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The Rediff Interview/I K Gujral

'We have to wait and see what the others do before we decide to sign the CTBT'

Former prime minister Inder Kumar Gujral remains busy six months after quitting office, his government's downfall brought about by the withdrawal of Congress support. Gujral, who has an enviable record as foreign minister, has been busy defending the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition government's decision to conduct the nuclear tests. He took time off to defend his short-lived United Front government and discuss the current situation in an interview with Amberish K Diwanji.

When you look back to your days as prime minister, how do you feel?

Looking back to the time when I was in office, I was part of the situation which was emerging. Recall that from 1989, all the governments that have come to office have been minority governments, supported by other parties. The electorate has since then not given a majority to any party. Thus, in 1996, the United Front took office, led first by H D Deve Gowda, and then by myself. Thus, one can see that India has now entered a coalition government era.

I am not making any value judgement on coalition governments, whether it is good or bad. Indian democracy has stabilised, in the sense the people of India have given a decisive mandate to democracy rather than any party. And as part of that, we have seen different parties coalesce at different times to form the government, some for a short duration, some for long.

What does it augur for the future of India? How will coalitions impact upon India?

India today stands at a decisive phase. I do not foresee any government gaining a majority in Parliament for some time. Therefore, the challenge before the Indian polity is how to stabilise coalitions. This can only be done if all the political parties start realising that once they make a commitment to join a government or to support a government, they must abide by it. Coalitions have been experienced by several countries today. For instance, most European nations have coalition governments except Britain. And given India's size and diversity, there is nothing wrong in coalition governments.

Economic and social factors have come to the fore, that is natural when different political parties get together. In India, we do not just have differences of caste and community, but also of economic status. Uneven development has taken place, and this has made people place greater faith in the regional parties rather than national parties. Today, there are very few parties that can be considered all-India parties. This makes coalitions inevitable.

What would you consider to be your government's greatest achievement?

It sounds rather odd that I should sing of my government's achievements. The main point was that my government was a 14-party coalition, and a continuation of H D Deve Gowda's government. And all the ministers remained the same, though I added a few. We had taken upon ourselves the task of giving a clean government, and I am proud to say, fortunately, we did that.

The second thing was to create a more federal system. That was an inevitable part of our country. And we were able to devolve more authority on matters of finances to the states. We were able to inculcate more confidence in the states irrespective of the party ruling the state. For instance, in Punjab, there has been a feeling of alienation for quite some time. In 1997, an Akali Dal government supported by the Bharatiya Janata Party was ruling in Punjab. The Akali Dal was not supporting me at the Centre. Yet, we gave them a deal, perhaps for the first time in history, which satisfied them. This reduced the hurt to the Sikh psyche.

In the economy, we managed to achieve a growth rate of around seven per cent. Inflation was always kept below five per cent and food prices stabilised. Foreign direct investment increased substantially as investors abroad saw our stability, and our foreign exchange reserves stepped up. Fortunately, during my rule, India did not witness any major strike or riots in the country.

We also began working on the divestment process regarding the public sector units, but that remained incomplete. We were keen to ensure that in spite of any divestment, joblessness must not increase, and that the workers' needs are taken care of.

Can you tell us something more about foreign policy, seen as your forte?

My approach in foreign policy has been to have good relations in the region first, so that our energies and preoccupations are liberated from the region for us to play a proper role globally. In that, we succeeded. For 30 years we had problems with Bangladesh over sharing river waters, we sorted it out. Difficulties with Nepal were sorted out. Ditto with Sri Lanka. Even with Pakistan, the situation was improving.

But we did not content ourselves with the region alone. We were -- and me particularly -- also thinking of the rest of Asia and the world. India occupies a central position in Asia. We have the ASEAN to our south-east, and we sought to further our ties with ASEAN. We became a full dialogue partner with ASEAN and participated in the ASEAN Regional Forum meetings. Similarly, we succeeded in setting up the Indian Ocean Rim countries, comprising 14 nations, starting from Australia in the east to South Africa in the west.

We were able to improve ties with Iran, which has come to occupy a central position, especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union. So I went to Iran myself, and reached a tripartite agreement between India, Iran and Turkmenistan which has given us access via Iranian railways to the Turkmenistan and Central Asian markets and vice versa. Today, most of our traffic goes through this mode.

We also stabilised our good relations with the Gulf countries. Ties with the United States and China were on the upswing. I met US President Bill Clinton, and he was to visit India. Chinese President Zhou Ziang came to India and we opened a new chapter. Thus India was looked upon as a country of friendship and one playing a major role.

Your government waived all the expenses owed by Punjab to the Centre in its fight against terrorism. However, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah has complained that a similar largesse for his state is not being granted.

The I K Gujral interview, continues

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