Sitaram Yechury
IN an act totally violating the Indian constitution, the Union home ministry had sent a central team of officers to investigate the law and order situation in West Bengal. Earlier, the ministry had sent such teams to Tamil Nadu and Bihar. This constitutes a gross interference in the rights of the states as provided by the Indian constitution where law and order is the responsibility of the state governments and falls within the states list in the Indian constitution.
AUTHORITARIAN STREAK
The BJP has sunk to the lowest depths of opportunism in order to maintain itself in power at the centre. Patently succumb¬ing to the demands of some of its allies, the BJP is willing to subvert the Indian constitution and display authoritarian tendencies hitherto not seen in the Indian polity. The wobbly coalition that the BJP has put together is decisively depend¬ent upon the support of small groups like the AIADMK, Samata and the Trinamul Congress. It is now clear, as per Ms Jayala-litha’s revelations, that the BJP had promised the AIADMK the dismissal of the Karunanidhi government in Tamil Nadu in order to strike an alliance during the elections. That the BJP leaders could even promise such atrocious dismissal of a duly elected state government, speaks volumes about their democratic credentials.
The West Bengal government, firmly upholding the Indian constitution, rightly refused to entertain the central team; the reasons used by Mr Advani for sending the team itself were so specious that they cannot be upheld by any scrutiny of law. Advani has sought to justify the sending of central teams under the cover of article 355 of the constitution. Let us see what this article states:
“Duty of the Union to protect states against external aggres¬sion and internal disturbances…. It shall be the duty of the Union to protect every state against external aggression and internal disturbance and to ensure that the government of every state is carried on in accordance with the provision of this constitution.”
The article clearly stipulates that it is the duty of the central government to ensure that the state governments con¬duct themselves in accordance with the provisions of the constitution. Whatever be the nature of the complaint that the Trinamul Congress (TC) has fabricated against the Left Front government and the CPI(M), by no stretch of imagination can these be considered to imply that the state government is not carrying on its activities in accordance with the consti¬tution. Nor is there any threat of external aggression that demands the Union government’s attention. Under these circum¬stances, the fig leaf of a justification Advani is seeking to advance cannot cover up the simple fact that, scared as they are of the withdrawal of support of the seven-member Trinamul Congress, the BJP has chosen to violate the constitution with impunity.
POLITICAL OPPORTUNISM
It is not accidental that the three states chosen for the sending central teams are ruled by opposition parties, and the states where BJP’s allies have a political stake. If the Union home minister were indeed concerned about the law and order situation or a state government not functioning ac-cording to the Indian constitution, then the first state to which attention should have been paid is in Uttar Pradesh.
The deliberate speeding up of activities, relating to temple construction at Ayodhya, in various workshops in Uttar Pra¬desh and Rajasthan are developments that seek to eventually subvert the Indian constitution. Notwithstanding the public hue and cry and the universal condemnation of such activi¬ties, the BJP appears hell bent upon carrying out its commu¬nal agenda. In the process, one of the basic tenets of the Indian constitution as defined by the Supreme Court — secu¬larism — is being jettisoned. In fact, this is an important case that merits the Union government’s intervention to stop this illegal construction and invoke the provision of article 355 to do so.
IN BJP-RULED STATES
Yet Mr Advani chooses to ignore Uttar Pradesh from his osten¬sible concern precisely because he himself is a part of that communal agenda. Even if the law and order situation were to be considered, everyday 21 people are being murdered and everyday there are 20 riots in Uttar Pradesh. More than a dozen are looted everyday and at least two or three houses are attacked by dacoits. During the first five months of 1997 Uttar Pradesh saw 39 dacoities while 398 dacoities took place during the first five months of 1998 under the stewardship of BJP’s Kalyan Singh. The comparative figures for the people looted are 162 in 1997 and 1870 in 1998. Dacoities have grown by 20.97 per cent, looting by 19.72 per cent, murders by 8.65 per cent, riots by 43.97 per cent and burglaries by 25.08 per cent (Hindustan, Hindi daily, June 18).
Such is the record of the states ruled by the BJP. Maharash¬tra is a daily witness to growing inter-gang wars; a politi¬cal leader of the stature of Datta Samant being murdered in broad daylight. The entire report of the Sri Krishna Commis¬sion is full of episodes of rioting, rape, dacoity and bur¬glary, in many of which leaders of the BJP-Shiv Sena are involved. This is the reason the state government refuses to place the report before the assembly.
As far as Delhi, another BJP ruled state, is concerned, it tops the list in crimes against women. Out of every 100 rapes committed in the country, 38 take place in Delhi. Delhi also records the highest percentage increase in burglaries across the country. Compared to 1,757 burglaries in 1995, 2,124 were committed in 1996 — an increase of 21 per cent. Of the total abductions and kidnappings in the country, Delhi alone ac¬counts for more than one-third; for every 100 crimes that are reported in the country, Delhi alone accounts for 21.
SURVIVAL STRATEGY
It is thus clear that Mr Advani’s decision to send central teams to the opposition ruled states has in fact nothing to do with the law and order situation. In fact even in the case of Bengal, reports that have appeared in these columns from time to time show the gruesome manner in which the BJP and Trinamul Congress have been resorting to heinous attacks against the CPI(M) and the Left Front supporters during the recent panchayat elections. The money at their disposal and the sophisticated firearms they had procured, speak volumes about the home ministry’s intelligence which in fact appears to be shielding those supporters of the BJP who appease them.
This is a clear case of subverting the constitution merely for the purpose of survival in office and for exercising a political vendetta. Mr Advani needs to be reminded that the government of West Bengal has greater legitimacy to be in office than the BJP. While the former garnered nearly 50 per cent of the popular vote and that too successively in five general elections over the past two decades, the BJP is in office at the centre merely with one-fourth of the people’s support. A minority government like this, and that too one which is dependent for survival on such parties as have scant respect for the Indian constitution, cannot be allowed to subvert democracy and the rule of law.
UNCOMFORTABLE ALLIES
It is indeed strange that certain allies of the BJP today, like the Akali Dal and the Telugu Desam, have chosen to remain quiet over such a gross violation of the states’ rights. Mr Chandrababu Naidu seems to have forgotten how his father-in-law, the late Shri N T Rama Rao, was illegally dismissed by Mrs Gandhi, who had had installed a defectors’ government in his place; it was a massive people’s movement that forced the centre to restore the Telugu Desam govern¬ment. Yet today, when the constitution is being violated in a more blatant manner, Mr Chandrababu Naidu chooses to remain silent.
The Akali Dal, for long, had been a champion of the states’ rights and had argued for greater autonomy and powers. Mr Barnala himself personified the struggle against Mrs Gandhi’s authoritarianism at one time. He in fact went to the extent of defying the centre’s advice in dismissing the Karunanidhi government earlier. And yet, today, he too chooses to remain silent. It is indeed a tragedy of the present day Indian politics that such political parties are willing to jettison their principles for the sake of remaining in office and sharing its spoils.
These developments, however, portend ill for Indian democra¬cy. The people of India have once again suffered authoritari¬anism during the period of emergency. They arose as one man in many parts of the country to defeat the forces that im¬posed the emergency and dismantled the emergency structures.
The people of India will have to remind the BJP of this experience once again. No government can be allowed to sub¬vert the Indian constitution with such impunity — and least of all a minority government which has no qualms, and in fact no mandate to rule the country.