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Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral doth protest too much. He protests, curiously enough, not his resolve to do something, but his inability ...

November 12, 1997 12:00 AM IST

4 min read

Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral doth protest too much. He protests, curiously enough, not his resolve to do something, but his inability to do anything. At the outset, he was helpless about corruption. These days he pleads his helplessness about the Pay Commission award, which will single-handedly blow a hole into his government8217;s fiscal deficit management. The unions, he explains, would have settled for no less. Apart from being much else, politics also is the art of making a virtue of necessity and putting a shine on unhappy events. Having made a mind-boggling concession to the unions, Gujral could still have claimed magnanimity and said that his Government had given away fabulous Pay Commission goodies to substantially raise, in one fell swoop, the living standards of government staff. It now seems that the Prime Minister was also aware all along that the President would send back his Cabinet8217;s recommendation on the imposition of President8217;s rule in UP. But he was helpless, if you set aside the obvious argument that he could have chosen loss of power over capitulation.

Now coalition politics has its compulsions, and this is especially true of the politics of a coalition as disparate and fractious as this one, with a crutch as fickle as the Congress. For that reason, this country was willing to give Gujral a fairly long rope even without being repeatedly prompted by him. In return, it sought a minimum of resolve and governance. What it finds difficult to swallow is their utter lack, and prime ministerial helplessness as the explanation. If Gujral considers his frequent proclamations of helplessness a sign of his disarming honesty that will make the people warm to him, he is wrong. Candour is a secondary virtue in politics to being in command and being seen to be so. For a Prime Minister to be prime ministerial is not the exercise of a choice. It is a necessity, the Prime Minister8217;s stature being the price of failure. Circumstances imposed constraints on Gujral; he is thrusting smallness on himself.

The conditions in which his predecessor had to work were in no way more fortuitous than they are for Gujral. Yet H.D. Deve Gowda managed not merely to offer some government but also to put the fear of God 8212; or, rather, of the CBI 8212; into his political crutches. This is no appeal for Gujral to take recourse to the same intimidating tactics. It is simply to make the point that politicians are only as helpless as they choose to be no matter what their circumstances. Janata Dal deity V.P. Singh is the best example of this. He was candid enough as Prime Minister to make the famous statement that politics was the art of managing contradictions. And yet he was famous too for ever being just an arm8217;s length away from a resignation letter that rested in his pocket. The price of boldness has obviously to be a preparedness to have one8217;s bluff called. It is only a reluctance to fade away into the night rather than compromise too much that sets helplessness apart from resoluteness. This is Gujral8217;s problem, but there is no reason why it should be India8217;s. It needs someone less frail who would have to worry less vocally about all the things circumstances forbade him to do.

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