Bureaucrats in the Ministerial Setup

AS always, the recent cabinet changes have aroused great excitement and comment, though, what has actually happened is nothing to write home about. Perhaps inevitably, the focus has been on the ‘Rahul Gandhi imprint’ on the reshuffle. He has garnered the credit for the entry of youthful faces and ‘fresh blood’ in the council of ministers hitherto dominated by ‘stale plasma’. The Congress president, Ms Sonia Gandhi, has found it necessary to give an explanation for Mr Rahul’s own exclusion from the ministerial ranks. She wanted her son to be in the cabinet, she has said, but he declined because, he was already burdened with too much of responsibility.
Another remarkable feature of the reshuffle that has won the Prime Minister kudos, even from his critics is the sacking of several ministers of state notoriously unmindful of their work and responsibilities. But, careful observers of the scene have noted, that while he has indeed chopped much, though not all, of the deadwood among Congress ministers, he has had to leave well alone the ministers belonging to the allied parties, that are playing havoc with the crucial ministries they run as personal fiefdoms. This should be no part of coalition dharma. On the other hand, Dr Manmohan Singh has done very well in resisting firmly, the thoroughly discredited Jharkhand tribal leader, Mr Shibu Soren’s frantic efforts to get back into the cabinet, yet again.
However, in some respects, the most important, and indeed surprising and worrisome, aspect of the latest ministerial changes, is the appointment of the former chief election commissioner, Mr M S Gill, as the Minister of State, with independent charge of Youth Affairs and Sports. Now, there cannot be any doubt about Mr Gill’s qualifications and ability to hold ministerial responsibility. But, the matter is one of high principle, which is that holders of some the exalted constitutional posts, such as the Chief Justice of India, the Chief Election Commissioner and the Comptroller and Auditor-General, should remain above and out of politics even after retirement. There is an even clearer need for this requirement in the case of the one assigned the task of ensuring free and fair elections in a milieu that requires huge deployments of paramilitary forces to prevent disruption, nay perversion, of the electoral process.
To be sure, Mr Gill is not the first former CEC to dabble in politics, though, he is first to get himself elected to the Rajya Sabha on the Congress party’s ticket – which was wrong and depressing - and now to become a minister in the Congress-led, United Progressive Alliance government. The dubious distinction of entering politics immediately after ceasing to be CEC belongs to Mr T N Seshan who gave this office a high (and for a time, useful) profile. His ambition in politics was also conspicuously high. For, he sought election to the Presidency as an Independent, not on the behalf of any political party. He was defeated crushingly.
Since, public memory is proverbially short, let me record, that in 1967, when the then CJI, K Subba Rao, took premature retirement, to be the candidate for presidential election on behalf of an Opposition combination against Indira Gandhi, there was understandable and widespread criticism of him and his sponsors by the perturbed public. Thereafter, relations between the higher judiciary and Indira Gandhi had taken a nosedive that reached its nadir during the Emergency. But no judge, however, aggrieved with the then prime minister, jumped into political fray to oppose her. Sadly, in later years the Congress thought nothing of giving a Rajya Sabha membership to former CJI, Mr Ranganath Mishra. The once grand old party ought to do some soul searching on this score.
The Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance, when in power, did not drag any former CJI or CEC into the morass of party politics, but it did appoint a former CAG, Mr T N Chaturvedi, Governor of Karnataka. Here also, there was absolutely nothing wrong with the individual involved. In fact, at a time when more and more governors had started behaving in a crassly partisan manner, Mr Chaturvedi discharged his functions with exemplary impartiality and dignity, especially in the midst of the murky tussle between the former prime minister, Mr Deve Gowda’s Janata Dal (Secular) and its unusual and newfound ally, the BJP. Even so, it is the question of principle, not personalities.
From the foregoing, it is clear that there is no longer anything like an innate sense of propriety in the Indian political class. Nor have successive governments in the post-Nehru era respected healthy conventions. (In all fairness it must be added that even Nehru had erred in appointing a very fine retired Supreme Court judge, Syed Fazal Ali, Governor of Assam. But he never repeated this mistake.) It is necessary, therefore, that the Constitution should be amended to debar holders of high constitutional offices from politics and political office. Political parties would not do so themselves. Only relentless pressure from the voting public might force them to act.
To revert to the youthful new ministers, there is no doubt that Mr Rahul Gandhi, during his road shows, has been hammering home that the younger MPs must be given greater responsibility. But, is the appointment of just two bright, young Congress members of the Lok Sabha, as ministers of state sufficient? No wonder, many are intrigued that while Mr Jyotiraditya Scindia and Mr Jitin Prasad have been taken in, the third member of the trio, Mr Sachin Pilot, has been left out. On this, the party line is that there has to be a mixture of ‘youth and experience.’ This is an euphemism for the plain fact that the Congress leadership, unable to appoint two new ministers from Rajasthan, found it expedient to pick Mr Santosh Bagrodia, a very influential Congressman with the right caste affiliation, rather than the young Mr Sachin.
In the realm of the change of portfolios of the existing ministers, the additional charge of Power to Mr Jairam Ramesh, until now the Minister of State for Commerce only, is significant. It indicates that, despite denials by the All India Congress Committee (AICC) and angry statements by the man concerned, the Maharashtra Chief Minister, Mr Vilasrao Deshmukh, is on his way out. Whenever he is given his marching orders, his successor would almost certainly be Mr Sushil Kumar Shinde, currently the Union Cabinet Minister for Power. At that time, Mr Ramesh can easily be given independent charge of Power. The transference of Sports from Mr Manishankar Aiyar to Mr Gill is the least surprising part of the exercise.
No analysis of the cabinet changes can be complete without a mention of the rather interesting trend towards an extension of the dynastic pattern that is an integral and apparently indestructible part of Indian politics. The Nehru-Gandhi dynasty may be, in Salman Rushdie’s memorable phrase, ‘a dynasty to beat Dynasty in a Delhi to rival Dallas.’ But, it is not the only one. There are mini-dynasties galore, from Kashmir to Kerala, Tamil Nadu to Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra to the Northeastern states.
It is no accident that Mr Jyotiraditya is the son of late Madhavrao Scindia, a member of the cabinets of both, Rajiv Gandhi and P V Narasimha Rao, and young Jitin’s father, Mr Jitendra Prasad, was a heavy weight in Narasimha Rao’s time.
by Inder Malhotra, Saturday, April 12, 2008
THE NAVHIND TIMES