Bihar: Vanity Fair
THE winning of the confidence motion by Bihar Chief Minister Rabri Devi by a convincing margin of 87 votes in the 324-member Assembly during the period specified by Mr Sunder Singh Bhandari, the then Governor, opens a new chapter but does not settle any significant issue.

Timid reforms
FINANCIAL sector reforms are basic to India’s entry into the liberalisers’ club. All efforts so far have been timid, myopic and singularly uninspiring. Major political parties have tied themselves up in knots, speaking one thing while in power and quite the contrary while in opposition.

100 days of Sheila rule
IT would be unfair to pass a sweeping judgement on the performance of the Congress merely 100 days after it was returned to power in Delhi with an impressive margin of victory in the Assembly elections.

A ROLLBACK GOVERNMENT
Thriving on Vajpayee's image
by Hari Jaisingh
ONE year is not a long time in the life of a government, especially in a country like ours where decision-making is slow and simple matters are politicised and allowed to drift, if otherwise found inconvenient.

Two faces of corruption
by Rahul Singh
Two persons have been in the news lately, both linked in entirely different ways to one issue: corruption. They are former Maharashtra Chief Minister Manohar Joshi, and IAS officer, Arun Bhatia.

USA spreading market culture
By M.S.N. Menon
HE Americans are under the delusion that they are the “chosen people”, that it is their mission to carry the American way of life to the rest of the world. But what do they carry? Christian values? Universal values? Neither. They carry the values of the market. One thought animates this US enterprise: that their market culture is the best for the world. But who is to judge? Surely, it is for the world to judge.

Faux pas galore
by Chetana Vaishnavi
ON a routine basis , life is dull. Inadvertent blunders we commit, known as faux pas in French, add spice to our lives — only they should not be dangerous or disastrous to anybody. Faux pas is something we occasionally look forward to, relish it and simply refuse to forget it all our lives. Some of the faux pas I have been a witness or a party to are here for sharing.

75 Years Ago

The Lee Commission
WHILE the Associated Press told us on Sunday that the Lee Commission had submitted a unanimous report, the Bengalee which, in this matter, may be trusted to know, told us the day before that “the Lee Commission have already prepared their report” and that “there are likely to be two reports, one majority and one minority, based more or less on racial lines.”

Bihar: Vanity Fair

THE winning of the confidence motion by Bihar Chief Minister Rabri Devi by a convincing margin of 87 votes in the 324-member Assembly during the period specified by Mr Sunder Singh Bhandari, the then Governor, opens a new chapter but does not settle any significant issue. The 25-day President's rule imposed on the state has been relegated into recent political history as a transitory and, perhaps, avoidable step. The Rabri Devi government has been restored with a clear majority (while 172 members voted in favour of the confidence motion, only 85 spoke negatively). The reinstatement of the dismissed regime, with a jumbo team, provides legitimacy to the Laloo-Rabri set-up. The Bharatiya Janata Party was aware of the defeat of its strategy on the floor of the House when it asked for a division. The Congress discredited itself by playing an ambivalent role. Its members absented themselves from the Assembly proceedings. The CPI, which has 20 legislators, strategically remained neutral. The Samata Party split. Its Patel group's firebrand leader, Mrs Lovely Anand, abstained from voting. The BJP, the Jharkhand outfits, the Janata Dal and the MCC voted against the motion. The CPI(M), along with others, voted with the Rashtriya Janata Dal, which has 150 members in the House. The conclusion leads one to the same old alley. There is no perceptible improvement, or any hope of it, in the prevailing situation marked by tension, violence, horse-trading and administrative indecisiveness. The Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Mr Ramachandra Purve, has pointed to "fascist forces", communalism and feudalism. However, the Rabri Devi government has been held responsible for promoting all these three elements.

Anybody who knows Bihar well does not believe that the Laloo Yadav-led groups maintain a reasonable distance from the Ranvir Sena or the People's War Group. The imposition of President's rule was as constitutional as its revocation was, technically speaking. We had advised Mr Bhandari to bow out gracefully. He did so, but rather late, after getting humiliated. Is there any other state in which three MLAs have been killed in quick succession within a year? Is the end of jungle raj in sight? To describe Mr George Fernandes and Mr Nitish Kumar of the fragmented Samata Party as autocratic misleaders is to make a denunciatory statement unrelated to the nature of the rival faction. There is no parent party and no offspring. Mr Fernandes and Mr Nitish Kumar are individuals without a base like Mr Deonarayan Yadav or Mr Raghunath Jha. The two temperamental ladies—Mrs Lovely Anand and Mrs Parvati Devi— do have some destabilising clout. Mrs Anand is the wife of the controversial Lok Sabha MP, Mr Anand Mohan; and Mrs Parvati Devi's husband is Mr Shakuni Chowdhary, a dissident Samata Party MP from Khagaria. The Samata Party has been almost written off by the developments of March 17. Every opportunist calls his opponent an opportunist. The promises made on behalf of Mrs Rabri Devi by Mr Purve are as illusory today as they were months ago. The betterment of the backward communities and Dalits remains a distant dream. There is no class distinction in Bihar. What there really is is antiquitous casteist and communalist groupism enfeebled by poverty. But there is an opportunity for proxy-ruler Laloo Yadav to improve his image tarred by huge coats of corruption, nepotism and virtual dictatorship. Good governance is not an impossibility although the behaviour of time-servers is like antiquarianism, as apparently solemn in high places as the rites at a Pharoah's burial must have been. The immemorial books on leaders like Shri Krishna Sinha and K. B. Sahay are like pyramids. One would like to see the flowers of pro-poor rule after this autumn in Bihar guided by a thoughtful and apolitical Governor.

Timid reforms

FINANCIAL sector reforms are basic to India’s entry into the liberalisers’ club. All efforts so far have been timid, myopic and singularly uninspiring. Major political parties have tied themselves up in knots, speaking one thing while in power and quite the contrary while in opposition. The bureaucrats are loathe to loosen their stranglehold on everything. There are other vested interests which are happy to trudge along the beaten path, fearing the future or competition. This has been the painful tale and the ordeal of the Insurance Regulatory Authority Bill adds another chapter. The Standing Committee on Finance has rewritten the original Bill not so much to protect the insured but to harass new entrants to this sector. To start with, a new entrepreneur wishing to do life or general insurance business should bring in Rs 100 crore, not more than 26 per cent of that in foreign currency. This in a business which can be started and run with a capital of Rs 5 crore. The logic is curious, to ensure the safety of the premia and to keep out non-serious people. This from a government which merrily allowed many blade companies to collect thousands of crores of rupees as deposits and then vanish! What will happen if a company grows fast and within a few years collects a premium amount of, say, Rs 500 crore? Will the capital adequacy be hiked? In the initial years only the urban elite would buy the services of new companies and they know how to take care of themselves. After that a sharp-eyed regulator will know how to protect the others. It will take at least 10 years for a company to establish itself, a long enough time to regulate it.

There is also the ritualistic chanting of the rural mantra. New entrants will be forced to do insurance business in villages too, and at a lower premium through cross-subsidy. Can coercion be part of liberal change? Why not achieve the same objective through tax incentives? The Bill is to set up a full-fledged regulatory authority, but at crucial points the government muscles in, running away with powers to issue directions. Obviously the TRAI syndrome is getting entrenched. To this conceptual confusion has been added a degree of political uncertainty. The Congress has withdrawn its promise of unconditional support, saying rather imperiously that “we shall take a decision at the appropriate time”. This is its riposte to Prime Minister Vajpayee’s declaration in an interview that his government does not depend on the Congress for its survival. The Left parties, which have taken a principled stand against opening up the insurance sector, feel highly encouraged by the change of attitude of Mr Jaipal Reddy of the Janata Dal. Will there be more Jaipal Reddys in the days to come?

100 days of Sheila rule

IT would be unfair to pass a sweeping judgement on the performance of the Congress merely 100 days after it was returned to power in Delhi with an impressive margin of victory in the Assembly elections. A fair assessment of the performance of Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit should not overlook the fact that Delhi is a peculiar city-State. Delhi is both the capital of Delhi and of India. And it is not an uncommon error to place the failures of the National Capital at the door of the State Capital. For instance, there can be no disagreement that Delhi has indeed become the crime capital of India. The alarming increase in the cases of rape, murder and highway crimes has made it, perhaps, the most unsafe city in the entire country. Mumbai’s notoriety rests on its “specialisation” in contract killings and abductions which does not concern ordinary citizens — unless the unfortunate among them get caught in the exchange of fire between the police and members of an organised gang or between rival gangs. However, in Delhi anyone can get killed or injured with or without a motive. The amazing drop in the volume of traffic after sunset is a reliable indicator of the average citizen’s confidence in the ability of the police in making Delhi safe for the law abiding. It is not uncommon for the ill-informed to blame the Delhi Government for the countless incidents of lawlessness and heinous crimes. However, the fact of the matter is that the Delhi Police is under the direct control of the Union Home Ministry. When the Bharatiya Janata Party was in power in Delhi a demand was made for transferring the powers of policing to the State Government. But the Congress was never interested in adding to its problems by taking on the additional responsibility of telling policemen how to go about making Delhi safe for everyone.

Nevertheless, there are certain other important areas of administration which need the urgent attention of the Delhi Government. Mrs Dikshit can take the plea that 100 days in office is too short a period for clearing the mess left behind by the BJP before setting the house in order. Unfortunately, she has not even made a beginning for clearing the mess. The performance of her Government would be judged on the basis of improvement, if any, in the public transport system, the level of sanitation and healthcare, supply of adequate quantities of drinking water and uninterrupted power during the summer months. Delhi has already become an impossible city to live in. But during the summer months it becomes a picture of hell because of the mountains of garbage, an inefficient public transport system and shortage of power and water in non VIP areas. The BJP was thrown out of power because of its failure to address any of the problems facing Delhi, which has a large floating population to add to the shortage of basic civic amenities for the permanent residents. If Mrs Dikshit is able to solve even half of the problems facing the metropolis, she can claim to have made a satisfactory beginning as the first woman Congress Chief Minister of Delhi.

A ROLLBACK GOVERNMENT
Thriving on Vajpayee's image

by Hari Jaisingh

ONE year is not a long time in the life of a government, especially in a country like ours where decision-making is slow and simple matters are politicised and allowed to drift, if otherwise found inconvenient.

One year of Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee's rule is no exception to this general rule, though it must be said to his credit that he has at least tried to grapple with certain outstanding problems, howsoever half-heartedly and meekly. It is, of course, a different matter that the ruling coalition has failed to cash in on the advantages of the jobs well done.

Mr Vajpayee's government could not even retain the goodwill generated by the nuclear explosions at Pokhran. The national mood which was upbeat at the initial stage went downhill since the Prime Minister's Office and other departments had not done their home work well. So the advantages disappeared within days of the blasts both at home and abroad. The shock-waves emanating from the US economic sanctions only made matters worse.

Poor home work. Poor housekeeping. Lack of proper focus. Diffused thinking. Warring allies. Factions within the Sangh Parivar. Absence of coordinated policies and programmes. The tendency among senior members of the Cabinet to work at cross-purposes and speak in different voices in the public. These are some of the major factors which have severely affected the credibility of the government.

In fact, much of the BJP government's energy has been spent on futile skirmishes with the Opposition and differences with its own allies. Looking back, it was not so much the Opposition which hit the BJP but its own allies, especially the two ladies, Ms Jayalalitha and Ms Mamata Banerjee. They made the BJP look helpless and imbecile. Such an image has had a devastating effect on its earlier projection as a party of strong will, views and determination. On a number of occasions it appeared that the AIADMK supremo could bring down the government and every time an emissary had to be sent by the Prime Minister to assuage her so-called hurt feelings. Indeed, the whole exercise has become a big joke in Indian politics.

What has been equally disquieting is the way the government has succumbed to pressure tactics. Even hard economic decisions and proposals were withdrawn at the slightest protest from one or the other ally. No wonder, Mr Vajpayee's regime has acquired the notoriety of being a rollback government. The only saving grace in this scenario is Mr Vajpayee's personal image as Prime Minister who wants to take the nation forward by building consensus.

Amidst the pulls and counter-pulls, the governance of the country has suffered terribly. Most of the ministers in the Vajpayee government are busy either playing politics or explaining away one failure or the other. There are certain exceptions but they hardly ensure cohesiveness and harmony in the functioning of the government.

Whatever might be the compulsions of the Vajpayee government, it must be said that the BJP as the leader of the main ruling alliance could not and did not anticipate the problems it confronts today. It has surely talked about the consensual approach to national issues, but the leadership has done little to display such a spirit. Of course, Mr Vajpayee has shown considerable flexibility in his approach to persons and issues. But the desired results have eluded him.

When Mr Vajpayee invited Ms Sonia Gandhi for a discussion on Bihar and sought her support for the ratification of President's rule, he was hoping for a consensus on the subject. This was, however, a misplaced zeal for the simple reason that the Opposition parties have their own agenda and have serious reservations about the functioning of the BJP government.

Building consensus on national issues cannot be one-way traffic. It requires a larger perspective and a keen desire for a serious dialogue. Take the Pokhran blasts. The BJP leaders failed to take anyone in the Opposition — not even Mr Inder Kumar Gujral — into confidence.

Prime Minister Vajpayee admitted recently:"We lacked experience and often had no ideas on what to do" . Very candid indeed! The fact is that the BJP has no experience in governance. It could not even handle the onion crisis, what to speak of weightier matters. In fact, it could not resolve any of Delhi's problems. The chaos in Delhi has cost the BJP dear and the Central leadership is partly responsible for this.

Ironically, the BJP has faltered even on basic ideological issues. It has often given the impression that it has no coherent ideology as such. One should read its history. It refuses to define what it means by Hindutva. It hides behind vagueness because it either wants to keep its options open or is not sure how to define it. It criticises secularism and dubs old-time intellectuals as pseudo-secularists. And all the while it has failed to explain what is wrong, where and why. All these have seriously affected its style of functioning. On many issues its allies do not know where the line has been drawn and for what purposes.

Interestingly, the BJP has been shifting its position ever since it was founded in 1951 (as Jana Sangh). And this has something to do with the composition of the party. At first, it was a party of traders and refugees from the Pakistani part of Punjab. Religion was not that important then. The party leaders at that time talked of dharma. When Balraj Madhok came to dominate the party, the Jana Sangh was out and out a pro-US and capitalist organisation. There was little of Hindutva at that time. The party remained a dwarf without much influence among the Hindus. This was between 1951 and 1984. The party had insignificant presence in Parliament till 1984. It had two members in the Lok Sabha with a strength of more than 500 members.

It was out of sheer desperation that the party fell back on revivalism, rath yatras and all that in the face of Mr V.P. Singh's Mandalisation. But these brought into its fold certain primitive forces of Hindu society. This probably explains the rise of orthodox forces in the ranks of the VHP and the Bajrang Dal.

It needs to be stated that certain misdoings of the Congress during the time of Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi helped the BJP to present itself as a better alternative to the Congress. This is evident from the growth of the BJP. Its strength in the Lok Sabha grew from two in 1984 to 160 by 1996. It has grown indeed!

There are, however, two hundred constituencies where the minorities can be decisive in the electoral outcome. If this is so, they can thwart the BJP's ambition to come to power on its own. It is elementary wisdom that a minority under pressure does not open up. In fact, it closes its ranks and becomes more fundamentalist. This is what happened to the Hindus under Mughal rule.

Unfortunately, there are growing signs of fundamentalism among the minorities. It is a pity that the activities of certain elements within the Sangh Parivar have antoganised the Christian community more than any other section of society. This is uncalled for. If there are cases of mass conversion, they can be dealt with at the administrative level. There is no need to politicise the issue.

It is worthwhile to remember that most of our well-known and the less famous men came out of Christian colleges. They were no less Hindus for it. Thus, to say that Christian-run hospitals, schools and colleges aim at converting Hindus to Christianity does not stand to reason. Yes, they certainly want to create a better image of themselves. But, what is wrong with it?

As we look back at the past one year, it holds a number of lessons for all. The citizen has seen the limitations of the present system. The BJP has been tried and found wanting. But this does not mean that the voter at this juncture wishes to rush back to the Congress. The Congress has to give a better account of itself so as to be acceptable to all levels of Indian society.

In a way, herein lies the BJP's opportunity. It has still time to think and reflect on how and where it has gone wrong. An honest reflection can provide honest answers. Holding out excuses can hardly help to repair the loss of credibility already suffered by the BJP and its government headed by Mr Vajpayee.

If the BJP means business, the only way it can hold on its own is by rallying around Mr Vajpayee. He has at least shown the guts and taken a number of initiatives not only on domestic issues but also in exploring friendship and harmony even with a hostile neighbour like Pakistan. The bus diplomacy may be seen as a tamasha but in the subcontinental setting there has to be a certain element of tamasha for doing something different and worthwhile.

Looking at the overall performance of the government, Mr Vajpayee as Prime Minister has lived up to his reputation despite the limitations. Alas, the same cannot be said about the government he presides over.

Two faces of corruption
by Rahul Singh

TWO persons have been in the news lately, both linked in entirely different ways to one issue: corruption. They are former Maharashtra Chief Minister Manohar Joshi, and IAS officer, Arun Bhatia.

Mr Joshi was sacked by the supremo of his party, the Shiv Sena, Mr Bal Thackeray, a short while ago. Mr Joshi claimed he did not know why, but departed without much fuss. His four years as Chief Minister of Maharashtra were entirely inglorious.

Before his party came to power, it had vowed to throw the controversial Enron power project into the Arabian Sea. After forming the new government in alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), it re-negotiated the project on terms that were even more favourable to Enron. When asked to explain, Mr Joshi said he had been misled by the Press!

The Bombay High Court passed severe strictures against him, virtually accusing him of perjury, by making false statements in court and in the Legislative Assembly over Enron. He somehow got away with it.

He justified vandalism and breaking the law in the controversy over the Deepa Mehta film, “Fire”. His party “rejected” the B.N. Srikrishna report on the Mumbai riots of 1992-93, calling it “anti-Hindu”, mainly because it castigated the Shiv Sena for its role (the report also condemned the Mumbai police and Muslim fundamentalist groups).

When his supremo threatened to disrupt the Pakistan cricket tour of India, he remained silent, even though he was the Vice-President of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and the President of the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA). Worse, when Shiv Sainik goondas ransacked the office of the BCCI in Mumbai, he did not give up these two posts, as he should have.

His boast that his administration would provide decent housing for Mumbai’s four million slum-dwellers has been a complete non-starter. The law and order situation in Mumbai continued to deteriorate under his chief ministership. Extortion has become rife. Defeat in the state election due in a year stares the Sena/BJP alliance in the face.

His helplessness or inefficiency apart, it now turns out that he was corrupt as well. That is the conclusion the Bombay High Court came to the other day, after going into a land case involving Mr Joshi’s son-in-law, Mr Girish Vyas, a land developer in Pune. The court found him guilty of trying to mislead it and of “pressurising officials to do an illegal action.” In other words, of lying and attempting to favour his son-in-law, so that he could make a killing in his development project. One of the two judges ruling in the case was none other than Justice B.N. Srikrishna, the same person who headed the one-man enquiry commission going into the Mumbai riots.

Mr Joshi, while announcing his resignation from the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly, took the moral high ground, hinting that he might appeal to the Supreme Court. He should, if he thinks he is innocent. But I suspect he will not. He is shrewd enough to know that, over time, people tend to forget. A year is a long time in politics and when the next state election comes around, he will get his party to field him once again.

Let us now turn to the second person in the news: IAS officer Arun Bhatia. In his case, the state government is hounding him and making his life miserable because he has had the guts to expose corruption and take action against the corrupt.

While he was the Divisional Commissioner in Pune district, he found that all was not well with one of the most ambitious development projects of the state, the Krishna Valley Development Project. He wrote to his boss, the Chief Secretary, about what he had discovered. The Chief Secretary, clearly under pressure from his political bosses who have their own axes to grind, said nothing. So, Mr Bhatia went to the Press.

I find nothing wrong with that, whereas the Chief Minister calls it “gross indiscipline”. When an honest official finds that something is very wrong in the area under his charge and that his superiors are not doing anything about it, what should he do? The easy way out would be to shrug your shoulders and say to yourself that you have done your duty.

Mr Bhatia is made of sterner stuff, as his numerous brave exposures of corrupt dealings have shown. He has been transferred a record 24 times for his pains. This time the man behind his transfer is apparently former Cabinet Minister Suresh Kalmadi, a big wheel in Pune, whose illegally constructed properties Mr Bhatia demolished in the one week he was the Commissioner of Pune city.

Mr Bhatia is upholding the highest traditions of the civil service while his bosses are shielding the wrong-doers. He deserves our — the public’s — support. I am glad to see that he is getting it in Pune.

Faux pas galore
by Chetana Vaishnavi

ON a routine basis , life is dull. Inadvertent blunders we commit, known as faux pas in French, add spice to our lives — only they should not be dangerous or disastrous to anybody. Faux pas is something we occasionally look forward to, relish it and simply refuse to forget it all our lives. Some of the faux pas I have been a witness or a party to are here for sharing.

A few years back when Big Bull Harshad Mehta occupied much space of the newspapers and as a consequence everybody’s mind, we witnessed a hilarious faux pas. The occasion was an inauguration of a scientific conference. The speaker welcomed each and every dignitary present, including one Dr Harshad something. But instead of using his right surname, the speaker welcomed Dr Harshad “Mehta”. There was a stunned silence in the audience for a while followed by peals of uncontrollable laughter. The speaker, realising the faux pas, made an unsuccessful attempt at covering the mistake. But how far could he have compared the notorious scamster with an eminent personality?

On another occasion, a dermatologist (skin-specialist) was invited as a chief guest for a conference on skin diseases. He was presented a bouquet which was incidentally teeming with a large number of Parthenium (congress grass) flowers! What a nice way of welcoming a dermatologist!

Recently you must have read in the newspaper how a professor was allegedly prescribed “fermentation” instead of “fomentation” for his backache by some health workers. Surely in an inebriated state anyone could forget all kinds of pain!

Faux pas is an essential ingredient to colour your life. My faux pas is the most interesting among all the ones I have mentioned. Some years ago I attended a colleague’s wedding ceremony. As I went up the dais to greet the bride and the groom, the video man focussed the camera on us. Shy of the camera facing me (in reel life one faces the camera!), I blurted out: “Many many happy returns”. Observing a frown on my colleague’s face, I soon realised what I had said. Oh my God, help me! I prayed thus and God did help me. I continued aloud, “of the anniversaries to come”. Then I added hurriedly, “and wish you a happy married life!” My colleague suddenly felt relaxed and smiled happily. He probably thought that I had used the latest phrase in greeting the newly-weds!

USA spreading market culture
By M.S.N. Menon

HE Americans are under the delusion that they are the “chosen people”, that it is their mission to carry the American way of life to the rest of the world. But what do they carry? Christian values? Universal values? Neither. They carry the values of the market.

One thought animates this US enterprise: that their market culture is the best for the world. But who is to judge? Surely, it is for the world to judge.

France has already made its judgement. So has Canada. And they are opposed to the rising tide of popular US culture. Giles Jacob, chief of the Cannes Film Festival, says: “The USA is just not interested in exporting its films. It is interested in exporting its way of life.”

The Canadian Minister for Information bemoans: “The USA has inundated our entire culture!” Let us not make the mistake of Canada, warns I.K. Gujral. A timely warning. But if France and Canada cannot resist the US onslaught, how can India or Sri Lanka?

Gandhiji was opposed to this “popular” culture (it used to pass off as “modern”) because of its crass materialism. He believed that such a civilisation was not conducive to moral health. But he was misunderstood. Perhaps even derided.

The popular US culture is full of imperfections. The point is: Why should the rest of the world exchange what is known to them — that is their own culture — for what is unknown to them? Why should they reject their own historical experience for the experience of the Americans? And why should they give up their value system born of their experience for the value system of the Americans, born of their experience?

And one final thought: if the market culture ends in tragedy, will the USA own responsibility for its consequences? It will not. The USA has much to do with the global economy today. Yet when crisis struck Mexico and Asia and millions were utterly ruined, the USA did not offer to rehabilitate the ruined. (Arranging loans to the ruined states is something different.) That is why each people must choose its own path. Or it must have a voice in the shaping of the world. In this way, a community learns to be responsible.

But isn’t it strange that the Americans who swear by Thomas Paine, the Philosopher of the US revolution and advocate of US independence, now want to impose their will on other peoples and nations? Paine said the greatest tyranny is wanting to rule over men beyond one’s grave. He believed that people, generation after generation, must have the right to shape their own destiny.

This popular culture of the USA did not break out from amidst the people, but from the market place. It is made up of films, TV, media, music, magazine, T-shirts, games, toys, packaged foods, theme parks and others. It was the long as yet unfinished business of colonialism. These bring in 60 to 70 billion dollars yearly.

But this popular culture has little support among men who matter in the USA. Bob Dole, the Republican leader, says: “We have reached a point when our popular culture threatens to undermine our character as a nation.” He tells Hollywood: “You have sold your souls. But must you debase our nation and threaten our children as well?” But Hollywood has a ready answer for this (repeated all over the world) that it gives what the people want. But Dole says constant exposure to violence has taken away the sense of outrage among people. Newt Gingrich, former House Speaker, agrees. “Somewhere you have to draw a line and say enough” he says.

Violence has become endemic in American life. An American sees more murders committed on TV in one day than what actually transpirres in, say, Japan in 30 years! Death and mutilation are shown in close-up and graphic detail. These do not produce nausea, but ecstatic glee. Viewing such brutalities has made Americans brutal. They have already lost their sensibility to enjoy the beautiful and sublime. Their thinking is becoming increasingly morbid and macabre. Hollywood is pathologically obsessed with this violence.

How do you explain this violence of the Americans? The USA is a country of refugees — of migrants. They symbolise both struggle and violence, says Hannah Arendt, the famous American sociologist. Violence springs from among them. Today the culture of many nations is dominated by the values of the uprooted. It is the migrant population which determines the character of most of our modern cities. They seek to remake the world in their own image. While some of the great achievements of the USA have come from the exiles, some of the greatest pathologies can be traced to the sense of exile and loneliness of migrants.

Some have tried to expose these pathologies. William Bennet in his book “The Death of an Outrage” on the Lewinsky affair does not put the entire blame on Clinton, but indicts the entire American generation and its culture. He wanted to put the moral sensibility of the American nation on trial and find it guilty, as one puts it.

Noam Chomsky says in his book “World Order: Old and New” that “the great task of subjugation and conquest has changed little over the years”. But today it passes off as US leadership. But can an American be a good brother to the rest of the world? In its report, Clinton’s Advisory Board on Race has said that after 130 years of “equal rights” the whites are ignorant of the nature of the discrimination against the blacks. After four decades of federal efforts at integration, “there are few spaces that blacks and whites occupy as equals”. For all practical purposes, the whites and blacks exist in two different worlds, in two civilisations. Can these whites provide global leadership? Can they ever treat Asians and Africans as equals? The major debate in the USA today is not about the fate of the earth, but on how to keep the growth of the American blacks is check. If the white Americans cannot live with a black majority in the USA, can they accept a world dominated by non-white races? Time to ponder on such questions.

And yet with all these failures of state policy at home, Clinton wants to impose the human rights issue on the rest of the world. Addressing the Society of Newspaper Editors, he said: “Today our policies must also focus over relations within nations, on a nation’s form of government, on its economic structure, on its ethnic tolerance. These are of concern to us, for they shape how these nations treat their own people as well as others and whether they are reliable when they give their words.” What he did not say is that the imposition of human rights is a natural sequel to the process of globalisation.

Peoples of Asia and Africa have been subject to a long sustained cycle of interiorisation, to an alienation from their own culture, to an estrangement from their values, to a distancing from their ways of life, and to a down-grading of their state. All these have helped the ready acceptance of a mono-culture by vast numbers of our people. The Readers’ Digest is printed in 19 languages, 48 editions and has a circulation of 28 million, 14 million outside the USA.”

There is unprecedented excitement whenever an American star appears on the Indian horizon. This was the case when Michael Jackson and Yenni came here. If the Navaratnas of Akbar were to appear, there would be no such excitement. India has the third largest English-speaking population. It can be an asset. (About 87 per cent of the data base is in English.) But, then, it can also lead to the colonialism of the mind.

According to UNESCO, culture is at the centre of development policies today. Other elements of the development strategy are environment, education and population. But non of these appears in the globalisation agenda. At the inter-governmental conference on cultural policies for development at Stockholm, the 140 nations recognised the need to preserve the cultural diversity and identity of peoples in the face of increasing globalisation. But it has remained more a pious wish.

75 YEARS AGO

The Lee Commission

WHILE the Associated Press told us on Sunday that the Lee Commission had submitted a unanimous report, the Bengalee which, in this matter, may be trusted to know, told us the day before that “the Lee Commission have already prepared their report” and that “there are likely to be two reports, one majority and one minority, based more or less on racial lines.”

We need scarcely say that we would much rather have the latter forecast turn out to be true than the former.

Strongly as we are opposed to a racial division in such a matter, we are still more strongly opposed to the sacrifice of India’s supreme interests with a view to the securing of a unanimous report