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Monday, May 31, 2004

Opinion

Opinion - Leader Page Articles

Reconstructing India

By Rajeev Dhavan

India needs healing. Its governance must return to the secularism and distributive justice goals of the Constitution.

THE LAST six years of Bharatiya Janata Party-led rule (1998-2004) rank amongst the most divisive periods of India's post-Independence history. The BJP and the Sangh Parivar have thrived by raising communal issues, which have, willy-nilly, resulted in social divisions, atrocities and despair. The controversies raised tore India apart. It was during the BJP's rule in Uttar Pradesh in 1992 that the Babri Masjid was destroyed — a shameful event sought to be justified by the BJP's White Paper of 1993. Communal violence increased. Gujarat was clearly a playground for communal politics where, in 1998, copies of the New Testament were publicly torn; and the All India Catholic Union compiled 33 major ugly incidents against Christians. In 1999, Graham Staines and his children were killed. In 2003, some sections hailed the persons convicted of this gruesome murder as martyrs. From 2001, the Parivar with Government support was blocked by the Supreme Court in its efforts to excite the emotive Babri Masjid issue. The communal heat was kept alive by the BJP leaders — culminating in the Gujarat riots of 2002. Narendra Modi was returned to power, his Government providing communal injustice that left the Supreme Court aghast.

Why is all this important for our present discontents? The campaign about Sonia Gandhi's `foreign origin' can only be understood as part of a divisive agenda. Having lost the election, the BJP could have been constructive but it chose a divisive path. Through long experience in such tactics, the BJP and the Parivar decided to sustain a continuing controversy to divide India for the next few months. The vehicle for such a division was Ms. Gandhi's `foreign origins.' Taken to its clamorous pitch, this campaign would have pointedly tried to extract and breed controversy. There is no moral, legal or political basis for this controversy.

Indian law does not discriminate between various classes of citizens — whether by birth, descent, place of birth, registration or naturalisation. The `reciprocity' clause in Section 5 of the Citizenship Act through which Italian law is threatened to be read into Indian law has never been used since it was enacted in 1955. Nor did the BJP in power invoke it — being scared to do so except as a divisive campaign. In 2001, the Supreme Court ruled in an election petition that Sonia Gandhi is an Indian citizen entitled to be a Member of Parliament. She has been the Leader of the Opposition. There is no impediment to her being Prime Minister. The `best' international practice is to treat all citizens equally. That is why so many Indians have held high political office in Guyana, Fiji, America, England and other countries. The `worst' practice advanced by the BJP and the Sangh Parivar is xenophobic, racist and communal.

Sonia Gandhi's coup against the Sangh Parivar has to be understood in this backdrop. The BJP threatened to disrupt and divide India once again if Ms. Gandhi became Prime Minister. The former Minister and Rajya Sabha MP, Sushma Swaraj, said she would tonsure her head in protest and resign from Parliament. Uma Bharti threatened to resign her post of Chief Minister. Ms. Gandhi's masterly stroke of declining the Prime Minister's post was to prevent precisely the kind of mass divisiveness the BJP and its Parivar are capable of. An India wounded by communalism had to be saved from another attack of senseless controversy. Ms. Gandhi's strategy did just that. Recall Richard II's Shakespearean questions: "What must the king do now? Must he submit? The king shall do it: must he be depos'd? The king shall be contended: must he lose the name of king? O' God's name, let it go..."

All this has already happened. The BJP has been churlish in defeat — unable to quite let go. Ms. Gandhi has given up her claim. Where do we go next? India needs healing on several important fronts.

First, communalism has entered the public domain and public policy in fundamentalist ways that hurts India's conscience and threatens the minorities. Nothing was left sacred. Textbooks were manipulated. BJP-appointed Governors espoused religious causes. Riots went without remedy. State Governments and Governors overtly and covertly championed communal causes. The BJP and the Parivar may continue to disrupt India's secular sanity. To restore a secular governance in India remains a prime priority.

The second area of `healing' is that the nation suffers an incomparable socio-economic divide. The poor and destitute are victims of neglect not beneficiaries of development. This neglect is self-evident in the last five years. What the 2004 election has made clear is that the desperately poor (40 per cent of the population) and other disadvantaged (some 30 per cent) will simply not tolerate being overlooked. But, how is this uplift to take place within the conspectus of Indian federalism?

Many of the socio-economic empowerments are with the States not the Union. Distributive justice plans failed due to lack of oversight and accountability. But, an all powerful Union cannot also compromise `State autonomy.' The Inter-State Council is not effective. One way to move forward is to appoint task forces in crucial socio-economic areas to achieve goals for the poor. Built into each programme must be details of information that will empower each village and part of India to proactively ensure developmental achievement.

The plethora of available coalitions cannot disguise the polarity of approaches that characterise Indian politics today. Undoubtedly, India is a development economy hungry for investment to enable expansion and growth rates. On this there is no controversy. The stock market is not an independent barometer. It moves because it is made to move. A proper inquiry will reveal the conspiracy.

What is at issue is India's socialist soul. Many aspects of socialism pertaining to State ownership and control (except in key areas) have been re-written. There is a paucity of self-generative investment capacity. But, the human face of socialism survives. This human face calls for a `distributive justice' of necessities and equal opportunities for all. Here there are deep divisions. The BJP catered to the well-off. A socialist agenda requires distributive justice founded on equal opportunities. This is not to resurrect V.P. Singh's `Mandal' controversies but to make a plea to make the poor the focus of any new agenda mindful of just savings and investment needs. This is the essential polarity in Indian politics today: to respond to not just the stock exchange but to the people for whom the Constitution was written.

Despite its tall claims, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance was not responsible for `India-shining'. History is a little wiser than election slogans. At an economic level, the BJP was simply following the imperatives of Congress' earlier policies without the top-order expertise of seeing it through. Yashwant Sinha was rightly shifted from the Finance Minister's post. Jaswant Singh did not show an adequate grasp of finance. The policies towards global trade and the WTO lacked comprehensive competence even if some noises were made by Arun Jaitley at Cancun in campaigns principally led by other third world nations. Socially, and in terms of human rights, the BJP-led Government's record leaves everything to be desired. The Prevention of Terrorism Act was pushed through in a joint session of Parliament. When its abuse became apparent, it was tinkered with by giving the Review Committee recommendatory powers. India can tackle terrorism without the magnum POTA, which has undermined civil and democratic liberties by its sheer abuse. The `justice' reforms of new procedures and `fast track' courts are ephemeral, ill-thought-out remedies. The injustices of the Best Bakery case arose out of `fast track' courts. The justice system needs looking at without quick-fix remedies.

The BJP was in a hurry to be seen to be doing things — however imperfect. Even in economic matters, the NDA concentrated on aspects of procedure. India grew because decades of attention to its infrastructure, technology and people' expertise paid off. The BJP tried to ride the economic wave but could not fool the people.

India seeks to find its place among the nations of the world. This is not done by creating bilateral events with indefinite results. India wants a seat in the Security Council. It needs to restore its voice — especially at a time when the American Empire threatens to act as brutally as it is decisive in its pursuit of its own interests.

After six years of divisive rule, India needs healing. Its governance must return to the secularism and distributive justice goals of the Constitution. Its people need reassurance. A Government that serves itself and not the people will only lose its way to the next election and its right to rule thereafter. Coalition governments founded on secure strategies based on peoples' aspirations cannot lose their way. The task ahead is to restore India's constitutional governance.

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