I run the risk of being stamped as inhuman, insensitive and uncultured by blind and loyal soldiers of the BJP. However, it is they who milk the critical state of health of Manohar Parrikar for their political gains. It is the spirit of compassion for the individual and the strong concern for democracy and constitutional values that drive me to condemn the total mockery of democratic politics and governance in Goa. The elected representatives of the people who are a part of the ruling coalition neither care for Parrikar as a human being nor the constitutional law and conventions. Their heartless and cruel nature is proved looking at the manner in which the State Cabinet meeting was conducted ostensibly chaired by Parrikar.
If they pause to look at themselves in the mirror, they will understand the working of their minds. The attempts of the BJP to show that the Chief Minister Parrikar is in full control of the Investment Promotion Board, the portfolios and the ministers, is the work of the dirty tricks department of the ruling party. A primary school student will understand that the display is stage-managed.
We cannot even say that this disgusting drama has the blessings of the Governor of the State. To bless, the gubernatorial office needs to have power. The Goa Governor has surrendered the power and responsibility of the office to the national president of the BJP. The same is true of the ministers and MLAs of BJP including the alliance partners. The Speaker and Deputy Speaker have disgraced the constitutional offices by flirting with their party leaders in full public gaze. The Governor lives in luxury following the three mystic wise apes – “see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil”. Goa’s Governor even cannot smell the evil, though it’s in the close vicinity of the Raj Bhavan.
In parliamentary democracy, it is an established convention for Chief Minister along with Council (cabinet) to meet once a week. It is a custom to specify the day of the week. The venue for a cabinet meeting is either the State Secretariat or the official residence of the Chief Minister. There is one rarest of rare instances of a Cabinet meeting held in a star hotel. There are also two instances of the State Cabinet of West Bengal meeting at Darjeeling in 1972 and 2017 for objective political reasons. However, these meetings were at Raj Bhavan. There is not a single instance in India of state cabinet meetings at the private residence and in an ICU environment. This is an example which Goa can quote to the parliamentary democracies of the world.
The Chief Minister also keeps the Governor appraised at regular intervals on the functioning of the government. All this is to ensure the principle of collective responsibility as enunciated in the Constitution of India. It is the constitutional duty of the Governor to call for regular reports and demand personal briefing under special circumstances. The Governor is under the oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution and the law.
Collective responsibility of the State Cabinet has four connotations. Firstly, the government is accountable to the Legislature through a vote of confidence or no-confidence. Secondly, the major decisions are taken collectively by the cabinet. Thirdly, no minister may speak against the government decisions. Fourthly, any minister who disagrees is expected to resign. The real enigma is the utter negligence of the Governor to understand the collapse of collective responsibility in the State of Goa. The Governor’s silence at the rash camouflage offered as the State Cabinet meeting is puzzling. However, once it is well known that Goa’s Governor is a BJP party loyalist first and a Narendra Modi faithful to the last, nothing baffles. A shrewd and independent Governor would have made a correct assessment of the failure of the constitutional machinery in the State.
The Indian policy analyst Sanjaya Baru penned “The Accidental Prime Minister – the making and unmaking of Manmohan Singh. The book claims that actual power was wielded by Congress President Sonia Gandhi. Though Singh was reasonably vocal and accessible to the media, the image of “Maun” Manmohan Singh mushroomed. Taking full advantage of this memoir, the BJP made mince meat of the then Prime Minister. “We will not give an accidental Prime Minister to the country” was the lead election campaign statement of the BJP. With Narendra Modi in the office of the PM for over four years, we now realise that Singh was not as silent as projected by media. Though soft-spoken, he was to the point and interacted with media regularly. Modi does not believe in media interactions and dialogues. He could be better described as “Soliloquy PM”. He speaks a lot, but alone creating a theatre of rhetoric, abuse, fear and hate.
Parrikar, the darling of the masses of Goa is now coerced to give audience exclusively to ministerial classes and crony investors. He now resembles Griffin, the iconic character in horror fiction “The Invisible Man” written by H G Wells. Griffin becomes successful in his research process to make the self invisible but fails in his attempt to reverse it. As of now, the invisible Chief Minister is somehow restoring the equilibrium and continuance of the government. All know about the visible hands which use and abuse the invisible hand of the CM. Here again, an analogy could be drawn from the phrase Invisible hand coined by Adam Smith in the celebrated economic treatise “The Wealth of Nations”. Probably, it is the self-interest of the ruling politicians and business colleagues which is restoring the façade of stability to this government.
The chests of Amit Shah and Modi probably would swell with pride looking at their exploits. They can toss and turn the ill Parrikar as per their whims. They can make alliance partners dance to their nasty sounds of music. But, the hearts of all Goans sink with shame. Our ruling politicians are rewriting Goenkarponn.
(Prabhakar Timble is an educationist and a legal
expert)
