Sycophancy-Opportunism

How the maladies like ‘Opportunism’, ‘Sycophancy’, ‘Personality-cult’, and ‘Appeasement-approach’ got deeply entrenched in our system after independence

During the colonial rule it was an administrative compulsion to encourage the gullibles to chaperone around the ‘Raj’ functionaries thereby enabling the latter to control the large local population spread over vast area of the Indian sub-continent. Apart from the ‘employees’ segment (bound by service conduct rules), people from business/industry were also roped in as loyalists and the ‘most faithful’ ones amongst them (the Opportunists) were conferred title such as ‘OBE’ and ‘Rai Bahadur’ to entice their unwavering faithfulness. The Queen/King of Britain was projected as the ‘Idol-like’ person to give boost to the ‘Personality-cult’ culture. The inhabitants of remote and hilly areas were granted very liberal rights & concessions over the local resources to keep them happy enabling the ‘Raj’ to remotely control the administration. Thus, in a way, ‘Opportunism’, ‘Sycophancy’, Personality-cult’ and ‘Appeasement-approach’ formed an institutionalized mechanism which was necessitated and justified from the perspective of the ‘Colonial/Foreign Ruler’. People of India reasonably expected that all these four maladies would be deeply buried by the ‘Indian Rulers’ who succeeded the ‘Colonial Rulers’ after the attainment of independence. Alas! this did not happen and to the contrary, these maladies were blatantly promoted by Nehru and his Congress Party successors, which destroyed the very foundations of the basic institutions on which a ‘Healthy & Efficient Democratic System’ and the ‘Allied Institutions’ could have evolved in independent India.

The first cabinet of independent India comprised representatives from non-congress parties as well and thus Dr.Shyama Prashad Mukerjee also became a Cabinet Minister and was entrusted with the department of industry. It is well known that Nehru was highly averse to criticism & dissensions and deeply nursed hatred against the dissenters & the detractors. Dr. Mukerjee’s dissensions on fundamental issues concerning national security & development coupled with his giant personality did not go well with Nehru-cult forcing the former to quit the cabinet. Even within the Congress party, the ‘Yes-men’, ‘Sycophants’, and ‘Opportunists’ were preferred to those who exhibited some sort of ‘independent thinking’, ‘straightforwardness’, and ‘non-toeing-attitude’. Owing to lower level of literacy, manipulability of the election system, ‘aggressive propaganda approach’ of the Congress party and dominance of the ‘western-influenced’ media, Nehru not only could manage to win successive elections but even managed to acquire a sort of charismatic image (or may be it was so made to be perceived by the pseudo-intellectuals). The combined effect of all this was that despite repeated counter-points made on all issues (Inflation/Price-rise, Poverty, Unemployment, Kashmir, Defense of the country (against Pakistan and China), Tamil issue in Srilanka, Internal security against terrorism and Foreign policy etc.) by the Bhartiya Jan Sangh consistently went completely unheeded and the country suffered terrible loss in terms of losing vast chunk of its territories to China & Pakistan and also getting deeply humiliated several times at the international fora. Those of the Congress men who could not toe Nehru line left the party and formed parties such as ‘Socialist party’, and ‘Praja Socialist party’. However, the deep rooting of the four maladies went unabated in the Congress party and being the sole ruling party in the country (centre & states), it greatly influenced the polity at large. The bureaucratic class, bound by the service & conducts rules, fell easy prey to the Nehruvian ethos and went whole hog in getting imbibed in the four maladies thus becoming the role models for the rest in the country.

May be Lal Bahadur Shastri could have changed the course but unfortunately his tenure of 18 months was too short and moreover the ‘food crisis’ and the ‘Indo-Pak war’ had to be given all the energy & attention during this period. Indira Gandhi took the reigns of the country in 1966 and found to her dismay that she would not be able to command unquestionable authority like her father did. 1967 elections also came as a setback to her when Congress base in the Centre and in many States shrunk substantially. The 1969 split in the Congress party was engineered by Indira Gandhi (defeating the official candidate of the party in country’s Presidential elections) with the twin objective of regaining control within her own party and to create some sort of populist façade (Nationalisation of Banks) to divert the attention of Indian masses suffering terribly under inflation/price-rise/poverty/unemployment. Despite managing to win large majority in the ensuing mid-term Lok Sabha polls (manipulability in polls was proved beyond doubt when Allahabad High Court struck down Indira Gandhi’s election on the grounds of serious poll malpractices), mass agitations started all around in the country when the problems got further aggravated and the illusion created by the façade got dismantled. Then started Indira Gandhi’s tirade against democracy in the country and she not only vehemently promoted the four maladies (Opportunism, Sycophancy, Personality-cult and Appeasement-approach) but started destroying the ‘institutions of democracy’ in a systematic & planned way. The ‘Executive’ became spineless after witnessing the horrors of ‘Emergency’; the ‘Judiciary’ became manipulable on account of ‘supersession-approach’ in the appointment of judges; “Legislature’ got crippled on account of imprisonment of the ‘dissenting leaders’, and; Constitutional Law of India was amended in such a way that the basic & fundamental structure almost got obliterated.

Fortunately, there came an interregnum in 1977 when Janata Party (comprising Bhartiya Jan Sangh, the Socialists and the ‘Break-away groups from Congress party) replaced Congress party at the centre after a humiliating, though befitting, defeat of the latter in the elections, held after extending the life of the then preceding Lok Sabha. Bound by the principles of Jan Sangh (the only partner-party in the conglomerate called ‘Janata Party’ which had a clear-cut philosophy and distinct principles- Respect for Democratic norms, Firmness in maintaining high standards of Discipline, Promoting merit/performance rather than personality-cult, Discarding Opportunism/Sycophancy and not following the Appeasement-approach), the Janata Party led by Morarji Desai as Prime Minister, did adhere to the approach which would have stemmed the growth of these four maladies to a great extent, had the Government not got throttled by the ‘self-seekers’ mid-way.

In 1980, Indira Gandhi came back to power, thanks to the disillusionment of the voters caused by the colossal selfishness & immaturity of certain leaders in the Janata Party, and she re-picked up the agenda of strengthening all the four maladies (opportunism, sycophancy, personality-cult and appeasement-approach) even more vigorously, obviously feeling increasingly emboldened to tread this path. Rajiv Gandhi more or less followed the footsteps of his mother in this regard. V.P.Singh got stuck in Mandal Commission report and neither had the perspective nor the time to pay attention to such laudable tasks.

Since Narsimha Rao headed almost a minority government, he could not have contributed much to either nation building or to even institution building. However, the much talked liberlisation is attributable more to the force of the contemporary circumstances rather than to the ingenuousness of Rao or for that matter even of Manmohan Singh (whose dullest performance currently as Prime Minister in the field of ‘Reforms’ speaks volumes about his ‘capability’ and ‘willpower’). Deve Gauda’s tenure followed by the Gujral tenure hardly need mention because both had shorter periods and remained too busy in managing the coalition partners to pay any worthwhile attention to any institution building tasks.

The second ‘interregnum’ deserving mention is the Vajpayee-led NDA regime. A sincere & honest effort was made during this period in repairing the damage caused to various institutions. Sincere efforts were also made to desiccate the four stated ‘maladies’ but the fifty year old root system would not let it happen so easily.

The main feature of the current UPA regime is the full blooming of all these four ‘maladies’. Earlier, the two ‘maladies, namely, ‘sycophancy’ and ‘personality-cult’ were the exclusive preserves of Congress party and the other partners in UPA suffered quite mildly from these. But now the parties other than Congress are far ahead of the leading partner (in the UPA) in practicing these openly. ‘Opportunism’ and ‘Appeasement-approach’ have always been the hallmark of policy & principle of all partners in the UPA.

Will all political parties in our country ever draw a national consensus to eradicate the four maladies- ‘opportunism’, ‘sycophancy’, ‘personality-cult’ and ‘appeasement-approach’- to enable emergence of an environment wherein the democracy & the allied institutions thrive in a sustainable manner.