The Rediff Special
'He wanted all the powers for himself. He saw himself in the position of the last
man on earth'
What, indeed, is T N Seshan's legacy?
The demeaning of the political class is usually laid at the door
of the judiciary. Seshan actually began it. And his activism did
not arise from any zeal to cleanse the system as from thwarted
ambitions.
''If you have to assess Seshan the CEC you have to
consider his record as a bureaucrat," says Jaipal Reddy, the
former spokesman of the Janata Dal. ''As defence secretary, he
supported the HDW submarine deal, and he was also party to the
Bofors cover-up."
Assuming even that a worm can turn, Seshan still can't justify
postponing the Punjab assembly election on PM-designate Narasimha
Rao's orders just five hours before they were scheduled. In moments
of truth, Seshan has told M S Gill, now his successor,
with whom he got along passably well, "I know you won't forgive me for it."
Gill won't ask for an explanation from
Seshan. There is none.
Seshan split with Narasimha Rao only when Rao refused to bring
forth amendments in the People's Representation Act and related
election laws that would empower Seshan greatly more. Said a top
bureaucrat who advises Seshan regularly: "He wanted all the
powers for himself. He saw himself in the position of the last
man on earth."
Soon after the break up, the first phase of baiting the National
Front ended, and Seshan began taking on the Congress party. Rao
responded by enlarging the Election Commission to three members
by bringing a Gill and G V G Krishnamurthy, a former senior law
officer in the government.
Seshan appealed against this in the
Supreme Court, and Palkhivala's exhortation in open court, 'This
man is doing a great job. Please don't disturb the arrangement.
Kindly announced your judgements after he retires in 1996'
completed the halo around him.
Lecture tours began where audiences lapped up his diatribe against
politicians and corruption. Followed his campaign against Rajya
Sabha members, one of them, Pranab Mukherjee, was down to his
keens because Seshan would not hold the Rajya Sabha election
in West Bengal until Jyoti Basu had satisfied him on the voter
identity cards issue.
There there was Mulayam Singh Yadav calling on Seshan on Seshan's
visit to UP. And all of it got nicely packaged when Seshan appeared
on television, specially wearing a smile that seemed to say,
'Since I'm there, it is all OK.'
What, you could ask, is wrong with Seshan insisting that Assamese
ought to get elected to the Rajya Sabha from Assam and Maharashtrians
from Maharashtra? Such is also the law. Within the confines of
it, Seshan was not wrong. Even Gill and Krishnamurthy backed him.
So is it right? ''No," says S Shakder, a former CEC.''Constitutional
provisions cannot be interpreted as narrowly as municipal laws.
Why cannot Manmohan Singh do his bit for Assam? It integrates
the country. Anyone can contest a Lok Sabha election from any
where. Why not a Rajya Sabha one, then?"
The picture of Mukherjee scraping before Seshan or of Mulayam
Yadav paying obeisance to Seshan may also warm some people. But
has it mean the end of Mukherjee or of Mulayam Singh Yadav or
of the kind of politics they practise? Hardly so. Deferring elections
and by-elections produced some thrills for newspaper readers while
hardening the political class against him. Was it worth it?
Seshan, you could argue, even worked against this job. "His
job," said a senior official of the Election Commission,
''was to work democracy, strengthen democracy. I am not now talking
in platitudes. Seshan ran it down. You can go on demeaning politicians
but you also run the risk of losing sight of the larger picture.
Aren't we better off than Pakistan? Or Bangladesh?"
"You can picture it another way," the official goes
on. "Take the havala issue. All political parties have
political workers educating the voters about issues of the
day. I am not going into whether it is correct or incorrect education.
Not all of them reach even block level, but they work all the
same. Do you want to smear all of them with the havala brush?
Do you want them to leave their jobs? What will happen to all
that political education? Seshan portrayed all politicians as corrupt.
Can you do without them? Seshan forgot that he was an appointed
official of the Constitution. He acted like a salaried Caesar."
Even if you believe that he did not, what do you make of his motives?
He has never hidden from interviewers that he would like one day
to be either prime minister or President. Doesn't that colour
all his campaigns against politicians? What is the surety that
he won't becomes like one of them?
He may actually be no different. Sunday has confirmation that
Seshan has had several meetings with Deve Gowda, and if Deve Gowda
can convince the Janata Dal hierarchy, then Seshan may be nominated
to the Rajya Sabha. He is not undistinguished in any way to get
such a nomination, but it settles poorly with his own principles
of how politics ought to be practised.
Ultimately, it also represents a tragedy. Seshan has said to friends
that the trust he found, the Deshbhakta Trust, won't carry
him far. The political system has proved itself bigger than Seshan.
Courtesy: Sunday magazine
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