Time to take off Nehru’s ceremonial straitjacket?

No discussion of history at the popular level is ever complete without the inevitable question: what if?

It is precisely this question that comes to mind on a small detail of the ceremony surrounding the advent of a new presidency in India. What if, it may well be asked, had Mahatma Gandhi not been felled by a bullet in 1948 and had gone on to witness India’s transition to a republic in 1950? What if a grateful nation in search of a moral compass had insisted that the ‘father of the nation’ should also be its first President? And what if the Mahatma had agreed?

In that event, would Jawaharlal Nehru have had the gumption to advise his mentor that wearing “a black achkan and white churidar pyjamas would be suitable for the inauguration ceremony as well as for any other official function”? Would the man who conversed with the mighty King-Emperor in Buckingham Palace in a dhoti and shawl have delighted the photographers by putting on something utterly incongruous? Would the ever-irreverent Sarojini Naidu have chuckled over a Mahatma in fancy dress?

The imagery of Gandhi in Nehruvian attire is deliciously wicked. However, behind the farce lurks a more profound question: does India need a dress code for ceremonial occasions? This was the question Dr Rajendra Prasad, the first President of the Republic, asked Nehru three days before he was sworn in. The first two occupants of the palace on Raisina Hill after Independence had, after all, assumed charge in markedly different clothes: Lord Mountbatten in the ceremonial uniform of an admiral of the fleet, and C Rajagopalachari in a white khadi jacket and dhoti. 

Left to himself, Rajen Babu would have preferred a variant of what Rajaji wore to the Durbar Hall on becoming governor-general. Dhoti, in its different regional variations, was the preferred dress of most Indians for formal and ceremonial occasions. Some Muslim communities in northern and central India, however, preferred the long achkan or sherwani with white pyjamas. In short, there was no single definition of formal wear. Just as the Scots never gave up their kilts in clan colours for the regulation dinner jacket, India’s definition of ‘formal’ has differed according to culture and geography.

In West Bengal, the home state of India’s 13th President Pranab Mukherjee, the Calcutta Club has, for example, deemed that lounge suits and dhotis are acceptable for the dining room, while the kurta-pyjama (whether of the Fab India or political India variety) is a definite no-no. This is quite a contrast from the Delhi clubs where dhoti is taboo but pyjamas are accepted. Yet, there is a visceral antipathy of the Bengali bhadralok for the pyjama. A Bengali notable once rebuked Madhav Rao Scindia for coming to dinner in kurta-pyjama. “The pyjama,” he informed his bewildered guest, “is what you wear between the bedroom and the bathroom.”

It is worth considering what the custodians of Bengali taste thought of the new President, abandoning the customary dhoti and assuming office in a Nehru-decreed uniform. The last occasion a Bengali had occupied a post of equivalent importance was Subhas Bose, the Congress President in 1938. Predictably, Bose was impeccably attired in white dhoti-panjabi, with a striped angavastram for colour. This was quite a change from the 1928 Congress session in Calcutta when he turned up in military uniform, complete with steel-chain epaulettes. A bemused Gandhi compared Bose and his uniformed volunteers to a Bertram Mills Circus.

The Mahatma found Bose’s militaristic pretensions amusing. In the same vein, rooted Bengalis found Nehruvian aesthetics suspect and pretentious. Writing in 1965 in The Continent of Circe, the Bengali gadfly Nirad C Chaudhuri described Nehru as “more a Muslim than a Hindu, so far as he is anything Indian at all…He is usually repelled by anything pronouncedly Hindu.” Nehru’s critics noted the alacrity with which he shed the dhoti after 1947 for a sartorial style that epitomised the adaption of Hindu elites to a Muslim court.

That such a style finds favour with both North India and Bollywood is undeniable. But why make some people’s preference the norm for all Indians? It is time to liberate India from Nehru’s flights of whimsy.


Sunday Times of India, July 29, 2012

Which way will the President swing?

By Swapan Dasgupta

The victory of Pranab Mukherjee in last Sunday’s presidential election has triggered a bout of speculation over how he will handle his new responsibilities. Unlike the distant past when the occupant of Rashtrapati Bhavan was condemned to a largely ceremonial role owing to the presence of a strong Prime Minister with a commanding majority in Parliament, there is intense interest about how the President will conduct himself in the event no single party or pre-election formation secures a majority in the next general election.

The speculation is warranted. Despite the fact that President Mukherjee has been a Congress loyalist for most of his political life—apart from a two-year stint as the unsuccessful leader of a breakaway formation, his selection as the UPA candidate was mired in some confusion and uncertainty. There are grounds to believe that the selection of Mukherjee was forced by the brief rebellion of Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mamata Banerjee. It is entirely possible that had the threat of former President APJ Abdul Kalam also jumping into the fray not been there, either Hamid Ansari or Meira Kumar may have ended up as the Congress’ choice. It is fair to assume that Mukherjee, despite his high standing, suffered from a trust deficit with the UPA Chairperson.

The reason for this wariness is said to be located in the stand Mukherjee took in the immediate aftermath of Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1984. At that time Mukherjee proffered the view, based entirely on his understanding of precedents, that President Zail Singh should swear-in the senior-most member of the Cabinet as the interim Prime Minister. In both 1964 and 1966, after the deaths of Jawaharlal Nehru, President Radhakrishnan had administered the oath of office to Gulzari Lal Nanda. It was after the funerals that the Congress Parliamentary Party met to elect their leader.

To say that Mukherjee was guided by personal ambition is a conjecture. Judging by his personality, particularly his obsessive fascination with history and precedents, it is equally fair to argue that he was merely trying to be correct. Looking back, it seems outrageous that an ordinary General Secretary of the Congress, a person with no administrative experience, was sworn-in as Prime Minister. Regardless of the fact that Rajiv Gandhi was unanimously endorsed by the CLP subsequently, the question arises: on what basis did Giani Zail Singh take his decision? By that logic, President Mukherjee will be within his rights to appoint Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh as interim Prime Minister in the event of an unexpected vacancy in Race Course Road. If that sounds preposterous, how can the President’s decision in 1984 be justified? A break from convention cannot, after all, be justified because the beneficiary is a member of a particular family.

What is clear from the extraordinary events of 1984—never adequately scrutinised because of the extraordinary circumstances of Indira Gandhi’s death—is that there are discretionary powers available in the hands of the President to shape the course of politics. Because of special circumstances, it is unlikely that there would have been a challenger to Rajiv Gandhi for the top job. Nevertheless, the President’s decision presented the CLP with a fait accompli. The MPs were left with just no other choice in the matter.

In 1984, Pranab Mukherjee was extremely courageous by putting propriety over reckless innovation. For this miscalculation he paid a very heavy price. Yet, now that he no longer has to answer to the Congress’ first family, are his priorities going to be shaped by this sense of correctness? The fear that President Mukherjee will not allow his personal preferences to allow any Constitutional subterfuge has been uppermost in the minds of those who see politics as the quest for power at all costs.

The problem, however, is that there are just too many conflicting precedents. In 1989, 1991 and 1996, the President invited the leader of the single-party to form the Government. In 1989, Rajiv Gandhi turned down the offer because he did not command a majority. However, in 1996, Atal Behari Vajpayee formed a Government despite not having a majority. The BJP failed to muster the additional numbers in 13 days of office and the Government fell.

As a result of the 1996 experience, President K.R. Narayanan demanded to see letters of support from potential allies when he invited Vajpayee (who was head of both the largest party and the largest pre-poll alliance) in 1998. The President wanted to satisfy himself that the new government was in a position to secure a majority. However, it was this same principle that came in the way of Sonia Gandhi becoming Prime Minister in 1999. There is little doubt that had the Congress formed the government, its natural resourcefulness would have enabled it to cobble together a majority. Indeed, President Narayanan went beyond the call of office and actually tried to persuade Mulayam  to extend support—an act which can be justified by the desire to avoid a second election a year after the previous one. But it didn’t quite work out.

Of course, the ultimate test of majority is in Parliament. But the President has a range of options to choose from to determine who will have the first throw of the dice. The next two years will witness endless star gazing to determine what he deems will be most appropriate. The President’s discretionary powers are adding to the nervousness in the political class.


Deccan Chronicle/ Asian Age, July 27, 2012

Pranab Mukherjee: Ethnically Bengali but politically man of the Centre

By Swapan Dasgupta

Selecting the greatest Indian since the Mahatma was always a daunting project in a pathologically argumentative country. But for the organisers of this exercise, there were two particularly awkward moments and both, predictably, were Bengali creations.

First, there was the legitimate query, as to why Satyendra Nath Bose, after whom the ‘boson’ of the Higgs boson or “God particle” derives its name, was not considered. Secondly, there was the inevitable question: why has Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose been omitted? The organisers could hardly respond that Netaji died in 1945 in an air-crash because that would have resurrected the controversy over his death—a controversy not lacking in conspiracy theories.

Strange as it may appear to outsiders, a huge section of Bengalis are inclined to view the history of the past 100 years as a monumental conspiracy by first, the British, and then a Delhi-centric political class, to deny them recognition and justice. This colourful saga of unending victimhood that has created a permanently aggrieved people, personified by is the mercurial Mamata Banerjee.

When the diminutive Pranab Mukherjee, dressed hopefully in his hallmark dhoti rather than an incongruous achkan-churidar, takes his oath of office on Wednesday morning, will the Bengali sense of hurt be assuaged? Will the first Bengali in Rashtrapati Bhavan be seen as the Congress Party’s atonement for Subhas Bose’s removal as Congress President by a wily Mahatma Gandhi in 1939? That incidentally was the last occasion a Bengali made it to the very top.   

There are few reasons to believe that Bengalis will melt in gratitude at being finally offered this ceremonial lollipop. In an interview last month on TV, Mamata was asked about her views of Pranab—a “son of Bengal”—as the next President of India. “Son of Bengal?” she asked incredulously, “He is a son of the world.”

The message couldn’t have been clearer. To the rest of India, Pranab Babu with his unmistakable Bengali accent may be the quintessential bhadrolok. In a cultural sense he undoubtedly is. Politically, however, his roots have never been in state politics but in Lutyens’ Delhi. Ethnically he is a Bengali but politically he is a man of the Centre.

To Bengal this matters. The tallest Congress leader of Bengal was, by a long shot, Dr B.C. Roy who was Chief Minister from 1948 to 1962. His fame stemmed not only from his legendary skills as a medical doctor or his no-nonsense style. Dr Roy is regarded as the man who gave West Bengal whatever little post-Independence economic development it experienced. From the steel plant in Durgapur, the barrage in Farakka and the development of Salt Lake, most of the public investment in Bengal is attributed to Dr Roy.

The only person who came close to the legendary Chief Minister was A.B.A. Ghani Khan Choudhury who, as Railways Minister, nurtured the development of his home district of Malda.  The reputation of Barkat Da, as he was affectionately called, has invariably been juxtaposed with that of Pranab Babu—and the results have not been edifying for India’s President-designate.

Politically, Mukherjee was always of greater significance than the portly patriarch from Malda. Yet, it has been suggested that he didn’t leverage his enormous clout at the Centre to do anything special for Bengal. In a phoney war between a proud people and a heartless imperial authority, Mukherjee has often been painted as a collaborator.

The dominant intellectual current in Bengal has never been separatist. Despite the endless of charges of discrimination by the Centre, Bengalis haven’t even considered a future outside India. Yet, ironically, the folk heroes of Bengal have invariably been upholders of local pride. Chittaranjan Das and Bose were hero worshipped for their sacrifice and, above all, their opposition to Gandhi; Dr Roy was admired because he kept Nehru (who he addressed as Jawaharlal) at an arm’s length; Jyoti Basu earned respect for being culturally detached from the Hindi heartland; and Mamata is indulged because she doesn’t care a fig for authority.  By contrast, Pranab Mukherjee has got where he is by playing by the rules set by lesser beings in Delhi. In Bengal, that makes him an oddball.


Times of India, July 23, 2012

Pranab didn’t trigger economy downturn

By Swapan Dasgupta

There is, it would seem, no place for gratitude in politics. It took the presiding deities of UPA-2 less than 48 hours after he left office to start the whisper that the ills of the economy are due to the man who will be the next President of India. For Pranab Mukherjee, the unkindest cut was the fact that the new revisionism seemed to be emanating from people close to the Prime Minister—a man whose job he saved on a number of occasions through his fire-fighting abilities.

Not that the calumny heaped on the outgoing Finance Minister is entirely unwarranted. Mukherjee didn’t trigger the economic downturn that is now contributing to the Government’s eroding popularity. However, his Budget last May certainly hastened the larger erosion of confidence in the India story.

Was Mukherjee, therefore, plain bloody-minded or still dreaming of the halcyon days of Indira Gandhi when the Government directed and capitalists bowed in submission? Alternatively, was Mukherjee the archetypal pragmatist who believed that politics was the art of the possible?

The past record seems to suggest that Mukherjee adjusted to the grim realities of coalition government far better than most Congress leaders who still imagine they are in a one-party government. In UPA-1, as External Affairs minister, he was berated for dragging his feet on the Indo-US nuclear deal. It was then believed that he was just too dependent on the CPI(M) to win his Lok Sabha seat. It was also suggested that he was too stuck in old non-alignment ways to be enamoured of closer ties with the US.

Whatever the truth, Mukherjee always played cautiously. I have always insisted that the over-arching philosophy behind this year’s Budget was charmingly simple: to get it through the Lok Sabha without too much fuss. He paid lip service to fiscal responsibility, genuflected at the altar of the anti-corruption movement by promising GAAR, reiterated the assurance of a Food Security Bill next year and waved the populist sword at Vodafone. The Congress benches cheered, the private sector was muted in its criticism and the Opposition didn’t quite find a specific issue to mobilise opinion against the Government. Even Mamata Banerjee couldn’t find fault.

That the Budget was a monumental exercise in evasion was undeniable. Yet, judging by the yardstick of political expediency, it was a masterstroke and this is becoming apparent with each passing day.

For the past three weeks, there has been a frenzied attempt by the PMO to suggest that the bad days are behind us, and that with the PM at the helm the country can look forward to a bout of purposeful reforms—the return of the proverbial “animal spirit”. ‘Just wait until October’, the country is being told, presumably because the dust from the presidential election and the monsoon session of Parliament would have settled.

Maybe we should wait until October to be told that January 2013 will be more propitious because the Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat elections will be over by then. Maybe we should wait for the next Budget in February for big bang announcements that will set the Indian tiger roaring.

But maybe, and just maybe, it is entirely possible that the PM is discovering to his cost that it is easier to talk reforms than undertake them. Take the small example of the Forward Contract Regulating Bill—permitting forward trading in specified agricultural commodities to ensure better returns to farmers—that was supposed to have been cleared by the Cabinet last Thursday. It was not even taken up for discussion because a Trinamool Congress minister had sent a letter of objection. By this logic, neither the Pensions Bill nor FDI in retail will be taken up because Mamata is opposed to both.

What, therefore, happened to the promised purposefulness? Why wait until Pranab Babu is ensconced in Rashtrapati Bhavan because the TMC is, in any case, unlikely to vote for him?

With 20 Lok Sabha MPs, Mamata cannot be entirely disregarded. But look at the alacrity with which Ajit Singh’s displeasure over an extension to the Director-General of Civil Aviation was met. And the Rashtriya Lok Dal has just four MPs and nowhere to go.

The reality which is gradually dawning is that the UPA-2 is such a leaky ship that it dare not risk a bout of turbulence. Reforms are not merely about getting more foreign direct investment and getting the foreign funds to remain invested in the country. It is also about managing government expenditure and lowering the quantum of subsidies. These involve decisions that are potentially unpopular to both a venal political class and to consumers, even if they contribute to the long-term good. Just look at the proceedings of the National Advisory Council to see whether these priorities are shared by Sonia Gandhi’s pet activists.

The over-politicised Planning Commission is trying to help the PM out by doling out largesse to Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in the hope of political returns. But put yourself in the shoes of Mulayam and Nitish Kumar. What earthly political returns can accrue by being seen to be associated with decisions that inflict short-term pain?

At the risk of crediting Pranab Babu will too much foresight, it is possible he knew the state of the wicket. Maybe the PM should tell his managers to temper expectations and on his part focus on baby steps to restore India’s confidence in India.


Sunday Pioneer, July 15, 2012 

Sonia weakens, but is PM stronger?

By Swapan Dasgupta

Chief Economic Adviser Kaushik Basu is not your average technocratic hack whose political bias needs to be seriously discounted. Therefore, when he pronounced last Friday that India’s economic growth will be back on track by October, there was reason to feel hopeful. Unfortunately, thanks to the Government’s impressive record of bullish talk that is not complemented by realities on the ground—remember the talk of prices coming down within 100 days of UPA-II assuming power—Basu should not feel slighted if his optimism is not widely shared.

It is not that stakeholders are unreceptive to good news. It took the Finance Ministry, now under the direct charge of the Prime Minister, to promise a review of the more ridiculous facets of Pranab Mukherjee’s Budget for the Sensex to gain 439 points on a single day and for the Indian Rupee to appreciate in value. That it took so little effort to boost sentiment merely shows the extent to which the despondency over economic mismanagement was also accompanied by a feeling that many of the problems confronting India are self-inflicted. India is anxious for good news but the Government has given them so little to be cheerful about.

So deep is the dejection that the PMO’s tweet about the Government helping India to recover the “animal spirit” in the economy was accompanied by an innocent question: Is the mouse an animal?

It’s a question that will be uppermost in the minds of both Indians and all those with a stake in India. For too long, Manmohan Singh has given the impression that he has abdicated his larger responsibilities. He has watched passively as important Cabinet ministers took decisions and acted in a way that was inimical to the interests of the country. He probably knew that what they were doing was wrong and often unethical—the 2-G issue is a prime example. Yet, he did nothing to guide them into doing the right thing—thereby fostering the impression that he was too weak to intervene.

Are things different now that he is also wearing the hat of the Finance Minister? Is the troika of Manmohan-Montek Singh Ahluwalia-C.Rangarajan the equivalent of Douglas Jardine’s team that decimated an Australian side which included the legendary Don Bradman? With Bodyline bowling, Jardine displayed an “animal spirit” not hitherto associated with either the MCC or indeed cricket. Will Manmohan ruthlessly sweep away the bureaucratic inertia and the sanctions raj and make India an entrepreneur-friendly country? Will he complement the natural Indian desire to create wealth with purposeful governance?

The problem is that when the issue of ‘reforms’ is scrutinised for concrete details, last Friday’s stock market rally begins to look like a bout of irrational exuberance. There was a time when good politics and good economics meant government doing as little as possible and allowing market forces to do the needful. Unfortunately, that time is long gone.

The souring of the India story owes a great deal to malevolent governance. The fiscal deficit cannot be brought under control unless government expenditure keeps a healthy balance with revenues; the bottlenecks in production cannot be removed unless the government attends to the power deficit, speeds up work on the Mumbai-Delhi corridor, improves surface transport and improves the productivity of ports; and entrepreneurship cannot flower unless the number of official sanctions is sharply reduced, corruption is brought under control and environmental clearances stop being used as a political plaything.

There is, of course, another grave issue that the PM must address. For the past seven years, there has been a divergence of approach involving the political head of the government and the nominal head of the Cabinet. This has led to policy incoherence and drift. Sonia Gandhi wants to be India’s Lady Bountiful, doling out largesse to the poor and needy; Manmohan Singh wants to revive the “animal spirit” in the people. The two approaches just don’t converge—not even through the over-use of a meaningless phrase called ‘inclusive’ growth.

The issue that, therefore, has to be explored is simple: has the balance of power tilted abruptly against Sonia Gandhi after a series of embarrassments over the presidential election? Yes, there is no question that all the sophistry of Digvijay Singh hasn’t been able to dispel the belief that the Congress President is weaker than she was six months ago. More than being forced to select Pranab Babu over her preferred choice Hamid Ansari, it is the defeat in Uttar Pradesh and the decimation in Andhra Pradesh that have undermined the dynastic forces. Add to this the sorry spectacle of the heir apparent reduced to making sporadic appearances and performing item numbers that have no bearing on the main plot, and the demoralisation of the Congress will be apparent.

However, the weakening of Sonia hasn’t led to a corresponding enhancement of the PM’s political clout. That the PM still has to bank on Montek and Rangarajan to fulfil his economic agenda shows how clearly isolated he is in the political arena. Jairam Ramesh’s decision to both submit and publicise his job application as Finance Minister to 10 Janpath suggests that Manmohan’s continuation as Finance Minister is not a given. In any case, the PM will be loath to face up to insolent parliamentary interrogation in the Monsoon session.

To attend to India’s faltering economy, the country has to first address the political listlessness.


Sunday Pioneer, July 1, 2012

An inexplicable act of Nitish

By Swapan Dasgupta

The past week has witnessed unconcealed jubilation in the ranks of the Congress over the apparent disarray in the NDA over the presidential election, so much so that there is talk of an UPA-3 in the air.

Some of the celebration is warranted. What once appeared to be a nail-biting contest between Pranab Mukherjee and APJ Abdul Kalam has turned out to be an entirely one-sided encounter after the former President announced that he was not in the race. The rebellion of Mamata Banerjee has been more than compensated by the support for Pranab from the Samajwadi Party, Shiv Sena, Telugu Desam Party, CPI(M), and, above all, the Janata Dal (United).

To what extent the incremental support owes to the candidate or the UPA Government is a matter of conjecture. However, what is certain is that the Congress’ political managers are drooling at the prospect of a full-scale civil war between the JD(U) and BJP over Narendra Modi, and the likelihood of Nitish Kumar opting out of the NDA altogether. The speculation has intensified following a curious defence of the UPA’s handling of the economy by the JD(U) spokesman Shivanand Tiwari. This has prompted speculation that Nitish’s attack on Modi is merely a cloak for the Bihar Chief Minister either emulating the SP and putting himself at the disposal of the highest bidder or, alternatively, emulating Naveen Patnaik and positioning himself as an independent regional force with no attachments to the national alliances.

The uncertainty is unhealthy. In earlier months, Nitish had made it quite clear to the BJP leadership that he would not hesitate to walk out of the NDA in the event the BJP chose the Gujarat Chief Minister as its face for the 2014 general election. He chose to reinforce the point after the BJP National Executive in Mumbai last month by making a big deal out of complete non-issues — Modi’s lament over caste politics in Bihar (which was actually an attack on Lalu Prasad Yadav) and the appearance of an anti-Nitish article in a magazine in which the Gujarat Government had advertised. In short, Nitish made a pre-emptive attack on the BJP.

However, it is one thing for Nitish to make clear his displeasure of the Modi project. But it does not follow that this should have prompted him to break with the NDA on the presidential election. After all, Purno Sangma wasn’t a candidate chosen unilaterally by the BJP: he was the preferred choice of the leaders of the AIADMK and Biju Janata Dal. Indeed, Naveen Patnaik spoke to Nitish last week canvassing support for Sangma. According to one source, Nitish did not offer very convincing reasons for turning down Patnaik. It is also understood that even Sharad Yadav wasn’t entirely persuaded by Nitish’s insistence on supporting the Congress nominee.

The speculation that the Bihar Chief Minister had secured firm assurances from the Centre on his long-term demand for a special Bihar package does not stand up to scrutiny. Regardless of the merits of Bihar’s claim, the UPA doesn’t have the necessary elbow room, either politically or financially, to accommodate Bihar without making a similar gesture towards West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Kerala. Manmohan Singh’s comments at the G-20 summit make it quite clear that cuts in Government spending to control a rising fiscal deficit are on the anvil. If Nitish has indeed been given commitments of special consideration by the Centre, these are valueless — and the Bihar Chief Minister knows it too.

Commitments from the Congress at this juncture are akin to receiving post-dated cheques on a tottering bank. No right thinking person would ever agree to such a scheme. And, unlike some leaders of the YSR Congress in Andhra Pradesh, SP and BSP, the Centre cannot use the CBI as a pressure point against Nitish.

Under the circumstances, Nitish’s insistence on supporting Pranab Mukherjee (who, in case, was in no danger of losing) and breaking ranks with the anti-Congress bloc makes absolutely no political sense. In warning against making Modi the PM candidate, Nitish was appealing to other leaders in the BJP with whom he enjoys a good and convivial relationship. But their inclination to listen to him has been seriously undermined by his support to the Congress for the presidential election. Not only has he blemished his otherwise impeccable anti-Congress record, he has undermined the trust he enjoyed with other regional players such as Jayalalithaa, Naveen Patnaik, Mamata and Prakash Singh Badal.

There was a time when Nitish was seriously being viewed by both a section of the BJP and other regional parties as a possible candidate for Prime Minister in a post-2014 fractured Parliament. More than anything else, this owed to his position as a principled, reliable and clean politician. With this one inexplicable act, he has put himself on par with Mulayam Singh Yadav, the perennial Artful Dodger.

Of course, there may well be unintended consequences of Nitish’s decision to break ranks with the rest of the NDA on the presidential election. Read with Mulayam’s U-turn after a mysterious nocturnal meeting, Nitish’s action may have dented the idea of a Federal Front calling the shots after the 2014 poll. The regional players still remain relevant, but the prospects of a direct confrontation between the UPA and the NDA have increased. For an India looking for clarity, this may not be such a bad thing after all.

Sunday Pioneer, June 24, 2012

M&M forced Sonia to change the script

By Swapan Dasgupta

Mamata Banerjee may well be pilloried by many for defying the rules of ethnic solidarity and trying her utmost to prevent the election of the first Bengali President of India.

However, had she not stepped out of 10 Janpath last Thursday afternoon and announced Sonia Gandhi’s shortlist to the world and then joined Mulayam Singh Yadav to proclaim an alternative slate, it is entirely possible that Pranab Mukherjee would have remained exactly where he was: as the Number Two man in a tottering Government rather than India’s First citizen. Indeed, had it not been for both Mamata and Mulayam, the country may have been weighing the implications of either Meira Kumar or Hamid Ansari in Rashtrapati Bhavan.

To many people, over-exposed to the ways of Lutyens’ Delhi, politics is all about closed door parleys, intrigue and conspiracies. Occasionally, however, as many great events of the past testify, politics follows the laws of unintended consequences.

It is now apparently clear — despite the inexplicable reluctance of the media to pursue the point — that by blurting out the gist of her conversation with the UPA chairperson, Mamata did not show her wanton disregard of the Umerta (the code that guides some people in southern Europe) as Ambika Soni so imperiously suggested on TV. On the contrary, she had sought and secured Sonia’s sanction for blurting out the two names to the media.

Mamata’s claim has not been seriously contested by the Congress. Why, therefore, was Sonia willing to let Mamata make the shortlist public? The answer was self-evident. Mamata’s opposition to Pranab babu — a consequence of rivalries rooted in the politics of West Bengal — was well known. So was the fact that she viewed Vice President Ansari with suspicion, not least because she sees him as too closely associated with the Left. Mamata must have made her deep reservations of the two names known to Sonia. Equally, she must have blurted out her preference for former President APJ Abdul Kalam. Under these circumstances, why did Sonia not insist that the discussions in 10 Janpath remain confidential?

Was Sonia trying to be too clever by half? Was she setting the mercurial Mamata loose to indicate that there was fierce opposition to Mukherjee from within his home State? Would the confusion of Mamata and Mulayam demanding wider consultations have given her the necessary elbow room to smuggle in a third name and, in the process, negate Pranab? After all, many in the Congress president’s charmed circle had let it be known that the Finance Minister was not the lady’s first choice.

Unfortunately for the Congress, not everything can be pre-scripted. It would be fair to say that no one in the Congress ever expected the Mamata-Mulayam list to include Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as the second preference — a gesture that was tantamount to ridicule. Neither did they ever contemplate that Mulayam would give his endorsement to Mamata’s insistence on Kalam. The 16-hour delay in the Congress responding to the Mamata-Mulayam bombshell was not calculated. It was the inevitable consequence of the Congress weighing the consequences of a sideshow that had gone horribly wrong. More to the point, the M&M show had exposed Sonia to the charge that she had botched up her responsibility to manage the presidential election — a charge that loyal Congressmen could never countenance.

What really triggered a panic in Congress circles was a growing fear that, encouraged by Mulayam’s support, Kalam would actually contest and transform the presidential contest into a battle for the UPA Government’s very existence. The Congress was aware that Kalam had kept the question of his candidature open-ended — an impression bolstered by publicity-seeking loudmouths associated with the NDA.

The Congress machinery works best when entrusted with the responsibility of managing politicians. Consequently, it undertook two separate campaigns. First, it put its entire weight behind an operation to detach Mulayam from Mamata. Presumably, this was done with a blend of threats (and the better informed know what they are) and inducements. Mulayam, who, unlike Mamata, is not always insistent on maximalist positions, duly obliged. His prompt endorsement of Pranab after the formal announcement of candidature effectively put an end to Kalam’s candidature.

Secondly, faced with the possibility of a real challenge and the likelihood of an erosion of faith in her own capabilities, Sonia had to fall back on a candidate who was guaranteed to win the maximum support across the board. Meira Kumar was a possibility but this meant alienating a man who had set his heart on Rashtrapati Bhavan. This, in turn, had the potential of triggering a new set of problems which the beleaguered Congress could not afford.

It is interesting to note that whereas the enlarged CWC had delegated the selection of the presidential candidate to Sonia, the aftermath of the M&M drama led to the re-involvement of the Congress Core Committee in the proceedings. Faced with a possibility of a minor muscle flexing by two parties escalating into a larger crisis, the Congress president was compelled to revert to a collegiate style of politics.

The outcome was advantageous for Pranab Mukherjee who will soon be President. It was beneficial to Manmohan Singh who secured his party’s resounding vote of confidence. For Sonia Gandhi, however, the happy ending was dissimilar to the one envisaged in the original script.

And, by way of a footnote, there remained one unanswered question: where was Rahul Gandhi when it all happened?

Sunday Pioneer, June 17, 2012

Good politics but bad for country

By Swapan Dasgupta

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s Budget speech reminds me of an essay written some 150 years ago by the celebrated Bengali writer Bankim Chandra Chatterjee.

In that essay, Bankim addressed the question of India’s subjugation over the centuries. “Hindu kings or the rulers of Hindustan,” he observed, “have been repeatedly conquered by alien people, but it cannot be said that the bulk of Hindu society has ever been vanquished in battle, because the bulk of Hindu society has never gone to war.”

On Friday morning, Pranab babu took a lesson from the collective experience of Hindus and did what was politically most prudent: He refused to join the fight and made the Union Budget a complete non-event. This was not because he is inherently a dull person or, worse, a dreary accountant. In a pre-meditated move, he refused to be bowled over by those clamouring for a bold, reformist Budget similar to the ones presented by VP Singh in 1985 and Manmohan Singh in 1991. Neither was he impressed by those on the populist and Left wings of the UPA Government to squeeze the rich and the corporates and go on a spending splurge with money that the Government did not have. He did absolutely nothing and postponed all serious decision-making to a time when the Government could have the luxury of making a relaxed choice. The late PV Narasimha Rao, the man who mastered the art of management by inaction, would have been proud of him.

The Finance Minister was aware that any hard choice — either to go in for fiscal consolidation or undertake profligate spending — would have triggered a political reaction. After the debacle of the Assembly elections and the theatre of the absurd over the Railway Budget last Wednesday, what the Government needed was a period of calm and a time to get its house in order. As the Congress’ foremost fire-fighter, Mukherjee earned a breather for the Government.

Of course, the Budget did contain proposals that will add to the inflationary spiral in the short term. The widening of the service tax net and the hike in excise duties will lead to consumers paying more. The salaried class will be angry that the retention of high interest rates for loans has been accompanied by an unreasonable cut in the interest paid on Provident Fund deposits — the latter decision was craftily detached from the main Budget.

At the same time, Mukherjee deftly protected himself from any flak from his inability to meet last year’s Budget fiscal deficit targets by once again committing himself to bringing the deficit down. The Budget has deliberately understated the subsidy bill of Sonia Gandhi’s newest philanthropic venture — the proposed Food Security Bill. If this measure can be made to do the rounds of the parliamentary committees and sub-committees for the next 12 months, it will be a big boon for the Finance Ministry. If it becomes law midway through the fiscal year, the deficit targets will go completely awry — especially if coupled with a rise in the fuel bill — and bring India close to a 1991-type situation when the Government had to mortgage its gold reserves.

Some economists believe that the Budget proposals contain a hidden proposal for removing the subsidies on diesel. That may well be the case. However, the point is that Pranab babu has merely postponed having to take hard decisions. In six months or so, he hopes, the UPA will be better placed to decide which course is politically more rewarding.

In essence, this Budget has delayed an economic crisis that many people legitimately believe is already upon India. If industry, already weighed down by crippling interest rates, remains sluggish and if the woes are compounded by persisting stagnation in agriculture, India will move from a political crisis of the UPA to the dissipation of the larger Indian growth story.

It is a risk that only beleaguered politicians who have lost sight of any larger purpose of governance are willing to take. The Congress at this point in time has lost its way. It is confronted by a crisis of credibility and a crisis of leadership. It is possible that in six months or nine months things will improve. On the other hand, the loss of direction may turn into panic. Mukherjee’s Budget is based on the most common assumption of the beleaguered — a belief that things can only improve and that the Opposition will score innumerable self-goals. He also hopes that the Budget will be a one-week wonder and that after the initial excitement is over, the political class will get back to its more humdrum interests: Monitoring the shenanigans of Mamata Banerjee, hounding Narendra Modi and cheering or taunting Rahul Gandhi.

The magnitude of the economic downturn has been inadequately appreciated by politicians cutting across the political divide. The belief that entitlements are sacrosanct and once given cannot ever be taken away is now part of conventional wisdom. This is why the focus is always on increasing revenue and not curtailing Government expenditure.

Sooner, rather than later, these assumptions will be brought into question, particularly if India heads towards fiscal anarchy. The Budget has traditionally given the political system a small window to discuss the economy and, maybe, even digest a few hard lessons. Mukherjee’s genius lies in the fact that he deprived India of an opportunity for engagement. It was good politics but bad for the country.

Sunday Pioneer, March 18, 2012