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Policies and Politics of the NDA
By Kamala Prasad
The reaction of heavyweights in the NDA to the unfolding events gives the impression that the NDA has no commitment to any set of coherent policies. Commitments about policies in the agenda for governance have yielded place, in practice, to the semantics of survival. For a time there was emphasis on second generation of economic reforms. The new Finance Minister articulates now only matters of concern to the BJP's electoral constituency, the middle class being specifically mentioned. The NDA has merged its identity in the dominant BJP. Some partners succumb due to the compulsion of numbers, some others from patronage and favours, yet others because they have nowhere to go. Why is this so? The reason is politics. Clinging to power is supreme over commitments and convictions. In the scale of calculating immediate gains and losses long-term objectives have fallen by the wayside.
The Deputy Prime Minister has, appropriately, claimed stability of the Union Government as its most significant achievement. Considering that 25 parties are its constituents, the PM once threatened resignation, and the reality of departing constituents rejoining, this achievement is illuminating. In the economic sphere, the sale of profit-making public enterprises in a period of economic slowdown and declining values is another trophy. Otherwise, growth rates have faltered during the entire period of the NDA rule. Finally, "winning" a battle against Pakistan "without firing a single shot", exclusively as a product of "coercive diplomacy" is the crowning glory. The mainstream media and the so-called security experts have lapped up these achievements. This short-run perception is already facing the law of diminishing returns. This is compounded by the lack of credibility from poor implementation. The survival of the NDA is accompanied with the diminishing moral authority to govern. The long-term adverse consequences would be felt later. The BJP has assembled a satellite system with controls in its own hand and tested its strength. Its numerical dominance is by now bestowed with total freedom of action to further the interests of the party. This has impacted badly on executive management and administrative commitment.
Terrorists have struck deep and at the most sacrosanct symbol of Indian democracy, the Parliament. The chinks in the overall security structure and its intelligence back-up pops up repeatedly. The attempt to mask it in an anti-terrorist legislation, POTO, failed the test of consensus. The NDA resorted to a controversial joint session of Parliament and secured numerical approval. This could not prevent a gruesome massacre at Kaluchak in Jammu. India has massed its armed forces at the Pakistan border. Pakistan followed suit. The NDA vowed in public to "teach" Pakistan a lesson by waging a "decisive" war. Pakistan did not crack up and let it be known that it retained the option to use the nuclear deterrent. The nuclear powers made a show of diplomatic offensive. Terrorist activities have not ended, cross-border infiltration has not stopped, the infrastructure of terror in Pakistani territory, complains India, remains in place and the exchange of fire between the two armies goes on. A possible border war was averted. Nothing else has changed for India. The external security scenario remains unchanged.
As for internal security, the BJP managed a communal carnage in Gujarat. The world was aghast at the collapse of the infrastructure of India's internal security. The Union Home Ministry failed since a BJP Government in the State was involved. Efforts were made to foment trouble in other States but the game was foiled by the States concerned. Gujarat under the BJP became a "national shame". The NDA survived the crisis easily but lost the moral strength necessary to support the coalition "dharma". Overawed, the small constituents and the vocal bigger ones have surrendered to a single-party system. However, its claim to patriotism received a mortal public jolt. The contradiction of the policy framework in the national agenda and its implementation is now thoroughly exposed.
Death of Consensus Politics
The BJP continues to speak of the coalition "dharma" ad nauseam. With all the major and crucial Ministries with the BJP, increasing number of States Governors from its cadres, the NDA remains cool to whatever is done. Non-BJP heavyweight Minister Sharad Yadav's fate defines the limits of resistance by the partners to the terms dictated by the BJP. The handling of the Ayodhya crisis in March with "shila daan" after the failure to get the court nod for a "symbolic puja" was its prime example. The BJP-ruled States are a class by themselves. In UP the tenure of the legislature was extended to five-and-a-half years and in Gujarat it is reduced to four-and-a-quarter without any qualms of organisational conscience or semblance of crisis of numbers. The Home Ministry has evolved an in-built bias against the non-BJP States and even against national institutions such as the NHRC or the Minorities Commission. The reality that the NDA is the BJP and the BJP is the real NDA is the essence of coalition "dharma". This is the fine-tuning of the consensus within the
NDA.
As for those who are not part of the NDA, the BJP has received immense boost from ego clashes and the self-interest of leader-based parties. Since the parties in the Opposition do not have any coherent agenda and are sensitive to their personal turf in the States to which they belong, the national political interest can be sacrificed. The BJP's task is thus made easy. But the performance is messy. The BJP has mastered the tactics that keeps this Opposition disintegrated. First, keep talking of the need for consensus and ensure that their internal differences come to the surface. Second, initiate talk first with the convenient leaders to fathom the strength of any convergence of views among them. Third, have an alternative strategy to wrest the initiative from them and force them to acquiesce. This is what happened in nominating an apolitical presidential candidate. Fourth, take a decision and ask the Opposition to either accept it or face contest. On POTO a simple proposal in the Upper House to refer it to a parliamentary committee to scrutinise its provisions and strengthen the safeguards was rejected. Finally, the present media support on any issue is presented as national consensus, while its censure on any issue is resented, irrespective of political opinion. This has been the case in respect of the stand-off with Pakistan and insistence on "no talk". The pretense of consensus as integral to the success of policies in the coalition era is dead. Coalition is compulsion and not a natural expression of harmony of views in a plural society and multi-party political system.
The state of the economy can be ignored. The last Finance Minister was candid to acknowledge that the consensus for reforms had weakened. There are hosts of legislations languishing in legislative processes. This task belongs to the government as a whole and not to the Finance Minister alone. Yashwant Sinha noted that at the current stage the whole political system had to carry the burden of reforms. The NDA provides a model of government that cannot see beyond the BJP. Consensus-making in politics and in economy languishes.
Failed Diplomacy
The success or failure of diplomacy cannot be tied to a single event. The euphoria whipped up is for a single negative gain, the isolation of our neighbour Pakistan. But is that for real? It does not seem so. Pakistan has emerged as a "stalwart ally" of the USA through a dramatic about-turn in dealing with global terrorism. It is seen fighting a grim domestic battle to sustain its commitments to the USA. The USA has gone to the length of asserting that Pakistan would not be named a "terrorist" state on which the NDA had set its sight. For the rest, the Western nations seem to have reverted to the balancing act of the past where two nuclear nations are concerned. The global focus is shifting to getting a resolution of the Kashmir tangle. The dispute has been globalised. Nobody is buying the Indian perception of "no talk" till India is satisfied with results flowing from the domestic policies of Pakistan on cross-border terrorism.
Starting with sanction when India exploded its nuclear bomb to the issue of negative travel advisory at the height of the border stand-off, several measures hae had a negative impact on industry and trade. Advani, at one stage, expressed disappointment. The new Foreign Secretary has given a stronger twist to the American double-talk and unreliability of its moves for helping India. A path-correction away from the tilt given by Jaswant Singh seems to be on way. The net outcome of all that has gone on for the last three years is a feeling of dependence on others to solve our problems. It was forgotten that every country has its own self-interest. For a big country to show this weakness hardly qualifies as success of policy. It shows the lack of a coherent thrust on conflict resolution.
We are prisoners of our own illusions. Recognition comes from domestic strength. Where is the strength of India that would draw reciprocal support? Foreign policy cannot have an independent status. Domestic strength lies in the economy. That is moving in fits and starts. The philosophy that "defence and diplomacy are opposite sides of the same coin", to quote Jaswant Singh, works only when the economy supports it. For L.K. Advani, education and health, implying growth and strength of human resource, is subordinate to the current view of national security. Continuously increasing the fiscal deficit and diversion of larger funds to consumption rather than investment hurts it more. The basis of the past policy behind economic diplomacy is now turned upside down.
Foreign policy is lacking in a global vision in the fast-changing contours of global security and economic scenario. The USA has disclosed its perspective in terms of Russia as a strategic partner and China as a strategic competitor. There are emerging differences between the USA and EEC too. The facile assumption of a unipolar world has to contend with a future multipolarity in a scenario where the USA tries to bend the global forces in favour of its domestic vision. The short-term direction must fall in place in the vision of how policy is steered to adjust to long-term goals. In this area, that requires a broad national consensus, there remains a big gap.
On the Kashmir-focus itself Pakistan has outsmar-ted India at every turn in the last four years. India has taken another shift in policy by the official acceptance of the USA as a facilitator, meaning an honest broker between the two warring nations. The US think-tanks have expanded it to imply that US intervention is needed to sort out the Kashmir dispute. The US is trying to persuade the local dissident movements to come to terms and participate in the Assembly elections. India is matching the effort with the possibility of even conceding Governor's Rule to facilitate that participation. In itself, flexibility must be the essence of foreign policy. However, the reality of India being pushed into a position where the outcome is unpredictable exposes the weakness behind the hype of success. The US Secretary of State Powell has now put all speculation to rest and asserted that Kashmir is on the "international agenda". What this policy shift has achieved, in practical terms, is to provide the government with an alibi to justify the failure of the domestic Kashmir policy and more so the agenda to make India a "terror-free" country.
Stoking Communal Divide
One of the reasons for ambiguity about the Kashmir policy is an inherent duality in dealing with extremism of the minority and majority communities. The BJP in government reflects an embedded bias against the minorities combined with highest tolerance level to the excesses of the "Sangh Parivar" outfits. It is not the Muslim community alone that is targeted now but also the Christian community. The value of citizenship is eroded in the enthusiasm of these outfits to inflame communal passions to win adherents to the extremist cult. The BJP owes its present strength to the aggressive support to the assault on the mosque in Ayodhya in 1990 and its eventual destruction in 1992. Home Minister Advani earned his fame. The recent communal carnage in Gujarat has strong links to this root and Advani is once again the staunchest supporter of the aggression carried out there.
In March the Union Government tried its utmost to provide moral strength to the VHP's designs in Ayodhya. Carting of volunteers from Gujarat, in the absence of local enthusiasm, was part of the plan. Godhra had to happen. Then followed a planned "pogrom" which every sensible group, domestic as well as foreign, suspects to be supported by the State Government. The tragedy has a commercial objective to displace the minorities from business and trade. It has a social objective to effect segregation of communities in separate localities, a break from the commitment to the national integrative process. The supreme objective appears to be political; a polarisation that swings voters in favour of the BJP. An early election, even before the wounds have time to heal, is designed to test the political return from aggressive "Hindutva". If it succeeds, the country should expect the strategy to gain momentum in the run-up to the State elections during 2003 alongwith a possible preponement of the Lok Sabha elections scheduled in 2004. The NDA pledge to make India "riot-free" is not worth the paper it is written on.
Against the National Interest
It is a moot point whether national interest is being served by the politics of communal polarisation. Added to caste, regional, ethnic and language polarisation it tends to aggravate a cynical view of politics and politicians. Jointly, these forces of destabilisation are a challenge to the model of the constitutional system established. The NDA has proved unequal to the task of containing violence from this structural deficiency of electoral politics. Legislation is no substitute for a vibrant civil society. However, the symbols and instruments of civil society such as the media, the human rights groups, the people's movements, alternative think-tanks and even statutory commissions are being undermined by the NDA. Networks and nexus of power brokers and reciprocal patronage leagues rather than public interest results in the misuse of public resources for political and personal ends.
The process and pattern of disinvestment are its prime example in the economic sphere. The Governor of the Reserve Bank of India was candid to articulate that disinvestment is not privatisation. In common understanding it should involve broadening the shareholding base and seeking the participation of small retail investors. This would have meant changeover from government monopoly to the social control of assets created from public money. This was the initial initiative. The BJP's tilt towards private monopolies through a process of sale-off to the strategic partners and by suppressing the misdeeds of the private parties while magnifying the weaknesses of the public enterprises is a recipe for disaster. The Standing Committee of Parliament has, for two consecutive years, censored the process. In two extreme cases gross undervaluation has been exposed. In the case of Pradeep Phosphates the government may be refunding more money to the purchaser than the realisation from sale. In case of VSNL a huge surplus was left with the company to help its expansion or benefits to the consumers. However, the purchasing company promptly moved to get this reserve for investment in its loss-making telecom outfit. It would seem that the government publicity discloses gross receipts but is slow to disclose to the public the net receipt. An interesting system of public accountability this!
Public interest demands that the public develops a stake in the ownership of at least the enterprises and assets built from the taxpayers' money. This government thinks otherwise. So, disinvestment has turned into privatisation. The political objective in the strategic partner is to build long-term engagement with the private companies involved. It fits nicely into the pattern of business-politics nexus for monopolies that work against the public interest. The Minister in-charge takes pains to use official information to undermine the system he presides over. Where is public ethics in this? Has Ratan Tata, for example, written about the fraud in Tata Financial Services to brief the public? Selective disclosures merely undermine competition between buyers and bring declining return to the government. The ITDC employees have gone to the press to claim that the "drain inspector's job" being performed by Minister Arun Shourie is damaging the business of the Ashoka Hotels and the means adopted are sure to reduce its valuation.
Post-ethical Politics
The BJP has changed the meaning of ethics in politics and administration. Assumption of public office entails commitment to certain embedded values, including non-disclosure of information gathered in official capacity to damage public trust. It creates in the public the feeling that the intention is to wreck the system from within. Courage demands that the system be changed to deliver. This is more so when the private corporate sector is believed to conceal skeletons in its cupboard. The plundering of the banking and public financial sectors as well as the retail investors are more pronounced now despite all efforts to cover up. Honest divestment in the pursuit of government policy cannot be challenged. However, a ministerial campaign that undermines their business and return to the exchequer can disclose a serioius lack of ethics.
This trust in hope in preference to the reality raises suspicions about the political motives. The govern-ment's recent stand on the disclosure of assets by the contesting candidates, as suggested by the Apex Court, is a prime example of connivance in suppressing asset accumulation by the powerful political class. This is largely at the cost of public assets. Reluctance to take a benign view of economic crimes in general and for electoral battles in particular strengthens this suspicion. The BJP has gained in financial clout in relation to the Congress for electoral purposes. The passing of the public sector assets to private "strategic" partners in preference to retail investors and creating private monopolies may prove to be cementing long-term political alliances. This is a subtle way of turning public assets to private and political advantage. This political dimension of privatisation is designed to change the character and values of our constitutional democracy.
The increasing tolerance of corruption has added to this suspicion. The BJP sought and secured alliance with Sukh Ram who has now been convicted for corruption during his tenure as a Central Minister. The tehelka exposé on defence deals has become a classic example of how the government machinery is working to divert judicial inquiry and cover up wrongdoing. There is at least one financial scam a year in the last four years involving stock exchanges and the banking system but 'bailout' rather than punitive action is the outcome. The UTI's near collapse may see a louder chorus for privatisation and again to a strategic partner. To cap it all, the government has failed to enact the law relating to the powers of the Central Vigilance Commission. The catalogue of omissions and commissions bearing on ethics in government is long and depressing. Public revulsion is muted in the belief that nothing can be done now. This great betrayal has, in effect, heralded the country's transition to what appears to be a post-ethical political order. This is one solid achievement of the BJP.
Stability and the Public Purpose
It is important, then, to ask if the stability of a government is really serving the public purpose. The government is engrossed in its own survival to the detriment of public purpose. Last September the Prime Minister promised that he had overcome the challenge to the stability of his government and would concentrate on governance. The whole year has passed in inaction. Problems pile up but important Ministers are content to keep their date with rhetoric. There are promises galore about policies but when it comes to implementationthe performance is zero. What worth is this stability which the Deputy Prime Minister has raised to the pedestal of being the most significant achievement?
The BJP has a difficult task keeping a coalition of 25 parties intact. Narasimha Rao managed better with a slim majority but the BJP has to make a show of a larger margin to keep the partners under check. Half the energy of the government is wasted in overseeing that none of them go out of the system. The other half is engaged in looking at the electoral prospects in the future elections in States and to the Lok Sabha in 2004. There is selective disposal of policies and business to suit the electoral ends. The party has perfected the art of flaunting scapegoats to justify the failure of policies. In security matters, the 'foreign hand', in Gujarat Newton's third law of action and reaction in uncontrolling killings, in financial scams the system, for tardy implementation the Opposition parties and the bureaucracy. Declining industrial production is justified by the slow speed of reforms and the declining growth rate either due to natural calamities or external factors. The focus has to be diverted from ministerial accountability and the lack of executive management.
The BJP is lucky. The Opposition as a bulwark to force accountability has almost withered away. If the NDA partners, including the BJP, have their own separate agenda then so have the Opposition parties. The policy-game is merely a ploy. What matters is personalised party interests. The government seems to have been privatised; its instruments have to subserve party interests. The country is passing through a period of security obsession, political depression and economic mismanagement. There is a pervading feeling of helplessness and hopelessness. The more the government talks of creating a feel-good environment the greater the disenchantment. The recent ministerial revamp drama made The Statesman comment appropriately that " the stress should have been on performance, not a reshuffle for its own sake and certainly not to place party above country".
Policy in a democracy has political roots. Its strength lies in ideology and convictions and commitments that the ideology discloses. The spectre of a 'hidden agenda' and the surreptitious means of sneaking its elements into government policies and administrative disposals expose a pervading sense of nervousness. The claim of stability when there is mental instability has resulted in the total collapse of public confidence and credibility. The new political tactics employed in Gujarat shows a desperate bid to retrieve the narrowing political space. However, strategy and tactic are no substitute for sound policies and focused implementation. That is the tragedy of India's governance under the
BJP.
With permission from http://www.mainstreamweekly.com
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