India's democracy has many failings and they make one writhe in discomfort. Among them are its criminalised political class; its rampant corruption; its draconian laws; its steady erosion of individual rights like the habeas corpus; and its insensitivity to the needs of the poor. But every once in a while something happens that makes one thankful that it exists. The remorseless way in which the democratic system has borne down upon a reluctant A.B. Vajpayee government and forced it to bring Gujarat under Article 355 of the Constitution is a case in point. Article 355 could not be more explicit. "It shall be the duty of the Union Government to protect every State against external aggression and internal disturbance and to ensure that the government of every State is carried on in accordance with the provisions of this Constitution." It is the second half of this article that the Modi government's behaviour in Gujarat had impugned.
For over more than two months it systematically undermined one of the principal pillars, not only of the Constitution, but of good governance. And that is, no matter which segment of the population a government is beholden to in its fight to capture power, once it comes to power it must be a government for all the people. Over 10 traumatic days the Modi government forgot this and withdrew its protection from the Muslims of Gujarat. It began by supporting the bandh called by the VHP on March 1. It compounded that by preventing the police and the district administration from rounding up potential troublemakers for preventive detention, and by deliberately not calling out the army even though it knew that both the divisions assigned the task of supporting the civil administration in an emergency situation were at the Pakistan border and would need only half-a-day to get to Ahmedabad. Even after the killing and looting overwhelmed the largely static defences that had been erected by the local police, Modi and some of his ministers intervened incessantly to get VHP and Bajrang Dal cadres, who had been jailed for rioting, released. And when a few police officers and district magistrates insisted upon protecting the Muslims in their districts, he punished them with transfers for doing their duty.
The manner in which the Vajpayee government capitulated in the Rajya Sabha has created the impression that it was Opposition pressure that made it 'remember' its Article 355 obligations. But a close examination of the central government's actions after February 27 shows that it took the first undeclared steps under this article a long time ago. It sent defence minister George Fernandes to Ahmedabad on February 28 to make a first-hand assessment of the situation. This should have put Modi on notice but did not.
When Fernandes reported this, the cabinet committee on security took the second step under Article 355. It ordered the army out in Gujarat at 8.30 pm on February 28.
In the days that followed, the Gujarat government seemed to undergo a sudden and inexplicable, although welcome, change of heart. The statistics of those killed or arrested by the army and the police tell the story of the change. By 6 am on March 5, the security forces had killed 90 rioters and arrested 3,900 on various charges. And a month later, on April 5, the number of rioters killed had risen to 137 and those arrested had gone up to over 8,000. These are far larger numbers than ever witnessed in any previous riot. The majority of those killed were Hindus. It would be too much to believe that all this happened because Modi suffered a sudden change of heart and became a dyed-in-the-wool secularist. The truth, as Vajpayee's frequent statements and hints indicated, was that it was a product of inexorable pressure by the central government which had put Modi squarely on notice.
The 10-day-long filibustering by the Congress and the Left in Parliament, to demand the outright removal of Modi from the helm of government, disrupted the Centre's strategy in Gujarat by turning what was essentially an issue between it and the state, over the observance of the Constitution, into an inter-party mud-slinging dispute between the Congress and the BJP. This gave the more hot-headed elements in the BJP the chance to ask what right the Opposition had to regulate relations between the central BJP and its own government in Gujarat. Modi seemed to have gained his reprieve, but as subsequent events have shown this was an illusion.
It is fairly safe to deduce that, having won the Lok Sabha vote under Rule 184 of the code of parliamentary procedure, the government went back to its original strategy and dispatched K.P.S. Gill to 'advise' the chief minister on how best to restore order and peace in Gujarat. It could be quite likely that Vajpayee and L.K. Advani had decided to use the Rajya Sabha debate to inform Modi and the Indian people that the Centre had invoked Article 355 in Gujarat.
In retrospect, the biggest mistake that Vajpayee made was not to invoke Article 355 explicitly on February 28, when he sent the army into Gujarat. Had he done so it's possible that Modi wouldn't have dared to make the army cool its heels in Ahmedabad from 6.30 am to 4.30 pm on March 1, while more than 300 innocent people lost their lives a few blocks away. It's also more than likely that he wouldn't have transferred 27 officers. The BJP would also have avoided the colossal censure from the entire intelligentsia of India and from foreign media and from voyeuristic fact-finders. But most important of all, it would have more than halved the threat of a Muslim terrorist backlash that now hangs like a Sword of Damocles over the country's head. Vajpayee and Advani should have remembered that in statecraft half-measures are often worse than none. They'll do well to remember that when their resolve to impose central rule on Gujarat is tested in the near future.