The Indian media and political pundits had for days been speculating about who would get which ministerial post ahead of what was described as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s “last reshuffle” before the 2014 general elections.
However, the list of new cabinet ministers, released last Sunday, disappointed many who had expected the prime minister to drop ministers involved in scandals.
Indeed, the Samajwadi Party leader, Ram Gopal Yadav, lashed out at the Congress leadership for not only retaining but also elevating Salman Khurshid as the Foreign Minister despite a cloud of suspicion hanging over the latter with allegations of financial irregularities related to the Dr Zakir Hussain Memorial Trust Fund, which he and his wife oversee. Yadav said if a minister is accused of graft, “he should be dropped”.
Yadav’s criticism has, obviously, shaken many in the ruling Congress party, which now forms a minority government and depends on the support of the Samajwadi Party in parliament after Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress withdrew from the United Progressive Alliance over the issue of economic reforms and over allowing foreign companies to participate in India’s retail sector.
Many eyebrows were, therefore, raised over the choice of Khurshid as a Foreign Minister, particularly after he had issued physical threat to anti-corruption activist Arvind Kejriwal, who had criticised Khurshid’s alleged misappropriation of funds. Khurshid had threatened physical harm to Kejriwal if he ever visited the former’s constituency. Khurshid had also warned that he would convert India Today, India’s leading news magazine, into “India Yesterday”. Such reactions do not befit the stature of a person who is the country’s foreign minister and has to deal with sensitive issues on foreign affairs, which is, undoubtedly, a very difficult terrain and requires a cool and calm head rather than an explosive personality who succumbs to bouts of temper that could easily harm national interest.
In short, the foreign minister has to be a clear thinker and a strategist at the same time. He has to be savvy enough to navigate through the minefield of different geopolitical, economic and cultural idiosyncrasies of any country that he is required to deal with.
While he is some 20 years younger than his predecessor S.M. Krishna, Khurshid will have to take pain to assert India’s foreign policy positions in some of the world capitals where his diplomatic skills will be tested. Krishna had invoked chuckles when he erroneously read out the speech of the Portuguese Foreign Minister last year at the United Nations. However, he was respected as a father figure in many countries, including Pakistan, China, the US and western Europe. Khurshid’s critics, whose numbers continue to swell, will be watching him closely.
Another controversial appointment — or reinstatement — in the cabinet is that of Shashi Tharoor, who had made an unceremonious exit as a junior minister in the Ministry of External Affairs for his attempted manipulations in the Indian Premier League (IPL) — an allegation he has denied.
Though he was hoping to get the foreign minister’s portfolio, Tharoor is happy to be reinstated in the cabinet as a junior minister in the Human Resources Development Ministry.
Singh’s reshuffle does not bring in any personality who can overhaul a party that is virtually facing self-destruction through a steady erosion of values and ideals coupled with poor governance and a series of scandals of unprecedented scale.
Though Singh himself has, so far, not been directly implicated in any scandal — his cabinet has only a handful of ministers whose names have not yet been linked to any scandal — he becomes unwittingly an accessory to corruption through his silence and inaction against his guilty cabinet colleagues. Critics with a penchant for history say that Singh has presided over a government with the highest number of scandals in the history of independent India.
The quality of Indian politicians — and this is meant to refer not just to the professional merits, but also to the moral integrity of an incumbent — has deteriorated so badly that the vast majority of the Indian electorate has become cynical about politics. How can these corrupt politicians — and these also include some from the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party — be expected to tackle corruption, India’s number one problem?
As if the cancerous decay that has set in the cabinet was not enough, the Congress also provides the cause celebre with the expose on Robert Vadara, the Congress party president Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law, who has allegedly amassed millions from shady land deals. Though he is an ordinary citizen with no government office or even membership of the Congress party, some Congress party seniors reacted furiously over calls to investigate him. Indeed, some ministers hurriedly gave him “clean chits” which many dismissed as an attempt to cover up a major scandal.
Then there is, of course, Rahul Gandhi, the prime minister-in-waiting and scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. Rahul is busy rejuvenating the Congress leadership, promoting those who he feels are like-minded and will not pose a challenge to him in the future, while he himself waits for an opportune moment to take over the country’s most powerful office.
If the latest reshuffle was to introduce some “new blood” and refurbish the badly mauled image of the Congress-led government, the attempt has hardly achieved the desired result. It was yet another round of musical chairs aimed at diverting attention from the rot that has long set in the party.
Prime Minister Singh has to realise that the ills of society need to be addressed urgently, failing which there will be widespread unrest articulated through street protests and, in a worst-case scenario, even anarchy. Nobody wants that.
Manik Mehta is a commentator on Asian affairs.