Is The Minister At Home?

Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil has come under increasing flak for his handling of a crucial ministry

VIJAY SIMHA
New Delhi

EVEN AT the best of times, job descriptions can be misread. If the job is the second-most important in the country, and open to interpretation, you should head for the door. Union Minister for Home Affairs Shivraj Patil is in the thick of it. He’s among those politicians well-versed on the Indian Constitution, which makes him formidable in Cabinet meetings. He has stuck solidly by his party president, which renders him immovable from his position. He has barely said a word against state governments after terrorist attacks, which makes him a favourite of chief ministers. But does that make him a great Home Minister?

Urbane minister Shivraj Patil’s hands-off style is not seen as suitable to governance Photo: AP

The assesments are scathing. “He is not a very efficient man. What has he done?” asked AB Bardhan, General Secretary of the Communist Party of India. “He has handled the sensitive Ministry of Home Affairs in a very incompetent manner,” said BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad.

There are many instances that people offer to back their argument that Patil is not the man for the job. “The repeated message being sent by the UPA Government to terrorists and their patrons in India and abroad is that tough initiatives against terror are tradable for votes. The most ugly example is the recent SIMI controversy. The government handled the case in the tribunal in a criminally negligent manner. Relevant documents were not produced, and ministers said that SIMI is a social organisation. But for the Supreme Court, the government would have had to release the arrested SIMI men and deseal their offices,” said Prasad.

“Patil helped the BJP in Chhattisgarh with the Salva Judum movement (arming civilians to combat the Naxals). I told him not to, but he didn’t listen. He then sent the Naga Battalion to fight the Naxals in Chhattisgarh. When they returned, he sent the Mizo Battalion. He sends tribals to fight tribals,” said Bardhan, upset at the way his recent meetings with Patil panned out.

The litany of complaints against Patil is long: the Home Minister looks clueless after terrorist attacks, he takes care not to upset state governments but doesn’t seem to care so much for the layman. He never once sent an advisory to the Gujarat Government, he recently refused to meet a delegation of fruit growers from Jammu and Kashmir, whose produce was rotting because of the crisis in the state, etc.

But, sources close to the Home Minister said that is precisely how he is expected to function — by not taking sides. They said that Patil understands his job differently: he will not speak except when seeking “balance and tolerance”. They said that Patil keeps everybody at bay. For instance, Patil refused to bail out Jammu and Kashmir Governor NN Vohra on August 18, when the Hurriyat Conference led a march to the UN office and presented a memorandum seeking UN intervention in the state. Vohra’s administration sought Patil’s advice on whether to impose curfew. Patil said it was for the Governor to take a call. As the man on the spot, Vohra had to decide, not Patil.

Patil abhors being seen as a “remote control”. Often, this means doing nothing. Patil’s partisans defend it as statecraft. His opponents say it is plain ridiculous.

Even Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, the mild-mannered head of the Art of Living Foundation, is not too happy. Ravi Shankar has been negotiating with some militant groups in his version of Track III diplomacy for some time. He made a trip to Jammu just before Independence Day and came back appalled. “Patil is a gentleman and may have his own difficulties. But he will have to take more action,” he said.

Patil’s zen-like mastery lies in what he does not say or do. He will act exactly in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution. One of the Home Minister’s primary tasks is to oversee Centre-State relations. If these relations haven’t deteriorated despite the terrorist attacks, it is because of Patil’s calm, his men said.

APPARENTLY, ON the law and order front, Patil has concluded that things cannot improve until there are more and more policemen on the streets. Patil is working on a grand plan to change the nature of policing in India. This will involve helicopter patrols in cities, hi-tech underground control stations in the metros, and mobile police stations in urban centres where policemen can live and work out of large vans doubling as a police station. They will have modern communication equipment and network, and will be trained by the best names in the world.

A Home Ministry status paper issued on March 31, 2008, notes that India has around 125 policemen per lakh of population, while Latvia has 16,000 policemen. This is the basis for Patil’s plans to expand the police force.

But, says Bardhan: “Is recruiting policemen the job of a Home Minister? He has a policeman’s outlook, which I don’t agree with in the first place. And all the talk of the Constitution — as if the Constitution comes in the way of discharging one’s duties.” The BJP’s Prasad says: “The handling of internal security is a disaster and a failure. The entire management of internal security has left an insecure India.

Patil’s predecessors too had hard times. As Home Ministers, men like Vallabhbhai Patel, Govind Ballabh Pant, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Morarji Desai, Yashwantrao Chavan, Indrajit Gupta and LK Advani were put through the wringer. But they were also leaders. On available evidence, Patil has a long way to go. •

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