLO and thereby render legitimate Israel’s long-time search for an alternative Palestinian leadership.
By the same token, I would not be surprised if someone advances the proposition that Rajiv Gandhi is a disguised Hindu Rashtra supporter; for, objectively speaking, he would not have precipitated an immediate poll if he was not wanting to promote the BJP’s electoral prospects. On most accounts, it is best placed to take advantage of an early poll.
Rajiv Gandhi, it is well known, had been restless for quite sometime. Clearly either he himself or too many other Congress leaders had begun to find life uninteresting without the frills and thrills of office. For some months it was excitement enough for him to be treated as the king-maker. The excitement, however, had to taper off. So he had to be the king himself, once again. But in order to get to the throne, he needed at once to find a ‘suitable’ pretext to withdraw support from the Chandra Shekhar government and to make the necessary arithmetic in the Lok Sabha. He and his aides spared little effort to stitch up the excuse and arrange the necessary number of defectors. Unfortunately for them, they failed on both counts.
To be fair, one cannot blame them solely for the failure. After all, it is not their fault that Chandra Shekhar agreed to drop the five ministers who had been declared defectors by the Speaker, dismiss the Karunanidhi government so that the Congress and its AIADMK ally could be given an opportunity to get into power in Tamil Nadu, end refuelling of US planes en route the Gulf in order that Rajiv Gandhi could win back the Muslim vote as Saddam Hussein’s champion, postpone presentation of the budget, though it was ready and Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha threatened to quit rather than seek a vote-on-account from Parliament, and finally to acquiesce in the former Prime Minister’s decision to visit Moscow and Teheran in a bid to let the world know that in fact, if not in name, he was in command.
I think it would still be in order to reaffirm the view that it was wrong of Chandra Shekhar as Prime Minister to dismiss the Karunanidhi government in the absence of a critical report by the Governor, especially when the Governor happened to be so honourable a man as Surjeet Singh Barnala, and to agree to postpone presentation of the budget in view of the urgent need to raise additional taxes to avoid injury to the nation’s long-term interests and to qualify for the second tranche of the proposed IMF loan. He compromised himself in yielding to well- publicised Congress pressure on the two issues. But that also underlines, on the one hand, Chandra Shekhar’s anxiety to avoid offence to the Congress even at the cost of his dignity and status, and, on the other, the lack of the slightest justification for Rajiv Gandhi to behave the way he has.
In today’s India, it is not particularly pertinent to recall that Rajiv Gandhi had given President R. Venkataraman a solemn assurance of support to the Chandra Shekhar government for at least one year and to make the point that he was honour-bound not to go back on it except under some grave provocation or provocations which the Prime Minister has obviously not given him. The trouble is that, unlike in Indira Gandhi’s case in 1979 when she too withdrew support to a similar minority government installed with her help, Rajiv Gandhi does not appear to have been guided by cold and careful calculation either.
In the summer of 1979, public opinion had turned away from the ever-feuding Janata leaders of all descriptions and in her favour. She was, therefore, keen on an early poll. Indeed, it was with that objective in view that she encouraged Charan Singh in his ambition to become Prime Minister and used Madhu Limaye and Raj Narain to split the Janata. There has been no such shift in the popular mood in favour of Rajiv Gandhi in recent months. On the contrary, the view is widespread that the BJP as an organisation and V.P Singh as an individual are riding high.
There is a case, though, for the Congress to opt for early elections. Which is that the opposition cannot come together in view of the deep hostility between the BJP on the one hand, and the National Front and the communists, on the other hand, and that the Janata Dal is in total disarray on account of V.P. Singh’s style of leadership and casteist-communalist platform that has angered almost all Janata Dal leaders. Indeed, Sitaram Kesri, the Congress treasurer, has been saying so publicly so much so that he has called opponents of an early poll cowards in an interview on record. But there has been little evidence that his view has prevailed. On the contrary, the available evidence has pointed in the direction of Rajiv Gandhi wanting to return to the office of Prime Minister with the help of defectors from other parties and communists.
In the case of the Janata Dal (S), Devi Lal took the initiative. He has been keen to cross over to the Congress because he knows his power base in Haryana itself has shrunk and the life of the Chandra Shekhar government cannot but be brief. Even his initial failure to get one-third of party MPs to defect with him does not, however, appear to have ended the Congress party’s encouragement to him. Moreover, it is common knowledge that in the case of Ajit Singh, the initiative came from the Congress. He too failed to get one-third of Janata Dal MPs to agree to come out with him. But the wooing of Ajit Singh by the Congress is said to have continued.
This is not all. Rajiv Gandhi has held meetings with Jyoti Basu in an effort to secure the CPM’s support for a government headed by him so much so that the CPI leadership has found it necessary to issue a public statement to criticise such behind-the-scene confabulations. The former Prime Minister has met President Venkataraman as well a number of times, apparently to persuade him to renew the invitation to him to form the government. While it would be inappropriate to speculate on what the head of state may have told Rajiv Gandhi at these parleys, it may be noted that the President has attracted adverse comment on this account (see the latest issue of India Today).
In the strange and unpredictable world of current Indian politics, it is not inconceivable that having failed to return to the coveted and almost hereditary office by the backdoor, as it were, Rajiv Gandhi allowed himself to be persuaded that the time was propitious for seeking and securing a fresh mandate. It is also possible that the show of support he has received, particularly from Muslims, in his advocacy of Saddam Hussein and criticism of the US, has strengthened him in this assessment. But in that case, he should have either accepted the straightforward approach and withdrawn support to the government, or tried to persuade Chandra Shekhar that the country could no longer afford the prevailing political uncertainty and confusion.
In all probability, Chandra Shekhar would have gone along if only to avoid the humiliation of the Congress withdrawing support on the ground that it favoured elections. His refusal to fall in line would also have made him look a power-hungry man and isolated him, since the BJP, the National Front, with the Janata Dal as its constituent, and the communists favour a fresh poll. In any event, if he had resisted Rajiv Gandhi’s plea, the onus of breaking the arrangement would have been on him. Now it is on Rajiv Gandhi.
There are three possible explanations for Rajiv Gandhi’s performance. First, it can well be argued that Rajiv Gandhi just cannot brace himself for a frank and honest discussion and that this is not the first time that he has said one thing (“we continue to support the government”) and done the opposite (ordered his party MPs to boycott Parliament last Tuesday and Wednesday). Second, it is likely he has acted without due forethought and been taken by surprise by Chandra Shekhar’s response. Third, it is possible that he is confident of victory and that any pretext would have been good enough for him to embarrass the Prime Minister to a point where the latter would have had no choice but to resign.
It is difficult to say which one of these possible explanations is more valid than the others. But while only those close to him can say whether or not he is confident of victory, it is widely known that the former Prime Minister tends to avoid discussion if it involves disagreement and unpleasantness, that he leads, even if unwittingly, those who meet him to believe that he agrees with them, that they are often taken by surprise by his subsequent decisions and actions, and that he has acted on such crucial matters as the despatch of troops to Sri Lanka without sufficient forethought.
Rajiv Gandhi improvises as he goes along. His handling of the Bofors payoff scandal can leave no scope for doubt on this score. The surveillance affair appears to me to fall in the same category. He was upstaged by his tormentors again and again in the Bofors affair. He appears to have been upstaged by Chandra Shekhar this time.
Be that as it may, however, the Chandra Shekhar government was a make-shift arrangement. It had served its purpose inasmuch as it had helped reduce tension to the extent it could and thus enable elections to be held. It was not entitled to last beyond the period which was necessary to produce this measure of calm in the country. It could not have lasted for long anyway in view of the size and composition of the Janata Dal (S) with its 54 MPs in the Lok Sabha with no firm loyalty to any one leader.
Sunday Mail, 10 March 1991