INTERVIEW OF THE FORTNIGHT
Q. How has the transition from a
leading opposition figure to Union
home minister been?
A. Smooth. I don’t mind the job I am
doing, except for the long hours spent
going through files mostly dealing with
petty matters.
Q. Is the home minister expected to
deal with petty matters? .
A. What do you expect the home
minister to do when MPs write to you
wanting a constable transferred from
one thana to another. When MPs write,
I am expected to respond.
Q. Are MPs more interested in
transfers than in development work?
A. It is not that they are not interested in development. But they are also
interested in these things.
Q. For 32 years you sat in the Opposition in Parliament. What is the
change being in government?
A. Lots of changes. I’m not a free
bird anymore. I can’t do what I like,
can’t go where I like. I feel caged.
Q. We are not talking about your
mobility. We're talking about your
style being cramped. For example,
your habit of speaking your mind.
A. My intellectual inputs are getting
blunted by this kind of routine and bureaucratic job.
Q. Have you adjusted to being in the
establishment?
A. I have been on the other side all
■ INDRAJIT GUPTA
“I’m not a free bird.
I feel caged.”
SAIBAL DAS
FOR OVER THREE DECADES, HE WAS
the most aggressive voice of the Opposition
in Parliament. But during the last eight
months in office, Indrajit Gupta, 75, the
stodgy Cambridge-educated trade unionist and nation's first Communist home
minister, has almost been silenced under
the awesome weight of the establishment.
Sitting in his huge Burma teak panelled office, under an imposing portrait of Sardar
Vallabhai Patel, the first home minister
(who incidentally is anathema to the
Communists), Gupta betrays his uneasiness with the system which he and his
party, the CPI, have been threatening to
dismantle for over half a century. Instead,
Gupta appears to have become a captive of
the system.
In the cabinet pecking order, Gupta’s is
the most powerful job after the prime minister’s. The home minister decides, among
other things, the appointment of Governors, imposition of President's Rule and
the deployment of Central paramilitary
forces in the states and on the sensitive issue of Centre-state relations. Besides, he
serves on important panels like the Cabinet
Committee on Political Affairs, Appointments Committee of Cabinet and is also the
minister in charge of internal security. But
Gupta’s presence in the Deve Gowda Government seems to be more symbolic. He
has been repeatedly ignored in the selection of Governors, appointment of senior
civil servants and chiefs of public sector
undertakings. Even on important legislations, like the Women’s Bill, the prime
minister did not take him into confidence.
And on matters relating to Jammu and
Kashmir and the North-east states, Deve
Gowda tends to lean more on the Home
Secretary K. Padmanabhaiah than the
home minister.
In the United Front, Gupta’s is often a
lone voice. His objections on issues like divestment in PSUs, curbs on the judiciary
and restrictions on foreign investment are
drowned without a trace in the face of ar-
“Compromise is also an ideology. Maybe it is the
best policy for this Government.”
000 INDIA TODAY ♦ MARCH 00, 1996
guments of colleagues like Mulayam
Singh Yadav, P. Chidamabaram and N.
Chandrababu Naidu. After lecturing to the
government from the opposition benches
for 32 years, Gupta has learnt, to his
discomfiture, that to be in government
necessarily entails making compromises,
as he hesitatingly admits. And the erstwhile revolutionary is now willing to live
and let live. Last week, Gupta spoke to
Executive Editor PRABHU CHAWLA and Special Correspondent JAVED M. ANSARI about
his role in the Government, on the Babri
Masjid, Centre-state relations, national
government and a host of issues that were
once close to his heart. Excerpts:
Q. The impression gaining ground
is that you are unhappy. Do you
feel sidelined since important decisions are being taken without your
knowledge?
A. I would rather not speak about all
this. It is not wise to be forthcoming on
every issue.
Q. Is it a fact that you were not consulted when new Governors were appointed in some states?
A. There is nothing in the rules to
suggest that Governors have to be the
“I don’t even know if it is called the Babri Masjid ...
I don’t think it can be built on the same spot.”
home minister’s choice.
Q. But rules state that Governors
should be appointed in consultation
with the home minister.
A. It also states that chief ministers
will have a say in the appointment of
Governors. Is that being adhered to?
Q. But you are a member of the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet?
A. The prime minister is there. If it is
a department, the minister concerned
is there and so is the home minister. You
think the home minister can make an
appointment without the concurrence
of the prime minister?
Q. But yours is a coalition government, the nature of which suggests that
there should be greater consultation.
A. Maybe the prime minister prefers
to consult a lot of other people too.
Q. But ideally, shouldn’t the home
minister also be consulted?
A. It can be done. But it is not as if it
must always be done.
my life, so I guess I am feeling a little uncomfortable.
Q. Are you a rebel within the
Government?
A. I don’t know about that, but I’m
not accustomed to all this. Maybe I will
get used to it.
Q.Won’t that be too late?
A. Too late for whom?
Q. You may get blunted to an extent
at which you may consider quitting.
A. I am not saying any such thing.
Q. For one so outspoken, why have
you suddenly quietened down?
A. I don’t feel like speaking now.
What am I to say?
Q. Have you been silenced or is this
a self-imposed silence?
A. These days it is better not to speak
too much. If I do that, then you chaps
will get after me. Of course, that is your
job. You have the freedom to comment.
I don’t, at least not now.
Q. Does being a minister entail bid-
ding goodbye to your convictions?
A. If you don’t want to change your
convictions, you have the option of
keeping quiet.
Q. But isn’t there a contradiction? If
you aren’t guided by your convictions,
why did you become a minister?
A. I’m here because the party decided. It’s not my personal decision. I’m
a partyman and am dutybound to follow its decisions.
Q. How far have you been able to
implement the party’s agenda in the
Government?
A. As far as the party is concerned,
there is one section that is functioning
as a part of the Government, there is another section outside. The two are not
always on the same wavelength.
Q. Are you saying that those in the
Government are not in sync with the
section outside it?
A. Certainly. These views are well
known. It’s all over the papers.
Q. What about you? In the party
you agree with the party and in
the Government you agree with the
Government?
A. I haven’t resigned from my party.
So I cannot openly disagree.
Q. But there are disagreements?
A. If there are, I take these up within
the party fora—not through the press.
Q. Left to you, would you have
joined the Government?
A. All this is of purely academic interest now.
Q. What about the Babri Masjid?
Will it be built on the same spot?
A. I don’t even know if it is called the
Babri Masjid. From a purely practical
point of view, I don’t think it can be built
on the same spot. We can’t impose a solution. The only solution is the one
where both sides agree.
Q. Jyoti Basu says Deve Gowda
doesn’t have the experience needed to
run a coalition government.
A. The UF is fundamentally different
from the coalition we have in West Bangal. There, all partners belong to the
Left; here there are 13 different parties,
with different ideologies and programmes. Besides, this was a post- election coalition and heading it is a
different kettle of fish altogether.
Q. Also Deve Gowda gives the
impression he is more of a prime minister of Karnataka.
A. He is trying very hard to rise
above that. He has little previous experience, but he is developing a vision. He
has travelled to places in the country
where his predecessors had not gone.
That in itself is an education.
Q. Don’t you think the Government
MARCH 00, 1996 ♦ INDIA TODAY
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INTERVIEW OF THE FORTNIGHT
is bloated?
A. Some reduction will not
affect output.
Q. People expect a lot from
a man of your experience.
Have you been able to live up
to those expectations?
A. There is not much
scope for creative or developmental work in the Home
Ministry.
Q. You could certainly
have initiated constitutional
changes, particularly pertaining to Article 356 and
Centre-state relations.
A. Can Article 356 go just
because the Home Ministry
wants it to, while the rest of
the Government thinks otherwise?
Q. As a parliamentarian,
you were a vociferous opponent of Article 356. Now that
you are in government, why
don’t you scrap it?
A. That is for the InterState Council to do. It comprises all chief ministers
cutting across party lines. It
was defunct for years, but we
have revived it. Everything
will be discussed threadbare.
Q. Or is it that you have
changed your opinion after
joining the Government?
A. Let me tell you, some of the chief
ministers, who were in favour of scrapping it, have now changed their views
on the subject.
Q.We want to know your view. Has
it been diluted?
A. I wouldn’t call it dilution. But
there are major changes taking place
in every sphere. Take our economic
policy. Isn’t it a dilution of earlier policies? Nobody can afford to stick to the
old stand these days.
Q. So finally, has the politics of
compromise triumphed over the politics of ideology?
A. Compromise is also an ideology.
Maybe it is the best policy for this Government.
Q. If ideology is no longer a
consideration, does it mean that
we will have a national goverment
one day in which all parties will
participate?
A. Maybe if the media roots for it
strongly enough, it could happen.
Q. Will you accept the BJP as a part
of that government?
A. That depends on what your definition of national government is all
about.
left parties had joined it
we would have had a greater
say. We had debated this
at the time of joining the goverment. But all that is
history now.
Q. Have you managed to
influence government policy
decisions in any way?
A. Of course, we haven’t.
But our main objective was to
contain the communal forces
and safeguard the secular
polity of the country. That
this Goverment has done successfully.
Q. But the Congress
blames the UF for the resurgence of communal forces in
Punjab.
A. I don’t think that
the people attach too much
importance to what they
Gupta with
say. It is time they did some
the PM
introspection. It was unbridled corruption that caused
their doom.
Q.Your predecessor S. B.
Chavan has accused P.V.
Narasimha Rao of being responsible for the demolition
of the Babri Masjid.
A. The primary responsibility was Rao’s. He shamelessly violated all the
assurances that were given by
Q. They have 25 per cent of the his government. If what Chavan says
vote. And as Punjab showed, people is true, then it’s worse.
Q.You always said that a majority
are still voting for them. So can you
keep them out simply because you has to be proved on the floor of the
House, yet in Uttar Pradesh you did
don’t agree with them?
A. Any national government will not allow the BJP to come to power,
have to be based on compromise. It even though they said they would
also means that the communal parties prove their majority in the House.
will also have to make compromises.
A. The Governor is entitled to
Q. The Congress now says its sup- know where the rest of the support is
port to the UF Government is condi- likely to come from. This is a question
tional, issue-based. Doesn’t this spell that needs a serious discussions. All
the political parties must put their
trouble for your government?
A. They have enough trouble heads together and come up with a sowithin their own party, they have to lution so that what happened in Uttar
satisfy different streams within their Pradesh does not recur.
Q. What’s the solution?
own party. They have no option but to
A. In life everything cannot be
support the Government.
Q. Do you think it is just a black- solved.
Q. Is that something you learnt afmail tactic? After all, investigations
ter you joined the establishment?
are on against top Congress leaders?
A. Why do you oppose change.
A. Not yet, maybe it could develop
later on. The party is in crisis because Everything changes. We can’t hang
they are out of power and have suf- on to dogmas. If only some of the communist governments, especially the
fered crippling defeats since.
Q. Do you think joining the Gov- Soviet Union, had been more
amenable to change, they wouldn’t
ernment was a historical blunder?
A. All things considered, I don’t have fallen by the wayside. It may not
think we made a blunder in joining be great Marxism, but it’s certainly far
this government. Of course, if all the more practical.
SHARAD SAXENA
“Deve Gowda has little
experience but is developing
a vision—he is visiting places
his predecessors have not and
that in itself is an education.’’
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