Author: Sandhya Jain
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: July 3, 2001
There is little doubt that the Tamil
Nadu Governor, Ms. Fatima Beevi, was guilty of grave dereliction of duty
last Saturday when she failed to inform and keep the Centre abreast with
developments following the scandalous arrest of former Chief Minister Mr.
Muthuvel Karunanidhi. The very fact that the President, Mr. K.R. Narayanan,
had to personally instruct the Governor to send a report on the incident
by 9 a.m. on Sunday, when the Union Cabinet was to meet to discuss the
episode, was a serious indictment of the lady. It is well that Ms. Fatima
Beevi was recalled without further ado, regardless of whether or not President's
rule is finally imposed on the state.
The complete nonchalance with which
the Governor faced the day is inconsistent with the demands of her constitutional
position, and lends credence to the view that she had a political bias,
if not an agenda. Murmurs to this effect surfaced when Ms. Beevi hastily
swore-in Ms. Jayalalitha as Chief Minister in the wake of the AIADMK's
landslide victory in the polls, ignoring the fact that the latter was disqualified
to contest elections under anti-corruption laws, and without consulting
the President or Attorney-General. It was widely believed that Ms. Beevi
got away without censure (though nobody approved of her action) because
her status as a member of the minority community afforded her a protective
halo.
But that defence was not workable
this time. Even if we presume that the Governor's staff did not consider
it prudent to wake the lady up in the wee hours of the morning when Mr.
Karunanidhi's doors were being broken down and the old man dragged to jail,
it is impossible to accept that she was not informed by 7 a.m., by which
time she would normally be awake. Assuming also that 11 p.m. would not
be an unreasonable hour for a constitutional functionary to be awake to
attend to the call of duty, it is inexplicable that the Governor was unable
to fax a report to the Centre in the course of sixteen hours. That her
subsequent report was a shoddy reiteration of the State Government's version
of events is truly reprehensible; it was an insult to the Constitution
she was obliged to uphold, to the President at who's pleasure she held
office, and to the intelligence of ordinary citizens.
Ms. Beevi's failure to summon the
Chief Minister and ensure that Mr. Karunanidhi was treated properly and
the two Central Ministers, Mr. T. R. Balu and Mr. Murasoli Maran released
without further escalating matters, is shameful. A visit to Mr. Maran in
the ICU of Apollo Hospital that day would have had a salutary effect on
public sentiment, especially as he is a heart patient who only recently
survived a critical illness. The arrest of the Union Ministers for no valid
offense speaks of an unacceptable arrogance of power, and Ms. Beevi owes
the nation an explanation for going along with it. The Chief Justice of
India may also like the judge who remanded Mr. Maran to judicial custody
to explain the grounds for this action.
While it is indisputable that the
law must take its course in corruption cases, it is questionable if it
should be enforced in this manner. As a former Chief Minister living at
a well-known address in Chennai, it is indefensible that Mr. Karunanidhi
(or indeed anyone who is not an armed desperado or fugitive) should be
arrested surreptitiously in the dead of the night. He could have been asked
to report to the relevant police station at a convenient hour. There was
no need for the police to make a forcible entry and drag away the old man
in his night clothes after refusing to show the arrest warrant.
If India is to have any ethics and
culture in her national life we must immediately end this culture of midnight
arrest dramas of respectable citizens. I may add that notwithstanding the
Tamil Nadu Director-General of Police's dogged defence of his men on a
popular television channel, the visuals of an agitated Chief Minister,
a Union Minister tossed in the air with arms and legs flailing, and snarling
police officers (seen again in newspaper photographs the next morning)
told a different, more enduring, tale.
It is a fortuitous circumstance
that the incident has taken place while the Commission to review the functioning
of the Constitution is working to submit its report to the Union Government.
The Commission could fruitfully ponder whether the present requirement
of Rajya Sabha concurrence for imposition of President's rule is consistent
with the demands of constitutional governance and propriety. It is incontestable
that there must be safeguards to prevent the whimsical misuse of Article
356 as has happened too often in the past, but it is equally undeniable
that an intransigent upper house could defeat the ends of justice.
Perhaps we could consider a situation
in which Rajya Sabha concurrence is not required if the Lok Sabha twice
upholds the proclamation of President's rule in a state, as is the position
with money bills. For notwithstanding the gravity of the provocation, it
is already quite clear that Ms. Jayalalitha may get away with her brazenness
for the present, as the Congress, the Nationalist Congress Party and the
Left parties are already crying foul at the Governor's recall. President's
rule in the state is clearly out, but it remains to be seen if the Centre
can find other means of pulling Ms. Jayalalitha down a peg or two.
To my mind, the present crisis involves
far more than the political or personal culture of the lady or her pocket
borough party and administration. The crux of the matter, as I repeatedly
stress, is the nation's civilizational ethos, centered on the Sanatan Dharma
(righteousness, justice, and eternal way of life). India is the land of
dharma; long years ago Aristotle noted that the Hindus were the only people
in the world to have successfully made dharma the basis of their polity.
We have fallen a long way since then, but if we are to regain any meaning
and dignity in our national life, we must invest it with values and norms
compatible with dharma. As Sri Aurobindo said, "spirituality is India's
only politics, the fulfillment of the Sanatan Dharma its only Swaraj."
As I see it, what is eating into
the vitals of the nation today, partially diagnosed as businessman-politician-bureaucrat
nexus, criminalization of politics and so on, is actually simply the absence
of dharma. The rot has gone so deep that unless we consciously rise from
the sloth it has produced and resist and reject all that is non-dharma,
we will find ourselves in an abyss like many third world countries that
lack the coherence and support of their ancient civilizational moorings.
This would be an appropriate occasion
for Mr. Karunanidhi and the DMK to reconsider their obsolete adherence
to non-values like atheism, and embrace and rejuvenate dharma. Atheism,
as Mr. Karunanidhi knows, is already dead - his own wife and son are believers,
and he has publicly chastised young cadres for making obeisance before
shrines. The old man should now submit to dharma, and enjoy the delicious
irony of defeating a deviant Brahmin lady with this invincible, autochthonous
weapon. For as Dharmaraja Yudhistra wisely stated in the Mahabharata, it
is not birth but behaviour that makes a true Brahmin.
