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The Rediff Special/ N Sathiya Moorthy

Of Demands and Dismissals

What’s common between Muthuvel Karunanidhi and Om Parkash Chautala? Both have had their state governments, respectively in Tamil Nadu and Haryana, dismissed twice. The comparison, though, ends there. The Karunanidhi government went out both times for more honourable political reasons, unlike Chautala’s where the chief minister was caught exploring more innovative ways than others, to stay on in power. Only that Chautala is nowhere near power now, whereas Karunanidhi is already back there – with threats of a third sacking looming large.

That way, Kalyan Singh stands unique. He was dismissed once, no questions about that. Why, even the apex court, which he moved against his ministry’s dismissal after the Ayodhya demolition, upheld it. Whether he was dismissed a second time or not, should remain a legal mystery. And this is not to question the majority that he currently enjoys in the Uttar Pradesh assembly.

True, Kalyan Singh was dismissed as chief minister by Romesh Bhandari as governor. Also true, that Jagadambika Pal was sworn in chief minister, instead, They are all facts of life, which have been well documented. That Kalyan Singh did prove his majority vis-a-vis that of Pal, at the Supreme Court's behest, is equally true, whatever methodology the BJP followed. But when was Pal removed, and when was Kalyan Singh sworn in chief minister again remains a mystery.

The Constitution ordains that the chief minister shall hold office during the pleasure of the governor. And in the ‘Bommai case’, the apex court clarified that the pleasure should be not that of the governor, but that of the state assembly concerned – particularly when the floor-majority is in question. The fact still remains, Kalyan Singh was sacked, and Jagadambika Pal, installed. A fact that the apex court also seemed to have taken into consideration while asking Pal to to prove his majority simultaneously.

That was also the first time – and hopefully, the only time – where two chief ministers ruled a state for two days. At least, they ruled the state assembly that way, sitting on either side of the speaker, when the House was voting on its confidence in either leader.

The apex court, having accepted Jagadambika Pal’s claims to a majority worthy of a floor contest, if only because he had already been sworn in chief minister, should have directed the governor to sack him when he was proved wrong, and also directed Bhandari to swear Kalyan Singh again, if only to complete a constitutional formality. That was not done, and the technical distinction could be cited in any number of imaginable and not-very-imaginable cases before long.

That may be unique for Kalyan Singh. Otherwise, he is now on par with Karunanidhi, and why, even Rabri Devi. If the Opposition in Bihar wants Laloo Yadav’s wife sacked as chief minister, and the AIADMK’s MPs have been walking out of Parliament as a ritualistic ordeal, seeking the dismissal of the DMK government in Tamil Nadu, the Opposition demanded Kalyan Singh’s dismissal before Parliament dispersed in recess during the Budget session last fortnight.

Maybe, Chandrababu Naidu and J H Patel may join their company before it is too late. There is always the Mamta Banerjee demand for the dismissal of the Jyoti Basu regime in West Bengal, and the on-again, off again Congress plea against the Maharashtra dispensation of the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance.

There is, of course, a difference. Some may pertain to legislative majorities, others to the failure of the law and order machinery in a given state at a given time. Some may be more justified than others, but others may be justified in internal comparisons, where the track-record of some past governments may provide the yardstick. That way, at least, Jayalalitha in Tamil Nadu for instance, will have only the sacked governments of Karunanidhi to seek his dismissal now, not that of her five year reign. But both the critics and defenders of Laloo Yadav and Rabri Devi will have no yardstick at all, if law and order is the issue.

Whether it is a question of a legislative majority, or the failure of law and order, the BJP for one has always had a consistent stand: that a duly-elected state government should not be dismissed. That goes back to the party’s days as the Bharatiya Jan Sangh.

Only that both L K Advani and A B Vajpayee were party to the Morarji Desai-led Janata Party ministry recommending the dismissal of nine state government at the height of their post-Emergency electoral victory in 1977. Yet another brainwave of George Fernandes, if you say, even then the ‘Parivarites’ did attest it, didn’t they?

What looks even more ambiguous about the BJP’s stand is its unqualified support – rather, demand – for the continuance of Article 356 in the Constitution. True, ‘dismissal powers’ were incorporated at the height of Partition, when Junagadh here and Hyderabad there had other ideas about acceeding to the Indian Union. Maybe, you can even add Kashmir, where Maharaja Hari Singh’s equally ambiguous and ambitious stand provided another motive, not to leave out memories from the past when a divided India provided most of the Gross National Product for successive communities of raiders and looters from across the Kbyber Pass.

To say that law and order can fail only under a state government, and not necessarily under the Centre’s direct rule is stretching the latter’s abilities and one’s imagination a little too far. Be it in the terrorism-infected Punjab of the eighties, or the ISI-affected Jammu and Kashmir of the early nineties, the Centre fared no better in enforcing law and order than the state governments it sacked. If anything the restoration of popular rule in both states alone has helped normalcy in more ways that one. Anyway, what do they do in the US and Canada to keep them all united as a nation?

If India is united today, it’s not because of political reasons alone. If anything, even today, you have common folk in the North-Eastern states and Jammu and Kashmir who refer to their motherland as ‘India’, as if it was a foreign land. ‘What has India done for our betterment? Why has India not kept the promises it made on the development front at the time of Independence?' they ask.

If anything, India continues as India because of geo-political circumstances. We all think as Indians merely by habit. There are enough reasons for neighbouring states, and neighbouring regions within individual states to go to war with each other, as they had done for most part of our history.

It was the advent of Moghul rule first, and that of the Britishers in particular, that united us as Indians. Maybe, if the Britishers had settled down in India, without ruling us from a distant island, like the Islamic rulers of Delhi from Babar downwards had one before them, we might have accepted them, as well, as one of us. They stayed away from us, and that helped Gandhi unite us – and make us feel – as Indians, and they, aliens.

It’s not politics or political systems that really unite us. Even the Congress that was an umbrella organisation at the time of the freedom movement has rightly given way to various socio-political and ethnic groupings that have found political identity and electoral power of their own. That way, the BJP leaders can take pride, it’s the Bharatiya culture they swear by that has kept us going as a unified nation all through. And to say that some are more equal than others – even if it meant a constitutionally- ordained government at the Centre, only exposes the mentality of a ‘Samrat’, if not a King-Emperor.

The BJP leadership is not like the Congress. Even today, it says it is against the misuse and abuse of Article 356. But it’s their party in Bihar that has demanded the dismissal of the Rabri Devi government. Soon it may follow in Karnataka and Orissa, If not Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, where Naxalites and communalists are on a murder spree. For political reasons.

If the Bihar BJP follows in the footsteps of local Congress leaders before them, maybe they are helping their leadership divert national attention from Tamil Nadu and Jayalalitha that Pokhran-II has failed to do in fuller measure. Maybe, they are also helping their leadership to keep Jayalalitha’s hopes on the dismissal of the Karunanidhi government alive – even if for a short time, till the Vajpayee government gets the Union Budget passed.

Whatever it be, at the end of it all, the BJP too would have made Article 356 a game point to be scored either way, a political weapon that could be gainfully used, even if not misused. And that will be a national tragedy.

The Rediff Specials

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