NEW DELHI, May 10: Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral would like to see a debate initiated in Parliament -- and outside -- on whether the current phenomenon of filing Public Interest Litigation (PIL) has not got out of hand. His fear is that ``some remedies are more dangerous than the disease.'' In an exclusive interview to The Indian Express today, it was clear that the PIL issue weighed heavily on Gujral's mind.

Considering that many of his colleagues have had their political careers derailed thanks to PILs -- and the Deve Gowda government had contemplated a bill imposing certain restrictions on filing PILs Gujral's concern is understandable, even if he himself is one at whom almost no one has ever pointed a finger.

The Prime Minister's contention is that while the concern for fighting corruption is, of course, justifiable, in the process, one should not create ``institutions which can be super-judicial bodies.'' The need was for rationality, he said.``If somebody wanted to de-stabilise a government whose policies he disagrees with, it is a simple matter to get someone file five cases or reinstate St Kitts so that your Prime Minister is vulnerable,'' he said. ``We should not reach a stage,'' said Gujral, ``when the government is run by the courts and not by the people.''

The 78-year-old Gujral reflects the beliefs and mannerisms of an earlier, more gentlemanly era than today's rough-and-tumble political world. If he wears safari suits instead of the traditional khadi ``it is because of convenience'' though he staunchly wore khadi till 1949, when that was a different kind of statement than it is today.

He is unusual in having been affiliated with three radically different political parties -- the Communist party, the Congress and the Janata Dal -- but Gujral is sensitive to any suggestion that he ``changed parties''. He was in the Communist party as a student during the freedom struggle when he feels it was ``more of a movement than a party and attracted those who were slightly more radical.'' He automatically disassociated himself from the Congress when he became an Ambassador to Moscow in 1976 and moved over to the Janata Dal many years later.

As for his Lenin-style hallmark beard, it was shaped by a barber in Stockholm in 1976 after he allowed his hair to grow during a protracted holiday in Europe and is not deliberately fashioned after the founder of the Russian communist party.

No astrologer ever predicted the dramatic elevation of a man considered more intellectual than politician, whom his detractors claim has no grass roots support, for the simple reason that the rationalist Gujral has ``never been to an astrologer in his life.'' None of his family members have had their horoscopes made. Gujral denies that he is scared of facing an election but says the question of where he will stand will arise only after a year when his Rajya Sabha seat expires. Foreign policy and the Gujral doctrine ``is an area which I will continue to look after myself in the Cabinet,'' says the new PM while specifying that on the home front, his priorities are ``literacy, population and women.''

Will his Government give a commitment that the long-pending move to pass bills to make education a fundamental right and 50 per cent reservation for women in Parliament will be completed in the next six months? ``We can give a commitment to press for these bills, not to pass them. That is for Parliament, how can I give a commitment,'' he says.

The Prime Minster is pragmatic and experienced enough to know that considering the diverse elements that make up his government, it can rule only by consensus:

``You cannot possibly make for revolutions.'' If he is handicapped by a Cabinet which is not of his choosing, Gujral feels that is but natural. ``In a coalition, parties have a right to choose their representatives.'' He acknowledges that major changes in his Cabinet are unlikely in the near future.

Weighing his words carefully, Gujral does not slip up easily, but he did so last week. He acknowledges that while he said, in a TV interview, that American planes were allowed to land during his tenure as foreign minister in V P Singh's government, he had only meant that they had permission to fly over the country.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.