By G S BHARGAVA New Delhi (Syndicate Features): There is a story of a potter who married a blind woman because in those days of buying brides she came cheap. Poor woman as she moved about the house with a stick in hand she would inadvertently break the pots her husband kept out to dry. A tragic case of penny wisdom and pound foolishness!
The Manmohan Singh Government is similarly handicapped in its Home Minister. An otherwise good man, Shivraj Patil, was a tolerably efficient Lok Sabha Speaker. He had combined suavity with firmness while presiding over the country’s apex legislature. But handling national security is not his cup of tea. The allusion to cheapness does not mean that he is devoid of the trappings that go with the office, like a special IAF plane for domestic travel, but he has not the ghost of an idea about national security and saving the lives of a billion Indians.
As ill luck would have it, he lost the 2004 Lok Sabha election from his home constituency of earthquake-ravaged Latur in Maharashtra. Public-spirited publishers of Malayala Manorama -- the celebrated scions of the immortal K.C.Mammen Mappillai of Kottayam in Kerala—raised funds to rebuild the town and rehabilitate the residents in quakeproof tenements.
Apparently, instead of nursing his constituency in its hour of distress, he was playing court to the dynasty. The upshot was he lost the election but being a favourite of the “ Gandhi family” – as the newspapers put it – was nominated to the Rajya Sabha and straightaway made Union Home Minister. Thus, Latur’s loss has become the nation’s albatross.
It has been the Government’s practice for more than two and a half years to pack the Cabinet with Rajya Sabha members. Thus, former external affairs minister, Natwar Singh and the law and justice minister, H.R. Bhardwaj, among others, are from the Upper House--- as if to keep the Prime Minister Company.
The only exceptions are the Finance Minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, and Pranab Mukerjee, shifted from defence to external affairs after Natwar Singh fell from the ‘madame’s grace. The corollary is rewarding defeated Congress chief ministers with governorships. Naraain Dutt Tewari is the latest in this respect. Defeated in Uttarakhand he moved to Hyderabad Raj Bhavan, said to be the coziest among gubernatorial habitats. The Nagaland ex-chief minister, S.C.Jamir, is the Goa Governor and so on.
Was the scrapping of the draconian POTA (Prevention of Terrorism and Disruptive Activities) Act responsible for the laxity of internal security? There is no empirical evidence of it. Moreover, Shivraj Patil’s thinking and approach to internal security are so warped that the tools do not matter. For instance, the thrust of his speech at a conference of States’ home ministers recently was provision of religion-based reservations to the minorities in the teeth of the judiciary’s resistance.
Besides, when the Communist pillars of the Government had made an issue of scrapping POTA - out of concern for human rights (sic) --the Government had no alternative. That is notwithstanding the Supreme Court upholding its validity. The rub, however, is that the provision for the State governments to implement the law – which Court had counted as a safeguard - with the Centre barred from forcing it down their throats has proved cold comfort.
The Jayalalitha Government in Tamil Nadu had used it most vindictively against Vaiko Narayanswamy of PMK. Vaiko was a minister in the predecessor National Democratic Alliance (NDA) Government. He was detained without charge sheet or trial for over two years in very trying conditions. Vaiko, incidentally, is a gem of a man and a straightforward politician.
Reverting to Shivraj Patil’s handling of internal security, the record of eighteen months - from March 2006 to Dec.2007 - speaks for itself: March 2006,twin bombing at the railway station and the Kasi Viswanath temple, Varanasi, 20 persons killed; July 2006, seven serial bombings of a Mumbai suburban train killing more than 200 and injuring over 700 others, (the Prime Minister ducked participating in the city observance of the anniversary of the outrage July last lest it should ruffle Muslim sentiment); Sept.2006, at least thirty persons were killed and 100 others injured in twin blasts at a mosque/ grave yard at Malegaon in Maharashtra; Feb.2007,bombs detonate on the Sanjokta (friendship)Express from Amritsar to Lahore; May 2007, eleven persons killed in a bomb attack at the historic Jama Masjid in Hyderabad and 25 Aug.2007 bombs rip through crowded public areas in Hyderabad killing at least 42 persons. The toll adds up to 303. And not a single case against the accused!
At another level, the National Security Adviser, M.K. Narayanan has been warning that terrorists - not militants --, from Kashmir and Pakistan and lately Bangladesh as well are operating in India. But Shivraj Patil is not worried if security personnel die in droves facing the multiple threats. (Syndicate Features)
