With colleagues like Arjun Singh, the prime minister doesn’t need an Opposition
Mr Arjun Singh’s reputation for Realpolitik notwithstanding, it is not utterly inconceivable that he does not approve of Mr PV Narasimha Rao’s recent handling of the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid crisis in the larger national interest. But even if one is not inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt and assumes that he is guided by nothing nobler than personal ambition, a couple of points have to be conceded to him.
First, in view of the unending disarray in the Janata Dal leadership, he is right in concluding that the revival of Congress fortunes in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh calls for a fight with the Bharatiya Janata Party which is in power in these states, that the battle must centre on UP and not his home state of Madhya Pradesh in view of the former’s size and historical importance, and that the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute offers a good opportunity and pretext for mounting the necessary assault.
Secondly, by recognising this political reality and acting on it consistently since the Tirupati session, Mr Singh has outdistanced all potential rivals in his party for its leadership in North India. The defeat of Mr Narain Dutt Tiwari in the 1991 election had, as it were, cleared the field for him. He has skilfully built on that advantage.
The logic of a bitter anti-BJP platform demands that Mr Singh must do all in his power to frustrate Mr Narasimha Rao’s efforts to resolve the acrimony in Ayodhya, as the latter has undertaken to do in the next four months. To his credit, Mr Singh has not wasted any time in reaching this conclusion.
His praise for Mr Rao’s handling of the immediate crisis in Ayodhya notwithstanding, there can be little doubt that he would have liked the BJP government in UP to be dismissed, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s kar seva on the disputed land to be forcibly stopped and not merely shifted and the entire complex to be placed under the control of the Centre’s paramilitary forces.
Having failed to push Mr Rao into adopting such a confrontationist approach, he has – quite logically from his narrow point of view – decided to make Mr Rao’s task of resolving the issue as difficult as he can. This is the plain meaning of his peremptory letter to Mr Jitendra Prasad, political secretary to Mr Rao in his capacity as Congress president. He wants the party to launch an all out anti-BJP campaign and, thereby, to vitiate the atmosphere.
It is not clear what Mr Rajesh Pilot has in mind when he says that Mr Singh has disregarded “Congress culture”. But this is perhaps the first time in the party’s recent history that a senior leader has publicly expressed annoyance that a vague suggestion for fashioning a strategy to fight “communal forces” has not been followed up immediately and a period of 10 days allowed to elapse without concrete action.
On his own testimony, Mr Singh is impatient. He has circulated his letter to Mr Prasad among Congress MPs, Pradesh Congress committee presidents and legislature party leaders. He even demanded a meeting of senior Congress leaders from BJP ruled states in the first week of August itself. He would not have done so if he was not in a desperate hurry. Mr Rao cannot oblige him and undermine his own position. But that is another issue.
The reason for Mr Singh’s impatience can only be a matter of speculation. It is, for example, as feasible to argue that he feels that time may be running out for him in view of moves to prosecute him for his alleged misdoings in the past as to suggest that he is convinced that time is propitious for him to corner Mr Rao. But whatever his calculation, he has in effect challenged Mr Rao.
On the face of it, Mr Singh has spoken out as a Congress leader and has addressed himself to fellow Congressmen. In reality, he has joined issue with Mr Rao the prime minister and not the Congress president. The context in which he has acted should help clinch the issue. This is the agreement Mr Rao had reached, last month, with the VHP and the sants and sadhus associated with it for defusing the crisis in Ayodhya.
The distinction is not easy to observe. Mr Rao blurred it himself when he convened a meeting of the Congress Working Committee to discuss developments in Ayodhya. The matter concerned primarily the government and, therefore, him as prime minister. For he could engage in parleys with the VHP and the sadhus in his capacity as prime minister and not as Congress chief.
Similarly he could decide to dismiss or not to dismiss the UP government as prime minister and not as Congress president. Mr Arjun Singh cannot be blamed if he takes advantage of this confusion of roles by Mr Rao himself.
Mr Rao has, of course, only followed the examples of Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi in combining the two offices in himself. In the case of his predecessors, nobody would seriously dispute that they subordinated the office of Congress president to that of prime minister and, therefore, to an extent, the party’s interests to the nation’s. Clearly, Mr Rao is trying to do the same.
Indeed, this is precisely what he has done in respect of not only the recent upheaval in Ayodhya but in that of the new economic policy as well. He has been guided by the larger national interest, as he has seen it, and not by partisan considerations of promoting the Congress.
But he has done so in the quiet and unobtrusive manner characteristic of him. Mr Arjun Singh’s actions in recent months show that this is not effective enough.
Mr Arjun Singh cannot be blamed that his ill-disguised attack on the prime minister in Delhi has been followed by a powerful explosion in a mosque in Rae Barelli and the massacre of 29 men and women by terrorists in Pilibhit. The developments may or may not be a result of concerted action but the purpose is common – to vitiate the communal atmosphere in UP and destabilise the government in Lucknow.
Mr Singh’s plan to initiate an anti-BJP campaign must warm the hearts of the terrorists in the Terai and elsewhere in UP. Regardless of whether he knows it or not, he is playing with fire. Unless he is as cynical as his detractors contend, he should heed the warning signals the terrorists have sent from Pilibhit and Rae Barelli.
That apart, two points stand out. First, just as the economy last year had reached such a critical stage that drastic decisions could no longer be postponed, the Ram Janmabhoomi- Babri Masjid dispute must now be resolved quickly if we are to avoid a major conflagration.
The issue is no more ideological in the latter case than it is in the former. The issue in relation to Ayodhya is one of social peace, just as the issue in respect of the economy is that of survival and a measure of progress. Anyone who introduces shop-worn ideologies does no good to the country. Mr Arjun Singh is in the wrong company. Surely he would not wish to be bracketed with Mr VP Singh?
Secondly, Mr Narasimha Rao has shown as great a courage in avoiding confrontation on Ayodhya and taking on himself the responsibility of finding a solution as he has done in trying to liberate the economy from the stranglehold of bureaucratic and political control.
He deserves support in both these undertakings and clearly he is not getting enough of it, including from the Congress leaders. This is an expression of our inability to grasp the reality and respond to it.
Apparently there is no quick exit from this sad state of affairs. Mr Arjun Singh’s performance only illustrates this unpleasant reality.
The Telegraph, Sunday, 9 August 1992