Act of God?

Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 12, No. 25 (Jun. 18, 1977), pp. 967-968
Published by: Economic and Political Weekly
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 ECONO-MIC AND
perhaps, on the question of Nagaland,
the prime minister was only presenting
a 'hard' line, for, in any negotiations
that might take place to arrive at a
settlement, the prime minister will
have to reckon with many hardliners
within his own party.
The most surprising, and uncalled for,
have been the prime minister's remarks
on India's relations with China. It is
one thing to argue that China should
IJow take the next step in the process
of improvement of relations; but it is
quite another thing to say that "unless
[the border dispute] is settled properly
to our satisfaction, there cannot be
complete restoration of normalcy". In
the past 15 years, much that was con-
cealed from the Indian people about
the real facts of the Sino-Indian border
dispute has become public knowledge;
and it is certainly imipudent for an
Indian leader to demand that any
settlement with China has to be to "our
satisfaction". Such self-righteous pos-
turings suggest a throw-back to the
times when the country allowed itself,
under the assured protection of the big
powers, to be manoeuvred into a con-
frontationist position with China,
basing itself on dubious grounds of the
'inviolability' of borders inherited from
imperial powers, though in the mean-
w-hile the imperial power in question
had itself clearlv acknowledged that the
borders were undefined.
The unresolved problems in relation
to neighbouring countries and ethnic
minorities like the Nagas and Mizos is
part of the unpleasant legacy of the
Congress party; and the Janata party
can haidly hope to achieve any success
in the resolution of these problems if
the prime minister goes on speaking
as if nothing has happened in the last
15 years.
Elections
A Little Disorder
THE results of the elections in the 10
states and three union territories should
be highly gratifying to the Janata party.
The party's convincing victories in
eight states and the union territory of
Delhi - and even its miserable show-
ing in Tarmil Nadu and West Bengal
- fully vindicate the home minister's
stand that the Congress had totally
lost the confidence of the people and
hadl no right to continue in office in
these states. With these victo-
ries, and with the assured co-operation
of the forces that have come to power
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POLITICAL WEEKLY
in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu in the
undoing all the anti-people measures
of the previous regime - specifically
the repeal of the 42nd amendment to
the Constitution - the Janata govern-
nent can no more have any excuses in
procrastinating over the fulfilment of
its election pledges. It has already gone
back on some of these pledges, especi-
ally those relating to the release of all
political prisoners and the scrapping
of MISA, DIR and other repressive
laws; and with the massive victories
it has won, it might be tempted to
renege further; hence, it is necessary
that every kind of pressure should
continue to be put on the government
to fulfil its election pledges.
With these victories, the Janata party
will also be able to have its nominee
elected to the office of the President,
thiough the government's desire to have
Janata governments in as many states
as possible surely had for its aim some-
thiing more than merely securing for
the party the largely ornamental office
of the President of the Republic. What
the Janata party sought to achieve was
the near-total destruction of the Cong-
ress as a political party; and when
that process was accomplished, the
tattered remains of the Congress could
either sue for peace and seek accom-
modation with the Janata party on the
latter's terms, thus marking the begin-
ning of a new era of one-party rule,
or remain in the wings ready to take
over when, as was inevitable, 'distor-
tions' would occur in the Janata party
also. Either way, it would make for
an orderly continuity of the Indian po-
litical system.
The victories of the AIADMK in
Tarnil Nadu and the CPI(M)-led
Left front in WVest Bengal however
show that the path to one-party domi-
nance or a two-party 'accommodation'
is not all that smooth. But this does
not mean that the Janata party, in its
defeat, has learnt a basic lesson of In-
dian politics - that a multiplicity of
parties is inevitable in a country like
India at present, not so much because
of the country's suipposed size and
diversity, but because the class com-
position of most of the parties and the
forces backing them is fluid and is still
in the process of being clarified. There
is even nlothing unique about this,
such a situation is common to all
countries where the most sophisticat-
ed assembly line production methods
co-exist with the most primitive types
of surplus accumulation. It is too early
to say whether the Janata party has
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June 18, 1977
learnt this lesson which the Congress
inever learnt, if one were to go by what
the Congress government did when a
wholly new kind of governance was;
tried in various parts of the country
in 1957, and in 1967 and 1969; but
the new governments that are currently
being formed, especially the one in
West Bengal, cannot plead lack of ex-
)erience in this regard.
Railways
Act of God?
IT is astonishing that the Railway
minister should have tried to dismiss
the most serious accident ever to have
occurred in the Northeast Frontier Rail-
way as 'an act of god'; and his subse-
quent explanation that this characterisa-
tion was based on the interim findings
of the commissioner for railway safety
is even more curious, for such a
disaster, in which possibly hundreds of
lives have been lost, cannot be ex-
plained away merely on the basis of an
interim report, atid that too by an
official of the department concerned.
Moreover, even such alleged 'acts of
god' like typhoons, cyclones, floods and
earthquakes have, on closer examination,
been known to have had in the back-
ground the all-too-discernible hand of
rnan; the recent floods, from the first
waves of which Assam and other areas
of the northeast are just recovering, is a
prime example of such 'acts of god' be-
ilig compounded and made more agonis-
iri, by the deliberate acts of omission
an(I commission by man.
There are many unexplained features
in the Tezpur Express disaster. More
than two weeks after the accident, it is
still not clear how many people lost
their lives, and the exact number of
the dead might never be known. There
is now doubt whether the first reports
that the collapse of the bridge was due
to a so-called 'flash flood' were after all
correct. It is also not clear whether
the railway track over the bridge had
already been washed away, or whether
only the approach had been eroded and
the track collapsed only as the train
irioved on to it. Questions have been
raised about whether or not a sluice
gate on the embankment of Golandi
forhad been blocked, and whether the
permanent way inspector - who is
reported to have trolleyed across the
bridge barely hours before the accident
- noticed the blockade of the sluice
gate and the consequent overflowing of
the banks and the erosion of the
967
 June 18, 1977 ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL WEEKLY
approach to the bridge.
These and many other details are yet
to be properly investigated, arnd the
task should not be left merely to the
mandatory inquiry by the commissioner
for railway safety. It is hardly surpris-
ing thai this departmental enquiry
CAPITAL VIEW
Moving to the Next Contest
Romesh Thapar
WITH the assembly elections behind
us (the result will appear after this
column is written!), we will move to
the next contest - the presidential.
Indeed, vote calculations and specula-
tions about possible candidates are
already being published. If the Janata
party cleans up more than 65 per cent
of the seats in the elections just con-
cluded, it will pick the President. In
any other eventuality, there will be a
question-mark over Rashtrapathi Bhavan.
The Janata party really hasn't made
up its mind about the role the Presi-
dent is expected to play in our federal
polity. So much of its thinking is, in
fact, similar to that of the Congress.
The President is seen as a necessary
figurehead, but disciplined entirely by
the decisions of Parliament. The public,
lacking this kind of confidence in an
all-knowing Parliament, and aware of
-the antics of ruling politicians during
the Emergency, would like to be en-
lightened. No such move is in the
offing.
W'ould it not be better to select a
distinguished non-party citizen rather
than an aged politician, usually with a
reputation ruined by a life built on
perks and privileges? Could such a
person in moments of grave federal
crisis enjoy the right to compel Parlia-
ment to subject a dangerously contro-
versial enactment to a referendum of
the people? Is a presi-dential refusal to
sign on the dotted line, followed by
immediate resignation, a corrective to
irresponsible parliamentary action? We
must ask ourselves these and other ques-
tiQns in the coming weeks if we value
federal democracy.
Actually, the Janata party's candidate
for President should be selected after
arriving at certain conclusions about
perspectives concerning the future role
of the President. This, of course, is
not happening. All manner of names
are being bandied around, including
968
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committee should have rushed in to ex-
plain away the whole accident as 'an
act of god'; but for the railway minister
to endorse this comfortable finding,
especiallv when the government itself
has ordered a judicial enquiry into the
accident, is, to say the least, premature.
Vijayalakshmi Pandit and Ashoka
Mehta. Some are busy, for their own
reasons, reviving Jagjivan Ram as a
candidate. Those who claim to be more
serious argue that a South Indian will
have to be chosen for 'political balance'.
And among them are the neat minds
who push the name of Sanjiva Reddy
-to achieve a full circle, so to speak!
STUPOR ABOUT FUTURE
How casually we tend to take these
matters. We are obsessed with the
past, and demand more and more mate-
rial about what took place during the
traumatic days of the Emergency, but
we don't seem to draw any appropriate
lessons. At times, it appears that we
have reduced politics to a kind of silly
titillation. For 30 years, we've been
playing this game. It would be sen-
sible to pause and see whether we can
carry on like this for long./The news-
paper editors really need to shake
themselves out of their stupor.
However, the pressure of events is
lessening. Parliament has convened and.
for the first time, the new government
- probably to be properly expanded
soon - will be able to project some
idea of its thinking on problems and
solutions. Appropriately, a week of
budgeting sets the tone. We will be
given a great demonstration of politi-
cal polemics with words like 'progres-
sive' and 'reactionary', 'fascist' and
'kulak', 'radical' and 'conservative',
'secular' and 'communal', and much
more being thrown around. We will
have to move through this politicians'
maze to discover where the Janata
party policy is negative and where it
is positive. Difficult, if the Railway
budget is a sample. It is so pedestrian.
In this context, we should remember
that a great change has come over the
thinking of the Indian people. We are
unable, for the moment, to comprehend
this change. But the report from the
constituencies speaks of people impa-
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tient with their lot and resistant to
the usual 'persuations' of the politicians
- verbal or otherwise. This mood can
only sharpen if the politicians continue
to tinker with problems.
RE-EDUCATING THE BUREAUCRACY
One of the major lessons for those
who want to learn is that it is not
enough for the Janata party to talk of
freedom and democracy; it must follow
through, and transform, the omnipre-
sent state apparatus into an instrument
that serves the people, doesn't push
them around. The bureaucracy has
lived too long in the belief that its job
is merely to command. It will have to
be re-educated, brainwashed, and dis-
ciplined, to serve. The people must
lose their fear of the sarkar, or else
violence becomes a scenario for the
impatient. How many in the Janata par-
ty are prepared to act on this central
issue of a creative and healthy society.
These matters are however, beginn-
ing to be discussed with a certain pas-
sion because reports circulate about
faction fights between policemen and
administrators over guilty involvements
during the Emergency, and of parallel
efforts to keep 'outsiders' from entering
key areas of decision-making and im-
plementation, despite the general ad-
mission that 'government service' is no
longer attracting the most talented.
And anger is again rising among the
technocrats who have had their fill of
IAS guidance!
Well, at least there is time now for
the Janata party to think over these
matters. There is a good mix of young
and old in the hierarchy, and a tre-
mendous desire to perform differently
from the Congress party. If attention
can be diverted from the continuing
manipulations of the leaders of the
political formations which federated
and merged into the Janata party, and
turned to the tough economic problems
upon whose solution future relevance
is dependent, it may assist the com-
plex process of creating a new ethos
and building real unity among its
constituents. Let's hope the results of
the elections just concluded assist this
process, cutting the over-size politician
down to size, getting the focus back
on issues of more permanent import,
and building the Council of Ministers
to the size intended.
It's good to feel that after exactly
two years, starting with the Allahabad
judgment, we are getting into position
for another assault on the challenges
which face us, and with our free will
restored.
June 13