The Enigma Of Silence

STATESMAN-like countenance or camera shy? An obsessively hardworking prime minister or a beleaguered one? In a career spanning over four decades of public life, Atal Behari Vajpayee has been the quintessential people's man, a politician who has not thought twice about stopping and chatting up his constituents or strolling down the corridors of Parliament House holding impromptu press conferences, mixing around well with the hoi polloi, always willing to share a joke. In short, the perfect communicator.

Five months into power as prime minister, giving the country a familiar dose of coalition politics and the pattern of things to come with ambitious allies testing his patience no end, the situation seems to have altered. A man who can count numerous veteran journalists as his personal friends, Vajpayee's critics say he is the first prime minister who has to date not held a press conference in the manner of several heads of the government in the past. His appearances in public have decreased significantly. He has stopped the practice of weekly public 'durbars' and, with reports about his ill health, Vajpayee seems to be under siege. Add to it the troubles Jayalalitha and other allies have heaped upon him, and the ensemble is complete.

Has the prime minister decided to go underground avoiding the very people he has interacted with? Says senior BJP leader K.R. Malkani: "The prime minister has cut down his access because of the troubles he has at his doorsteps. Right from day one, he has been harassed. It is but natural that he adopt a low profile." Points out party spokesperson Venkaiah Naidu: "The prime minister will hold a press conference when he deems it fit."

 Some key aides to Vajpayee, however, insist that there is no question of him avoiding the media—he has, at worst, kept off the Delhi media. "Look at his track record. He went to Shimla on a holiday and held a press conference there; he went to Pokhran and talked to journalists there; he went to Gujarat to look at the cyclone-hit areas and met scribes in Jamnagar. Similarly he has talked to the press in Bombay while visiting the Konkan Railway site and Calicut when he went there," asserts a key Vajpayee aide. Besides, he adds, Vajpayee has given scores of interviews to top Indian editors and foreign journalists whenever they have put in a request.

Vajpayee's image managers in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) say they are extremely conscious of their boss's standing and do not want him to do an I.K. Gujral, who during his stay at 7 Race Course Road spent a better part of his time giving out interviews to anyone and everyone who so desired. In addition, Gujral was on television almost every other day. Says officer on special duty (OSD) in the PMO Sudheendra Kulkarni: "Actually the media is familiar with prime ministers who were excessively accessible to them, particularly the official media. While it was epitomised in the likes of Indira and Rajiv Gandhi, even others after them have been too keen to see themselves in the print and electronic media. Atalji does not need the media in the same way as some of the others before him. He is anyway a people's man."

Prime ministerial aides say that as head of the government, it is important for Vajpayee to speak to the media only when he has something important to communicate, like the special briefing where he announced India's nuclear tests, but declined to take questions. Otherwise, they say, fatigue sets in with people watching the same face every day, speaking on approximately the same set of issues. The dignity of the office is lost. "During Gujral's time, the common refrain was that the number of interviews given far exceeded the number of days that his government was expected to survive," quips an aide.

While allies have been troublesome, some problems have emerged from within the ruling combine itself. Well-placed sources say Vajpayee was completely put off by the jingoistic utterances that came in the wake of the nuclear explosions. "When he saw statements to the effect that temples would be built at the blast site and that the mud from Pokhran would be scattered all over Rajasthan (keeping the assembly elections in view later in the year), he just picked up the phone and told Bhairon Singh Shekhawat that all this should stop immediately. For the same reason he declined to address a public rally in Bangalore when it became clear that some more radical elements within the ruling combine were planning to use the occasion for a big jamboree," an aide admits.

NO sooner did he absent himself from the Bangalore meeting that widespread speculation started about his health, a sore topic for anyone in the PMO and the party. Vajpayee was described differently by different people as being too subdued, half-asleep during deliberations, too unwell, unfit to handle the rough and tumble of political brinkmanship such as the one being currently engineered from the south and various similar uncharitable references.

That, PMO officials say, has been the unkindest cut. They point out that Vajpayee after all is an old man in his early seventies and has not been exactly bouncing with energy for some years now. "Only when the focus or scrutiny shifts on a person do people begin to look at him closely," says an official. He then glances at AIADMK leader S. Muthaiah on the television screen in his room and adds: "If Muthaiah were to become prime minister, all of us would be looking at him differently."

While that may not happen in the immediate foreseeable future, the controversy over Vajpayee's alleged illness has a long history. Aides say a journalist called them last month saying he had exclusive medical records to prove that the prime minister was suffering from prostrate cancer. PMO officials offered to put up Vajpayee's personal medical record for the scribe's benefit, but he went ahead with the story nonetheless.

Later a denial was issued, but up came another journalist with a new illness: Parkinson's disease, coinciding as it did with the prime minister's visit to the Shriram Bhartiya Institute. Again the same routine: the story was used and a denial issued later. But the damage seems to have been done. Advisors say in covering the prime minister's personal health, the media has shown a certain lack of accountability, even though they were offered access to Vajpayee's individual medical records. Says one aide: "It is mandatory for the prime minister to be checked two times a day by his personal doctor. He has to go through it, even if he does not like it. So the question of any serious illness does not arise."

As for the attendant image of a 'tired' prime minister unable to devote long hours to a litany of crises, sources say that is all bumkum. Take the Cauvery compromise, they claim, Vajpayee personally sat and thrashed out the agreement in a nine-hour marathon.

Meanwhile, what role does security have to play in a prime minister's life, keeping in view his personal access with the media and public alike? Officials say the moment a man assumes that august office, he or she is putty in the hands of the Special Protection Force (SPG). The SPG ensures that no one, including party leaders, can come anywhere near the prime minister. "In a way, if you have to meet the prime minister, you are actually dealing with the SPG, sharpshooters whose claim to hold their jobs depends on how well they keep their boss away from any human contact," says an official. For a practicing politician in a democracy, that is a disaster. Congress politicians, for instance, privately complain of how difficult it is to meet Sonia Gandhi on account of her security ring.

Then again, the prime minister's silence on issues can be related to the fact that as it is there are too many cabinet ministers—more than in any previous government—who are willing to speak up on important Cabinet issues when they see a TV camera. "This is the most open government we have had," says Kulkarni. Perhaps too open. Vajpayee's inner circle has it that persistent refusal to face cameras stems from a personal code that he wants to enforce silently: do not be so vocal while in government. It is another thing to say what you wish to while in the opposition; in government, discretion is the better part of valour.

Clearly, in the days to come there is going to be increasingly more pressure on Vajpayee to keep his lines open to the media and public. That would, of course, be dependent upon how long his government survives. But even as the Jayalalitha threat loomed large last week, the political class was bracing itself for a likely thunderous Independence Day address with all his oratorial skills summoned once again.