We do not know what persuaded the Union government to decide on a sudden, sharp and wholly unjustified hike in the prices of petroleum products last week. We also do not know who took the initiative – Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and the whiz-kids around him or finance minister V.P. Singh and his advisers. But it is obvious that a decision of this importance for the economy and of explosive potentiality for the future of the Congress party at least in the short run must have had the consent of the Prime Minister. Mr. Rajiv Gandhi cannot avoid this responsibility.
We also do not know the origin of the protest against this price increase by senior Congressmen, including the party’s working president, Mr. Kamlapati Tripathi, a Union cabinet minister, Mr. H.K.L Bhagat, and some PCC chiefs. It is possible that it reflects an intra-party tussle. Indeed, it does look that the protest has been coordinated by someone; so many PCC chiefs could not have been present in New Delhi by sheer accident. But we are in no position to confirm the fact of such a coordination. So we do not wish to comment on it. Meanwhile it is obvious that the matter was not discussed by the Union council of ministers; otherwise Mr. Bhagat could not in fairness have voiced his opposition to the hike in public. This is a comment on the manner in which the government functions. The cabinet exists only in name. Vital decisions are taken elsewhere.
Once again Mr. Rajiv Gandhi has sought to tide over the problem in a manner that appears to be characteristic of him. The Congress working committee met in the morning (Wednesday, February 5) under his own chairmanship and demanded that the decision to raise the prices of petroleum products be reviewed. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first occasion since independence when the Congress working committee has so censured it’s own party government at the Centre and when the same individual as Congress president has so censured himself as prime minister. The Union cabinet met later in the afternoon to consider the working committee’s resolution and decided to reduce the increase. Ultra-sensitive to his self-image as the country’s most upright and principled politician, Mr. V.P. Singh may resign; he should, if only to save the Prime Minister’s face. But that is in the future.
It will be wrong to treat the protest over the increase in the prices of petroleum products and the subsequent developments as an isolated phenomenon which will soon be forgotten. It has to be viewed in the wider context of developments in the past one year. To begin with, we should note that Congressmen are nothing if not survivors and that among the country’s political class, they possess the most highly developed instinct for self-preservation. So as the leadership headed by Mr. Rajiv Gandhi in his dual capacity as Prime Minister and party president pursued a course of action (such as the conclusion of the so-called accords in Punjab and Assam) which threatened the very existence of the party, as in those states, resentment was bound to build up. It did. Congressmen in the two states and the adjoining ones exposed to the fall-out of the misconceived agreements gave expression to their bitterness even if largely in private. The deals also illustrated one of the worst features of an undue concentration of power in one individual who is new to politics, or a small group of similar persons around him. The Congress leaders in Punjab and Assam were not consulted, though their own and the party’s future were at stake.
But Punjab and Assam, despite their large implications, were essentially parochial issues of interest primarily to the people in those and adjoining states. They could not arouse deep enough concern among Congressmen as a collective body. This limitation did not apply to economic policy. Thus, as it began to be formulated and expounded in terms which appeared to mark a radical departure from the Nehru-Indira approach, it sent shock waves in the entire organisation. The feeling of dismay found expression at the meeting of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) in Delhi last May. Mr. Rajiv Gandhi and his very upper crust team of hand-picked advisers with no roots in the Congress party and culture were taken utterly by surprise. They quickly jettisoned the original draft of the economic policy resolution and prepared an altogether new one paying obeisance to the old approach. They suddenly rediscovered the socialist rhetoric, though, of course, they had nothing but the utmost contempt for it. They coped with the immediate problem but they did not draw any long-term lessons from it.
The episode underlined three points. First, that Congressmen are not as malleable as they look to those who do not know them and their history. Second, that despite their seeming supineness and willingness to kow-tow to the leader, they have a way of making themselves felt at an appropriate occasion. Thirdly, in order to be effective in the long run, the leader must keep his hand on the pulse of the party. This, of course, is just not possible unless he meets a lot of Congressmen which Mr. Rajiv Gandhi does not. Even his key aides are accessible only to the specially favoured ones. As for Mr. Gandhi himself, the impression has spread that except for some select ones who constitute his inner cabinet, even ministers do not find it easy to meet him and discuss matters of concern to them with him.
Finally, even before the party’s centenary celebrations in Bombay, it looked as if he tended to treat the party as a dumb driven mass. But the fact was not established. It was in Bombay. This was an occasion when Mr. Gandhi could have legitimately boasted of his party’s genuinely proud record in the struggle for freedom and consolidation of that freedom and spoken of its possible role in coming years in taking the country into the 21st century. Instead, he poured ridicule on Congressmen. It was an extraordinary performance and spoke of the gulf that had come to divide the party ranks and the leader. Inevitably, it produced deep and widespread resentment. Equally inevitably, the leader has not taken steps to reduce the great divide, not to speak of moves to bridge it. This is the framework in which the latest developments have taken place.