NATIONAL POLITICS
Praful Bidwai on the Left and the United Front Government
The wholly indefensible manner in which (Deve Gowda rushed to rescue Mr. Narasimha Rao by subverting every norm of political decency and good governance, by blatantly interfering with the CBI and ordering it not to oppose bail for Mr. Rao, and bypassing the home ministry while politically compromising the Delhi police, is the single biggest blackmark in the UF's record-book so far. The fact that the temporary reprieve granted to Mr. Rao on dubious legal grounds was preceded by Deve Gowda's highly controversial midnight meeting the Chief Justice of India, and then with Mr. Rao and his own law minister, further compounds this grave impropriety.
Another Blow
By engineering this collusion. Rao gravely indicted by India's premier police organization-inflicted yet another blow upon the credibility of the political system. It is another matter that his gain, mere postponement of court appearance, was unworthy of a senior politician. Earlier, he had managed to get the Pathak case transferred for no valid reason from Prem Kumar's court to Ajit Bharihoke's. The public is bound to be appalled not just because Rao is being granted undeserved preferential treatment at each stage by the executive and the judiciary, but also because this should happen just when hopes run high that those responsible for defrauding the public exchequer and other malfeasance will at last be held accountable and punished under the UF dispensation.
The sordid episode represents a betrayal in four months of the hope that the UF would usher in a new kind of politics. In this regard, the UF's performance has been somewhat worse than the more fractious JD government's, barring the extraordinarily ugly Devi Lal episode. This puts the Left, a critical UF component, in a worse position than in 1989-90 when it supported V.P. Singh from the outside. The Left is earning all the opprobrium through association, while making few gains.
September 30 was not the first time that Deve Gowda put the Left in such a predicament. He has done so all along, whether on relations within the UF, issues of economic policy, vital political decisions or high-level appointments. Consider this. Mr. Gowda first sent Mr. CM. Ibrahim to hold 'political-cooperation' talks with the Naib Imam of the Jama Masjid and then himself held a controversial but prolonged meeting with Bal Thackeray, to widespread secular criticism and the UF's embarrassment. On other political reform issues too, the UF's performance has been unimpressive-witnessing the Lok Pal Bill, political autonomy for Jammu and Kashmir, electoral reform, and reservations for women.
On economic policy, the UF has failed to distinguish itself from the Congress Little Efforts
Mr. Gowda has made little effort to build a consensus. Indeed, he tends to bypass the Steering Committee, relying instead on clandestine consultations with Narasimha Rao, whom he has met 27 times. The Left has had to beat a retreat on several important policy issues. It has also accommodated itself to a far more conservative, near-jingoistic, position on the CTBT, rather than the ambiguity stand it originally favored. None of this redounds to the Left's credit. Meanwhile, the Janata Dal is in disarray, and has all but collapsed as the UF's centre of gravity. This too leaves the Left with little leverage or room for manoeuvre.
There is simply no reason why the Left should attract opprobrium on the UF's behalf when it does not determine the Front's conduct or policies. The opprobrium is undeserved: the Left is the most stable, reliable, enduring representative within the UF of plebeian interests. It vests it with considerable moral and political credibility. The Left is the cleanest, most principled, part of the Indian political spectrum, with the least stake in manipulative politics and hence can guide the UF in a positive way. But if the UF goes wayward, the Left will be less and less able to play this function. Worse, its own greatest asset, viz moral-political authority, could be undermined. The Left cannot afford to lose this. If it dies, it will no longer just mark time, but go into decline despite having gracefully survived the collapse of the USSR."Tailism", or following, rather than leading, a more conservative partner, is the worst thing that could happen to the CPI and CPM.
The time has come for the Left to begin distancing itself politically from the UF on issues of policy and principle, indeed to issue an ultimatum to Deve Gowda: if he thinks he can outmaneuver it by making an alliance with the Rao Congress and through tactics aimed to manipulate or bypass judicial and political accountability, then the Left too can walk out of the UF. It will have no choice but to do so if the rightward economic policy drift continues and the CPM is selectively interpreted and implemented. It cannot stay in the UF unless the Steering Committee is properly institutionalized, and consulted at each critical step, on all major policies. Gowda simply has no moral-political authority to behave as if he were a "normal" Prime Minister with a single-party dominated majority government. If it is not to sound empty, such an ultimatum must be backed by action: public debate, trenchant criticism, cadre education, mobilization in the streets. This is a hard decision, but the Left has few options. If it does not begin distancing itself from an getting discredited. And that is the path to ignominy, if increasingly compromised, Congressised, UF, it will risk not oblivion.
(Source: The Times of India, 9 October, 1996)
