Commentary/T V R Shenoy
No government in Delhi has survived without strong
support from south India
On May 15, 1996, every newspaper seemed to have the same photograph
splashed across its front-page. It showed P Chidambaram, M Karunanidhi,
N Chandrababu Naidu, K Moopanar, and H D Deve Gowda mugging for the cameras,
arms interlinked and held high. It was intended, and understood,
as an expression of south Indian solidarity.
Call me morbidly sensitive, but I couldn't help noticing one significant
absence. There was nobody representing my home state of Kerala,
that bastion of the Communist Party of India-Marxist.
That wasn't terribly surprising, of course. In the general election,
the CPI-M had backed rebels who had broken away from the Dravida
Munnetra Kazhagam. (Though, in typical Communist fashion, all bets were covered by
allowing the CPI to ally itself to Karunanidhi!)
Kerala's absence from the group was a cloud on the horizon.
But in the high noon of coalition politics, nobody cared. Barring
half-a-dozen Bharatiya Janata Party MPs, every Lok Sabha member from south India
was backing the United Front. They were all either active participants
in the government (DMK, TDP, TMC, CPI), inside the UF
but outside the ministry (the Left minus the CPI), or supporting
from outside (the Congress).
From the very beginning this was a ramshackle arrangement. Forget
the servile dependence on the Congress. There was precious little
that the constituents of the UF themselves had in common.
I have already mentioned the bad blood between the DMK and the
CPI-M. This was far from unique. For all the forced camaraderie
of the aforementioned photograph, there wasn't one man standing
there who didn't have reason to be bitter with someone else in
it.
Both Chandrababu Naidu and Karunanidhi felt let down by the Janata
Dal that Deve Gowda represented. Hadn't that party flirted with
Lakshmi Parvati in Andhra Pradesh and Jayalalitha in Tamil Nadu?
Even if personal and party equations could be forgotten, Andhra
Pradesh and Tamil Nadu had longstanding water disputes with Karnataka.
And surely it couldn't have helped matters that Deve Gowda had
made a campaign promise in the assembly polls 'never to release
a drop of water' to outsiders.
Or take the relations between the DMK and the TMC. Moopanar
had been telling his cadres that their ultimate aim should be
to recreate the glories of Kamaraj's time and capture Fort St
George. Given the seat of government in Tamil Nadu was held
by the DMK, this scarcely held the promise of cordial relations.
Small wonder, then, that the myth of south Indian solidarity had
begun to unravel long before Sitaram Kesri pulled the carpet from
under Deve Gowda. One by one, the constituents began to go their
own way, reducing the UF into 'a joke or a circus' (to quote Karunanidhi).
Every time you looked, one or the other of the south Indian parties
was threatening to pull out of the UF. Chandrababu Naidu
did so twice -- first over the Almatti dam, then over cyclone
relief. Moopanar and the TMC whined that they weren't trusted
by their partners. And now Karunanidhi is creating a rumpus over
Laloo Prasad Yadav, insisting that the Rashtriya Janata Dal
continue in the UF.
In fact, I find the rift in the south Indian components the most
fascinating fallout of the RJD episode. The MPs from Kerala are
hard-liners. The heavyweights from Karnataka are speaking in different
voices, depending on whether they are pro or anti-Deve Gowda (the
RJD's Enemy Number One). Moopanar and the TMC are sidling ever
closer to the Congress, which means backing Yadav. And Chandrababu
Naidu is trying his best to be neutral.
The last bit of information is, perhaps, the most surprising. The
TDP and the Left Front are old allies. But today the UF convener
is carefully distancing himself from the Communists.
On one occasion he reportedly went so far as to say, "You're
pushing us into the BJP's arms!"
No government in Delhi has survived unless it possessed strong
support from south India. Those that tried to rule without such
support proved remarkably unstable. (Think of Morarji Desai, Charan
Singh, V P Singh, and Chandra Shekhar.) Narasimha Rao, on the other
hand, enjoyed a full term in office despite the Congress being
wiped out across north India.
South Indian solidarity was the only true shield of the United
Front. It was, for instance, impossible for Kesri to move into
Race Course road when confronted by a solid phalanx of south Indian
parties. Now that they themselves are pulling in different directions
how long can the Gujral ministry last?
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