E D I T O R I A L   P A G E

EDITORIALS

Left out in the cold
THE CPM leadership had looked bewildered when the Election Commission stuck to its decision to follow the prescribed norms for granting a "national" or "regional" status to political parties. On the strength of the percentage of votes it had received in the Lok Sabha elections the CPM lost the right to be recognised as a national party. 

Go, Goa and gone
GOA is giving a bad name to small states. With an Assembly of 40 members and half a dozen parties, some of them led by former Chief Ministers, politics is always in a flux. The churning is not being done with a wooden contraption but in a mighty blender, with the result political formations are changed overnight and beyond easy recognition.

W. Asia: time running out
IT was "intifada" (Palestinian uprising) in Israel that ultimately led to the signing of the 1993 Oslo peace accord. But the historic development had upset the Arab leaders as they had not been involved in it.

OpinioN

Towards an era of great powers
The enigma of new foreign policy
by Bhupinder Brar
FOR the Indian foreign policy establishment, last few months had been a period of triumph and tremendous rejoicing. What has been pulled off seems to be nothing less than a diplomatic coup. In one fell swoop, we have in our kitty both America and Russia. The former is now our “natural ally”. The latter not only continues to be our “traditional ally” but has also become a “strategic partner”.

Food: tackling the surplus problem
by R. N. Malik
“EXCESS of everything is bad” is an old saying. There are numerous examples which prove the truth behind this saying — excess of rainfall, cold, heat, etc. But nobody had thought that an excess of food production too could be counter-productive in India. In our school days, the geography teacher used to tell that “Americans throw their surplus (unsold) grains into the sea to maintain the price stability.”

MIDDLE

A matter of commonsense
by A. C. Tuli
A friend has recently occupied a flat in a newly built group housing society. The other day when I dropped in at his place to wish him home-sweet-home, I was rather surprised to find him looking somewhat agitated. I thought it was the weather that was rattling him.

Realpolitik

by P. Raman
RSS, BJP on collision course?
IDLE explanations and show of harmony cannot any more gloss over the ongoing bitter ideological battle between the RSS parivar and the BJP’s ruling elite. The disobedience by the outgrown big son is fast leading to a more open confrontation, with both sides re-emphasising their commitment to their respective priorities and programmes. Both have conflicting compulsions and interest groups to serve. And judging by the increasingly sharper pronouncements, areas of common ground are fast-shrinking.

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

Left out in the cold

THE CPM leadership had looked bewildered when the Election Commission stuck to its decision to follow the prescribed norms for granting a "national" or "regional" status to political parties. On the strength of the percentage of votes it had received in the Lok Sabha elections the CPM lost the right to be recognised as a national party. The fact that it was in power in three states and had more members than some of the recognised national parties in the Lok Sabha did not impress the rule-bound Election Commission. The relegation of the CPM to the category of a regional party must have hurt even those who do not subscribe to its ideology. However, the CPM leadership could have proved its detractors wrong by giving the just-concluded three-day special session in Thiruvananthapuram the trappings of a national level stock-taking exercise. Instead, the leaders went through the motions of stating what has been stated time and again not just by Left-wing politicians, but also by those who have taken the country for a ride in the garb of promoting social justice. Had the CPM come out with a more politically relevant agenda than the one it discussed over three days in Kerala, it would have attracted more media attention than it did. The RSS conclave in Agra was a success not merely because of the fact that the Bharatiya Janata Party is in power at the Centre. It attracted attention and editorial notice because of the controversial statements of its top leaders. The CPM leaders, in sharp contrast, neither took any controversial, yet politically correct, stand on important national issues nor offered a viable alternative political structure for replacing the "corrupt Congress" and the "communal BJP". The tragedy with the Left movement has been its tendency to create history by making monumental political mistakes and then spending time and energy on discussing the "historical mistakes". The Thiruvananthapuram meeting was no different.

The CPM leaders once again expressed regret over not allowing Mr Jyoti Basu to accept the offer of heading the United Front government at the Centre in 1996. They also realised the mistake they had all along been making by offering outside support to various political formations rather than become a part of it. Next time the CPM will not hesitate to join a front which may be in a position to form a non-communal and corruption-free government at the Centre. Next time, how soon? When will the CPM leaders grow up and give up the habit of crying over spilt milk? For three days they even allowed themselves the luxury of reviving the "good old" third front for offering to the people of India freedom from the communal politics of the BJP and the corruption of the Congress. The news of most of the founders of the third front having sought political comfort in the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance has evidently not reached the ears of Mr Harkishen Singh Surjeet and his friends in the CPM. Mr Chandrababu Naidu's anti-Congress tactical alliance with the NDA is old hat. He was last reported seeking a dialogue on "important regional issues" with Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray. The first flight after returning from a business-seeking trip to Japan would land Mr Naidu in Mumbai. All else can wait. A special emissary has been sent to Mumbai in advance to ensure the success of the proposed "regional summit". For every secular Naidu that is lost to the forces of communalism the CPM would have to find at least one suitable replacement for giving shape and substance to its third front-revival dream. Besides, it will also have to decide whether it has a problem only with the Congress brand of corruption. Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav, Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav and Ms Mayawati should have no problem in supporting such a political arrangement for capturing political space at the Centre as does not require of them to prove their personal and political integrity. The CPM will also have to perform the political miracle of making the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party dine at the same table. 

Go, Goa and gone

GOA is giving a bad name to small states. With an Assembly of 40 members and half a dozen parties, some of them led by former Chief Ministers, politics is always in a flux. The churning is not being done with a wooden contraption but in a mighty blender, with the result political formations are changed overnight and beyond easy recognition. One such political border-crossing took place during the weekend and with predictable results. The Chief Minister has lost majority support but will not resign, upholding the state’s time-honoured tradition. The legislative test is today and he will give place to the third Chief Minister in the 15-month-old Assembly. In this game of shifting loyalty, the Congress is the biggest loser. It won 22 seats in June last year and is now left with barely six as it has undergone a six-way split. What is new even by Goa’s brisk to-ing and fro-ing is that eight Congress MLAs have joined the BJP, boosting its strength to 18 and helping it to attract and entice political stragglers. Its Chief Minister-designate, Mr Manohar Parrikar, has sewn up the support of another three members making his claim credible. The latest crisis was created by a split in the Congress with four of the 10 legislators walking out to swell the ranks of the would-be ruling party. Earlier a five-member team left to form its own group, obviously to increase the bargaining power. The outgoing Chief Minister, Mr Francisco Sardinha, was a Congress MLA until November last year when he toppled the earlier Luizhino Faleiro government and made everyone of the 11 fellow travellers a minister. Now somebody else is playing the same game, with the same fallout, but in a dreary reversal of roles. The BJP has remained intact and so has the once mighty Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party with its two members. Only one-man outfits do not split and there is an independent, Mr Isidore Fernandes, who is so principled that he backs every government!

Goa’s religious mix, language multiplicity and stifled political growth have led to this promiscuity. Goa’s freedom movement was mostly fought outside and by outsiders like Mr Madhu Dandavate. The Konkani-speaking Christians and Hindus walk separate ways. The Marathi-speaking Hindus and Muslims are not normally on the same side of the fence. There is no communal or linguistic hostility, but there is no political unity or maturity. Stable governments began and ended with Dayanand Bandodkar and his daughter Sashikala Kakodkar. The decade-long agitation to merge the state with Maharashtra was a genuine movement, but once a referendum rejected the proposal, its cementing effect withered away. The Congress is leaderless and suffers from having too many leaders. Individuals win on their own steam and go away from the party when personal interests spur them. The BJP does not have an RSS parentage and is a recent phenomenon. It surprised many by winning both parliamentary seats and by doing well in the Assembly elections too. The Christian-based parties have become weak to the point of being irrelevant. Given this background, it is doubtful if the new Chief Minister can ever hope to head a stable arrangement.

W. Asia: time running out

IT was "intifada" (Palestinian uprising) in Israel that ultimately led to the signing of the 1993 Oslo peace accord. But the historic development had upset the Arab leaders as they had not been involved in it. The "Al-Aqsa intifada", having claimed the lives of over 110 Palestinians in nearly 24 days, has not only brought the Arabs together to collectively express their sympathy for the Palestinian cause but also their resentment against the Israeli tactics for aborting the birth (or rebirth) of an independent state of Palestine. The signing of what came to be known as the land-for-peace deal in the Norwegian capital, without the world getting wind of it, had distanced most of the Arab leaders from Mr Yasser Arafat, if not the Palestinian cause. Today whether they like or dislike Mr Arafat, they have to go with him, as they have shown at Cairo under the banner of the Arab League. The reason is that they cannot ignore the call of the Palestinian people, who are more or less behind Mr Arafat and have lost their patience in their dealings with Israel. The Arab leaders did not listen to the League's call for snapping their ties with Israel, with the exception of Tunisia. But all the 14 Heads of State who met at Cairo on Sunday denounced Israel for its "belligerent attitude" towards the Palestinians and demanded an international enquiry into the circumstances leading to the latest spate of violence. Thus they made it known to the world at large that they would no longer tolerate the injustice being perpetrated on a people deprived of their homeland for half a century. They also set aside $ 1 billion for the Palestinian cause

The Arab leaders' expression of their willingness for the continuance of the peace negotiations with Israel shows their realisation that taking any extremist line will not help the cause so dear to them. The moderation in the Arab League stand is perhaps because Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak, with the support of the Saudis, has been able to convince the rest of the participants in the emergency meeting that this is the time to end violence and create conditions for negotiations. Israel has welcomed the Arab stance, but this is not enough. Isreali Prime Minister Ehud Barak's call for a "time out" will also not do. This "time out", he feels, may cool down the tempers, resulting in a congenial atmosphere for reviving the stalled dialogue. Mr Barak's approach is unrealistic. The hardening of the attitude on the Palestinian side began when Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon visited the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem in complete disregard of the sentiments of the Palestinians. The highly provocative act enraged the Palestinian masses, causing fresh unrest throughout the area. Then on one pretext after another the Israelis have been delaying the withdrawal of their troops from what can be called the Palestinian West Bank as per the agreement reached with the US mediation after the Oslo accord. When the time came for finding a solution to another vexed issue --- the control of East Jerusalem, also known as Arab Jerusalem --- the Israelis took a stand which virtually meant denying sovereignty to the Palestinians over their future capital. When the situation is such, how does Mr Barak expect Mr Arafat of meeting "the deadline for restoring calm"? The USA has its own difficulties and may not put more pressure on Israel to stick to the commitment made earlier to part with the Arab land under its occupation for buying peace. The Israelis themselves will have to take bold decisions, for they will be one of the beneficiaries if peace is finally established in this most volatile region of the world. 

Towards an era of great powers
The enigma of new foreign policy
by Bhupinder Brar

FOR the Indian foreign policy establishment, last few months had been a period of triumph and tremendous rejoicing. What has been pulled off seems to be nothing less than a diplomatic coup. In one fell swoop, we have in our kitty both America and Russia. The former is now our “natural ally”. The latter not only continues to be our “traditional ally” but has also become a “strategic partner”.

At such festive times, raising doubts appears utterly inappropriate. Awkward questions spoil the party. So what if we have not been told what precisely the meaning of someone’s being a “natural ally” is, or how that meaning is different from someone else’s being a “traditional ally” or a “strategic partner”. Clarity depends, after all, on certitudes, and certitudes, someone may argue, belonged to the bygone era of bipolarity and the Cold War. In the age of uncertain transitions, precision is passe. It is ambiguity that is at a premium. It helps us open ourselves to new options and bide for our time. In the meanwhile, why should we put our eggs in a dozen different baskets?

I too hate being a damp squib. But I doubt that we can really afford to hold back the awkward questions. Pleasant they certainly are not, but such questions have an annoying way of coming back when they have to be answered any way. The point is that if we try and answer them now, we may be saved of some later day embarrassments and disappointments.

Let us dwell for a while, then, on a very basic problem here. Our two “allies” prefer two very different kinds of world order and there is inescapable opposition between the two. A unipolar world obviously suits our “natural” ally, the USA, the most. This, the logic of realpolitik tells us, it will want to preserve for as long as possible, its protestations to the contrary notwithstanding. The same logic tells us that other than the USA, unipolarity suits none. Russia, our traditional ally, therefore, wants unipolarity to be replaced with multipolarity. In that world system there would be not one or two super powers but several great powers. Such a system had existed for more than two centuries before World War II and Russia had always counted as one of these great powers.

Let us remind ourselves of some basic facts about pre-Soviet Russia to judge its post-Soviet prospects. The size and strength of the pre-Soviet Russian economy were nowhere near those of other European great powers. Russia was, in fact, quite a backward feudal state. It was expansionist no doubt, yet politically it was not too well integrated within its boundaries. It counted as a great power nonetheless for two reasons: the size of its conventional armed forces, quite disproportionate to its economy, and the ambition of its rulers which made that disproportion possible. In today’s comparative terms Russia also suffers from economic and other weaknesses, but it still retains very large conventional forces’ awesome stockpile. Its new President is no Yeltsin. Mr Putin is ambitious and assertive.

In short, post-Soviet Russia has just as good reasons to count as a great power as pre-Soviet Russia had, and it wants to be recognised as such. It has realised that such recognition in the West will come only reluctantly and grudgingly, depend on its striking “strategic partnerships” with non-Western Asian centres of power: China, Japan and India. The first two are recognised centres whereas India stands at the threshold of such a status. Hence the strategic partnership suits India’s nationalist ambitions of power too. Such ambitions, it is quite clear, the BJP-led government nurtures and pursues with fewer inhibitions than any other government in the past.

The need for a “strategic partnership” between India and its “traditional ally” is, therefore, easy to understand. The declaration signed during Mr Putin’s visit commits the two countries to work for the creation of a multipolar world. What is not easy to see is how Indian foreign policy makers plan to run with the hares and hunt with the hounds. There can be no way in which multipolarity can be promoted without undermining unipolarity. There is no reason to assume that our “natural ally”, the USA, will ever want to voluntarily abdicate its status as a global hegemon. Be it Spain, Portugal, Holland, France or Great Britain, no hegemon in history has ever done so. They either decline economically or they are challenged and toppled by rising powers. Compared to other industrial economies, the American economy had been declining throughout the 1970s and the 1980s, but in the 1990s the process has been reversed in a convincing manner. The challenge to American unipolarity is not, therefore, going to be economic competition. It will have to be political and institutional.

The USA will surely want to know on which side of the fence India will be found when the chips are down. Sooner or later, perhaps sooner than later, the “natural ally” will start judging India’s policies and actions in that light. It was not easy to maintain equidistance from the two super powers in the heydays of nonalignment; it will be even more difficult, indeed impossible, to maintain equi-proximity now.

So, I return to the question I had raised in these columns some time ago (September 25): what sense does it make to talk of the USA as a “natural ally”? A government as aggressively nationalist as the present one obviously would not want the perpetuity of unipolarity. That would effectively put an end to the prospect of India emerging as “global player” and as one of the poles in the multipolar world.

I can no more than hazard a guess here. The guess is that a clear divergence has come to exist between the national interests of India and the “natural” interests of a class of “transnational” Indians. To the highly mobile members of this class, the place of their origin is incidental; constant calculations of profits determines their location. The divide had perhaps always existed but the balance of forces was such in the pre-globalisation period that it was possible to bridge the divide. The trans-national class those days was so small that it could not assert itself against the national consensus.

Now it has succeeded in hijacking the consensus, and also perhaps capturing the minds of those who make the “foreign” policy of India.

The writer is Professor, Department of Political Science, Panjab University, Chandigarh.

Food: tackling the surplus problem
by R. N. Malik

“EXCESS of everything is bad” is an old saying. There are numerous examples which prove the truth behind this saying — excess of rainfall, cold, heat, etc. But nobody had thought that an excess of food production too could be counter-productive in India. In our school days, the geography teacher used to tell that “Americans throw their surplus (unsold) grains into the sea to maintain the price stability.” We did not believe it. He used to bemoan, “Will a day come ever when India produces surplus grains enough to throw a bit into the sea as a token of self-sufficiency”. That day has arrived. Instead of throwing into the sea, the surplus grains are stocked in the FCI godowns with no tangible way to dispose of.

Today India has a surplus food stock (wheat and rice in the ratio 3:1) of 42.5 mt but is unable to export it till it is subsidised on the Chinese pattern. For example, Sri Lanka needs 10 lakh tonnes of wheat but it is planning to import from Australia because Australian wheat is cheaper (Rs 450 per qtl.) and more proteinous.

The normal buffer stock limit is 10 mt to take care of crop failures during untimely rain, floods, cyclones or any other natural calamity. But it is now four-fold. Over 42.5 mt of foodgrains is not a small amount and the government does not know how to dispose of this huge stock without incurring losses. The Minister for Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution, Mr Shanta Kumar, spells out three proposals: distribute among the poor and the hungry (how?); distribute foodgrains to the workers engaged in development projects under the “Food for Work” programme in lieu of cash; and allot wheat to 782 MPs in lieu of cash under MPs Local Area Development Scheme.

The first proposal is workable at a huge cost to cover 11 crore of population with one tonne free wheat per family to dispose of at least 2.5 mt of surplus grains. But then the government will have to afford a price of 18,000 crore for free distribution. The distribution of wheat under the remaining two proposals will come back to the grain markets in the surplus states because the targeted consumers have already stocked their foodgrains required for annual consumption. Moreover, workers may refuse wheat, as they need hard cash to meet their daily needs. This proposal can be successful in food scarcity areas like the flood-affected parts of West Bengal or the cyclone-hit areas of Orissa or the drought-affected regions of Rajasthan and Gujarat. But the success of this programme will depend more on the issue price and the utility of the projects undertaken and their labour intensity.

This is only the first part of the problem. The second part is more worrisome — should the government go ahead to procure paddy and wheat this year and in subsequent years when the FCI godowns are overflowing with grains?

The crux of the problem is this: (i) How to immediately dispose of the existing food stock of 42.5 mt, part of which is lying in rotting conditions? (ii) Where to stock the additional arrivals of 25 mt in the central pool this year? (iii) How to cope with this problem in subsequent years assuming a 4 per cent annual increase in food production?

The only possible solutions are as given here. (a) The government must find an outlet in the international market to sell at least 30 mt of foodgrains per year at subsidised rates and salvages some cost.

(b) Distribute 25 per cent grains to the poorest of the poor families and forget about the subsidy involved — the flood-affected villages of West Bengal. By this measure the government may have to bear a financial burden of Rs 8000 crore, but at least food will not go waste.

(c) Distribute 15 mt of foodgrains in the scarcity-hit areas of the North-East, Orissa, Gujarat and Rajasthan at a subsidised rate of Rs 3.5 per kg under the Food for Work scheme.

(d) Make earnest efforts to export at least 10 mt of wheat to other countries even at a subsidised rate of Rs 4.5 per kg.

(e) Send some foodgrains to the military, the BSF, the CSIF and police centres.

The problem with India is that food production is not uniform throughout the country. Wheat and paddy are major crops in Punjab, Haryana and Western UP and 60 per cent procurement is from these three states only. Therefore, the cost due to handling transportation and storage is very high — Rs 270 to 300 per qtl. However, this is one area where research is needed to bring down this cost to Rs 150 per qtl. Because of heavy cash accruals, farmers have strictly adhered to the paddy-wheat cycle only. They grow fodder crops at a very limited scale. Rice is exportable but not wheat. It is the glut that is creating a problem.

Another factor causing concern is that the government is in the business of foodgrains. The basic principle of administration is that “government has no business to be in business”. The FCI was born when the country was having a recurring problem of food shortages, and traders had a tendency to hoard the stock to jack up prices. Now the situation is reverse and the FCI has outlived its utility. The government is unable to come out of this imbroglio because the farmers will not let it in. Farmers have developed a strong fear that if the government or the FCI stops purchasing paddy or wheat at the MSP, traders will bring them to their knees by refusing the purchase on one pretext or the other. This fear is misplaced if the government withdraws gradually to limit its role to purchasing 10 mt of foodgrains.

The root cause of the problem lies in the fact that the average land-holding per family is very small — 3.5 acres. So the farmer always cribs for more. He considers the government to be pro-farmers only if the MSP is increased regularly like the installment of dearness allowance.

In the tubewell-irrigated areas like the Karnal belt, the yield of the paddy-wheat axis is worth Rs 27,000 per acre. With an expenditure of Rs 11,000, the net farm earning is Rs 16,000 per acre or Rs 56,000 per year per holding. In the canal-irrigated areas the net earning is Rs 11,000 per acre. If the average holding was 10 acres per farmer, he would not mind a stable price of Rs 450 per qtl. as marginal utility would have given him Rs 1.60 lakh per year from a 10 acre holding, sufficient for leading a contented life. Therefore, in the final analysis, the solution of this problem lies in taking the following policy decisions:

* The government must find out an outlet of 30 mt of export so that the remunerative price of Rs 580 per qtl. of wheat is sustainable.

* The government must gradually withdraw to limit its role of procurement to 10 mt of foodgrains annually. Procurement should not exceed the distribution sales.

* Farmers must learn to switch on to other cash crops — cotton or sugarcane — and reduce the production of wheat and paddy by 20 per cent.

* Scrap the PDS which has outlived its usefulness and has become obsolete. Revive it only in drought or any other national calamity-hit states.

* Release agriculture from the price control fetters. Let the market forces operate in regulating the production and distribution of foodgrains.

* Downsize the FCI to have a limited role to procure 10 mt of foodgrains and explore avenues for the export of foodgrains.

* Devise ways to reduce the procurement and storage costs to Rs 150 per qtl.

* The role of the procurement agencies should become an instrument for market intervention rather than a guaranteed buying mechanism for the farmers’ produce.

A matter of commonsense
by A. C. Tuli

A friend has recently occupied a flat in a newly built group housing society. The other day when I dropped in at his place to wish him home-sweet-home, I was rather surprised to find him looking somewhat agitated. I thought it was the weather that was rattling him.

“Are you okay?” I enquired, pulling up a chair to sit near him.

“I am all right,” he replied, sounding tired and put out.

“Then why do you look like one who has just returned from a funeral?”

The jibe induced a wan smile, and he replied. “Oh, do I really look like that? But it is not my fault. When people behave with you so irrationally, and all because you have given them a very sensible advice, you’re apt to feel shocked.”

“Won’t you tell me what exactly has happened?” I asked.

“Today, a general meeting of our group housing society was held,” he began with a sigh, “to discuss the building of a temple within the precincts of the society. At this meeting, the general secretary of our society said: ‘Every housing society in our area has a temple of its own. We, too, should have one in our society. I, therefore, propose that each member of our society contribute Rs 500 for building the temple. Does anybody have any objection to this proposal?’

“Now, I am not against temples, though I have definitely some reservations about building them within the four walls of a housing society. It is because a group housing society can have people belonging to different communities as its members. So, it is not fair to take care of the religious sentiments of one community by ignoring those of the others. But what I had in mind to say at this meeting was altogether different.

“Our housing society, you must have noticed, is still incomplete. Roads have not been metalled so far, the plot reserved for children park in the society is still to be developed, trees have not been planted along the boundary wall of the society, and so many other tasks are crying for our attention. But the society has no funds for all these things. The expenditure it has already incurred on building flats has far exceeded the original estimated limit. So, at the moment the society is in a financial crisis. In such a situation, I don’t think building a temple in the society is an imperative need. So at this meeting I dared to express my views a trifle too candidly, and the result was a storm breaking over my head.

“Member after member of our society rose to lambaste me for opposing their proposal to build a temple. My desperate protests that I had done nothing of the sort were brushed aside. I heard one of them saying that he did not know that an atheist had come to live among them. ‘If this member does not believe in temples, he should keep his counsel to himself,’ roared this member casting a hostile look at me.

“I was flabbergasted at the turn our discussion had taken at the meeting. All that I had asked them was to postpone the building of the temple to some future time and first complete the various pending works of the society. ‘Don’t you need metalled roads in the society?’ I had asked them rhetorically when I stood up to speak. ‘Don’t you need a park in the society where our children can play? Don’t you want to see trees and flowering-plants in our society? And for all this we need funds. Let us first complete these tasks. We can build a temple later on when the financial condition of our society is sound.’

“They misconstrued the meanings of my words. You won’t believe it that tempers ran high to such as extent that people there came very near to calling me names.

“I left the meeting in a huff. But, after returning home, I have been asking myself if I should have gone to a meeting where even plain commonsense had no chance of succeeding.”

RSS, BJP on collision course?
by P. Raman

IDLE explanations and show of harmony cannot any more gloss over the ongoing bitter ideological battle between the RSS parivar and the BJP’s ruling elite. The disobedience by the outgrown big son is fast leading to a more open confrontation, with both sides re-emphasising their commitment to their respective priorities and programmes. Both have conflicting compulsions and interest groups to serve. And judging by the increasingly sharper pronouncements, areas of common ground are fast-shrinking.

This is the power of glasnost which has already sucked Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee into the vortex of coalition politics and compromises. The more one is into the glasnost, the more one loses identity. When Mr Vajpayee’s glasnost eventually leads to peristroika, it is bound to face the same pathetic plight of the Soviet establishment. Undoubtedly, Mr Vajpayee is deep into it. He may have made a casual visit to the RSS headquarters at Nagpur. But his quick withdrawal of the Swayamsevak statement reveals the power of the glasnost and the absence of meeting ground between the two sides.

Three aspects of the RSS-Vajpayee confrontation call for special focus. First, Mr Vajpayee has not only taken an independent course but begun cautious counterattacks without coming into the open. Now he thinks he has grown to the status of a national leader. It would be naive on his part to be a prisoner of an exclusivist ideology. He is unrelenting in the face of the RSS assaults, and repeatedly directs his nominee, Mr Bangaru Lakshman, to make sharp statements. Soon after the assaults from Agra, Mr Lakshman declared: “We have to get votes from the people. Not from the Sangh or Swadeshi Jagran Manch alone”.

Right from the Chennai BJP session, the RSS establishment has been debating what to do with the wayward BJP. Now that the RSS has resserted its position, the Vajpayee camp seems to have launched an elaborate offensive. As a result, the RSS ceased to be the darling of the media. The media is fully used to denigrate the RSS line. Ably aided by the foreign business lobby, the RSS leaders are aware of fresh moves to demonise it. At Agra certain speakers had warned the ranks about this media assaults under official patronage.

Second, Mr Vajpayee’s counter-offensive has its echo within the RSS establishment. In the BJP, there are at least three points of views. While a big chunk of it composed of those in power or aspiring for it is fully with the Vajpayee camp, a considerable section shudders to think of showing disrespect to a movement through which they have grown up. Others are in total dilemma. At the moment, it is hazardous to guess the strength of each group. To a lesser extent, it has its echo in the RSS establishment as well. There have been vigorous efforts to cause a wedge within the RSS hierarchy. Top patriarchies like Mr Sudarshan and Mr Sheshadri are incorrigible hardliners. The PM’s men are now working on a few second-rankers in the RSS establishment to build up a bulwark.

For the first time in RSS history, the schism surfaced at an open function. While the top bosses, ably assisted by Mr Mohan Bhagat, Mr Sureshrao Ketkar etc, tried to demolish the Vajpayee line at Agra, Mr Madan Dass Devi and Mr M.G. Vydya took a softer line. Mr Madan Dass Devi even took the plea that the government was functioning under the constraints of a coalition. For the first time, again, the schism reflected even at the press briefings. Mr Madan Dass Devi tried to soften the harsh remarks by others. However, the same day, Mr Ketkar during his briefing warned the Vajpayee Government that it would regret if it ignored the RSS. Though this is a minor schism for an institution like the RSS, it shows the penetration of the PMO.

Third, and most important, has been the inexplicable role played by Mr L.K. Advani. In the thick of the mutual diatribe, the Home Minister found it necessary to register his presence at the Agra meet and listen to Mr Sudarshan’s bitter criticism of his government’s policies. This coincides with his own revelation that he did not support the kid glove approach to the Taliban hijackers - some thing which the RSS had denounced. Mr Advani also revealed his resignation after the massacre of Amarnath pilgrims on which the RSS outfits had called a bandh against the Vajpayee Government. Mr Advani’s discomfiture over the vehement denial of the second position in the Cabinet is widely known. For about a year, Mr Advani has been taking pains to remove the impression that he was a Hindutva hardliner. Clearly, this was aimed at making himself more acceptable to the NDA allies. Why then suddenly he changed the course and made himself dearer to the RSS establishment?

In his subsequent defence of his RSS links, he averred that for him adherence to the former was more important than the survival of the government. He proved this by drawing a parallel to the formation of the BJP when some in the old Janata Party forced them to sever their links with the RSS. More significant, he reiterated the ‘moral influence of the RSS on the government’ by comparing it with Gandhiji. No one can any more ignore this proxy war between the Advani and Vajpayee camps. Time alone can say where and how will it develop. But it clearly exists. Mr Lakshman’s second statement, carefully drafted at Mumbai and simultaneously released at different centres, clearly differentiated the BJP’s position from that of the RSS. Its tone and tenor makes it more as a warning to Mr Advani than the RSS establishment itself. Thus it is not a clean stand-off between the RSS and the Vajpayee camp but a three-way confrontation. Terms like ‘Vajpayee loyalists’ and ‘Advani loyalists’ are freely used in this battle of wits.

Formally Mr Madan Dass Devi is in charge of ‘coordination’ with the BJP and the Prime Minister. May be some second-rankers — mostly to enhance their own importance — are trying to bring the two camps together. Apart from this, the mediators have abandoned all serious patch-up moves. Instead, both camps have begun avidly analysing utterances of the rival leaders with suspicion and fears. Even the hangers-on make derisive comments about the other side which are amusingly appreciated by the respective bosses. This is becoming an interesting pastime for the wizkids in the rival camps.

The contempt for each other can be gauged from the apparent lampooning of Mr Vajpayee by no lesser a leader than Mr H.V. Sheshadri — right in front the shakha crowd at the Agra jamboree. He compared the wayward BJP — or Mr Vajpayee personally — with a mouse that was turned into a roaring lion by a merciful sadhu. The analogy is striking in many respects. Will the sadhu take back the varadaan from the mouse? Or will the creator of the roaring lion himself turn out to be its victim?

While we may have to wait longer to resolve the Sheshadri riddle, the two camps already find very little in common. Ironically, Mr Vajpayee’s perceived stability and the possibility of being in power for a longer period have made the RSS leaders more impatient. The drift is rapid, and there seems to be a competition to use every issue to snub the other side. Of late, the two are not only taking diametrically opposite postures on more and more issues but make it a point to emphasise the correctness of their respective stand. This is more aimed at convincing and consolidating the ranks rather than a political tit-for-tat.

Take the minority controversy fired by Mr Vajpayee’s ‘message from Nagpur’. Initially, the RSS tried to downplay it claiming that it also had welcomed the entry of minorities. But when the BJP signalled that it meant business and began formulating its own brand of secularism by the en masse coopting of the minorities, the RSS felt upset. Soon its boss Mr K.S. Sudarshan hit back with his own ‘message’ from Nagpur on Vijayadashami day. He put spoke on the BJP’s moves by asking the minorities first to ‘Indianise’ themselves and join the ‘mainstream’. Mr Sudarshan is not known for making off-cuff remarks. Later he reiterated the same pre-condition in the RSS weekly Panchjanya with more virulance. Mr Vajpayee, on his part, was quick to retort. From his hospital bed, he called for “creating greater tolerance and respect for our linguistic, ethnic, regional and religious diversity” — an apparent defiance of Mr Sudarshan’s conditionalities to the minorities.

Mr Vajpayee also “complimented people belonging to all communities” for “greater social cohesion and communal peace” under him. This is no music for the RSS establishment. Two days later, Mr Sudarshan and others used the Agra platform of the RSS to retaliate against the Prime Minister with full fury. They put many conditions like formation of ‘swadeshi church’ and acceptance of Hindu ancestry and thus equating patriotism with the Hindu ‘culture’. By aggressively pushing the Hindutva frenzy, the RSS leaders deliberately tried to scuttle Mr Vajpayee’s liberal agenda. The RSS also sees red in Vajpayee’s Mumbai appeal which it describes as a bid to totally detach himself and his party from the Hindutva movement. His growing tendency to equate himself with the ‘nation’ and project himself as being above party politics is seen as a dangerous portent. What is the use of putting the stake of the entire Hindutva movement with such a person, RSS stalwarts asked each other during their informal discussions at Agra.

Mr Vajpayee’s glasnost seems to have already put him at a point of no-return. Any retreat at this stage can be only at the cost of his hard-earned national status and acceptability. Thus the only option for him now is to continue with the process of reform and restructuring of his BJP. The only question before the RSS is how far can it compromise on its own Hindutva ideology and how long can it wait.

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

If you wish to attain the goal,

— Thus Spake the Buddha