The constitutional outsourcing

B.K. Karkra
The founding fathers of our national statute thought of our constitutional arrangement as a sort of the Eiffel Tower of Paris. At its broad base, is ensconced the multitude of the people of India. The middle level of this conical structure is occupied by our Parliament. The next level is meant for the cabinet of ministers. Atop this tower sits the Prime Minister who is supposed to reflect the will of our people. This is what a British Prime Minister meant when he, on being haughtily reminded by Queen Victoria that he was talking to the queen of England, respectfully retorted that rather her majesty was forgetting that she was talking to the people of England.
Far from representing the people of India, our present Prime Minister is, in reality, the nominee of Sonia. All the pretentions of a harmonious relationship between them notwithstanding, the fact of the matter is that she always had the capacity to show him the door at will. He thus has been serving to her pleasure all through the period of a decade. This outsourcing of the Prime Ministerial responsibility and pulling of strings from outside has ominously resulted in acute deficiency of governance. In fact, the puller of strings herself has no practical experience of governance at any level and is getting guided by the caucus around her.
Outsourcing of power is neither new to India nor to the rest of the world. Balban ruled in the name of Sultan Nasir-ud-din and the Shoguns in Japan in the name of their emperors. Peshwa`s ran the empire on behalf of the Maratha rulers. Even the British prime ministers govern the country with their monarch as the titular head. But in all such situations, power as well as the responsibility gets devolved in the acting executives and the constitutional heads keep themselves aloof. Unfortunately, in the present case, Sonia has outsourced mainly the responsibility to Manmohan Singh. She has never allowed him to exercise real  authority. In any case, the prerogative of the final word in all crucial matters of the state has all through been with her.
People once close to the ruling dispensation like Sanjay Baru and P.C.  Parakh, now clearly see the ship sinking and out of their newly found courage, are spilling the beans about the poor working ethos of the present government. As the skeletons are now rapidly falling from the cupboard, it is getting increasingly confirmed that Manmohan Singh was never a freeman to choose and check his ministers or push through the policies and ideas in his mind. He was a much freer man as the Finance Minister under Narsimha Rao than as Prime Minister under Sonia. He is undoubtedly a thorough gentleman and an economic genius. His personal honesty is beyond any shadow of doubt. His sin is that he fell for the lure of history, giving credence to the adage that desire for fame is the last infirmity of a noble mind.
As for Sonia, she, like an ideal Indian Bahu, had sunk her identity in her matrimonial ethos. Later she  always remained worried about the wellbeing of her husband when he was sucked into politics by the force of circumstances. Neither she nor her late husband ever wanted to do anything with politics. But once in, she seems to have liked the trappings of power and now wants to stick on to it. This also suits the plethora of sycophants around her. They see the Nehru legacy as the catchment area for votes. Their frantic efforts  to work out schemes that, they think, would  keep the Congress perpetually in power and thrusting of so much importance on Rahul who has hardly shown any glimpse of political acumen so far, are part of this project.
At long last, we, the otherwise simple-minded people of India, seem to have understood this game. What is being read as the Modi wave  in the country is, in fact, a desperate national surge for a stable political order, amenable to the checks and balances of our constitution.  It is an anti-wave against the subversion  of the constitution which has led to a ‘power without responsibility’ situation. All this, in turn, has resulted in strangulation of our economy and jettisoning of massive scams in the country.
The B.J.P. has been able to stitch an image of decisiveness by bringing Modi to the forefront. The resultant commotion in their higher echelons has been successfully contained. Now it exudes some hope of giving the country better governance. People are getting increasingly fed up with the regional forces and even the secular fanatics, who are otherwise prepared to do business with some rabidly communal minorities and the elements out to exploit our obsessive affiliation with the castes. Voter now knows better than before that the parties, lacking in national perspective, can do no good to them at the centre. With their restricted vision, these need to be kept confined to their own backyards.
A.A.P. stands exclusively on the plank of anti-corruption sentiment in the country and it is too raw to hold much hope for the people even in this limited area of national anxiety. The problem is that our corruption is intermixed with inefficiency. Lord Clive and Warren Hastings, the founding fathers of the British Empire in India were both thoroughly corrupt and were duly put to shame back home. Yet, they did not allow their personal corruption to come in the way of efficient administration of the empire. Thus, corruption is not our only problem. There are many other maladies that also need to be tackled alongside. A.A.P. does not seem to be adequately equipped for this.
The Congress, besides doing damage to our constitutional system, has also wasted this nation`s wealth in a rather copious manner for their vote. Knowing full well that our system is too leaky to deliver subsidies to the intended sections of the society, it has earmarked huge sums of money for the purpose, resulting in massive generation of black money at various political and bureaucratic levels. This   charity for votes in the garb of welfare has not escaped the notice of taxpayers.
There thus seems to be a sort of ‘TINA’ (There is no alternative) factor operating in the mind of the voters. Bulk of them have now come to feel that the N.D.A. deserves to be given a chance at the centre this time for the sake of stability and this has be with a clear majority, so that they have a fair chance of turning the things around.
(The author is Advocate, Supreme Court)

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