The Hindu Business Line : NIC’s hortatory homilies

It is anybody’s guess whether the vacuous and vapid generalities contained in the resolution of the National Integration Council (NIC) held on October 13 will make any difference to the handling of extremism, terrorism and violence by the Central and State governments. One way of looking at the deliberations is that they, being an innocuous repetition of what the Americans call ‘bomfog’ (brotherhood of man and fatherhood of God), can do no harm.

A powerful force

Nevertheless, the manner of conducting the NIC meetings in recent years has robbed it of all appeal and impact. As the first secretary of the NIC which Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru established in 1961, I have been witness to the earnestness and purposefulness of the Council in its early years.

Nehru’s chairmanship, of course, made it a powerful force since none dared to question his authority and advice. He also used it as a think-tank, setting up committees of members knowledgeable in their fields to examine issues such as secularism, communalism, regionalism and the role of mass media. Unfortunately, the Chinese invasion of 1962 and his own declining health left the tasks he had entrusted to it unfinished. Lal Bahadur Shastri passed away within a couple of years of becoming Prime Minister, and because of grave crises on the food and economic fronts and the India-Pakistan war, he could not convene any meeting of the NIC. Indira Gandhi called one at Srinagar in 1968, which issued a ringing declaration impressing on all sections of the people to conform to the same eternal verities as have become commonplace in every pronouncement of NIC gatherings since then: Peace, goodwill, harmony, secularism, tolerance and the like.

The pattern that has come to prevail at these meetings places a premium on members delivering their set-piece lectures, most of them from prepared texts, each trying to show off as holier-than-thou, seeking to score political points and indulging in jejune platitudes.

Ritualistic eyewash

The chairperson (Prime Minister) and the Home Minister thereupon give their hortatory homilies asking everybody to be good and to do good. The NIC finally issues a non-controversial declaration or resolution which is then hailed as a momentous consensus. Everyone goes home in the happy thought that (s)he has done his/her duty by the country. It is clear that such a procedure not only militates against the formulation of any path-breaking, concrete, time-bound action-plan, but, worse, induces a sense of complacency at the political and governmental levels that all that is needed to be done has been done.

Unless the NIC is restructured and re-energised, it will be, as it already is, no more than a ritualistic eyewash. First, its membership should be severely pruned to drastically bring it down to not more than 40. It should have a preponderance of thinkers and doers in the cultural, social, economic and scientific fields, and only those political figures who are capable of fresh and stimulating thinking (if such can be found!).

It should meet at least once a year, and between meetings, some task forces should be called upon to work on important topics, as per Nehru’s vision and mission. Finally, its recommendations should be brought before the Inter-State Council for adoption as state policy binding the governments.

B. S. RAGHAVAN

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