India enters the new year in a mood of despair. Hopefully, this will pass. Hopefully, we shall master the problems that depress us. But right now, there is little to cheer us. The country is filled with hate from one comer to another, ready to explode into violence at the slightest excuse. And as throughout 1986, killings by terrorists in Punjab and Tripura threaten to dominate the national scene in 1987.
All these problems, including Punjab and Tripura, go back a long time in history. It is necessary for us to be aware of this history if we are to tackle them successfully. Knowledge is literally power in such cases and ignorance powerlessness. The Indian state and the Indian intellectual community have been terribly remiss in this regard. Hardly any scholar, for example, had cared to study from the nationalist point of view the growth of the separatist sentiment among the Akalis before Bhindranwale burst on the scene with his cult of the knife. We have been similarly taken by surprise by the demand for Gorkhaland in Darjeeling. If any commentator or academician had anticipated it, no one in a position of authority in New Delhi appears to have taken note of it.
Incidentally, there would have been no cause for surprise if warning bells had been sounded in respect of the demand for Gorkhaland and ignored by New Delhi. The Indian rulers are by now notorious for their incapacity to heed warnings and to promote studies which would alert them to the dangers ahead. No one in authority in 1980 could, for example, possibly claim that the signs of the coming storm were not clear in Punjab.
Since we have inherited the main institutions of the state from the British, it is highly tempting for us to blame their inadequacy on the former colonial masters. In reality, this is no more than a search for a scapegoat. We have “Indianised” the institutions we inherited. In the process we have disrupted their chain of command and rendered them incapable of coherent action.
The police all over the country are a case in point. Our politicians have meddled with their work, demoralised their officers through arbitrary promotions, demotions, transfers and appointments and denied them working conditions and facilities which could have enabled them to serve the state effectively. To cite an example, the morale of the police force in Punjab collapsed before the extremist-terrorist challenge arose in its present form in 1982-83.
Only Exception
The contradiction between the long-term requirements of the Indian state and, therefore, of the Indian nation on the one hand and of Indian “democracy” on the other is as old as the country’s independence, if not older. Even the more far-sighted among the politicians in office began to interfere with the administration immediately in the wake of independence. Mr Nehru was perhaps the only exception to the new rule. He could, therefore, limit the damage at the Centre. But arbitrariness began to play havoc with the administration in the states. Punjab under the chief ministership of Pratap Singh Kairon was one of the worst examples. Even in those days, when corruption in the higher echelons was the exception rather than the rule, individuals close to him attracted the charge of being in league with smugglers.
Mr Kairon laid the foundations of Punjab’s subsequent prosperity and he managed to keep the Akalis, always anxious to stir up trouble, at bay. That was clearly why Mr Nehru disregarded all complaints against him. But in retrospect there can be little doubt that Mr Kairon also paved the ground for the extremist-terrorist menace. He undermined respect for the rule of law; he reduced fellow Congress leaders, regardless of whether they were his
supporters or critics, to non-entities; and he gave the administration a communal character and bias.
The more significant point about developments in Punjab then is that the Centre also failed to draw the obvious conclusion that the Akali demand for a Punjabi Suba contained a separatist element. Mr Nehru did not trust the Akalis and resisted the demand. But he too did not realise the full implications of what the country was up against. After his death, of course, the policy of drift gathered momentum with consequences that are there for anyone to see.
It is hardly necessary to make the point that the decay of institutions proceeded unchecked under Mrs Indira Gandhi, that Mr Sanjay Gandhi set a new record in the arbitrary exercise of power which rightfully did not belong to him, that Mrs Gandhi acquiesced in this abuse of authority, and that this, despite her considerable personal skill and courage, greatly weakened her capacity to cope with threats to the country’s security and integrity. But one point may be made about her. For one thing, this point is generally ignored and, for another, it applies to the present Prime Minister as well.
Brief Summaries
Unlike western heads of government, Mrs Gandhi did not wish to read a lengthy brief, however important the subject under discussion. She made do with brief summaries
which could not possibly acquaint her with the complexities and potentialities, malign or benign, of an issue. Her policy decisions were, therefore, often ad hoc. Mr Rajiv Gandhi is said to be even more impatient with lengthy briefs. The summaries that are prepared for
him are believed to be even shorter than those that were prepared for his mother. The result can easily be imagined since the present Prime Minister, unlike his predecessor, does not have the advantage of a long training and experience in politics.
Another point may be made about Mr Rajiv Gandhi’s leadership style even if it may, on the face of it, not appear particularly, relevant in the present context. He does not prepare
notes of his discussions with foreign dignitaries. Reports have it that there is no Indian record of his 10-hour-long discussions with Mr Gorbachov during the Soviet leader’s ream visit. And since the Prime Minister did not think it necessary to keep an Indian interpreter with him in these talks, Gorbachov could have concluded that the conversations have been tape-recorded without his consent. Thus we could have unnecessarily offended the Soviet guest. This speaks of a casualness of approach which has come to characterise our behaviour in the management of the Indian state. It may do for the head of a panchayat; it cannot do for the Prime Minister of India.
It would, however, be unfair to suggest that Mr Rajiv Gandhi alone is guilty of this kind of casualness, though it is well known that all his predecessors had left detailed accounts of their talks with foreign statesmen. The casualness of our decision-making process is of a piece with our practice of making extempore speeches on important occasions, or of holding durbars where those in office deliver decisions. We have had chief ministers who made policy announcements involving large investments at public meetings. One of them even threatened to take civil servants to task for not implementing such “decisions”. Indeed, the Prime Minister himself announces large allocations to states as if the public exchequer is his personal property to dispose of. This makes nonsense of the Planning Commission which allocates resources on the basis of detailed studies and discussions.
Invisible Barrier
This behaviour marks the non-fulfillment of the promise which many critics of Mrs Indira Gandhi read into Mr Rajiv Gandhi’s leadership when he took over as Prime Minister. Mr Gandhi has not made any attempt to restore institutions of the state to health. He shows no more courtesy to his cabinet colleagues than did Mrs Gandhi and he is hardly accessible to party MPs and functionaries. Tight and extensive security arrangements are doubtless a barrier between him and his partymen. But the invisible psychological barrier appears to be even higher and more impenetrable. Mr Rajiv Gandhi does not appear to have a fellow feeling for politicians.
This distaste for politics and politicians has, however, not persuaded the Prime Minister to assemble a competent team of civil servants around himself and to heed their advice. Secretaries and other senior officials have been transferred too frequently to encourage them to function in the manner they should. Of late, the number of arbitrary transfers seems to have gone down but the morale of senior civil servants is not known to have improved.
India has never been an easy country to govern. This would be evident from the speed with which a number of dynasties collapsed in the past. Modernisation has facilitated communications and transportation between different parts of the country. Only alert minds in control of it can cope with them. The Indian state is not truly modern in many ways. Institutions, modern in form, are run in old feudal ways. Sycophancy which we witness all around us is a pre-modern characteristic. It prospers in a culture of masters and servants. It cannot prosper in a culture of equal citizenship.
The Times of India, 31 December 1986