Bharat Bhushan - Prime Minister Modi's luck turns: Govt stares at institutional erosion
NB: An excellent analysis. My only caveat is that institutional erosion is the crux of the Hindutva ideologues plan for India - the Sangh Parivar dreams of rendering the Indian Constitution a nullity; destroying the distinction between legal and illegal violence; making their cadre safe from the repercussions of law; and establishing an ideological dictatorship. But social reality has a habit of disrupting the best laid plans; and whatever be the results of the 2019 elections, Mr Modi and his henchmen will go down in history as selfish, ruthless and unscrupulous men. DS
When the Narendra
Modi government came to power, the prime minister with his boastful claim of a 56-inch
chest seemed like a man-in-charge. He wanted his hold over the government to be
total. Even his ministers were not allowed to appoint their personal staff
without his clearance. Anyone who was associated with the previous government
was kept out of key posts and trusted bureaucrats were shipped in – mostly from
Gujarat. A man who began with
an election campaign sobriquet of Chhote Sardar, after Sardar Patel, had
surpassed his icon by being elected the Prime Minister whereas Patel had only been a
deputy prime minister. Suddenly the Republic
of Fear so carefully put together over the past four and half years of
authoritarian governance, seems to be turning into a house of cards. And those
manning it, it turns out, are no supermen but mere mortals with some serious
frailties.
The dirty linen of
the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the Enforcement Directorate (ED), the Central Vigilance
Commission (CVC), the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), the Finance
Ministry and even the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) is on public display. They
are riven by at least half a dozen internecine conflicts. As a result, crucial
agencies have been stripped of the veneer of professionalism, neutrality and
accountability – qualities that engender faith among citizens in the
institutions of the State. An impression has gained ground that these
institutions are manned by people who are either corrupt or are amenable to
manipulation by their political masters.
CBI director Alok
Verma has alleged before the Supreme
Court that an extortion racket was being run by his Special Director,
Rakesh Asthana, in lieu of compromised investigations. Eminent citizens have
appealed to the Supreme
Court to order a court-monitored inquiry into the controversial Rafale
jet fighter purchase deal. The government seems divided between Gujarat and
non-Gujarat bureaucrats (read, cronies vs. the rest) and a public impression
has been created that officers with less than clean reputation are heading key
institutions of the State.
Even the Cabinet is
not immune from such destructive rivalries. A senior minister’s assistant was
apparently raided by the Income Tax authorities. The minister who is close to
the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and projected as an alternative to Prime
Minister Modi, cannot exactly be pleased with the attempt to tarnish his image. Meanwhile, the
midnight coup in the CBI apparently engineered in the PMO suggests that the
government panicked in the face of the prospect of the agency acting against
it. There is speculation that the CBI was
about to take up investigations in the controversial Rafale deal.
As a fallout of its
midnight manoeuvre, the Modi government will not be able to use fear of the CBI
and the ED to browbeat the opposition including Congress
president Rahul Gandhi, whose brother-in-law, Robert Vadra has been a chink in
the Gandhi family’s armour. It would be harder now for Modi and his party
acolytes to prevent the coalescence of a grand alliance of the opposition in
the make-or-break state of Uttar Pradesh for the 2019 general election.
The government’s
actions have also invited unwelcome attention to several top functionaries of
the Modi government, including those in the Prime Minister’s Office, doing
irreparable harm to their public image. It seems unlikely as of now that those
involved in the internal war in the premier institutions of the state will
emerge unscathed as muck-raking unfolds before the public eye. The haste with which
the CBI director was sent on leave and the public interest
litigation filed in the Supreme
Court by former Bharatiya Janata Party leaders Arun Shourie and
Yashwant Sinha along with eminent lawyer Prashant Bhushan, are likely to create
the impression that the Modi government has something to hide in the Rafale
deal. This is likely to create doubts about the government’s integrity in the
public mind. This may lend further momentum to efforts by the Opposition to
make the Rafale deal an election issue.
These developments
will also tend to weaken the hold of the Modi government on the bureaucracy
especially as the regime is at the fag end of its tenure. As a result of result
of the flawed decision making by his government, a prime minister who wanted to
control everything in the government with an iron fist, has had to hand over
scrutiny of key government agencies to the Supreme Court.
The apex court has
already made the government’s appointment of M Nageswar Rao as interim CBI director virtually infructuous, by stripping the
incumbent of decision making powers, except on administrative matters. All his
decisions since taking over are also being subjected to the court’s scrutiny.
It has paved the way for reversing the large-scale and prima facie malicious
transfers of CBI officers investigating Asthana by the interim director.
Further, by appointing
a retired Supreme Court judge to oversee the CVC inquiry
against Alok Verma, the CBI director sent on administrative leave by the
government, with the injunction to complete the inquiry within two weeks, the
apex court has also put a question mark on the integrity of the CVC. If
on October 12 when the court meets next to hear the issue, it finds that
the CVC inquiry
has found nothing against Verma or that it seeks extension of time for the
inquiry, nothing prevents it from reinstating him as the CBI Director.
As yet the Supreme
Court has not addressed the substantive legal question of whether the
government had the authority to send CBI Director Verma on leave. Nor has it
gone into the political sensitiveness of the issues that he was examining. Irrespective of the
Supreme Court’s verdict the immediate political consequence of these
developments is that they have breathed new life into the opposition political
parties giving them several themes that could play out in the coming election. Prime Minister Modi
who had come to power claiming that people considered him “naseebwala” or
fortunate may learn that Lady Luck can be quite fickle.
