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Why divestment matters

Subir Roy

With every passing day, the National Democratic Alliance government shows more and more signs of being on its last legs. Minimum discipline is going out of the window and individual ministers are going back on what they, as members of the Cabinet, had earlier agreed to.

The latest issue, which has seen ministers pulling in different directions, is divestment. The Cabinet has long ago laid down the rationale and road map for divestment. The experience over the last year is that if you handle divestment sensibly and efficiently, so that no mess-up can raise the bogey of corruption, the process will go through.

Modern Foods, Balco, ITDC through various rounds and even VSNL initially - all went under the hammer successfully. In fact, hurdles were removed while you went along, as with the Supreme Court verdict on the petitions involving Balco divestment.

But suddenly, it is open season for rebellion. In quick succession Ram Naik, George Fernandes, S S Dhindsa and Pramod Mahajan have all made moves, which have jeopardised the future of divestment. With the credibility of the government thus seriously impaired, the leader of the coalition, BJP, has had no option but to come out firmly again in favour of its divestment policy.

This should end the controversy and put divestment back on the rails. But it is doubtful if it will. The freewheelers will at best lie low for a time and be up to their tricks again at the first opportunity. If senior leaders do not hesitate to destabilise a process which is working and to which they are publicly committed then, there must be a good political reason for it.

From all accounts, the ministers were emboldened when they found that the RSS was willing to side more openly with the Swadeshi Jagaran Manch in the latter's steadfast opposition to divestment. Till lately it was the RSS, which was keeping the Manch on a short leash. With the RSS changing tack, it was open season for the trouble makers.

As elections approach, the RSS will be confronted with a cardinal reality - the poor record of the government and its likely defeat.

In such a situation the urge will be to secure the base of the RSS and live to fight another day to set up a Hindu rashtra in India. It will commit political hara-kiri if it defends the indefensible - the record and agenda of the NDA government. Hence, the divestment baby will sooner or later be thrown out with the bath water.

At the end of the day, the person who stands to lose the most if the present government meets ignominious defeat in the next elections is Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Without him, the acceptable face of Hindutva, neither electoral victory nor government formation would have been possible. And today, owing to a combination of circumstances, including ill health, Vajpayee has virtually abdicated.

So there is really nobody of any consequence to bat for this government. Everyone is for himself and the devil will be pleased to take the hindmost. This explains the impunity with which senior BJP ministers like Ram Naik and Pramod Mahajan have chosen to display such rank indiscipline. Someone like Naik, with an RSS background, would normally never think of it.

If more symptomatic evidence was needed to establish that even senior members of the government think it a lost cause then it is evident in the behaviour of George Fernandes, as good a weather vane as any in Indian politics. Remember how nobly he defended the Charan Singh government in Parliament in the morning and defected in the afternoon!

It is a sad irony that as this government gets ready to give up the ghost it seems determined to blot its copybook in its one area of success - divestment. Manmohan Singh, credited the most for bringing about reforms, self-confessedly did not get going on public sector reform.

Given the nature of Indian politics and the undeclared consensus within the ruling class to perpetuate its hold on the system, it is a wonder that divestment has progressed so far.

Exploiting the public sector is a prize that motivates aspiring Indian politicians. Hence, it is but natural that it needed an outsider like Arun Shourie to get divestment going.

India became free in no small measure because barristers like Moti Lal Nehru and C R Das, after having made enough money, decided to get into politics partially as a kind of personal renunciation.

Today, not only is it difficult to get anywhere in politics without spending huge sums of money, you are out of sync with the rest of the tribe if you want to make politics less of a money making machine. Such is the solidarity among politicians of all hues that they banded together to sabotage the Supreme Court's move to even tell voters, which candidate is a crook or a criminal.

There is an unwritten consensus among full-time politicians of all hues not to let go of the public sector, unless of course you have become prime minister at a fairly old age so that you don't have to think about winning the next elections and need only worry about your place in the history books.

The unrelenting hostility to divestment is far more important than the several thousand crores of revenue at stake. It is symptomatic of a key malaise in Indian politics. Naik, Mahajan and Fernandes are marvellous representatives of the system.

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