January 4, 1999

Is the Nehru-Gandhi legacy truly worth such adulation?

Tavleen Singh

If all it took to govern India was the charisma of a powerful dynasty then we should have been the best governed country in the world. In our 51 years of independence, we have been ruled largely by the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. Jawaharlal reigned supreme for 17 years, Indira for another 17 and then Rajiv had five years. That makes 39 altogether. In this period we missed the bus economically on more than one occasion, technologically with monotonous regularity and politically we created a country in which we kept most of our people illiterate, hungry, ill-clad and in sub-human conditions for the sake of "socialism".

Throw in the secessionist movements -- a direct result of political mistakes -- in the North-east, Punjab and Kashmir and we end up with a pretty dismal record. Yet it is to the newest (and first foreign) member of the same dynasty that India turns once more for hope and succour.

What is wrong with us? It's true that Atal Bihari Vajpayee has performed no miracles and, more important, has governed in much the same slipshod manner that the Dynasty (why call it the Congress?) perfected. But is he so bad that we need to revert to the same family firm that ruined us in the first place?

The current chairperson of the firm has, since her party's spectacular victories in the recent assembly elections, barely been able to take that smile off her face: part-Cheshire cat, part-beatific Italian Madonna. And why should she? Rarely have I, in my many years as a political journalist, seen such a national outpouring of adulation. Every major newsmagazine in the country has had that smiling face on its cover, every newspaper has at least one picture of her a day and every Congress leader has joined the sycophancy sweepstakes.

She is more Indian than Indian, that old Gandhi family retainer M.L. Fotedar tells us. Digvijay Singh, chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, said in an interview this past week, "My commitment is to Soniaji and to the family. It depends on her whether she would like her children to be in politics. It is her personal decision." In short, back to the Dynasty's glory days of courtiers, kowtowing, cabbages and kings.

Every time I write about Sonia Gandhi I receive a minor avalanche of hate mail. Some letters attack me for daring to call her Italian. Some tell me that I am jealous of her beauty. Some threaten me with dire consequences when she becomes prime minister. Even some of my esteemed colleagues in hackdom write angry pieces about how it is wrong to keep referring to Sonia's "foreign origins".

Well, she is Italian by birth isn't she? My reasons for not liking the idea of an Italian prime minister of India are founded on the conviction that it will further demoralise a country which is yet to overcome the centuries of rule by white men who believed only they could "civilise" us.

But I have other more political objections to us returning to the embrace of the Dynasty. What we need in Delhi is a government -- not a durbar. Yet, no sooner does a member of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty ascend the throne than the mighty Government of India converts itself into a durbar. Our most arrogant government servants start behaving like courtiers, our cabinet ministers like domestic servants. Congress chief ministers are usually the worst hit, with most of them flying to Delhi to get the "high command" view on the most petty matter. It is largely on account of this kind of governance, if we dare use the word, that India heads into the 21st century as a bumbling, illiterate, backward giant of a country.

This is not an attempt to absolve Vajpayee's Government. But surely even the most politically illiterate Indian can see that it is not eight months of BJP rule that have ruined us but decades of dynastic democracy? Yet Sonia manages to get away with blaming everything on the BJP. At the All India Congress Committee meeting in Delhi recently she said of the BJP Government: "There is a callous disregard for the most pressing needs of the poor. Inflation is out of control, economic reforms have suffered. Worse, unemployment is rising, the aspirations of the young are betrayed and the frustrations of people sharpening. All this adds up to an ominous situation in which increasing economic disruption may have a detrimental impact on the law and order situation." Phew! All this in eight months?

A bit hard to believe, wouldn't you say? Is it not closer to the truth for us to admit that poor Vajpayee inherited a system of governance so defunct, so rotten to its very core that he is finding it hard to change things?

To bring about real change, Vajpayee needs the support of a bureaucracy long accustomed to permanent job security. No matter how incompetent they are, our officials cannot be removed, only transferred. Why should they work?

To raise money for education, healthcare, sanitation and housing Vajpayee needs to stop pouring endless crores (about Rs 1,50,000 crore a year) into the bottomless pit of our public sector. Every time he tries to make the smallest move he is stymied by Nehruvian socialists who have no qualms in admitting that it does not matter at all if the public sector earns us nothing. The only thing that matters is providing jobs.

Please remember that these are systems and institutions that Vajpayee inherited. He is still finding it hard to change them. In Sonia's case, they form the bedrock of what her family has stood for economically and politically. Do we really need a fresh dose of dynastic charisma?

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