Playing partisan politics

In seeking the admission of guilt from the Congress, ostensibly because the same Nehru/Gandhi family leads it, does Advani include that branch of the family, namely Maneka Gandhi, who played a prominent role during the Emergency? She switched sides later and has been his ministerial junior in several governments. Is she ‘guilty’? Has she apologised?

As landmarks go, the 40th anniversary of the imposition of the Emergency that falls today is important. It is a reminder of where and how we went wrong and ponder, not as a ritual but seriously, how it can be prevented. As they say, prevention is better than cure. Lal Krishna Advani is one of the few survivors from that era still active in public life. In two interviews, given exclusively to mark the event, he laments that commitment to democracy is falling and that despite the legal and constitutional safeguards, something autocratic and unconstitutional could recur.

He says there is a serious lack of awareness of the dangers to democracy and that the commitment to civil liberties and freedom of press is falling. In broad terms, his concerns are legitimate. He indicates lack of leadership, but does not elaborate whether it is a general malaise the nation suffers from or he has individual(s) in mind. Yet, there is much that needs deeper thinking. The details of what he says, however, reinforce some old arguments and raise new ones. He is unhappy that for four decades since the event, the “guilt of those responsible” has not been fixed and that there is not a word of apology.

Without that, he says the “system’s flaws” cannot even be discussed, let alone be set right. With due respect, and without minimising the significance of what he says about dangers to democracy, it is pertinent to ask why the admission of guilt and apology is necessary four decades hence. He has said these points are directed at the Congress, which is fine. Was not the Congress punished for imposing Emergency in 1977, and whenever it did things wrong thereafter? Are elections and the governments they unmake and make not sufficient?

The partisan discourse of emergency has made it politically incorrect to say that Indira Gandhi, who imposed the Emergency, realising the phantoms her action had unleashed, was also the one to curtail the extended tenure of her government and order elections.

Did anyone question the fairness of the 1977 election that brought the Janata Party to power or the one in 1980, which brought the Congress back? Isn’t the outcome of the last Lok Sabha polls retribution enough to the Congress for graft and for bad governance by UPA-2?

In seeking the admission of guilt from the Congress, ostensibly because the same Nehru/Gandhi family leads it, does Advani include that branch of the family, namely Maneka Gandhi, who played a prominent role during the Emergency? She switched sides later and has been his ministerial junior in several governments. Is she ‘guilty’? Has she apologized?

In trying to fix the guilt for imposing Emergency, Advani seems to be applying the same yardstick that pushed the argument that the Muslims of today should be punished for Babri Masjid, built five centuries ago. While the dispute was sub judice, prelude to the mosque’s demolition was Advani’s Rath Yatra that divided the nation on sectarian lines.

Is he going to admit the guilt and apologise as one of the leading lights present at Ayodhya in 1992? He witnessed the mosque’s demolition taking place amidst mass frenzy that was generated in violation of the undertaking given to the Supreme Court. This has been termed as not an offence but one caused by political conviction. Where, then, is the rule of law?

We surely need to condemn the Emergency, but it did not happen in isolation – nor were mass killings of the Sikhs in 1984, explosions in Mumbai that followed the Babri demolition and the Muslims’ killings in Gujarat in 2002.

The country has witnessed sectarian violence and many acts of terrorism. Having been the country’s Home Minister, he would know when, how and why the Indian Mujahideen was born and how it was sought to be countered. Each was part of a sordid chain of events that the political class has triggered. To the common man who suffers, the political label does not matter. The silent majority gets vocal while voting. So, let the rule of law and popular poll verdicts be the yardsticks for crime and punishment.

Besides concerns about lack of commitment to democracy, Advani has talked of ‘arrogance’ of those in power. He extols the ‘humility’ of Atal Bihari Vajpayee in contrast to some Congress Prime Ministers. If Jawaharlal Nehru, who sustained democracy, left bad legacies of the Kashmir issue and defeat by the Chinese, and if Indira Gandhi, instrumental in the 1971 war victory and birth of Bangladesh ended up with Emergency, the Vajpayee Government, too, in which Advani was the Number 2, blundered in handling the Kargil conflict, the Kandahar hijack, the terror attack on Parliament and a failed summit at Agra with Pakistan’s Pervez Musharraf.

Hence, it is partisan talk, coming from a man of his stature. Since he has not indicated any time line for ‘arrogance,’ this cap can fit any government, any Prime Minister. It is a charge critics have been making against Modi. Is Advani playing on the growing vulnerabilities of the Modi government as it fends off opposition attacks on the Sushma Swaraj-Vasundhara Raje-Lalit Modi triangle?

Advani has refuted the talk that he has hinted at Modi and his government. Probably, as one who sits on the Lok Sabha’s treasury benches, he may want to escape the charge of indiscipline. But it does not wash. His reservations about Modi – before, during and after the Lok Sabha elections – are part of the political grape wine.

His attempt to minimise the significance of the Modi-initiated International Yoga Day is but the latest example. One wished, with utmost respect, that the veteran with over six decades in public life had taken a holistic view of the events that he has witnessed and continues to participate from a vantage point. His concerns highlighting the flaws in the polity would then have found a wider and deeper resonance. The nation would have benefited more from his wisdom and experience.