India’s very own annus horribilis

Some have already dubbed it annus horribilis. Even those who do not wish to go that far are lamenting that 2011 has been a dismal and deeply depressing year. The grim reality is that things today are worse than they were at the end of 2010. To the appalling political mess of the previous year has been added dangerous economic decline. And the Congress-led ruling coalition, no longer united or progressive or even an alliance, seems unable or unwilling to reverse this gloomy state of affairs.

Paradoxically, the Congress’ impressive success in the 2009 parliamentary election seems to have become its undoing. With the BJP badly battered and the Left Front virtually decimated, arrogance blinded the Congress-led government to the country’s mounting anger against egregious corruption, even after the Commonwealth Games (CWG) and 2G spectrum mega scams exploded with the force of mini-nukes.
The original sin was the reappointment of A. Raja as telecommunications and information technology minister in May 2009 even though the top leaders were fully aware of the enormity of his shenanigans. “Compulsions of coalition politics” was a crass excuse for this. Until it became impossible to do so, he was shielded. As for the CWG loot, it was visible to the naked eye even while preparations for the games were on. The delay in sending Mr Raja to jail was unconscionable, and in the case of the CWG czar, Suresh Kalmadi, even more so.
Yet, the government insisted, against wiser counsels, on appointing as the Central Vigilance Commissioner a man who was facing a court case for malfeasance. The Supreme Court quashed the appointment of P.J. Thomas, declaring it unconstitutional. No wonder Congress’ strident claims of always taking “firm action” against graft takes in no one.
In fact, it is the people’s disgust with the scourge of uncontrolled corruption that has made 2011, to some extent, the year of Anna Hazare. Even after he and Team Anna have lost some of the shine (the Bombay high court’s snub and the Chief Election Commissioner’s caution to them speak for themselves), Mr Hazare seems able to tap into the pent-up public sentiment. The gross ineptitude of the government in dealing with the Anna campaign over the Jan Lokpal Bill has given it a bigger boost.
What was the point of first telling Mr Hazare that he could not “dictate” to Parliament and then inviting him to draft the Lokpal Bill “jointly” with Union ministers, an exercise that predictably ended in disaster? More shocking was the decision to arrest Mr Hazare one morning and surrendering to him by nightfall. The handling of Baba Ramdev, another anti-corruption crusader, was vastly more foolish. Four ministers first kowtowed to him and then unleashed a savage police crackdown on him and his followers.
Corruption is obviously the biggest challenge to the Congress and its government but it is not the only issue on which they have given themselves a certificate of virtual political bankruptcy. Over the unending Telangana turmoil, the Congress leadership has earned an Olympic gold for dithering. Then, in the midst of bedlam in Parliament over the isolated government’s unwillingness to face voting on either price rise or black money, it announced that it had allowed 51 per cent foreign direct investment in multi-brand retail trade.
Whatever the merits and demerits of the decision, all hell broke loose. The entire Opposition, including parties that sometimes come to the government’s rescue, was united against the decision. However, it was Mamata Banerjee, West Bengal’s newly elected chief minister and Congress’ ally, who forced the Centre to put its decision “on hold”.
This is as good place as any to point out that Mr Hazare is not the only dominant figure of the year. Two redoubtable ladies — Ms Banerjee and J. Jayalalithaa, elected chief minister of Tamil Nadu for the third time — share that distinction. If Ms Banerjee has meant trouble for the Congress several times (on one occasion she partially sabotaged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Bangladesh), Ms Jayalalithaa has made things very difficult by not allowing the `1,400-crore Koodankulam nuclear plant to be commissioned and having a raucous row with Kerala over the Mullaperiyar dam.
The only silver lining in the prevailing darkness is a string of foreign policy successes of the government. These include a friendship and cooperation treaty with Afghanistan; a firm message to China that it cannot unilaterally claim sovereignty over the South China Sea, together with the declaration that India’s partnership with Vietnam in offshore oil exploration would continue; and the big boost to India’s Look East policy at the East Asia summit in Bali. The credit for all these is entirely Dr Singh’s.
As for the fate of the Lokpal Bill before the Lok Sabha, nothing can be said with certainty at the time of writing. Each political party, with the BJP in the lead, has its own game plan and is busy promoting it cynically, often playing both sides of the street. The legislation has been clouded by the introduction of caste and communal reservations in the Lokpal. Control over the Central Bureau of Investigation is also a sticking point.
R.K. Raghavan, a respected former director of the CBI, has best summed up the situation: “I am more than convinced that all those who wield authority at the present juncture — not only at the Centre but in the 28 states as well — despite all their political differences, are united in not warming up to the idea of cleansing public life.”
Finally, even at the risk of sounding like a cracked gramophone record, let me repeat that the bane of the UPA is the utter failure of the diarchy comprising the Congress president and the Prime Minister that looked so promising at one time. What the Economist has said on this subject in its yearend issue is so derogatory of India and its Prime Minister that it would not bear repetition here.