Years of Non-governance

Kesri pulled the rug from under the feet of Deve Gowda and had Inder Kumar Gujaral installed in his place as the new prime minister. Gujaral would antagonize no one, particularly the one who had the ability of rocking his boat. He would exhort people to fight corruption, but would do nothing himself in that direction. When the whole nation seemed to have identified the corrupt, he would feign ignorance and would do everything to protect the tribe. His Home Minister would spurn the request of a woman chief minister to extend the service of a controversial DGP, Gujaral himself would overrule his home minister and accord sanction after the deadline is past. Those in the know say it was essential for the political survival of the new lady chief minister of a state then taken for a failed state within a state and also that of Gujral as prime minister. Anyway, that is what we had in the name of governance: some extension here, some accommodation there. Even though Gujaral had the rudder in his hand, the nation was drifting like a rudderless boat, for the man holding the rudder in his hand did not know how to navigate. Gujral’s agony too did not last for long. Fresh election threw up a new government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee who ran the show for about six years. He tried to bring about some semblance of governance, nothing more than that. Dr. Manmohan Singh, a non political entity, took up from where Atal Bihari Vajpayee had left off and seemed to be doing well with India recording remarkable growth on all fronts of economy. Everything seemed to be going well until the Left parties supporting from outside decided to pull rug from under its feet on the question of nuclear deal with the US government. The government survived, many alleged through dubious means. But governance suffered from then on. On its second coming, the government was beset with problems of governance from the very beginning and scams of the worst dimension began to surface one after another and in quick succession too. This killed the spirit of governance. The kind of corruption that India witnesses under Dr. MM Singh is unprecedented and the paradox is he is himself regarded as honest. Governance continues to get bogged down. We have been celebrating our independence and republic day with fanfare, patting ourselves on being the largest democracy of the world. If only we could also celebrate these days as a governing nation.