75 Years Ago
Repatriation the only "remedy"
APART from an admission, the Minister made three statements, each important in its way and all equally significant.

SP supremo faces toughest challenge

By Harihar Swarup

IF Saifuddin Soz’s lone vote brought the Vajpayee government tumbling down, the obstinacy of Mulayam Singh Yadav blocked Sonia Gandhi’s ride to power, embarrassed his Marxist friends and pushed the country into an unwanted mid-term poll. For an overwhelming majority of MPs another election in a year is like a nightmare and they are cursing not the Congress but the Samajwadi Party chief. The first-term M.Ps could not qualify even to draw their pension. Both Soz and Mulayam swear by secularism.

Among the Opposition leaders, Mulayam Singh was persistently egging on the Congress to bring down the BJP Government. His volte face has drawn flak both from the Congress and the CPM, further damaged the ramshackle third front and raised a question mark on his secular credentials. The Congress Party’s authorised spokesman, Arjun Singh, had gone to the extent of suspecting a possible nexus between Mulayam Singh and the BJP and dubbing the socialist leader as a "cruel betrayer of the entire secular polity".

As if this was not enough, the BJP and its allies suddenly went soft on their hitherto enemy number one. In a full page ad issued at the behest of the BJP five persons — Sonia Gandhi, Laloo Yadav, Jayalalitha, H S Surjeet and Mayawati — were squarely blamed for toppling the Vajpayee government but Mulayam Singh was conveniently left out. Though the BJP leaders publicly delinked themselves with the ad, Vijay Goel, party’s MP from Delhi Sadar was more forthcoming. He candidly admitted: "Mulayam sided with us in ensuring that Sonia Gandhi did not become the Prime Minister. Like us, he did not want to see a Videshi woman in this high office. This is our way of expressing gratitude to Mulayam". Samata Party leader George Fernandes also joined Goel in thanking the Samajwadi supremo.

Known for his tenacity as fighter, Mulayam now stands isolated. His secular friends — the Left parties and the Congress - have been accusing him of betrayal and the BJP by showering praise on him want to ensure that his Muslim vote bank in U.P. is destroyed.

But Mulayam had compelling reasons for ditching the Congress. As a staunch Lohiate socialist, he has thrived over the years on anti-Congress and enlarged his insignificant backward class support base in U.P. by weaning away Muslim votes. The Congress leadership has belatedly realised that the only way to recapture its vote bank was to confront the former Chief Minister head-on and this is what the new PCC President, Salman Khurshid, had done. Mulayam was rattled sensing that he would be nowhere if his support base switches over to the Congress.

With the Congress ruling at the Centre and Kalyan Singh heading a BJP government in U.P. Mulayam feared, his Muslim votes would dwindle and his party might become redundant. This was, perhaps, the reason that having taken the initiative in toppling the Vajpayee government, he ditched Sonia Gandhi at the last moment. The Congress and Mulayam are now locked in a fight-to-the-finish battle in the Gangetic plain and odds appear to be against the S.P. leader.

Ayodhya was the turning point in Mulayam’s political graph. The Babri Masjid issue was gathering momentum menacingly when Mulayam Singh became the Chief Minister in 1989 paradoxically with the BJP support. His Kranti Yatra to counter the VHP’s movement for Ram Temple had hit the headlines in the preceding months. He vowed as L K Advani undertook his infamous Rath Yatra to protect the Babri Masjid provoking the BJP to withdraw support to his government but the Congress promptly came to the rescue of Mulayam. He lived up to his pledge to protect the Masjid and, as it was figuratively put " by shooting down Kar Sevaks from atop the mosque". Mulayam succeeded in foiling the assault on the Masjid but rather exaggerated death toll had a Hindu backlash.

He resigned in 1991 advising fresh elections after snapping links with V.P.Singh’s Janata Dal and joining hands with Chandra Shekhar and naming his party as Samajwadi Janata Party. In the ensuing elections he could get only 30 seats in the U.P. assembly.

The demolition of Babri Masjid in December, 1992, and dismissal of the Kalyan Singh Government turned the tide in favour of Mulayam. He was seen as friend and saviour of Muslims and nicknamed "Maulana Mulayam". In alliance with the BSP in the 1993 mid-term Assembly elections, Muslims overwhelmingly voted for him enabling him to romp home comfortably. Muslims moved away from the Congress en bloc and Mulayam carved out for himself a formidable support base. His vote bank is under threat now.

In fact, the outcome of the 1993 elections marked Mulayam Singh’s finest hour. The BJP was reduced to a minority with the SP-BSP coalition achieving parity in terms of seat. Eager to keep the BJP out, the Congress and the Janata Dal offered unconditional support to the SP-BSP coalition. Mulayam was back on the Chief Minister’s chair but the honeymoon with the Kanshi Ram-Mayawati combine was not to last long. The "tough Mulayam" was subjected to repeated humiliation by both the BSP chief and his protege Mayawati but he suffered the indignation silently for two years. The firebrand lady assumed the role of super Chief Minister. The simmering differences reached a point of no return; BSP pulled out of the coalition and Mulayam Singh’s government collapsed.

Though Mulayam Singh drew inspiration from Dr Ram Manohar Lohia and Jayaprakash Narayan in his younger days, his real mentor was the late Chaudhary Charan Singh who spotted him and initiated him in active politics. When the Jat patriarch spotted Mulayam in a crowd of his followers, he remarked "yeh chotte kad ka admi bade kam ka hai" (this little man is capable of doing big things). Diminutive Mulayam had done big things indeed. He now faces the biggest challenge of his political career in U.P.

Darbaris planning poll strategies
Delhi grapevine
By Hari Shankar Vyas

The announcement of elections has brought both the BJP and the Congress at the crossroads. Both are engaged in drawing their strategies for the elections. Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s darbaris are telling him that it would be a 1984-like situation, though in a different direction. In 1984, the Congress had swept the polls in the wake of sympathy emanating from Indira Gandhi’s assassination. This time, they believe that the BJP will sweep the polls due to sympathy Vajpayee has earned from the "murder" of his government. This time, his darbaris are different from those who had told him even in 1984 that the BJP was poised to get at least 125 to 150 seats. The party then got only two seats.

On the other hand, belying all reports to the contrary, the troika of Arjun Singh, ML Fotedar and RD Pradhan continues to rule the roost at 10 Janpath. Recent bungling notwithstanding, Sonia Gandhi is still depending heavily on this troika to draw the party’s election strategy. And this troika is in favour of granting party tickets to all its outgoing MPs. But, there are two issues of concern to the party. One, extensive use of the media, particularly of Doordarshan by the BJP, and two, the election strategy in UP and Tamil Nadu. In other states, the battlelines are almost clear. The Congress high command is in favour of entering into an alliance with the AIADMK in Tamil Nadu and with the RJD in Bihar. But Jayalalitha has not made her mind clear. Her adviser, Subrahmaniam Swamy wants her to contest the elections without an alliance with the Congress. In UP, the party may reach an indirect understanding with the BSP. By and large, Sharad Pawar’s assertions notwithstanding, the party may go in for contesting 480 to 500 seats to the Lok Sabha.

* * *

Was he desperate to leave the sinking ship or was it all a planned operation. This mystery may remain buried forever. Whatever his intentions were, the fact of the day is that the Prime Minister’s Private Secretary, Mr Shakti Sinha has got a plum posting. Only recently, he was empanelled as a joint secretary after having been rejected later last year. His CRs were found to be ‘average’, but then the Cabinet Secretary had intervened and told the Committee of Secretaries, look, Mr Vajpayee had given him such an outstanding report as the Leader of Opposition. Anyhow, the day, Jayamma withdrew her support from the government, Shakti found himself so weak. And by the same evening, Baap Ji had given him a farewell gift. Shakti Sinha was made the Economic Counsellor in the Indian High Commission. This is a joint secretary rank post and he could not have got it but for his empanelment. He would now be getting a salary of $ 1 lakh per annum which is at least 10 times more than that of the Cabinet Secretary. Interestingly, Shakti Sinha happens to be the co-brother of Baap Ji’s foster son-in-law Ranjan Bhattacharya.

* * *

It was not very long when Shakti Sinha had started making his network in the government through private secretaries to ministers and his friends in the bureaucracy from his home state, Bihar. While it was with this intention that he had brought in S.N. Sahay to the PMO as Deputy Secretary, only two months back, he foisted another friend Parimal Ray to Uma Bharati’s office. He had started working in Uma Bharati’s office as her PS from March 11. But his appointment took sometime with the ACC sitting over it. In the meantime, Jayalalitha had caused disturbances in the political weather of Delhi. Everyone, including Shakti Sinha, got wary about the life of the government. Using his good offices, he got the appointment of Ray stalled. And while the Vajpayee government lost the confidence vote on April 17, Ray was asked to show joining Uma Bharati’s office on April 16. It was with the view to telling RK Dhawan that he had worked with a BJP minister only for a day, and now my services are available to you. After all, Ray had earlier worked with Dhawan and when he had joined Uma Bharati in March, many eyebrows were raised in the BJP.

* * *

Even as the Vajpayee government was packing its luggage after Jayalalitha had blown the warning signal, the BJP ministers tried to bring in their trusted officers to the Centre so that their services could be utilised if the party was thrown out of power. It began with the Power Ministry. A high profile bureaucrat who has been the blue-eyed boy of many a minister and former ministers in previous outfits was feeling out of place in Delhi Jal Board and was desperate to come to the Centre. His bio-data and dossiers were circulated among many ministers. While the bio-data was very impressive, seeing an entry in the dossier, every other minister would turn him back. It was an adverse entry quoting strictures by CAG accusing him of misusing official machinery by making numerous STD calls, including one extending to three hours. These calls were traced not to any government office but to a lady in Chandigarh. Rai has been very close to the Congress party also. When his bio-data and dossiers reached Kumaramangalam, he either preferred to ignore this entry or he found in this his skills in extra-curricular activities or he became nostalgic about his old Congress days. Rai is today a Joint Secretary in his ministry.

Another minister went a step further. There were two vacancies of Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Civil Aviation. The panel of officers sent to the Minister Anant Kumar did not have the names of Sanat Kaul of UT cadre and Anurag Goyal of UP cadre. Anant Kumar was in a quandary. The Kauls at 3 Race Course Road were craving for a good posting for an officer from their fraternity and Kalyan Singh wanted to save his faithful Goyal from the brunt of his adversaries if he were to be unseated. So, poor Kumar was forced to ignore the panel and accommodate the two in his much sought after ministry.

* * *

The Ministry of Home Affairs is flooded with numerous representations against certain decisions of the ministry taken in the last week of March. Since in most of the cases no financial angles were involved, the ministry officials were amazed when they received orders from the Home Minister’s office that he wanted to clear all the pending files by March 31. Taking advantage of the hurry, many of the officers made such cases that suited their whims and fancies. And contrary to his image, Home Minister Lal Krishan Advani signed them without using his discretion in majority of the cases. Thus, these representations.

* * *

And even as the officials were wondering if Advani had any premonition that Jayamma would withdraw support and the government would fall within a fortnight that he ordered clearing files before March 31, they were all the more surprised to see him in their rooms on April 19 wishing them goodbye. In fact, it was the time, when the Law Ministry was trying to find out if the President could allow the BJP to form the government again, if others failed. But it seemed that Advani had taken Laloo’s word seriously that an alternative government would be formed in five minutes.

75 YEARS AGO

Repatriation the only "remedy"

APART from an admission, the Minister made three statements, each important in its way and all equally significant. One was that "the present friction was only temporary" and that "with population, the impact between the two would not be so serious." Does not this mean in plain English that the Minister is looking forward to a solution of the problem, not through the elimination of racial prejudice, but through the Indian residents in South Africa being so outnumbered as to be virtually negligible?

That this is so, he made absolutely clear towards the end of his speech. "There was no place for expansion of Indians in South Africa today," he said, "but if they could help them to return, they must do so. During the last three years Indians had returned at the rate of two thousand annually.

That policy could be developed and expanded." This then is the game.

The problem is not to be solved by the Indian being eventually treated as an equal citizen, but only by his being either induced to leave the country voluntarily or faced to leave it through such "helpful" measures as the present!

We do not know if the attempt will succeed — it ought not to if there is sufficient grit in our countrymen in South Africa and sufficient sense of responsibility in ourselves — but the man who thinks that this will solve the problem is on the same intellectual and moral plane as the man who would convince his opponent by throwing him into chains.