Crumbs for kisan
The only merit of the minimum support price for wheat announced on Thursday is its timing: almost at the beginning of the season. And the major demerit is the ancient one: the rise does not even compensate the kisan for the steep increase in the cost of living.

Clinton chooses to be correct
The US President, Mr Bill Clinton, has done well to correct the confusing stance adopted by his representatives in Washington, Delhi, Islamabad and the UN on India-Pakistan relations.

Fire of intolerance
THE fact that Ms Sheila Dikshit gave a motherly hug to Ms Sushma Swaraj at the ceremony where she (Ms Dikshit) was sworn in as Chief Minister of Delhi is the best tribute to the concept of political tolerance.

India’s security concerns
by Surinder Singh
INDIA has live borders touching Pakistan, China, Bangladesh and Myanmar. Borders with Nepal and Bhutan, sedate and quiet so far, are also showing convulsions.

Health for all a distant dream
by Y.P. Gupta
The Supreme Court had earlier held that the right to health is a fundamental right under Article 21 of the Constitution. But the goal of “health for all” by 2000 AD looks like a distant dream.

by Tavleen Singh

BJP Government & role of RSS
IN the search for reasons why the BJP did so badly in the recent assembly elections, fingers are slowly beginning to point in the direction of the RSS.

by Amita Malik

It was a famous victory
I do not see why I should not give my column a title from Robert Southey, considering poetry was flowing fast and free on television before, during and just after the elections.

Brain-storming
by S. Raghunath
COMPLEXITIES of modern life were straining my limited mental faculties and I decided that I would do the “in” thing and constitute my own “think tank” to advice, guide and counsel me.

75 Years Ago

Rebuff for Lloyd George
LLOYD GEORGE’S stock has slumped considerably this week. His speech in the “Capitalism V. Socialism” debate on Monday is agreed by all who heard it to have been a very sorry performance.

Crumbs for kisan

The only merit of the minimum support price (MSP)for wheat announced on Thursday is its timing: almost at the beginning of the season. And the major demerit is the ancient one: the rise does not even compensate the kisan for the steep increase in the cost of living. The price for the coming rabi crop has been fixed at Rs 550 a quintal, making for an effective increase of Rs 40. The Agriculture Ministry tried to make this meagre hike look extravagantly generous by comparing it with the MSP of last year. That way it worked out to nearly 21 per cent, not the slightly more than 8 per cent it really is. Last year the MSP was Rs 455 a quintal, but a bonus of Rs 55 was later announced in view of the heavy loss to the standing crop because of prolonged and severe cold weather. In fact, the final yield was three million tonnes short of the target of 69 million tonnes. This year the weather has so far been very good and if the sun shines brightly in January and March-April, the kisan will harvest a record crop. This is hoping for an end to the DAP (di-ammonium phosphate) shortage, as the Prime Minister, who holds the additional charge of Agriculture, has assured Parliament. Incidentally, the MSP of Rs 550 a quintal compares rather poorly with the demand of Rs 670 a quintal by the Punjab Government and Rs 610 by Haryana.

The Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices had recommended an MSP of Rs 490, the Agriculture Ministry has increased it to Rs 520 in its note to the Cabinet which, stung by the electoral reverses, upped it by Rs 30 a quintal. Newspaper reports talk of stiff resistance by the Finance Ministry to the hike, which has almost become its habit. At the same time the government has also decided not to increase the sale price of wheat to ration card holders. (This will add Rs 2000 crore to the food subsidy account.) Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha had sought to reduce the subsidy burden by pushing up the sale price from Rs 2.50 a kilo to Rs 4.04 a kilo to those living below the poverty line and from Rs 4.50 a kilo to Rs 7.26 to others. Other Ministers supported his desire to keep the fiscal deficit under control but wanted the wheat sale price increase to be pegged at 9 per cent. In the event the Cabinet shot down the proposal altogether, not wanting to stoke the inflation embers at this awkward time. Incidentally, the National Council for Applied Economic Research has sought an early end to all forms of subsidy, 70 per cent of which is cornered by urban dwellers, despite the general impression that the kisan is the most pampered person.

Clinton chooses to be correct

The US President, Mr Bill Clinton, has done well to correct the confusing stance adopted by his representatives in Washington, Delhi, Islamabad and the UN on India-Pakistan relations. He is reported to have said that the Pakistani Prime Minister, Mr Nawaz Sharif, had tried to persuade him to "engage" himself "more effectively" on the Kashmir issue. He did not like the idea of meddling with essentially bilateral matters. India, on its part, welcomes all sane initiatives aimed at bringing the two neighbours closer. The two shining outposts of South Asia have held several rounds of bilateral talks. It is bad faith on the part of Pakistan that vitiates the political environment before each parley. Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee stated in Parliament on Thursday in no uncertain terms that "there is no place for any third party negotiation in Indo-Pak relations." Global policing has been one of the major obsessions of Mr Clinton. He has taken rather undeserved credit for the seemingly positive "settlement" of disputes in West Asia and Ireland. A.N. Kosygin provided a forum at Tashkent for an agreement on maintaining peace in the traumatised region. Mohammad Ayub Khan and Lal Bahadur Shastri discussed the outstanding problems. If Mr Clinton provides a similar opportunity to the heads of government of India and Pakistan, keeping himself out of the dialogue, of course, he would be thanked by India. But venues don't matter in bilateral talks. What matters is good intention on the part of the negotiating parties. India has not gone back on its pledge to organise peaceful discussions even on Kashmir, a large part of which has been grabbed by Pakistan by force. Here lies the need for understanding India's sovereignty, which is not negotiable. The late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto died railing and ranting on the subject of "Islamic democracy". His own failure to evolve a policy which would make the subcontinent peaceful was conspicuous. Nobody knows better than Mr Clinton the futility of imposing a solution on India. Pakistan got money and material which were used to destabilise the Indian system of governance.

The Americans are now getting wiser about Pakistan's links with international terrorist organisations. Their embassies were bombed by militants sponsored by Osama bin Laden. Mr Nawaz Sharif had no answer to the US query as to why this terrorist mastermind was being allowed to stay in Afghanistan where the Taliban ran a fundamentalist set-up and encouraged contagious militancy. Mr Clinton must be a disillusioned man. Mr Nawaz Sharif has failed to react positively to his request for the capture and extradition of Bin Laden. And will the Pakistan Prime Minister sign the CTBT unconditionally? Obviously not. What Islamabad requires is military and political assistance from the USA to intensify its proxy war in Jammu and Kashmir. By refusing to fall into the Pakistani trap, the US President has shown his statesman-like calibre. His words are meaningful and he should stick to their connotation: "Let me say that I have been encouraged that the two governments have resumed their direct conversation. I think it is very hopeful...." The USA is the greatest proliferator of nuclear arms. It knows the decimating effect of a nuclear bomb or a killer hydrogen device. If it means business, it should renounce its doctrine of uncontrolled nuclear deterrence. Our policy in this regard is clear. We want to use the atom only for peaceful purposes. But if an enemy chooses to hurt us in a fit of frenzied nuclear upstartism, a befitting answer would be forthcoming. Other world leaders should emulate Mr Clinton and tell Pakistan to end its anti-India misadventure. Mr Nawaz Sharif has returned home without securing any supportive assurance from the American administration. India seeks peace. A stable Pakistan means a more stable India. After the rebuff in Washington, the Pakistani leader should move on the path of bilateralism. He has too many problems to tackle at home.

Fire of intolerance

THE fact that Ms Sheila Dikshit gave a motherly hug to Ms Sushma Swaraj at the ceremony where she (Ms Dikshit) was sworn in as Chief Minister of Delhi is the best tribute to the concept of political tolerance. The smiling faces of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot during their meeting in Delhi carry the same message. However, these cheerful images cannot for long conceal the ugly fact that the members of the Sangh Parivar are determined to destroy the healthy Indian tradition of mutual tolerance. This was demonstrated in ample measure by the Shiv Sena activists who through their acts of hooliganism and rioting forced cinema houses in Delhi to suspend the screening of “Fire”. A day earlier a similar violent campaign against the screening of Deepa Mehta’s internationally acclaimed film was launched in Mumbai with the blessings of the Shiv Sena supremo. But Delhi is not Mumbai and Ms Dikshit may have to forget the motherly hug she gave to Ms Swaraj and order a crackdown on the political allies of the Bharatiya Janata Party who attacked a cinema house in Connaught Place and forced the management to suspend the screening of the film. She should call for the clippings of the news footage carried by most television networks for identifying the culprits. The leader of the gang of hoodlums was shown as stating that he did not know what the protest was about but he had “orders” from Mumbai to stop the screening of “Fire”! There should be no public discussion on the merits of the film for that would amount to falling into the trap of the Sangh Parivar which invariably succeeds in forcing a national debate on non-issues. Suffice it to say that the film has been cleared for screening by the censor board, headed by a former actress Asha Parekh, who is not known for her liberal views on sensitive gender issues.

Those who believe that the film has distorted “Indian culture” and shown women in poor light are free not to see the film. It is not compulsory viewing. Shekhar Kapur came close to winning an Oscar for “Bandit Queen” but a large number of Indians did not see the film because they are against glorifying the crimes of Phoolan as an expression of defence of “injured Indian womanhood”. The BJP leadership should realise that their effort to give the party a new universally acceptable image would not succeed so long as the other constituents of the Sangh Parivar do not discard their agenda of creating political, social and communal disaffection through their acts of violent intolerance. Merely distancing itself from the disharmony generating activities of the Sangh Parivar would not make the BJP acceptable to all sections of Indians. It must be seen to be opposing them outside cinema houses in Mumbai and Delhi, at the Baba Budan Giri shrine near Chikmagalur and in Ayodhya and elsewhere where they plan to observe “shaurya divas” on December 6. India’s strength lies in its infinite capacity of tolerance of all shades of opinion. To borrow an expression from Jawaharlal Nehru: If this India dies, who lives?

India’s security concerns
Merger of border forces needed
by Surinder Singh

INDIA has live borders touching Pakistan, China, Bangladesh and Myanmar. Borders with Nepal and Bhutan, sedate and quiet so far, are also showing convulsions. By reductionist logic, one can easily say that if India is today facing the danger of destabilisation on account of infiltration of spies, saboteurs, communal agents, illegal Bangladeshi nationals and terrorists, it is mainly due to our permeable borders. Smuggling on land borders is rampant though bulk of it is carried out by sea and air. Pakistan has been singularly successful in aiding and abetting terrorism earlier in Punjab and now in J&K by pushing in terrorists, arms, ammunition and other sophisticated materials of violence and destruction. As management of security of borders of Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat was strengthened by resorting to improved manpower deployment and installation of technological devices, including fencing-cum-lighting, Pakistan redoubled its efforts to exploit the J&K area and other Indian borders touching Nepal, Bangladesh and Myanmar for its sinister designs.

Pakistan under Mr Nawaz Sharif, especially after its nuclear explosions of May, 98, is now hoisted with its own petard. Hinged to the highest rung of its ambition ladder of seeking parity with India, Pakistan under its rabble-rousing populist leader is jingoistic and xenophobic. “Hostility consensus” has touched its zenith and Pakistan thinks that it has got India on the floor for the first time on account of the over-reaching strategy of the present Indian leadership. Enemy concept seems to have become a part of Pakistan’s socialisation process and has got concretised in government policies and security plans. No doubt, Pakistan has made tremendous strides in gaining near equality in conventional military strength though it was “cut to size” by India in 1971. Of late, Pakistan has been flexing its military muscles on LoC and Siachen glacier. It has deterred India from undertaking fencing of the Jammu border and is boasting that this border has been converted into Line of Control through feverish exchange of fire. To Indian leaders and strategic planners stress conditions on our borders and internal destabilisation process are indicative of threatened national security.

The security development complementarity model as it emerge after India’s armed conflicts of 1962 and 1965 showed its rootedness in nationalistic aspirations and feelings.

The overall security perspective of the country cohered with national ideals i.e. core values and national role conceptions, purposes and policies. This national commitment obliged it to secure its international borders with the help of a peace time non-military apparatus, BSF, however, based on state-centric realistic perspective. The Border Security Force come into existence for guarding borders against the then Pakistan during peace time.

Situation on the borders has undergone a radical change. Several of India’s north-eastern states are gripped with violence at the hands of socio-pathic leaders and secessionist elements. On account of the development and possible employments in border states of sophisticated instruments of low intensity warfare like insurgency, terrorism, infiltration and subversion, the need to enlist public support of border population is paramount. In J&K it has emerged as a stark existential dilemma for the Republic. While preparation of ground work for public support is a political process, the locational imperatives of the Border Security Force facilitate this task. The BSF can and does take part in active propagation of national policy and helps in re-enforcing the loyalty and enthusiasm of the civilian population in the border areas. Now it is all the more necessary for all security forces to function as instruments of social discipline in the country.

While geopolitical compulsions of the country do not form an indivisible whole and different areas require different standards of security, it is high time the Government of India made a realistic appraisal of threat perception of our border areas touching Nepal, Bhutan and Myanmar. For long now, we have left them to God’s care and the National Security Council needs to have a hard look at it before events overtake the planners and groundlevel security actors. Internal security aspects of neighbouring countries are acquiring devious dimensions and they substantially impact both India’s borders and interior parts. For the supreme interest of domestic security, it serves no good purpose to separate border security from internal security. Erosion of social unity is a veritable threat for all security management agencies of the state. The BSF is ever going to experience the pressure of stressful conditions in the interior parts.

All arming policy and organisational aspects of the BSF should be based on functional-cum-growth basis. At present, headquarters of IGs, and DIGs are having far too many units to direct and administer. This militates against operational effectiveness. Similarly making BSF units more viable and strong is more in tune with the unfolding security environment, developments and postures in the South Asian Region. In the operational field, the BSF should be encouraged to employ updated deterrence strategies to achieve the desired results. Intellectual efforts and well-springs of professional thought should be directed towards those aspects of border security which are critical to national security. It would not serve the BSF well if its members are allowed to hold a viewpoint which disdains contact with civilians and social institutions. This perspective should not be associated with the professional ethics of the BSF. The BSF must visualise and assess the critical aspects of the diverse social milieu in which it will be functioning in the foreseeable future. Borders cape and its crime pattern are changing fast. Given sound projection of demographic and socio-economic characteristics of the work-space, the future pattern of crime can be guesstimated. BSF leaders have to develop their applicatory education necessary for effective execution of jobs in this changing work-space. Terrorism in border states is one such frightful development which has upset several of our conventional security assumptions.

Pakistan’s renewed fixation with Kashmir after its nuclear tests in May has caused new tremors in the region. The Islamic resurgence triangle formed by Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran, the green crescent, casts an ugly shadow on India’s secular edifice. Both at the contiguous and regional levels, the shadow of the military strategic threat of a monolithic China will loom disquietingly large on India’s security horizon, Pakistan’s strident tirade against India for drawing the attention of major actors of the world is not only irritating but menacing. India has to forge cultivated responses at political, diplomatic and military levels to the conflictual stimuli present in the regional environments. Free flow of weapons in Pakistan has made its social order highly vulnerable and explosive. Sindh province has been undergoing violent tremors for the last one decade and Karachi is burning incessantly. Military crackdown in Karachi is going to unleash violent forces. Indo-Pakistan borders are going to experience new convulsions forcing India to strengthen its arrangements of border security. Security posture has to assume the “defended” status in place of the “secured” one. This is a quantum jump.

All eyes are on the newly formed National Security Council. What will go on its anvil first as it makes its strategic appraisal of nation’s security needs? Security community leaders and strategic analysts want that there should be an integrated approach to the subject of border security of India’s international borders. Border security arrangements should be rationalised. All border guarding forces like the BSF, the ITBP and Assam Rifles should come under one Indian Border services with bulk of leadership coming from integral resources. This merger should be planned over a multi-year span of 10 years to obviate any administrative or personnel aberrations and bottlenecks. Training ecology for units should be developed and training schools organised at suitable locations for emerging tasks. As internal stabilisation operations are going to be allotted to border guarding forces reserve units should be made to undergo rigorous training for envisaged tasks. What I anticipate is, given the progressive employment of technology and resource inputs for strengthening border security especially of Indo-Pak borders, more is needed to be done in the domain of “form” and “emphasis” than in the “matter”. Nation’s citizenry may, meanwhile, wait with bated breath to know the manner in which political and security leaders address the problem of dangers looming on our live borders. Do they have the time, desire and vision?

The writer is a retired IG of the BSF.

Health for all a distant dream
by Y.P. Gupta

The Supreme Court had earlier held that the right to health is a fundamental right under Article 21 of the Constitution. But the goal of “health for all” by 2000 AD looks like a distant dream because the number of sufferers from killer diseases has been alarmingly rising. India is one of the few countries where one or the other disease continues to break out in one or the other part of the country due to lack of health care amenities like effective sewerage system and safe drinking water supply.

A 1998 WHO report says that there have been 52.5 million global deaths in 1997, of which 17.3 million were due to infectious and parasitic diseases; 15.3 million due to circulatory diseases, 6.2 million due to cancer and 2.9 million were due to respiratory diseases. The major infectious diseases were respiratory infections, tuberculosis, diarrhoea, AIDS and malaria. It is also reported that there would be 21 million premature deaths below 50 years in 1998 despite life expectancy increasing to 66 years. The World Health Report 1998 has predicted longer life for all in the 21st century. It says that premature deaths below 50 years would reduce to half by the year 2025, and life expectancy would increase to 73 years.

It is reported that 20 per cent of the world population in the developing countries has been suffering from either some disease or is in poor health and severely malnourished. In India, nearly 104 million people have been suffering from malaria, leprosy, tuberculosis and other afflictions.

Two hundred times more people die of measles in the developing countries than they do in the developed ones. The number of people afflicted with filariasis in India is placed at about 19 million. In all such diseases, children are the worst victims. In South Africa, four children every hour or 96 children every day die of malnutrition. Acute respiratorial infection, diarrhoea, tetanus, diphtheria, measles, whooping cough, tuberculosis and polio diseases top the list.

A World Bank report says that nearly 750 million men, women and children in the world’s poor countries go to bed hungry every day due to poverty. It is estimated that 100 million children live on the streets and a billion are illiterate. Nearly 12 million children under five die annually from preventable diseases and millions become crippled. A UNICEF report says that two million children out of 25 million born every year in India die within a year.

The number of children suffering from ill-effects of malnutrition is placed at 37 million in India, and deaths are estimated at 2.15 million every year. The National Nutrition Monitoring Bureau has reported that 81.4 per cent children suffer from mild to moderate degrees of malnutrition and 8.7 per cent suffer from severe forms of malnutrition.

The rate of infant mortality (IMR) reflects on the general health and economic conditions of a country. It represents the number of babies who die before the age of one out of every 1,000 live births. In the developed countries, it is as low as 14 in North America and Europe, and it is the lowest in Sweden (6.7). The IMR in India has come to 79 from 129 in 1971, and the country’s under five mortality rate (UMR) is placed at 111 per 1,000 live births. A UNICEF report says that 90 countries out of 145 have a lower IMR than India’s, and 103 nations have a lower UMR. Kerala has the lowest IMR of 17 and Orissa has the highest (114). Poverty, unhygienic environment and malnutrition among women in the reproductive age group are the main contributing factors for India’s high rate. The UN has set the target to bring down the IMR in India to 70 by 2000 AD.

Two hundred and 50 million people in India consume less than three-fourth of the needed calories while another 55 million take less than half of their daily calorie requirement. The National Nutrition Monitoring Bureau has reported that one out of every 10 children gets enough food that conforms to the international nutritional standards. A study by the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute shows that an average Indian hardly gets 1,900 calories a day with millions still not in a position to afford even that much.

Incidence of anaemia in India among pregnant and nursing mothers of the poorer sections is as high as 50 per cent. Nearly 200 million people in the world have been suffering from iron deficiency. A WHO report says that more than half of all pregnant women suffer from anaemia, which contributes to many of the five lakh deaths taking place annually from pregnancy-related complications in the developing world. The WHO has reported that India will be the diabetes capital of the world by 2010 with 50 million diabetics as against the present 25 million.

Apparently, poverty, illiteracy, poor sanitation, malnutrition, scarcity of safe drinking water and a growing population have been complicating the health scenario and making the task on health care a difficult one. Since health security and health accountability are most important for quality of life and prosperity in a country, alleviation of poverty and raising living standards must get priority to achieve the goal of “health for all”. This would largely depend on the contributions to be made by the rich developed countries to help in eradicating hunger and malnutrition in the poor developing countries.

Brain-storming
by S. Raghunath

COMPLEXITIES of modern life — air instead of water in the taps, water-laced kerosene selling at Rs 18 a litre, Ms Jayalalitha queering the pitch for my favourite Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition government — were straining my limited mental faculties and I decided that I would do the “in” thing and constitute my own “think tank” to advice, guide and counsel me.I persuaded some of the best brains in the business — the washerman, the vegetable vendor, the family priest and the chap who came by with an oxen and drum promising to foretell my fortune — to serve on my think tank which met for its first brain-storming session last Sunday in the disused lumber room in my backyard.

The first item on the agenda was an acute cash flow crisis caused by the Electricity Board saddling me with a whopping bill for energy consumed and backbilled to 18 months and arrears at 22 per cent interest and I invited my think tankers to come up with cerebral solutions to bail me out.

The washerman took the floor. “I suggest,” he said, trying to look bright (but falling flat on his face), “you kidnap a rich heiress in a daring daylight operation, spirit her away and hold her under duress in an abandoned stone quarry. By lighting the fuse to a keg of dynamite placed between her toes, you can induce her to write self cheques for large amounts from time to time.”

The washerman, with his lurid imagination, was obviously a fervid James Hadley Chase fan.

“Oh, yeah?” I said, “and have the special branch cops pouncing on me!”

I flung out the washerman by his flapping ears. My think tank, hardly a day old, had already sprung a leak.

The next pressing issue to be addressed was the critical water shortage in my household and if I reeked to high heavens, I wasn’t to be blamed. It was three months since I had last taken a bath and I wanted my brains trustees to apply their Newtonian minds and come up with innovative solutions.

It was the turn of the vegetable vendor. “What you should do,” she said,” is take a large zinc sheet bucket and board the crack Brindavan Express to Chennai. In Chennai, you fill the bucket with water from the Bay of Bengal and on your return home, you can desalinate it over charcoal fire.”

You will be amazed, but this hare-brained suggestion was greeted with a standing ovation. Of such stuff are think tanks made.

A horde of mice was playing havoc in my kitchen and store-room and I wanted my brains trust to come up with superior control measures.

“I suggest,” said the family priest, “you take a large washing tub and when you spy a mice scurrying across the floor, you act with the speed of lightning and plunk it down on it.”

“What good would that do?” I demanded angrily.

“Well,” said the think tanker, thoughtfully stroking his chin, “with the wash tub, you’ve something to sit on while you figure out your next move.”

My think tank has now been in existence for six months and I can appreciate your eagerness to know if it has proved to be of any worth and if I am nearer to solving my problems. Well, I want to be manfully frank and say for, if anything, my problems have become more vexatious and irksome, but I think I know what is to be done — my think tank needs to be “de-silted.”

by Tavleen Singh
BJP Government & role of RSS

IN the search for reasons why the Bharatiya Janata Party did so badly in the recent assembly elections, fingers are slowly beginning to point in the direction of the RSS. This mother figure of the Sangh Parivar is increasingly being seen as the main reason why Atal Behari Vajpayee is unable to give his government the modern, forward-looking image he desperately needs if he is to take on the Congress with its shiny, new leader and its shiny, new confidence.

RSS leaders like to feign disinterest in matters of politics, economics and governance. “We are only a cultural organisation” they like to say but almost every day now we see Vajpayee’s best intentions grounded by some obstacle or other that the RSS casts in their path. Last week there was the embarrassment caused by dithering over the insurance Bill. RSS leaders, who believe fundamentally that foreign investment, foreign companies and globalisation in general should be kept out of India, oppose opening the insurance sector to foreign investment. So, even as the Finance Minister was assuring a glittering gathering of foreign investors, at the World Economic Forum’s India Summit, that the insurance Bill would come up in this session of Parliament Madan Lal Khurana was busy telling TV reporters that it was “not a priority”. The Parliamentary Affairs Minister was later forced to hold another press conference and clarify that it would, in fact, be in the priority list but the damage was done. The RSS hand was seen by those familiar with its swadeshi economists.

Prominent among these are Messrs Gurumurthy and Govindacharya. These two gentlemen leap at any chance to express their views on television so we recently saw Govindacharya announcing on the Priya Tendulkar Show that we needed to come up with an Indian idea of economics. Explaining further he suggested that we could have separate economies for the very poor, the middle classes and rich industrialists.

This is not economics so much as fantasy but, somehow, the RSS has not yet discovered that when countries follow the right economic policies everyone becomes prosperous. Prosperity, though, is not on the swadeshi agenda. It is pretty much the last thing on the minds of those who pride themselves on their RSS training. In an RSS Utopia everyone would live like the poorest of our villagers: two sets of clothing, a hut, two vegetarian meals and a string cot. The problem is that younger Indians, bred on ideas of the good life gleaned from private television channels, do not want to live like this any more. Quite the opposite. They want to live better and better and, yes, they want more and more consumer goods. So, they are far more likely to vote for those who offer them better prospects than those who offer them the spartan standards of rural India.

As if it were not bad enough that RSS non-ideas about economics were preventing Mr Vajpayee’s Government from moving us towards a richer, more prosperous India we also have the RSS “cultural” interference to contend with.

Barely had senior members of the government begun to digest the disastrous news from the assembly elections than newspaper front pages highlighted a proposed new rath yatra to liberate some obscure shrine in Karnataka. For hundreds of years Hindus and Muslims have both worshipped at this Sufi shrine but suddenly now it is being reconverted to Hinduism.

Poor Mr Vajpayee needs another rath yatra like a hole in the head. As it is the intemperate statements of Hindutva’s foot soldiers have created the impression that they are on a crusade against Christianity. The raping of nuns in Jhabua has been justified and almost every other day comes news from states like Gujarat that some Christian priest or other has been victimised. Again, the RSS leadership appears not to have realised that younger Indians are simply not interested any more.

The Ayodhya movement came at a different time and, on account of years of Congress secularism, briefly caught the imagination of the urban middle classes. No sooner did the Babri Masjid come down, though, than everyone lost interest. There have been several attempts since to gather together the flock to start building that temple to Rama but the flock has resisted such appeals and attempts to summon them to Varanasi and Mathura have been similarly unsuccessful. Neither secularism nor communalism matters much to the average Indian any more. He is far more interested in improving his standard of living. And, here as pointed out already, the RSS has little to offer.

Mr Vajpayee’s Government, on the other hand, has much that it could be doing. It has been jolted sharply enough by the loss of Rajasthan, Delhi and Madhya Pradesh to know that it has to much to do if it is to make up for lost ground. A whole series of economic Bills need immediate clearance to win back the support of businessmen. Massive amounts of work needs to be done in areas like health and education if the average voter is to perceive a difference and there is the very serious problem of needing to bring prices down to acceptable levels. All this can only happen, though, if the RSS gets off the government’s back.

It has to realise that the only role it can play is a bad one. Ever since Vajpayee became Prime Minister Delhi’s corridors of power have buzzed with rumours about him not being the RSS choice. Since becoming Prime Minister he has shown a strange reluctance to lead and again this is seen as a sign that the RSS is not letting him function the way he would like to. Jaswant Singh not becoming Finance Minister was, from the start, seen as evidence of direct interference.

by Amita Malik
It was a famous victory

I do not see why I should not give my column a title from Robert Southey, considering poetry was flowing fast and free on television before, during and just after the elections. Before going back to his librarian’s job ( and I trust he travelled by bus and not one of three cars) Mr Sahib Singh confessed on Star News that he was very fond of Tennyson and went so far as to compare his part of the campaign to The Charge of The Light Brigade. Not to be outdone, Mani Shankar Aiyer quoted and entire poem by a very modern poet, Christopher Logue. I am not sure that the Prime Minister wrote or recited any poetry after the election results came in. But as Sheila Dikshit moved half-a-league , half a league onwards, it was good to see, as Barkha Dutt pointed out, that Kirti Azad, the former Test cricketer, lost gracefully to “Sheila Buwa”, like a good sportsman.

That is more than can be said of some of the others. Arjun Singh, pinned down mercilessly by Rajdeep Sardesai, was easily the most sour puss on TV when he was asked if he was backing Digvijay Singh for the chief ministership of Madhya Pradesh. While Digvijay himself, very much on camera, kept on smiling sardonically. Even Sushma Swaraj was moved to exclaim that it was all very naughty, mischievous and unfair. And such was the atmosphere, that the normally chivalrous Prannoy Roy posed quite a few tough questions to Sushma Swaraj as well.

Yes, the elections had their fair share of excitement and suspense. And when it came to covering them, the two main marathon runners in the field were Star News and TV Today on DD. Yogendra Yadav is a skilled psephologist as well as an experienced telecaster. And it was a pleasure to see Rahul Dev back at doing what he does best, news analysis. I think it was a terrible mistake on the part of both Aaj Tak and Dev himself to take on newscasting. And that too immediately after the irreplaceable S.P.Singh. Here Dev was back in his element.

The duo of Yadav and Dev operated without stand-ins bravely throughout the period, with breaks in between, while Star News operated non-stop for virtually 24 hours with the help of a top team in the studios, backed up by their usual excellent team of reporters. But with even that formidable a duo, DD came a late second. Their production values were terrible, in addition to the usual shaky reception. The sets were horribly fussy to begin with. To have a panel of four frequently in long shot and in badly composed shots at that, was fatal. One could hardly see their faces or make out which person was speaking.

DD’s feeds from outside had mostly scruffily dressed, badly-spoken reporters, again sitting stiffly in the middle of funny little sets. Most of them, as in Nalini Singh’s exit polls, shouted at the top of their voices and their interviewing often left a lot to be desired. What DD really lacked was style and sophistication. And this is where Star News scored hands down. The marathon runners like Rajdeep Sardesai, Vikram Chandra and Sonia Verma were gallantly backed up by correspondents Srinivasan Jain, Arnab Goswami, Sanjay Ahirwal, Radhika Bordia, Abhigyan Prakash and Barkha Dutt in the field, all confident and savvy. That they were bi-lingual expanded their coverage. Regulars like Pankaj Pachauri and Arup Ghosh also pitched in with added zest. It was teamwork and planning all the way. Politicians were asked the most challenging questions, with no holds barred and only Yogendra Yadav was able to match them from the other side.

However, I must fault all channels on their obvious neglect of the North-East. To begin with, they kept on referring to Mizoram (Ram as in Sita) when it is Mizorum (as in rum and coke). Mizoram was treated, both by the press and the media, as a poor relation throughout, and only dragged out when the Hindi belt excitement was exhausted. Star News had Bano Haralo reporting but hardly any proper analysts. Here Yadav-Dev did rather better by having in the studio North-East expert Sanjoy Hazarika, who had visited Mizoram only a few days earlier and was able to provide valuable insights into the election results. That is what every channel should have been doing.

75 YEARS AGO
Rebuff for Lloyd George

LLOYD GEORGE’S stock has slumped considerably this week. His speech in the “Capitalism V. Socialism” debate on Monday is agreed by all who heard it to have been a very sorry performance. It seems to be the effort of a man who is thoroughly played out. The part he took in the Indian Loans Bill debate on the following day confirmed this impression. In this case, his intervention was not merely foolish but positively harmful. It struck one as a spiteful bit of retaliation against those who had dared to criticise his notorious steel-frame oration.

Neither then nor at any other time has he made the least attempt to cultivate the goodwill of India. On the contrary, he has gone out of his way to antagonise the people of this country, first by trying to minimise whatever value there was in the reforms, and, secondly, by inflicting direct injury upon her commercial and economic interests.

He has been thwarted in both respects by circumstances which he was unable to control. The present House of Commons has many faults, but we must at least give it credit for refusing to follow Mr Lloyd George in his confirmed hostility to India.

There is some consolation in the fact that the unjust amendment which he advocated on Tuesday night found such little support in that Assembly that after a vain attempt on the part of the mover to get it withdrawn it was negatived without a division. It was a well-deserved rebuke, both for Mr Lloyd George and his fellow-conspirator.