By Ramananda Sengupta
One of the reasons that I, like many others of my generation, fled Calcutta in the mid 1990s was the total lack of growth in the city.
The ruling Left Front, with its cadres enthusiastically following and enforcing the philosophy of `more money for less work`, had made it impossible for big business to survive in the state.
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There were only two main English newspapers in the city, and I had spent almost eight years with one of them. It was time to move on. And I did, to the nation`s capital.
It was in New Delhi that I was finally exposed to the real Indian political circus, complete with its exotic animals, clowns and ringmasters.
March 1996. PV Narasimha Rao had just finished his five-year tenure, and fresh elections were due.
Rao, who had once declared that ``inaction is also an action,`` is credited with having opened up the Indian economy like never before. The first non-Gandhi Congress Prime Minister to survive a full term, he will be remembered, among many other things, for his pout, the Babri Masjid debacle, the JMM bribery case and the shabby way that the Congress treated him after his death.
But that pout covered a sharp mind, with very clear priorities. His ability to wear out his opponents with perceived inaction paid off when it came to not conceding demands made by Pakistan-trained terrorists espousing the Kashmiri and Khalistani causes.
One of the first stories I was assigned was to examine the foreign policy of various parties in the fray, more specifically, their positions on Pakistan, the US, and the Bomb.
The Leftists went ballistic. ``A Hindu Bomb. An Islamic Bomb. When will it stop? The implications of getting into a nuclear race are obviously disastrous for both of us,`` raged the CPI`s A.B. Bardhan
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``It is true we have the capability, but we have opted not to manufacture nuclear weapons since we believe in non-proliferation,`` declared Pranab Mukherjee of the Congress.
``Making or not making the Bomb is not the issue,`` said IK Gujral of the Janata Dal. ``The Bomb is simply an expression of policy. Do we want to project ourselves as a nuclear power? If so, why? Will we be able to take the heat generated by western powers?``
``Of course we will make the bomb,`` said Brajesh Misra, a former diplomat who then headed the BJP`s foreign cell, and went on to become India`s first National Security Adviser. ``I think most Indians would prefer sanctions to being kicked around by a superpower and even small nations in our own backyard.``
A BJP-led coalition, with Atal Behari Vajpayee as Prime Minister, was sworn in on May 15, and given two weeks to prove majority support in Parliament. Thirteen days later, on May 28, Vajpayee realized that he could not garner that majority, and resigned.
The Congress, too, refused to try and form a government, but instead backed a rag tag alliance which nominated HD Deve Gowda as Prime Minister. Unhappy with him snoozing over several strident demands, the Congress withdrew support in April 1997, but promptly propped up foreign minister IK Gujral as Prime Minister.
By all accounts, Gujral was a gentleman. But gentlemen don`t necessarily make good Prime Ministers.
Days after he was named the new PM, and before he moved into his official residence, my editor sent me to interview him. The best time to catch him was when he goes for his morning walk, I was told.
So dawn on a balmy April day saw me staking out the Gujral residence in Delhi`s upmarket Friends Colony. Having convinced a couple of suspicious sentries that I had no evil intentions, I waited till the man finally emerged, trailed by an entourage of flunkeys. The sentries at the gate had probably alerted their compatriots, because no one stopped me from the approaching the genial gent with the goatee, who recognized me from our earlier meeting and immediately agreed to talk.
Time to revise our political system
But before I could formulate my first question, another distinguished looking gentleman from the neighbourhood, also out for fresh air, descended loudly upon us. After a cursory greeting, he gave me a suspicious glare before deciding I was harmless. Shoving me aside from the newly declared Prime Minister, he settled himself next to him before saying: ``You know, Inder, I have this problem with getting a second gas cylinder...now that you are PM...``I never did complete that interview.
The Gujral government collapsed when the Congress Party again withdrew support on November 28, 1997.
Between May 1996 and March 1998, India thus saw three Prime Ministers who were too busy trying to save their seats to govern.
The February 1998 elections brought the BJP-led NDA to power, and a month later, India went overtly nuclear, followed days later by Pakistan. It was around this time that I noticed that a bunch of senior journalists hitherto known for their leftist leanings suddenly swung to the right.
But the NDA government failed a no-trust vote by a single vote a year later, in April 1999, leading to another election being imposed on the people.
It was thus a caretaker BJP-led government which discovered the Pakistani intrusion in Kargil.
As Pakistan had foreseen, its nuclear sabre-rattling ensured India did not expand the scope of the conflict or take it into Pakistani territory. What Pakistan had not foreseen, however, was the ferocity of the Indian response against the intruders on its soil. Musharraf was forced to eat crow when the US President Bill Clinton read out the riot act to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.: ``Withdraw, or else...``
Cong, BJP search for allies
Kargil, and course the booming economy, had a lot to do with the BJP being returned to power in the September elections. But subsequent events, like the hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight 814 in December that year, proved that when terrorists ask us to bend, we grovel, no matter which party is in power. The three Pakistani terrorist swine that foreign minister Jaswant Singh personally escorted to Kandahar went on to kill many more Indians than there were aboard that aircraft.
The heat of a vibrant economy, meanwhile, failed to percolate down fast enough to the people who matter, ensuring that the `India Shining` campaign boomeranged badly on the NDA. The Indians it was shining for are not known to vote. Coalition Raj and other compulsions also ensured that the party ran shy of implementing its three major poll pledges: The Ayodhya Ram temple, an Uniform Civil Code, and the abolition of Article 370, thus diluting its own votebank at various levels.
Which is perhaps why those who predicted another five years of NDA rule were proved wrong when the 2004 elections brought the Congress led UPA government to power.
After days of sickening sycophancy, party president Sonia Gandhi snubbed her partymen by refusing to become Prime Minister, appointing instead Dr Manmohan Singh, who had been finance minister during Narasimha Rao`s time.
Dr Singh, by all accounts, is a gentleman. But as I said earlier, gentlemen don`t necessarily make good Prime Ministers. One of Dr Singh`s primary handicaps was the perception that he is but a puppet who can do nothing without the approval of Sonia Gandhi, seen as the real power behind the throne.
Realising that the votes lay in the rural areas, Singh`s government laid out huge sums of money ostensibly aimed at improving the lot of the weaker sections of our society. Most of it, of course, never reached those it was intended for.
It was Singh who staked his personal reputation on issues like the Indo-US nuclear deal, which ultimately led to a showdown with the Left parties who eventually withdrew support to his government.
Foreign terrorists - and of course our very own Naxals--continued their deadly dance across the nation, killing innocents in Assam, Delhi, Varanasi, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Hyderabad, Bangalore, and of course the all time terrorist favorite, Mumbai. But bar whining to Uncle Sam about our neighbour`s involvement, there was a distinct lack of strategy to tackle this burning issue.
The worldwide economic crisis hit India too, and though Singh`s government claimed credit for minimizing the impact on the country, the stock markets sang another tune. End of history lesson.
I write this as we await the results of yet another election which is too close to call. Which essentially means that the smaller, regional parties will once again get a chance to auction themselves to the highest bidder.
Should voting be made compulsory?
But look at the choices we have for the top job: Manmohan Singh of the Congress, LK Advani of the BJP, and assorted regional satraps like Lalu, Maya and Jaya representing third and fourth fronts.
Many argue that in a democracy, we get what we deserve.
Democracy should be made of sterner stuff.
The author is the Chief Editor of Sify.com
