Opinion The VS question
A good government led by the wrong CM.
It is said that the only lesson history teaches is that it does not teach anything. Or,is it that no one learns anything from history? Like the Bourbon kings who neither learnt nor forgot. Elections in Kerala have always brought the opposition to power,except once. And that once holds the lesson as to what the Keralite is looking for.
It happened in 1977. When the nation voted against the Congress in the aftermath of the Emergency,Kerala brought back the government that governed during the Emergency and with a convincing majority. Emergency in Kerala was different from elsewhere in the country,mainly because the government was led by the CPI and headed by the best chief minister Kerala has ever had,C. Achyuta Menon. True,there were Naxalite atrocities and Naxalite martyrs,but Kerala never chose violence in society as the first option and Naxalism was always recognised as an unacceptable aberration. (In any case,stories of excesses came to light much later since they were isolated.) Unlike elsewhere,the perceptible impact of the Emergency for the Keralite was that life showed some discipline. Buses ran on time. Clerks attended office promptly. There were no agitations. It was known that the government was a dictatorship of sorts,but in practice a benign dictatorship. Something like what you see in Dubai!
A government that worked was what the Keralites brought back to power. In short,the lesson to be learnt from the 1977 results is that good governance is what the people look for.
Do I mean to say that every government that followed was a failure? Certainly not. Democracy is not a pre-designed phenomenon. The period from 1969,when E.M.S. Namboodiripad resigned as chief minister,until 1982,saw the evolution of Keralas democracy into a two-front system comparable to the two-party system of democracy,Westminster-style. By 1982,the Left consolidated itself on one side,and the Congress and like-minded parties joined up on the other. Thus we can explain all elections till 1982,but it still does not explain the pattern of alternating between the fronts every five years that emerged thereafter. That to my mind has to be explained by the fact that the Keralite is still searching for a replication of the Achyuta Menon government. Every government fails to satisfy,and every time they experiment all over again.
With this broad backdrop and with just a week to go for the elections,let us look at the scenario this time. We have had a government that worked. Like in the government of Achyuta Menon,imaginative and innovative programmes were initiated in most realms of governance. However,Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan acted as the leader of opposition throughout. Therefore,unlike the Achyuta Menon government that functioned as a team,the Achuthanandan government was like a busy railway station in Mumbai where the efficiency of the system and the dedication of a few ensure that huge crowds are transported smoothly. Among the ministers,most did well. Individually. Like Thomas Isaac,who is rated as the best finance minister Kerala ever had.
Of course,there were failures,but that did not really offset the advantage. The damage was done by the chief minister for whom nothing seemed to matter except his own image. If the CPM Politburo had replaced the CM when they concluded that he was not fit enough to lead the party at the PB-level,the good work done by the government would have reached the radar which every intelligent Keralite carries in his head,like the inevitable mobile in his hand. However,the party had its own equations to be settled. And they missed the bus.
The net result is that despite good governance the CPM-led government looks likely to be voted out. If there is one individual who will have to answer for that,it is without doubt VS,the CM. The Congress appeared its usual divisive self in the beginning of the campaign. And therefore it did appear that the LDF had the upper hand. But as the campaign advanced,they lost the edge,as the people found the CM was doing nothing except replay five-year-old tapes,declaring that he would do in the next five years what he has failed to do in the last five.
The writer is a former additional chief secretary of Kerala,express@expressindia.com
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