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Different strokes of responsibility

Rahul Dravid has resigned as captain of the Indian cricket team when no one expected him to walk away from a job he has been doing more than reasonably well. Ambika Soni refuses to resign as Union Minister for Culture when every fair-minded person thought she should have put in her papers after her Ministry botched up the Ramar Sethu affidavit business.

The two contrasting decisions tell us quite a bit about ourselves and our capacity to wallow in righteousness. Quitting while ahead does not come easily to most Indians, especially those in the public arena. Dravid had every right to feel hemmed in, especially since parochial smallness was brought into play in the selection process. Dravid has preferred the only honourable option open to him — resign as captain rather than let the team’s vitality and health suffer. As an honourable man, he has kept his silence and has refused to point fingers.

On the other hand, Ms. Soni says she will resign only if she is asked to do so by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh or Congress president Sonia Gandhi, as if she will have a choice if either of the two were to ask her to do so. Had Ms. Soni been blessed with political shrewdness she would have seized upon the opportunity to resign and thereby put herself in a category of her own. Instead, the tendency is to see this or that rival’s hand in the public expectation that at least she would revisit the very concept of ministerial responsibility.

The last time a Union Cabinet Minister resigned, owning moral responsibility, was in 1993 when Madhavrao Scindia put in his papers after a leased Indian Airlines aircraft crashed. That very act of political wholesomeness set him apart from other Congress leaders, and elevated him into the category of potential prime ministerial candidates. Since then no Cabinet Minister has ever felt the need to honour the idea and the principle of ministerial responsibility.

For instance, no Railway Minister — be it a Nitish Kumar, a Ram Vilas Paswan or a Lalu Prasad — has deemed it fit to own up for recurring failures down the line.

The Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, L.K. Advani, has demanded the resignations of Ms. Soni and Union Law Minister H.R. Bhardwaj over the Ramar Sethu issue. However, while he was in power Mr. Advani himself never subscribed to the principle of ministerial responsibility — not even when the greatest breach of security took place, on December 13, 2001, a hundred yards from his North Block office. Nor did Mr. Advani deem it necessary to resign when Jaswant Singh escorted and handed over known terrorists to the Taliban in Kandahar.

Hopefully, some insightful sociologist may be able to explain why, in sharp contrast to the Ambika Sonis and the L.K. Advanis of the political arena, a Rahul Dravid has been able to tap the dormant personal courage and integrity to tell off the bosses in the Board of Control for Cricket in India. But for now we know why the political leaders are gradually surrendering their role-model slots to civil society icons.

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