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Clear vision Son of
Punjab In a
rollback mode |
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The verdict in
perspective
A tale of Lucy’s
tail
Dateline
Washington Delhi
Durbar
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Clear vision THE Prime Minister-designate, Dr Manmohan Singh, has given an insight into his mind on various issues that concern the nation. It reconfirms the widely held belief that he represents — to quote his own favourite line — "an idea whose time has come". It is indeed reassuring that his stress is on unity and integrity of the country. While he is ready to carry on the good works initiated by the outgoing government like the quadrilateral highway project and the peace process underway in Kashmir, he has the courage to speak about the course corrections necessary in some other fields. As the one who set in motion economic reforms, it was only natural for him to think aloud on the subject. Thus, under his dispensation, economic reforms will not be for the sake of economic reforms but for the larger good of the common people. Dr Singh's assertion that strategic public sector undertakings or the Navratnas as they are called because of their potential for profits will not be privatised conforms to the thinking among a section of the Congressmen in particular and the Left in general. As a logical corollary, he will not be averse to disinvestment in PSUs which are in the red. Obviously, the economist in him knows that in the end what undid the National Democratic Alliance was its mindless pursuit of reforms setting unrest among a large section of the people. The widening disparities between the rich and the poor and the inability to provide jobs to a growing army of the unemployed were the key factors for the NDA's rout. The suicides by farmers in Andhra Pradesh played a major role in the defeat of the Telugu Desam Party there. It is in recognition of this that he wants to lay stress on increasing employment and agricultural production which alone can alleviate poverty. On the diplomatic front, it would be reassuring to all those who have been watching the thaw in India-Pakistan relations that he would pursue the policy initiated by Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee when he extended his hand of friendship to Pakistan to its logical culmination. That he does not seem to be hamstrung by the fact that he is supported by heterogeneous parties from the far left to the far right is bound to send the right signals within and without the country. While he is going to take more policy decisions during the next few weeks, Dr Manmohan Singh already seems to be on the right track. |
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Son of Punjab OF course, Dr Manmohan Singh has not got the top executive post in the country on the basis of his community or domicile, but his elevation has electrified Punjab in general and Sikhs in particular like never before. This is the first time in independent India's history that a person belonging to the minority community has been elevated to the highest post. Giani Zail Singh has been the President but becoming Prime Minister is quite a different honour. The sagacious choice will go a long way in removing the last traces of bitterness that a section of the Sikhs may have because of the 1984 riots and related matters. As it is, Sikhs have a large heart by nature. The latest gesture will help them further get over the feeling of hurt and neglect. The initial reaction of prominent citizens has been on these lines. What is remarkable is that even Akal Takht and the SGPC have lauded the Congress' decision. The Prime Minister-designate has endeared himself to the minorities — rather all right-thinking persons — by saying at his Press conference that the 1984 and Godhra riots were a slur on the face of the country and would not be allowed to repeat themselves. Everyone knows that Dr Manmohan Singh can be depended upon to provide a kind of leadership needed for a plural culture and society where communal harmony has always to prevail. By choosing him, Mrs Sonia Gandhi can reap several benefits. First, the Sikhs who had quit the party in droves alleging discrimination might come back in equally large numbers. The state unit of the party will be benefited. The hatred that some sections may feel towards her, she being a Nehru-Gandhi family member, may subside, easing the tense situation in which she lives at least a little bit. Her stature seems to have risen tremendously in the eyes of the Sikhs. |
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In a
rollback mode For
three years as Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Ms J. Jayalalithaa had been having an easy time. Now she is in a rollback mode. At one stroke, the AIADMK supremo has reversed several unpopular measures initiated since 2001. She has decided to scrap the controversial anti-conversion law, withdraw defamation cases against the media and drop charges filed under the Tamil Nadu Essential Services Maintenance Act. She has cancelled punishments imposed on government employees and revoked disciplinary proceedings against them as well as teachers for their part in the July 2003 strike. In terms of goodies, she has restored free power supply to all farmers and hut dwellers, removed the Rs 5000 income limit for availing the benefits of the public distribution system and revived free and concessional bus passes for school and college students. Despite the relief this would bring to large and diverse sections, few are likely to cheer her decisions, for it is dictated by neither democratic impulses nor economic sense. It is a defeated politician's self-serving move to retrieve lost political ground. Although some of the reversals would be welcomed for their mitigating effect on the victims, the fact remains that she has not scrapped the repressive TNESMA nor indicated withdrawal of the cases under the draconian POTA against her opponents, namely Mr Vaiko and eight others. Secondly, the ameliorative measures are tantamount to reckless squandering of state resources for reviving her and her party's fortunes. The slashing of outgo on subsidy, including an end to free power to farmers, had helped the state to the extent of Rs 3,000 crore whereas now the cost of free power alone would amount to Rs 2500 crore a year. This is neither good economics nor healthy politics. However, it would be too much to expect of Ms Jayalalithaa to benchmark governance by considerations other than what is for her own political and electoral good. At the moment she couldn't care less about anything other than how to revive her prospects for the assembly elections in 2006. |
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The happiness of society is the end of
government. — John Adams |
The verdict in
perspective WE are all familiar with the complaint — or the compliment — that while governments change in New Delhi, “eternal India” remains the same. Call it stability if you like, or inability to move with the times. But it is also something else. It is a fall-out of the Indian electoral system. For a time the system served a useful purpose. It ensured that while changes occurred close to the ground in many parts of the country, governments in New Delhi remained stable enough to reflect the sum total of the changes at any given time. Because of the large aggregate of country-wide support for the national level government of the day, a shift in one state was balanced out by a shift in another, and so the totality changed more gradually. But this advantage wore out as the vote margins in favour of the government in New Delhi declined and shifts in states became stronger and more frequent. Now they have broken through the surface to command more attention. A “national government” has never been thrown out in a more intense political drama than this time. But rarely has the process been less “national” or less nation-wide. The Congress and the BJP polled only about a quarter of the national vote each and took only about half the total seats, the lowest combined shares for the leader and runner up. The “success rate” of the BJP, that is the number of seats won out of the seats contested, was significantly higher than of the Congress, roughly 38 per cent to 34 per cent, and the margin between them has rarely been smaller, the Congress getting 145 and the BJP 138. But never have the two leading national contenders together won so few seats and votes. Never has the outcome of the contest between the two leading parties been so dwarfed by the outcome of the contests between their state-level seconds. The BJP was wiped out in Tamil Nadu because its ally there, the AIADMK, could not win a single one of the state’s 39 seats in the Lok Sabha, while the Congress ally, the DMK, making more judicious alliances with the smaller local parties, won all the 16 seats contested by it and its allies won most of the rest. The BJP was sucked in at the national level when Ms Jayalalithaa’s mountainous ego sank in Tamil Nadu, while the DMK became a crucial ally of the Congress in Delhi. The same thing happened in Andhra. The Telegu Desam Party, to whom the BJP had left 33 of the state’s 42 seats, lost 28 of them, thanks mainly to Mr Chandrababu Naidu’s unbalanced development strategies though it won a third of the vote. (In the same way the Congress was wiped out in Kerala but it did not have to pay the price in Delhi because the winner there, the Left Front, which won 18 of the 20 seats, became an ally of the Congress in Delhi.) The election results had left the BJP seven seats behind the Congress and the BJP combine 30 seats behind the Congress combine. The total seats for Andhra and Tamil Nadu add up 81. Therefore, if the BJP’s seconds in the two states had come anywhere near their track record it would have been easier to fathom the depth of the change in the national political scene. As it is, the results left national politics exposed to the moods of two completely unpredictable tropical storms in the Indo-Gangetic basin. The two massive jokers in the pack, UP, where the BJP won only 10 seats and the Congress only 9 out a total of 80, and Bihar, where the BJP won only five and the Congress only three out of a total of 40, can change things dramatically if anything makes them sneeze in unison. But politics has probably been changed more by events since the election than by the election results. The drama in the ranks of the Congress when Mrs Sonia Gandhi said she would not be the Prime Minister is unmatched by anything in the history of the party (except the tide of mourning when Indira Gandhi was assassinated ). Outside the Congress it has been matched only by what Ms Jayalalithaa conjures up from time to time (and may yet do so again some day.) But whatever its causes or character, the one-day flood of sorrow in the Congress has left Mrs Sonia Gandhi occupying all the high ground in Congress politics and more of it in national politics than any Congress leader has occupied since Indira Gandhi was at her height. At any rate, the issue of her foreign origin will now become an antique unless something really nasty comes out in the various investigations which are still meandering their way through real or imaginary obstacles. Mrs Sonia Gandhi now has an unique opportunity to rebuild the Congress, which was in a greater shambles a few months ago than at any time since 1977, and which she has already repaired faster than Indira Gandhi did in the days when she was busy banishing poverty. So one change is that a Sonia era has begun, and it will ensure a safer haven for Manmohanomics than he could have built himself. More importantly, the days of single party dominance are now finally over. Alternation between two choices such as the Congress and the BJP might have to wait for some time more, but when it emerges it will be more of a choice between two coalitions. The BJP will have to think things afresh instead of taking the revived Congress to be a flash in the Sonia pan. Secondly, more than ever before the coalitions, and both of them, will be both vertical and horizontal. State-level politics has burst upon the national scene as it had never done before and cannot be pushed back into the bottles of their respective states. Now it will be the essence of party politics and not only the mechanics of the single non-transferable vote system which will come in the way of single-party governments except for brief periods. Even state-level politics might move towards coalitions, especially if the panchayati raj system begins to throw up district-level parties. This will have quite a few implications for India’s federalism. More interesting for the time being are the implications for the economy. Andhra might have delivered a more concentrated dose of second thoughts because of the price paid by Mr Naidu for suicides by farmers while Hyderabad raved about its high-tech jumps. But there are signals from all over the country that the striking and most welcome gains made by the economy in recent years must be wedded somehow with benefits for those who have been left out by the substance of the reforms and feel left out because of their style. There is no need to return to the hypocrisy of “gharibi hatao” days. But there must be a renewed and sincere and convincing return to the days when the government’s concern for the poor had the promise of becoming an investment in the economy because it bought more time for concrete benefits for them to be put in place. Not all promises in those days were false either, and lack of resources did come in the way. But with that handicap under better control now, a bit of sincere effort can go a long way now, and the need for it to do so has become more urgent. With a concerned economist as the new Prime Minister, there will be expectation of early shifts in style and
substance. |
A tale of Lucy’s tail Lucy
is definitely not my sister. Nor is she my friend. Oh! come on, how can humans have tails? Lucy is neither my pet kitty nor a she-dog. Well, then who is Lucy? Let’s go to the start of the tale of Lucy’s tail. The story unfolds when I was an undergraduate in a Delhi University’s prestigious women’s college. I was a hosteller then. The hostel had a long list of dos and
don'ts headed by strict and Argus-eyed warden, who saw that these were strictly enforced. One of the rules was that electrical gadgets were strictly banned. If a hosteller was caught red-handed using a hair dryer or an iron or a heater, she was bound to be gated and fined or both, apart from the gadget being
confiscated. Churidar-kameez was in vogue. Of course there was dhobi on the premises. But any girl will tell you that
dupattas or chunnis, no matter how well ironed they may be, have to be ironed again, just before flinging them over one’s shoulders. They are to be stretched to their full length to be flowing and feminine. But how was this possible? With Lucy’s help, of course. She was definitely not a maid. Lucy was an electric iron with a long detachable cord, nay its tail! We were a group of four very innocent-looking girls. My room-mate Mukta had an iron. It was a closely guarded secret that was well kept for three years. It was dangerous to call
the iron, an iron — lest some one heard us and it reached the Wardy’s ears. So we christened it Lucy, with the cord becoming her tail. She was kept well hidden behind the big fat Webster’s Dictionary and Emil Ludwig’s “Napoleon” lined among other books, on my bookshelf. And Lucy was passed on umpteen times between Mukta, Sandhya, Usha and I. Once I was carrying Lucy in a paper bag when I came face to face with the warden on the staircase. She was on one of her surprise rounds to catch and pounce upon hostellers for breaking any rule. “What is in the bag?” she barked at me. “My canvas shoes for the PT class and march-past,” I lied straight-faced. Thank God she didn’t hear my heart going thud! thud! “Run along, my dear. You are late already,” she
said. I fled from there. I was lucky indeed. One day Usha standing in the lawn yelled to Sandhya who was leaning from the second floor balcony of her room, “Sandy! Where is Lucy? I need her.” Apparently she had not noticed the warden standing near the bushes. Who is Lucy? What is she doing in your room ? How many times I have told you not to allow any day girl in the hostel. It’s strictly banned!” the Warden exploded. “No ma’am. There’s no day girl in the hostel. Actually I want Sandhya’s notes for a tutorial on Lucie, a character in Charles Dicken’s ‘ A Tale Of Two Cities’,” Usha explained very sweetly, cleverly thinking of this excuse on the spur of the moment. “Study hard. Exams are very near,” said the warden. She had failed to realise that Sandhya was studying for her post graduation in maths and in no way connected with English literature. But she was an avid reader of English classic novels, which rescued her. It was a well-timed excuse as exams were round the corner. Years have rolled by, but I still call detachable cords as Lucy’s
tail!
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Dateline Washington
Wrapped
up in a rapidly deteriorating occupation of Iraq and equally pressing domestic concerns, the Bush administration has responded cautiously to the tumultuous political developments in India. While administration spokesmen proffer carefully worded comments, political analysts are more willing to read the political tea leaves. Though divided on the fallout a change of guard in New Delhi will have on future US-India relations, they are unanimous in agreement that the BJP-led coalition lacked political prescience in its policies toward minorities and the economically disadvantaged. The issues favoured the Opposition and not the National Democratic Alliance, says Dr Francine Frankel, Director of the Centre for the Advanced Study of India at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Pointing out that the sectarian strife in Gujarat was a key factor that sealed the fate of the fallen government, she says: “The Vajpayee government’s disregard for the Constitution and the rule of law in failing to dismiss Chief Minister [Narendra] Modi or invoke Articles 355/356, revealed the extent to which the party would go in using violence to polarise religious communities for electoral gains.” “It made credible the Congress claim that the election was about competing values and diametrically opposed ideologies, and required consolidation of all forces committed to the fundamental values of the Constitution.” As the election progressed there was a growing recognition among secular groups that at the national level the Congress still represented the strongest bulwark against communal forces. Philip Oldenburg, a senior lecturer in the government department at the University of Texas, Austin, says the BJP’s decision to identify its strength “purely with Hindu nationalism is a mistake.” “The BJP has depended on two things — Hindu nationalism to energise its core supporters and a reputation for a disciplined and honest government. But any party that is in power will, inevitably, be blamed for whatever failures exist,” he explains. Ordinary citizens, Prof. Oldenburg points out, “do not like the kind of violent and antagonistic relationship with the Muslims or anyone else which the BJP championed in Gujarat. The notion that India is being swept in a tide of Hindu nationalism is way overdrawn... the strength of this has been overestimated and this election proves that.” Sumit Ganguly, professor of political science at the Indiana University, agrees the carnage in Gujarat hurt the BJP. People were “appalled by the savagery of Gujarat and Narendra Modi’s complacency in the aftermath.” While it is impossible at this stage to gauge how a Congress-led government will approach foreign policy, in Washington, US-India relations are not a top priority for the Bush administration. “The US is not going to pay any attention to things that are not a problem,” says Prof Oldenburg. “India has always been cursed with being ho-hum. There are no vital US interests at stake. It’s then a question of letting sleeping dogs lie.” Apart from the on-going cooperation on counter-terrorism and military exchanges, any new initiatives are not likely to move decisively until after the US elections, predicts Anupam Srivastava. “But for a range of reasons, unrelated to the Indian election outcome and some relating to US-Pakistan relations, all those are moving at a slower pace,” Dr Srivastava says. Putting forth a pessimistic point of view, Prof. Ganguly worries that US-India relations “could be adversely affected... There are some Congress party stalwarts who still hold a candle for the detritus of the Soviet Union and dream of a multipolar world with India being one the key poles.” But it is too early to say how this change in government will affect US-India relations, Dr Frankel reminds. “In principle, if both sides work hard to maintain/establish good personal relations, without reverting to old stereotypes, there should be no significant change. The relationship is now more institutionalized, and based on mutual interests, regardless of which party is in power in either country.” The BJP’s “India Shining” campaign, analysts say, cost the NDA just as decades earlier Indira Gandhi’s “Garibi Hatao” campaign put her out of the nation’s top job. Adds Dr Frankel: “Virtually nothing was done to help the approximately 69 percent of the population who depend on income from agriculture, with virtually no new investments in infrastructure, irrigation, power, and with casualization of labor rapidly rising, and no new public expenditure on schools, health, etc.” To make matters worse for the NDA, says Dr Srivastava, “the middle class in India, that benefited directly from the NDA’s acceleration of economic reforms, appears to have not voted in high numbers, making the overall verdict appear even more skewed against the NDA.” Prof Oldenburg, however, has another theory. “The idea that the poor have gotten nothing out of this is a bit overdrawn,” he says. Instead, “people who got something know that there is a lot more to be had. So when you raise people’s expectations higher than what they receive they are upset that they haven’t gotten as much as they wanted.” He adds that as far as India-Pakistan relations go, the realisation that improved ties are in the better interest of both sides has finally penetrated the foreign services of both countries. Prof Ganguly agrees the India-Pakistan dialogue would proceed apace. “If an individual like J.N. Dixit gets Brajesh Mishra’s position the same form of pragmatism will prevail.” Jolted to attention by the political upheavals in India, analysts in the United States are now watching closely as Mrs Gandhi plots her next move. They agree she has a lot riding on the wisdom of future decisions and Cabinet selections. What is likely to happen, Prof Oldenburg predicts, “is a return to Indira Gandhi’s policy of making India as [Continental] European as possible. This goes back to Nehru, and has nothing to do with Sonia’s Italian background.” “It means being more like the French,” he elaborates. “Being distant from the US, being outspoken about US policies, being jealous about one’s perceived prerogatives. So, you’ve got another France. probably.” |
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Delhi Durbar The BJP and Sangh Parivar leaders, who launched a campaign against Sonia Gandhi becoming Prime Minister, are finding themselves knocked out with the Congress President deciding against it. Even as the Sangh Parivar and certain BJP leaders like Sushma Swaraj, Uma Bharti and K. Govindacharya went into an overdrive on the foreign origin issue, opinion gaining ground among the cadres is that these moves are covert attempts to capture power in the party. While on the one hand their much hyped agitation has already fizzled out because of Sonia Gandhi humbly declining the office of Prime Minister, on the other they are worried about the BJP going for a toss in the short-to-medium term. They are quick to acknowledge, albeit in drawingroom conversation, that Sonia Gandhi has upset their calculations.
Biggest-ever ad
campaign The India Shining campaign had been billed by ad gurus as perhaps the biggest advertising campaign ever to be undertaken in the country. Estimates suggest that it cost about Rs 150 crore spread over four months. This is manifold higher than the average ad budget of blue chip FMCG companies which spend about Rs 100 crore a year on promotional activities.
BJP short of orators The defeat in the general election has also had another cascading effect on the BJP’s parliamentary floor strategy. It has left the party short of key and forceful orators in the 14th Lok Sabha. Sushma Swaraj, Pramod Mahajan, Arun Jaitley, Arun Shourie, Jaswant Singh — all members of the Rajya Sabha — were highly articulate speakers of the BJP who argued the government’s cause in the Lower House in their capacity as Union
ministers. Perhaps, A.B. Vajpayee will have to revert to his skill in public speaking to carry on the extra burden in the newly constituted Lok Sabha.
Drama at high noon The mass hysteria outside the Congress headquarters earlier this week zoomed the TRP ratings of all news channels and the CPP meetings at the Parliament House complex in the evening forced many viewers to switch to the unfolding drama than the “Kyunki” series in the entertainment channel. Probably serial writers need to learn a lesson or two from political managers in scripting the drama scene by scene to hold the attention of the people without channel surfing.
Disinvestment
and the Left Corporate associations like the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce (FICCI) may not be happy with the increasing importance of the Left parties in the next government, especially due to their opposition to disinvestment. But they have a solution. They want the new government to disinvest its shares in the PSUs to meet the needs of the voters of the Left parties. The other day at a press conference FICCI President Y.K. Modi said: “we also agree that the funds from disinvestment should not be wasted to meet the fiscal deficit. Rather, these should be invested in rural infrastructure, irrigation projects, health and education sectors to generate new employment opportunities — issues which are dear to the heart of the Left parties and their vote banks.” Contribute by S. Satyanarayanan, Gourav Choudhury, R. Suryamurthy and Manoj Kumar |
Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven. — Jesus Christ Monopoly is unlawful in Islam. — Prophet Muhammad How many weep for not having seen God? Very few indeed! Verily, he who seeks Him, who weeps for Him, attains Him. — Sri Ramakrishna God knows all, without being told. — Guru Nanak Every noble activity makes room for itself. — Emerson |
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