Like President Reagan, Mr. Rajiv Gandhi can claim to have chosen his targets with care. None of the four Congress leaders he has made an example of (Mr. Pranab Mukherjee, Mr. Sripat Misra, Mr. A.P. Sharma and Mr. Prakash Mehrotra) has much of a clout either in his home state or the Congress parliamentary party. And while he has acted against them, he has spared Mr. Kamlapati Tripathi, though it is he who in his letter to Mr. Gandhi, has spoken for them and perhaps some other disenchanted Congressmen as well. Mr. Tripathi too had never been much of a force in his own right in the Congress party’s affairs. But he holds the formal position of working president and he is an old man (82 years). As such it would have been embarrassing for Mr. Gandhi to take disciplinary action against him. Indeed, by punishing him, Mr. Gandhi could have made a martyr of him and given the present and potential dissidents a rallying point.
In the wake of the drastic action against the four leaders the logical move on Mr. Tripathi’s part would have been to resign as working president of the party; he would know as well as anyone else that Mr. Gandhi’s action has been provoked above all by his letter; while Mr. Mukherjee might not have been quite discreet in his utterances and interviews, especially the one appearing in the latest issue of the Illustrated Weekly, he has not said or done anything which could have justified or necessitated so drastic a measure against him as expulsion from the party for six years. Mr. Tripathi has not taken the logical step and we do not know what he would do and when. But unless he once again swallows whatever pride he possesses and resumes his role as a rubber stamp for decisions taken by others, he would remain an inconvenience to Mr. Gandhi. And while it would be an exaggeration to say that a Tripathi factor has emerged in the Congress party’s politics, it could if he takes up issues which are agitating the Indian people. The Muslim women (protection of rights on divorce) bill is one of them.
It would appear from reports that Mr. Tripathi and the four punished leaders were planning to demand that party MPs be allowed to vote according to their conscience on the bill when Mr. Rajiv Gandhi struck at them. Regardless of the truth or otherwise of these reports, certain points are indisputable. Mr. Rajiv Gandhi and his aides are fully committed to an early enactment of the bill; in fact they would have rushed it through the Lok Sabha on Tuesday (April 29) if Syed Shahabuddin had not been busy with the Janata party’s affairs. There is strong opposition to this measure in the Congress parliamentary party even if it has not been expressed publicly; more importantly, this issue has got thoroughly communalized and a lot of Hindus, especially in the Hindi-speaking north which is the Congress party’s only remaining stronghold, regard it as an expression of the government’s policy of appeasement of the minorities. By taking action against the four leaders at this stage, Mr. Gandhi has ensured that Congress MPs support the bill without much murmur, but he has also linked the two issues. It is too early to assess the possible consequences of this link-up in the long run on the internal developments in the party and the party’s position in the country.
Congressmen as a rule are not known for independent thinking and action; those who had some capacity for either left the party a long time ago; and not many among those who returned to the fold in 1980 or subsequently are likely to risk the leader’s displeasure. On this reckoning it is difficult to give much credence to rumours that the dissidents could muster the support of as many as 120 MPs. Even if there was some substance in these speculations Mr. Gandhi’s drastic action would have a deterrent effect. The anti-defection measure too reinforces the authority of the leader vis-à-vis potential dissidents. But prediction would be a risky business in the country’s and the party’s conditions.