Author: Editorial
Publication: Free Press Journal
Date: June 7, 2004
URL: http://www.samachar.com/features/070604-editorial.html
The ruckus in the Lok Sabha on the
very first day of its normal sitting on Friday provided a foretaste of
the things to come. The Leader of the Opposition, L. K. Advani, as expected,
raised the issue of the `tainted' ministers in the Manmohan Singh Government.
Earlier, MPs belonging to the NDA had marched from Parliament House to
Rashtrapati Bhavan to submit a memorandum to President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
against the inclusion of criminally-scarred politicians in the Union Government.
At least eight ministers in the United Progressive Alliance are said to
have criminal backgrounds. They are facing court cases on charges varying
from the theft of government monies to the tune of nearly Rs 1,000 crores,
as in the case of Laloo Yadav, to murder, mafia connections, fraud and
theft of government taxes, etc.
Indeed, the supposedly clean Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh had deemed it fit to make someone a minister whom
even Bihar Chief Minister Rabri Devi was obliged to drop from her Cabinet
when his involvement in the examination paper leakage had become public.
Singh was helpless before Laloo Yadav who nominated his party men for ministerial
jobs and also decided the portfolios to be allocated to them. Last Friday,
the matter of tainted ministers was left unfinished by the Lok Sabha, but
it was clear that it would dog the House yet again.
The Opposition is unlikely to let
the PM off the hook on the gross impropriety of politicians with known
criminal backgrounds being made ministers. Their inclusion was all the
more surprising given that the PM himself deservedly enjoys a great reputation
for financial integrity. For sure, it was his prerogative to make whomsoever
he wanted a minister, but it would be a travesty of his constitutional
right if he were to make known crooks and criminals ministers in his government.
Alas, Singh had done just that by including Laloo Yadav, Prem Gupta, Tasleemuddin,
etc. in his government.
Therefore, the NDA cannot be faulted
for targeting these tainted ministers. It was now for Singh and his colleagues
in the Congress Party to defend the indefensible by justifying the inclusion
of the alleged criminals in the Government. The self-righteous Communists
too can be relied upon to come to the rescue of Yadav and his tainted henchmen
now that they have got an opportunity to wield power without responsibility
at the Centre.
Interestingly, the RJD members have
sought to draw a parallel between the charges filed against the suspects
in the Ayodhya demolition case and the criminal charges filed against the
tainted ministers. Pointedly, they referred to the charges in the Ayodhya
case against Advani, Uma Bharati and Murli Manohar Joshi, all of whom were
members in the Vajpayee Government. Laloo Yadav and his lieutenants clearly
make no distinction between criminal acts such the theft of government
funds or plain murder or the evasion of customs and other government levies
and a purely political movement.
They clearly know no difference
between chalk and cheese. Indeed, one of the tainted ministers who is accused
of sheltering a henchman of Dawood Ibrahim waxed eloquent in a television
interview as to how Advani's Ayodhya movement was a greater crime than
his alleged lapse since the Ram Temple campaign had led to nation-wide
communal riots resulting in the death of several hundred innocent people
and the destruction of property worth hundreds of crores of rupees.
As a trite defence Laloo's was clever
tactics but would not stand a moment's serious scrutiny. For, recent history
is replete with political movements which as a necessary concomitance did
cause avoidable mayhem. For instance, the controversial Khilafat movement
launched by Gandhi spun out of control in early 1920s leading to the Moplah
riots resulting in the massacre of thousands of innocent people and the
forcible conversion to Islam of many more in Kerala. We all know the mind-boggling
destruction and destitution caused by the partition of India. Why, the
Communists would know how the ascension to power of the Great Helmsman,
Mao-Tse tung was preceded and followed by the wholesale massacre of millions
of Chinese.
Again, the millions who were killed
in the Cultural Revolution. Would that make Mao a mass murderer or a great
revolutionary? Now that the Communists hold a veto over this government
it was for them to counsel restraint to the criminals who infest the Government
propped up by them. Comparisons being odious, no one however was comparing
Gandhi to Advani or to even Mao. But then to put Advani and Laloo on the
same footing too would be highly ludicrous.
The point is pretty simple. If there
is no distinction to be made between political mass movements and the Ayodhya
campaign was certainly one such very big one since Independence and purely
criminal acts such as the theft of animal fodder funds from the Bihar exchequer
or criminal acts such as murder, extortion, kidnapping, etc, there can
be no meaningful debate in Parliament. A sense of proportion, a sense of
mental balance will stand the saner elements on the treasury benches in
good stead, never mind what the tainted ministers trot out in their own
defence.
