Fanning The Fire

What can one say? What is left to say?

That what happened in the last 48 hours -- to top the dangerous bluff,bluster and brinkmanship that the UPA indulged in since the assembly electionresults came out on Feb 27 -- was totally unnecessary and avoidable? Thatinstead of taking what the Supreme Court found itself compelled to say with goodgrace and ensuring compliance with it, we found the UPA indulge first in thesorry spectacle of an all-party meet from which the BJP walked out and then theutterly inexplicable timing of the Lok Sabha speaker's statement asking for apresidential reference to be made to the Supreme Court to seek clarification on separation of powers of theexecutive, the legislature and the judiciary?

That it brought us perilously close to a constitutional crisis that thecountry doesn't need, nor want? That what the centre finally stepped in to dotoday, should have been done long back, much before the Supreme Court came intothe picture? That our worthy parliamentarians of the UPA did not dwell on whatwas responsible for totally upsetting "the fine constitutional balance andthe democratic functioning of the state as a whole"?

Perhaps we should be grateful for small mercies that the government decidedagainst it, but would it be too farfetched to charge that the timing of the LokSabha Speaker's statement only added, abetted and encouraged the farce in theJharkhand assembly today? That the Supreme Court interim order was bound toruffle Parliament was clear the day it was handed out, but couldn't the Hon'bleComrade Speaker have timed the all party meet and, the kerfuffle which followed,to just a day later?

It was abundantly clear that the BJP-JDU combine had the numbers, but the JMM-ledUPA's outrageous behaviour in the Jharkhand assembly was clearly to flout the SupremeCourt's order. To say that it was all appallingly handled by the UPA would be theunderstatement of this year, if not this century.

That the government took so long to get its act together and come out with aclear statement on it after the mockery in Jharkhand is only indicative ofthe deep fissures and faultlines within this coalition. Leave alone the PM, eventhe UPA chairperson, evidently, has not only no control over her allies; but shealso seems unable to get her own party to fall in line easily. Else would wehave had the sight of her party's pro-tem speaker take his cue from theLok Sabha Speaker, and not from what the Congress party and the government hadannounced? Couldn't a simple call have been made to him to ensure that hefollowed the Supreme Court order in letter and spirit, particularly after what thegovernment announced in the morning today about not making the presidentialreference after all?

For, after a meeting of senior cabinet ministers at the Prime Minister's residence this morning,which was also attended by the UPA chairperson, the union law minister, H.R.Bhardwaj, had gone before television cameras to proclaim that "as law minister itis my duty to see to it that every order of the Supreme Court is compliedwith".

For a moment, let's even buy the defence minister's rather disingenuousassertion in the Lok Sabha that there was "no question of central intervention in Jharkhand" and that thegovernment "had nothing to do with the developments there....the Constitution clearly earmarks the jurisdiction of theState Legislature and Parliament ... the expression of confidence or no-confidence is the exclusive jurisdiction of members of the State Assembly... We want the decision should be taken on the floor of the Jharkhand Assembly."

Then why did the central government and its CCPA finally feel the need tomove? And why did the home minister feel the need to claim what he did on the PM's behalf? Afterall, the Jharkhand assembly speaker had only adjourned the house? By that logic, surely there was no need to get into a damage control exercise.

And what about the Congress party? Surely they cannot get away with thatline? Surely the party chief, who also happens to be the UPA chief, could atleast have reined in her own Congress MLAs? And surely all those rest of theallies such as Lalu Yadav who waxed eloquent on honouring the judiciary couldhave done something about their own MLAs and tried to "persuade" theJMM chief and the rest of those MLAs of the UPA who apparently left the protemspeaker "helpless"? Seems like a clear case of "coalition compulsion". SoniaGandhi's silence and selective spin from her sycophants to distance her fromthis sordid mess only shows the desperation to not take responsibility for abadly botched up job.

If it weren't so tragic, one could perhaps laugh at its sheer stupidity, and now that the farce seems to have ended (at least for now, or so oneshould hope) perhaps one can indulge in the liberty of sharing an old Santa andBanta exchange:

"Oye, othe ghar nu aag lagi hai". (Oye, there is a house on fire)
"Saanu ki?" (How am I bothered?)
"O tuhada ghar hai". (That is your house)
"Te pher, tuhanu ki?" (So then why are you bothered?)

For that effectively was the response from the various constituents of theUPA. Were that it were so simple to be not bothered by it. Because those whosejob it is to douse the recently raging fire seemed hell-bent not only on notdoing anything to extinguish it, but were also busy fanning it, and preventinganybody else from doing anything about it either.

"Who started the fire?" What a stupid, senseless question, one had wondered, whenanother Prime Minister asked it in a different context, some years back. As thePM, one expected him to concern himself with dousing and extinguishing thatfire first. Such questions, though important, are always best addressed later.

And that is what one expected in the current case of arson. And it doesn'ttake anything more than common sense to figure this one out. Instinct, even. Butcommon sense does not seem to be all that common. And the Congress party perhapsjust wants to go up in spontaneous self-combustion, for it not only lit up theseminor fires first in Goa and then in Jharkhand, which could easily have beenextinguished by timely intervention from the party's so-called centralleadership, with just a few buckets of water, in a manner ofspeaking, but also fanned it.

Because they were allowed to spread out and somebody pressed the alarm bells, theSupreme Court had to move in as the Fire Brigade. And instead of appreciatingthat help, at least in alleviating some of the "coalitioncompulsions", and helping smother the fire out immediately, despite the embarrassmentover Goa, we were made to witness anabsurd national debate on the diameter of the water-hose to be used, and,indeed, who should be using it. The wholedebate in Parliament and in the all-party meet seemed more concerned withshouting about whosejob it was to stub it out and when (no, no, March 15, not 10) and how rather than any immediate steps taken to ensure that thefire was put out immediately.

For effectively, what the Hon'ble Speaker of the Lok Sabha ended up in doingwas just this - tuhanu ki? - by the timing of his very labouredstatement recommending that a presidential reference to the Supreme Court bemade, asking for clarifications on the supremacy of the different constituentsof the state, viz. the executive, the legislature and the judiciary.

Of course, it is a useful and necessary debate. Given the nature of the SupremeCourt order, it is is perhaps even an urgent debate.We do need to ask who wouldguard the guards, as it were, and it does, as the Speaker pointed out, raiseserious and grave questions. But on the scale of urgency, it was only asimportant as someone questioning the length and width of the fire-hose used, and whether itmeets the ISI standards or not, andwould it not be better, actually, to, er, use bucketfuls of water or sand orsome such instead? And in any case, who were the fire-brigade to come rushing when wewere ... er, not actually doing anything to douse that fire ourselves? (And,look, those who preach to us were themselves guilty...Does it ring anybell? Do we remember how in 2002, 1984 was invoked? Two wrongs do make formany rights, it would seem)

Obvious questions arise. Shouldn't such debates be had when there are nofires raging? Surely, there's been enough time since 1998 when a similar firehad raged (when the SC had issued a similar order for trial of strength in theUP assembly in what has come to be known as the Jagdambika Pal case). Shouldn't the hon'ble speaker, and all those attending that meeting, have been more concerned, at least inthe immediate context, with thefact that such a situation had been allowed to be developed which made thisSupreme Court intervention necessary? If the intent was really to seekclarifications about constitutional complexities, and important they indeed are,in abstraction, perhaps a day's delay would not have mattered? Even tactically, then, it would not have been seen as a transparent attempt to subvert first the people's andthen the Supreme Court's verdict, had such a debate about making a presidential reference had cropped up after the current impasse over Jharkhand had been settled. If this is what the UPA could come out with after having been stripped of any shard of cover hiding its naked hunger for power, then some very urgent lessons in "damage control" are required, since basic morality, decency and propriety might be difficult to learn.

What do the UPA, the Lok Sabha speaker, and all those in that "allparty" meet really think should the Supreme Court have done withArjun Munda's petition, by the way? Should it have left it to the assembly tillMarch 15, as earlier suggested by the governor, to test Shibu Soren's"majority"? What did they expect as a response to its presidentialreference? What do they think was responsible?

It seems well nigh believable that the PM was busy finding ways to get thisfire extinguished, and he did have a tough task on hand, given thenature of his various allies, not to mention his own party. One can sense his deep distress, andcould evensympathise with him, and the anguish he would have felt, but a distressed PM, no matter how thankless a job he seems to have on hand, is no solace to the country. A PM of good faith, who looks aroundhelplessly, rushing from one fire-brigade to another, for help in dousing a firethat was lit by none other than those who run the party he belongs to, is asorry sight indeed. And as long as he does not assert his position andauthority, one can only see this distress mount in the future, as the fissuresin his alliance would deepen with each new assembly elections where UPA allieswould be principal opponents. Failing that, one does not really need a highlydeveloped inner voice to be able to conclude, it is only the lady with theinner voice who can do something about the PM's distress. She has to sit downand work out things first within her party and then with her allies.

For the time being, a crisis has been averted.The fire has been doused. Butthere are still embers that could flare up any time and envelope us all in araging fire.And it is that which our worthy Parliamentarians ought to nowdiscuss and debate. What if we had a central government which chose not tointerfere? And even if they did, what if the Governor or the Chief Ministerrefused to comply?

For the questions raised by the situation before the central government feltcompelled to move in are serious indeed. As would be clear from the clearlydivided opinion of the Constitutional experts in the country.As are otherpressing questions about the various recommendations made by Sarkaria Commissionand many other electoral reforms concerning the role of the partisan governorsand their appointments, the role of speakers, and independent members elected to the legislatures.

Yes, it is true that the Supreme Court has, for some time, been doing thejobs of (1) the executive (2) the legislature and (3) the lower judiciary. It is nota desirable situation, but it wouldn't be happening if 1, 2, and 3 did their jobs. And thereference here is not just to crimes of omission in terms of abdication of dutybut also those of commission, where authority is blatantly misused. An honestdebate and fixing some of this would surely help "the fine constitutionalbalance and the democratic functioning of the state as a whole" that theLok Sabha Speaker is so justifiably concerned about.

But, perhaps, one wastes one's breath in stating the obvious over and overand over again.

Perhaps it is best to leave Shibu Soren out of it all, though he tooseemingly heard his "inner voice" today. It seems to be spreading likean epidemic, which is perhaps not something to be mourned. When asked whether hewas asked by the governor to resign, he said, "I listened to my conscience and resigned, despite knowing that the NDA did not get majority in the assembly election."