E D I T O R I A L   P A G E

EDITORIALS

Paddy crisis and after 
ANY celebration over the end of the paddy face-off is premature as another crisis looms on the Punjab horizon. A similar situation is about to unfold in the case of wheat. Storehouses which are often open spaces covered with polythene sheets, are bulging with over 10 million tonnes of wheat and the next harvest will be in by April. 

Aden attack and after
TILL about 15 months ago, Aden was on US prohibited list for navy refuelling calls. This policy was later changed to develop better relations with Yemen. A dozen visits since then proved to be uneventful. Not the one last week. The suicide attack on the USS Cole claimed the lives of 17 sailors.

Cricket is alive
The message at the end of the 11-nation [10 Test playing countries plus host Kenya] ICC Knockout Tournament from Nairobi should leave no scope for doubt that the game of cricket is alive and kicking. It has recovered admirably from the after-shock of Hansiegate. 

On target

by Darshan Singh Maini
Al Gore-Bush big fight
System, process and personality
THE American Presidential elections and the entire process which involves almost everything from “the American Dream” and the Mayflower ethos and ethics to paradoxes and perversities have, over a period of 200 years, managed to acquire a certain solidity, direction and ambience which to those not familiar with the US history and the elements that make up what is known as “the American Way of Life” would strike as something close to a Hollywood extravaganza and a music hall comedy amidst many another strain ranging from evangelism to pitiless politics of race and gender, of sleaze and scandal, of “peep-hole” psychology and media transparencies and travesties.

MIDDLE

Romance of the “red box”
by Rajnish Wattas
RECENTLY, a small letter box in our neighbour, languishing with neglect and almost hidden by a creeper, was given a fresh coat of red paint, with markings for clearance time. I was tempted to post a letter—but realised that there was no mail to send!

ANALYSIS

The invalid degree courses
by Damodar Agrawal
CONFUSION on the higher education front is unfortunately getting worse confounded. The latest is the UGC advice to college and university students to check their degrees. The need arose because of a pandemonium caused in the Delhi Government’s Vivekananda College for Women. There a few hapless girls had completed their degree course in information technology. 

Realpolitik

by P. Raman
Turning ailment into strength
INDIAN politicians and the media have displayed remarkable restraint and maturity with regard to the Prime Minister’s knee troubles and the surgery to rectify it. Leaders like Laloo Prasad Yadav who have been dubbed as the meanest were among the first to send messages to the makeshift ‘South Block’ at Breach Candy Hospital in Mumbai.

 

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

Paddy crisis and after 

ANY celebration over the end of the paddy face-off is premature as another crisis looms on the Punjab horizon. A similar situation is about to unfold in the case of wheat. Storehouses which are often open spaces covered with polythene sheets, are bulging with over 10 million tonnes of wheat and the next harvest will be in by April. There have so far been no takers for the open market sale offer at a reduced price, and inspired reports in Delhi-based newspapers talk of the quality of the grain being poor. Given the mindset of the rulers, it is not inconceivable that wheat will attract the same criticism and rejection as paddy. But that is some months away and now it is time to clear the mess created by the quick-silver changes in the policy by the Union Food Ministry, particularly the loss suffered by growers. Mandis should be scoured to collect details of the quantity of paddy purchased from individuals and price paid to them. Any underpayment should be fully compensated and the amount of Rs 100 crore set apart for this must be adequate. Even this will not help the farmers get over the trauma of endlessly waiting for a buyer and quibbling over the price. Efficient handling of the post-solution situation is the minimum the state government can do. It is also necessary to chalk out fool-proof plans to protect farmers from similar harassment after the rabi crop. A repeat will be costly in terms of the agriculture economy when WTO conditions will also come into force, opening the import door to farm and dairy products. In several ways Punjab is more vulnerable than other states to changes in both national and global policies and there is no time-lag available to minimise the damage. It sounds like a platitude but the state should appoint an experts committee to examine all aspects of the present difficulties and those likely to convulse the farm sector.

All this can only be a short-term first aid. A long-term policy has to cover the nation as a whole and touch other related subjects like wages, distribution and shifting the present paddy-wheat cropping rotation. Many have talked of replacing paddy with high-priced crops without identifying any. What will be the yield like and what will the return to the grower? Then there is the problem of marketing which is highly undeveloped for agricultural goods. The 1997 onion crisis and the periodic exploitation of apple growers in Himachal Pradesh attest to the undesirability of leaving the peasant at the mercy of the middleman. As Chief Minister Badal points out, there is no surplus foodgrains in India as 300 million people go hungry because they lack purchasing power. It is not possible now to reduce the foodgrain prices to make it available to all and it is also not possible to subsidise the sale on this scale. This severely limits the options but it must be said that only those countries which have ended this kind of stark poverty have recorded an economic breakthrough. India should reorder development priorities to increase rural employment and thus fight rural poverty. The paddy dilemma and the likely one in wheat make this imperative.

Aden attack and after

TILL about 15 months ago, Aden was on US prohibited list for navy refuelling calls. This policy was later changed to develop better relations with Yemen. A dozen visits since then proved to be uneventful. Not the one last week. The suicide attack on the USS Cole claimed the lives of 17 sailors. In hindsight, sending one of the world’s most sophisticated guided missile destroyers to a country which was on the rogue list till recently and that too at a time when anti-US frenzy was at its peak in the Arab world was not a very wise decision. To cap it all, the visit took place despite the USA receiving a “general” warning of a possible attack on a warship last month. The ship had to give several days’ notice before refuelling and that must have given sufficient time to the terrorists to plan the attack. Ironically, a US State Department report itself says that “ … inefficient enforcement of security procedures and the government’s inability to exercise authority makes the country a safe heaven for terrorists”. From all indications the attack was meticulously planned and reminds one of the 1996 bombing of US military barracks in Saudi Arabia that left 19 dead. Right now, two none too prominent groups have claimed responsibility but there are reasons to suspect that the conspiracy may be running much deeper than that. Hamas, Hezbollah, the Palestinian Islamic Jehad and many other groups happen to have their cells in Yemen. Even Osama bin Laden’s family is from this country. All these factors make the situation very volatile.

Just as the USS Cole was a sitting duck in Aden, several US embassies in the Arab world are the perennial targets of attacks and have to function like virtual fortresses. Washington has done well to order the closure of 37 missions in West Asia, the Persian Gulf area and North Africa. This is apparently a temporary measure and is only by way of alerting its embassies and protecting American citizens from impending danger. It is but natural that the USA will try to get at the attackers of Aden. FBI agents and Defence and State Department officials have been despatched to Yemen to uncover the terrorist plot. That in effect means that the surcharged atmosphere will become even more explosive. This is the election time in the USA and when body bags start arriving, Mr Al Gore and Mr George W. Bush may try to excel each other in advocating a stringent line. The problem is that the USA has identified itself too closely with Israel in the ongoing strife. Israeli military activities in Gaza and in the West Bank following the lynching of two soldiers by Palestinians have undone the progress made in the talks over several years. The peace accord which Mr Clinton was tailoring between the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ehud Barak, and the Palestinian leader, Mr Yasser Arafat, as the crowning glory of his eight-year foreign policy is in tatters and there is hardly any hope on that count. For the present, Mr Clinton’s task is to bring down the violence.

Cricket is alive

The message at the end of the 11-nation [10 Test playing countries plus host Kenya] ICC Knockout Tournament from Nairobi should leave no scope for doubt that the game of cricket is alive and kicking. It has recovered admirably from the after-shock of Hansiegate. It was an amazingly well-organised tournament which offered a bit of everything to everyone. To the superstitious it gave plenty to mull over. The irrational angle may even provide some relief to the disappointed Indian fans who had taken it for granted that Saurav Ganguly's team would return home with what is described as the mini-World Cup. While making arrangements for celebrating India's victory in the final on Sunday they overlooked an important point. From the quarter-final stage onward the tournament witnessed the strange spectacle of the favoured teams being knocked out by the less fancied ones. [Match-fixing?] India started the mayhem by knocking out current world champions Australia. New Zealand continued the pattern by defeating World Cup runners-up Pakistan to qualify for the Nairobi final. Moin Khan, who had predicted a Pakistan-South Africa final, had to eat humble pie. After nearly a week's rest a rejuvenated India continued the giant-killing act. In the second semi-final it dislodged the ICC trophy holders South Africa to set-up what the fans believed would be a one-sided contest with underdog New Zealand. India with the scalps of the two best one day teams in its kitty emerged as the giant in relation to New Zealand which had only the prized head of Pakistan to justify its newfound claim to fame in international cricket. Sunday merely witnessed one more upset in the mini-World Cup with New Zealand picking up its first major one-day international trophy in Nairobi. The superstitious may even see an ominous pattern in the back-to-back centuries by left-handed opening batsmen Saeed Anwar and Ganguly and their negative impact on the outcome of the contests. Anwar's second century came in the match which Pakistan lost to New Zealand. And Ganguly's second century could not stop the Kiwis from continuing the trend of upsets which India had started.

In a way, it was poetic justice. The irrational Indian fans need not sulk just because Ganguly's team could not lift its game to match-winning level against New Zealand. Wilting under pressure is an old India habit. But why not look at the silver lining, keeping in mind the match-fixing controversy and its aftermath? The sceptics had written off India. However, the good news is that a relatively inexperienced team led by the "Prince of Calcutta" did not let the fans miss the absence of Mohammad Azharuddin, Ajay Jadeja and Nayan Mongia, who were made to "rest" until their names were cleared by the CBI investigating the cricket scam. If that is not good news, what is? Zaheer Khan, Vijay Dahiya and Yuvraj Singh were blooded in the first game and persisted with throughout the tournament. Zaheer Khan has the makings of a genuine left-arm pace bowler who needs to work more on his yorkers to become as unplayable as the one and only Wasim Akram. In Dahiya India seems to have found a world-class wicket-keeper. The two stumpings he effected in crucial games were simply top class. If he can polish his batting, he may find himself in the exalted company of Adam Gilchrist, Alec Stewart and Mark Boucher, who are the three best wicket-keeper-batsmen in contemporary cricket. But the find of the tournament was the young and energetic youth from Punjab, 20-year-old Yuvraj Singh. Anyone who can glower back at Glen MacGrath and Allan Donald as he did in only the first two innings of his three-match career [at that point of time] and spank them all over the field has to have nerves of steel. That is what handling international pressure is all about. Yuvraj led the youth brigade in letting fans back home know that each one of them was capable of making the country forget the bitterness of yore generated by the unhappy betting and match-fixing controversy. The future of Indian cricket would indeed become bright if and when they hone the promise they showed in the ICC tournament and help Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid make India into a world class team.

Al Gore-Bush big fight
System, process and personality
by Darshan Singh Maini

THE American Presidential elections and the entire process which involves almost everything from “the American Dream” and the Mayflower ethos and ethics to paradoxes and perversities have, over a period of 200 years, managed to acquire a certain solidity, direction and ambience which to those not familiar with the US history and the elements that make up what is known as “the American Way of Life” would strike as something close to a Hollywood extravaganza and a music hall comedy amidst many another strain ranging from evangelism to pitiless politics of race and gender, of sleaze and scandal, of “peep-hole” psychology and media transparencies and travesties. It’s indeed a huge spectacular fight where the velvet gloves may be dropped in desperate situations, and the battle taken to the toilet and the bed. And yet the system has worked smoothly and successfully even when we swing from scenes of pickwickian mirth in poll-meetings to the Mafia killings and assassinations. Somehow, the American democracy has so solemnised the contradictions within the system (including “the electoral college” surprises) as to keep it going from generation to generation.

Well, that’s how the American elections with all their extravagances and excrecences remain there to touch the imagination. And as I have watched them since 1970 both as an eyewitness in a couple of cases and an involved TV viewer, I guess, I have, as an outsider, seen much of the great game, and read “the story in it”.

The process of “primaries” in different states and the elimination of contenders within the party itself is a uniquely democratic feature. The eventual two winners thus become, after acrimonious debates, media ads, whistle-stop speeches, hand-shakings, baby-fondlings, 100-dollar dinner gatherings, money collections, jingles, etc, the chosen candidates, and the entire party machinery is then geared up and made ready for the National Conventions to select the acceptable, and prospective winner.

The American electoral scene is not only more colourful, more extended and more diversified, but also more authentic in the end as compared with the elections in India, for instance. That’s its greatest virtue, for the process and the elections and the formal inauguration of the new or the existing occupant of the White House (if he is seeking the second four-year term) once completed, the entire administrative, judicial, fiscal machinery and other organs and agencies of the State under the control of the Senate and Congress with the President as a supremo invested with high quantum of authority begin to function smoothly, efficiently and routinely. A firm and secure administration knows its mandate, its powers and limits, its direction and dimensions. The President’s Cabinet then becomes his affair completely, though Congressional hearings and endorsements are a part of the elaborate process. The richest democracy of the world is also the strongest in sinews of the State per se.

Before I return to “the Big Fight” now under way, and which indeed is the donnee of our discussion here, I may as well draw the reader’s attention to the prodigious amount of literature on the functioning of the American democracy. I leave aside constitutional, political, historical studies, etc, and single out three relevant novels out of the several, Adam’s “Democracy”, Drury’s “Advise and Consent”, Washington D.C. by Gore Vidal, a member of the “the Kennedy Clan”. I do so because the dramatisation of the truth about the White House, the Senators and the Congressmen brings out more vividly the inner story in such works of the imagination than in dreary tomes of rules and statistics and details. And the picture is hardly edifying.

The White House stories of mistresses, moles and philandering are a part now of the presidential lore from George Washington, the Founder President, to the adored FDR and the iconised John F. Kennedy. Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky wasn’t, therefore, something unusual, and whatever the media noises and stories rousing the American imagination of prurience and amour, the Americans, in general, have come to take such carnal delinquencies and Presidential “pleasures” as nothing more than an exciting game which soon begins to follow the law of diminishing returns.

The story on the Capitol Hill is not very different. In the novels that I have referred to, you find many a Senator and a Congressman down with his pants, having affairs with their secretaries, and boy-pages and links with call-girls, underworld dons, panders and “madams”. And quite a few play their own sinister game of power through hired media agents, blackmail, etc. The Watergate dhamaka which pushed Nixon out of the White House was only a clinching example of the inner corruption in the system, of skulduggery, in general. As Allen Drury puts it in “Advise and Consent”, ruthless Senators on the hunting trail of a rival would “razor a man down to political nothingness”. And he goes on to describe “a pure politician”, as a naked predator, “a thug in the blue-suit.”

To recall, then, the two National Conventions (Republican in Philadelphia and Democrat in Los Angeles) as well as the first face-to-face TV 90-minute encounter between Al Gore and George Bush — and later between the Vice-Presidential candidates, Dick Chenny (Republican) and Joseph Liberman (Democrat) is to see vividly how the political fight proceeds from spectacle and theatre to core issues and agenda. The Conventions are, as a rule, a clear indication of the shape of the debates in the offing. And watching both, one couldn’t but be impressed with the orderliness of things amidst such a prodigious amount of show-business and razzle-dazzle.

Even in the conventions, the contenders’ speeches and stance gave enough hints of the drift of public opinion, for the main issues the Democrat dream of extending the last eight years’ unprecedented prosperity, their passimate emphasis on medicare, old-age securities, new educational opportunities at State cost, the women and abortion question and other national problems demanding State attention and redress, and the Republican promise of cutting down taxes (which, as Al Gore pointed out sharply, will benefit only 1 per cent of the top American tax-payers), more money for anti-missile systems and national security, upholding the old conservative values in relation to abortion, gays, the disadvantaged and discriminated minorities, etc. Although in their foreign policies, in America’s super-power “obligations”, the differences amounted to those between “Tweedledom and Tweedledee”, on the domestic front, the Democrats had clearly a more exciting fare to offer, and it’s going to go down well with the middle class also in view of the rising graph of their incomes during the Clinton presidency.

Finally, the question of the Presidential personality has a far greater role to play in the USA than usually imagined. The American presidency is a unique institution, and the charm, the aura, the ambience or, if you like, the impression of charisma have had a crucial bearing on the outcome. History has placed a few uninspiring persons in the White House, Truman (promoted to the Presidency following the death of Roosevelt in office) and later Nixon, but, as a rule, the candidate’s gravitas or weight of personality (which has many a component from one’s looks and bearing to the quality of rhetoric and style, wit and readiness, the sense of history and one’s place and role in it, etc,) has often determined the issue in the end. Is he the Presidential timber? A question invariably raised in the media.

When, therefore, we weigh the two candidates now in the race, Al Gore’s advantages are transparent enough to create a sense of authority, authenticity and closeness or connectedness. There’s, as the TV speeches and debate revealed, an air of homeliness, and he exudes warmth, and a sense of “dream” with responsibility. And he seems to radiate a feeling of well-being, of a person in line with the concept of great presidency. And, of course, his record as a Senator, as a public figure, as a sensitive nice family man are the positives he can legitimately claim.

Governor Bush, in contrast, has a somewhat constrained, hedged-in (some may consider it controlled) personality. And there’s an air of ambiguity, jumpiness and hauteur about him. In his speeches also, there’s something hurried, something abrupt about his style, and the idiom, repetitive, shows few forceful variations or dimensions. No, despite his deeply conservative character, he misses the mark of aristocracy that his position, stance and station demand. And the widening gap in the opinion polls confirms these impressions. To put it in American terms, whilst one could, even as a stranger or casual acquaintance, hail Al Gore in the street, share a pint of beer in a pub, exchange a few pleasantries; with Bush, it could turn out to be a grievous faux pas. Also, the elderly Senator Liberman as a Vice-Presidential mate, with his background as a person of humble origins exemplifying the cherished values of honest and proven public service as against the bureau Chenny, could make Al Gore’s claim almost formidable.

The opinion polls which too are partisan and doctored sometimes do not, however, give a clear picture at this moment, though Al Gore continues to have a precarious edge over his rival.

Romance of the “red box”
by Rajnish Wattas

RECENTLY, a small letter box in our neighbour, languishing with neglect and almost hidden by a creeper, was given a fresh coat of red paint, with markings for clearance time. I was tempted to post a letter—but realised that there was no mail to send!

Letter boxes, once an object of great importance, where I would rush to post an urgent letter in time for the first clearance, have now become merely relics of the past in our present IT times. Yet I have not outgrown my fascination for these cute red receptacles of our communications from one heart to another, which have a romance of their own.

In Kasauli exists an old letter box—hope it is still there—with the imperial crown adorning its red top. The sturdy cast iron relics is reminiscent of the Raj, when the hill station was a favourite "watering hole" of the British. Once, out of sheer curiosity, I posted a self-addressed letter in it. And sure enough, it reached its destination safely.

I follow my fondness for quaint, old world charm, letter boxes in letter and spirit. No wonder, one of my memorable pictures of an English summer is alongside an antique letter box in front of a small post office in Eton. None can beat Her Majesty's Postal Service in looking after its heritage with care. In contrast, the North American mail boxes are nothing much to write home about. Their post-modern designs leave little distinction between a letter box and a slick garbage box.

Another thing I detest is to see any other colour but the traditional bright red, on a letter box. In front of our local GPO stands a "green monster", meant exclusively for the local mail. It always makes me see red; and the day it is restored to its original colour shall be a real red letter day. And now they have even added a yellow one—for some special purpose.

Among my other postal quirks is the preference for small letter boxes compared to the big ones. My favourites are the little tin boxes strung from wayside tree stems or lamp posts. Besides being located at easy walking distance, they also serve as happy homes for birds. Though I must confess that—notwithstanding my adoration—I would give them the go-by in moments of post-haste distress, a trifle distrustful of the postman remembering to collect mail from such remote outposts of the departments.

A curiosity that I have never outgrown since childhood is to watch the postman open the letter box to collect the mail. As heaps of letters pour into his postbag. I wonder about their varied destinations and messages of hope and sorrow. Once when I reached the neighbouhood letter box in time for its clearance and handed over a letter directly to the postman, he refused to collect it. Instead, I was told to formally post it before it completed its rites of passage into his bag. I have always wondered if it was a postal regulation he was following or just a personal whim?

However, in this age of information highways the letter box will soon be merely a post mark of a bygone era. But come E-mail or fax machines, I shall always remain delightfully glued to the post-age. 

The invalid degree courses
by Damodar Agrawal

CONFUSION on the higher education front is unfortunately getting worse confounded. The latest is the UGC advice to college and university students to check their degrees. The need arose because of a pandemonium caused in the Delhi Government’s Vivekananda College for Women. There a few hapless girls had completed their degree course in information technology. But when it came to their taking their final examination they were told by Delhi University that the course was not recognised.

This was done obviously at the instance of the UGC. It recognises only 138 of the numerous courses being taught at present in the colleges. The others, about 40 in various disciplines, are invalid. They are said to have been started by the colleges without any prior authority, and the universities which affiliate them and recognise those courses must own the responsibility.

The history of the unrecognised courses and the so-called invalid degrees is not very old. Not long ago when the UGC was in the throes of its worst ever money crunch, it had asked the universities to generate internal resources. This was followed by a spate of commercially viable subjects. Some of them were not only recognised by the universities, but became so popular that colleges hiked their fees. They were called self-financing courses and no UGC grants were required to run them.

In thousands of colleges all over the country they are being widely taught and appreciated. And as their market-value is high, the so-called traditional courses on which the UGC spends money are being gradually elbowed out. This makes the situation extremely ironical, because it does not only reduce the powers of the UGC but also improves the employment potential of the learners.

As one can easily guess, most of the courses in banking, finance, office management, secretarial practice, medical transcription, internet handling, nursing, dietics, cosmetic therapy, fashion technology and foreign trade are not recognised by the UGC. Still they are being taught and degrees or certificates are being given and accepted for one’s own business or by the employers. And they are being taught not only at coaching centres but also in full-fledged university colleges. This is what the UGC is sick about.

For all intents and purposes the UGC has a depraved mentality. It does not know which direction to follow, where to go, what to do. The educational system is being fast privatised and commercialised. The UGC’s commanding position is in great jeopardy. The big babus in the towering citadel are nervous. Their minister is using them for his puppet-shows. The UGC had never imagined that it would one day come to this humiliating state. Therefore, in the contradictory directives that it is now giving to the universities, it is really fighting its last battle for existence.

Hundreds of colleges affiliated to the universities in various states run their own Bachelor of Computer Applications (BCA) and Bachelor of Computer Science courses. Some of these courses in certain universities, including Delhi University, have been renamed as Bachelor in Information Technology (BIT) and Bachelor in Information Science (BIT). The introduction of the courses and their renaming were done under the rules of the universities. They were also approved by the academic councils of the universities concerned. But as the UGC has now declared these as invalid, there is not only an uneasy feeling at the campuses but also fear that thousands of students will be cheated.

Section 22 of the UGC Act is supreme in this respect. The 138 courses that it enlists do not include these prestigious and much sought-after subjects. Therefore, the UGC has written to all the universities in the country that a degree not specified by the UGC under Section 22 is not valid and that a university or its affiliated colleges willing to introduce it must immediately obtain its permission.

It must here be mentioned that as most of these new courses were supposed to be self-financing, and not needing any UGC aids, it was taken to be an autonomous prerogative of the colleges to introduce and teach them within the framework of the university rules. The universities too were not told anything about Section 22 of the UGC Act. There are precedents of the courses having been introduced first and the approval taken much later.

The matter will not end there. The All-India Council for Technical Education may also jump into the fray. Scores of new subjects have technical overtones, and the universities have no business to teach them without its concurrence. Thus a bull-fight between the UGC and the AICTE may not be far behind. The universities can only object to inadequate infrastructural facilities, but the course affiliation and the curriculum standardisation will become the business of the AICTE.

The contents of most of the courses mentioned above are prepared on the basis of the feedback from the industry and market needs. The UGC has neither the competence nor the authority to decide about them. Its visions are traditional, orthodox and outdated. Its existence is threatened. Experts contend that it must now throw off its dead skin to renew itself. The way it has been behaving, changing its instance in rapid succession, may ultimately become a syndrome which even the best therapists of higher education cannot cure.

If you scan the list of the 138 UGC-approved courses, you are bound to experience a comic sensation. It includes courses and degrees in Acharya, Vidyalankar and Visharad. It includes Alankar, Bachelor in Dance, Bhasha Praveena, Samaj Karya Parangat, Vachaspati and so on. No one needs to be told that these have very few takers. A new addition is likely to be a master’s course in astrology and Hindu rituals. This has already been recommended by the HRD Minister.

It may not be very impertinent here to visualise a funny situation. The UGC or no UGC, the colleges will continue to teach the “unapproved” courses. If they are popular and market-oriented, there will be no dearth of students. Without caring much for university degrees, they will give their own certificates. If the employers recognise them, who will then care for the UGC! As for the UGC grants, please don’t ask for it and then see who stops you from teaching them.

Turning ailment into strength
by P. Raman

INDIAN politicians and the media have displayed remarkable restraint and maturity with regard to the Prime Minister’s knee troubles and the surgery to rectify it. Leaders like Laloo Prasad Yadav who have been dubbed as the meanest were among the first to send messages to the makeshift ‘South Block’ at Breach Candy Hospital in Mumbai.

Even those who had derided Kamlapati Tripathi, EMS Namboodiripad and Jagjivan Ram now find virtues in gerontocracy. As the youngest Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi had once referred to Jyoti Basu as an ‘old man’ at a Calcutta rally. But he was forced to hurriedly rectify the remarks when it was realised that the remarks had hurt even the anti-CPM sections of the Bengali middle class. While such popular sentiments do induct a welcome sense of decorum and decency among the politicians and gossip writers, certain aspects of Vajpayee’s knee surgery have become subjects of a debate.

The first relates to Vajpayee’s reluctance to hand over the charge to another colleague during the period of his hospitalisation. Constitutionally, there is no provision for appointing an interim or officiating Prime Minister even though the President cannot function without a council of ministers to advise him. Even the office of the Deputy Prime Minister is purely descriptive and has no constitutional relevance. In the past half a century, successive Prime Ministers had avoided appointing incumbents to run the government in their absence.

The practice has been to issue a circular authorising a senior Cabinet colleague to preside over its meetings when the Prime Minister goes on foreign tour. Until Rajiv Gandhi began the practice of Prime Ministerial holidays, the question of some one officiating on his or her behalf did not arise. Things were done informally on the presumption that the incumbent is still in command. Indira Gandhi never believed in holidays except her Sundays at the final years of her life. When she went abroad on official visit, almost the entire political and bureaucratic Delhi looked deserted. The AICC office remained practically closed in the afternoons.

Thus the person who was accused of concentrating too much powers, had managed with a much smaller paraphernalia during her foreign visits. Rajiv Gandhi’s New Year holidays along with his family and close friends lasted for over 10 days in far away Andamans or Lakshadeeps. It was total relaxation, swimming and merry-making with no show of a mobile South Block following him. No one then discussed about an acting or officiating Prime Minister or the fears of a ‘sudden war’ as is being suggested now. Unlike the Rajiv holidays, which had evoked scornful remarks from some of those who are now Ministers, Vajpayee’s at his foster son-in-law’s Manali resort, had an array of officials at hand.

All this long narration is to emphasise the fact that none of the previous Prime Ministers had found the need for a mobile South Block or denying opportunity to any particular colleague. During his absence from the capital Vajpayee wanted the world to know that he continued to function directly through his mobile PMO with its base station at Delhi. Even during his two-week US sojourn L.K. Advani was only to chair the meetings. Why such an allergy towards Advani?

Advani is not an ordinary leader. He has been the real architect of the BJP. In 15 years when Vajpayee had left it with just two Lok Sabha members, Advani built the party into a gigantic organisation. He had voluntarily surrendered his right to be the Prime Minister only to maintain the integrity of the organisation he had nursed. His admirers compare his abdication of power to that of Bhishma’s renunciation. In the past two years, he had stood by Vajpayee whenever he had faced challenges from the party ranks. At Chennai and Nagpur, he refused to back the dissenters who had objected to giving excessive powers to the Prime Minister.

While doing so, Advani has also taken care to signal to Vajpayee that he is ever ready to discharge his duty as a second man in the Cabinet. Whenever Vajpayee goes out of the Capital, Advani gets himself activated. But the former deliberately ignored him. Vajpayee has also not been considerate to him. The Advani camp, but not be himself, alleges that from the very beginning attempts were made to portray their leader as a hardliner — ‘second Sardar Patel’. This was aimed at making Advani unacceptable to the NDA allies. The bitter cold war between the two camps began soon after Vajpayee’s refusal to accord the Deputy Prime Minister’s position to Advani and shift the decision making powers to his PMO rather than the wise counsel of Advani.

Thus the most important aspect of Vajpayee’s knee surgery has not been the surgery itself but an apparent intensification of this cold war. Most of the rumours of Vajpayee’s illness had their origin in the BJP itself. Last year, stories had appeared in the press about the serious nature of his ailment. His media managers were more concerned about finding out the source of the news rather than contradicting the story. Often we are being briefed about the ‘injustices’ being done to Advani. The other side gave proof of the rival campaign. Many of us frequently receive photocopies of materials appearing against the rival sides. This time, the official camp prompted the media to get responses from the NDA allies opposing the need of deciding the succession issue within the Cabinet.

The PM camp refers to an episode in which some high-profile BJP scribes had met a prominent Mumbai industrialist. This was over a month prior to his US visit. The scribes claimed to have told the business magnate that Vajpayee suffered from many complicated ailments and secret moves were being made by some NDA allies to grab the prime ministership. According to them, those like Fernandes and Chandrababu Naidu were trying to find a non-BJP successor to Vajpayee. They sought the influential tycoon’s support for Advani on the plea that he alone could maintain stability. Later, the industrialist himself is learnt to have disclosed this to Vajpayee.

It was in the background of such manipulations that Vajpayee decided to carry on the prime ministerial responsibilities from the operation theatre through a string of his PMO aides. Advani was not assigned any special role. If he had come on his own to attend the post surgery press conference, it has been only for the sake of nicety. By now he is used to such situations. Officially, the PM camp gives three reasons for Vajpayee himself running the show. They are constitutional hurdles, parallel claims from the NDA allies for the high post and the fear that any special status to any BJP leader would lead to the emergence of a rival centre of power.

The other aspect of the PM’s illness has been the unprecedented manner in which a temporary South Block has been put up at the Mumbai hospital to reassert that Vajpayee is in full command. No one reveals how much it cost to move the entire paraphernalia from Delhi to Mumbai, complete with an army to SPG men, bureaucrats, babus and technicians. This at a time when the government has been talking of severe austerity measures.

Media parties were transported for the full coverage of the event. A special media centre was put up. At one stage, a proposal came up for the live telecast of the operation but was dropped on objections from the mediamen. The official explanation for the media buildup has been that it helped avoid wild speculations about the Prime Minister’s health. There is some substance in this argument. Indira Gandhi has been the worst victim of such speculations. During an Independence Day speech she had swallowed a throat tablet. And that was enough for the media to speculate about her health. Now the problem arises when a really serious ailment afflicts the present or future Prime Minister. Once a precedent of transparent media coverage is set, its denial on future occasions would lead to further fertile media speculations.

The Prime Minister’s health is very important for the nation. No stone should be left unturned for providing the best medical aid to him or her. But the problem is that if the illness of a VIP is sought to be turned into a media event, there is every chance of it becoming an issue of public criticism. There is always a hazard in politicising what is essentially a human affliction. If insensibility to physical disability of an individual is reprehensible, its misuse for personal publicity and image buildup is also equally condemnable. Unfortunately, this is what some of Vajpayee’s image-builders tried during his crucial days in the hospital.

Apart from furthering his position within the party, Vajpayee’s aides have been able to turn his ailment into a major image-building operation. His directions to the colleagues not to flock to the hospital, the highly-publicised pre-surgery appeal to the people and the orchestrated prayers and yagnas were all aimed at working on the sentiments of a grateful nation. Prayers for the early recovery of Vajpayee were organised under full glare of publicity whereas the NRI surgeon himself repeatedly asserted that it was only a routine operation and there was no need for alarm.

Venkaiah Naidu himself led the prayers at Tirupathy. State leaders elsewhere also did so. Some held navchandi yagna. A message box was put up at the entry point of the security fortress set up at the hospital. Letters of sympathy were promptly shown on TV to further arouse emotion. Mahajan himself was there to manage this elaborate operation deification. Even cheap ‘Laloo Chalisa’ - type couplets were encouraged for the effect. It is too early to judge the impact of such artificial buildups. But as Vajpayee resumes normal duty, he will emerge as a stronger leader within his own party. 

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

Realisation of the supreme
All of us keep swinging between the two extremes of happiness and sorrow throughout our lives. The feeling of a transient joy in our daily life arouses in us the desire for an everlasting bliss. The main receiver of all positive and negative experience is our mind. All feeling of joy or sorrow vanishes when there is no link between the body and the mind… Everlasting bliss is possible only for realised soul.

— Khwaja Frid-ud-Din Attar