Dealing with Bin Laden
THE scary report published by London's Sunday Times to the effect that Osama bin Laden, one of the world's most wanted Islamic terrorists, has asked his Afghan and Arab captive volunteers to gather in Kashmir for a major offensive in the valley and beyond must not be dismissed outright.

Governor’s obligations
AFTER Bihar, it is now the turn of the Madhya Pradesh Governor to be in the news for all the wrong reasons. Most of the unpleasant things being said about Dr Bhai Mahavir by members of the Congress may be politically motivated.


IMF in regulation mode LAST year this time in Hong Kong the World Bank-IMF duo was magisterial in its criticism of the victims of the Asian market meltdown and forced down their throat a bitter medicine whose side effects have been stock market cramps, industrial dropsy and jobs bleeding.

ANIMAL EXPERIMENT BAN
by Praful Bidwai
IF the Government of India has its way, all scientific activity in the country which uses animals for laboratory experimentation will come to a grinding halt on October 8.


South Africa: price to pay for tourism boom
by Eddie Koch
HYATT has opened shop in a trendy suburb to the north of Johannesburg, and in a presage of the impact some say these kinds of hotels will have on South Africa’s local culture, the ceiling of the new hotel promptly collapsed onto the heads of guests at a conference. Luckily, nobody was injured.

Consultation & consensus given the go-by by P. Raman WE are rapidly sliding into an era of full-fledged political confrontation. Secret deals, private negotiations, surprise decisions and politicisation of every event are unmistakable signs of this emerging trend. While both the main ruling party and the Opposition should share the blame for the present confrontational politics, the onus of creating an atmosphere of consensus naturally rests on the former. Congress divided on Udham Singh Nagar WHILE the country’s attention is drawn to the ongoing battle between the BJP and the Shiromani Akali Dal over the emotive issue of including Udham Singh Nagar District in the proposed Uttaranchal State, the differences within the Congress practically remained unnoticed. Gandhian humour by I. M. Soni MAHATMA GANDHI once observed, “Here go my people. I must follow them because I am their leader.” This single sentence reveals three things: one, he had a sense of humour. Two, he was modest. Though he attained pinnacles of glory and public adulation, he did not lose his sense of proportion. In fact, a sense of humour in itself is a sense of proportion.

75 Years Ago

Indian Representation
IF we could agree that in the conditions created by the Kenya decision India should be at all represented either on the Assembly of the League of Nations or at the Imperial Conference, we should have nothing to say against the two actual representatives, so far as the educated middle class in this country is concerned.

Dealing with Bin Laden

THE scary report published by London's Sunday Times to the effect that Osama bin Laden, one of the world's most wanted Islamic terrorists, has asked his Afghan and Arab captive volunteers to gather in Kashmir for a major offensive in the valley and beyond must not be dismissed outright. Bin Laden is a heartless terrorist with hundreds of Afghan battle-hardened Islamic mercenaries under his command. As we have pointed out time and again, the Taliban militia is sustained by Pakistan and empowered financially and with weapons by Bin Laden. It would be, however, a matter of propagandist gullibility to support The Time's "information" that a very large number of Bin Laden's terrorists have already crossed the Pir Panjal mountain range with clear orders to bring terror in Kashmir and beyond. Our surveillance system in the North is effective enough to notice any large-scale movement of insurgents. Defence Minister George Fernandes and the Army Chief had recently surveyed the entire area. Our communication system in the region is dependable. Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah and Governor Girish Saxena have credible ways of monitoring the movements of saboteurs, thanks to modern technology and capable soldiers positioned at sensitive points. But it would be worthwhile to imagine a scenario in which a plan like the one attributed to Bin Laden could materialise. It is true that Islamic mercenaries have taken control of Pakistan-sponsored militancy in Kashmir. There are die-hard fundamentalists among them who are heavily armed and trained as members of suicide squads who want Jammu and Kashmir to stay in a precarious state of instability and the fear of the gun.

It is good to remember that Bin Laden had won over Afghan Mujahideen in their thousands in the early 80s and constructed secret ammunition depots in the mountain-sides of Khost at the behest of the ISI. Most of the Afghan mercenaries caught in the northern state have admitted that Bin Laden had trained them first as members of Harkat-ul-Ansar and then as those of his new Mujahideen outfit. After the surprise strikes by the USA, Bin Laden's men are in need of new sanctuaries and fresh sources of sustenance. This man has been glorified as an organisation by the USA, which first extended considerable support to him. To President Clinton, he is the "terrorist-in-chief" of the world and Public Enemy Number One. The average American may put him in the gallery of rogues or in that of exceptions as one sees a macho man in James Bond's movies. But he knows that this man is worth at least $250 million. He symbolises the struggle between one man and many states. Mr Clinton has made him seem almost equal to the USA. In reality, Bin Laden is the mastermind behind the Islamic terrorist network with the full possession of certain crucial factors: the art of accumulation of wealth, the ability to form a network of electronic communication, the power to end national monopolies of effective weapons, the expertise in technological warfare and the capacity to organise battle-ready communication centres. As a planner, he is a great facilitator. As a fanatic, he is a brutish lunatic. Listen to his words: "Danger is a part of our life. Do you not realise that we have spent 10 years fighting against the Russians and the KGB?" Here then is a terrible Pakistani ally. We have got at least some hints of his motives through The Time's report. Let us not be complacent. Let us be vigilant. If a couple of American missiles can drive Bin Laden out of his fortress in Afghanistan, we can surely break the will of the devil-incarnate. This nation has, by now, learnt how to conquer fear and deal with the likes of Bin Laden appropriately.

Governor’s obligations

AFTER Bihar, it is now the turn of the Madhya Pradesh Governor to be in the news for all the wrong reasons. Most of the unpleasant things being said about Dr Bhai Mahavir by members of the Congress may be politically motivated. However, there is much substance in the saying that there is no smoke without fire. Bihar Governor S.S. Bhandari made the mistake of sharing with the media the contents of the report he had sent to the Centre recommending the dismissal of the Rabri Devi government even before it was referred to the President by the Cabinet. The calculated leaks from Raj Bhavan in Bhopal about Dr Mahavir’s differences with Chief Minister Digvijay Singh too should have been avoided keeping in view the Assembly elections next month. Heavens would not have fallen had Raj Bhavan not leaked to the media the fact that the Chief Minister was not replying to the letters sent to him by the Governor on seemingly important issues. By leaking reports about the sharp differences between Mr Digvijay Singh and Dr Mahavir Raj Bhavan has provided an opening to the Congress to accuse the Governor of abusing his office for implementing the agenda of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The Governor’s conduct in what is known as the Indore land scam too has provided an opportunity to the Congress to remind him of his constitutional obligations. The Lokayukta sought the permission of Raj Bhavan to investigate the role of two former ministers in the land scam. Dr Mahavir did the right thing by referring the request to the State Cabinet. The Cabinet did not cover itself with glory by denying permission for the prosecution of the former ministers — both members of the ruling Congress. Dr Mahavir would have added to the stature of the office he holds had he returned the Cabinet’s recommendation for reconsideration. It would have knocked the stuffing out of Mr Digvijay Singh’s public posture of fighting corruption in high places. Instead, the Governor overruled the Cabinet’s decision and granted permission to the Lokayukta to prosecute the two former ministers. Is the Chief Minister wrong in claiming that Dr Mahavir’s permission for the prosecution of the former ministers “is not in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution?” The State Government has written to the Governor explaining to him the legal and constitutional provisions in this regard. Looking at the issue in a larger perspective it would appear that in the past there was seldom any conflict of interest or perception on important issues between Raj Bhavan and the office of Chief Minister because the two posts were invariably held by members of the same party. The first time the constitutional office was abused was in 1959 when Indira Gandhi as Congress President persuaded Jawaharlal Nehru to dismiss the first-ever Communist Government in Kerala. Now that the Congress has lost its monopoly over power the Governor has, in most cases, ceased to represent the President in the State of his appointment. There is some substance in the charge that he now often acts as the “agent” of the party in power at the Centre. In the changed political situation, it is hoped that the political parties would evolve a consensus in favour of the demand that politicians should not be appointed to gubernatorial posts. Otherwise, what has been witnessed in Bihar and Madhya Pradesh may be repeated elsewhere. The need is to improve the image of Raj Bhavans and not to destroy it by packing them with politicians who belong to the party in power at the Centre. The Constitution does not allow the Governor to have a parallel administration, which Dr Mahavir is evidently attempting to do in Madhya Pradesh.

IMF in regulation mode

LAST year this time in Hong Kong the World Bank-IMF duo was magisterial in its criticism of the victims of the Asian market meltdown and forced down their throat a bitter medicine whose side effects have been stock market cramps, industrial dropsy and jobs bleeding. This year in Washington the same Bretton Woods twins are introspective, embarrassed at their inadequacy and ready to renounce their core faith. This transformation is only partly because of the learnt lessons of the Asian crisis. More importantly, it stems from the deepening recession in Japan, the unholy mess in Russia and the creeping volatility in western stock markets. However, the clincher is the spectacular collapse of a five-star hedge fund and the general fear that it is a bad omen for the US economy. When a company managed and advised by an array of the best money-making minds in the land (the fund tripled its capital in two years by gambling in stock markets) goes under it is time the Bank-Fund twosome correctly read the signal and digested the meaning.

At its annual meeting, which began on Monday, the two leading multilateral institutions are shifting gear on a whole range of issues regarding capital flows across national borders. New proposals call for strict regulation of these flows (to spot hot money and sanitise it), separate government and private borrowing (to pump in money in a crisis to help the government but leave the other lenders to pay a price for taking an unacceptable risk), advise developing countries to go slow on full convertibility of their currency (to minimise the chances of sudden largescale flight of capital), and bring the hedge funds under close scrutiny by stripping their operation of secrecy. All these would have been unthinkable blasphemy only a few months back, as indeed the attack on Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed showed for preaching and practising this very dogma. Today the high priests of financial deregulation and unfettered freedom of money movement are giving up their orthodoxy and moving towards the ideological centre in financial management.

This is about the only success likely at the Washington meeting, if success it indeed is. The World Bank has announced a marginal increase in interest rates and a similar cut in the waivers it offers to encourage prompt repayment. There is going to be no big increase in the IMF resources to bail out the economies under terrible strain. Nor will there be a standstill arrangement — that is, commercial lenders will not foreclose their loans in a moment of real or imagined crisis but will stay put to give time to the government to come up with the required cash. The idea is that it is easier to raise funds to avert a crisis than it is to come out of a crisis. This demand has been shot down. The rich countries have also turned down the plea for a notional facility to act as a cushion against precipitate loss the lenders may incur. This was an alternative for the standstill arrangement. The heavily indebted economies will thus return from Washington with an ideological victory of sorts without an additional dollar to show for it.

ANIMAL EXPERIMENT BAN
Dire threat to Indian science
by Praful Bidwai

IF the Government of India has its way, all scientific activity in the country which uses animals for laboratory experimentation will come to a grinding halt on October 8. This is not a figment of some fertile or febrile imagination, but the direct effect of a Gazette of India notification issued on September 8 by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MOEF) announcing the new Breeding of and Experimentation on Animals (Control and Supervision) Rules, 1998, under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act. Unless the Rules are held in abeyance through speedy intervention at the highest level, some of the most important areas of current science, namely research in biology, medicine and other health-related fields, will be grievously affected.

Behind the Rules is Minister of State for Social Welfare and Empowerment Maneka Gandhi — and a mountain of misguided ideas and prejudices about kindness and cruelty to animals and human beings. Essentially, what the Rules do is ban all experiments on, and breeding of, animals for laboratory use, without prior permission of the MOEF’s Committee for the Purpose of Control and Supervision of Experiments on Animals (CPCSEA) headed by none other than Ms Gandhi. First, all breeders must register themselves with the MOEF within three months, and all institutions that conduct experiments on animals, within 30 days. After that, they can only perform the activity in question after explicit, case-by-case, clearance for each experiment.

The Rules stipulate that a huge amount of information should be supplied to the CPCSEA, regardless of its relevance. Thus, a single licensing body, without the technical staff or expertise, is expected to deal with the 5,600 laboratories in our research institutes and pharmaceutical factories, and schools and colleges, which use more than five million animals a year. The Rules forbid all imports of experimental animals and also their transfer from one laboratory to another, except via dealers. They also prohibit contract work by Indian institutions for foreign sources — international collaboration. They proscribe training and demonstration involving laboratory animals.

The Rules will produce numerous anomalies. For instance, a nurse or trained attendant can draw blood from a human being for routine tests, but a veterinary surgeon must be present to anaesthetise all experimental animals before they can be bled. Prior permission must be obtained before each “experiment”, but “experiment” is not defined: does it include every single manoeuvre on each animal, or a whole range of operations in a given research project? Again, each laboratory must fill in a form stating the species, number, age and sex of the animals it stocks over time. But in most large experimental facilities, these parameters change literally from day to day, especially where fast-breeding mammals such as rats and mice are involved.

Under the new regime, all laboratories must submit full reports on the completion of animal experiments, however voluminous and technical. This stipulation is impractical and unnecessary. Many reports are tied up with patents, publication in scientific journals and restrictions on disclosure agreed with collaborating institutions and funding agencies. The employment of a veterinarian for each small manoeuvre will enormously raise the costs of scientific research, wasting precious resources. Under Rules 10 (g) and 10 (h), no experiments can be performed for teaching, attaining or retaining manual skills. This is likely to impose far greater suffering and pain on animals when workers trained in theory but not in actual hands-on skills carry out experiments on them. It is also likely to lead to a greater loss of animal lives owing to improperly done experiments.

Equally flawed is the stipulation that no experiment, the results of which are already conclusively known, is to be repeated. In general, reproducibility is essential to scientific experimentation. Some degree of repetition is not only inevitable but desirable. Further, in the biological sciences, the number of variable parameters is very high, and therefore what appears to be the same experiment may in fact yield different results. The blanket prohibition of imports of strains of experimental animals may appear reasonable. But some specialised researchers do need animals which are in-bred for generations in dedicated facilities in the USA and Europe. These provide genetically homogeneous material which is sometimes necessary for scientific rigour.

The committee that formulated the Rules was evidently poorly informed and tarred all institutions with the same brush, assuming, for instance, that laboratory animals are always treated cruelly. This is not true. Most laboratories under the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and the Department of Biotechnology, for instance, house animals in air-conditioned surroundings, which are kept tidy and clean. They tend to avoid using large animals and prefer mice. Most have animal ethics committees and many follow laboratory practices suggested in standard references such as “Principles of Humane Experimental Technique” by M.S. Russell and R.L. Burch which sets forth the three R’s — replace animals by test-tube or in vitro methods where possible; reduce the number of animals in an experiment by rigorous statistical treatment of the data obtained; and refine the experiment so as to cause less pain and distress to animals.

There is, of course, a need for a strict code on just, humane and compassionate treatment of laboratory animals. But this cannot start by presuming that the typical laboratory animal is represented by the ill-nourished, harassed and cruelly treated performing bear with a ring through its nose. But the committee in question appears to have relied on sloppy reports such as the one submitted by the NGO Vatavaran, which is remarkable for factual inaccuracies. At any rate, it is probably the best to formulate a standard code such as the National Institute of Health’s (NIH, USA) “Guide to the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals”, and leave its implementation to individual laboratories, with periodic checking by a technically qualified committee. It is also necessary to include a commitment to such a code as a condition for licensing the production of drugs. But it is futile to try to regulate everything centrally.

Finally, we must put animal rights in perspective. We know that animals might or might not be able to talk or reason, but that they can suffer. It is vital to be aware of this and minimise their suffering. We can permit, indeed countenance, such suffering only if it subserves a higher purpose — saves precious human life. Without experimentation involving animals, we would never have learnt enough about how living organisms work, how blood circulates, how drugs act, how diseases get cured. Without animal experiments, Koch, Pasteur, Jenner and Lister would not have gained the knowledge that went into the making of medicines and vaccines that have saved millions of lives.

Regrettably, the CPCSEA seems oblivious of all this. People like Ms Maneka Gandhi get so carried away by animal rights fundamentalism that they just cannot exercise thoughtful and discriminating judgement. The consequences of her one-sided thinking were in evidence when she was the Minister of State for the Environment in the V.P. Singh government. Rather than seriously address fundamental issues such as people’s access to environmental resources, she staged dramatic acts, rebuking and condemning all and sundry, even suggesting that we should stop growing rice because paddy fields emitted a greenhouse gas, methane, etc. She confused environmentalism with mindless conservationism, and gave a good cause a bad name.

In the process, she put off many environmentalists. Now she is set to halt research in a cutting-edge field of the life sciences. As Dr V. Ramalingaswami, former Director-General of the ICMR, says, “the CPCSEA rules are fraught with serious consequences to the progress of the medical research in India towards new vaccines and new drugs”. A large number of researchers have already sounded the alarm bell, but whether they are heeded or not has become a function not of rationality, nor ethics, but of political deals between the BJP and its allies.

Ms Maneka Gandhi’s zealotry on animal rights is not unexpected. It is more dismaying that the 12 ex-officio members of the 17-strong CPCSEA went along with her unbalanced agenda. These are not ordinary bureaucrats, but include Secretaries in the Departments of Biotechnology and Education as well as the Special Secretary of the National Informatics Centre, Directors-General of Health Services and of the ICMR, the Drug Controller of India, Directors of the Indian Veterinary Research Institute, the Central Drug Research Institute and the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences, the Chair of the Animal Welfare Board, Additional Inspector-General of Forests (Wildlife) and the Director (Animal Welfare) in the MOEF.

This is tantamount to conformism and conservatism of a new and dangerous variety. It speaks of the degeneration of the quality of our “scientocrats” and of a growing culture of sycophancy. Such sycophancy is inimical not just to science but to the democratic spirit and the idea of free enquiry and debate. This bodes ill for all of us. We must roll back the damage.

South Africa: price to pay for tourism boom
by Eddie Koch

HYATT has opened shop in a trendy suburb to the north of Johannesburg, and in a presage of the impact some say these kinds of hotels will have on South Africa’s local culture, the ceiling of the new hotel promptly collapsed onto the heads of guests at a conference. Luckily, nobody was injured.

Hyatt plans to open another five-star hotel on Cape Town’s hottest tourism spot, the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront. The Hilton group is moving rapidly with planned hotels near Johannesburg and Durban, and Intercontinental, the world’s largest five-star hotel chain, has agreed to a joint venture with the local Southern Sun hotel group.

Saudi Arabian companies, at least two conglomerates from Malaysia, oil barons from the United Arab Emirates and even actor Omar Sharif have also set their sights on sunny South Africa as a place to invest the capital that their leisure chains appear to be awash with.

The new scramble to build hotels here is fuelled by a tourism sector that is sprinting ahead of the rest of the local economy.

With a massive 40 per cent growth in foreign visitor arrivals since all-race elections last year, this country probably has the fastest growing travel market in the world — no mean achievement given that tourism is the globe’s biggest and fastest growing industry.

“New statistics show that much of the travel boom to South Africa is being driven by a worldwide fascination with the ‘rainbow nation’,” says Geert Greemers, a resource economist at the Natal Parks Board, one of the country’s wildlife and ecotourism agencies, in Durban.

“This pot of foreign tourism dollars may rapidly pay back the one billion rand-odd (about $ 300 million) it cost to make the New South Africa”, he believes.

Statistics from the South African Tourism Board (Satour) show that it took nine years for overseas tourist arrivals to grow from 300,000 in 1986 to 700,000 in 1994. This year the country is likely to receive more than a million overseas guests — small in comparison to the tourism figures of many countries outside Africa but a massive hike of 40 per cent over tourism’s performance before the election.

“This year’s increase in overseas arrivals will bring in an extra 1.7 billion rands (470 million dollars) of foreign exchange earnings”, says Creemers. “This puts the transition to democracy and last year’s general election — the latter swallowed 1.1 billion rands — into a new perspective.

“The transition process could be considered as the most costly, and at the same time, the most effective travel marketing campaign the world has ever seen”, he adds.

This kind of phenomenal growth, coupled with the fact that South Africa’s domestic hotel chains simply cannot provide enough beds for the new visitors, explains why the big international leisure-time merchants are following the droves of new tourists into South Africa.

Satour and many government officials cautiously welcome the flood of investment dollars into the leisure industry. Neon lights that blink names like Hilton and Hyatt are a symbol of international confidence in the country’s economy. The five-star chains will also generate desperately needed jobs in a country where massive levels of unemployment pose one of the biggest challenges to the new government and national unity.

Creemers, for example, notes that the foreign exchange earned by tourism this year has probably created an extra 35,000 jobs nationwide. But a number of alarm bells are nevertheless beginning to ring.

“While tourism usually promises to provide employment for local communities, the jobs are most often unskilled, menial and poorly paid”, says Marco Turco, one of South Africa’s top travel writers.

Then there is the phenomenal leakage syndrome associated with the multinational leisure business in some of South Africa’s neighbouring markets. A recent magazine report estimates that 70 per cent of the money spent by foreign tourists on a beach holiday in Kenya returns to developed countries, mainly because the travel industry is dominated by expatriate companies.

Another study claims only 10 per cent of tourism expenditure remains in Zimbabwe and more than two-thirds of the money spent by foreigners in that country’s famed game reserves is exported out in the form of remittances to foreign investors. On top of this, planners in South Africa are wary of the dangers that foreign-owned monoliths can have on local culture. Turco has seen the litter strewn around the base of Mt Everest in Nepal, the coastal erosion around beach resorts in Kenya, the child-sex. — TWNF

Gandhian humour
by I. M. Soni

MAHATMA GANDHI once observed, “Here go my people. I must follow them because I am their leader.” This single sentence reveals three things: one, he had a sense of humour. Two, he was modest. Though he attained pinnacles of glory and public adulation, he did not lose his sense of proportion. In fact, a sense of humour in itself is a sense of proportion.

Gandhi who led the nation in its dark times of struggle for independence often displayed wit, banter and repartee, his fount of humour sprouting often. Noticing the din and decibles of discussion and debates at assemblies of the Congressmen, he commented, “The music of life is in danger of being lost in the music of voice.”

When a writer, Edward Thomson, drew his attention to the dwindling wildlife, Gandhi dispelled his despondency thus, “It’s decreasing in the jungles but increasing in the cities!”

It was Gandhi’s innate sense of humour, looking at the brighter side, even of a grim situation, which endeared him to mediapersons. He had no animosity even for those who opposed India’s independence. His maxim was: liberty of speech should be unassailed even if the speech hurts.

During World War II Gandhi’s opinion was much sought after. Once he was misquoted. Out of pique, he refused to meet the Press. Jawaharlal Nehru persuaded him.

He agreed to meet an eager bunch of over 50 journalists on the condition that he would answer only one question. They capsuled their question, “Mr Gandhi, all of us assembled here would like to know from you what you think would happen after the War”. The reply: “Peace.”

A reporter from a British news agency grilled Gandhi with too many questions. As he posed another, the Mahatma protested humorously: “You have already milked me dry like my goat.”

After a meeting with King George, Gandhi as he stepped out of the royal palace, was asked if he felt the chill clothed as he was only in a shawl. Keeping his cool, he returned what has become an all-time classic, “It was all right. The king had enough on for both of us.”

The British Press took a fancy to him when he visited Britain during the Round Table Conference. He was hailed as a “fine chap, laughing and jolly.”

An American ardent fan of Gandhi managed a meeting with him in Pune jail. He had a copy of the New York Times with him which Gandhi took and ruffled through its pages. He was amused with the classified ads which mentioned the number of bathrooms and bathtubs in a house. Subsequently, when he saw his American admirer, he hailed him, “That man from the land of many bathtubs.”

The naked Fakir gave a lecture to a select gathering of maharajas on austerity and simplicity. One by one the royalty left the meeting until, as Gandhi later said, “no one was left except God, the chairman and myself.” A few minutes later, the chairman too melted away. Gandhi observed, “Poor fellow, he must have been uncomfortable in this strange company.”

The Mahatma was once asked what he thought about Western civilisation. “I think”, he replied “that it would be a very good idea!”

Consultation & consensus
given the go-by

by P. Raman

WE are rapidly sliding into an era of full-fledged political confrontation. Secret deals, private negotiations, surprise decisions and politicisation of every event are unmistakable signs of this emerging trend. While both the main ruling party and the Opposition should share the blame for the present confrontational politics, the onus of creating an atmosphere of consensus naturally rests on the former.

Normally, it has been customary for every new government to swear by consultation and consensus. Some had, more as a tactical measure, made earnest concessions to the Opposition to gain their cooperation. Initially, Narasimha Rao’s minority government had taken advantage of his consensus offer to wrest an ample foothold for himself. He did so even while enforcing a new economic policy without a national debate or prior consultation with the Opposition. Luckily for him, the task of minimising the protests was performed by foreign and domestic business interests.

The BJP Government did not find any use for even a show of consensus. From the very beginning, the Vajpayee Government had proceeded with the clear understanding that its short-term survival depended on the goodwill of its allies and long-term prospects in profitable conflicts with its irreconcilable rivals. Every move by the new government testified to this carefully charted-out success strategy. Under this, there is little room for consultation and cooperation with sworn foes like the Congress, Left and the Mulayam-Laloo combine. Even the routine parliamentary consultations during the session have become rare and rather formal.

No doubt, this was exactly how the ruling parties at the Centre with massive majorities had always behaved. Cooperation apparently meant sharing of achievements from which the ruling parties detested. Instead, they made it a point to monopolise the achievements. So far, the new coalition has followed the same pattern. In the process, India’s foreign policy, where an amount of broad consensus prevailed, has become the worst victim. Even five months after the Pokhran nuclear tests the government is yet to initiate a move to build a national consensus on the crucial decision and the post-blast strategy.

Despite persistent demands, the Opposition has not yet been taken into confidence over it. On the eve of the Prime Minister’s departure for the UN General Assembly meeting, the Congress parliamentary leaders were called. But the meeting was so brief and casual, it did not take it anywhere. Even this is being interpreted in political circles as a strategy to confuse the Opposition by creating a wedge between the Congress and the rest. This may or may not be true. But the numerical strength enjoyed by the Congress apart, others like the Left and Rashtriya Loktantrik Morcha had often forced the former to reverse its approach on crucial issues. Apparently, in the present political scenario it is futile to confine crucial consultations to a single Opposition group.

The Government’s failure to take the nation into confidence is more pronounced on the issue of post-Pokhran developments. It went on reversing the foreign policy postures, one after another. All strenuous efforts to improve relationship with China over a period of time suddenly collapsed with senior ministers making China as target of India’s newly acquired nuclear attributes. Not just the irrepressible George Fernandes alone, but even the Prime Minister’s letter to Bill Clinton reflected this foreign policy bungling. It took weeks to correct the course.

As a result of such foreign policy mismanagement, not only G-8, European Union and P-5, but 46 out of 61 members of the conference on disarmament condemned India’s nuclear test. Of the 46, a majority belonged to the non-aligned group. Apart from putting Pakistan on par with India, the Pokhran test also internationalised the Kashmir issue. This is on the premise that any conflict on Kashmir would lead to nuclearisation. Consequently, the USA has linked the Kashmir issue with the withdrawal of its sanctions and settlement of other Indo-Pak problems. In May, the government had claimed that after becoming a nuclear power, it could hereafter negotiate with Pakistan and the USA from a position of strength.

However, in the aftermath of the US sanctions and the arm-twisting, India is now being forced to surrender all its leverages one after another. It has already given in on a fissile material cut-off treaty, no-first-use assurance and moratorium on further tests. Thus the national pride sought to be raised from the nuclear explosion has already made us to do everything to get the US sanctions nullified even if it meant further loss of its bargaining chips. The conflicting claims made by the top government leaders, including the Prime Minister, only reveals the hard bargaining with the USA and the resultant confusion in which the country has been pushed into by the new establishment in Delhi.

The extreme secrecy shrouding the vital issues of national security is such that only three men in the PMO knows what is really happening with regard to Jaswant Singh’s talks with Strobe Talbott. Never had India conducted any talks on the foreign policy under such tight secrecy, leaving the entire nation in the dark. Ironically, this has been part of the usual US ploy to arm-twist other countries into submission by holding talks without transparency and imposing decisions by way of fait accompli. Had the nation, or the leaders of the major Opposition parties been taken into confidence on the progress of the ongoing talks, it could have given more strength to the Indian negotiators.

In such negotiations, it is not being a nuclear power but the government’s authority to represent the country as a whole that would give it adequate strength. For instance, had the BJP government taken the Opposition into confidence about the post-test challenges it might have been able to send senior MPs belonging to different parties to explain India’s stand. This might have given more weight to the government’s efforts. Pakistan had done so. On the other hand, what is happening is a constant flow of self-contradictory statements from the government side. The BJP national executive had already passed a resolution against signing the CTBT. Even after the Prime Minister’s speech at the UN, George Fernandes continued to stick to his hard position.

It is naive to think that this break with the tradition of foreign policy consensus has been accidental. Right from the Pokhran test, it has been part of the ruling party’s carefully crafted plan to politicise the defence and foreign policies to reap political dividends. The BJP had officially stated that it would make Pokhran “pride” as its major achievement and poll plank. Obviously, the party does not want to share the “booty” with other parties by way of consultations and arriving at a consensus on the crucial issue. It does not want to give credit even to its own allies.

Jaswant Singh’s secret talks with the USA was supposed to add another feather in the ruling party’s cap. At one stage, the threesome in PMO was so hopeful of a breakthrough in US sanctions that it had taken elaborate measures to prepare the public opinion for what it thought was the crucial success on CTBT negotiations. Our highly respected scientists were persuaded to announce that India could achieve the further nuclearisation through computer simulation without more blasts. (However, soon after this the USA itself found the need for conducting another underground test.)

It took six rounds of talks for our “prince charming” to realise how tough and hardboiled the US negotiators are. The latest position of this secret diplomacy is that India is on the verge of signing the CTBT for which it had to agree to stop the production of further fissile material and yield to a “restraint regime” on weaponisation and delivery. Thus if this really happens, even the computer simulation will not have much of a use. India had always insisted on time-bound disarmament. The secret talks would lead to a climbdown on this as well. All this will invariably take away whatever advantage India had gained by way of the Pokhran test.

Consultations and consensus on important national issues have a special relevance in a coalitional setup as here. Unlike a party with a massive electoral mandate, ruling parties at the head of “shaky coalitions” have no moral right to legally commit the country to crucial decisions on the basis of a fait accompli behind the back of Parliament. This is especially so in the case of coalitions which have no institutionalised consultation and decision-making machinery within the system. A coalition derives its constitutional authority by way of its ability to get a parliamentary approval for its decisions.

Therefore, in principle, a few individuals belonging to one of the coalition parties should not enter into international legal commitments without at least the endorsement of the entire coalition which constitutes a parliamentary majority. In the case of the last two coalitions, even some of the Bills that had been approved by the Cabinet, had finally failed to get through Parliament due to the opposition from some of their own constituents. This has become apparent in the case of the dismissal of the Rabri Devi Government and the formation of three new states.

In both cases, the Union Cabinet had duly endorsed the proposals but many coalition partners have publicly announced their decision to oppose the move on the floor of the House. The present coalition has not yet been able to evolve a meaningful institutional arrangement for mutual consultations and joint decisions. Such confusion and uncertainties could be averted only by involving large sections of the coalition in the decision-making process. Under a coalitional atmosphere, adequate consensus machinery should function both within the coalition and among the political parties. This will remain a far cry so long as the main players continue with the political strategy of one-upmanship and confrontation.

Congress divided on Udham Singh Nagar

WHILE the country’s attention is drawn to the ongoing battle between the BJP and the Shiromani Akali Dal over the emotive issue of including Udham Singh Nagar District in the proposed Uttaranchal State, the differences within the Congress practically remained unnoticed.

It is a case of the left hand not knowing what the right is doing.

The President of the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee, Mr Salman Khursheed, practically poured cold water over the stand of his Punjab counterpart on the issue.

The PPCC Chief, Capt Amarinder Singh, has been berating the Akali Government for its “failure” to have the district excluded from the proposed Uttaranchal State. While casting his lot with the people of the district, the PPCC promised to oppose its inclusion.

Yet, it seems to have forgotten to convey the message to its own unit in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh, where an equally young leader in Mr Khursheed is working to revive fortunes of the Congress party.

Recently during the ongoing controversy Mr Khursheed went on record saying the Congress favours inclusion of Udham Singh Nagar in Uttaranchal State.

While one can understand difference of opinion between two alliance partners, it is not easy to do so in this case as the Congress, whose leaders are speaking in different voices at different places.

Is it because they are not accountable for they are not in power in either state or is it inability to drive home a political situation to their advantage?

Laloo could not care less

That there is no love lost between Bihar Governor, Sunder Singh Bhandari and the former Bihar Chief Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav is an open secret.

Considering the manner in which the Rashtriya Janata Dal Chief invoked chants against his ‘opponents’ during the Yagna, there is little left for imagination.

In fact be it by design or accident, Mr Yadav normally refers to Mr Bhandari with wrong initials, R D instead of SS. Recently when an enterprising scribe corrected him, the RJD Chief claimed it was more on account of memory lapse than anything else.

As a political observer put it, perhaps it is Mr Yadav’s style of conveying that he is not bothered about these niceties specially when it comes to Mr Bhandari.

Jogi’s dilemma

Mr Ajit Jogi, MP from Madhya Pradesh, these days has two caps to wear. On one hand he continues to be the spokesman for the All-India Congress Committee and on the other, he has to perform his new role as Working President of the Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee with responsibility of Chattisgarh region.

However, this bureaucrat-turned-politician has so far been carrying on both jobs with ease, the dichotomy notwithstanding. He also carefully sidesteps any questions related to MP while being the spokesman, lest he complicate the already crossed wires in the state.

With the State Assembly elections due on November 25, Mr Jogi has been shuttling between Delhi and regions of M P. He wears the cap of a spokesman on two days a week, Monday and Tuesday, spending the rest of the week in his home state.

For a person who fancies himself as future Chief Minister of the proposed Chattisgarh State, Mr Jogi has perhaps realised that the party’s prospects of coming back to power are not all that bright.

After two rounds of MP, this articulate spokesman has been telling all those who care to listen: “This job (Working President) is temporary, it is the official spokesman’s job that I will continue with”.

Advani and Black Cats

That the Home Minister of India, Mr Lal Krishna Advani, is a high-category protectee is well-known. For some time now, Mr Advani has been given protection by the elite “Black Cats” of the crack National Security Guards (NSG).

Recently Mr Advani, was to be the chief guest at the Raising Day ceremony of the force and the invitations made it clear that strict rules would be enforced to regulate entry into the NSG Garrison at Manesar, Haryana.

Interestingly, when a young correspondent who had just begun his career in media was assigned to cover he sought permission from the NSG officials to be allowed.

“Please have proper identification, after all you know Mr Advani has high-category security cover,” the official purred, little realising that it would anyway be a serious breach if some one even attempted to sneak into the Manesar Complex even during normal time leave alone doing so when the country’s Home Minister is on a tour.

Perhaps it was a case of parroting statements without realising their relevance.

PM’s tour

The recent sojourn of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to the U N and France, led to a series of comments on the efficacy of it.

Barring the meeting with his Pakistan counterpart, Mr Nawaz Sharif, and the address to the UN General Assembly which concluded early, the rest of them were engagements with NRIs and others.

Of course, there are reports that Mr Vajpayee had to stay put in New York since his meeting with French President Jacques Chirac could not be fixed earlier.

A Congress leader who spoke like a typical Opposition leader summed it up as: “Never before has any Prime Minister, spent so much time abroad and achieved so little”.

(Contributed by K.V. Prasad and P.N. Andley)

75 YEARS AGO
Indian Representation

IF we could agree that in the conditions created by the Kenya decision India should be at all represented either on the Assembly of the League of Nations or at the Imperial Conference, we should have nothing to say against the two actual representatives, so far as the educated middle class in this country is concerned.

Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru is one of the most distinguished leaders of the Liberal Party, the only party from whom, in the present conditions, it is possible for the Government to recruit its nominees for these high and responsible offices; and there is abundant evidence that with freedom from the trammels of office he has already partially recovered that independence for which at one time he was so distinguished.

Mr Hassan Imam is one of those great Mussalman leaders of whom it can be safely said that they have never given to their community what was meant for their country. He was, indeed, a towering figure in the Congress long before he became a towering figure on the stage of his community’s affairs, and although since the advent of non-cooperation his voice has not been heard as prominently at meetings of Congressmen as used to be the case at one time, all who know him are aware that his political anchor still holds as ever.