The Government's Artful Dodging

The Government’s Artful Dodging Gets Its Comeuppance

The apex of the UPA Government seems to get agitated lately whenever there is criticism coming its way - from any quarter whatsoever. It is having great difficulty with losing its grip on power after nearly 10 years. For long it has only been comfortable pointing fingers at, or condemning others, in superior and smug tones. But now, Congress in particular is smarting at every, largely justified, negative comment or assessment, given the dismal performance of the UPA. It is resentful and defensive. It does not like being at the receiving end. Its vote-bank, divide and rule politics seems to be letting it down.

This irrespective of whether the point of order is coming from an arm of the government itself, such as the CAG or the CBI. Or other agencies at large, including the FIIs, the Media, Civil Society, RTI based queries, sovereign rating agencies, or even the Judiciary! The reason for this is obviously because it has an abundance of skeletons in its commodious cupboard; and even more round and about elsewhere, to answer for.

The credibility and performance of the UPA government, the economy, India’s standing in the world, is at an all-time low. This, even as the country has begun to go into the first of a series of State Assembly elections widely being called the ‘semi-final’.

So much so, that a chronically media shy but discredited prime minister has come out personally to muddy the waters and deflect attention from some of the inconvenient work being done by the CBI.  He has also been loyally backed up by the Finance Minister, who spoke in similar sonorous but morally challenged tones but also said little beyond ruminating on the semantics, while once again warning the CBI from going too far. Desperate times call for desperate measures, even it makes the government look like it is trying its best to menace and browbeat its own- far from independent, investigative agency.

The prime minister had a pedantic alibi ready. He made a distinction between ‘errors of judgement’  presumably made in ‘good faith’, and probably wilful ‘criminal acts’, This was the stick designed to get himself off the hook along with lofty claims over policy formulation. The carrot was his promise to defend the CBI’s right to work on as a legitimate (and obedient) tool of ‘the executive’. He is obviously not too keen about the widespread call, from the CBI itself, and many others, in the Opposition, in Civil Society etc. to be made ‘autonomous’. The CBI reposted that the government decisions should not deal in ‘impropriety’, particularly when it came to national assets.   

This effort on the part of the PM is clearly an attempt to muddy the waters, even as he is allegedly involved in at least two huge scams that ministers from his allied parties have done jail time for. So he went all out to chide the CBI, at its 50^th Anniversary function, for overstepping its brief. It was a carefully crafted and choreographed, motivated and transparent misinformation offensive.

Imagine that the CBI, long called the government’s own ‘caged parrot’ and ‘Congress Bureau of Investigation’, is now being accused by it of butting into the government’s policy-making! Ironically, it is seen as doing no wrong when it is pressuring the SP or the BSP. But now, how dare it bite the very hand that feeds!

The Opposition BJP has reacted by saying the government cannot expect to be shielded from its own corruption by diving under the eiderdown of its right to make policy. 

The prime minister seems to be trying hard to evade his prima facie involvement in the massive Coalgate and 2G scams.  He has long tried to stay aloof from the procession of rampant corruption under his watch, but lately, it is proving to be much more difficult.

Mr.Manmohan Singh also said that his government would do everything possible to defend the agency’s legitimacy, even as the  Gauhati High Court has held the CBI to be illegal. The Supreme Court has stayed the High Court’s order for now, but the controversy does cramp the government’s ability to use the CBI to bully political opponents, restive allies and others. Meanwhile, the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, says the CBI and even the  terrorist outfit, the IM, is being used against him by this self- same government.

Apart from the CAG and CBI, the Congress has also been trying to debunk negative comment and assessments against it from other quarters- in Parliament, in the Old and New Media, amongst Allies, within its own ranks and agencies, or the Opposition.  It is desperately looking for new laws to frame including one that is designed to play to the communal bogey.

It is challenging the veracity of independently commissioned Opinion Polls that say it will lose badly. It is accusing the FIIs and international brokerages that hope Mr. Narendra Modi and the BJP is voted in, with meddling in domestic politics.  Meanwhile the biggest global rating agency S&P, has threatened to lower India’s Sovereign Rating to ‘junk’ status if the right government is not elected. This is being interpreted as a hooded endorsement of Narendra Modi and the BJP. Various foreign governments are also shifting diplomatic position towards Narendra Modi. And some high profile if not electorally significant political parties such as the ever nimble National Conference, albeit with the father and son  sending out conflicting signals, and strongman Sharad Pawar’s NCP have indicated, that they may both be willing to support the NDA after the elections.

The economy, through it all, continues to languish. No reform measure has got off the ground in the last one year or more, and the rupee is under pressure once again.  One marker of the Government’s casting about for a solution is to belatedly call upon reformist Jagdish Bhagwati to add to the welfarist stance of Amartya Sen at a forthcoming seminar!

It is widely expected the BJP will win 3, if not all 4 Assembly Elections presently being held. In Delhi, even as BJP leads the polls, the spoiler effect, from the Aam Aadmi Party, could, if substantial enough, make Government formation difficult. Of course, the buzz may not translate into votes, particularly with certain worrying news items coming out about Arvind Kejriwal and his party.

When, and if, Congress and the UPA loses three out of four, or all four state elections, it will further demoralise them. But the inexorable slide down the slippery slope of power, curiously seems to be stirring up its more irrational and authoritarian tendencies rather than any significant soul- searching.

(1,100 words)

November 12^th 2013

Gautam Mukherjee