Beyond rhetoric
CYNICS may see in Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s latest pronouncement on Kashmir the beginning of the end of the euphoria generated by the Lahore Declaration over a week ago. Those who believe in quick-fix solutions of the problems which have bedevilled relations between the two countries since Independence can never be satisfied.

Search for goldmine
EVERY year the revenue-raising exercise of the Union Government includes at least one gimmick, like “kar vivadh samadhan” last year and VDIS a year earlier. This time the spotlight is on gold bonds.

Economic zone idea
THE most significant decision of the Northern Zone Council meeting held at Faridabad on Sunday appears to be the declaration that Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Rajasthan and the Union Territory of Chandigarh will now have uniform floor rates of sales tax.

GOOD GOVERNANCE-II
Art of managing coalitions
by I. K. Gujral
LOOKING beyond the question of good governance, I am convinced that it is education and learning that offers solutions for the future. We have recently experienced that some states of India where illiteracy has been eliminated and where primary education has been universalised, even the expansion of population has been restricted.

Time for Indo-Pak power accord
by Arvind Bhandari
MISSED opportunities for cooperation in the energy sector are perhaps the most glaring economic loss being suffered by the subcontinent because of the hostility between India and Pakistan. The scope for cooperation is vast. India suffers from an acute power shortage, and Pakistan has surplus power.

Lack of growth worries BJP
by P. Raman
“THE BEST way out for Atal Behari Vajpayee is to choose an impressive issue and bow out valiantly," said a veteran RSS functionary to this writer. This would enhance his own image, save the BJP from further ignominy and help preserve the Sangh culture. This was at the peak of the Bihar crisis that had gripped the ruling alliance in Parliament.

Kumaramangalam’s Midas touch
THE scenes were similar. The players were different. The “director”, however, was the same. When the vote on the government resolution on Bihar was being taken in the Lok Sabha on Friday last, the sight of Mrs Vijayaraje Scindia, senior BJP leader who has been ailing for some time, being brought to the House on a wheelchair, and a member from Maharashtra being carried on a stretcher, reminded Gallery correspondents of Ms Mamata Banerjee being similarly wheeled in on the evening when P.V. Narasimha Rao’s government won its crucial trust vote in the monsoon session of 1993.

Questions — quaint no longer
by D. R. Sharma
I THINK I have neither grown up as a man nor learnt anything about the Hindu psyche. Born in a superior caste, I’ve yet to discover the virtues of Brahminism. I wear no sacred thread nor do any mystery stones adorn my fingers. And, then, being an ignoramus, I married someone who, like me, had no horoscope.

75 Years Ago

Liquor Traffic in Bombay
THE Municipal Corporation after three sittings today carried the following propositions, moved by a nationalist member:-

Beyond rhetoric

CYNICS may see in Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s latest pronouncement on Kashmir the beginning of the end of the euphoria generated by the Lahore Declaration over a week ago. Those who believe in quick-fix solutions of the problems which have bedevilled relations between the two countries since Independence can never be satisfied. Diplomatic brows are bound to be raised over Mr Nawaz Sharif’s reported assertion that talks with India may have to be suspended if the Kashmir issue is not resolved within a specified time-frame. However, what he has said need to be viewed in the context of the turbulence in Pakistan over the hospitality extended to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee during his historic bus journey from Amritsar to Lahore. That the rabid elements within the country, including members of the anti-India Jamat-e-Islami of Pakistan, organised protest demonstrations in Lahore has been widely reported. What was underplayed was the fact that in spite of welcoming the initiative, Opposition leader Benazir Bhutto declined the invitation to attend the official banquet in honour of Mr Vajpayee. But what must have caused Mr Nawaz Sharif more than usual embarrassment was the excuse of the three chiefs of the country’s defence services for not being present at the reception for the visiting dignitary. They would have had to salute the Prime Minister of India and the visit to Pakistan by the Chinese Defence Minister provided them a credible excuse for not visiting Lahore during Mr Vajpayee’s bus diplomacy.

Mr Nawaz Sharif is not so politically naive as to not understand the implications of the negative vibes, both in official quarters and political circles, associated with Mr Vajpayee’s visit. The unstated policy followed by successive leaders in Pakistan has been to play the Kashmir tune to deflect attention from the more pressing domestic issues. It is too early to write off the Lahore Declaration just because Mr Nawaz Sharif has once again raked up the Kashmir issue. It must not be forgotten that he was harping on the Kashmir theme even before Mr Vajpayee boarded the bus to Lahore. The bus journey was part of what the two countries have described as confidence building measures. It was neither the beginning nor the end but the continuation of the policy which India has always followed for improving relations with its neighbours. Mr Vajpayee put the issue in the right perspective when he said that “we have not attacked any country in our 50 years of Independence... we are determined not to lose our land in future”. Equality and mutual interests should guide India’s future ties with Pakistan and China. No one can find fault with Mr Vajpayee’s assertion that “friendship is the only way out and co-existence is the key to the future.” Reducing the risk of accidental nuclear flare-up was a key goal of the Lahore summit. Both the countries are keen to move beyond the traditional postures of hostility after having displayed their respective nuclear capability. Both Mr Vajpayee and Mr Nawaz Sharif realise that the time has now come for them to move in the direction of economic cooperation. Mutual hostility does create problems for the two in the matter of governing their poor and backward nations.

Search for goldmine

EVERY year the revenue-raising exercise of the Union Government includes at least one gimmick, like “kar vivadh samadhan” last year and VDIS a year earlier. This time the spotlight is on gold bonds. On the face of it, the scheme is simplicity itself. Anyone can walk into a bank with his or her hoard of gold bars, plonk them on the table for weighing, collect a bond for the face value and walk out in the knowledge that for a fixed period, the metal will be earning a modest rate of interest which will escape the tax net. In the meantime, the bond-owner or the ex-owner of gold, can sleep restfully without worrying about security. Those who have converted their gold stock into jewellery are out since only primary metal comes under the scheme. In this respect, the latest attempt is very different from the 1963 gold bonds floated in the wake of the Chinese intrusion and by appealing to the patriotic sentiments of the people. Does the Finance Minister, Mr Yashwant Sinha, hope to garner a huge volume since India is known to have the biggest stock in the world? He does not seem to, as he revealed in interviews to two economic newspapers. For one thing, this is not an amnesty plan, in which the government forfeits its right to ask questions about the metal and the source of money to buy it. That rules out black-moneywallahs in urban areas from “bonding” their secret nuggets. The ruralites do not much believe in the government and anyway, gold for them is real and the bond just a piece of paper.

Two negative features in the proposal will deter the honest tax payer from exchanging his metal for the bond. One is the very low rate of interest. Mr Sinha has talked of 3 per cent, saying it would be closer to 5 per cent because it is tax-free. It is no big deal; RBI issues tax-free bonds and offers 9 per cent interest. Two, the bond does not appear to be transferable nor can it be surety for securing bank loans. Add to this the distinct possibility of gold prices falling. This has been a worldwide trend and India cannot escape it. Mr Sinha must be desperately hoping that he comes by at least 50 or 60 tonnes in the coming financial year, and thus save about Rs 1000 crore in foreign exchange (by selling it in the domestic market). This year the country is expected to import nearly 625 tonnes of gold valued at nearly $ 10 billion. The Commerce Ministry, alarmed at the havoc the import was causing to balance of payment position, wants some curbs like shifting gold to special import licence (SIL) category. If the bond idea fades out, the SIL plea will come centre-stage.

Economic zone idea

THE most significant decision of the Northern Zone Council meeting held at Faridabad on Sunday appears to be the declaration that Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Rajasthan and the Union Territory of Chandigarh will now have uniform floor rates of sales tax. This is the right step in the direction of having agreed minimum sales tax as also towards giving a practical shape to the idea of a “common economic zone”. The discrepancy in the rates of sales tax has been proving to be a major roadblock in the growth of fair trade and commerce in the states where the levy was on the lower side. This caused a revenue loss to the government concerned also, but then ruling politicians have their own compulsions to enhance the tax rates. Thus having an accord that no state or Union Territory will lower the sales rates beyond a certain level should serve as a good beginning towards finding a lasting solution to this perpetual problem. However, it must not be forgotten that the states in the region will in that case lose their capacity to push up their tax revenues. Besides this, they will not be able to use sales tax to give effect to their policy thrust, which has been the case till now. But keeping in view the overall interests of commerce and industry, this sacrifice should be made ungrudgingly.

The idea of a “common economic zone”, if translated into a reality with all seriousness, can go a long way in boosting economic activity in the northern region. The problem of infrastructural bottlenecks can then be handled in a more effective manner, as pointed out by the Civil Aviation and Tourism Minister, Mr Ananth Kumar. He rightly said at the Zonal Council meeting that better infrastructural facilities should be provided to give a fillip to the tourism industry, which has a vast untapped potential. It is, however, disappointing to note that the meeting, held after one and a half years, was used mainly to state the official position of the states on the question of water and power sharing without showing any indication that they were ready to sink some of their differences. Besides the SYL Canal issue, the control of the Ferozepore, Ropar and Harike headworks, at present in the hands of the Punjab government, has been a matter of contention since the reorganisation of states in 1966. The demand for handing over the control to the Bhakra-Beas Management Board is unlikely to be accepted by Punjab as it fears this will jeopardise its economic interests. Much should not be expected from the Union Home Ministry, which will take up the matter with Punjab soon. The states involved will appear to be keen on resolving their disputes on water and power sharing only when they demonstrate the necessary willingness to give and take. This was missing at Faridabad.

GOOD GOVERNANCE-II
Art of managing coalitions
by I. K. Gujral

LOOKING beyond the question of good governance, I am convinced that it is education and learning that offers solutions for the future. We have recently experienced that some states of India where illiteracy has been eliminated and where primary education has been universalised, even the expansion of population has been restricted. Let me cite the example of Kerala, where dramatically the rate of population growth 1.7 is at par with that of the UK and 0.2 lesser than that of China. And all this because women are literate there. The fact of the matter also is that in today’s world, commodities and materials are in abundant supply. Whether one considers steel or oil, or automobiles, or ships, or computer chips, or telecom lines, all these are often in over-supply. On the other hand, the item that is in perpetual scarcity and short supply is human learning and ingenuity, in particular, the skills and talents of well-educated and trained professionals. Whether it is computer programmers or systems analysts, whether it is designers or engineers, or surgeons, or doctors, professionals with any degree of skill and competence in their respective fields command a significant scarcity, value, and their earnings and remuneration levels are increasingly reflecting these scarcities. In India, we have, of late, begun to benefit from the development of our human resources. Young Indians who are trained in new areas such as software programming, computer sciences, the medical and engineering fields or other similar high-tech areas have done themselves and India proud by excelling in their chosen fields. Today, the single largest foreign exchange earner for India is the contribution of its skilled people.

Let me now spell out the paradoxes that our polity confronts. In these fateful years, we have been debating how to cure the serious ailments that have invaded our body politic. An abundance of political and journalistic literature now focuses on the crises of the Indian State. The debate has been joined in by virtually all classes of people. With the introduction of the new economic policy of liberalisation and globalisation, India’s problems of governance have been attracting global attention too.

The new economic policy has itself contributed to the crises of governance. Large flows of foreign money into the economy, despite our limited opening to the world outside, have had at least four negative impacts on Indian society. They have created new inequalities and sharpened the traditional ones, thereby lending new edges to social and political turmoil and disorder. Secondly, they have enlarged the width and depth of corruption. Thirdly, they have brought into being a flood of narcissist self-indulgence by a relatively small but not insignificant affluent consumer middle-class whose glittering lifestyle has immensely sharpened the age-old, unresolved social contradictions in India. Finally, they have expanded people’s expectations and aspirations for the glitters of good living without generating either enough national resource or enough national will to rapidly develop our vast depressed human resources exposing to national and international limelight the gaping faultiness in our chosen models and pathways of development.

Hardly any thinking Indian is now unaware of the great decline in the quality of governance that has occurred in India in the last 15 to 20 years. A plethora of remedies have been prescribed, more by intellectuals than by political actors, and more by individual political actors than by political party leaderships. Indeed, I find to my deep regret that political parties have generally failed to break out of their long-calibrated framework of thinking when it comes to finding remedies for the systemic sickness that has overtaken our political life.

It is now universally recognised that our electoral system calls for radical changes. The debate has been going on for some time now but we have not yet been able to evolve a nation-wide consensus, and the entire agenda gets put off from one session of Parliament to the next. In the meantime, the nexus among politics, crime and money is acquiring diabolical dimensions. The members of Parliament have been realising the need for keeping the temple of democracy clean of crime and criminality, but no efforts in this direction are manifest.

The Election Commission and the Law Commission have pleaded for State-funding of elections. This remains out of sight. It is equally important that political parties be required to function democratically in accordance with their respective constitutions and submit to the Election Commission audited accounts of their funds and expenditures. It is extremely important to make political actors accountable to the people and governance as transparent as possible. The paradox remains that the parties that are not themselves democratic internally are called upon to run a democratic system.

The system of rendering quick justice is loudly begging for reforms. Millions of cases are pending before the courts, some even for decades because of the practice of frequent adjournments and trials by small instalments. We need to discard these colonial styles and adopt modern systems such as those prevailing in Britain and the USA — continuous hearing of cases leading to their expeditious disposals. If justice delayed is justice denied, the lawlessness prevails and people lose their faith in the system, thus leading to interventions by criminals and hoodlums.

It is important that our courts are adequately manned and the laws regarding transfers and appointments are modified. The need for setting up an independent autonomous commission is urgent since the current practices are attracting adverse comments. Paradoxically, the courts do find time to expeditiously attend to the issues that may not be strictly within their domain. Ways and means must be found to correct this distortion.

I am not imparting any value judgement, but the experience of the last 20 years has a message for our political actors, which they hear but do not listen to. Whether we like it or not, the age of single party rule has gone, and we have entered the age of coalitions. Our diversities, the emergence from centuries of stupor of huge masses of people to political and social awareness, the clangs and clashes of diverse ethnic identities; all these are tell-tale early warnings that we have to govern ourselves only through collaborative forms of government, both at the national level and at the level of the states.

During the last one decade we have experienced some big tragedies: the assassination of two duly elected Prime Ministers, and four Lok Sabha elections, each producing a hung Parliament, leading to the formation of five coalition governments, but the tenure of all of them has been brief and full of uncertainties. Here again I am not assigning any value judgement. The realism being that the electorate, for a variety of reasons, have not favoured any single party. How do we deal with this situation? Surely, it is no one’s case that we should discard the democratic order and take the nation in an authoritarian direction. Unfortunately, these early warnings are being ignored by our political parties. The experience of the coalitions tried in New Delhi so far does not cheer our hearts since we did not learn how to work together.

In a democracy power can be held only if it is shared with others. We have to learn how to make coalitions work. I have already outlined some of the measures which, if taken, will stabilise our party system and remove from the electoral process the viruses that threaten to eat into its vitals. Coalitions must be built before elections so that the partners can fight the polls together and form their governments after the poll without much difficulty. I am aware of the problems in this regard. Parties cannot work together at the national level because they are rivals at the state level, and down below at the panchayat level. Like-minded parties have to learn how to work together at all the levels. In order to run smoothly a coalition system, it will be important for the coalescing partners to share powers at various levels.

The management of coalition governments, it will be appreciated, is qualitatively different from that of a single party. The role of the Prime Minister of a coalition set-up is to constantly evolve a consensus among those who sit on his Cabinet table and also those who may be supporting his government from outside. The process of such consensus building, particularly in the context of basic policies, has to be further broadened. I do not intend to comment on the functioning of the present government, except for saying that the process of consensus, so essential in the present context, is fractured. Departures from this tested style of functioning would not adequately serve the nation’s interest at this crucial time. It would expose governmental weaknesses and neutralise its initiatives. The Prime Minister’s role in this new scenario is radically different. Unlike the earlier years, he is no more a prima donna but a first among the equals. His success is co-related to his capacity to make his programmes and policies appeal across the floor of the House.

To conclude, may I say that the nation is at present confronted with a series of paradoxes, some of which I have tried to project. While correcting our fault lines, it is important that we resolve the ailments of democracy through added democracy, and not by its reduction. This is the golden principle of good governance that could take us helpfully into the next century.

(The author is a former Prime Minister of India.)

(Concluded)

Time for Indo-Pak power accord
by Arvind Bhandari

MISSED opportunities for cooperation in the energy sector are perhaps the most glaring economic loss being suffered by the subcontinent because of the hostility between India and Pakistan. The scope for cooperation is vast. India suffers from an acute power shortage, and Pakistan has surplus power. Secondly, if India is to take advantage of the world’s largest natural gas resources in the Gulf and Central Asia, the shortest and most logical option would be to transport it overland through Pakistan.

If Islamabad were to sell its surplus power to New Delhi, it would stand to gain in terms of large revenues. But, characteristically, Islamabad has been dragging its feet. Of late, however, their opposition has been wearing thin. The World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, which assisted Pakistan in developing the hydel resources of the Indus river system, have been putting pressure on Islamabad to give up its mulishness and sell surplus power to New Delhi. Further, Pakistan is also under obligation to cooperate as a SAARC member-state. At the SAARC summit in the Maldives an agreement was signed by the member-states to share the natural resources of the subcontinent.

A team of experts from India visited Pakistan to discuss a power agreement. And recently the Pakistanis made a reciprocal visit to New Delhi. It is proposed that there should be a number of transmission links between the two countries, with the first one located between Lahore and Amritsar (or Ferozepur).

In fact, cooperation between Pakistan and India in the field of power should eventually become the nucleus for such cooperation in the entire SAARC region. Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh have ample hydel, resources waiting to be developed. The multinationals working on fast track projects in India — for example, Enron and Cogentrix — could be encouraged to go into these countries.

The possibility of Indo-Pak cooperation in the field of natural gas is immense. If the 20th century was the century of oil, it is increasingly evident that the 21st century will be the century of natural gas. India’s requirements of natural gas are projected to grow exponentially in the coming decades. India cannot take advantage of the resources of natural gas in the Gulf and Central Asia unless Pakistan allows the overland pipeline to traverse its territory.

Given the decades of hostility between India and Pakistan, New Delhi had never considered this a viable option. But now winds of change are blowing. The idea of bringing natural gas from Oman to the Gujarat coast through an underwater pipeline lying across the bed of the Arabian Sea has proved technologically difficult. New Delhi, therefore, has a renewed interest in the overland option.

But while India now seems to be inclined to play ball in the gas energy-sharing sector, the question that arises is whether Pakistan is willing. For Pakistan, a pipeline running through it would mean assured supplies of natural gas. Secondly, the transit fees paid by the gas-importing countries (India and others) would keep cash registers in Islamabad ringing.

As overland natural gas pipeline already exists from the Daulatabad gas fields in Turkmenistan to Kandahar in Afghanistan. This could be extended from Kandahar to Delhi via Multan. An alternative route would be Kandahar-Karachi-Gujarat. An overland pipeline to tap the Gulf natural gas resources would come through Iran, taking the route Gulf-Iran-Pakistan-India.

Unlike the Oman seabed pipeline, the overland route from Iran or Turkmenistan to India and beyond poses no major technical problem as the pipeline would pass through mostly flat desert land. A mega-project of this size has naturally evoked the interest of multinationals. The region has been witness to complex pipeline politics, with American oil and gas giants wanting a piece of the action. In a bid to cut Iran out of the picture, the US oil corporate Unocal wants to build a natural gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan, and also develop marketing outlets for the gas in Pakistan.

International oil and gas majors have been wooing India with proposals to supply gas from Pakistan, allaying India’s fears of disruptions by suggesting that a multinational enterprise be set up with India and Pakistan having equal stakes.

Another surprise player to enter the fray is the Argentine oil and gas corporation, Bridas. After months of hard bargaining, both Unocal and Bridas signed separate agreements with Kabul’s Taliban authorities, though no joint venture has yet been initiated.

Questions — quaint no longer
by D. R. Sharma

I THINK I have neither grown up as a man nor learnt anything about the Hindu psyche. Born in a superior caste, I’ve yet to discover the virtues of Brahminism. I wear no sacred thread nor do any mystery stones adorn my fingers. And, then, being an ignoramus, I married someone who, like me, had no horoscope.

This horoscopy has always puzzled and angered me. At times it affronts my self-esteem as a reasonably enlightened person. And nothing amuses me more than the frantic search for a one-to-one correspondence between two horoscopes assuring marital bliss on earth. I have always wondered how destiny could be transferred to those signs and squares doodled by some Pandit, deficient in calculus. Once a friend got his son’s astral biography prepared by a renowned astrologer and got him married to a charming girl with a matching birth sign. Soon after the wedding something terrible happened, and when my friend confronted the forecaster, the latter babbled: “Some miscalculation somewhere.” When some purists of my caste ask me why I distrust the hallowed tradition, I say: “I trust the potter, not the priests.”

But now I seem to be outgrowing this facile philosophy of mine. For a week now I’ve been casting a backward glance at my loud and clear heresy. What in the past I rejected outright now seems to be acquiring some shadowy relevance. What I dismissed earlier now I’m in a mood to approve.

I think my parental self has begun to assert itself. After a long cynical sleep I’ve suddenly woken up to my obligations as a father who should have got his son properly baptised and horoscoped to facilitate his matrimony. If someone some day asks me what kind of a young man our son is and I say that, like his parents, he is a liberal humanist, the caller would surely think I’m loony. And I’m afraid that is exactly what the two gentlemen must be thinking after we talked on the phone, a week or so ago.

The first one, a top dog with a big house, sought preliminary information on the height, weight and wages of our boy. After checking out a few more details he asked with a sense of urgency: “Sharmaji, please speedpost his horoscope.” That put an end to our parleys on the phone.

A few days later the second gentleman called to know the basic truths about our corporate executive. When I told him that our son was taller than me by at least six inches, the father of a tall and slim girl sounded pleased. After a pregnant pause he asked for our boy’s kundli and wanted to know my got (his word). That terminated our tele-talk.

That my castemen could be so thorough in their matrimonial searches I realised only after my encounter with these two loving dads. I think it’s time I ask some old relative about my family tree and try some therapy to overcome my allergy to questions I consider quaint no longer.

Lack of growth worries BJP

by P. Raman

“THE BEST way out for Atal Behari Vajpayee is to choose an impressive issue and bow out valiantly," said a veteran RSS functionary to this writer. This would enhance his own image, save the BJP from further ignominy and help preserve the Sangh culture. This was at the peak of the Bihar crisis that had gripped the ruling alliance in Parliament. The point made by him was that the BJP had reached a dead-end in its adventurist experiments at quick expansion through unnatural alliances and perpetual surrenders to political blackmail.

It is more difficult to get out of the chakravyuha than entering it. Even while walking out as a martyr upholding a cause, the BJP as a strategy, should lure the Congress into the trap of a hotch-potch government. Any such medley government is bound to be as bad as the Vajpayee regime, and the resultant anti-incumbency ire might help the BJP eventually stage a comeback. Not only the ardent RSS leaders, but a big chunk of the well-meaning BJP leadership subscribe to the views expressed by the veteran. In its impatience with remaining in power, "the party with a difference" has lost all its long-earned attributes with its endless compromises and appeasement of the reckless allies.

Many in the RSS parivar compare its present plight with the Soviet system under Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika. The "liberalisation" of the BJP with the bait of power has suddenly changed the life style, attitude and integrity of even senior leaders. The Prime Minister has no qualm to disown even a loyal colleague with half a century of hard work for the parivar when he dared to air out the truth at the appropriate party forum. Anything is perfectly okay if that helped the party cling to power. Those old veterans who by habit feel disturbed over the fall of ethics and adherence to principles, are looked down upon contemptuously.

When Realpolitik had first described the plight of the post-1996 BJP as "Congressisation," some in the parivar had ridiculed it as exaggeration. Now it has already outdone both the Congress and Janata parivar parties in internecine quarrels, surrender to blackmail by the allies, political bribery, shielding the corrupt and power-brokering. Vajpayee has introduced a new element in misuse of public funds by showing partiality to those allies who demanded schemes and allocations. The railway budget is a typical case. Politicisation of the allocation of government schemes is bound to draw an angry reaction from the deprived states. This cuts at the very roots of federalism and the concept of economic viability.

Now that the party is deep into such political vices, it can neither have a smooth ride along the new path nor get back to the old days of principles, ethics and discipline. Like Gorbachev's glasnost, the BJP, and to an extent the RSS, will find the downfall in stature irretrievable. Its leaders know that if the BJP government resigns as Vajpayee had suggested at his MPs' meeting, it will note only lose the existing clout but, as things stand today, it will find it difficult to return to the Lok Sabha with the present tally. This has been the message of all recent elections. Barring perhaps Gujarat, the stock of the BJP and its all allies is at a low ebb.

The anti-BJP wave blowing in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi might also be prevailing in UP and Maharashtra. The BJP's only hope in UP is the division of votes between the Samajwadi Party and Congress. Things are not brighter for any of the BJP allies. Their association with the BJP is bound to affect their minority vote base. On the other, if the BJP sticks to the present model of fast growth and quick power based on one-boss concept and by endlessly appeasing the regional allies, it will further ruin its own character and goodwill which had come to its rescue whenever it had suffered a setback. This is especially so because the BJP has already bartered its Hindutva for state power and perks.

Drawing a parallel to glasnost is applicable even to the RSS unless it adopts drastic corrective steps to insulate itself from the "liberalisation" effects of the BJP. This seems a highly impossible proposition, considering the politicisation of the RSS itself. Its boss, Rajendra Singh, is so ineffective that he remains a passive spectator to the degeneration of his organisation. Some among his second-in-command would like to take the initiative to preserve its programmes and culture but the inaction of the boss and the domination of BJP politicians have made it ineffective. The latter has so far been able to silence both outspoken Swadeshi and VHP outfits.

Sadly for the BJP, it has not been able to make any gains from being in power at the Centre for the past 11 months. A major argument in favour of forging a coalition with disparate regional outfits has been that the control of the government would help the BJP spread its influence vertically and horizontally. However, nothing of the sort has occurred. Before the BJP's advent at the Centre, the Christians were, by and large unaffected by riots and attacks. As a result, the BJP had enjoyed, to some extent, support from the Christians. At times, eminent persons belonging to the community had held token posts in the party. At some places, they had even extended support to the BJP. But after the Vajpayee Government took charge, such sections have been totally alienated.

To make matters worse, the government's failure — again, due to the tussles among the allies — to implement the election promises like formation of Uttarakhand has generated bitterness among its own followers. Similar alienation has taken place in many places on different issues. Political parties had all along built up the myth of vertical expansion through power. Until recently, politicians had also believed that they could gain considerable ego by being in power during the elections. All this have now been proved misplaced notion. Power normally provides an elated ego to the respective ministers when the hangers-on and power-brokers throng to them.

However, the voter hardly bothers about them. Even the poll-eve bonanza has failed to influence the voters as was evident in Delhi and Rajasthan this time. Stringent enforcement of the election rules have made the use of police for booth-capturing difficult. As for the anticipated geographical expansion of the BJP, this has not simply taken place during the 11-month-rule. In BJP strongholds, the workers are compelled to be more defensive due to the lacklustre performance of the government. In states where the allies have an upper hand, the BJP finds itself becoming a prisoner of the formers' whims.

During the initial discussions on forging what the BJP had described strategic alliance-seat adjustment without political understanding — it was hoped that association with the local outfits would enable the BJP remove "political untouchability" and infiltrate into their ranks. It was hoped that the smaller parties would be vulnerable to cannibalism. Some stray cases of mergers were cited in this regard. However, so far not a single ally has fallen prey to the Dhritarashtra aalingan. On the contrary, smaller outfits have become more assertive with regard to their identities. This had recently provoked LK Advani to blame minor allies for the instability of the government.

Essentially, the BJP's short-cut to power through alliances with those who do not share its Hindu supremacist ideology has been based on the thesis that the Congress was no more a party capable of ruling the country. This theory took shape following the BJP's emergence as the largest single party in the Lok Sabha. By 1996, the Congress was eliminated from states like UP, Bihar and Tamil Nadu. It was able to wrest a majority only in mainstream states like Madhya Pradesh and Orissa. This had prompted a section in the BJP to propound the theory that it was time for it to replace the Congress as the only national ruling party.

According to BJP theoreticians, some of them journalists who have now been gifted with respectable positions, it has been the ineffectiveness of the Congress that had led to the emergence of the smaller state-level parties. They had only filled a political vacuum left by the party that had dominated the scene for over 45 years. Ipso facto, if the BJP could replace the Congress as a national party, it could easily grab what was described as rootless parties. By 1996, state-level parties had dominated in all states, except where the BJP came in direct conflict with the Congress.

In an internal document prepared for circulation in those days, it was argued that the regional outfits without a caste or religious base would not survive longer. Naidu, Mamata Banerjee, Hegde, Jayalalitha, etc. have proved this prediction wrong. Another disastrous miscalculation on the part of the BJP strategists has been that the Congress disintegration had been complete, and at the most it may survive for some time more in certain pockets. Now the resurgent Congress has upset the entire gameplan of the BJP for positioning itself as the only all- India party.

Added to this has been the BJP's inherent inability to convert a religion-based outfit into a heterogeneous national party overnight. The real question before Vajpayee is how long can he drag on with the day-to-day threats and uncertainties and what will he gain from this. His own image has suffered a fall from that of an amiable person to a helpless Prime Minister. The government's accumulated sins will further lower its stock with the people. One has to watch how the Prime Minister is going to break the syndrome.

Kumaramangalam’s Midas touch

THE scenes were similar. The players were different. The “director”, however, was the same. When the vote on the government resolution on Bihar was being taken in the Lok Sabha on Friday last, the sight of Mrs Vijayaraje Scindia, senior BJP leader who has been ailing for some time, being brought to the House on a wheelchair, and a member from Maharashtra being carried on a stretcher, reminded Gallery correspondents of Ms Mamata Banerjee being similarly wheeled in on the evening when P.V. Narasimha Rao’s government won its crucial trust vote in the monsoon session of 1993.

Like last Friday, the trust vote won by Mr Narasimha Rao (which ensured that he continued in power uninterrupted for five years; though the voting was later to become a centre of controversy due to the JMM bribery case), was a touch and go affair. Ms Mamata Banerjee, then a Congress member, had been through an accident and she was specially flown from Calcutta to ensure that her crucial vote was not the cause for the fall of the government. The person who had wheeled in Ms Mamata Banerjee then and masterminded the strategy for BJP’s crucial trial of strength, now was none other than the Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Mr P. Rangarajan Kumaramangalam, who was the Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs in the Narasimha Rao regime, trusted by the then Prime Minister, as he is by the present incumbent, for his ability to get the impossible done.

Mr Kumaramangalam’s floor management abilities were first noticed by the late Rajiv Gandhi who appointed him as a whip of the Congress party in the ninth Lok Sabha when the party was out of power. His abilities helped the Congress to keep its flock together when the V.P. Singh government was voted out of power. Later, the minority government of Mr Chandra Shekhar lasted in office as long as Kumaramangalam’s skills were put to use by the Congress leadership. Though he is with the BJP now, it was Mr Kumaramangalam who was also entrusted with the toughest negotiations ever undertaken by any Union government — of the Ayodhya imbroglio. The very fact the Congress negotiator of yore is the Parliamentary Affairs and Power Minister today shows that Mr Kumaramangalam knows the art of winning friends and influencing people.

For Mr Narasimha Rao Mr Kumaramangalam (who later turned a Rao baiter and joined Congress-T, enroute to BJP) had proved to be a Minister with the Midas touch, because Mr Rao didn’t have to seek another trust vote after 1993. Will Mr Kumaramangalam’s present optimism withstand the test of time?

Voting blues

Even though the Telugu Desam Party had announced its support to the statutory resolution on imposition of President’s rule in Bihar, the crisis-managers of the Atal Behari Vajpayee government did not want to leave anything to chance.

Just as the members occupying the Opposition benches pressed for division (actual voting instead of voice vote) to force the government show its hand, the crisis managers — Mr P R Kumaramangalam and Mr Pramod Mahajan — got into play.

Mr Kumaramangalam was seen pacing up and down the aisle to ensure with the chief whips of BJP’s allies that all was “set”, while Mr Mahajan, who technically cannot be inside the Lok Sabha at the time of a voting (since he belongs to the Rajya Sabha), was seen standing near one of the doors, ensuring that none of the alliance’s MPs were left behind in the lobby.

That there was a sense of anxiety could be gauged from the fact that as soon as the Speaker, Mr GMC Balayogi, started reading how to operate the electronic voting machine, that several senior leaders including the Prime Minister, the Home Minister, Mr L K Advani, former Premiers and leaders of Congress kept their fingers on the right buttons. No one it seemed wanted to lose time. Yet in the end, the machine could not keep reflect the accurate results forcing the voting to take place manually. While India endeavours to become an IT (Information Technology) superpower, our lawmakers seem to be wary of giving up the bullock cart.

BJP resigns to fate

That the BJP had resigned to its fate over losing vote on imposition of President’s rule in Bihar was evident from the statement of its MP, Prof Vijay Kumar Malhotra, while initiating that the discussion on the motion of thanks to the President, Mr K.R. Narayanan, for his address to the joint session of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha last week.

The BJP MP launched an attack on the Congress party for its volte face on the imposition of President’s rule in Bihar and pointed out that the coalition government was taken in by the initial reaction of that party.

This evoked strong reaction from the Congress members who interrupted his speech frequently asking him not to refer to subjects outside the address of the President. This irritated Mr Malhotra, who was heard telling a fellow ruling party MP, “haar to jana hi hai, bolne bhi nahin dete”, (we are bound to lose, they don’t even let us speak).

Tailpiece

Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha’s repeated reference, “Her Haath Ko Kaam (Work for every hand)” was being interpreted in English by some hacks who said that the Minister had indeed said was “Her” in English to denote Mrs Sonia Gandhi, “Haath” to denote her party’s symbol and was trying to provide work for Congressmen — a hope that a change of regime was round the corner.

This is not the only black humour doing the rounds in Delhi. The day Mr Laloo Yadav met Mrs Sonia Gandhi on the eve of the Bihar vote it was said in the Central Hall of Parliament that Mr Yadav had told Mrs Gandhi: “Madam, I am aware of the Ram Lila ground in Delhi, the Brigade Parade ground in Calcutta, the Gandhi ground in Patna, but where is this “Moral Ground” on which you said Rabri Devi should resign?”

(Contributed by S.B., K.V. Prasad, Girja Shankar Kaura and P.N. Andley)

75 YEARS AGO

Liquor Traffic in Bombay

THE Municipal Corporation after three sittings today carried the following propositions, moved by a nationalist member:-

That in the opinion of this Corporation immediate steps should be taken to check the growing evils of drink in the city; and for that purpose the Corporation authorises its President to address the Government with a request that the right to determine the number and locality of liquor shops in the island and city in Bombay be conceded to the Corporation.