The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

US PRESIDENTIAL POLL

Battle for White House hots up
Policy issues under focus
From O. P. Sabherwal

NEW YORK: All of a sudden, the American electoral battle for occupant of the White House has lit new fires. The tame beginning, in which Governor George Bush seemed to be leading all the way, has given place to a new phase in which issues and policies have been injected rather sharply. And this appears to be the beginning of what promises to be unrolling of a hot debate on policies — on domestic issues, moving on to selected areas of foreign policy.

The Democrats under Al Gore’s campaign thrust have led the way for the new turn. They have begun painting Governor Bush as being a likeable fellow, certainly, charismatic perhaps, but not the man the Americans can repose their trust in as the occupant of the Oval Office. He lacks adequate awareness of issues and policies that will shape American people’s future and America’s global leadership, they say. Some foibles in Governor Bush’s pronouncements have helped the Al Gore camp in this approach in the presidential contest.

The new line of attack from the Al Gore camp has made a dent in the presidential battle’s fortunes. For, poll assessments have now been predicting that Vice-President, Al Gore, is not only covering Governor Bush’s comfortable lead but might well overtake him unless the course is reversed.

Consequently, Governor Bush has responded with two vital pronouncements. One, the unfolding of a populist image on the domestic front, and the other related to a sensitive area that matters considerably in America’s foreign policy. In relation to the first, Governor Bush has put forward a proposal for a massive tax cut based on a reduced income tax rate for all Americans. This is certainly going to inject a new element in the poll campaign, for the Bush proposal, according to calculations, would mean reduction in Federal revenues by some $1.3 trillion.

The debate on the Bush plan has begun to unfold, but not precisely as its promoters would wish to. Rarely has a populist economic measure of such dimensions been injected in recent presidential battles. As the American media puts it, a tax cut of this size would consume as much as $1.6 trillion of the Federal surplus in just nine years starting in 2001, the first year of the new President’s tenure.

Where will all this money come from? Vice-President Al Gore has lambasted the Bush proposal as a risky scheme to reward the wealthy.

While Governor George Bush is sure that his proposal for a $1.3 trillion tax cut will help him win the White House in November, several economic and tax experts are worried about the upshot of the sweeping Bush tax cut proposal on the American economy. All the more because the Republican candidate has put forward the tax cut proposal assertively — “if elected President, I assure that I will implement this tax cut and return to the citizens what is rightfully theirs”.

His adversaries, however, are painting the Republican leader with the brush of a squanderer of Federal reserves which will put an end to the prosperity that the Democrats have brought to America under President Clinton’s regime. It is Vice-President Al Gore, the Democrats claim, who will carry the Clinton mantle and can ensure American economy’s continued prosperity.

Surely, much more will be heard on the Bush tax cut plan in the weeks ahead. Whatever the popular verdict, the battle on domestic policies and issues is now open all along the line and the debates between the two adversaries for the White House on the economy, social issues and public health will be a feature of the next two months.

Political observers predict that presidential contests — always a centre-piece of American political life — have rarely seen a debating match on policies and issues ushered in so directly. Even more interesting to watch might be the upshot on foreign policy by Governor Bush’s advocacy of greater focus on Latin America. Charging that the Clinton Administration had neglected Latin America, Bush has pledged that under his tenure as President, the Latin American countries will be put at the centre of United States foreign policy agenda.

Governor Bush used unusually sharp language to outline his foreign policy commitment on Latin America. “Those who ignore Latin America do not fully understand America itself,” he said. “Our future cannot be separated from the future of Latin America. Should I become the President, I will look South not as an afterthought, but as a fundamental commitment.”

The fuller meaning of this emphasis on Latin America in American foreign policy, in the event of a Republican administration taking charge, is not yet clear. As of now, however, observers see the Republican candidate’s new foreign policy plank to be largely a bid to take the shine off the Clinton administration’s vigorous handling of foreign policy issues all along his tenure.

The recent Clinton visit to the Indian sub-continent, elevating Indo-American relations in a promising and positive direction, has enhanced President Clinton’s stature. His taking off for a tour of Africa, despite the bleak events in African countries in recent months, is seen as a statesman’s bid to emphasise United States’ commitment to democracy in Nigeria. Return of the democratic regime in that country has ushered in a ray of hope for Africa as a whole, and President Clinton’s four-day visit to African countries at the present juncture was perhaps his parting message on the new moorings of American foreign policy.

One hopes that in the hotting up of the American Presidential battle, the extent to which foreign policy issues detract from its bipartisan character may be only marginal. Clearly, since the fight becomes more intense, the Republican candidate will explore all the chinks in the conduct of foreign policy of the outgoing Clinton administration of which the Democratic candidate has been an important functionary as the Vice-President.

On becoming a presidential nominee
by Stephen J. Wayne

THE system for nominating the candidates for President of the United States looks complex, even chaotic, and it is. Ever since the 1970s when the Democratic and Republican parties began to reform the rules for selecting their Presidential and Vice-Presidential nominees, the system has been in a state of flux, with the most successful candidates being those who understand its complexities and can manoeuvre within and around them. But after all, that is what creative politicians do — learn the game of politics and play hard and skilfully to defeat their opponents.

One of the reasons that the nomination process keeps changing is that, unlike the system of electing the President, it is not enumerated in the U.S. Constitution. The absence of a procedure for party nomination stems from the fact that there were no political parties in existence at the time the Constitution was formulated and ratified. Political parties developed after the government began to function and in response to the policies of the first administration, that of President George Washington.

It was in 1968 that, in an attempt to try to unify a divided party for its presidential campaign, the delegates at the 1968 Democratic convention agreed to appoint a committee to re-examine the party's presidential nomination process with the twin goals of encouraging greater public participation and improving the representative character of those who attended the convention. Thus began the process by which both major political parties have reformed the way they go about selecting their Presidential and Vice-Presidential nominees.

The major changes that the Democrats instituted have encouraged states (which make election laws for their residents) to hold primary elections. A primary is an election among supporters of the same party to choose that party’s candidates who run in the general election. Depending on the laws of the state, voters may cast ballots directly for the Presidential candidates themselves or indirectly for delegates who are pledged to support particular candidates.

The other option that states have under the current system is to hold a multi-staged caucus/convention process in which partisans who live within a relatively small geographic area, a local electoral precinct, get together and select delegates who are pledged to specific candidates. These delegates in turn represent their precinct at a county convention, which chooses delegates to attend the state convention, which selects the delegates to represent the state at the national party conventions. Although this multi-staged caucus/convention system takes several months, the candidate preferences are essentially determined by the voting in the first-round caucus.

The actual size of the state’s delegation to the national party convention is calculated on the basis of a formula established by the party that includes such considerations as the state’s population, its past support for that party’s national candidates, and the number of elected officials and party leaders currently serving in office.

The U.S. Constitution gives the states the authority to make their own election laws, so the states are free to establish their own primaries and caucuses and determine the dates on which they will be held. The states have an incentive to conduct primaries and caucuses in accordance with party rules because the U.S. Supreme Court has determined that the parties have a right to prescribe and enforce rules for those attending their nominating conventions. Thus states that select delegates in a manner that does not accord with party rules may find their delegates challenged at the national conventions or the size of their delegations reduced by the party for violating its rules. Today, about 80 per cent of the delegates who attend their parties’ national nominating conventions are chosen in primary elections that are open to all registered or self-identified Republicans and Democrats.

The Democratic Party has imposed a set of national rules on all its state affiliates; the Republican Party has not. The Democratic rules require states to hold their nomination contest between the first Tuesday of March and the second Tuesday in June during the year in which the general election is held. The small states of Iowa and New Hampshire are given official exemptions to vote earlier because of their tradition of holding the first caucus and the first primary election. The Democrats also require that 75 per cent of a state’s delegates be elected in districts that are no larger than a congressional district in order to enhance the representation of minorities that may be concentrated in communities within the state. Moreover, the number of delegates who are pledged to support specific candidates are selected only in proportion to the vote they or their candidates receive, provided that vote is at least 15 per cent of the total. Finally, the Democrats require that state delegations be equally divided between men and women.

The Republicans do not mandate national rules on their state parties. Republican caucuses or primaries may occur at any time, even in the year before the election; states can permit winner-take-all voting in Republican primaries if they choose to do so; Republican candidates do not need to obtain a minimum percentage of the vote in order to gain delegates pledged to them. Republican state delegations do not need to be divided evenly between men and women, although states are encouraged to try to achieve equal gender representation and the broadest possible participation of rank-and-file partisans.

Despite the differences in national rules, two important trends have emerged in both parties in recent elections.

1. More and more states have moved their primaries and caucuses toward the beginning of the process in order to exercise more influence over the selection of the nominee, to encourage the candidates to address the needs and interests of the state, and to get their campaigns to spend money in them. This is known as “front-loading.”

2. In a practice known as “regionalisation,” states have cooperated with others in their regions to hold their primaries and caucuses on the same date to maximise the impact of their region.

Both of these trends have served to compact the process, forcing candidates to begin their campaigns earlier, to concentrate their efforts in the early states, to raise and spend more money earlier, and to depend increasingly on mass media, particularly radio and television, and on the endorsements of state party leaders to help them reach voters in many states that are conducting their elections on the same day.

The front-loading and regionalisation of the nomination process has benefited nationally recognized candidates, such as incumbent Vice Presidents, large-state governors, and U.S. senators, who have access to more money, more media, and more organizational support.

In theory, the reforms in the presidential nomination process have enlarged the base of public participation, forced the candidates to make broad-based partisan appeals, and encouraged them, if elected, to stay more in touch with those who have nominated them rather than take their re-election for granted. No longer are presidential candidates beholden to a small group of party leaders who have chosen them and expect something in return. The delegates selected to attend their parties’ nominating conventions have become more representative of the demographic groups of voters who have chosen them. These consequences have contributed to the democratisation of the presidential nominating process.

On the other hand, even though a larger proportion of the population participates in the nomination process than in the pre-reform period, the participants themselves are still not representative of rank-and-file partisans, much less the general electorate. They are better educated, have higher incomes, and are older than the average Republican or Democratic voter. And the convention delegates they select tend to be more ideologically oriented than their rank-and-file, with Republican delegates more conservative and Democratic delegates more liberal. Moreover, the nomination process has, at times, exacerbated divisions within a party, and the more divisive the process, the more it hurts rather than helps that party and its nominees in the general election.

The current way in which primaries and caucuses determine the winner has led to anticlimactic nominating conventions as well since the likely nominees are known months before the conventions meet. As a consequence, the parties have turned the conventions into huge pep rallies to launch their Presidential campaigns; the Press has tried to find news in them, emphasising conflicts over policy and personal issues; and public interest in the conventions has declined. In recent years, convention news coverage is down, and television viewership has fallen off. Yet for many Americans the conventions are still a major event on the road to choosing a President.

— The writer is a professor of government at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, USA.

Political lexicon

THE following are some of the important terms used in the context of the American presidential elections. The explanations have been downloaded from a site of the US Department of State:

Affirmative action
The term used to describe a series of programs — federal, state and local — designed to compensate for discrimination. Most affirmative action programs pertain to employment, college admissions and contracting.

Caucus
A meeting, in particular a meeting of people whose goal is political or organisational change. In American presidential politics, the word has come to mean a gathering of each party’s local political activists during the presidential nomination process. In a “layered” caucus system, local party activists, working at the precinct level, select delegates to county meetings, who in turn select delegates to state meetings. These state-level conventions select delegates to their party’s national nominating convention. The purpose of the caucus system is to indicate, through delegate choice, which presidential candidate is preferred by each state party’s members. Its effect is to democratise presidential nominations, since candidate preferences are essentially determined at the beginning of the process.

Coattails
An allusion to the rear panels (“tails”) of a gentleman’s frock coat. In American politics, it refers to the ability of a popular officeholder or candidate for office, on the strength of his or her own popularity, to increase the chances for victory of other candidates of the same political party. This candidate is said to carry others to victory “on his coattails.”

Conservative
Any shade of political opinion from moderately right-of-centre to firmly right-of-centre. Of the two major parties in the United States, the Republican Party is generally considered to be the more conservative. “Political” conservatives in the United States usually support free-market economic principles and low taxes, and distrust federal, as opposed to state and local, government power. “Cultural” conservatives may be opposed to abortion or to the excesses of popular media.

Convention bounce
An increase in a presidential candidate’s popularity, as indicated by public-opinion polls, in the days immediately following his or her nomination for office at the Republican or Democratic national convention.

Divided government
A term that generally refers to a situation where the president is a member of one political party and at least one chamber of Congress (either the Senate or the House of Representatives) is controlled by the opposite party. This situation can also exist at the state level, with one party controlling the governorship, and another controlling the state legislature. Divided government frequently occurs in the U.S. political system. Its historical impact has been to discourage radical change and to motivate politicians of both parties to compromise on proposed legislation.

Federal Election Campaign Act
A1971 law that governs the financing of federal elections; it was amended in 1974, 1976, and 1979. The act requires candidates and political committees to disclose the sources of their funding and how they spend their money; it regulates the contributions received and expenditures made during federal election campaigns; and it governs the public funding of presidential elections.

Federal Election Commission
An independent regulatory agency charged with administering and enforcing federal campaign finance law. The FEC was established by the 1974 amendment of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971.

Front-runner
A candidate in any election or nomination process who is considered to be the most popularor likely to win.

Gender gap
In recent elections, American women have tended to vote in patterns different from those of men, often preferring Democratic to Republican candidates or candidates on the more liberal side of the political spectrum. The Press has dubbed this phenomenon the “gender gap.”

Hard money/soft money
Terms used to differentiate between campaign funding that is and is not regulated by federal campaign finance law. Hard money is regulated by law and can be used to influence the outcome of federal elections — that is, to advocate the election of specific candidates. Soft money is not regulated by law and can be spent only on activities that do not affect the election of candidates for national office — that is, for such things as voter registration drives, party-building activities, and administrative costs, and to help state and local candidates.

Horse race
Used as a metaphor for an election campaign, “horse race” conveys the feeling of excitement that people experience when watching a sporting event. The term also refers to media coverage of campaigns, which frequently emphasises the candidates’ standings in public-opinion polls — as if they were horses in a race — instead of the candidates’ stands on the issues.

Liberal
In the U.S. political spectrum, “liberals” are said to be slightly left-of-centre or somewhat left-of-centre. Of the two main political parties, the Democrats are thought to be more liberal, as the term is currently defined. “Political” liberals tend to favour greater federal power to remedy perceived social inequities; “cultural” liberals tend to support a woman’s right to choose when to give birth, as well as feminism, homosexual rights, and similar freedoms of personal choice and behaviour.

Matching funds
Public money given to presidential candidates that “matches” funds they have raised privately from individuals. During the primary season, eligible candidates may receive up to $250 in matching funds for each individual contribution they receive.

Plurality rule
A method of identifying the winning candidate in an election. A plurality of votes is the total vote received by a candidate greater than that received by any opponent but often less than a 50 per cent majority of the vote. That is, if one candidate receives 30 per cent of the votes, a second candidate also receives 30 per cent, and a third receives 40 per cent, the third candidate has a plurality of the votes and wins the election.

Primary
An electoral contest held to determine each political party’s candidate for a particular public office. Primaries may be held at all levels of government, including local contests for mayor, district races for the U.S. House of Representatives, state-wide elections for governor or U.S. senator, and president of the United States. Primaries for presidential candidates are held at the state level to indicate who the people of that state prefer to be the parties’ candidates. Depending on state law, voters cast ballots directly for the presidential candidate they prefer or for delegates who are “pledged” to support that presidential candidate at convention time. State primary elections, if early enough in the political season, can occasionally stop leading presidential candidates in their tracks and create a surge of support for a lesser-known candidate.

Progressive Movement
A term used to refer to a great era of reform in American life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Regionalisation
The 50 United States are unofficially grouped into about six regions in which states share certain geographic and cultural traits with each other that make them somewhat different from the other regions. During the presidential primary season, “regionalisation” refers to the practice of states’ joining with other states in their region to maximise the effect of the region on the electoral process, often by holding their primary elections on the same day.

Sound bite
A brief, very quotable remark by a candidate for office that is repeated on radio and television news programs.

Spin doctor/spin
A media adviser or political consultant employed by a campaign to ensure that the candidate receives the best possible publicity in any given situation. For example, after a debate between the presidential candidates, each candidate’s “spin doctors” will seek out journalists so they can point out their candidate’s strengths in the debate and try to convince the press, and by extension the public, that their candidate “won” the debate. When these media advisers practice their craft, they are said to be “spinning” or putting “spin” on a situation or event.

Straw poll/vote
An unofficial vote that is used either to predict the outcome of an official vote, or to gauge the relative strength of candidates for office in a future election. For example, long before the Republican caucuses took place in 1996 for the selection of a nominee for president, straw votes were conducted in various states. A good showing in a straw vote can give a candidate a boost, but does not necessarily predict later success.

Swing voters
Voters not loyal to a particular political party, usually independents, who can determine the outcome of an election by “swinging” one way or the other on an issue or candidate, often reversing their choices the next time around.

Third party
Any political party that is not one of the two parties that have dominated U.S. politics in the 20th century — the Republican Party and the Democratic Party — and that receives a base of support and plays a role in influencing the outcome of an election. Various third parties over the years have included American Independence Party, Dixiecrats, National Unity Movement, Progressive Party and United We Stand America.

Ticket splitting
Voting for candidates of different political parties in the same election — say, voting for a Democrat for President and a Republican for Senator. Because ticket splitters do not vote for all of one party’s candidates, they are said to “split” their votes.

United We Stand America
Led by billionaire businessman Ross Perot, this was the precursor group of the Reform Party. Perot’s strong showing — 19 per cent of the vote — was documented to have most hurt Republican nominee President George Bush. Democrat nominee Bill Clinton won the election.

DELHI DURBAR

NRI Sikhs feel left out

A separate meeting with the non-resident Sikh community in the USA is ruled out during Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s coming visit to New York and Washington beginning from September 7. An aggrieved Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) has been urging that Mr Vajpayee should consider having an interface with the overseas Sikh community to assuage their feelings that they were not being discriminated against. However, those overseeing the Prime Minister’s programme in the USA believe that some stray elements inimical to India may put a spoke in the wheel which can cause avoidable embarassment to Mr Vajpayee and earn negative publicity. India’s ambassador to the USA Girish Chandra is of the opinion that the leadership in Punjab and the SAD is overreading the situation with regard to the Sikh community especially in America and Canada.

Clamour for Governor’s posts

Lobbying has begun for the gubernatorial assignments in the three new states of Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Chattisgarh to be carved out of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, respectively. The case of rehabilitating former Union Minister from Punjab Surjit Singh Barnala is believed to have been taken up with Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. Mr Barnala, who has served as Governor of Tamil Nadu, also has the backing of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam supremo and Chief Minister, Mr M. Karunanidhi. There are some septuagenarian stalwarts in the BJP who missed out in the ministerial stakes hoping to catch the eye of the top leadership for being appointed as the constitutional head of a state. There are a sizeable number of BJP politicians who are feeling agitated at being ditched after being dangled the carrot. Their penchant for creating pinpricks for the leadership at regular intervals is one way of remaining in the spotlight. It remains to be seen if the top leadership of the BJP succumbs to such pressure or ignores them as the just concluded Nagpur session of the party organisation has sought to send an unambiguous and firm signal that indiscipline and defiance of the leadership will not be tolerated.

Prabhu on top

Mr Suresh Prabhu’s resignation from the Union Cabinet recently has not made any dent on his reputation as a capable Minister. He is featured by the Hong Kong-based Asiaweek magazine amongst its top three Indian leaders of the future. The magazine had recently placed the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee at the head of Asia’s dream Cabinet. The other two leaders featured in the list are the late P.R. Kumaramangalam and the Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting and Law, Justice and Company Affairs, Mr Arun Jaitley.

Mr Prabhu’s staff went to town highlighting the Asiaweek article. The magazine says about Prabhu that the former chartered accountant, aged 47, comes from India’s financial and economic powerhouse state of Maharashtra. Disarmingly pleasant and soft-voiced, the Shiv Sena Minister is a valuable part of the Vajpayee Cabinet. There is always a stream of visitors waiting to meet him. This is because the Minister is easily accessible, which Mr Prabhu feels is a deterrent to bureaucratic delays and corruption.

Food woes

India is at present facing a problem of plenty as far as its stock position on foodgrains is concerned. And, struggling to cope with this mammoth problem is Mr Shanta Kumar, who is the Minister in charge of Food. Mr Kumar first turned his ire towards Punjab saying the food procurement policy there was faulty. He wanted that instead of the Central agencies procuring paddy from the farmers, it should purchase rice from the millers through the levy route. The Punjab Government was, however, not in favour of selling rice through the levy route and insisted on the existing practice continuing. After a prolonged war of words, the Punjab Chief Minister, Mr Parkash Singh Badal, had to use his clout in the coalition Government at the Centre to have his way.

Mr Kumar found little support from his colleagues in the Union Cabinet, which too went Badal’s way. Not only was the minimum support price increased for paddy, it was also announced that the Food Corporation of India would continue to purchase paddy directly from markets in the States. This is bound to create a problem of storage for the FCI and has added to Mr Kumar’s woes. The former Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister has now changed his stance. He says he will try to pursue the Punjab Government to see reason.

Quiet Divali

Delhiites will have to contend with a quiet Divali and Dasehra from now on. The unusually loud “atom bombs”, “hydrogen bombs” and other fancy sounding crackers will be missing during the festival of lights. Residents can also go to sleep early as the bursting of crackers will not continue till late in the night. The reason: the Delhi High Court has got cracking on the increasing noise and pollution levels in the city.

In a recent ruling it said from November 1, the cracker industry should mark their products with the level of pollution that would be caused by them. It also restricted the bursting time of crackers to just two hours from 6 pm to 8 pm. Those who do not comply with the rules are liable to be arrested by the police.

Advertising blues

Star TV’s Kaun Banega Crorepati is a rage in the country these days. Capitalising on this, several companies have brought out advertisements based on the quiz theme and the Big B’s catch lines. Rival channels, piqued by the success of KBC and the shift in viewer’s preference, have started refusing ads that bears any similarity to the popular programme. The rivals it seems are losing not only their cool and viewers but also revenue.

(Contributed by TRR, T.V. Lakshminarayan, Girija Shankar Kaura and P.N. Andley).

PROFILE

by Harihar Swarup

Inheritor of Nehru’s flair for writing

NAYANTARA Sahgal has acquired the flair for writing from her “mamu”, Jawaharlal Nehru. This trait of the visionary first Prime Minister of India was neither inherited by Indira Gandhi nor acquired by Nayantara’s mother, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit. Long years back when Nayantara toyed with the idea of taking a plunge into the uncertain world of politics, she broached the subject with Nehru and the instant and sincere advice of her “mamu” was: “you are a writer and what for you want to join politics”. Nehru believed that the realm of creativity was much nobler than the machiavellian ways of a politician. With his deep insight into human psyche he had, perhaps, known that, of all the members of his family, only his niece has that talent.

Nayantara lived up to the assessment of his “mamu” and became as accomplished fiction writer. Born in a political family, she has seen the hurly-burly of politics; her unique upbringing enabled her to develop a keen understanding of political events. She utilised the knowledge for political writings with the zeal of a journalist; some call her a political analyst. A reappraisal of her two much publicised books — “Indira Gandhi’s Emergence and Style” and “Indira Gandhi: Her Road to Power” — show that the work are of historical importance. Except few chapters where the deep-rooted hostility between Vijaya Lakshmi and Indira Gandhi come to the fore, the remaining is a truthful account of the post-Nehru era and the subsequent events, including imposition of Emergency and the return of Mrs Gandhi to power in 1980.

Nayantara bounced back to the newspaper columns after years with the publication of a voluminous book — “Before Freedom; Nehru’s Letter to His Sister”. The book was brought out to commemorate the 100th birth anniversary of Vijaya Lakshmi. She had passed away 10 years ago. The 500-page book is a compilation of letters from Nehru to his sister whose household name was “Nan” (little one). The letters were mostly from Nehru — letter writing was a passion with him — to Vijaya Lakshmi and a few from her to “bhai”. There is also a small bunch of missives from “mamu” to her loving niece, called affectionately in the Nehru household as “Taru” (distorted form of Tara). The letters were carefully preserved by Vijaya Lakshmi and handed over to her writer-daughter before her death. Many pieces were first hand account of the history and should prove a gold mine for any researcher besides personal tragedies of Nehru like the passing away of Kamla Nehru and the demise of Vijaya Lakshmi’s husband, Ranjit Pandit, a versatile person. Nehru was, apparently, worried about Indira and gave expression to his anguish in a letter to “Nan” from Dehra Dun jail as far back as 1933: “Indu, I feel, is extraordinarily imaginative and self-centered or subjective. Indeed I would say that, quite unconsciously, she has grown remarkably selfish”.

Indira and her cousin, Nayantara, never appear to be on the same wavelength because of Mrs Gandhi’s deep-seated dislike for Vijaya Lakshmi but the two cousins never displayed the chasm till the emergency when Taru rather viciously attacked the Prime Minister. The relations between the two completely broke down and in the words of Nayantara” Indira cut me off completely”. In a paper which she completed in 1993 and presented in March, 1994, to a conference of Leadership in South Asia she wrote: “ I came to the conclusion we were moving inexorably towards an authoritarian order, not because the Indian situation demanded it, but because of the particular character in charge of us, driven by needs of her own nature which had very little to do with the reason and rhyme of the Indian situation”.

The paper formed the base of Nayantara’s book — “Indira Gandhi’s Emergence and Style”, written during the Emergency and published in 1978. In the introduction she says: “The following year (1994), however, Mrs Gandhi’s style, had reduced politics to a state of confrontation from which nothing but dictatorship could emerge”. Many of Nayantara’s observations were in tune with the time but she hardly analysed the political compulsions of her cousin and her achievements.

Now 72, Nayantara lives in the Dehra Dun house built 30 years ago by Vijaya Lakshmi, India first woman Cabinet Minister and first woman President of the U.N. General Assembly. One wonders if the rift in the family has healed with Sonia Gandhi assuming the leadership of the Congress party but Rajiv Gandhi did visit her grand aunt, Vijaya Lakshmi, in Dehra Dun when he was the Prime Minister.

Unlike Indira Gandhi and her children, Nayantara completed her higher education. She went to Woodstock, and then with her elder sister, to Wellesly College in America. She has, evidently, been influenced by the multifaceted talents of her father, Ranjit Sitaram Pandit, a linguist, a lawyer, a shikari, a musician and a handsome man. His health was shattered when he was imprisoned during the freedom movement.

Nayantara has 15 books to her credit and established herself among the front ranking literary figure in Indo-Anglian fiction writing.

NEWS ANALYSIS

India, South Africa to sign defence pact
by Rezaul H. Laskar

INDIA and South Africa will sign an agreement on defence cooperation when Defence Minister George Fernandes visits South Africa later this month, official sources said.

The agreement, which will institutionalise defence ties between the two countries, will cover military-to-military exchanges, training programmes as well as joint research and development and production of defence hardware, sources in the Defence Ministry said. It also envisages greater cooperation between the navies of the two countries. The two sides have been working on the broad parameters of the agreement for more than a year now, sources said.

The exact dates for Mr Fernandes’s week-long visit to South Africa are yet to be officially announced by the Defence Ministry but he is expected to leave for Pretoria next weekend, the sources said. Mr Fernandes, who is visiting South Africa at the invitation of his counterpart Mosiuoa Lekota, will be accompanied by senior officials from the three services and the Defence Ministry. Mr Fernandes will also call on South African President Thabo Mbeki, the sources said.

During a visit to India in October last year, Mr Lekota had announced that the two countries were close to concluding the agreement on defence cooperation.

The two governments had earlier signed a strategic partnership agreement when former South African President Nelson Mandela and former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda formalised the Red Fort Declaration in 1997. They also have a defence committee headed by the defence secretaries of the two countries.

In recent years, South Africa has emerged as a major supplier of defence hardware to the Indian armed forces, particularly the Army. During last year’s Kargil conflict with Pakistan, the Army purchased large quantities of ammunition from South Africa for its Swedish-made Bofors Howitzers.

The Army had to resort to purchases of the Howitzer ammunition from South African firms as Bofors was then blacklisted by the Defence Ministry for alleged irregularities in the purchase of the guns in the mid-eighties.

The Indian Army has purchased the Casspir mine-protected vehicles from the South African firm of Vickers OMC for counter-insurgency operations in Jammu and Kashmir and the seven north-eastern states where a large number of personnel have been killed in mine blasts and bomb attacks. Other South African firms have supplied a variety of armaments and weapons systems to the infantry.

The Casspir deal has, however, run into some problems due to the poor performance of the vehicles, the Defence Ministry sources said. India had concluded an agreement in 1998 to purchase some 90 “reconditioned” or second-hand Casspirs but only about 40 vehicles have been supplied so far, a senior Army officer said.

“Although there are no shortcomings in the armour plating of the Casspir, we have faced some problems with the engines and maintenance of the vehicles,” the Army officer said. Officials accompanying Mr Fernandes are expected to take up these issues during the visit, the Defence Ministry sources said.

— India Abroad News Service