By M H Ahssan / INN Bureau
There is now little doubt that the UPA suffers from schizophrenia. Defence Minister AK Antony’s U-turn on what happened at the Line of Control (LOC) – where five Indian soldiers of the 21 Bihar regiment were killed the other day by Pakistanis – is only the latest sign.
After first claiming that the people who did the killing were 20 “heavily-armed terrorists along with persons dressed in Pakistan army uniforms”, yesterday Antony suddenly discovered that “specialist troops of Pakistan army were involved in the attack…”.
It doesn’t matter which statement is closer to the truth; what matters is that the UPA’s diarchy has led India towards anarchy and incoherence in all spheres of national interest – from the economy to politics to diplomacy.
The diarchy that lies at the heart of UPA’s misgovernance is the separation of power from responsibility, with Sonia Gandhi wielding the power and Manmohan Singh sitting on the throne like a Madam Tussaud’s wax model. He is there to take the blame, but do nothing else. She is there to take the credit, if any credit accrues. Sadly, nothing is accruing of late.
PA’s diarchy has led India towards anarchy and incoherence in all spheres of national interest – from the economy to politics to diplomacy.PA’s diarchy has led India towards anarchy and incoherence in all spheres of national interest – from the economy to politics to diplomacy.
The diarchy seemed to work in UPA-1, when Lady Luck was smiling at India; it has simply collapsed when Lady Luck has turned her back on us and we have to do the heavy lifting ourselves.
Consider, first, why Antony had to eat crow. It is not as if he had to rush in and make a statement the day before, exonerating the Pakistani army for the killings. The pressure surely came from the Prime Minister’s office – which is more obsessed with doing a deal with Pakistan, never mind the cost to India.
This is why even External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid went along with this soft line.
The shift in Antony’s stand yesterday must have been forced by the top of the political hierarchy, since this is precisely the kind of situation tailor-made for a Narendra Modi to play his patriotic card.
But in this case, even Sushma Swaraj and Ravi Shankar Prasad proved adequate to make Sonia turn. If Antony had to eat crow because the Congress party leadership is now proactive in trying to deny the BJP’s potential PM candidate any issue of emotive value, it tells its own story.
The question is: how could the Prime Minister (or even Antony or Salman Khurshid) have misread Sonia Gandhi’s political instincts on this issue?
The answer lies in Singh’s glorified disempowerment. It is obvious to everyone that Manmohan Singh has almost no achievement to show for his nine-and-a-quarter years in power.
His only achievement is sitting on the gaddi – the longest continuous tenure after Jawaharlal Nehru. During this tenure, he has had to do everything he does not believe in – and whatever he believed in has failed.
The economy is almost back to 1991 – from where he along with Narasimha Rao had rescued it.
The nuclear deal he espoused lies in tatters – and nuclear energy has become a political millstone around the neck of the UPA – and future governments. Not one of his own direct appointments – from Ashwani Kumar to Pawan Bansal to Montek Singh Ahluwalia to C Rangarajan – has gotten anywhere. While two have been turfed out of government, the other two are reduced to remaining babus when the PM wanted them to have real political power.
Singh himself is a shrunken figure. For all practical purposes, the key go-to man in government after the exit of Pranab Mukherjee is not Manmohan Singh, but P Chidambaram. Power has passed Singh by.
This, and his own personal emotional ties to his birthplace in Gah in Pakistan – makes him want a peace deal with Pakistan at any cost, never mind national honour or the army’s morale. He is latching on to the peace illusion in the hope that he will have at least one achievement for history to record during his prime ministership.
This is where diarchy bites again. Sonia Gandhi and the cabal around her, now facing a tough election and a tougher opponent in Narendra Modi, can least afford to show softness towards Pakistan. This is why the Manmohan Singh line on Pakistan is going nowhere beyond the PM’s own small group of advisors.
Anybody in his right mind would know that the blatant killings and (earlier) beheading of an Indian soldier would not go down well with the Indian population.
Even in her cocooned existence, Sonia Gandhi has enough sense to realise this – and her party stalwarts would have wasted no time telling her about it. This is why when Manmohan Singh made his disastrous reference to Balochistan in his Sharm el-Sheikh joint statement with the then Pakistani PM Yousuf Raza Gilani, the party dissociated itself from it.
Anybody in his right mind would also know that seeking peace with Pakistan is impossible when relations with even easier neighbours – from Bangladesh to Sri Lanka and Nepal – have gone downhill. But Singh has stubbornly clung to his illusion that peace can be pursued without consequences for his boss’s politics.
It is not my case that we should not talk to Pakistan, but we should be clear why we should do it: to tell the world we are the peaceful nation (perceptions matter); and to talk to the Pakistani leadership about what they need to do. We should equally be clear on what we should not talk about: a deal in Kashmir.
We should keep talking so that when the Pakistanis get frustrated with no movement in Kashmir, they start breaking off the talks. There can be no other reason to talk to a neighbour whose only wish is to do us harm. Of course, this is the wish of the real powers in Pakistan – the army and the ISI – but when they are the ones calling the shots, we can’t let our guard down and pretend that the civilian government is keen on peace.
We should talk, talk, talk till the cows come home – but we should not give an inch. Unfortunately for Manmohan Singh, he is willing to give a mile.
The diarchy has finally gotten to him. He is seeking a Pakistan deal to salvage at least one success in a 10-year reign that will come to a merciful close next year.
It is not in the national interest to let him have his way. Even Sonia Gandhi knows that. What she doesn’t know is that diarchy has damaged her as much as Manmohan Singh – not to speak of the Antonys and Chidambarams of the world.The PM knows “money does not grow on trees”, but he has to foot an expensive food security bill at the wrong time.
Chidambaram knows reforms are vital to save the rupee, but he has to talk of “compassion” and “inclusiveness” like a mantra. Antony knows the army needs support from the political establishment, but he ended up making the most demoralising statements about Pakistani actions on the LOC.
They are all schizophrenics now – doing things they don’t believe in; mouthing slogans they don’t care for.
What a tragedy!
