Tavleen SinghCredit must be given where it is due. It has to be said that in the propaganda department, the BJP has a lot to learn from the Congress and our various lefty parties. I say this despite having grown up on the myth that the RSS propaganda machine is the best in the country.Most political journalists of my generation have - largely on account of us having mistaken RSS' rumour-spreading abilities, in the days before television, for sophisticated propaganda. There is a difference between rumour and propaganda, though. Now that the BJP rules in Delhi, that difference is becoming increasingly obvious.Take Home Minister L.K. Advani's suggestion at the BJP's National Council meeting in Gandhinagar that we needed to start thinking about whether a presidential form of government may not be more suitable for India. It is a suggestion worth considering in these days of governments that fall routinely like houses of cards - and also on account of the fact that our parliamentary system seems hopelessly incapable of throwing up what P. Chidambaram once called subject matter-competent ministers. Frankly, we have had a de facto presidential system (without its advantages) in that people always seem to vote for the party that has a credible prime ministerial candidate.Advani is not the first person to have made the suggestion. People as eminent as B.K. Nehru have written whole papers on the need for constitutional reform, pointing out that "as ministers, under our system, can be chosen only from legislators of the party in power, the field of choice is exceedingly limited". Nehru adds, "The necessity to satisfy all factions, castes and regions further limits the choice. It is pathetic sometimes to discover how there are today at the head of many departments in many governments men who lack ability and integrity and sometimes have no notion at all how these departments should be run." This is painfully true. It is probably the main reason why we see so many governments and so little governance.If a change is suggested by the home minister himself, he should be applauded. The opposite has happened. The press has hinted darkly at "the hidden agenda" and politicians like Salman Khurshid and the ubiquitous, quote-a-minute Harkishan Singh Surjeet have attacked Advani.In the same week we have had Mulayam Singh Yadav announcing that Sonia Gandhi was not a foreigner and that this was merely "RSS propaganda". Excuse me? Was she born in the Italian town of Orbassano or not? Perhaps Mulayam genuinely believes Orbassano is a district of Uttar Pradesh. But you and I should know different.Yet, we have swallowed this laughable comment as if it were the truth. Just as we have allowed our lefty friends to get away with the charge that moving to a presidential form of government could mean the end of democracy.Since when did our Marxist parties become so interested in parliamentary democracy anyway? Advani rightly points out that it was the CPI which became Indira Gandhi's sole ally when she declared the Emergency. The Marxist parties have also spent the past 50 years cheering on China and the former Soviet Union while these countries crushed democracy underfoot as if it were some creepy-crawly. Yet, very few of us criticise the Marxists for their shameless double standards. But let the BJP Government say anything that sounds even vaguely different from the Congress ideology and we start breathing fire.When it comes to propaganda, the Congress is the undisputed master. It was responsible for our problems in Punjab and Kashmir. Congress regimes have presided over some of the worst communal riots in our history. It was a Congress prime minister who facilitated the laying of the foundation stone of a Ram temple in Ayodhya and another ("The Insider") who sat back and watched the Babri Masjid being torn down. .preferred-source-banner{ margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom:10px;}Yet, the Congress continues to be considered secular. The BJP tries to put aside contentious issues like Article 370 and Ayodhya - and we charge it with having "a hidden agenda". The BJP makes a deal, patently stupid but at least open, with that well-known crorepati Sukh Ram and there is an uproar. Yet, a serious (technically, anyway) columnist like Mani Shankar Aiyar can announce that Ottavio Quattrocchi was no friend of the Gandhi family and he goes unchallenged. Poor old Mani, he must really have been on the very outer edge of the outer edge of Rajiv Gandhi's durbar to have not noticed that the Quattrocchis were Rajiv's and Sonia's closest friends.So close in fact that Sonia's mummy and daddy often stayed chez Quattrocchi. If the Quattrocchis' names were not registered in the visitor's book at the prime minister's residence, it was only because they were special-status friends who did not need to observe such formalities.Rumour has it that Maria Quattrocchi, Ottavio's wife, kicked a securityman when he tried to get her name. While on Gandhi family friends, it speaks of the BJP's incompetence that nobody in its propaganda cell has noticed that a very close Pakistani friend of Sonia was recently mentioned as one of Benazir Bhutto's bag-ladies.Clearly the BJP is not even winning propaganda battles - leave alone the war. This is not good news in these days when the media is so powerful and so pervasive that governments can barely function without its support.Published By: AtMigration Published On: May 18, 1998--- ENDS ---
