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Dial 356 for murder

One of the grimmest ironies facing India today is that the very parties opposed to Article 356 now insist on its misuse.

The general picture is getting clearer with every day. No party on its own can any longer dominate the Indian political scene. There will have to be henceforth a coalition arrangement at the Centre. Perhaps one principal party will occupy the middle position in the coalition, but since its strength in the Lok Sabha will fall way short of a majority, it will have to lean on the support of a number of minor parties.

The participants in the coalition will themselves have little faith in the long term viability of the arrangements to which they have appended the imprimatur of approval. Precisely for that reason, they will be in a hurry; they must squeeze the lemon of the coalition dry in the quickest possible time. In their anxiety to attain their short run objectives, they will be no respecter of either logic or decency. They will keep piling one outrageous demand upon another on the government which sustains on their support.

The major party in the coalition will have no option but to humour the minor parties along. It will concede, in generous or abridged form, the palpably unreasonable demand on the part of ally A, and turn next to accommodate the charter of demands of ally B or C or D or E. Politics, it will be argued, has no place for scruples. In case you fail to blackmail the majority party in the coalition into yielding to the altogether outrageous demand pitched by you, another nominal ally will slap down an equally breathtakingly exasperating demand; your self-restraint will therefore be of no avail.

In the circumstances, each coalition party will opt for the applied philosophy of free for all. Strangely, or not so strangely, this behaviour pattern of the coalition partners blends well with the free market principle of economic liberalisation: under the latter regime, individuals exist to maximise the short term rate of return, political parties too – it is being urged – should behave in the same manner. The syllogism runs roughly as follows.

The coalition in any case will disintegrate. If not today, it will come to a sorry end by tomorrow morning or early afternoon. If partner A does not do it in, it will be partner B, C, D or E. The calculations of the junior partners will run on parallel lines; no particular damage to their interests, they will conclude, will eventuate from the collapse of the coalition. Any new coalition will have to lean once more on the support extended by them, so the season for striking a juicy bargain, rest assured, will not cease.

In this ambience, cynicism cannot but assume centrestage. Take the current hullabaloo over Article 356. With the exception of the Indian National Congress, almost every other party in the country had campaigned during the past two decades for the abrogation of the article and, if that was not considered feasible, exercise of the greatest possible restraint in applying it in specific situations.

In adopting this position, the parties drew support from the observations of the Sarkaria Commission. The commission consisted of cautious, conservative individuals. Yet they too could not desist from articulating the following quite unambiguous formulation concerning the use or non-use of the article: ‘Article 356 should be used very sparingly, in extreme cases, as a measure of last resort, when all available alternatives fail to prevent or rectify a breakdown of constitutional machinery in the State. All attempts should be made to resolve this crisis at the state level before taking recourse to the provisions of Article 356. The availability and choice of these alternatives will depend on the nature of the constitutional crisis, its causes and the exigencies of the situation. These alternatives may be dispensed with only in cases of extreme urgency where failure on the part of the Union to take immediate action under Article 356 will lead to disastrous consequences.’

Times change, and the definition of ‘disastrous consequences,’ as per today’s interpretation, is qualitatively distant from what it was 50 years ago when the Constitution was drafted. The consequences that are to be feared, everybody is now aware is not a total collapse of law and order in a state or the outbreak of civil turmoil or large scale infiltration by the country’s enemies into the state from outside who are bent upon doing mischief to the cause of the nation’s integrity.

It may not even be the kind of peril resulting from a bunch of fools and knaves attempting to do a repeat of the occurrences on December 6, 1992, and the days immediately following. The towering issue of conserving and extending states rights, which was at the core of the great debate in the late seventies and early eighties over Article 356, has fallen by the wayside.

Unabashed blackmailing has instead taken over. Should the major partner in the coalition currently ruling at the Centre be unable to comply with the demand of a coalition ally to get rid of a state administration presided over by entities the coalition ally does not like, the ‘disastrous consequence’ will be the withdrawal of support by the partner and the fall of the government at the Centre.

Such are the ironies of history. The Article which, only a while ago, epitomised the Union government’s overwhelming clout in dealing with a recalcitrant state, is at present being furiously deployed for a reverse purpose. It is the Centre which is now under threat: should it not behave and agree to use Article 356 to remove a chief minister the shape of whose face a coalition partner disapproves, the latter will withdraw support and the government in New Delhi will collapse.

Even the most enthusiastic ones clamouring for the retention of Article 356 in immaculate form will conceivably be compelled in this situation to reconsider their position. Because the Article is there, enshrined in the Constitution, blackmailers are having a field day. Had the Article been got rid of, as was demanded during the raging campaign a couple of decades ago to reconstruct Centre-state relations, the profession of the blackmailers would have gone and those reigning in New Delhi could have breathed easier.

To unfreeze frozen positions would now appear to be an impossible mission. Political formations which have discovered the sweet uses of Article 356 to dislodge from office opponents in a state administration will not dream of supporting moves for its abrogation. The Sarkaria Commission is a dead letter, and those who suggest intermediation by the Inter-State council are living in a fool’s paradise.

Parties ensconced in the middle range of the Indian polity were never strong in either convictions or self-confidence. They however know too well which side their bread is buttered. They also could not care less if their demeanour and actions hastened the destruction of the five decades and a year old Indian republic. Jam today is the exclusive target, and the threat of withdrawal of support to the governments in case it refuses the jam – application of Article 356 to dislodge this abominable Jyoti Basu or that ogre M Karunanidhi – supersedes all other considerations.

It is an extraordinary turn of events. Even the Left, known for its adherence to ideals and ideology, has been caught in two minds. One Left-led regime in an important state has persisted with its demand for the immediate removal of the article from the Constitution.

Another Left-led administration, greatly concerned over what a Bharatiya Janata Party government could once more be up to in a state like Uttar Pradesh, has argued before the Inter-State Council for the partial retention of the article. It did not, alas, have the sagacity to perceive that the caveat it has entered will only serve the cause of its sworn enemies.

Should one be cynical enough to conclude that it will soon be a curtain call for the Indian Republic, it would be somewhat unfair to arrange for his or her beheading.

Ashok Mitra