The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Farming an ambition

EVERY Minister wants to leave a lasting mark in his realm for the posterity to gaze at. Normally it takes the form of a long-term growth policy, as is the one presented to the nation by Agriculture Minister Nitish Kumar. The only thing good about the National Agricultural Policy is that it emphatically rules out any tax on the farm sector. For the rest, it is a repetition of pious hopes and exaggerated ambitions. It aims at more than 4 per cent growth over the next two decades to double the present output of over 200 million tonnes. That would require massive investment and there is no mention of where the money would come from. It talks of generating rural employment and choking off the migration of rural poor to cities. Agriculture just cannot absorb the exploded population, nor pay a living wage. Rural poverty is the consequence of several factors, among them an indifferent or ignorant government policy. A major missing link is that the policy tries to stand alone; it should be integrated with several development plans which are presently on with varying degrees of commitment and success. Those who drafted this latest policy (over the years there have been dozens of them) have not given a thought to implementing it. The states are the agencies to realise the dreams packed into the policy and they do not have either the instrument nor the outlook to undertake this mammoth task.

Anyway, Punjab and Haryana have been suffering from achieving higher growth and they need a different prescription to ward off a disruption of rural life. Further, problems of agriculture are different in each state, and the approach too should be different. There is no pointed reference to this. Of course, there are states where a steep increase in output is possible and will mitigate rural hunger. Three of the four Bimaru states (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh) can benefit from intense agriculture, coupled with hybrid seed, better input and better water management. Even at the risk of sounding cynical and nagging, it must be pointed out that even after the success of its plan, India will continue to present the paradox of people going hungry while the country boasts of food security. Nor will the purchasing power expand fast enough to lift about 400 million tonnes of foodgrains. High production costs have priced the country out of world market. The policy sidesteps these vital issues.

There are two policy departures which are striking. Extension work — that is, taking the results of research to farmers — will no more be done by government-funded universities alone but also by privately owned agri-clinics. This is being canvassed in view of what is claimed as weak and inefficient work by agricultural universities. On the face of it, the idea may be appealing. But ultimately this road will take the country to the “Terminator” seed with the government opening the door to the private agencies and the WTO doing the same to imports. This needs to be closely re-examined for the cure may be worse than the disease. The policy also calls for firm rules on long-term lease of land and contract labour. One economic newspaper sees in this the broad outlines of inviting big business to take over land and engage the present small owners as labour and modernise agriculture. Punjab farmers went through this phase to usher in green revolution but the later experience has been bitter. In populated states with a large number of marginal land-holders, corporatisation will spell havoc for employment. The target of 4 per cent or more of growth every year does not seem to stem from ground-level reality but the need to achieve an economic growth rate of 7 per cent or 8 per cent. This will be possible only if the farm output increases by 4.5 per cent. On such correlations is the policy document based!

Peace signals from Hizb

THE official response to the Hizbul Mujahideen's peace overture has been a happy blend of caution and optimism. Credit should be given to the Central leadership for taking Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah into confidence and keeping him posted with developments related to the Hizb's offer. The Hurriyat leaders too deserve to be complimented for their positive response to the Hizb's offer of dialogue for solving the Kashmir tangle. That the Hizbul Mujahideen means business was never in doubt, but the speed at which it is working is astounding. The Hizb leaders took everyone by surprise when they declared a three-month ceasefire in Kashmir last week. Before the Kashmir experts could bat their eyelids they went a step further and announced the setting up of a three-member team for starting the process of dialogue with India. The team members know even the most delicate nuance of the Mujahideen's case because they have raised the issue around the world with some success. To get global political mileage out of the initiative the Hizb leaders are also reportedly planning a strategy meeting in the UAE in which Kashmiri leaders from across the world are expected to take part. A point which the Indian think tank should not ignore is the remarkable ability of the Hizb leaders to be always at least two moves ahead of their rivals in whatever they do. As in war so in peace, the element of surprise has invariably allowed them to set the pace, as it were. Of course, the first priority for the Centre and the Jammu and Kashmir government should be to work out the modalities for enforcing the ceasefire. Working out an acceptable formula is not going to be an easy job for the security forces. The Hizbul Mujahideen would insist on total cessation of hostilities by both sides. However, India cannot afford to lose sight of the fact that apart from the Hizbul Mujahideen there are several other militant organisations which are active in Kashmir.

The Hizb leaders cannot claim to have made the offer of a three-month ceasefire after obtaining the consent of all the militant outfits. The Lashkar-e-Toiba has given no indication that it approves of the Hizb's initiative of solving the Kashmir problem through dialogue and not use of force. Exactly seven months ago this outfit had hijacked an Indian Airlines plane, en route to Delhi from Kathmandu, and held the passengers and crew hostage in Kandahar for several weeks. The Indian leadership was forced to order the release of Maulana Masood Azhar, the fire-spitting leader of the Toiba movement in Pakistan, in exchange for the hostages. Neither has the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen - it dropped the expression "Ansar" from its name after the US declared it a terrorist organisation - has extended support to the Hizb leaders. Against this backdrop the security forces may find it difficult to agree to a two-way ceasefire in Kashmir for the next three months simply because leaders of one of the several militant outfits want to test their negotiating skills. Nevertheless, the Hizb initiative should be treated as an opportunity for sending the message to other militant outfits that even the most difficult problem can indeed be solved through the process of dialogue. The initial Indian response has been positive. However, to make the most of the opportunity provided by the Hizb Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee should take a personal interest in picking the team for talking the Hizb negotiators into giving up the use of force, for settling disputes, forever. The Indian team will have to show exceptional diplomatic and negotiating skills for making friends and influencing even the most hardcore representative of the Hizbul Mujahideen team. Even if one Hizb member begins to see the Kashmir issue through Indian eyes, it should be considered a victory for the advocates of peace. The emphasis should be on finding a peaceful solution to the problem which has bedeviled relations between India and Pakistan and has caused avoidable pain and suffering to the people of the region.

There's money in disgrace!

AN Urdu couplet aptly describes the upswing in former South African cricket captain Hansie Cronje's financial fortunes after he was found accepting money from bookies: "Badnaam agar honge to kya naam na hoga". There is a virtual scramble for interviews with him. Offers to write books are pouring in. A feature film is also in the pipeline. All these will earn him millions of dollars. The amount will be many times more than what he got as the cricket captain legally or obtained from the bookies on the sly. That shows that there is money to be made in disgrace. In the megabucks world of the fallen angels, every deal needs a middleman. The play-per-pay captain has promptly hired a scandal merchant agent called Max Clifford for brokering various agreements. The agent, who has worked for such celebrities as Frank Sinatra, would surely strike gold for Cronje and charge a hefty amount for the services rendered. An interview with an Australian television programme, "60 Minutes", alone will fetch $117,800, much more than his $115,360 fee as a captain for the whole year or the $100,000 that he was paid by the bookmakers. Endorsement offers may also be on the way. The “thinking captain” has already confessed before the King Commission that he has “a great love for money”. Now he can indulge in his passion in style. Indeed, he must be thanking his stars that he listened to his spiritual guru and confessed it all. The temporal gains have been quick in coming and how! At the same time, he must be cursing himself for so much as thinking about suicide. What a loss to the financial world that would have been. The colleagues who shunned him must be turning envious. The former captain can now actually lead from the front. The man with the Midas touch is converting everyone around him to his point of view. When his lawyer was asked about his views on the deals that the cricketer is signing, his quotable reply was: “You are trying to get a cheap interview”. Even the lawyer of such a great man should have a price tag on an interview after all. Cronje is not the first man to be caught in the act to discover that there is money in "kiss and tell" because such stories always sell. Similar offers have been chasing White House intern Monica Lewinski following her famous private moments with President Clinton. Cavalry officer James Hewitt has made quite a pile after he gave riding lessons to the late Diana, Princess of Wales. The moral is to think big and fall big. Those who kill one or two persons get life imprisonment. Those who kill by the dozen go to Parliament and even get nominated for the Nobel Prize. Ask Phoolan Devi how! The scriptwriters who have approached Cronje are not Indians. If they were, you could bet on the fact that he would have been portrayed as an innocent victim of an unjust system. Cronje's exploits can be developed into a great Indo-South African blockbuster with all the right ingredients like glamour, crime, intrigue, spectacle, edge-of-the-seat excitement and nail-biting finish. He has already been invited to act as a guest lecturer in sports ethics at a Pretoria university. That means that a full rehabilitation is very much on the cards. An international film will help the cause. Any enterprising filmmakers listening?

CHINA’S BIG ECONOMIC LEAP
Revolution comes a full circle
by Batuk Vora

TO read and hear about China’s spectacular economic leap could turn out to be, in any case, a hazy picture to many observers. It is, however, a different ocular image when you lay your eyes on it.

You may cry out seeing them: a leap no doubt, but also an incredible tale of fake smiles and tearful woes of the down-and-out poor and the retrenched — some 130 million of them roaming the streets of glittering, new Western-style cities, yet living anywhere but slums, like those infamous slums we see in Indian cities.

Guangzhou, the capital city of Guangzhou province and one of the most prosperous ones, has one more place of pride now for the Chinese — an 83-floor building amidst scores of new and colourful multi-storeyed buildings.

Unlike the waters of the Sabarmati of Gandhi’s Gujarat that have turned heavily polluted and black, the waters of Pearl river and its delta appear quite crystal clear and flowing throughout the year despite heavy industrialisation, from the western hills to the east.

It is true that South and East China’s towns, cities and even villages have been witnessing unprecedented growth and rise in living standards of the common people, but it is also true at the same time that, for instance, Guangzhou has a population now of some six million, but my Chinese journalist friend told me that it has an equal number of (six million) migrant labourers added to it at present! Similar is the story of many other big cities of China.

My trip to China this time took me to Guangzhou (Canton) and to its southernmost coastal city of Zhu Hai — just a bridge away from the recently freed Macau island, Macau is the Las Vegas of China (gambling Elysium) where, after taking over its administration from the Portuguese empire, the Chinese government does not allow the local residents to go there. I saw Macau this time (earlier I had visited it) from my video camera’s zoom lens and from the coastal ring of the tree-laned side walk of Zhu Hai. It’s an enchanting view.

Similar restrictions prevail for the mainland Chinese residents to visit Hong Kong. My friend argued that it was because of the need to protect their traditional economy. A sudden flood of Chinese residents could devastate those regions, he said. That is why, perhaps, the Chinese government has continued the entry-exit system at Hong Kong and Guangzhou railway stations and airports — despite the merger of Hong Kong with mainland China.

One particular spot sharply drew my attention. A few young and beautiful girls passed on their “business cards” to the foreign tourists or rich-looking Chinese passers-by. Their cards were written in Chinese and I wondered what could it be. But, looking closely into it, I saw one English world: massage!

I had seen quite a few hookers on the street corners of Tenderloin district of San Francisco or on the 42nd Street of Manhatten-New York or even near the London Memorial of Washington D.C. or at Kurtensten Strasse of Berlin. But they used to straightaway approach you and offer their “services” at a price. They would ask what the customer wanted and then charge accordingly.

But Zhu Hai girls, maybe a few of them jobless migrant ones, offered “massage” service, as my friend told me. Rubbing the whole male body is legal while prostitution is banned. It is obviously up to the customer and the girl whether to proceed any further in seclusion.

I never saw such a scene before during my earlier visits to Kunming, Chengdu, Beijing or Shenzhen. Only once at Guangzhou earlier, I had seen a young woman loitering in the lobby of a big hotel, eyeing the inmates. I was much surprised and took it finally as an example of “flies and mosquitoes” coming through the “open window” of newly liberated China.

Western cultural influence, they think, is inevitable during reforms and Chinese leaders say they have taken care to implement this modernisation with “Chinese characteristics”. Massage could be pardoned but not an open sex trade, which has spread anyway under different guises.

A number of new publications on China’s status and future in the globalised 21st century have come out. Opinions vary a lot. For instance, Gerald Segal, the Director of Studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, wrote in Foreign Affairs magazine that “China at best is a second-rank middle power that has mastered the art of diplomatic theatre. China does not matter, really”.

Looking closely at its problems, side by side with its great progress, one would like to take note of this conclusion. But at the same time, one cannot ignore China’s rising status as a great power in this century. Segal’s conclusion that China was nothing but a “ground hugging lizard” and not a dragon sounds noteworthy but not quite true. The Chinese people would crave to become a dragon rather than a lizard.

However, China’s internal contrast is simply staggering. Last October the Beijing police had perfunctorily cleared out thousands of migrants from the site on celebrations marking the fiftieth anniversary of Communist rule forcing them into homeward buses and trains. Soon afterwards, they came back choosing the urban life rather than their distant rural backwardness.

In contrast, hundreds of South China’s farmers have leased out their small patches of land to industries — despite the fact that they don’t have the titles and the land’s owner is the government as such. Leasing out for one or two hundred thousand Yuans a year brings them unheard of prosperity. This would not have been allowed ever under Mao’s dispensation.

China’s farm sector has not weakened after this, I was told. It has succeeded in adding hundreds of new vegetables, crops and even biotech researches in a big way. The agrarian growth rate has never diminished and remained stable at 8 to 10 per cent a year, unlike in India where it has not gone beyond 0 to 5.5 per cent in various states.

In fact, those two groups — the urban and rural poor — live in parallel universes, separated by a system of residency permits that provides a safety net for city dwellers but precious little for their rural cousins. That is why the government stood helpless when this permit system broke down. Migrants simply can’t be physically controlled.

The flow became a torrent after rapid “restructuring” of thousands of public sector units — either privatised or merged with bigger industries or declared insolvent. One of the slogans was “ to go bankrupt is glorious”! The number of state-owned enterprises came down to 40,000 from the earlier figure of 2,80,000!! Security of life, from cradle to grave under socialist tenets, has totally disappeared and workers are subjected to the American-style hire-and-fire system now!

How different it looks when we see India’s organised labour’s free outcry against part of some of the public sector asserts being disinvested. Communist Party bosses in China simply don’t permit any organised opposition and incarcerate all those who attempt to form such a group.

The government has come out with a social security net with five to six hundred Yuans each month being paid to the unemployed. This is the bare minimum to survive. Despite organised labour and democracy, Indian workers have not succeeded in getting such a social security net.

The best sights offered for foreign and millions of domestic tourists by the Chinese government are more or less westernised in the full sense of the term. It goes one step further if you count well uniformed hostesses welcoming the passengers on each compartment of the train leaving Hong Kong towards Guangzhou and further. No platform vendors anywhere, but clean and neat eatables catered by those trolleys inside the reserved and non-reserved compartments.

In had an opportunity to see a replica of the Ming dynasty’s entertainment lake palace in the outskirts of Zhu Hai. The original palace was built around Beijing 500 years ago but destroyed by the Japanese during the war. Even after walking around the long circular lake shore pathway, I did not feel tired at all even under the hot June sun. A variety of spots on the way presented soft drinks, dances, folk arts and well decorated rocks with greenery and shades in ample measure.

Thorough cleanliness remains the hallmark of China — be it a bylane of Beijing, a hill station of Chengdu or the rock garden of Kunming or Zhu Hai’s huge lake palace. One may call it a “socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics”! No wonder, China attracted more than three million tourists last year and that too with totally inadequate spoken English language by the service sector personnel.

My mind compared these with the filthy streets of Mathura and Agra of Nal Sarovar or the Girnar mountain of Gujarat and the Gateway of India or even India Gate on Rajpath of New Delhi where people freely throw ice-cream cones in large numbers on the road. That pristine hill top of McLeodganj of Dharamsala is not so clean either. It’s chaos all around despite crores of rupees spent on maintenance. It’s a question of “characteristics”, perhaps!

A university scholar, Wu Jianglian, told me that achieving remarkable results during the past two decades of reforms is no mean creditworthy record. But at the same time “transformation of the way resources were allocated, China’s reforms have not yet gone through its last tougher stage. The market has not played its basic role yet in the allocation of resources during the unsatisfactory restructuring of the state sector. That is why we face inefficiency in raising the farmer’s income. It is a fact that the country’s industrial and commercial sectors have failed to bring their job-creating potential into full play.”

This means resistance to reforms exists not only in a democratic country like India. In China too the vested interests that were in full control of the state sector act as impediments to any further overhaul of the economy. Company laws or the legal structures are still in a rudimentary stage.

Prime Minister Zhu Rongji is no stranger to risk-taking but at present he is enmeshed in a vortex of bad debts ($ 150 billion!) owned by the state enterprises. This huge debt is being transferred off the books of the country’s four major state-owned banks into the hands of four loan-recovery companies. This is not easy. The recovery rate has stagnated to just 10 per cent and more bad debts are being created!

One of the fundamental transformations is taking place in the sector of township enterprises that had spread out throughout rural China. In 1999, the industrial added value realised by township enterprisers, one lakh of them employing 400 million workers, stood at 1737 trillion Yuans (209 billion dollars), accounting for about 40 per cent of the national total. But, irrational product mix, small scale of production, out-of-date technologies and old-fashioned management ideas almost ruined this sector. They are being modernised, sold-off or merged with bigger enterprises now.

On the positive side, the Chinese local media is sprawling fast. It is said that they have started exposing all kinds of malfunctioning of the government departments and corruption. Police officials acknowledge a growing problem of unrest among the former state workers.

The revolution has come a full circle. Impoverished workers are reported to be attacking the Communist Party bosses, looting their own factories. Even the official journal of the Ministry of Public Security admitted that they expected this unrest to rise as lay-offs and factory sell-offs and closures continued apace.

The writer was recently in China.

Name search in wilderness
by K. Rajbir Deswal

THE princely state of Jheend of PEPSU and the present-day Jind, a district of Haryana, are two different worlds altogether, in terms of the lifestyles of the people. In the sixties, I spent my childhood there. Then it was only a mofussil town struggling hard to wash away the stigma of lending a helping hand to the British when the then rulers of Punjab sent reinforcements to contain the mutineers just about to capture Delhi, during the First War of Independence and got the fiefdoms of Narnaul, Kanina and Bawal as reward.

Most of the rickshaw-walas and tongawalas not only knew me at that time in that small town where I studied up to high school but were my good friends as well and transported me to my destination free of charge. Even the panwaaris and grocers recognised me, besides the barbers and vendors who addressed me by different callings. Why different? Because I had been known to them differently.

Those who had seen me perform on the stage at the school’s annual day function called me “Khilari Ram” for the role I enacted in a one-act-play. Others knew that I was the son of an advocate, which I was not, since he was my uncle with whom I stayed then, away from my parents back in the village. Still others, vegetable-sellers and tailors etc called me by the name “Buddhoo”, for I always troubled them with my presence when it was not at all welcome during the peak hours of their business. The milk vendor shouted my name twice a day to deliver the milk and the entire mohalla taking a cue from him called me by my nickname in my own household i.e. Pappu. It was only my teachers who at least phonetically came quite close to sounding my name as Rash-Bir.

Those were the days when devotees regularly paid obeisance to the deities in the temples and gurdwaras. All festivals were celebrated with gaiety but in a very sober and indulgent manner. The entire town knew that one Babu Ram sang with his chorus on Holi. Ballu was known to be performing roles of Dashrath and Ravana during Ram Lilas. He was a clerk in the office of the Deputy Commissioner. The purohits’ band was typical who performed puja with the women-folk during ambrosial hours in the month of Kartik.

I can still recall the early morning chanting of bhajans by the women in the streets while on their way to a pond held sacred for bathing. A couple of Behroopias, Jugal Kishor and Mohan Lal, could befool anybody with their guises, masks and masterly mimicry. Hukam Singh, the ice-candy man, knew how to juggle with the timings of different schools breaking for a recess so that he could be present everywhere. But, then, he had to feed a family of a dozen souls. Gopi Bharbhoojaa’s job started at about 4 o’clock with his oven and he offered what you nowadays call cornflakes, channa-murmura and gur-ki-sevian etc. Gokul’s Gajjak, an indigenous sweetmeat, was a rage and Khushi Ram Halwai’s burfi was unmistakable for its typical flavour.

There weren’t many qualified doctors available and those suffering from various maladies had mostly none else to approach than compounders practising as registered medical practitioners after quitting their jobs in the army. There were plenty of them in that small town and I can recall one Dr Kali Ram who did roaring business despite being least qualified for his job. One had to carry a small vial to these “doctors” because a prescription of some kind or the other of a mixture or a compound, was a must. This was besides powdered medicine that the doctors gave in small paper-wraps called purias. Dr Kali Ram too called me by my name since he was a friend of my grandfather and visited our family very regularly even when not being sent for.

Perhaps being a small child, everything I looked at seemed a bit larger than the present-day perception of those very things. Even the distances seemed a little longer and this might have been so because my small feet at that time could not measure up the lengths as they can do today. The school authorities called in the police when something was stolen one day and I can recall the size of that gigantic Havildar who frightened me more than Ballu performing Ravana’s role in the Ram Lila. His name was Dildaar Singh.

About a week back, when I paid a visit to this town, I went round the serpentine lanes to find out if I could locate my old acquaintances. I knew that most of the people might have either been very old or might have been no more but I was shocked to find out for myself that in a town where at one time everybody knew everybody else by name there wasn’t a single soul now, whom either I could call by his name or he could call me Khilari Ram, Buddhoo, Pappu, Rash-Bir or Vakil’s son.

Time for PM to break siege
by P. Raman

EVENTS in the past few weeks have revealed several significant political undercurrents. On the one hand, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee is coming under more frequent political sieges, each one with added intensity. On the other, Vajpayee also displays admirable ability to overcome each challenge coming from his own allies. But unlike earlier, the challengers have become bolder. And now the threats emerge in quick succession.

After a month-long war of words and hectic damage control efforts, there was some respite on the Kashmir front with Farooq Abdullah showing signs of fatigue. But soon came another fiercer battle on the west coast marked by Union Ministers’ resignations, boycotts and threats to “burn Mumbai”. Right in the midst of it erupted the Jaitly tantrum prompted by her intense affection for the offspring. Then there have been so many minor challenges from the allies. They were all, however, pacified in good time by way of liberal accommodation and governmental crumbs.

Two aspects of the internal threats to the Vajpayee establishment are noteworthy. So far, withdrawal threats to the NDA had not been due to internal reasons but emerged as a consequence of outside factors. Even in the case of Farooq Abdullah, he was forced into the autonomy cry to thwart his own marginalisation in state politics. “This may have been precipitated by L.K. Advani’s brinkmanship with the Hurriat leaders. Bal Thackeray did have problems with the BJP but this time the tiger leaped forward when found cornered by the Congress-NCP Government. Even Jaya Jaitly’s has been a fightback under compulsions of motherly affection.

Second, despite the zeal for sticking together against the respective local common political adversary, there has been a perceptible change in the attitude of the NDA constituents towards the big brother. They are less shy of raising their local demands, especially those concerning their partisan interests. This has not been the case during the alliance’s early honeymoon days. Unlike last time, the Akalis have been quick to hold protest demonstrations against the Uttarakhand Bill on the day it was introduced in the Lok Sabha.

Right in the Lok Sabha, at least three constituents of the NDA opposed the states Bill introduced by their own government last week. They challenged L.K. Advani’s claim that the three Bills had “unanimous” approval of the NDA. Leaders of the BJD, Samata and JD (U) said they were never consulted on the Bills and thus they were not bound to support it. While the BJD wants the “return” of Oriya-speaking areas to Orissa, Samata and JD(U) are against the formation of Jharkhand state without providing adequate financial safeguards for Bihar. They outright ignored Advani’s pleadings.

This marks a clear departure from the earlier accommodating approach of the allies. Perhaps this reflected the changing public mood towards the Government. This also fits into the Indian people’s behavioural pattern towards new governments since the 70s. Even Prime Ministers with three-fourths majority had to undergo the cycle of a period euphoric honeymoon, then coolness with concern and the final stage of disillusionment. The process has quick under weak and loose arrangements. The new establishment seems to be entering the second stage.

Much of Vajpayee’s recent headaches can be sourced to his own policy of endless compromises for survival. His personal affability and spirit of accommodation with the NDA constituents have been the secret of his survival. But he seems to have overspent all such natural defences. His please-all policy has not only outlived its purpose but is fast becoming counter-productive. Even the minor allies have begun reasserting their individual identities and openly setting terms with the main ally in the hope that such threats would readily work.

More important, no one can any more overlook the Prime Minister’s own responsibility in the recurring turmoils that have cost the nation heavily. Each of these unsavoury situations could be attributed to Vajpayee’s indecisiveness and failure to act firm at the outset. He does so for fear of displeasing the partners. Often as a political strategy, each pinprick was allowed to develop into a full-fledged crisis in the hope that it would die down on its own. Panic moves as damage control begins — often using government aircraft to ferry the trouble-shooters to the war zones — only when things go out of control.

For instance, the whole ugly controversy involving the Chief Justice of India, the Attorney-General and the sacked Minister could have been averted had the Prime Minister tried to defuse them at the right moment. It has not been a sudden development. Jethmalani’s allegations were all known even in media circles. One of the chrages against the Chief Justice is that he nursed a grudge against Jethmalani for not consulting him on the appointment of the MRTP chief. The Chief Justice himself had written about it to Vajpayee. Had he promptly asserted and settled the issue between the two, damage to the healthy judicial inter-relationship could have been averted in time.

Jethmalani’s allegations against Soli Sorabjee look still more serious. The former has questioned the very integrity of Sorabjee, citing his double-charging of fees while being the AG and his links with parties with whom the government had legal battles. Jethmalani himself has been talking loudly about it to the media even when he was the Law Minister. The PMO should not have been unaware of this running battle between the two. The political theory of management of contradictions may go well to an extent. But it can also badly boomerang. Thus Jethmalani’s theatricals and angry outbursts should be seen as a reflection of the functioning of the government under Vajpayee.

If persons like Jethmalani had continued for so long in government — after all the controversies on the M.S. Shoe scandal, his antics in the Urban Development Ministry, his open criticism of the government position on the new TADA, autonomy, booking of Thackeray etc — it talks volume of the Cabinet system under the NDA. Even after the resignation, Jethmalani had in a recorded interview said that Vajpayee himself had deputed him to Mumbai on the twin mission of “saving” Thackeray and “softening’ him. This has not yet been contradicted. This makes the whole episode, especially after the Prime Minister’s laudatory letter to the sacked Minister hailing his ‘integrity’, more curious. Every one has to be kept in good humour, especially if the incumbent has the full backing of powerful industrial houses.

The Jaya Jaitly episode is a more tragic commentary on the present establishment’s style of functioning and administration of justice. For over a month, front pages of newspapers were full of cricket betting and the involvement of the bookies and players. Now when the Income Tax Department finally initiated some bold steps to unearth the ill-gotten wealth, the government suddenly seems to develop cold feet. Just because the President of one of its constituents wanted to save her daughter’s fiance. There is no need to recount all the reported threats she held out to the raiding staff at her home and unconvincing allegations such as they sought eatables from her (apparently as favour). The raiding teams have provisions for 4/5 star food. (Incidentally, this writer has been a beneficiary when during one such raids in the mid-1980s the team shared their lavish food packets from a government hotel with the cops and covering mediamen).

The next day she used George Fernandes’ ministerial bungalow to blast the IT officials and two of the NDA Ministers for performing their official duty. This virtually amounts to scuttling of proceedings against the alleged racketeers and open interference by extra-constitutional centres of power in routine government administration. What is still shocking has been the failure of the Prime Minister or any other senior Minister to take the nation into confidence about the continuation of the action to unearth the cricket gamblers’ allegedly ill-gotten wealth. On the contrary, the BJP minister whom Jaya Jaitly named, seems to have been silenced. The Akali Minister who too was her target, was forced to come out with “explanations”. The least expected of the government is to assure the nation that it would not succumb to outside pressures on this particular case.

Jaya Jaitly’s threats, and the government’s mysterious silence, have other dimensions. The BJP and George Fernandes were the bitterest critics of Indira Gandhi’s defence of her son. It is sad if they too connive at the same sin. The BJP and Samata were in the forefront of the war against the alleged amassing of wealth by Laloo Prasad Yadav. Now how can these two parties adopt a different yardstick for the same kind of offences and raids by the same central agency?

The recent episodes have also highlighted the pitfalls of trivialising serious issues by burying still bigger sins under well simulated rejoicing — readily hyped by the media. All is well that ends well may be fine in fiction but not in politics and statecraft. In the Jethmalani case, the more crucial issues involving the relationship among the various constitutional arms of justice still remain unresolved. The question of bending rules by influential politicians in power who can dictate terms with the Centre, will continue to haunt us even if the Thackeray crisis ends in his favour.

While celebrating the Kargil victory, several unanswered basic questions — like the government’s total intelligence failure caused by the bus diplomacy hype, the loss of precious soldiers due to the political leadership’s miscalculations and delay in action and pushing the illequipped jawans up to a well prepared enemy — call for explanation. Trivialisation as a political strategy can be a paying proposition on the short term. But as disillusionment sets in, old ghosts will come up. This has happened all over the world. Time is running out for Vajpayee to break the siege.