Author: Editorial
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: April 29, 2009
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/wages-of-arrogance/452408/0
Introduction: Congress seems to think it can
get away with brazen meddling with institutions
Once again, the spectre of Bofors has risen
at election time, and the Congress has none but itself to blame. The political
costs are manifold, and troubling. The BJP has been handed a stick with which
to beat the Congress; it can now openly say what it was muttering earlier:
that only they will plug black-money leaks and recover ill-gotten gains stashed
away abroad. After all, they'll say, the Congress won't want any of this done
because of Bofors. Meanwhile, voters have been reminded of an ignominious
period in the Congress's history over the past few weeks - the arrogant party
of the '80s, which thought it could bury both the fallout of the 1984 anti-Sikh
riots and Bofors concerns.
And why will the Congress again pay a political
price? Because it hasn't completely abandoned that arrogance. Indeed, its
continued weakness seems to be an inability to reconcile itself to the fact
that India is never going to be a de facto one-party state again - and that,
thus, institutions must be independent, strong, and never subordinate to the
party's and the leadership's demands. This government has never been able
to establish before independent - or even sympathetic - observers that it
is committed to maintaining the integrity of some of India's most vital and
under-siege institutions. This pusillanimity means that people are losing
trust in those; and that they will view the institution-breakers askance.
The CBI has been a prime target; so much so, many in the public assume its
moves have a political flavour, rendering its entire existence as an independent,
statutory body moot. To the arrogance that assumes that such will not hurt
the party must be added the arrogance that feels that timing is completely
irrelevant - that Jagdish Tytler can be cleared a few weeks before his name
appears on ballots, that Ottavio Quattrocchi can be removed from a watchlist
a few weeks before a friendly government demits office, and that no questions
are likely to be raised about these. This is brazenness - or political blundering
- of the worst order.
As our columnist today points out, the Congress
cannot afford to think that its disrespect for institutional autonomy is irrelevant
to politics. It allows all sorts of attacks, it permits unpleasant associations,
it creates space for evasion by electoral enemies. Consider Narendra Modi's
glee - on the very day that the Supreme Court finally links his name to Gujarat,
he gets to claim that this is thanks to UPA meddling. In the end, this is
not about whether or not Tytler is guilty, or whether Quattrocchi is being
unfairly hounded. It is about how, if some in the Congress believe that, they
think that subverting institutions to achieve "laudable" ends is
acceptable, in the party's interest. They are wrong. It is neither in their
interest, nor in India's.
