B.RAMAN
The Government of Prime Minister Dr.Manmohan Singh
and the Congress Party headed by Smt.Sonia Gandhi continue to be clueless on
how to deal with the situation arising from the mass outrage of the youth of
the country in the wake of the gang rape of a 23-year-old girl in New Delhi.
2. There are multiple causes for the mass
outrage----
· The
failure of the police to prevent repeated crimes against women,
· the
shockingly inept and brutal manner in which the police dealt with crowds of
youth protesting against the incident,
· the
inability of the Delhi State Government headed by Smt.Sheela Dikshit to
understand the seriousness of the situation and the magnitude of the public anger
and respond to it appropriately,
· the
lack of unity of action between the Ministry of Home Affairs of the Government
of India, which controls the Delhi Police through the Lt.Governor, the
Lt.Governor, who is responsible for law and order and crime control in Delhi,
and Smt.Sheela Dikshit, who, as the Chief Minister, is responsible for the
proper governance of Delhi,
· the
total lack of command and control over the functioning of the Police,
· the
insensitivity of Shri Sushil Kumar
Shinde, the Home Minister, who lacks the ability for sophisticated communication
and portfolio management,
· a
Prime Minister, who neither rules nor governs nor controls and who is devoid of
any warmth in his interactions either in Parliament or with the public,
· a
Congress President who exercises vast powers without a proper understanding and
appreciation of the feelings and sentiments of the people of this country,
specially the youth, and
· the absence of competent political advisers to
the Government, who could make good the deficiencies of the political
leadership and provide the necessary correctives in dealing with internasl
crisis situations.
3.Mechanisms like the Political Affairs Committee
of the Cabinet, the Cabinet Committee on Security, the Secretaries’ Committee,
the Joint Intelligence Committee, the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS)
and the National Security Advisory Board (NSAB), which were set up over a
period of time to provide a continuous flow of crisis-management,
strategic-thinking and policy-making inputs to the Prime Minister and his
Cabinet have not been functioning as they used to do under the previous Prime
Ministers.
4. The de jure power and decision-making vacuum in
the Prime Minister’s office and the de facto accumulation of power in circles
close to Smt.Sonia Gandhi have added to the command and control confusion. During
a discussion on the current situation among retired government servants who had
served under previous Prime Ministers, someone posed the questions: Who is
taking the key decisions? Where are the key decisions being taken—in the
Congress headquarters or in the PMO? Who is responsible for ensuring the
clarity and sophistication of public communications and interactions? Who
monitors the developments and suggests action and policy options to the PM?
There were no answers available.
5. There is a paralysis of governance in New Delhi.
Unless the existence of this paralysis is admitted and rectified, things are
not likely to improve. The Government and the Congress do not seem to be unduly
concerned over the public anger and the paralysis because the opposition has
not been able to come out with an alternate policy frame-work. The BJP itself
is in a state of semi organizational paralysis.
6. Shri Narendra Modi, the Chief Minister of
Gujarat, has come out with an alternate style of governance in Gujarat, but his
party and its present leadership have not been able to give this alternate
style of governance a pan-Indian projection.
7. This state of affairs is unlikely to be
rectified by fresh elections to the Lok Sabha, whether held now or in 2014. The
country is in for a long period of misgovernance and administrative paralysis till there is realization in the Congress and
the country over the evils of dynasty rule and over the need to get out of its
grip ( 25-12-12)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd),
Cabinet Secretariat, Govt of india, New Delhi, and, presently, Director,
Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre for
China Studies.E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com
and Twitter : @SORBONNE75 )
