Democracy be damned!

By Ajay K. Mehra

WHAT HAPPENS when a star actress scripts a drama of political vengeance against a seasoned scriptwriter? The Sun TV's video footage telecast countrywide and the one released by the Tamil Nadu Police as a rejoinder, despite many unanswered questions, show how quickly a political potboiler can be scripted. The tragi-comedy of the situation, however, is reflected in a mauled and severely scarred Indian democracy. However, while condemning the unwarranted unleashing of the brute force of the state, this episode deserves a review in a larger perspective. Should we not be introspective about our callousness towards wide chinks, getting wider, in India's democratic armour?

While condemning the politics of vendetta in no uncertain terms, we must remember that its history goes back to 1977. Indira Gandhi's arrest by the Janata Party Government, her humiliation in Parliament when she was elected from Chickmagalur and her eventual unseating by a parliamentary resolution had vengeance written all over. Several of the actors in that drama are those who are looking aghast at Ms. Jayalalithaa's audacity, including Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee and Mr. L. K. Advani. Mr. Bansi Lal's humiliation by Devi Lal also had few parallels.

The central theme of the latest script of vendetta between the two Dravidian parties, which have alternatively held power in Tamil Nadu since 1967, is corruption. However, political corruption in contemporary India is an issue only of political mudslinging, or vendetta. Therefore, despite Ms. Jayalalithaa's conviction in the TANSI land deal and the charges she has pressed against Mr. Karunanidhi now, the political dimension of the drama cannot be missed. Disgusted with her style of politics and governance the voter gave an overwhelming mandate to DMK, which carried corruption charges against her to the logical end. The wheel of political justice has turned full circle in five years.

Ironically, she was courted by the BJP in 1998, when that party did not perhaps consider the charges of corruption against her serious enough. Mr. Karunanidhi's DMK, then with the United Front, was a thorn in the flesh. Mr. George Fernandes, who rightly condemned her midnight swoop on Mr. Karunanidhi, then functioned also as Minister for Jayalalithaa affairs, with one foot perpetually planted in Chennai to placate her. Imagine if she had not deserted the Vajpayee Government in 1999, which would then still have been in power for the fourth year. She would have become Chief Minister in the same fashion, sworn in by the same Governor and would have meted out the same treatment to Mr. Karunanidhi. What would then have been the reactions of the NDA and the Congress? The Governor would perhaps have been defended, not recalled.

The rule of law is among the first victims in this war of vengeance. For, such acts of vendetta are carried out in the name of the rule of law and by using provisions of law. Whether the Indian democratic republican state should retain the colonial clause of arrest on suspicion without a warrant in its law books is indeed a fundamental question deserving examination, irrespective of the victim's status and age. The political misuse of this provision, however, is a folly worse compounded. But has not the rule of law been played around with by politicians in India for several years? The happenings during the Emergency, of course, were stark examples of contempt for the rule of law. A more recent example came up in Bihar, when unable to end Mr. Laloo Yadav's jungle raj politically, the BJP decided to use the legal route. The plan to incarcerate Mr. Laloo Yadav in the fodder scam in Ranchi reflected just this. The BJP Chief Minister of Jharkhand went out of his way to indicate that Mr. Laloo Yadav will be treated as an ordinary prisoner. Had he not got relief from the Patna High Court, the Chennai drama would have been rehearsed from Patna to Ranchi.

In recent years, the Ayodhya episode, from building of the movement in the late 1980s to the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992 and the legal battle that continues even today in the lower courts of Uttar Pradesh and in the Liberhans Commission, clearly shows how contemptuously the political class treats the concept of rule of law, which must be respected in any democracy. While the case pending before the lower court is being allowed to lapse on technicalities by the BJP administration in Uttar Pradesh, senior Union Ministers deposing before the Liberhans Commission have been taking shelter behind lies and misrepresentation to save themselves. Obviously, their own desperate political choice a decade and half ago of a contentiously communal route to power, which had disregard for rule of law built into it, is compelling them today to thum- nose the same laws they have taken the oath to protect.

The process of criminalisation of politics resulting in induction of persons of criminal antecedents in politics, Legislatures, Parliament and Councils of Ministers, too reflects contempt for the rule of law. After all, how can the rule of law be enforced with lawbreakers as lawmakers? Overwhelmed by winnability of candidates in fiercely-contested elections, no political party or leader has so far come out clean and with distinction on this count.

Ms. Jayalalithaa is not the first Chief Minister to comprehensively shake up the entire bureaucracy on her return. Had she not been in such a hurry to settle scores so crudely and brazenly with Mr. Karunanidhi, his family and the bureaucrats of his choice, perhaps no fingers would have been raised on the reshuffle she carried out from top to bottom so swiftly. The tradition of reshuffling the bureaucracy on political whims began in the 1970s; we should remember the debate begun by Indira Gandhi on a ``committed'' bureaucracy. It is no longer a debate full of shock and reprehension, it is an accepted practice across the political spectrum. For, those who criticised Indira Gandhi for this did the same thing in 1977 in the name of correcting the wrongs of the Emergency. She had the ``legitimacy'' to do it defiantly in 1980. The aberration naturally became an accepted practice within a decade resulting in scant regard for a judicious mix of seniority and merit, which had very limited scope for supersession.

Misuse of the bureaucracy for partisan and ``personal'' agendas, thus, is integral to the contempt for the Weberian model. The faces in the Union Cabinet with shock and disbelief writ large on them on Ms. Jayalalithaa's brazenness should refresh their memories of Uttar Pradesh during the Kar Seva leading to demolition of the Babri Masjid. What was the extent and kind of bureaucratic reshuffle carried out then? Bihar surpassed any norms of civilised political administration much before Mr. Laloo Yadav came. He, therefore, did not have to do much to establish the rule of outlaws. With the Congress monopoly over power gone and political space up for grabs for various political formations, the practice of reshuffle and misuse of bureaucracy has increased.

Unfortunately, the signals emanating from the Centre too have not been very heartening. Political choice for the post of Cabinet Secretary over the years has become an accepted practice, resulting in supersession of many able officers, political alignments at the top level bureaucracy and distortions in hierarchy.

Such politicisation of the law and order administration can only have disastrous consequences. What was witnessed in Chennai was only a reprehensible aspect of it. Its other dimension is witnessed in Bihar where politicisation of the police and bureaucracy as well as the rule of outlaws has begun to recoil on the system. Political parties and leaders must rise above partisan considerations and by develop a stake in the system as much as in power. They must remember that this ``democracy be damned'' attitude has already seriously damaged democratic institutions and traditions. If not checked immediately, this may irreparably harm Indian democracy.

(The writer is Director, Centre for Public Affairs, Noida, U.P.)

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