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Political Notes

	January 14, 2002

Dangers in MCOCA extension to Delhi

The announcement by the Delhi Police Commissioner that the Centre has decided to extend the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) to the national Capital has evoked mixed reaction. In view of the stiff opposition to the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance (POTO), which had to be repromulgated as it could not be introduced in the just concluded winter session of Parliament, the Centre has cleverly extended the Maharashtra Act which is being used by the Congress-led Government.

In Maharashtra, MCOCA was not a Congress-Nationalist Congress baby, but a Shiv Sena-BJP-engineered product, a grotesque ‘compromise’ in a climate marked by a spate of fake ‘encounter killings’ by the police in the mid-Nineties. It is another matter that the draconian act has manifestly failed to control organised crime in Maharashtra - witness the existence of mafia-style gangs linked to numerous businesses, financial rackets and the film industry. This is wholly unsurprising.

Failure was the main story of TADA too, with its overall conviction rate of 0.9 per cent. The extraordinarily high discharge rate (66 per cent) clearly showed the police failed to make out prima facie cases or even frame coherent charges against TADA suspects. The vast majority of the accused were probably unfairly charged. The victims included striking students, trade unionists, even milkmen.

The argument that the new law will improve Delhi’s policing won’t wash. Preventive detection laws everywhere tend to encourage lax, sloppy, irresponsible policing. They allow the police to detain people on mere suspicion without painstakingly collecting evidence. The judiciary is also rendered powerless to demand they perform responsibly - until the damage has been done.

The Congress’ decision to imitate, or acquiesce in, this BJP-style obsession with ‘terrorism’ and ‘security’ undermines the sound legal and political arguments that it has advanced against POTO, argues Praful Bidwai. If the BJP/NDA offended the Constitution and the spirit of democracy by re-promulgating POTO after it failed to receive ratification in Parliament, the Congress has not covered itself with democratic glory by its passive submission to MCOCA’s extension - effected without even the pretence of consultation or debate.

The Congress lapse is part of a larger failure of the opposition as a whole. The opposition has allowed its good political instincts to be blunted under the assault of near-hysterical jingoistic nationalism driven by a ‘national-security-at-any-cost’ obsession, which the BJP has exploited for its communal ends.

Right since September 11, particularly since December 13, a chasm has opened up in India between those who want serious, purposive, proportionate, balanced, well-focused and targeted action against terrorists of all varieties, and those who want to push other agendas such as teaching Pakistan ‘the lesson of its life’, crushing citizens’ human rights, trampling upon legitimate Kashmiri aspirations and communalising this society. The former want anti-terrorist action to be part of a political agenda, including policies to promote justice and social cohesion. The latter have a crude big-stick militarist approach.



Army convoy fire : Sabotage not ruled out

Sabotage could not be ruled out as the cause of a blaze that engulfed an Indian Army convoy carrying ammunition to the border with Pakistan, according to Rajasthan Chief Minister, Ashok Ghelot. Two civilians were killed and 12 injured when a truck in the convoy caught fire near Bikaner city in Rajasthan, igniting a chain reaction involving more than 50 trucks. Ghelot said this was the third time this kind of incident had happened in Rajasthan and he could not completely rule out sabotage. Army ammunition depots in Rajasthan caught fire twice in the last two years and the latest blaze comes during a tense standoff between India and Pakistan.



Row over exit of RSS ideologue

There were lot of red faces in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) over the public row over the reported sacking of senior functionary K.N.Govindachrya last week. A day after the RSS dropped a bombshell that senior leader K N Govindacharya had been removed as a pracharak (activist), the Sangh Parivar (RSS family of BJP, VHP,Bajrang Dal etc.) got into damage-limitation mode saying it was only at the former BJP ideologue’s behest that this was done.

While the BJP tersely said Govindacharya continued to be a member of its national executive, RSS spokesman M G Vaidya was quick to clarify that he was “very much in the RSS,” and was expected to soon resume work in Sangh “as ever before”.Vaidya, who had earlier created a flutter by disclosing that Govindacharya had been informed of an RSS decision that he was no longer a pracharak, clarified that he had only said he was not a pracharak at present. That did not mean that he had been expelled from the RSS. Vaidya revealed that Govindacharya had a few months ago expressed the desire to retire from pracharakhood. He had also requested leave to concentrate on study and meditation for six months. His proposal was discussed by the RSS leadership and finally approved.

Close to the Union Home Minister, Govindacharya was all but banished from the party after he reportedly made a controversial statement saying that Atal Bihari Vajpayee was just a mask and that the real BJP leader was Advani.

Govindacharya has also been very vocal in his protests against the WTO regime. He has in fact chosen to distance himself from the activities of the BJP and the RSS, instead spending time studying the impact of liberalisation. This had not gone down well either with the RSS or the BJP-led government. The subject of all the speculation, Govindacharya was in the interiors down south and could not be reached.

The undeclared and entirely premature retirement of someone who was till not very long ago seen as one of the most articulate faces of the BJP, on loan from the RSS and headed for greater things, can be decoded in more ways than one. It speaks of unsavoury things.

Govindacharya’s fall from grace speaks, first of all, of the BJP’s clumsiness in negotiating the divergent strands within it. It is well known that Govindacharya has harboured serious differences with the BJP-led government on its economic policy. The RSS pracharak has been known to argue against foreign direct investment and imports; he maintains an ideological affinity with the Swadeshi Jagran Manch which has been openly, aggressively critical of the BJP’s economic policies. It wasn’t just that either. Govindacharya was seen to be on the losing side of another divide as well. It was he who famously described Vajpayee as only the BJP’s ‘mukhauta’ or mask. Govindacharya’s inexorable sidelining in the party has been confirmation, therefore, of the limitations of Vajpayee’s BJP in making space on board for different, even critical, points of view. Now that the RSS has followed suit and all but ejected the BJP rebel from its fold, it could be a signal Vajpayee’s hold is firming on the RSS as well.



Two States get new Governors

The appointment of Rammohan Rao, a retired Director-General of Police of Andhra Pradesh, as Governor of Tamil Nadu and Shyamal Dutta as his counterpart in Nagaland is understandable in these circumstances. In Nagaland a political process is on and talks are in progress between the Centre’s interlocuter Padmanabhaiah and the dominant secessionist group, NSCN (I-M). Ideally, a senior political leader well-versed in delicate negotiations would be the right person to supervise the progress of the talks. The country lacks such persons and the talks are going on outside India, in Bangkok, the Netherlands and Tokyo. It is as well that the Centre has decided to concentrate on Kohima and keep a stern eye on the goings-on in Nagaland leaving the more delicate aspect of restoring peace to the Centre.

Tamil Nadu is becoming a major problem from the Centre’s point of view, like the way former Chief Minister Karunanidhi was arrested and journalists were harassed. Anyway, there was a vacancy and the Centre thought that the neighbouring Andhra Pradesh will understand the problem better. In the earlier years of the republic there were two rules regarding the appointment of Governors. One, they should be mature political leaders capable of offering sound advice to the state government; it was possible because the country was ruled by the Congress. Two, no retired bureaucrat, including policemen and judges, would find favour. This was related to delinking the professional obligations of these men to the requirements of the political party in power. Radical changes in politics, social relations and administrative compulsions have changed all this.