In their distinctively different ways, Bhim Bahadur Tamang, (1933-2012) and Inder Kumar Gujral (1919–2012) were outsiders who made their way into the corridors of power in Nepal and India respectively through grit, determination and unwavering commitment to ideals of democracy. Relative openness of Indian polity saw Gujral Sahib rise through the ranks to become Prime Minister of the largest democracy in the world. Bhim Bahadur Dai was the best candidate that Nepali Congress could have offered for Prime Minister but never did.
Bhim Bahadur Dai belonged to the generation of NC politicos that fought ideological battles with Rana and Shah rulers and their henchmen for almost half-a-century and then lost it all to the band of neocons of their own party. In one of the post-1990 cabinets, he served as the law minister assigned with the task of revising archaic statutes of the country. His austere lifestyle, modest bearing and sincere manners never failed to shame brash and boastful politicos of his own party. They extracted their revenge by sidelining the upright leader from mainstream politics.
PHOTO: GUJREL (AP) AND TAMANG (REPUBLICA/FILES)
Towards the end, a disillusioned Bhim Bahadur Dai had become vocally critical of goals, policies and strategies of the party to which he had given his entire life. He used to state publicly that the fears of democratic idol and his leader BP Koirala had come true: the once-revolutionary party had fallen into the greedy grasp of well-dressed and well-fed (Sukilamukila) elite and the arriviste class of opportunists (Bhuifutta barga) that had little respect for either democratic socialism or inclusive nationality.
Under different circumstances, Gujral Sahib survived massive destruction, mass dislocation and unsettling trauma wrought by the partition of India after independence. It is often said in New Delhi—only half in jest—that a suave Punjabi is a contradiction in terms. The sarcasm rings true when one observes boisterous professionals displaying their jest for life, brash businesspersons flaunting their possessions in public or even earthy cabbies hooting their way through the mean streets of the Indian capital.
Gujral Sahib preferred to confer with fellow intellectuals at the India International Center or move in the circles of artistes, writers, journalists and diplomats. Perhaps it was his sophistication that impressed Indira Gandhi (1917-1984) who picked him from Delhi Municipal Committee and put into a Rajya Sabha. He served Mrs Gandhi—he used to admit frankly that whatever he had achieved in life was all due to his benefactor—with distinction until he discovered her authoritarian streak.
To his credit, Gujral Sahib had not forsaken his intellectual circle. It came to his rescue when he fell foul of Sanjay Gandhi Brigade during the dreaded Emergency (1975-1977). Indira Gandhi was impressed upon by her left-leaning friends to pack Gujral Sahib off as the Indian ambassador to the-then Soviet Union. Upon his return from Moscow, it took him some time to decide, but ultimately he left the party with which he had started his political career and joined the Janata Dal in the mid-1980s.
The move to Janata Dal proved to be a decision that provided a stage for the exposition of his talent as an ace diplomat. He was never a mass leader, and his attempt to play an elder statesman through the articulation of what has since been termed the Gujral Doctrine came a cropper, but ultimately he earned universal approbation as a strategic innovator who attempted to change the orientation of Establishment dominant Indian foreign policy.
SUBVERTED DOCTRINE
Based on his experiments with nonviolence, Mahatma Gandhi says that first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, and then you win. When Gujral Sahib became the foreign minister of a coalition government in the late-1980s and proposed the idea of benevolent non-reciprocity in India’s relationship with neighboring countries—none of which share a border except through the Indian landmass—the Establishment indeed tried to ignore his directives.
Even when he managed to be the Prime Minister of Janata Dal-led United Front government in 1997—to the consternation of consummate insiders playing power games from colonnaded bungalows of colonial streets in New Delhi—imperial bureaucrats at the helms of the North Block (domestic) and South Block (foreign) refused to take him seriously. They expected the fall of the unwieldy coalition through its own contradictions and considered Gujral Doctrine a temporary aberration.
The disdain of New Delhi establishment for Gujral Doctrine is encapsulated in a taunt, phrased as a question, by JN Dixit (1936-2005), a Nehru-Gandhi protégé and a South Block mandarin in imperial tradition, which he directed at his own former Prime Minister: “How come, sir, Nehru was foreign minister for 17 years and still there was no Nehru Doctrine? You were prime minister for 13 months and there was a Gujral Doctrine.” The admonition has since turned into admiration for the foresight of an ‘Ivory-tower Prime Minister’ as the Indian Establishment looks around and finds that it is neither feared nor considered friendly in the immediate neighborhood.
There is a limit to which the Chief Executive of a complex polity can direct policies at home and abroad. Even in the US, where its President is considered an emperor elected for a fixed term, executive power is difficult to exercise. “The people can never understand why the President does not use his supposedly great power to make them behave. Well all the President is, is a glorified public relations man who spends his time flattering, kissing and kicking people to get them to do what they were supposed to do anyway,” sighed an exasperated Harry Truman. All attempts of Gujral Sahib to implement his benevolent non-reciprocity doctrine were thwarted and it was declared failed without being sincerely tried out.
CONVOLUTED DEMOCRACY
Schooled in socialistic traditions of Ram Manohar Lohia (1910-1967) and Jayprakash Narayan (1902-1979), Bhim Bahadur Dai perhaps realized that the principal elements of politics in South Asia were untouchability, caste hierarchy, marginalization of fringe communities, and externalization of cultures considered to be different from the mainstream. Contra-Marx, all history of South Asia is not that of class struggle but of conflicts for social supremacy. Remnants of Ancien regime in India and Nepal have proved to be surprisingly resilient in maintaining its hegemony.
Governments often change through coups or elections, but the Permanent Establishment remains intact regardless. Just as mandarins of imperial tradition subverted Gujral Sahib’s diplomacy in New Delhi, the regime in Kathmandu first vilified, then sabotaged and finally gobbled up the party of Bhim Bahadur Dai. The once revolutionary image of NC has degenerated into being a conservative Grand Old Party (GOP) and none of its leaders are ashamed of the characterization.
Political power is a complex system made up of at least three parts. The regime exercises its influence through willfully constructed but broadly accepted ‘common sense’ over ‘national interests’. The government tries to exert its authority in the name of legitimacy. Masses—the ‘mango people’—have to believe, revolt or leave. For now, the Permanent Establishment seems invincible in Nepal. Will Gujral Doctrine be an accomplice of the Ancien regime or a friend for the forces of change? Antonio Gramsci offers the sage advice: “Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.” Either way, there is no escaping the enduring “security-interests” of the domineering power of South Asia.
cklal@hotmail.com
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