The dynasty’s artful dodging

It means several things. But most of all it shows how the dynasty continues to weave a sort of spell which is difficult to explain in rational terms. Her speeches heldnothing except a string of denials and apologies. She only makes allegations but does not reply to counter-allegations. Sweden’s public prosecutor, for example, said that Sonia Gandhi knows all about the kickbacks in the Bofors guns purchase. She has not said a word in her defence. Nor has she explained the role of one of the beneficiaries — Ottavia Quattrocchi, an Italian who had free access to the prime minister’s house during the Rajiv Gandhi era and who is on the CBI’s wanted list. And for Sonia Gandhi to call A.B. Vajpayee a liar is contrary to Indian culture. Also, Sonia Gandhi is yet to explain why she is opposed to the public auditing of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, which has amassed crores and crores of rupees. She is a life chairperson and has on the board family members and a few confidants, who sign on the dotted lines. No government has dared to probe into the foundation’s finances.

The excesses during the emergency were planned at the prime minister’s house where she lived. One lakh peoplewere detained at that time without trial. The Press was gagged and an effective defence smothered, followed by a general erosion of democratic values. Indira Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi’s role model, was the one who suspended even the fundamental rights of liberty and life. Still there is not an iota of sorrow on Sonia Gandhi’s part regarding this, much less an apology.

She is getting away with everything because the media, including Doordarshan, has been tilting towards her. Why it has gone out of the way to build her up is incomprehensible. That the Hindutva ideology is pernicious for a liberal democracy goes without saying. But trying to bring back the dynasty, which has a long history of dictatorship, deceit and defilement, is like pushing the country back into the ditch from which it has pulled itself out after many, many years of Congress rule. The nation may have to pay dearly for what the media has been doing.

One should, however, admit that a part of Sonia Gandhi’s strength emanates from therejuvenation of Congress workers, who had become inactive or had withdrawn out of disgust. Dissensions in the party also seem to have disappeared after her entry. In comparison, the BJP looks torn between the liberal Vajpayee and the hardliner Advani. However vehement the denials, the impression about the differences between the two is very obvious. Still the BJP has the best rough-and-tumble political cadre drawn from the RSS. It is beginning to count as it is spreading to remote corners of the Hindi heartland, on which the party is concentrating. Often its appeal in the name of Hindu rashtriya is disconcerting.

Come to think of it, every political party is using questionable tactics to win. But the Congress’ methods are cruder than the others. For example, it has dubbed L.K. Advani as a foreigner so as to equate him with Sonia Gandhi, who is Italian born. Advani is one of nearly one crore of people who migrated from Pakistan in the wake of Partition. He was born in the united India. The fact that Sind,his state, became part of Pakistan, does not make him a foreigner. On the other hand, Sonia retained the Italian nationality for many years even after her marriage to Rajiv Gandhi. To pick on Advani to defend Sonia is not in good taste.

Another example of poor sportsmanship on the part of the Congress is the way it has captured the Nagaland Assembly. On the one hand, Chief Minister S.C. Jamir hails the ceasefire by the underground Nagas but, on the other, he has gone over the futile exercise of conducting elections to the State Assembly when the underground say that they are not ready yet. Why should he have not said that the state would like to hold elections after the peace talks between the government and the underground? New Delhi and the Election Commission are equally to blame. The polls are means to an end, not an end in themselves and are meant to provide people with an opportunity to elect their representatives. What purpose does a farce serve? This may retard the process of normalcy which theCentre is seeking.

But then Congress, since the days of Indira Gandhi, has been peddling illusion. In the 1971 election, Indira Gandhi found a vote-catching slogan in garibi hatao. She did nothing about poverty, however. Rajiv Gandhi promised to build a new India and the people gave him in the 1984 election a majority of 419 in the Lok Sabha, more than his grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru ever got. But he frittered away the goodwill in a couple of years. He institutionalised corruption and rubbed off the dividing line between right and wrong. For Sonia Gandhi, there is no dearth of slogans. She has raised as much dust as she could to cloud the real problems. Not even once did she take up seriously the Jain Commission report, which was used as a pretext to bring down the Gujral government.

The fact is that no party has a proper programme to solve the people’s problems — only to win power. No wonder then that they all announced the names of their candidates before finalising their manifestos. This maysound strange to people in other democracies, but it confirms the impression that an election manifesto is merely a ritual in Indian elections.

One has often heard from party leaders that the manifesto may be good only for research scholars. I know of two top economists who were engaged to draft the election manifesto for more than one party. In fact, one can see the same phraseology in the election manifestos they prepared. Fortunately, no one reads a manifesto closely or compares one with another, otherwise it would be quite an embarrassment.