Aftermath of BJP defeat
POLITICS in Tamil Nadu will never be the same, thanks to the trust vote convulsions. The one party which will feel the full blast of the changed equation is the DMK, and what is more, it had no choice to act differently.

PILs based on Press reports
THE warning of the Delhi High Court that the tendency to file public interest litigation petitions on the basis of media reports should be curtailed is timely.

Should Azhar go?
THE Board of Control for Cricket in India and the national selectors are collectively responsible for the revival of the controversy over the choice of the captain of the Indian team for the crucial World Cup in England next month.

PULL OF PIO CARDS
by Sunanda K. Datta-Ray
THINGS may improve, but when the Person of Indian Origin card was announced prematurely, it was riddled with loopholes and clothed in confusion. A Malaysian Indian wanted to know if he could buy Indian equities which have so far been open to only foreign institutional buyers and not individuals: an Indian Singaporean asked if he would be allowed to trade in his present five-year visa; a third question related to renewal.

Asian crisis may last
till 2000
by S. Sethuraman
THE once dynamic economies of South-East and East Asia are making a slower than expected recovery from the 1997 financial crisis of unprecedented dimensions which led to recession, mass unemployment and reversal of earlier gains in poverty reduction.

Confidence vote — what next?
by P. Raman
THROUGHOUT the 1970s and 1980s, we had launched massive movements against authoritarianism. Indira Gandhi was taken as an epitome of authoritarian tyranny, trampling of internal democracy and family rule. Now we find most of our political parties caught themselves in the same trappings after merrily adopting the same methods in their worst form.

Whose vote tilted the scales against Vajpayee?
SOON after the Vajpayee-led coalition was voted out of office by an unbelievable one vote in the Lok Sabha on Saturday, the search was on for which member broke the ranks.

My visit to Lahore
by Inder Mohan Puri
RECENTLY, I crossed the Radcliffe line at Wagah. Mr Vajpayee had done so minutes earlier. The difference was: he wasn’t going to his motherland whereas I was heading towards 6-P, Chauburji government quarters, Lahore, my birthplace. His helicopter landed at the Governor’s House while I disembarked at my roots.

75 Years Ago

Kerala caste struggle
PROF Indra, Editor of “Daily Arjun” and Secretary of the District Congress Committee, sent the following message to Messrs Madhavan and Kesava Menon: - Hearty congratulations for the courageous and peaceful satyagrahees. Wish every success.

Aftermath of BJP defeat

POLITICS in Tamil Nadu will never be the same, thanks to the trust vote convulsions. The one party which will feel the full blast of the changed equation is the DMK, and what is more, it had no choice to act differently. Once the AIADMK, its arch and implacable rival, decided to break ranks with the BJP and its alliance partners, the DMK had to do a countervailing shifting of its own. In the process it had to invent alibis to ditch such time-tested electoral allies as the CPI and the CPM and also the credible regional outfit, the Tamil Maanila Congress. For the moment it stands alone but does not face any imminent danger since the election to the state Assembly is two years away. As things stand, Mr Karunanidhi, the DMK supremo, can reach an honourable understanding only with the Pattali Makkal Katchi, a backward caste (Vanniar) outfit headed by Dr Ramdoss. Although the PMK is part of the original alliance rigged up by Ms Jayalalitha, it is not stridently anti-DMK, nor overly enthusiastic about the BJP. Mr Karunanidhi will find it impossible to make up with the MDMK of Mr Vaiko, which is actually a breakaway faction and once a bitter critic. Of course, there is the BJP which found the state totally inhospitable until last election. The TMC is bound to drift towards the parent party and fight elections in the company of the AIADMK. The Tamils have a known soft spot for the Nehru family and with Mrs Sonia Gandhi at the helm, the Congress should witness a revival of its fortunes. Some believe that a Congress-AIADMK tie-up will trigger an electoral sweep. On the other hand, Union Minister Rangarajan is credited with the view that a DMK-BJP pact will wipe out the opposition. It also means that the two Left parties will be forced to fight alone, altogether a novel experience.

There is both relief and anxiety in the Telugu Desam camp in Andhra Pradesh. With the defeat of the BJP-led government it has snapped its ties with the alliance. To that extent, the Congress or the estranged Left will not be able to tar it with the saffron brush and wean away its Muslim supporters. Now it can take on the Congress with greater assurance in the November election. Its anxiety is genuine and well-founded. If the Congress forms the government at the Centre, it would like to take the country to a mid-term poll in November. That would mean simultaneous polling for the Assembly and the Lok Sabha. Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu will like to fight the state election on the strength of his achievements, which will be diluted if he has to fight the Lok Sabha poll at the same time. In that case his party will be defeated, according to political analysts. Another worried Chief Minister is Mr Narayan Rane of Maharashtra. His government’s survival depends on the continued support of Congress defectors. If the Congress comes back to power in Delhi, the 40-odd defectors may leave the party in a drove and precipitate an election one year ahead of schedule. Mr Rane was brought in to improve the Shiv Sena-BJP government’s image. He is yet to start the work and to ask him to lead the party in a midterm election is a recipe for his political eclipse. The political earthquake in Delhi is causing tremors in distant state capitals.

PILs based on Press reports

THE warning of the Delhi High Court that the tendency to file public interest litigation (PIL) petitions on the basis of media reports should be curtailed is timely. There has been an alarming increase in such petitions, leading not only to wastage of the precious time of the courts but also to trivialisation of certain vital issues. While it is nobody’s case that the Press is in general irresponsible, it needs to be appreciated that the same thoroughness that marks a court matter cannot be brought about into daily reporting, what with the pressure of deadlines and also the danger of a reporter being led astray at times. Then there is also the subterranean section of the Press, which does not always uphold the infallibility of truth. This tendency causes another complication. All over the world, a free Press is allowed to protect its sources. This freedom is not absolute but even in a curtailed form this is very much necessary to ensure that the Press is able to get at the truth fearlessly and efficiently. When a PIL depends on a Press report, the courts are constrained to depend on the reporters concerned to ferret out the truth. While every citizen is duty-bound to do so, this additional responsibility forces the journalists to ignore their basic duty. Instead, a lot of research regarding the correctness of the report and the factual position in the matter needs to be done by the persons before filing a PIL petition on the basis of Press reports. Thus, the Press reports can form the basis of further investigations but depending on them exclusively for the purpose of filing PIL petitions will be self-defeating.

Even in general, there has been a big increase in the number of PILs filed. The Supreme Court has specifically mentioned that the petitioners of a PIL should exhaust all options before filing such a writ. But this guideline has not been fully followed. The judiciary has always taken exceptional care to ensure that matters of public interest are adjudicated upon with alacrity. That is why it is all the more necessary that the petitioners exhaust all options to obtain a solution to the problem. As said earlier, loading the courts with too many PILs will only delay justice. Then there is also the very real danger of some unscrupulous people filing motivated PILs in furtherance of their own agenda. The courts will have to be more wary of such mischief. It may be recalled that some time ago, there was an attempt to file a PIL saying that what Dr Amartya Sen had won was not a Nobel Prize at all. The clarifications came up soon enough to nip this idea in the bud because this was such a major issue. But there are chances that this laudable facility of PIL might be misused in other cases. The petitioners as well as the courts will have to be wary in this regard.

Should Azhar go?

THE Board of Control for Cricket in India and the national selectors are collectively responsible for the revival of the controversy over the choice of the captain of the Indian team for the crucial World Cup in England next month. It is doubtful whether the BCCI and the selectors would respond to the public demand for the sacking of Mohammad Azharuddin as captain considering that the team is scheduled to leave for England on April 23. However, it goes without saying that Azharuddin’s lacklustre leadership during the domestic one-day series against Pakistan and Sri Lanka and the just-concluded triangular in Sharjah has provided the opening to his countless detractors to revive the demand for his head. The demand for his ouster may not have been as shrill as it is now had stand-in skipper Ajay Jadeja not won the heart of just about everyone with his astute handling of the team in the series in India and the Sharjah triangular. Jadeja is everything which Azharuddin is not. Even after being the longest serving captain (since 1990 except for small break when Sachin Tendulkar stepped in) Azharuddin has yet to recognise the importance of reaching out to other members of the team. The popular impression about Azharuddin is that he is a lucky (not an inspirational) leader. He is usually sullen and withdrawn on the field as if captaincy is a cross which he must carry. Jadeja, on the other hand, has a cheerful countenance and he does not allow the opposition to settle down through deft bowling changes when fielding and clever placement of the ball and sharp running between the wickets when batting.

The grapevine has it that the selectors were toying with the idea of replacing Azharuddin as captain while picking the team for the World Cup. But a public statement by BCCI President Raj Singh Dungarpur praising his leadership qualities was taken as a hint by the selectors to persist with him as captain although he should have been dropped from the team for his inconsistent batting. India is already playing one batsman short because of Robin Singh (who would not find a place in the team either as a specialist batsman or a specialist bowler but is counted as a “specialist all rounder”). There is no doubt that on his day Azharuddin lifts the art of batsmanship to sublime heights. But those “days” have become as rare as the proverbial blue moon. As it is the Indian team is in total disarray on the eve of its departure for England thanks to the hare-brained policy of the selectors. While most other countries were busy fine-tuning their teams the Indian selectors hit upon the bright idea of “experimenting” by throwing in new players at the deep end. Without giving them a fair chance to swim. Look at Pakistan’s bench strength which includes Salim Malik, Waqar Younis and Mushtaq Ahmed to understand by why Wasim Akram is walking a few inches tall in spite of the match-fixing charges being hurled at him. In sharp contrast India does not have much a bench strength to boast of. In fact, the selectors have just about managed to put together a playing XI in which Azharuddin does not fit either as a batsman or as the captain on the strength of the latest evidence against him on both counts. Yet Mr Dungarpur says that India should be able to repeat the magic of ’83 under Azharuddin. It is too late to pick holes in his statement. The better option is to pray that Azharuddin’s luck as captain and touch as batsman return and stay with him at least up to the final of the World Cup.

PULL OF PIO CARDS
Aiming at the diaspora
by Sunanda K. Datta-Ray

THINGS may improve, but when the Person of Indian Origin card was announced prematurely, it was riddled with loopholes and clothed in confusion. A Malaysian Indian wanted to know if he could buy Indian equities which have so far been open to only foreign institutional buyers and not individuals: an Indian Singaporean asked if he would be allowed to trade in his present five-year visa; a third question related to renewal. What happens at the end of the first 20 years? Will a fresh card be issued for the same, a reduced or an enhanced fee? To none of these questions were there any ready answers. All that the diplomats concerned could do was to say that they were awaiting instructions from New Delhi.

It is not good enough to say that such questions are bound to arise along the way and will be solved on the hop. They should have been anticipated and the whole admittedly complicated procedure thought through to the end before rushing to the media before the scheme had even been gazetted. That was an obvious attempt at garnering political goodwill, for it is no secret that the BJP has strongly supportive lobbies among ethnic Indians from Alberta to Australia. But for them the Resurgent India Bonds launched last year would not have realised $ 4.1 billion.

This support is in itself a curious sociological phenomenon with a political dimension. Exile, said Lord Acton, the 19th century British historian and jurist, is “the nursery of nationality”. He was proved right by no other than Mahatma Gandhi who went to South Africa to practise law and returned 22 years later to fight for India’s freedom. Most immigrants are fiercely nationalistic — California Sikhs fuel the Khalistan demand; Tamils in Norway and Nigeria raise money for the Liberation Tigers to fight for their Eelam homeland; Washington hopes that Iraqi dissidents in Britain will help to overthrow President Saddam Hussain; Croatians in Australia hoisted the flag of independence even before Croatia itself broke away from the disintegrating Yugoslav federation; and heavy investment in China is a modern variant of ancestor worship for the overseas Chinese in Singapore, Indonesia and further afield.

Similarly, Indian settlers in Britain, North America and eastern Asia try to respond to the pangs of a loyalty they can never quite forget. The urge to do so is all the greater because while most of them are emotionally adrift in their new land, the money they make there is a fortune in terms of the land they left behind. Mistaking a nostalgia that finds expression in what can only be called conscience money, a British Conservative Party leader, Mr Norman Tebbitt, once accused Indian, Pakistani and Caribbean settlers of disloyalty because they cheered cricket teams visiting from their old countries. Little did he realise that rooting for a particular side speaks not of treason but of guilt, heartache and loneliness.

Living in India, you are tempted to examine the proposition closely, to see how it translates on specific issues or in relation to other groups. From a distance, it is an idyllic commitment justifying help to build a temple at Ayodhya, fund schools, sustain projects to prevent tribal people from converting to Christianity, and organise religious gatherings. But for all their idealism, the 1.2 million people of Indian origin in the USA want a slice of the cake, which explains what Mr Lal Krishan Advani, who is in close touch with them, called “a major step towards meeting their aspirations of dual citizenship”. While there are sound practical reasons for excluding Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, it must also be noted that the BJP’s philosophy finds little resonance in these countries.

I would like to think that the PIO scheme will do for India what the overseas Chinese are doing for their motherland. Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee says that the Indian diaspora remitted $ 12 billion annually during the past two years, but this represents a small portion of estimated assets of $ 150 billion. The 50 richest Indians (quite a few of them evicted from Uganda) in Britain alone — dubbed the “Tandoori Fortune 500” — were worth more than £ 5 billion in 1994. Motels in America are laughingly called “potels” because so many are owned by Gujarati Patels. Hong Kong’s 20,000 Indians constituted less than 0.4 per cent of the population but controlled 10 per cent of the trade at the time of the merger with China.

India’s relations with its scattered offspring have not always been easy. Despite Gandhi’s efforts to improve conditions for South African Indians, post-independence New Delhi adopted an attitude of studied indifference to avoid being accused of interfering in other countries’ affairs and to save PIOs from the charge of divided loyalty. Jamaican Indians tried to organise a “Back to India” campaign in 1947, and Trinidadian Indians threatened the following year to commit mass suicide if they were not repatriated. Jawaharlal Nehru took the view that people who had gone away, whether willingly or under coercion, must remain there; when conditions became intolerable in East Africa, he pressured Britain to admit these small-scale Indian entrepreneurs whose capital and capacity for hard work would have been invaluable to India. Recently, Hong Kong Indians moved heaven and earth to force the British government to let them in. Again, India missed the chance to offer a welcome to a hardworking and relatively rich business community. Even the Harilelas, with annual revenues of more than $ 200 million and retaining the joint family style of living, might have been persuaded to set up a second base in the land of their fathers.

Numbers remain uncertain. Barely five million Indians lived abroad in the early 1960s, their number having reportedly jumped to 20 million by the early 1990s. But this excludes the settled Indian communities of the Caribbean, Latin America, Fiji, Mauritius and the Malaysian peninsula. Today’s total is probably in the region of 40 million, though the government calculates that only 15 million would be eligible for the promised PIO cards.

Card fees are beside the point which is to see how the scheme can best serve India’s development needs. But I am curious to know why New Delhi has lowered its sights from the $ 10,000 for open-ended visas, valid as long as the passport is, that was proposed a few years ago. If the reason is to placate BJP supporters, then the scheme is neither here nor there. But it would be a different matter, deserving of unreserved welcome, if the PIO card is part of a coherent and concerted strategy to woo expatriate capital. That would also include reform at home, from infrastructure to work culture, from stability to enlightened political leadership, to guarantee returns on investment. Those who have gone away and done well will not come back with any substance only out of sentiment.

(Formerly Editor of The Statesman, the writer is editorial consultant to The Straits Times in Singapore.)

Asian crisis may last till 2000
by S. Sethuraman

THE once dynamic economies of South-East and East Asia are making a slower than expected recovery from the 1997 financial crisis of unprecedented dimensions which led to recession, mass unemployment and reversal of earlier gains in poverty reduction.

The Asian crisis, which had only limited impact on South Asia because of its relative insulation from global capital markets, brought down growth in the GDP in the Asia-Pacific region as a whole close to zero in 1998.

Though the crisis-hit countries, other than Indonesia, are likely to record marginal growth rates in 1999, economic performance in the region is clouded by “profound uncertainty”, says the UN Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).

In its 1999 survey of the region, ESCAP has analysed the economic and social impact of the crisis on countries most affected as well as the negative factors present to hope for early resumption of growth momentum and of capital flows for the region.

Arising from the widespread fallout of the crisis on a global scale, the Survey calls for the creation of a World Financial Organisation (WFO) which would administer a rule-based system of measures to smoothen excessive swings in capital flows. Developed nations are unlikely to favour such a body and would rather prefer strengthening the IMF to have the requisite resources to become in effect a lender of last resort for countries faced with sudden capital outflows due to factors beyond their control.

Recurring financial crises have taken a heavy toll of economic growth in several countries in the 1990s. While countries need to be more circumspect with regard to the speed and sequence of opening their capital accounts, the Survey says, there is urgent need for international supervision and regulation of capital flows through a World Financial Organisation which could allow countries to suspend repatriation of capital in the event of a steep fall in export earnings or an unforeseen bunching of outflows of capital.

At the regional level, the ESCAP Survey has proposed the establishment of an Asian Fund which could have a moderating influence on a financial crisis and provide a source of additional liquidity to help improve market sentiment, besides the rescue package that the IMF may organise.

The IMF had been subjected to severe criticism on its handling of the Asian financial crisis, and the tough conditionalities it had imposed driving the affected countries into deep recession and social unrest. The Survey suggests that the Asian Fund would not discourage countries from carrying out essential reforms but should have a role in negotiating the conditionalities between the country and the IMF.

With total foreign exchange reserves of the order of $ 800 billion in the ESCAP region, the Survey adds, only a small portion would be needed for establishing the Asian Fund.

The real GDP turned negative in 1998 by 14 per cent in Indonesia, by 7.8 per cent in Thailand, by 6 per cent in Korea and Malaysia and 5 per cent in Hong Kong, according to ESCAP estimates. Growth would remain negative for Indonesia in 1999, and a significant recovery in South East and East Asia can only be expected in 2000.

The large depreciation of domestic currencies in South-East Asia did not help exports rise in dollar terms, but the import collapse enabled countries to record current account surpluses. Commodity price falls also lowered the value of exports.

In view of the general risk aversion, notes the Survey, the region is unlikely to attract private capital on any substantial scale, especially bank loans and bond issues, which declined in 1998 to their lowest level since 1990. Tentative data show a reduction also in the quantum of foreign direct investment flows to developing countries, particularly emerging markets, last year.

The incidence of poverty in South-East Asia rose sharply in 1998, from 11 to 14 per cent (of population) in Indonesia, from 11.4 to 15.3 per cent in Thailand, and from 6.8 to 8 per cent in Malaysia. The decline in incomes has had a negative impact on health and educational services.

Retrenchments in private sector and downsizing in public sector pushed up unemployment levels to 21 per cent (20 million) in Indonesia, 8 per cent in Korea and 4.4 per cent in Thailand. A large proportion of women suffered in the layoffs and retrenchments in these countries. — IPA

My visit to Lahore
by Inder Mohan Puri

RECENTLY, I crossed the Radcliffe line at Wagah. Mr Vajpayee had done so minutes earlier. The difference was: he wasn’t going to his motherland whereas I was heading towards 6-P, Chauburji government quarters, Lahore, my birthplace. His helicopter landed at the Governor’s House while I disembarked at my roots.

A gentle knocking at the door (unlike Macbeth’s witches) brought a sonorous response. The present occupant ( a lady doctor — she was an infant at the time of Partition) had migrated from (the then) Simla.

I’d done so the other way round. After going to the room where I’d seen daylight for the first time on June 7,1935, we had a cup of good tea and snacks. All my childhood reminiscences lie nestled in the walls of the house, the adjacent playfields and the school I went to. Feeling refreshed, her reply to my query regarding the whereabouts of our common-wall neighbour, Chaudhary Basharat Ahmed, and his two sons (my alma mater mates) pepped me up all the more inasmuch as Faqhar and Qamar were living in their ancestral home in nearby Nawankot Mohalla. We were there soon.

Just a word, and the outcome was spontaneous, nay, instantaneous recognition “Hail-Gulu (my nickname) — well-met after five decades”. My plan of staying in some hotel had to be shelved due to their persistent entreaties to stay with them so that pleasantries could be exchanged and the good old days revived, relived and recapitulated.

After dinner, I recalled the letter Chaudhary Sahib had written to my father in October, 1947, that he could come to take over the property (movable) which Chaudhary Sahib was keeping intact since August 14. It could not be done since much water, nay blood, had flown underneath the bridges (of five rivers) since then. It’d have been a folly, rather an uncalled for risk, since to perish for retrieving perishable goods is at par with limited wisdom.

Before going to sleep, Faqhar’s touching rendition of the recent (first ever) emotional visit of Ms Surinder Kaur, the Punjabi folk singer, to her parents’ home in Nawankot is still fresh in my mind.

Both brothers were extraordinarily well established in their hotel business. Qamar took a day off from his busy schedule and we left in the morning for Sanghoi (a village near Jhelum) — my “nankas”. The road journey in his western car on the newly constructed highway between Lahore and Islamabad gave a distinctively foreign touch. Minimum permissible limit was 120 km per hour. There were no cuts on the express roadway for as far as 50 km. Vehicles were flying down the road. Gujranwala, Wazirabad, Lala Musa, Gujarat, etc, had undergone a sea-change (expansion-wise).

Nearing our destination, my rehbar, Qamar, echoed Markham’s words: “There is a destiny which makes us brothers/None goes this way alone”. Spotting the three-storey palatial mansion-cum-haveli of my maternal grandfather was redlent with nostalgia since many a summer vacation had been spent there. Memories of kite-flying competitions (pechas) in the burning hot afternoons, and catching white homing pigeons (pets) perched on its ramparts came flooding. I felt like Alice in Wonderland when happy, healthy, handsome and beautiful rustics gathered around us. Glistening waters of the river Jhelum looked like a huge mirror to the naked eye (sheer scenic splendour) from the top floor of the massive structure, a la Mughal fort.

On our way back, the flash of an idea to make a detour round my fatherland — Ghartal in Sialkot— had to be “let-pass” since its topography would have been alien to me inasmuch as I had been there only once and that too as a tiny tot.

Back to the second biggest city of Pakistan , my urge to go shopping was nipped in the bud since Lahore is an expensive city. In fact, my family members were taken aback when I returned home empty handed.

I felt glad on returning from the capital of that Punjab to the capital of Punjab, Haryana and the UT-Chandigarh. Maybe it’s years of familiarity which breeds the sense of belonging, fondness and security for my de novo (though not native) hometown since 1955.

Confidence vote — what next?

by P. Raman

THROUGHOUT the 1970s and 1980s, we had launched massive movements against authoritarianism. Indira Gandhi was taken as an epitome of authoritarian tyranny, trampling of internal democracy and family rule. Now we find most of our political parties caught themselves in the same trappings after merrily adopting the same methods in their worst form. We thought the coterie rule was responsible for every distortion in the democratic functioning of political parties. Now most parties realise that they could not do without their own Pramod Mahajans and Subramanian Swamys.

The crude predatory hunt for MPs during the debate on the trust motion once again highlighted several disturbing trends in Indian politics. Principled politics based on ideology, programmes and issues have been replaced by politics of bargain at the market place. Even hard cash no more lures the tribal MPs. Instead, it is swap of power and sheer personal ambitions that work. Those political operators who can effectively play on such sentiments could get them to their side. Political success solely depends on such resort to manipulations. Unprincipled coalition politics has brought us to this sad plight. Om Parkash Chautala’s plight alone reveals the political hunters’ mindless pursuit until they get at the helpless prey. Every day he went on repeating that he would vote with the opposition. Still the predators continued to pounce on him.

Personalisation of the political parties at the regional levels and their single-minded obsession with their local rivals are being fully exploited in this war for domination. Out of two dozen regional outfits which have representation in Parliament, almost all of them are controlled by an individual leader. At least half of them, including the DMK and Shiv Sena and the parties led by Bansi Lal, Chautala and Sukh Ram, are closely-knit family concerns. Karunanidhi is guided more by his son M.K. Stalin and nephew Murasoli Maran. Look at the long list of one-boss parties: PMK, MDMK, Lokshakti of Hegde, TDP, Trinamool Congress, TMC, Samajwadi Party and the Laloo party.

The process of personalisation is not yet complete in parties like the Orissa BJD. There is stiff resistance to Navin Patnaik’s bid for total domination. The Akali Dal has been the least victim. Apparently, Parkash Singh Badal has been striving hard to emerge as the lone Akali supremo. The contemporary trend of authoritarian control of regional parties also provides fertile ground for engineering local antagonism of what the new political vocabulary calls ‘getting the numbers’. Show the spectre of Jayalalitha, the DMK will come around — as Mamata with the CPI(M), Hegde with Deve Gowda, Nitish Kumar with Laloo Prasad Yadav and Chautala with Bansi Lal. When the whole politics has been reduced to a game of pitting one against other, there can be little hope of a double coalition in the 12th Lok Sabha.

Sadly, even the old guard of Indian politics who had grown up in idealism and ideology seem to have succumbed to the degenerated power politics. No one any more needs the veneer of ideological terms to justify the wantonly opportunistic actions. True, Kanshi Ram alone has so far publicly admitted that he was an ‘opportunist’ and there was nothing wrong about it. In this open bargaining, every thing has a price, and will have to be decided on the basis of faida (advantage). Dissociation with the corrupt and opportunistic elements, always considered part of political ethics, is now being sarcastically dismissed as ‘untouchability’.

Yesterday’s crusaders of corruption have no qualms to sit with Jayalalitha, Sukh Ram or Laloo Prasad Yadav so long as they provide them with the necessary political support. Thus the meaning political corruption itself has undergone a change. It is used only to settle political score. When it fails to have relevance to current power politics, it even loses its significance. This is how the Rao scams and Sukh Ram cases have faded into oblivion. Even the BJP and the Samata Party seem to have lost interest in the fodder scam of Bihar after it was found not influencing the voters. Conversely, the clever politicians can hereafter amass wealth and use their political power make them acceptable to the rival political formations.

The most significant outcome of the voting in the Lok Sabha has been the harsh truth that the present House is incapable of providing a stable and effective government. The continuance of the Vajpayee government with its fragile support in the House is a precarious as a Congress government with an equally shaky and delicate arrangement. With so many undependable allies, each waiting for an opportunity to press for their personal agenda, neither combination is expected to provide a fairly stable government for a reasonable period. The voting indicates that the vanquished would not spare any opportunity to indulge in the same game.

From the very beginning, the Congress has been highly conscious about its limitations. Hence it had initially hesitated to bite the Jayalalitha bait. Even on the eve of the Vajpayee government’s trust motion, the party at the highest level remained sharply divided on the question of running a coalition government. Leaders like Pranab Mukherjee had argued that the popular discontentment over the BJP rule will force the people to opt for the Congress in the subsequent election. This has been the message of the recent assembly elections. It was argued that if the Congress chose to form a government, much of the blame for the former government’s misdeeds would fall on it.

People have a tendency to gradually forget the chaotic performance of an earlier dispensation. This will eventually help the BJP recover its lost ground. The Congress, it was strongly suggested during the discussions, should under no circumstances, head a coalition on the pattern of the UF or the BJP. Instead, it should insist on running a minority government with outside support. In case it senses trouble, it should immediately resign after recommending elections. If this was not possible, it was better for the party to allow some other group — say Deve Gowda — to run a coalition government with its outside support. A considerable section within the Congress had also disfavoured the idea of ‘exposing’ Sonia Gandhi to the uncertain politics of coalition.

With all such uncertainties, political circles, had begun analysing the possible election scenario even while the Lok Sabha was debating the confidence motion. A widely perceived view has been that in the event of an election before the end of this year, the country will, by and large, experience a three-way contest. Thus the fond hope of heralding an era of two-party system will remain a far cry. Instead, in well over half of the country, regional parties, and not the parties which claim all-India status, will dominate the election scene. The BJP strategy has been quite clear. As in the earlier elections, it will not allow any elbow room for any of its allies in its own stronghold like the UP, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh. It will put up its own candidates in all such states.

But the BJP will continue with its seat adjustments with Sukh Ram in Himachal Pradesh, Akalis in Punjab, Bansi Lal in Haryana, Shiv Sena in Maharashtra, Lok Shakti in Karnataka, Biju Janata Dal in Orissa, Trinamool Congress in West Bengal and Samata in Bihar. The BJP is also striving to rope in the Telugu Desam Party in Andhra Pradesh and now the DMK in Tamil Nadu where it already has a tieup with tiny outfits like MDMK, PMK and the Ramamurthy party. Thus the BJP will earn the distinction being the largest all-India khitchdi party with electoral alliance with maximum numbers of outfits in maximum number of states.

As for the Congress, it is bound to enter into a straight contest with the BJP in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Delhi, Andhra Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh. If the PCC favours, the party may enter into a limited adjustment with the Vaghela party in Gujarat. In Maharashtra, it will try for an alliance with the RPI factions, which has earlier been proved highly effective. In Bihar, UP and Tamil Nadu, which together account for 178 Lok Sabha seats, the Congress faces an acute dilemma of different kinds. In Bihar, there is every chance that a beleaguered Laloo Prasad Yadav might offer liberal terms to the Congress. However, it is doubtful whether the state Congress leaders’ antipathy towards Laloo and the caste arithmetic might permit this.

Its problem in Tamil Nadu is of a different kind. Possibly, it might have been able to strike a better rapport with its old ally Jayalalitha. But a section of Congress fears that the large number of corruption charges against her will tarnish its own image. Unlike the BJP which went on appeasing her for over a year, the Congress still feels sensitive about it. On the ground, joint contest by a Congress-AIADMK combine would be quite a formidable in Tamil Nadu. In UP, Mulayam Singh Yadav and the Congress are contenders for the same kind of secular vote base. The Congress alleges that the former had grabbed its space when it suffered setback following its misadventure on Ayodhya issue. Even a seat sharing is not going to be easy in UP.

Similarly, the Left will not enter into any kind of alliance with the Congress in their own strongholds. Both sides concede that any such tieup would amount to surrendering the opposition space to the BJP. In the final analysis, direct two-party contests between the BJP and Congress will be confined to Himachal, Rajasthan, MP, Delhi and Gujarat, and possibly Maharashtra. In states like Kerala, West Bengal, Tripura, Tamil Nadu Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, UP, Bihar and Orrisa, there is likely to be a three-way contest. All this will make the election scene, when it comes, highly complex.

Whose vote tilted the scales
against Vajpayee?

SOON after the Vajpayee-led coalition was voted out of office by an unbelievable one vote in the Lok Sabha on Saturday, the search was on for which member broke the ranks.

There was quite a lot of confusion in the lobbies. While it was clear that the Bahujan Samaj Party did a volte-face, the name of Shiromani Akali Dal MP, Mr Prem Singh Chandumajra, was being mentioned by a few to have defied the whip.

While the name of Prof Saifuddin Soz of National Conference was confirmed later, the name of the Patiala MP remained in circuit for a considerable time, which also resulted in a major daily carrying it in a news report.

Apparently, what added to the confusion was that soon after the vote of confidence was rejected, Mr Chandumajra was congratulated by many in the Opposition ranks including the Rashtriya Janata Dal President, Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav. To add to it just before the voting commenced, the BSP leader, Ms Mayawati, sought to know which side of the fence Mr Prem Singh was. Apparently she wanted him to break ranks before casting her lot with the Opposition.

In the end, the Patiala MP voted according to the whip in support of the motion but as he had predicted two days ago that despite the SAD support, the days of the BJP-led coalition were numbered. Interestingly, while the AIADMK MP, Mr Sedapati R. Muthaiah, maintained he had recorded his vote on the electronic system, the end result did not reflect it. Neither did he make use of the slip handed over to those whose votes were not recorded or recorded wrongly.

It is another matter that the crucial vote by Mr Soz and of course, by the Orissa Chief Minister, Mr Girdhar Gamang, saved the Opposition from losing the battle at practically the last stage. Otherwise Mr Muthaiah would have had to do a lot of explaining to the party supremo, Ms J. Jayalalitha.

Vajpayee Govt’s nemesis

Whose was the solitary vote which counted most for the ouster of the BJP-led government? Dr Subramanian Swamy can take credit for it. After all, it was his initiative which resulted in Mr Vajpayee seeking the trust vote.

Prof Saifuddin Soz can be feted for it. But the real credit perhaps goes to Mr Giridhar Gamang who flew all the way from Bhubaneshwar to exercise his right as an MP.

The BJP government was formed by exploiting the name of Lord Rama. Perhaps it is ironical that its exit should have been caused by a person named Giridhar — one of the many names of Lord Krishna. Both Rama and Krishna are avtaars of Vishnu. And the Vishnu Bhagwat episode, inter alia, triggered the change.

Laloo’s war cries

That Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav manages to turn the spotlight on to himself during the Parliament session is now well known.

He is always engrossed during the debate and never misses a chance to throw political barbs, at his opponents specially those from the BJP.

Interestingly, just when the House assembled on April 15 to take up the motion of confidence moved by Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, Mr Yadav let out a shrill cry: “Bol Krishan bhagwan ki jai and bol Vishnu bhagwan ki jai”.

Whether Mr Yadav invocation of the names of the lords was just a routine practice or was a reference to the Admiral Bhagwat episode, which triggered off the political crisis for the Vajpayee Government, is anybody’s guess.

Incidentally Mr Yadav did an encore on the Saturday just when the House reassembled and repeated the feat for the benefit of TV news networks outside Parliament after the Government was defeated.

Priority for women scribes?

The heat and dust generated by the rapid political developments last week had its lighter side too. The occasion was the much talked about meeting between the AIADMK supremo, Ms Jayalalitha Jayaram, and the Congress President, Mrs Sonia Gandhi. As expected, the mediapersons arrived at the 10 Janpath residence of Mrs Gandhi in hordes, giving the security men at the high security area some anxious moments.

As Ms Jayalalitha arrived in her Sumo, there was considerable excitement and several journalists tried to break through the security cordon and some succeeded.

Those who could not make it to the venue of the meeting naturally protested and there were heated exchanges among the scribes and the security personnel.

The tension was defused when a senior police officer remarked that since this was a meeting of two ladies, only women scribes had been allowed inside. Reacting to the officer’s comment, a senior scribe remarked: “I did not know that the Congress had implemented its policy of 33 per cent reservation for women on scribes too”.

The BSP votes

Who clinched the five BSP votes for the Opposition? Some reports would have it that it was Mr Arjun Singh, others credit it to Mr Ajit Jogi, while some attribute it to Mr Digvijay Singh.

The fact is that it was Mr Ashok Singh, a Congress MLA from New Delhi’s R.K. Puram who used his personal clout with two BSP members Mr Arif Mohammad Khan and Mr Akbar “Dumpy” Ahmed (both of whom he had known when they were in the Congress). He appealed to their secular past and said if they did not decisively side with the anti-BJP forces then this vote would prove to be as damaging as in the Shah Bano case.

Having done spadework, he put both these former Congressmen in direct touch with 10, Janpath, and thereafter Mrs Sonia Gandhi’s office assigned the work to Mr Ajit Jogi.

All the big names who are being credited with the move may have given the final dressing, but the spadework was done by Mr Ashok Singh who, incidentally, is not claiming any credit for it.

(Contributed by SB, T.V. Lakshminarayan, K.V. Prasad and P.N. Andley)

75 YEARS AGO

Kerala caste struggle

PROF Indra, Editor of “Daily Arjun” and Secretary of the District Congress Committee, sent the following message to Messrs Madhavan and Kesava Menon: - Hearty congratulations for the courageous and peaceful satyagrahees. Wish every success. God bless caste Hindus’ encouraging Thujyas brothers. Condemn Travancore Durbar’s action in arresting peaceful Thujyas for walking along the public roads in Vykom.

Foreign Mail

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