What follows is, without doubt, a minority view among the English-speaking intelligentsia in the country. Possibly the minority to which I belong is so small that it is not worthy of consideration. But that may not be quite the case. In any event, I feel as appalled today as I was in 1977-78 when Mrs Indira Gandhi was being persecuted, or in 1987-89 when Mr Rajiv Gandhi was being assailed and Mr. VP Singh cast in the heroic role of a messiah, to the acclaim the same intelligentsia, as articulated by the same media.
Self-righteousness based on borrowed ideas and borrowed idiom is once again threatening to drown discrimination.
When a crisis of unknown proportions is upon a country, as it is on ours, the first rule must surely be to avoid attempts at apportioning blame which is not only futile but also dangerous. Futile because any such exercise cannot, in the nature of things, but be subjective; for one picks up the issue at a point convenient to him or her; history is a very subjective affair; no one can ever go to the beginning if there is a beginning in history. And dangerous because it cannot but clog the search for a way out. Clearly this rule is being disregarded recklessly by the media as much as by politicians and other leaders of public opinion.
Regardless, however, of whether this proposition is acceptable or not, it cannot be seriously disputed that the crisis is multifaceted and multi-dimensional. Developments at Ayodhya on December 6 and 7 may be its most important facet, but it is only one of the facets. The internal power struggle in the Congress party, for instance, cannot be ignored in a meaningful discussion of the troubles facing the country. Nor, for that matter, can we put aside as inconsequential the extraordinary activism the Supreme Court has displayed, or the unusual haste with which President Shankar Dayal Sharma issued a statement on December 6 requesting the Prime Minister to do what is the latter’s normal duty under the Constitution, or the unabashed bid by the National Front-Left combine to impose its will on the Prime Minister, the country’s chief executive.
The Congress Parliamentary party has reaffirmed its faith in Mr P V Narasimha Rao’s leadership. While it cannot clinch the issue in view of the whispering that has gone on behind the scene and the signature campaign seeking to define what the Prime Minister must do, it is a helpful development. Mr Narasimha Rao gets at least a breather and need not look over his shoulder too anxiously for the immediate present.
This is, however, a very limited respite.
The National Front, its Janata Dal constituent in particular, and the two communist parties remain determined to weaken his position to a point where he feels obliged to give in to their demand to ban not only the Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad but also the RSS and the BJP. The public demand is for his resignation but the intention is to erode his position and make him their prisoner.
Unless the National Front-Left combine is acting on behalf of powerful interests in the Congress party out to get rid of Mr Rao, the demand is unenforceable and therefore unworthy of being taken seriously.
This is, however, speculation. But it is an established fact that the National Front-Left combine is not pressing its demand in a normal constitutional manner which it is entitled to do, whatever one may think of the politics and morality of it. It has immobilized both houses of Parliament for two consecutive days.
This question has only to be posed for the answer to proclaim itself loud and clear. The Prime Minister is sought to be pushed into a course of action which he may not regard as wise in the country’s, the Congress party’s and his own interest. There are other possible considerations which I do not propose to discuss today.
As for the Prime Minister being pushed by his own partymen on the one hand, and the National Front-Left combine on the other, this is no longer a possibility to be feared. To an extent, it may already have materialized. It is open to doubt whether in committing itself to the reconstruction of the demolished structure in Ayodhya, the government has even considered whether the status quo is to be restored as it existed on December 6, 1992, or as it existed before the Ram lalla idols were installed there in 1949 when Pandit Nehru, the greatest proponent of cultural synthesis and secular policy in modern India, was India’s prime minister. And, he was no ordinary prime minister.
Other similar questions arise in respect of other governmental actions and pronouncements. But that another time.
The Observer of Business and Politics, 9 December 1992