Unique Political Animals

With Dutta looking a little puzzled, Bhardwaj clarified: Remember Jharkhand and what some people called the MLA market; the governor was described as our storekeeper? PM and Sonia didn’t know anything about that either. Or about what Laloo Yadav and Buta Singh were up to in Bihar before the elections. Or about what Natwar and Jagat Singh were up to in Iraq, allegedly on behalf of themselves and the Congress.

This is how the UPA functions, Bhardwaj explained. When we pass the employment guarantee law, it’s thanks to Sonia Gandhi’s conscience. When we get the Americans to end nuclear apartheid against India, it’s courtesy Manmohan Singh’s cleverness. But when the UPA appears to subvert the Constitution (Jharkhand) or governance (Bihar) or contractual probity (Iraq oil kickbacks) – what I propose to do about Quattrocchi will be called subversion of official investigation, the minister added parenthetically – it’s always the case that Sonia and PM get to know about it only from the newspapers and/or television.

The shock of that revelation, the minister continued, stuns both Manmohan and Sonia, which is why there’s often no official or party response for a while. Mrs Gandhi is usually more affected – Bhardwaj now provides fascinating details about India’s most enigmatic politician – and that’s the reason she most often doesn’t say anything at all. How can she, he demands in that forthright, open manner he’s so closely identified with. If no one tells her anything, she can hardly help being confronted with nasty surprises.

People keep on saying she’s got so much power, Bhardwaj lamented. But she doesn’t. And the PM has even less. Just look at what I am about to do. And that, despite knowing that Mrs Gandhi knew Quattrocchi. I know Bofors can still singe the Nehru-Gandhis politically. I also know the PM is in charge of the personnel department which oversees the CBI which, in turn, is investigating Quattrocchi. You would think that given these circumstances, in any party hierarchy and government set-up, I would have to inform Sonia and PM that you are to be sent to London. But you would be wrong.

We are, after all, unique political animals, said the law minister to his additional solicitor general. Never in the history of India’s governments and ruling political entities have the top few known so little about so much. True, in every government or ruling party, or indeed in any organisation, the boss doesn’t always know what his – and, in this case, her – juniors are doing. You don’t burden the leader with every little thing. Why we are unique is that we frequently don’t tell the bosses even about the really big things.

Therefore, when government and party spokespersons indicate that the PM or Sonia “didn’t know”, they don’t mean, contrary to what carping critics think, that our leaders are trying to shirk responsibility. Not knowing is not a defence, it’s not even an excuse for a defence; it’s simply an explanation of how this government and this political entity work. So do your job, the minister instructed his officer, and keep on doing it even after I resign and, let’s say, Kapil Sibal (Bhardwaj looks distinctly pained at this point) gets my portfolio.

Surely you understand, he asks, why I may have to resign? Once the media informs Sonia and the PM about what their government/party has been up to, they will quite naturally ‘distance’ themselves from whatever, or whoever, grabs the headlines. But sadly, there’s only so much distance my party bigwigs can put between themselves and a controversy-generating colleague as long as that colleague remains in the cabinet or in powerful party committees. Political smells carry a long way.

Natwar Singh, poor chap, forgot that, the minister reminisced about his former colleague. I know that if this Quattrocchi thing comes out, Sonia and the PM might not be able to find enough distance between them and me as long as I am in the government. Hence the likelihood of my martyrdom.

On that poignant note, Bhardwaj’s briefing ended.

When I received (as is the custom these days) the secretly recorded CD bearing this moving soliloquy of a man preparing to ‘sacrifice’ himself, my first reaction was of deep sadness. To carry the burden of so little knowledge must be terrible for his higher-ups. My second instinct was to call up Amar Singh to tell him that, even assuming there’s an official angle to what has been agitating him, he’s being unfair in accusing certain people of knowing the kind of things their own partymen keep them in the dark about. But I remembered just in time: Amar Singh’s phone might be tapped.

So I just sat and thought about the CD and came to the conclusion that Bhardwaj hadn’t addressed something far more crucial: would all of these things have happened if the PM and Sonia did know?