Conspiracy of Consensus

S.Gurumurthy

Consensus - it is the new mantra of the statecraft today. Prime Minister Inder Gujral swears by consensus. For particularly the English press, he is a man generous in consensus - even to foreigners, the Gujral doctrine commends giving without expecting returns. The United Front theatre is full of consensus building scenes; the Steering Panel for intra-UF consensus, and the yet-to-be-born Coordination Panel for consensus with the Congress. Is this search for consensus for the higher value of governance, or, for a lesser virtue of survival at any cost ?

What triggered the emergence of this new paradigm of consensus is not unknown in the public domain. It is not any momentous national issue like oil pool deficit, recession in the economy or insurgency in the North East, but, the crude manner in which Kesri sent Deva Gowda packing from Race course Road. This shook the UF to realise that the sole issue is its own survival, not governance, or, even the CMP or the BJP; that the danger of `BJP-in-default' is inadequate to feel and be durable in office.

Despite what he had said against Gowda in his charge sheet to Dr.Shankar Dayal Sharma, what Kesri wanted was evident to the initiated - a halt to the CBI inquest into Congressmen including himself. Since Gowda did not stop the CBI, Kesri wanted his head. Actually, Gowda could not stop the CBI; but the Congressmen, who are specialists in stifling law, could not believe that Gowda was as helpless. Worse still, they feared that Gowda was building special cells for them in Tihar Jail. So Kesri pulled the trigger and non-suited Gowda.

The moral is explicit. If he is to survive, Inder Gujral has to achieve what Deva Gowda failed to; that is, rein in the CBI from going against Congressmen. It is not an accident that Sonia Gandhi has signed up an ordinary membership (once popularly known as `Four Anna' membership) contract with the Congress; this coincides with the CBI move to prosecute Quottrocchi, the Italian friend of Sonia and Rajiv. Now, Gujral will have to stall even the Bofors prosecution, and keep Quottrocchi too harmless and Sonia at peace.

And more; there are equally questionable men in Gujral's own party. In his farewell speech in Lok Sabha, Deva Gowda significantly mentioned that he did not stall the CBI inquest even against a Janata Dal Chief Minister - bringing Lallu Yadav explicitly in view. With the CBI deciding to charge the Bihar Chieftain, the Gujral regime owes the same 'moral' obligation as it owes to Kesri, to Lallu Yadav too.

These are the unspelt, but politically well-understood, conditions for Gujral's survival. Now, Inder Gujral has to seek consensus on how to keep Kesris, Sonias and Lallus harmless to save his Government; for, if he fails to save them, he cannot save himself from them; he cannot survive, unless he secures the safety of those tall Congress and JD men and women who feel unsafe in law.

Obviously, he understands it; his actions confirm his understanding. He quickly distanced himself from the CBI action against Lallu Yadav; he patiently heard his own Minister involved in the Fodder scam asserting that he would obey only Lallu Yadav implying that meaning he would defy Gujral; he kept mum when Lallu said that, if the CBI prosecuted him, the Gujral Government would vanish; earlier, Gujral did not even form his own cabinet and accepted the team that existed dropping one Minister whom Lallu wanted Gujral to sack and Gujral had to. By this kind of consensus, Gujral has virtually abdicated as Prime Minister.

All this is demeaning compromise. Gujral has to suborn the State and compromise the governance itself to save influential felons. This is survival game glorified as consensus. Consensus, in contrast, is a higher principle of decision-making where the rule of decision by majority is considered inadequate.

A strategy to stifle the policemen from catching suspected criminals is not consensus; it is compromise if not conspiracy in governance. In contrast, good governance would require evolving consensus cutting across Party lines to catch, not let-off, thieves.

India has had brief spells of rule by consensus. The latest spell in consensus rule, ironically, was during Narasimha Rao's initial years. By involving also the BJP, Rao successfully brought down the national temperature on major issues - whether it was liberalisation, Kashmir or Punjab. Yet his deviousness on the Ayodhya issue and his efforts to dilute corruption as an issue trigged confrontation in the later part of his rule.

If Inder Gujral has to achieve peace with Congress and Yadavs, he has to overlook corruption in high places as an issue; and succeed where Rao failed. Here he does have an advantage over Rao; Gujral himself is not a suspect in law, unlike Rao. But, given his known views, Gujral would have been considered unsuitable for this task. But power does seem to alter his mind; otherwise how will one explain Gujral's statement that there should be no "witch-hunting" by the CBI, implying that there is. This is precisely what Lallu says.

However, Gujral faces two equally suicidal course. If, for his survival, he subverts the investigation, the Left will finish him; if he does not, Kesaris, Sonias and Yadav will do him down. For the present, Gujral is only in the region of compromise; whether he will partner the suspects and scuttle the probes remains to be seen.

A little reflection will show that the need for this game of compromise has arisen fundementally because of confrontationist politics of UF and Congress. The heart of the UF-Congress arrangement is not any philosophic or programmatic consensus on how to govern the country, but confrontation with the BJP. Any consensus to avoid confrontation should involve - not isolate - the principal opposition. Here the very consensus is to promote confrontation with the main opposition. The politics of confrontation has been the first principle of political alignments and opposition since the split in the Congress in 1969. And it continues; now, however unwilling he is,Inder Gujral too is in the same kind of politics.

Confrontation, not consensus, having placed the UF in power, Inder Gujral's search for consensus is not for governance, but for survival at any cost.