2G order brings little comfort to this weak government caught in an every-man-for-himself mindset
For a society obsessed with anniversaries, it is a sobering reminder that this week marked an entire year of A. Raja being in custody. The 2G scandal has seen the UPA government in blundering retreat from one indefensible position to another, much in the fashion of our army against the Chinese in 1962. And if it hoped the two court judgments of this week would provide it some breathing space, it would be delusional. Because, the government may have managed to stay out of jail, in a manner of speaking, but it is caught in multiple wars, all with its own, very much in the way of an unfortunate human body being eaten up by some awful, auto-immune disease.
It has to present itself in the Supreme Court, again now, tail between its legs, on the issue of the army chief’s date of birth. Former ISRO chief R Madhavan Nair is challenging its utterly arbitrary, and self-serving action against him and his key scientists in the bizarrely hyped ISRO-Devas scam. And as if a government being at war with its Army chief and space research star (Nair was the man behind Chandrayaan and honoured with Padma Vibhushan by the same government in 2009) simultaneously was not bad enough, we also have S Y Quraishi, one of our most affable civil servants and certainly a globally respected Chief Election Commissioner writing protest letters to the prime minister that his autonomy is under threat.
Meanwhile, there is already an ongoing argument with another constitutional authority, the CAG, and a public war is being fought on prime time TV between three key departments of the government over its crown jewel, the UID scheme. The final absurdity in this open season is, of course, Don Quixote Ajay Maken fighting an imaginary war of his own against the cricketing establishment mostly run by his own partymen.
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Is this government in a permanent state of war with itself (not to forget coalition allies), or merely in a state of siege? You could choose whichever description sounds less worse and it would bring you no comfort. Today’s court order may subdue, for now, voices demanding Chidambaram’s resignation. But if the army chief wins the challenge on his age, there could be an equally strong and genuinely popular clamour for Defence Minister A K Antony’s resignation. After all, not since Krishna Menon’s inglorious years in the run-up to 1962 has there been such tension between the government and the army brass. That would leave two of the five members of the hallowed Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) fighting for personal survival. This, when a third, the External Affairs Minister, counts for little when not fighting with the Australians or Norwegians on live news TV over sundry immigration and counselor issues.
You do not have to be a pundit or a Raisina Hill insider to know why this government is so tangled up. Three main reasons are obvious. One, it is a weak, weak government, and like any team under a weak leadership, caught in an every-man-for-himself mindset. So any time a question is raised, the first response, instead of defending the government, is, But I didn’t do it, or, But I knew nothing about it, perhaps taking a leaf out of Ronald Reagan’s concept of plausible deniability in the Iran-Contra scandal.
From its failure to defend the spectrum allocation policy while Raja and others were justifiably prosecuted for subverting it to the lack of conviction in stating the truth on Day One, that there was no evidence of corruption in ISRO-Devas, the government has become a victim of its own weakness and bad conscience. Even the PMO’s response in both cases was to merely distance itself. This was underlined again this week when Supreme Court censured the PMO for not keeping the PM correctly informed on Raja and the PMO tweeted that the order had vindicated the PM! The second reason is just shoddy political management.
The army chief’s age issue needed deft and large-hearted political handling, that would have found a solution keeping his respect and the government’s authority. Instead, in the manner of all weak, and politically incompetent governments, that buck has also been passed to the judiciary. And the third, but as important as the other two, and, in fact, originating from them, is the antagonism built at the very top in this cabinet with there being no love lost among the top three or four, all of whom belong to the Congress. You can say that that is also a consequence of poor political management, though in this case by the party rather than the government. But then you can also ask why the two should continue to be seen as different, distant entities. And if they do, should you expect any better than the mess you have got?
Also read: The 2G scam verdict is uncommon nonsense