COLUMN

The ability to compromise

BHASKAR GHOSE

The disturbing trend of political leaders of integrity defending corrupt and communal elements in their own parties, if unchecked, will lead to the destruction of the polity.

POLITICS is not necessarily the art of the possible. Not unless you strip the word `possible' of ethical or moral connotations, and treat it as no more than a move in a game of chess, except that this game is played for much more than just to checkmate your opponent. And it is not an art so much as an amoral plan, the sort of plan that is used in a commando operation.

But that said, there is still a space in which some basic values must abide, those which shore up the manner in which we have decided to order our brawling, fractious society. This is what makes it so difficult to comprehend why a man who is known and respected for his principles and unblemished record in public affairs, L. K. Advani, can defend leaders like Narendra Modi and Dilip Singh Judeo. Or why Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who is, again, respected for his personal integrity should also rise in the defence of Judeo, a member of the Union Council of Ministers who has been caught on camera accepting wads of money and declaring that money was no less than God. Or why a man known again for his integrity and principles, S. Jaipal Reddy, should publicly announce the names of Ministers who have apparently misused the public sector undertakings in their charge following on the Central Vigilance Commissioner's talking to the Prime Minister of this happening, when the CVC himself says no Minister was named and terms the inclusion of some names `wild' and `absurd'?

What makes these men of integrity and principles compromise themselves, support persons who are seen to be corrupt or those who have stoked the fires of communal hatred, or, as in Jaipal Reddy's case, denounce persons on the basis of goodness knows what grounds other than political expediency? Are these instances of their commitment to truth, to the principles that they are known to live by? If these are not, are they doing it either to defend their respective parties or gain for it some political advantage? So just how important are their parties - more important than truth?

These questions must be asked, because what these leaders are doing is something dangerous indeed. They may have a great commitment to their party, and they may well want their party to rule in different States. But what price are they willing to pay for it? Surely their parties are not more important to them than the country, the integrity of the democracy that we declare - as they do, too - to be most precious, something we take great pride in, for which, in the dark days of the Emergency, all the three mentioned in this essay were imprisoned?

We have given ourselves a Constitution and from time to time profess our commitment to uphold it. Vajpayee and Advani have taken oaths to this effect before assuming the offices they now hold, and Jaipal Reddy did so when he became a Minister. But whether they took oaths before assuming office is not relevant; what is relevant is that their being in public life, being seen as leaders, as persons who determine what the nature of public life will be.

There are, of course, the Judeos, the Modis, the Raja Bhaiyyas, whose definition of public life is something that most of us would find obnoxious; they live by their twisted, diseased perception of it, and even gain political power through it, but, mercifully, they are not the ones who determine - in the largest sense - what the nature of public life will be. But what Vajpayee, Advani, Jaipal Reddy, Sheila Dixit and others see as public life does generally find acceptance among people. They are not, of course, the only ones; there are many others whose perceptions are not different. There must be, otherwise we would not have survived with integrity so far. True, there have been major scandals in public life, major cases of corruption, some of which involve political leaders and senior administrative officers. Many such scandals and illegalities have been investigated and uncovered and charge-sheets have been filed against those whom the investigating agencies have found prima facie culpable.

That these cases have been investigated, that it has been possible to investigate them is owing in no small measure to the fact that, by and large, the political leadership has made it possible. Had it not, all such cases would have been suppressed, and the state as we know it would have begun disintegrating. True, a great deal is also possible because of the free media, which have exposed such cases and followed them closely so that any attempt to hush them up would have been caught on camera, so to speak. And this does not mean that there are no cases that are hushed up, no instances where the investigating agencies pull their punches, or no instances where political leaders make it clear to the agencies that they want some case dropped. But one is looking at the larger picture here, and it is not one that has yet been totally covered with the stains of political corruption.

But now, it looks as if we have to take stock once again and worry where we are heading. If principled leaders begin to compromise with the truth where will it finally end? Are their parties - to ask the question again - more to them than the integrity of the country, of the democracy they uphold? One can understand a party of the Left, like the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in West Bengal, putting the party ahead of the state; they do, after all, profess that the state is essentially a bourgeois state. But, ironically, it is the Left leaders who have upheld basic principles, and one cannot accuse them of having openly compromised with what has been illegal, and what has fanned communal hatred, or of denouncing other political leaders as corrupt, as people did in France during the Reign of Terror.

If it is alarming to ordinary people like us, surely it must be alarming to the political leadership of those parties sworn to protect our democracy. And if it is, then it is time that they considered carefully where they have come in their rather frenzied efforts to retain or snatch power from one another. We have seen caste becoming a major factor in our democratic process and have accepted it; we have seen community becoming such a factor, and have acquiesced. But, if we have to do the same with dishonesty and with the truth, with the use of religious hatred as a political weapon, and if those among the leaders who are known to have ideals, and believe in the country's welfare compromise with that belief and muddy their ideals, then the time will not be far off when the very foundations of the state will become weak and begin to give way.

They must surely know, as many of us do, what has happened in the countries in this region; if India has not been visited by the same fate, it is because in the last analysis our fundamentals held, and they did that because the leadership of the time ensured they did. This is what the present leadership in all parties need to do; look at the fundamentals, determine where the bottom line is. If the compromises they make are so major as to shake them, then they must take the responsibility for what eventually must be, the destruction of the country's polity as we know it.

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