Setback to kharif crop
SEPTEMBER is the month when the monsoon withdraws. And traditionally it pours heavily as it bids goodbye, making up for the deficient precipitation during the earlier weeks.

Foreign “ghost” haunts BJP
THE controversy started by the Bharatiya Janata Party concerning the right of “a foreign-born Indian national holding the top post” has taken an unexpected turn.

E. Timor: What next?
SUNDAY'S announcement by President B.J.Habibie that Indonesia is ready to let an international peacekeeping force under the aegis of the UN into East Timor marks an about-turn in the policy of that country but its effect will be known only when the force actually takes up positions and succeeds in quelling the unprecedented violence and bloodbath there.

BURGEONING BUREAUCRACY
Governance is serious business
by Joginder Singh
EVERY commission or committee has commented that we have too many people doing too little. At the same time, there is a demand for more staff from one department or another. Even if a job is created to meet a specific situation, it continues.

Africa’s drive against terrorism
by Hari Sharan Chhabra
THE murderous attack on resident Hosni Mobarak of Egypt in the Suez Canal city of Port Said on September 6 is a clear demonstration of the growing menace of terrorism in the continent of Africa. That Mr Mobarak is a great survivor is another matter.

JD(U) a pressure group within NDA?
by P. Raman
WITH TWO rounds of polling over and still three weeks left for the final day, the 13th Lok Sabha election is becoming more complex. The rather low voting percentage and lack of any unusual public enthusiasm seem to have upset all earlier calculation. “Kargil-isation” of the campaign, like the Pokhran patriotism during the assembly elections last November, has failed to produce any perceptible “wave”.

Those teachers of yore
by Dr Naresh
WHEN I recall my childhood days, the faces of a few teachers come to my mind. The incidents that had caused pain, anger and agony then, now seem to be quite meaningful and important. The ire of the days gone by changes into the reverence for the teachers. And I feel like running up to the teachers to seek their forgiveness for all that my immature mind had thought against them. But as those teachers are no more alive, I can only pay my homage to them.

75 Years Ago

September 14, 1924
Freedom of the Press
PUBLIC opinion in India will warmly approve of the action of the Journalist Association in conveying to the Government of His Exalted Highness the Nizam its protest against the orders banning the Marhatta, the Servants of India, the A.B. Patrika and several other papers from the Hyderabad State territory and characterising the orders as an unjust, arbitrary and uncalled for interference with the freedom of the Press.

Setback to kharif crop

SEPTEMBER is the month when the monsoon withdraws. And traditionally it pours heavily as it bids goodbye, making up for the deficient precipitation during the earlier weeks. The monsoon is only as good as the total rainfall and its even spread over time and space. This is to say that every district should receive its normal share of water and at the appropriate time. A heavy downpour over a few regions and over a short period of time followed by a dry spell will be statistically satisfying but agriculturally damaging. This is precisely what has happened this year. The monsoon has been normal over much of the country, barring a few regions, including a few pockets of Punjab and Haryana. The worst affected are the Saurashtra and Kutch area of Gujarat, which produces a rich groundnut crop year after year, parts of Rajasthan, Marathwada, eastern Madhya Pradesh, some districts of Andhra Pradesh and the whole of Tamil Nadu. Apart from groundnut, production of soyabean, coarse grains — the stable and affordable food of the very poor — and, of course, paddy will be seriously damaged. At the end of May when the Meteorological Department came out with its forecast of a normal monsoon for the year everybody fixed a higher target of agricultural output, almost ritualistically. A Mumbai-based research organisation was modest and, in hindsight, realistic : it hoped for an increase of two million tonnes in kharif yield — from 103 million tonnes to 105 million tonnes. In Delhi the Agricultural Ministry was more reckless and pegged the target at 107 million tonnes. At both places there are furious attempts to scale down the estimate, an exercise that verges on the adventure.

A withdrawing monsoon is an unpredictable phenomenon. It can gently cover the shortfall over a few days or the sky may open up battering and pounding an area into submission, as it happened in Punjab in 1993. A delayed rainfall sometimes affects the standing crop, adding to the woes of the kisan. All this makes the task of rewriting the over-ambitious targets a risky job. As for providing relief to the dry spell-hit community, it is patently too late for resowing and too financially debilitating to leave the land fallow. During all these decades of agricultural research, the country has not put together a viable package for the rain-fed regions in various degrees of monsoon-induced distress. The condition in nearly three-fourths of the country that has no assured irrigation facilities is very brittle but the contribution to the overall production is substantial. The kisans there too deserve scientific help.

Foreign “ghost” haunts BJP

THE controversy started by the Bharatiya Janata Party concerning the right of “a foreign-born Indian national holding the top post” has taken an unexpected turn. For once, the saffron leadership cannot blame the Congress. The source of the embarrassment can be traced to the doorstep of the top echelons of the Sangh Parivar. However, it is doubtful whether the leadership would accept the charge that it acted unwisely in making Mrs Sonia Gandhi’s Italian birth certificate a matter of “political life and death” for the party during the Lok Sabha elections. The BJP and its partners in the National Democratic Alliance ignored the valid criticism that the Constitution was not an ordinary document for a political party or a group of political parties to tinker with for attaining the petty objective of stopping a single Indian national out of a population of 100 crore from becoming Prime Minister. That the electoral promise of amending the Constitution was indeed Sonia-specific was confirmed by Mr L. K. Advani, Chairman of the BJP’s National Campaign Committee, in New Delhi on Friday. A similar proposal was made by Mr Era Sezhian, a member of the Dinesh Goswami Committee on Electoral Reforms, in 1989-90. Interestingly, Mr Advani was apparently as vociferous in opposing the original proposal for disqualifying foreign-born Indian nationals from holding high office as was Mr Somnath Chatterjee of the CPM. When the question was put to him at a Press conference, Mr Advani said that “I don’t remember it”, but promptly added, “I don’t dispute it”. Yet, he maintained that he was opposed to personal attacks on the Congress President!

Nevertheless, Mr Advani’s “confession” on the “foreigners issue” would look like mere piffle compared to the statement of the Kanpur-based “guruji” of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. The Prime Minister’s “guru”, Mr Madan Mohan Pandey, has been quoted as having expressed his displeasure over the BJP’s stand on Mrs Sonia Gandhi’s foreign birth. “If the Constitution does not bar her from holding any high office, why make a hue and cry about it. The Constitution has both reasonable and unreasonable provisions; but the ‘swadeshi v. videshi’ debate has been stretched too far”, Mr Pandey has been quoted as having said while talking to newsmen in Kanpur. Since the BJP has linked its stand on Mrs Sonia Gandhi’s right to become Prime Minister to national security it might well be asked to make known its position on the “high office” rights of the Indian members of the “Muslim divided families” of the subcontinent. The issue has come up for informal discussion in a section of Indian Muslims whose blood relatives have migrated to Pakistan. The provocation for the debate is the poll promise of the BJP to amend the Constitution for preventing Mrs Sonia Gandhi from holding the high office of Prime Minister. The nub of the debate generated by low-circulation Urdu newspapers is based on a hypothetical scenario of an Indian Muslim’s claim to becoming Prime Minister being opposed on the ground of his or her real “blood relationship” with Pakistani nationals. If Mrs Sonia Gandhi’s Italian roots are seen by the Sangh Parivar as a source of threat to national security in the event of her becoming Prime Minister, a Muslim with irrefutable links with Pakistan aspiring for a similar position should logically been seen as a far greater threat. Why? Because Italy and India do not share common borders and have never fought with each other, but India and Pakistan share borders and have fought wars. The Urdu Press should not be blamed if it draws another hypothetical scenario in which the Constitution is amended to debar Indian Muslims with relatives in Pakistan from holding the office of Prime Minister. Pakistan is already following such an undeclared policy by denying to Muhajirs any high political office and administrative positions, barring a few exceptions, which may compromise national security because of their blood links with Muslim families in India.

E. Timor: What next?

SUNDAY'S announcement by President B.J.Habibie that Indonesia is ready to let an international peacekeeping force under the aegis of the UN into East Timor marks an about-turn in the policy of that country but its effect will be known only when the force actually takes up positions and succeeds in quelling the unprecedented violence and bloodbath there. Right now, the move seems to be aimed more at blunting international criticism over the role of Jakarta in the bloodshed. The reluctance with which the agreement has come about points to the shape of things to come. There are reasons to suspect that Indonesia might try to wriggle out of its commitments by taking recourse to various stratagems. For one thing, the international force is to be allowed in only after Parliament gives its approval. There is a strong lobby there which opposes any such move. Then the defiance of the army has to be kept sight of. In any case, the logistics are such that even if the green signal is clearly given right away, it will be at least a week before the force reached the suppressed area. The matter of life and death for the people who voted for independence in the August 30 referendum and have been systematically intimidated and butchered is whether they can last that long. Then there is the ticklish issue of the composition of the international force. Indonesia has made it very clear that it would welcome only the soldiers from "friendly countries". That means that it would want the soldiers to come mainly from Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) countries, South Africa and Egypt. This issue could become a source of friction.

There is a lot of opposition within Indonesia over the stationing of non-Asian soldiers on its soil. That would mean that even if the force is led by Australia, there may be very few soldiers from that country in a strength of a minimum of 8,000. The USA on its part has made it clear that while it would help with material, it is not for stationing any US combat soldiers. Naturally, all those who have been suffering all sort of hardships after more than 78.5 per cent of East Timorese voted to break away from Indonesia in the UN-supervised referendum are watching the unfolding of events with trepidation and increasing cynicism. As it is, East Timor today is a shattered, burned out land, which has been described as "living hell". Capital Dili has been virtually reduced to rubble. The erstwhile Dutch colony is discovering to its horror that the road to nationhood is paved with blood and tears. It remains to be seen whether Indonesia is held accountable for atrocities in East Timor or whether this demand has been quietly dropped in return for letting the peacekeeping force in. Meanwhile, food and humanitarian aid has to reach the embattled colony at once. An estimated 300,000 of East Timor's population of 850,000 have been tortured and shut out of their homes since September 4.

BURGEONING BUREAUCRACY
Governance is serious business
by Joginder Singh

EVERY commission or committee has commented that we have too many people doing too little. At the same time, there is a demand for more staff from one department or another. Even if a job is created to meet a specific situation, it continues. Rarely is it abolished. I had a brief stint in the Home Ministry as a Special Secretary. I noticed that a post of Joint Secretary along with the necessary staff had been created for national integration. Talking about national integration was fashion in those days. The National Integration Council was constituted in 1992 and reconstituted in 1996. It had over 150 members. It had the unique distinction of having only one meeting in five years. Again the then Prime Minister had called for the file and wanted to reconstitute it when I retired from service. It is only one of the hundreds of examples of the burgeoning bureaucracy.

The size of the departments, under a particular secretary, is the index of the importance he enjoys in the government. A stage is reaching when all the revenue the government has will be used to pay to its employees. In 1948, the total strength of the Central government employees was 14.48 lakhs. According to the Fifth Pay Commission, this number increased to 38 lakhs, with 3.5 lakh vacancies still to be filled. The senior bureaucrats also did not lag behind in helping themselves. From 18 departments and eight secretaries, their number increased to 92 secretaries and 81 departments and ministries in 1996.

Incidentally, some of the secretaries of various departments like Programme Implementation, Official Languages and a vast majority of 22 Advisers in the Planning Commission are only parking slots for inconvenient officers, who might have fallen out of favour with the ministers. The category also includes secretaries, special secretaries, additional secretaries and joint secretaries, who are posted there for the purpose of being accommodated. One secretary, who had annoyed the then Tourism Minister by coming in the way of not being a party to a loss of about Rs 1000 crore, found himself in charge of cleanliness and class IV staff of the Planning Commission. Another one gave his views on the civil aviation policy, which came in the way of the minister’s making a fast buck. He was given marching orders to the Animal Husbandry Department. Another of his successors, a principled man, was moved to the Planning Commission. His sin: he did not toe the ministerial wishes. This was one department about which he knew nothing.

It is not that all our ministers are totally ignorant. They know where the cream lies. They feel most upset when somebody comes in their way. They are probably right. If they do not act in time to make a pile quickly, they may lose all chance, due to notoriously short terms of coalition governments since the 1996 elections. If the strength of the bureaucracy has increased disproportionately, so has the strength of ministers. Uttar Pradesh has the distinction of having 95 ministers, apart from a number of legislators heading various state government undertakings with the rank of either Minister of State or Cabinet Minister. The politicians, apart from ensuring steady promotions for civil servants have also not lagged behind. I happened to run into a minister of a state government and asked him his portfolio. The poor chap did not know what it was. Only after a lot of prodding did he come out with the information that his department had one binocular, through which one could gaze at the stars.

There is a heavy price tag on this extravagance, with nearly 41 lakh employees and over 32 lakh pensioners — this costs the Central government Rs 51,000 crore. This is apart from over 3 lakh employees of public sector undertakings and other Central government-aided/controlled organisations or institutions, which also have to be paid at the same scales as the Central government employees. A rise in wages has a snowballing effect. Whatever the Central government does is followed by the state governments and all undertakings under the control of the government in due course of time. On the one hand, the government wants to retire about 11,000 employees of 11 terminally sick public sector undertakings at a cost of Rs 511 crore and on the other it has given two years extension to all Central government employees by increasing the retirement age.

A weak government following contradictory policies does more than damaging the polity. The business of the government is governance and not to go on buying peace by conceding every demand. Each concession costs money. If a party is in power now, it feels that the incumbency factor may work against it. It becomes over-generous in anticipation that it is going to hand over a sick baby to the successor government of another party. All this is done at the cost of development. When the Fifth Pay Commission recommended tripling of the basic salaries, it linked it up with the abolition of the existing 3.5 lakh vacancies, a cut of 3 per cent in the bureaucracy for the next 10 years. It also recommended that reduction of gazetted holidays from 17 to three. A weak Central government, headed by an equally weak Prime Minister, did not accept or implement any recommendation of the Pay Commission, excepting the higher pay scales. This eminently suited the bureaucracy. Another government has completed the task by raising the retirement age to 60 years.

This across the board gift was not linked either with the past performance or any corruption or malpractice indulged in by any employee, or even physical fitness to perform duties till the age of 60. A Chief Minister, before facing the 1996 elections, announced many grandiose schemes and concessions running into thousands of crores. I asked him as to “how he was going to meet the expenditure, when they have no money to pay salaries even to their staff.” He said: “These are election sops and their announcement does not mean anything. I follow what the Central leaders do. If I come back to power, I will find some way to back out. If I don’t I would leave a major financial worry in the lap of my opponent. If he withdraws any of the concessions announced by me, it will be a good stick to beat him with at the time of the next election. It would be for my successor to raise funds for the basic government expenditure. In politics, everything is fair. What counts is coming to power and then staying in it.”

Contrary to the perception of ideal rulers being an example to others, we have only men of the worst type. They understand only that much which enables them to stay in power and line their pockets. Governance is a serious business, which affects the life of the common man. This is left to indifferent bureaucrats who most of the time believe in doing minimum possible just to retain their jobs. In this kind of climate nexuses between corrupt politicians and dishonest bureaucrats suit both. As a class, it suits the bureaucracy.

In these times, what is required is only two dozen leaders with vision and integrity, who can pull the country out of the present morass. We had such leaders at the time of Independence whom no scandal could touch. Let us hope that the year 2000 will throw up such selfless men, who will show light at the end of the tunnel.

It is important to emphasise that the true strength of our rulers lies not in the military or any other factor, but in the belief of the nation that the rulers are inflexibly transparent, and they follow the rule of law. As soon as any set of rulers or governments depart from that high standard, it is no more than a “gang in possession”. The spirit is everything in governance. Aristotle said: “It is better for a city to be governed by a good man, than even by good laws.”

(The author is a former Director of the CBI).

Africa’s drive against terrorism
by Hari Sharan Chhabra

THE murderous attack on resident Hosni Mobarak of Egypt in the Suez Canal city of Port Said on September 6 is a clear demonstration of the growing menace of terrorism in the continent of Africa. That Mr Mobarak is a great survivor is another matter.

The 1995 assassination attempt on the Egyptian leader by Islamic militants in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, when he was out there to attend the summit of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) is still fresh in the memory of the Egyptian people. Recall the cold-blooded murder of President Anwar Sadat in 1981 by Islamic fundamentalists. Mr Mobarak, 71, has held power since then.

It may also be mentioned that fundamentalists in Egypt indulged in sporadic incidents of violence, mainly against foreign tourists in the 1980s and 1990s. Terrorism in Egypt may be on the decline, but it has given a big setback to tourism in Egypt. Mr Mobarak, however, receives outpourings of adulation for his successful fight against Muslim militancy.

Acts of terrorism are common knowledge in South Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi, but Algeria is the African centre of terrorism, the attack by Islamic militants on the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam notwithstanding.

In the latest act of terrorism in Algeria, Muslim militants, some disguised as policemen, killed nine people at a fake roadblock near Algiers on September 5. The attack took place ahead of referendum this month on a peace plan to end Algeria’s seven-year-long period without violence.

Around 100 guerrillas stopped cars near Draa el-Mizan town, 80 km east of Algiers, and killed nine occupants, said Liberte and Le Matin newspapers. The newspapers reported that rebels were members of Da’wa-wal-Djihad (Appeal and Struggle), one of the two radical guerrilla factions which have rejected the peace deal between the newly-elected President of Algeria (with army backing), Mr Abdelaziz Bouteflika, and the relatively moderate Islamic Salvation Army rebel faction. Among other things, the militants call for Islamic Shariat rule of law and a ban on alcohol and the French language.

It is worthy of note that since the peace deal was reached in the month of June, the Appeal and Struggle rebels and other radical militants of the Armed Islamic Group have stepped up their attacks on civilians, killing more than 300 people.

Under the peace accord, Mr Bouteflika pardoned thousands of rebels in July and offered to pardon more rebels under a law for “civilian concord” which was approved by Parliament and which will be voted soon in a referendum.

In another incident, rebels clashed with pro-government militia men in a rural suburb of Algiers on September 4. Troops shot nine guerrillas in a military operation in the same area. According to reports, terrorism may escalate if the government wins the referendum, which is most likely.

Algeria has paid a heavy price since the government cancelled the 1991-92 election that the banned Islamic Salvation Front was winning. This triggered an armed conflict (almost a civil war) in which nearly 80,000 Algerians have been killed. One does not know when peace will be given a chance in Algeria. But one only hopes that the bloody experience of the past seven years has taught everyone a lesson. It is good to hear Mr Bouteflika talk of national reconciliation. After all, violence and terrorism offer no solution to any problem, especially when it is clouded by emotional and religious sentiments.

Meanwhile, Africa’s leaders at a meeting in Algiers on July 15 agreed on an anti-terrorism charter with wide-ranging powers of arrest and extradition, and called for a global convention and a UN-sponsored meeting to combat this menace. The charter was approved by the 35th summit of the OAU held in Algiers.

“Terrorism, which is a transnational phenomenon, represents today a serious challenge to the values of civilisation and a flagrant violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms,” the African leaders said in a statement at the end of their summit. They expressed support for people struggling for freedom and self-determination “in conformity with the principles of international law”, but they called for “a speedy conclusion of a global international convention for the prevention and control of terrorism in all forms”.

Host Algeria and Egypt, both targets of indiscriminate terrorist attacks, sponsored the charter with all the zeal, Sudan and Libya, accused by the USA of supporting terrorism, took part in the summit, which approved the charter on combating terrorism. It is thus evident that the continent of Africa is more than united to end the menace.

Those teachers of yore
by Dr Naresh

WHEN I recall my childhood days, the faces of a few teachers come to my mind. The incidents that had caused pain, anger and agony then, now seem to be quite meaningful and important. The ire of the days gone by changes into the reverence for the teachers. And I feel like running up to the teachers to seek their forgiveness for all that my immature mind had thought against them. But as those teachers are no more alive, I can only pay my homage to them.

I was in my fifth or sixth class when I had an attack of fever. My father believed that it was the result of exposure and it would abate if I remained in a warm bed for a couple of days. He instructed my mother to boil some basil leaf in milk for me and went to his work.

The only Muslim teacher of the Sanatan Dharma School, Master Zahir Ali, while taking the roll-call in the first period, noted my absence. In recess-time he walked up to our house and called out my name from the passage way. This calling out was actually a notice to my mother to veil herself. He got into the courtyard and enquired as to where I was. My mother, from within a long veil on her face welcomed him with “please come, Master ji” and led him to my room.

Entering the room, he examined me like a doctor and said to my mother: “For Dinanath (my father) work is more important than the child. The boy is burning with fever and he has not cared to take him to the doctor.” Saying this, he lifted me to his shoulder and leaving my mother perplexed, walked out of our house. From the courtyard he announced: “I am taking the boy to the doctor.”

This was the affection, the feeling of oneness, the sense of responsibility, which turned the teachers of yesterday into the revered Gurus. This kind of feeling is rare, if not totally missing, in the present day teachers.

I was in ninth class when I had the feeling of being grown up enough to have a fountain pen. My father and my teachers alike were very particular about our handwriting. The first period was that of English. Headmaster Babu Ram was taking the class. While taking the roll-call, he noticed a fountain pen bulging out of my pocket. He left the roll-call in between, walked up to my desk and asked me to stand up. Without losing his temper, he enquired if it was a new pen. With a sense of pride, I replied in the affirmative. He again asked me where I got the money to buy the pen. I said that I got it from my father. His usual wrath started showing its face. “Your father’s affection is bound to spoil your handwriting. Do you understand?” he said and suddenly took the pen out of my pocket, threw it on the floor and smashed it under his shoes.

Had it not been beyond me, I would have murdered the Headmaster there and then. I silently hurled a thousand curses on the Headmaster and sat blank through the whole period.

My uncle was the Manager of the school. I consoled myself with the thought that I will go to him during the recess and he will surely teach the Headmaster a lesson. It was a long half day for me. Ultimately, when the recess-bell rang, I ran up to my uncle and narrated the whole incident to him. Tears were rolling down my cheeks. Chachaji gave me a patient hearing and murmured: “Why must my brother buy a pen for the child .......” and snubbed me too.

These days, when I find the nursery and K G kids learn writing with ball pens, I wonder as to how these kids would ever understand that handwriting is a mirror of one’s personality. How shall they believe that in our times, there used to be extra marks for the handwriting?

JD(U) a pressure group within NDA?

by P. Raman

WITH TWO rounds of polling over and still three weeks left for the final day, the 13th Lok Sabha election is becoming more complex. The rather low voting percentage and lack of any unusual public enthusiasm seem to have upset all earlier calculation. “Kargil-isation” of the campaign, like the Pokhran patriotism during the assembly elections last November, has failed to produce any perceptible “wave”. Unfortunately, with all tall claims, our political analysts and public opinion experts have hardly any reliable tool to measure such delicate shifts in trends.

As had been indicated in these columns, provincialisation and segmentation of politics seem to continue with the process of checkmating cross-border election sweeps. This is happening despite the communication revolution and all the incessant TV coverage right into the drawing rooms. Apparently, the voters seem to worry more about local politics and problems, unless certain national policies directly affect them. This seems so even in parliamentary elections. This, however, should not be mistaken as narrow regionalism or unconcern for national affairs. It is solely the outcome of the provincialisation of politics. When state-level parties decide the local political agenda, even all-India parties would be forced to go by their dictates. Hence it is a process of “de-nationalisation” of party politics even while strengthening emotional and functional integration.

Psephologists and opinion poll experts often fail to understand its intricacies and land themselves in a fiasco. In most cases, support to the Kargil policy or admiration for Atal Behari Vajpayee may not be the deciding factor in voting. It is often decided by extraneous factors and local constraints. This is what is precisely happening this time. Whenever there is no uniform trend, it becomes difficult to guage the people’s mood. Under such a divided polity, it is absurd to seek public opinion as to who is the most favoured Prime Minister. Unlike US Presidents, Indian Prime Ministers are not directly elected. Therefore, the common voter’s preferences have little relevance.

To the pollsters’ embarrassment, most often the choice of Indian Prime Ministers has fallen on someone not mentioned in their popularity chart. At the most the sponsored surveys will only serve the purpose of building up the image of a favoured individual. It is as good as a trained parrot picking the cards in front of its cage. When predictions fall flat, as frequently as these did in the past, the pollsters can take shelter under “sudden swings” during the extraordinarily long poll schedule.

The poor public response and low polling so far have sent shock waves among the election managers and strategists of the political main parties. Things are not as conclusive as what was presumed before the polling began. Behind the brave face , political circles have begun speculating various scenarios in case the rosy predictions by the pollsters go haywire.

Many still fear another hung Lok Sabha with no clear majority to either side. However, the BJP is confident that in case of such an eventuality President K.R. Narayanan will be left with no option but to call Vajpayee to form a government. This is based on the argument that parties which had a pre-election alliance and joint manifesto should get preference. For this reason, the general presumption is that the NDA parties will be in a better position to garner more numbers in the event of a shortfall.

Even the best optimists within the Congress do not nurse the hope of Sonia Gandhi heading a coalition in the next Lok Sabha. Political realism has it that even in the unlikely event of the non-NDA parties being to muster the numbers, the post of Prime Minister may finally fall on some other Congress leader. Under such situations, the effort will be to find an agreeable non-controversial person within or outside the Congress. This itself can cause sharp differences within the Congress as to whether it should adopt a stern position or yield the ground for some non-Congress leader as was the case with 11th Lok Sabha. As things stand today, all this is in the realm of speculation.

Though the BJP camp is possibly in a better position electorally, it will face different kind of problems after the election depending on the numbers the NDA could muster. Paradoxically, in such kind of loose coalitions a wafer-thin majority will mean a greater urge to remain together and counter the possible threats to the coalition unitedly. A more comfortable majority would make it more vulnerable to internal tussles, threats and blackmail. However, this will also have a redeeming side. Supposing the NDA is able to wrest as many as 325 seats, as some soothsayers have predicted, many of the tiny parties with one digit numbers would not be in a position to hoodwink the new government.

In that event, its problem will be of a different kind — possibly more difficult. If the earlier coalition experiments in the states and at the Centre are any indication, when the smaller outfits find it difficult to dictate terms, they will join hands with others and form a formidable pressure group. This is the significance of the sudden formation of the Janata Dal (U). The BJP bosses are well aware of the potential threats from discredited Janata parivar elements. Initially, it was thought that the hurried merger was only aimed at putting up a bigger bargain for seats from the “big brother” in Bihar and Karnataka. However, it is now clear that this was only the first part of the Janata parivar’s game plan for domination.

The JD (U) leaders left behind in the Capital claim that their tally in the new Lok Sabha would be between 20 and 35. This will hopefully give them the status of the second largest power-centre within the NDA. According to JD (U) calculations, eventually they could add a few more from other Janata parivar groups outside the NDA. This will give them an important say in the running of the coalition.

If the Vajpayee coalition had faltered on many crucial issues and brought a bad name to the government by way of scandals, it has been due to the disorganised functioning of the alliance. To an extent, they admit, it was unavoidable because the coalition was too preoccupied with tackling the internal bickerings from disparate partners. The JD (U) leaders blame BJP operators for much of the internal tussles.

Now with the backing of the solid group, George Fernandes as convener of the NDA, can convert it into a more effective tool. If the mood of the JD (U) leaders is any indication, they will play a major role in the formulation of the policies the absence of which had led to scandals like the telecom deal. Since Fernandes and others were too busy with the survival of the government, they had overlooked the economic policy implementation. Hereafter, the JD (U)’s role will be that of a “positive” pressure group within the NDA. With this in view, its leaders will function as a watchdog to defend Vajpayee from RSS pressures and try to rein in those like Murli Manohar Joshi from further saffronisation. For this purpose, the JD (U) will also seek the cooperation of other non-Hindutva groups within the ruling camp like the TDP, DMK and the Trinamool Congress.

The first unmistakable sign of this creative role of the “socialists” has come right in the midst of the election campaign. While the Vajpayee Government formally took the position that the ban on TV advertisements and pre-poll opinion polls amounted to negation of fundamental rights, the JD (U) strongly opposed it. Before the coming together of the Janata elements, the Samata Party and the Lok Shakti had always tamely followed the big brother’s dictates. It is claimed that a proactive JD (U)would strengthen Vajpayee’s hands by using its secular credentials to rope in the TDP and Trinamool to formally join a NDA government.

Despite their preoccupation with the election campaign, the BJP leaders are apprehensive of what they call disruptive role of the regrouped ‘socialists’. If the NDA wins, the new group’s first game plan will be to seek a bigger share of ministerial posts. The Janata parivar, they say, have more leaders than followers. Apart from Fernandes and Ramakrishna Hegde, they are bound to seek important ministries for Ram Vilas Paswan, Sharad Yadav and K.H. Patel and those like Digvijay Singh. The Samata Party had faced frequent revolts by ministerial aspirants from Bihar. Accommodation problem will be worse if the TDP and Trinamool also join the government. Last time, it was a tussle over the Railway Ministry that had made both Mamata Banerjee and Nitish Kumar angry. There are also so many determined claimants within the BJP.

Such threat perceptions apart, the sudden bulging of the alliance to include two dozen parties, new pressures from the allies for a greater role for them through an institutionalised NDA and the inescapable eruptions of contradictions hitherto glossed over, will call for a change in the BJP establishment’s outlook and style of functioning. A technical majority for the NDA means the prevalence of a hundred-strong non-Hindutva contingent in its fold. The patron-client relationship with Vajpayee as umpire will have to be substituted by a meaningful decision-making and dispute-resolution arrangement.

During its 18 months in office, the coalition has been wobbling without knowing what to do with complex issues. The allies — as well as sections of the BJP leaders — realised the damage done by the PMO operators only when they were suddenly confronted with massive scams in the midst of the polls. Apart from exposing Vajpayee’s own administrative laxity, they highlight the inherent incompatibility of running a 24-party coalition of assorted outfits and an Indira Gandhi-style supremo role for the Prime Minister with an overbearing PMO and an ubiquitous coterie.

75 YEARS AGO

September 14, 1924
Freedom of the Press

PUBLIC opinion in India will warmly approve of the action of the Journalist Association in conveying to the Government of His Exalted Highness the Nizam its protest against the orders banning the Marhatta, the Servants of India, the A.B. Patrika and several other papers from the Hyderabad State territory and characterising the orders as an unjust, arbitrary and uncalled for interference with the freedom of the Press.

Indeed, by these orders, the Government of the Nizam has done far graver disservice to itself than to the papers concerned which will somehow manage to survive its wrath.

If, as is popularly believed, these orders are due to the outspoken comment of the several journals on the Nizam’s suggestion for the restoration of Berar to him, the Government of His Exalted Highness must clearly see that for one man who was originally opposed to the proposal at least ten are opposed to it today on account of these autocratic and utterly indefensible acts of his Government.