Gag Orders

Gag orders work well with politicians whose careers are tied to their parties, like Shashi Tharoor

Gag orders work well with politicians whose careers are tied to their parties, like Shashi Tharoor

Last week, the Congress issued gag orders on Sheila Dikshit and Suresh Kalmadi after each hinted that the other was responsible for corruption in the Commonwealth Games. Kalmadi promptly flouted it with a marathon of interviews. A gag order is easily flouted if the politician’s survival is not completely dependent on the party. Kalmadi has his hold on Pune to fall back on, and he knows it.

Gag orders also lose their potency the higher up the party echelon one goes. When former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh wrote on P Chidambaram’s style of functioning, the party tried a gag order. Digvijaya Singh is still happily sticking to, and repeating, what he said.

Otherwise, gag orders work wonderfully. Especially with politicians who have no standing. The prime example of this is Shashi Tharoor. No politician in recent times has been asked to shut up so often by his own party. Now, he’s so docile on Twitter that people have stopped anticipating controversy from him.

Gag orders are also not a uniquely Congress institution, though it does owe its genesis to the Gandhi family. The BJP uses it just as often. Soon after the BJP got its drubbing in the last Lok Sabha polls, then party president Rajnath Singh ordered that no one goes public about who was responsible.

The next logical step when a gag order is flouted is expulsion. But usually it works the other way round. Politicians flout the gag order because they know they are going to be expelled anyway. Or want to get out. In 2005, when Uma Bharati found herself manoeuvred out of Madhya Pradesh’s chief ministership, she went on a tirade against the leadership. It reached a point where she exchanged words with LK Advani at a public function. It must have been obvious to her that the party would send her packing. And the party obliged.

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