Chandy in trouble
by
AJ Philip |
The CM thought of ways to avert a showdown with the League
Sacrifice is greatly valued in Indian politics. Yet, when Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy handed over the Home portfolio to his trusted colleague Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan, few were able to appreciate his gesture. Many in his own Congress party have hauled him over the coals for “surrendering” to the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), which demanded and got a fifth minister for itself.
Thus when Manjalamkuzhi Ali of the IUML and Anoop Jacob of the Kerala Congress (Jacob) were sworn in as ministers on April 12, the representation of the majority Hindu community shrank to nine out of 21. G Sukumaran Nair, leader of the Nair Service Society (NSS), and Vellapalli Natesan, head of the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam (SNDP), came out strongly against placating the League.
The Congress could have put its foot down on its demand and precipitated a crisis which Chandy would not have been able to handle. Since politics is the art of the possible, the chief minister thought of other ways to avert a showdown with the League and carry on. That is how he hit upon the idea of parting with the Home portfolio and giving it to Radhakrishnan, a ‘Nair’.
For some strange reason, the ‘Home’ portfolio is always considered prestigious and powerful. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, one of the tallest Congress leaders during the freedom struggle, has in his autobiography described how Sardar Patel’s insistence on getting the Home portfolio in the pre-Independence interim government proved an Achilles’ heel for the Congress.
The Muslim League which got the Finance portfolio as a compromise used it to deny money for programmes initiated by Congress ministers. Of course, it was not because of Azad’s book that Chandy gave up Home. By giving a Hindu the portfolio, he wanted to give the impression that the majority community was in command. Incidentally, the Bharatiya Janata Party organised a bandh in the state capital in protest against the induction of the IUML minister.
Though the League has got a new minister, it did not get any new portfolios as Ali was given portfolios handled by other League ministers like PK Kunjalikutty. But does the religious identity of a minister really matter in a secular government? After the Partition and the riots that followed, the Muslims of North India rallied behind prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Later, they shifted their allegiance to the late VP Singh and Mulayam Singh Yadav, all of them Hindus.
While it is easy to pooh-pooh the League’s demand, the fact that it was the party’s creditable performance in the 2011 Assembly elections that helped the Chandy government come to power cannot be overlooked. The BJP which protested against the induction has no convincing explanation for the fact that Muslims are virtually unrepresented in its governments in Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.
In the recent Paravoor by-election, one of the slogans the BJP raised was that it was a Kunjunju-Kunjali (Christian-Muslim) government that ruled the state. But the results showed that the voters cared two hoots for such propaganda. The late K Karunakaran had in his autobiography revealed how he did not consider that only a Scheduled Caste member could do justice to the welfare of Scheduled Castes by holding the portfolio himself when he was the chief minister.
In a coalition government like the one in Kerala and at the Centre, every party, irrespective of its size, has to be given representation. That is why Shibu Baby John, Anoop Jacob and KB Ganesh Kumar, who represent single-member parties, are ministers. The trend was set by the late EMS Namboodiripad when he gave ministership to Mathai Manjooran and B Wellington, who were the lone members of their parties, in his government in 1971.
Those who see danger in the Muslim League having another minister forget that the League’s CH Mohammed Koya had once ruled the state as chief minister. He had even held the Home portfolio. Voters get the government they choose. Just as it is improper to blame the BJP for not giving adequate representation to Muslims in the states where it rules because there are no Muslim MLAs to choose from, Chandy has his limitations.
To use an analogy, for a patient what matters is the competence of the doctor, not his religious identity. This is true about ministers too. Now that the government formation has been completed, there are no alibis left for the chief minister. Freed as he is of all key portfolios, Oommen Chandy can now devote all his time and energy to ensure that his ministers perform and address the needs of the people, irrespective of caste or creed.
Oman Tribune
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