The lady who never ceases to surprise

 

 

The Reincarnation of Indira Gandhi

The Prime Minister becomes irrelevant as Sonia emulates her mother-in-law. By Sutanu Guru

If you really want to know what is happening in Indian politics in these tumultuous times, you really have to go back to 1969 when Indian politics was even more tumultuous and turbulent. Existing power structures and hierarchies had declared open war on the 'Gungi Gudiya’ Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. You could say she was cornered; and it did appear as if an uneasy alliance of feudal, patriarchic, princely and ‘moneybags’ India would have its way and ease her out of the way. Like many belligerent, bellicose, bigoted and even befuddled politicians of today who keep committing hara kiri by underestimating Sonia Gandhi, rivals of her mother-in-law Indira Gandhi were no different in 1969. They thundered and threatened; they cajoled and shouted and declared victory just before they lost the war.

Back in 1969, borrowing literally and metaphorically from the clichéd proverb about killing two birds with one stone, Indira Gandhi launched a systematic demolition of her opponents by abolishing privy purses of princely states and nationalising 14 private sector banks. In one stroke, the mother-in-law dislodged the very foundations of the power base of her rivals, opponents and critics. There were loud shouts of betrayal; after all, hadn’t her father Jawaharlal Nehru solemnly promised a privy purse in perpetuity to the princely states who agreed to accede to India? There was violent opposition to both the decisions. The Bill abolishing the privy purse even lost a vote once in the Lok Sabha. The matters even went to the courts-including the Supreme Court-where Indira Gandhi lost a battle or two. But even her diehard critics had to eventually admit that she won the war, and how.

Is the daughter-in-law Sonia Gandhi repeating history, particularly when Congress insiders openly gossip in private that she-in her own inimitable style-‘persuaded’ a shaky, diffident and nervous Dr. Manmohan Singh (a member of the Rajya Sabha and the only Prime Minister in the history of India to have never won a Lok Sabha seat) to ensure that the hugely contentious and controversial Women’s Reservation Bill is passed by the Rajya Sabha? The Prime Minister may be worried about the passage of the Finance Bill and the survival of his government, but does he have a choice when Sonia Gandhi starts using her ‘persuasive’ skills? Is the de facto popularly elected ruler of India playing a game of all or nothing by effectively telling her erstwhile colleagues and allies to go take a hike? What if the Manmohan Singh government falls by losing a vote for the Finance Bill? Please remember, Indira Gandhi too risked everything back in 1969. Then, it was the monolithic Congress that split. Today, the UPA alliance looks split wide open. Care to take any bets on who will win this war? If you care to look, there are some striking similarities between then and now; and of course some telling and ironical differences too. By 1969, Indira Gandhi was fed up of the perception that she survived at the mercy of her senior ‘allies’-the so-called Congress Syndicate that controlled the party. She had realised that she needed a decisive mandate of her own to be able to rule effectively. In effect, she had to get rid of the fading patriarchs who cramped her style and repeatedly obstructed her from doing what she really wanted to do-for the nation, the party and herself. Indira gambled big time, her party split and the lady eventually got all she wanted-and more. Something similar is happening with her daughter-in-law Sonia Gandhi at the moment. Thanks to the Nuclear Deal, she has got rid of the hectoring allies-the band of comrades led by Prakash Karat. That was the smaller challenge. The far bigger challenge is the attempt to revive the Congress in states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, and even Tamil Nadu for that matter. The only way the Congress can do that is by ensuring Messrs Mulayam Singh Yadav, Lalu Prasad Yadav and M. Karunanidhi lose their political potency. With the Women’s Reservation Bill, Sonia Gandhi seems to have signalled that Mulayam and Lalu are now rivals. And do remember, assembly elections are due early next year in Bihar and in 2012 in Uttar Pradesh.

Without such allies, Sonia Gandhi can be free to do what she wants to do-for the nation, the party and (here comes the telling and ironical difference between Sonia and Indira) for her son Rahul Gandhi. In 1969, Sanjay Gandhi was not even in the picture and Indira was fighting for herself. Today, Sonia Gandhi is fighting for her son-the anointed heir and the undisputed future leader of Congress. Rahul Gandhi cannot revive the Congress in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Tamil Nadu as long as Mulayam, Lalu and Karunanidhi (and his progeny) remain strong ‘allies’. So there you go.

And what of this seeming rift between Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh? Go back to 1969 again when Indira outraged the old Congress guard by nominating a respected but otherwise nondescript leader V.V.S Giri as her candidate for the post of the President of India. Giri won and served a distinguished term as the President of India. But he always knew who was the boss. Need we say more? The woman in the saddle

When it comes to politically sensitive issues like food security, the RTI Act and reservation for women in Parliament, it is Sonia Gandhi’s writ that runs in the Congress, reports Priyanka Rai

When he was catapulted to the post of Union finance minister by the then Prime Minister, P.V. Narasimha Rao, Dr Manmohan Singh was a reluctant politician. “He didn’t believe it. He was surprised when he was invited to become the finance minister,” recalls Shrikant Tripathi, a senior journalist who was among six mediapersons invited to a dinner hosted by Dr Singh. “I still remember the words. Dr Singh told us, ‘I have held many top civil service posts. I am a bureaucrat. I don’t have a mass base. I can’t become the PM. So I’d rather focus on the work I am assigned and am meant for’,” says Tripathi.

Life has moved on for him, but Dr Singh is still an accidental politician. He is acutely aware of his limitations. The only time he participated in a direct election – in 1999, from the South Delhi Lok Sabha constituency – he lost. “His understanding of ground-level politics is virtually zilch,” says a Congress worker.

The very attributes that make Dr Singh the most trusted colleague of Congress chief Sonia Gandhi often come in the way of his grasping the implications of politically and socially significant decisions that the latter takes to honour the promises the party made in its election manifesto.

On the question of implementing the provisions of the Food Security Bill, Dr Singh has often cited a resource crunch to argue that the plan is not feasible. But for Sonia there is no alternative to the Food Security Bill. She has put her foot down repeatedly on the matter, indicating to the PM that he has no choice but to go along with her viewpoint.

“Problems arise when Dr Singh is unable to understand the grassroots perspective and fails to appreciate the immediate needs of poor people,” says a Congress leader. “We are in power because of them, because we have promised to provide them basic things. They will not understand the economic reforms.” Sonia is determined to strengthen the UPA government’s pro-aam aadmi stance.

The elevation of Dr Singh to the post of PM was a result of two obvious aspects of his personality. One pertains to his squeaky clean image – he is untainted by corruption charges. And two, because his political base is as good as non-existent, he is never likely to be the sort of political loose cannon that Narasimha Rao became once he tasted power.

When he was the finance minister, he derived his political capital from the unquestioning trust that Narasimha Rao reposed in him. As PM, he owes his position of strength to Sonia Gandhi’s continuing support. But the fact that Dr Singh does not have to depend on the backing of an electoral constituency for his survival allows him to think and operate independently of ‘extraneous’ considerations like the mood of the people or political repercussions. It is probably this ‘freedom’ that leads to differences of opinion between him and Sonia Gandhi. According to top party sources, Dr Singh and Sonia Gandhi are indeed divided over the price rise issue. Though Sonia Gandhi praised finance minister Pranab Mukherjee for his deft handling of the Union Budget in order to send out signals that she was fully behind the government on the decision to hike fuel prices, sources say that she is not really happy that the government has not been able to control the spiralling prices of essential commodities.

She has made her displeasure clear on several occasions, the sources reveal. But Dr Singh is not a people’s PM and, therefore, his response to price rise and its impact on the common man is devoid of the requisite sense of urgency.

Dr Singh and Sonia Gandhi are also known to hold divergent views on the proposal to amend the Right to Information (RTI) Act in order to exclude the office of the Chief Justice of India from its ambit. The PM, thinking like a hands-on bureaucrat, is in favour of addressing the concerns of the judiciary; Sonia is dead against any tinkering with the RTI Act. Experts that TSI spoke to feel that in politics personality is an important factor and over a period of time differences are bound to arise between individuals with divergent mindsets. Says political analyst Chandrachur Singh: “Dr Singh’s mass base has steadily broadened, especially among the middle class. So it is natural for differences to surface, but these are passing phases. The PM is fully aware that he is only standing in for Rahul Gandhi.”

Professor Pushpesh Pant doesn’t see any worrying signs in the Sonia-Manmohan interface. Difference of opinion between two people is nothing unusual, he asserts. “Even Sonia and Rahul might be having differences over work and about people, but the question is, is there a substantial enough difference between the two that could prevent either from effectively discharging official duties? That is certainly not the case,” he says.

Ironically, even as rumours about a rift between Dr Singh and Sonia Gandhi do the rounds, some politicians still believe that the PM is no more than a “puppet” in the hands of the UPA chairperson. But Dr Singh has often belied that tag, as in the case of the Prasar Bharti Corporation CEO, B.S. Lalli.

Lalli has been under fire for a long time for “financial and procedural irregularities” but has managed to cling on to his post owing to his perceived proximity to the PM. “Lalli openly tom-toms his friendship with the Prime Minister,” say sources. What’s more, he is not even on talking terms with information & broadcasting minister Ambika Soni. Something similar is happening in ‘India Infrastructure Finance Company Ltd (IIFCL). Ahluwalia has extended the tenure of Surinder S Kohli more than once as IIFCL head. The wholly state-owned entity has the mandate to finance infrastructure projects worth Rs 1,00,000 crores. It is in the midst of raising Rs 40,000 crores through tax-free bonds to finance the infrastructure sector as part of an economic stimulus package.

In a note titled 'IIFCL financing for PPP projects,' sent to Manmohan Singh, Ahluwalia wrote, “It was pointed out in the meeting that the term of the current chairman and managing director of IIFCL ends on March 10. The FS (finance secretary) had indicated that the term can be extended. Action on this front should be expedited to avoid loss of momentum.” These cases, say sources, prove that the PM isn’t really a puppet. He often takes his own decisions. But it is obvious that when it comes to sensitive issues like food security, the RTI Act and women’s reservation, Sonia steps in to have her say–and does. Senior journalist Pankaj Vohra dismisses all talk of a Manmohan-Sonia rift as wishful thinking, “If there is a difference of opinion on something like RTI it isn’t really a sign of a rift between the PM and Sonia. Congress is a democratic party. It can have any kind of opinion within it. I don’t see any truth in this,” he says.

Pant is of the opinion that Dr Singh has no cause for any misgivings. “Manmohan Singh has got what he wanted; he got the Prime Ministership for a second term. He has been able to continue his economic reforms policy, swing towards America, and resume dialogue with Pakistan. He is likely to leave behind a much bigger mark on the nation than Narasimha Rao did. His ambitions have been fulfilled. So he will not have any problems stepping aside when the time comes,” says Pant.

Party sources feel that, in a certain sense, they are watching history repeating itself. After Rajiv Gandhi’s death, when Rao became Prime Minister, he began to systematically sideline Sonia. He even stopped calling on Sonia and isolated her. Rao was made the PM as he was the seniormost Congress leaders and had a rapport with Rajiv Gandhi.

One reason for the rift between Sonia and Rao was the Babri Masjid demolition. Sonia felt the Ayodhya incident could have been averted. In the Rao era, aligning with 10, Janpath was discouraged. Many ministers from his Cabinet used to meet Sonia discreetly. Rao also sidelined those who were identified as Rajiv loyalists. He stalled many programmes initiated by the late Prime Minister. For instance, funds for the Indira Mahila Rozgar Yojana were slashed from Rs 1,700 crore to Rs 70 crore. Rao then introduced his own programme, Prime Minister’s Rozgar Yojana.

Whether it is the Women’s Reservation Bill or other issues, Sonia always makes it a point to let the world know that she is pursuing her late husband’s vision. Party insiders reveal that one issue that the Congress chief has with Dr Singh is that the latter is often described as the architect of economic liberalisation.

She justifiably believes that the basic plan for economic reforms was drawn up between the end of the tenure of Rajiv Gandhi’s 1984-1989 government and 1991. Dr Singh did become an enthusiastic implementer of the programme but it wasn’t necessarily his baby.

After the 2009 election results, Manmohan Singh was keen on making Montek Singh Ahluwalia the finance minister. The PM was the RBI chief when Pranab Mukherjee was finance minister, so he wanted someone junior to him in the finance ministry. According to sources, Ahluwalia also met Rahul Gandhi. But Sonia Gandhi nixed the suggestion and backed Pranab Mukherjee.

Further back in Congress history, there were differences between two party stalwarts, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. They were both fierce patriots but their ideas did not always match. Patel was friendly with capitalists while Nehru believed in state control of the economy. Nehru wanted C. Rajagopalachari to become the President. He was an urbane scholar with whom Nehru got along very well but Patel preferred Rajendra Prasad, who was close to him. He also had wider acceptance within the Congress party. According to experts, whenever there have been two power centres within a party, such differences have emerged. Purushottam Das Tandon, as Congress president, worked quite well with Nehru in the initial years. But later a schism developed between them. Seen as a protégé of Patel, Tandon was often at odds with the Prime Minister. Therefore, coordination between the party and the government suffered during that period. Subsequently, it became a sort of an unwritten norm for the head of the government to double up as party president or appoint a pliable candidate to the post.

From 1950 to 1954, Nehru remained the president of the party. From 1954 to 1964, he appointed a series of party presidents of his choice like Uchhrangrai Navalshanker Dhebar, N. Sanjeeva Reddy and K. Kamaraj.

Differences between the Prime Minister and the party president emerged again in 1966. Kamaraj, the then Congress president, failed to strike a working equation with Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister. Though Kamraj was instrumental in making Indira Gandhi the PM after the sudden demise of Lal Bahadur Shastri, his subsequent confrontation with Indira was a consequence of the inevitable power struggle between the organisation and the parliamentary wing of the party.

A similar thing happened with the next party president S. Nijalingappa. In 1967, Nijalingappa was elected Congress president but refused to oblige Indira Gandhi in her plans. The presidential election in 1969 brought the conflict and the tension between the government and the party organisation to the surface. It led to the four-month crisis that split the Indian National Congress.

Indira Gandhi, when she came back to power in 1980, was in no mood to share the spoils of office with anybody except her son Sanjay. In the last 30 years, with the exception of the five years of Narasimha Rao's reign, nobody from outside the Gandhi family has held the reins of the Congress. By appointing Dr Singh as PM, Sonia has initiated the Congress into a new experiment in shared authority.

It has already been proven beyond all doubt that Dr Singh will never pose a threat to the Gandhi family. According to political analyst Chandrachur Singh, the next Bihar elections will play a major role in deciding if Rahul Gandhi is ready to replace the current Prime Minister. If the Congress party manages to pull off a breakthrough in Bihar, it would hasten Rahul's anointment. Dr. Singh, true to form, will fade away without as much as a murmur. That is exactly the way Sonia Gandhi would want the next chapter of the history of the Congress, and the nation, to unfold. And it seems destined.