Fertilising Home Ministry

Aditya Sinha
First Published : 20 Feb 2010 12:12:00 AM IST
Last Updated : 20 Feb 2010 01:17:58 AM IST

Since our Union Fertiliser Minister M K Alagiri failed to prevent his own proposal from being accepted by the UPA cabinet on Thursday night, it is time for a change. Alagiri had proposed that fertiliser subsidies be altered so that farmers could access a better variety of fertiliser, and so that the government could save Rs 44,000 crore in its budget. Alagiri wanted his own proposal deferred on the plea that Tamil Nadu elections were around the corner. Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, his eye on next week’s Budget, did not yield. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh ensured the proposal sailed through.

Alagiri is not the only one running around in circles these days. So is P Chidambaram, who became Union Home Minister after 26/11, the last Islamist terrorist strike India suffered before the blast at the German Bakery in Pune a week back. Chidambaram impressed many with his no-nonsense posturing, talking about systems overhauls and adding more acronyms to the Indian security establishment. He impressed many with his derisive snorts about development as a panacea for poverty-stricken tribal areas run by Maoists. He impressed many with his deft sidelining of former National Security Advisor M K Narayanan, packed off to West Bengal’s Raj Bhawan. The sheen has started to dull, however, with Maoist attacks in Bengal and Bihar this week, coming just days after the Pune blast.

This column’s considered solution to these embarrassing slip-ups by Alagiri and Chidambaram: switch their portfolios. And while Chidambaram as fertiliser minister has its own satisfactions, it’s the thought of Alagiri as Union Home Minister that is truly fascinating.

The first thing he would probably do is destroy one of his ministry’s departments, the Department of Official Language, whose mission is to ensure the compliance of constitutional provisions regarding the use of Hindi in official communications. Wait a second… isn’t getting rid of this department one of the things Chidambaram is likely to achieve by rearranging the home ministry? Thus Alagiri would only be doing openly what Chidambaram was doing covertly while talking about a possible ministry of internal security.

This might raise the hackles of Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar, already exasperated by Alagiri’s refusal to help her find a way around his inability to address Parliament in either English or Hindi, as ministers are required. I know what Alagiri is thinking: those damn Biharis! All he would need to do is have the Speaker shot dead, and then have Parliament burnt down. If anyone mentions the Constitution, he can burn that up too. After all, it’s just a piece of paper. And if India needs rules for the country to function, Alagiri will make up his own rules. Like that overweight son of a great leader who came into prominence in his fifties, namely Kim Jong-il; he makes up his own rules, and he always gets his way.

Though Alagiri may think highly of Kim Jong-il, he looks more like new BJP president Nitin Gadkari. Both Alagiri and Gadkari look cherubic; each appears to be missing his neck. Both were underappreciated and underestimated when they hit the national scene. Gadkari after taking charge has not ceased to impress the sceptics: he was the first one to put the provincial Bal Thackeray in his place recently (Rahul Gandhi and others followed in their defiance of the Shiv Sena). When Gadkari goes on TV, he is a lot more articulate than the other talking heads who regularly bore the nation on the news channels. His addresses at the BJP’s national executive this week were lucid and to-the-point. The BJP has reason to be optimistic. Alagiri, on the other hand, has been a central minister for nine months now but has still not delivered. Perhaps he will hit his stride and show the world what he is capable of once he becomes home minister.

Alagiri’s new appointment would also solve one of the biggest problems a home has ever seen: the looming succession battle in TN. If you think that the cousins Thackeray are bad, their competitive chauvinism causing anxiety to Australian cricket players as well as to well-known botox users, then wait till TN Chief Minister M Karunanidhi passes from the scene. Alagiri and younger sibling Stalin will be worse than the Brothers Karamazov. Packing the elder one off to Delhi as home minister may solve this tussle, though you never know: once Stalin becomes chief minister, Alagiri may just dismiss his government (for constitutional concerns, please see paragraph five). If that happens, we can safely rename these two brothers “wrack and ruin” (witticism is courtesy Don Delilo’s Point Omega).

Frankly, this column has veered a bit off-track (but you have to wonder whether these digressions are in the nature of the writer or of the subject). As home minister, Alagiri would have to deal with serious problems like terrorism, Maoism, Kashmir and the Northeast. Have no fear. Alagiri would take a very hard line when it comes to violence. Not because of Gandhian or Weberian beliefs, but because it makes so much economic sense. Sorting out the Maoists would mean helping big capitalists wanting to acquire large tracts of tribal land for setting up industries. That means a lot of commercial land transactions. Alagiri might be one of those men who believe there is no such thing as a bad land transaction.

Fighting terrorists is not so simple, however, but if you go by Alagiri’s TN record, he is a great motivator of police officials. Perhaps Alagiri is one of those not overly concerned by a police officer’s probity so long as the officer delivers. That’s exactly what India needs to fight terrorism: cops who can deliver. Alagiri can be counted on to deliver cops who can deliver, so long as someone delivers to him suitcases filled with motivational material (you know, like training manuals, the Constitution of India, an English-Tamil dictionary, etc).

Kashmir has bedevilled the world for over 60 years, and it is both unrealistic and unfair to expect Alagiri to produce a magic wand and solve it. Yet there are always possibilities. Just picture Alagiri sitting down for a one-on-one with each of the separatist leaders. “What do you want?” he asks, menacingly. “Freedom?” is the uncertain reply. “No, no… how much do you want?” he asks. He makes the separatists “an offer they can’t refuse” (courtesy Mario Puzo’s The Godfather), and the Kashmir problem is solved. (Of course, the intelligence agencies have tried this approach; maybe it requires a deft political touch like Alagiri’s to make the separatists come around).

Alagiri as home minister: would he join the ranks of illustrious predecessors like Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Govind Ballabh Pant and Indrajit Gupta, or would he plumb depths seen by those like Mufti Mohd Sayeed, Giani Zail Singh and Shivraj Patil? We won’t know till he’s given a chance.

editorchief@expressbuzz.com

About The Author;

Aditya Sinha is the Editor-in-Chief of ‘The New Indian Express’ and is based in Chennai