E D I T O R I A L   P A G E

EDITORIALS

Kashmir cries for sanity
FOR centuries it has been known as the heaven on earth. For a decade it has been considered a veritable hell indeed, “the most dangerous place on the globe”. Such unwelcome epithets have defiled Kashmir just because it has become an unwilling setting for a dangerous and unholy political game.

Feel-no-good factor
FINANCE Minister Yashwant Sinha, the twice-born dessiminator of the feel-good factor, is not feeling good these days. He ruefully admitted at the weekend that the economy would grow only by 5.8 per cent this financial year. Just three weeks earlier he had stoically maintained or stridently asserted, depending on how one looks at it, that the growth rate would not be less than 7 per cent.

Jharkhand conundrum
The Jharkhand leaders have shown their true colours even before the new state could come into being on November 9. The last minute touching of feet of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee by Jharkhand Mukti Morcha leader Shibu Soren could not earn the latter the promise of becoming the first Chief Minister of the 27th state of the Indian Union.

OPINION

NARMADA DAM & NATIONALISM
How to judge right from wrong
by Bhupinder Brar
WHILE presiding over the resumption of construction work at the Narmada Dam site, Mr L.K. Advani made some remarks which a statesman could have easily avoided. But since he chose to make them, and since the Press has promptly picked them up and highlighted them, we the citizens of this free and democratic country must take notice and register our protest.

Large dams: to build or not to build
by G.S. Dhillon
TO help us in making up our mind on the issue of large dams, the World Commission on Dams (WCD) appointed a five-member expert committee for examining it in depth, considering the Indian scenario. The committee has submitted its findings to the WCD. The WCD will soon submit its recommendations to the international community.

MIDDLE

When our first sub arrived
by Trilochan Singh Trewn
I HAPPENED to be the command engineer officer when India’s first submarine joined the eastern naval command in 1967. A team of Soviet specialists of different submarine equipment also arrived simultaneously. Earlier, I had visited H.M.S. Dreadnought in the UK but that was an atomic submarine of British design.

REALPOLITIK

Raoism back as ‘winning formula’
by P. Raman
IN the last fortnight, six Indian States have got new Chief Ministers. Of this, half of them had their reining Chief Ministers out and new ones inducted in their place. They range from an orderly, well-planned change-over in the Left-ruled West Bengal to the most ugly sort of manipulations in Goa. The exit of the highly respected Jyoti Basu resembled more a smooth change of monastic hierarchy.

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

Kashmir cries for sanity

FOR centuries it has been known as the heaven on earth. For a decade it has been considered a veritable hell indeed, “the most dangerous place on the globe”. Such unwelcome epithets have defiled Kashmir just because it has become an unwilling setting for a dangerous and unholy political game. Endless and senseless bloodletting has given an entirely different connotation to the word “Kashmiriyat” and disfigured the patented picture of a smiling community. After witnessing mindless blood and gore, the conscience of the dazed public seems to be finally stirring up once again. The unfazed display of grief over the death of the respected Shia leader Agha Syed Mehdi last week has provided yet another proof — if any was needed at all — that the Kashmiris are getting tired of the never-ending violence. While it is important that leaders of all political hues, including some separatists, joined the funeral procession, what is even more significant is the outpouring of grief by more than 70,000 people who came out on the streets on their own. Many of them had traversed tens of kilometres to be with the family in its hour of sorrow. There was no political sloganeering; just a primordial outpouring of suppressed grief, which no diktats of separatists could have dammed. This was the combined voice of that nebulous entity called the common man that can turn the tide of time.

It will be wrong to read too much into this one incident but if seen in the backdrop of similar incidents in the recent past, it becomes obvious that Kashmir today is at a defining moment. Popular sentiment against violence is at its peak. After giving the AK rifles and IED explosives a long rope, the Kashmiris seem to be pining for the good old days of peace and quiet. Inherent Kashmiriyat seems to be coming to the surface once again. Now is the time to lend a helping hand to the voices of reason and peace. What needs to be underlined at the very outset is the fact that opinion against terrorism and violence is not a vote for the administration. In fact, any attempt by the government to carve out a role for itself may even be counter-productive. All that is expected of it is to give a go-by to politics for once and adopt a dynamic and imaginative approach. At a time when political sentiment is reasonable instead of being tyrannical, Delhi needs to go into a “passive” mode for once and act only as a catalyst. There are enough respected and responsible leaders of Kashmir who can take charge and channelise the hopes and aspirations of average Kashmiris into a constructive crusade for peace. That is exactly what happened in Punjab. The problem there, as in Kashmir, arose because popular sentiments were neglected even when these were not anti-national. Perhaps the time has come to make amends. The “gamble” may be risky but well worth the effort. The boy who took two militant bullets to save his father represents the new, defiant face of Kashmir. His childhood is at peril and has to be preserved at all costs, like the freedom and integrity of the country.

Feel-no-good factor

FINANCE Minister Yashwant Sinha, the twice-born dessiminator of the feel-good factor, is not feeling good these days. He ruefully admitted at the weekend that the economy would grow only by 5.8 per cent this financial year. Just three weeks earlier he had stoically maintained or stridently asserted, depending on how one looks at it, that the growth rate would not be less than 7 per cent. That figure is sacrosanct for him since he had projected it in his last budget and refused to change his opinion although several research organisations had scaled it down to 6 per cent or thereabout. The RBI lowered its target from 7 per cent to 6.5 per cent; similarly the Planning Commission, the Institute for Economic Growth and the CMIE (Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy) had shaved off their estimates. All this does not mean that Mr Sinha is being either unreasonable or obdurate. He is robustly optimistic and firmly believes that his repeated statements will improve the market sentiment and talk up the economy. He would succeed if the ground reality were partly rosy and his pep talk and token concessions were to spur production and spread cheer alround. But that is not the case. The only bright spot is exports and it is growing at nearly 25 per cent in dollar terms while the government expected only an 18 per cent spurt. Industrial production is sluggish, the index is up by 5 per cent or so. Agricultural output is not expected to go up from last year’s level what with drought in some districts and the kharif procurement turmoil. The services sector like banking and telecommunications is no more galloping, having settled down to a slow trot. Fast moving consumer goods have also had a lean time thanks to lower purchasing power in the rural areas in a year of drought and reduced price for farm produce. In the urban areas despite the after-effects of a big salary increase and payment of arrears evaporating, consumer durables like television sets and refrigerators showed a spectacular growth of over 22 per cent.

Two experts have analysed the growth rate over the past two decades and found that a good industrial cycle is followed by a bad one and vice versa. Modern industry is highly interdependent and once the unutilised capacity hits the dangerously low point, the production process picks up momentum. That level has not arrived yet. But there are other grey areas. Free imports are threatening local manufacturing. This is also true of the capital goods industry, the mother of manufacturing. One study says that imports are the cause for the slide. Renovation in certain sectors has temporarily disrupted production, apart from throwing workers out of jobs. Mr Sinha pins his hopes on buoyant exports and more reforms to reverse the situation. What will hamper his efforts will be the new team which he acquired last week, with the key post of budget making abolished. His officers will not have either the insight or the time to prod the economy to resume the climb.

Jharkhand conundrum

The Jharkhand leaders have shown their true colours even before the new state could come into being on November 9. The last minute touching of feet of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee by Jharkhand Mukti Morcha leader Shibu Soren could not earn the latter the promise of becoming the first Chief Minister of the 27th state of the Indian Union. Obviously there are no ideological differences between the JMM and the Bharatiya Janata Party over the Jharkhand leadership issue. Had this been the case the JMM, which once did gainful political business with Mr P. V. Narasimha Rao's Congress, would not have agreed to be part of the BJP-driven National Democratic Alliance. Logically the BJP as the largest party, with 32 members in the new 81-member [one seat has fallen vacant following the death of the CPI member] assembly, should have been granted the right to head the proposed coalition. The JMM with 12 members would have enjoyed the status of the number two party in the coalition. But Mr Soren and his supporters evidently believe that since he spearheaded the movement for a separate Jharkhand state, his claim to chief ministership should have been acknowledged by the other constituents of the NDA. It would be futile to debate the point whether the JMM was thrown out of the NDA or it walked out on its own because of irreconcilable differences with the BJP leaders. The end result will be the same. It is bad news for the state which is yet to be formally born. Can an unstable government promise political and economic stability to the state? Going by past experience, it would not be a huge risk to foresee and forecast furtive activity by the claimants to power. They will not hesitate to indulge in reckless horse trading for cobbling together a working majority in the new assembly.

It is not known whether the JMM leaders have made substantial addition to the money they had received for supporting the Congress government at the Centre in 1993. The only way they can hope to win allies and influence individual MLAs into backing their claim is to offer them substantial gains after the installation of the new ministry. However, the BJP has better experience in buying MLAs. It has done it successfully in Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and more recently Goa. Of course, both the BJP and the JMM would not mind giving the 11-member Congress legislature party total representation [and even the post of Deputy Chief Minister] in the ministry. Whoever wins the battle for the top political job in Ranchi, parliamentary democracy would be the inevitable loser. The Jharkhand stalemate has put the advocates of small states into an embarrassing position. They had based their arguments on the success of Himachal Pradesh and Haryana as independent states after the 1966 reorganisation of Punjab. However, they overlooked an important point. The three new states (including Punjab) were fortunate to have Y. S. Parmar, Bansi Lal and Partap Singh Kairon for providing them political nourishment in their formative years. However, neither Chhattisgarh nor Jharkhand nor Uttaranchal individually or collectively can boast of having a single leader who can match the political and administrative skills of Parmar or Bansi Lal or Kairon. Going by the current writing on the wall, only a political miracle can stop the tragedy of Goa from visiting the 26th, 27th and 28th states of the Union of India.

NARMADA DAM & NATIONALISM
How to judge right from wrong
by Bhupinder Brar

WHILE presiding over the resumption of construction work at the Narmada Dam site, Mr L.K. Advani made some remarks which a statesman could have easily avoided. But since he chose to make them, and since the Press has promptly picked them up and highlighted them, we the citizens of this free and democratic country must take notice and register our protest.

Without naming Ms Medha Patkar and Ms Arundhati Roy directly, and yet leaving no one in doubt about the intended identities, Mr Advani denounced them as enemies of India’s development and the welfare of its people. In fact, he insinuated that they were agents of India’s foreign enemies. “I sometimes wonder,” he said, “whether these people are working at the behest of our own people or outsiders.”

One does not have to be an admirer of the two gutsy activists, nor does one have to be a sympathiser of their popular cause. But one must feel angered by what is unmistakably a deliberate act of verbal insult and indeed character assassination. I personally thought until the other day that we in India had some fundamental rights. These, I thought, included the freedom to have views, to express them openly and to organise peaceful assemblies to promote them. Surely, the two activists in question have these rights too. Therefore, even if one believes sincerely and strongly that these ladies are entirely mistaken in their understanding of the issues concerned, one must recognise that in a democratic country mistaken views have to be countered by making sound persuasive arguments, not by doubting motives and questioning the integrity of the opponent.

There could, for example, be an argument that by mobilising people along communal lines and by creating conditions for communal riots, Mr Advani’s rath yatras cost this country more in human and material terms than the delay in the building of the Sardar Sarovar Dam. This argument should not allow us to insinuate, however, that Mr Advani is against peace and stability in India, much less that he is an agent of foreign enemies.

All that we can say is that he is mistaken about what is good for this country. But we must still grant him his honesty, integrity and patriotism. We may vote against him if we are so convinced, but we cannot deny him the fundamental right to seek public office. At the same time, however, our respect for his fundamental rights entitles us to expect that once he is elected, and particularly when he comes to hold as important a position as that of Home Minister, he will not forget that others have fundamental rights too. To me that is the crux of the matter.

Our democracy, very precious to us, is still very young. There is all the more reason, therefore, that we take good care of it and remain vigilant about risks and threats. While as a people we seem to be aware of several pitfalls, there is still one that we need to be better guarded against. We must not allow politicians of any ideological shade to hijack public debate on public issues by bringing into question the credentials of the opponents as nationalists and patriots. This is so easily done and yet for Indian democracy it is such a dangerous game for anyone to play. World history is replete with instances of how authoritarian and fascist forces came to power and entrenched themselves by describing opponents as traitors to the nationalist cause and thereby scotching debates.

I am not being unnecessarily alarmist here. I have to be simply aware of how the net is being cast constantly wider. First, the Muslims of this country had to prove their patriotism. Then the Christians in India too were forced into an “agni pareeksha”. Now the civil rights activists are being dragged in. Who will be next?

Just consider the way in which Mr Advani has linked opposition to the Narmada Dam and opposition to the Pokhran-II nuclear tests. Mr Advani seems to think that opposing the nuclear tests was ipso facto an unpatriotic act. He believes that by opposing the tests, Ms Arundhati Roy proved beyond doubt her antinational character. He infers from there that, given her character, her opposition to the dam cannot be very principled either.

This, to say the least, is utterly bad logic. I may be opposed to two different things at the same time, say to the introduction of prohibition and the practice of sati, but that does not mean that I do not take my or anybody else’s religion seriously.

I am convinced, however, that Mr Advani knows his logic much better than that. His linking Arundhati Roy’s opposition to the dam and the tests in this manner is a deliberate ploy. It seeks to use the popular sentiment of nationalism to beat the people he does not like. This, as I said, is an extremely dangerous game to play. We expect and demand from him that he should demonstrate his commitment to the country and to its democracy by refraining from a game that could know no end.

Apart from objecting to the deliberate deployment of bad logic, the occasion demands that we reiterate our democratic right to oppose nuclear proliferation in the subcontinent. Just because the western nuclear powers are opposed to proliferation in a manner that is unjust and discriminatory, it does not make proliferation a good thing in itself. For poor countries like India and Pakistan, it still constitutes staggering wastefulness of scarce resources to engage in a nuclear arms race.

It was naive of many in this country to think that even if expensive, nuclear weapons were worth their cost because they would give India a permanent and decisive edge over Pakistan. As we know, the so-called advantage lasted no more than a few days, and after Pakistan conducted matching nuclear tests, the power equation between the two countries remains as uncertain as before. Only the human and material costs of this uncertainty have increased manifold.

It needs unalloyed and unreasonable hawkishness not to admit even in retrospect, therefore, that India and Pakistan would have been much better off without this expensive and dangerous show of oneupmanship. It was courageous of Ms Roy to oppose nuclear tests when jingoism was at its height. It should be plain common sense now.

But once again, much more fundamental is the issue of democratic rights. Ms Roy had the right to oppose the tests even if, for the sake of argument, she were wrong in doing so. Let us remember that there are anti-nuclear activists in many countries and while they may be irksome to their respective governments, no developed democracy would dare openly call such activists traitors.

Nuclear tests were, all said and done, a political decision taken by the government of the day. Just as much as the government had the right to take the decision, it had the duty to respect the fact that not all were convinced of the need to undertake the tests. After all, governments before the present one had felt no such need and, one hopes, governments to come hereafter would not feel such a need either.

As for the present government, there does not seem to be much hope if one goes by Mr Advani’s remarks. He continues to project the nuclear tests as one of the most significant achievements of his government, Kargil and Narmada “victories” being the other two. My problems here are twofold. First, even if the successful campaign to push back the Pakistan army from Kargil was victory, I cannot quite understand what the positive relationship between this victory and the nuclear tests was. As far as I can see, Indian tests and the consequent Pakistani tests created a nuclear stalemate which in fact made victories through conventional means impossible.

What really takes the cake, however, is equating the “victories” of nuclear tests and Kargil with the “victory” in the Narmada case. The former two are clearly of military nature, targeted at an external enemy, the last one is nothing of the kind. It is essentially a political issue to be decided within the domestic democratic space. Howsoever profound may be the wisdom of Supreme Court judgements, these must not be confused with a political victory that has to be won through democratic struggles within the civil society.

Mr Advani’s remarks are a clear indication of how aggressive nationalism in foreign policy and disregard for the norms of democratic openness and tolerance in domestic politics can often go hand in hand. Let me end, therefore, with something which Mr Keshubhai Patel, the Gujarat Chief Minister, did at the same platform. He prayed to the “Almighty to give its good sense to the dam opponents.” I join him in the prayer for good sense. It is only that I want the Almighty to be more generous and spread the good sense more widely.

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

Large dams: to build or not to build
by G.S. Dhillon

TO help us in making up our mind on the issue of large dams, the World Commission on Dams (WCD) appointed a five-member expert committee for examining it in depth, considering the Indian scenario. The committee has submitted its findings to the WCD. The WCD will soon submit its recommendations to the international community.

As the findings are of great relevance to the developing countries like India, where a number of water-storage projects are to come up in the near future, their gist deserves to be debated.

The expert committee examined a large number of dams built in the country and found the following.

(i) The costs of the projects were systematically underestimated, and the likely benefits exaggerated so as to bring the benefit cost (BC) ratio to the desired value to get the project sanctioned.

(ii) On most of the projects there was a time overrun. It took more time than contemplated in the project report to complete. This resulted in a huge cost overrun. The new cost, if used in determining the BC ratio, rendered the project uneconomical, not fit to be approved or sanctioned.

(iii) There was never any attempt made for fixing the responsibility for the cost overrun and also the time overrun. There was complete absence of accountability for the above defaults.

(iv) The distribution of benefits among the various sections of society was found to be defective, and it resulted in accentuating the socio-economic equities.

Most of the readers will think that the above findings were the handiwork of the anti-dam lobby. But before doing so it would be better to examine the case history of large dams, specially of the Thein Dam, with which most of the readers are well acquainted.

The idea of building a dam on the river Ravi first cropped up in 1912, but it was only in 1926 that the Willey Committee took up the matter and asked for a survey and investigations to be undertaken for preparing a feasibility report.

In 1954, the work of investigations and survey was taken up by the Punjab Irrigation Department, and in 1963 a project report was submitted. It provided for building a straight concrete gravity dam (similar to that built at Bhakra) and the estimated cost was Rs 63 crore.

The above report was examined by geologists from the USA — Dr F.A. Nickle and Mr J.B. Cooke — who recommended that the type of the dam should be changed from “rigid” to “flexible”. They also suggested the adoption of an earth core-gravel shell dam of height 160m or so. Their recommendations were based on the seismicity of the region and the type of material available at the site. The dam was to have multifarious functions instead of meeting only irrigation needs. The installed capacity of the dam power houses was first suggested to be 480 MW (four units of 120 MW each), but later on it was raised to 600 MW (4 x 150) to serve as “peaking” for the system.

The project report estimated the cost to be around Rs 400 crore. The project was approved in April, 1982, but its implementation was started in October, 1974, when excavation work on the diversion tunnel was undertaken.

The 160 m proposed dam was to tap a catchment area of around 786 km creating a “gross storage” of 2.6 MAF and the likely “live storage” was estimated to range between 1.77 MAF and 1.9 MAF.

The irrigation potential resulting from the project was estimated to be around 84.7 lakh acres.

Power generation benefits likely to accrue were estimated to be around 150.9 crore units annually and these were likely to increase to 254.5 crore units when the Shahpurkandi Project was built so as to provide the “balancing reservoir” to enable the project to maximise power generation through “peaking”.

The estimates of the project were updated to 1997-98 price index. The estimates rose to Rs 3032 crore, including the credit of Rs 110 crore likely to be available after the completion of the project by the sale of the “Surplus machinery and equipment”.

A natural disaster in the form of an unprecedented flood struck the project in September, 1988, when it was said that water flow with a peak of 8.5 lakh cusecs was experienced. The peak lasted full 24 hours, and the depth of water in the gorge rose by 80 ft.

The disaster caused widespread damage to tunnels which were said to be nearing completion and also the power house pit. The natural disaster resulted in putting back the “clock of progress” by at least five years.

The tunnels were ready for receiving the diverted river flows in 1993. On November 23, 1993, the river was finally diverted to flow through the tunnels and this was an important milestone in the progress route of the dam.

On February 15, 1999, the dam was considered to be in a position to handle stored water, and on that day the “log-beams” were lowered to stop the flow through tunnel T2.

A man-made disaster struck the project in July, 1999, when power tunnel P1and P2 developed “snags” and the task of commissioning of the power plants was put off. It was only in July, 2000, it was announced that the “snags” had been successfully removed and the commissioning trials of the power plants had started.

On September 23, 2000, it was reported in the print media that all the four units had been “tested” and were ready to start generation. For full generation by all the four units the volume of water required would be around 24,000 cusecs (4x6000).

It was proposed to ask the Prime Minister to inaugurate the dam in September but the plan was deferred, as on September 23 the river flow was around 4000 cusecs and the reservoir stood 111.5 ft below the top of the dam. The above reservoir depth provides only 9 m deep water layer over the intake, which is considered “insufficient” to prevent the formation of air-entraining vortices, which are very harmful to turbine runners.

It is left to the readers to make up their mind whether what the experts say about such large and costly dams is to be believed.

The writer is a water resource consultant.

When our first sub arrived
by Trilochan Singh Trewn

I HAPPENED to be the command engineer officer when India’s first submarine joined the eastern naval command in 1967. A team of Soviet specialists of different submarine equipment also arrived simultaneously. Earlier, I had visited H.M.S. Dreadnought in the UK but that was an atomic submarine of British design.

On the third day of submarine arrival I boarded the ship along with the leader of the Soviet team to introduce him to the captain. A Soviet interpreter as well as two young engineer lieutenants in my staff also joined me as they were going to be in a submarine for the first time. The interpreter belonged to Tashkent wherefrom he had graduated in Hindi. The Hindi song “Avara Hoon” by Raj Kapoor was his favourite. On setting foot on the submarine coning tower we saluted and entered through the main hatch. It was a proud moment.

After a formal meeting with the captain I asked the specialist to show certain distinct features of the submarine to my new officers. First he took us to the control room where the functioning of a periscope as well as the operation of the submarine under conditions of snort and fully dived position was explained. Both my engineers were from Chennai. They could read and write Hindi but were used to converse in English only. One of my lieutenants enquired about the main diesel engine speed and what were the reversing arrangements. The Soviet specialist replied in Russian. The interpreter translated in Hindi. My assistant repeated the question. Again the interpreter firmly spoke — diesel engine ki gati 1000 parikraman prati minute hoti hai aur is engine ka utkram nahi ho sakta”. I soon realised that being a technical interpreter selected for a Hindi speaking country he was different from a normal language interpreter. I avoided further embarrassment by providing necessary English translation.

We then moved to the batteries section where newcomers were shown the layout of the massive submarine batteries in which a young man could sit and vanish. The entire submarine was divided into watertight bulkheads connected by large circular entrances through which we passed. The submarine was wholly airconditioned. All equipment and safety arrangements appeared to be in good shape. The main and sustained assistance, as per practice, was to be provided by mother depot ship. Amba also received from Russia. The arrangements for training of crew and their familiarisation with safety aspects were commendable. (The circumstances leading to the recent tragedy involving the Oscar class Russian atomic submarine Kursk are being carefully examined by Indian naval authorities.)

Next, the officers were explained procedure of emergency diving and emergency surfacing of the submarine. While referring to the field of underwater medicines the specialist explained that under deep sea conditions nitrogen plays a vital life saving role. The operation of decompression chamber as well as operation of main exit hatch in emergency was also demonstrated.

As we turned to conclude our visit the specialists produced two small red and yellow coloured sponge balls from his briefcase. He took my officers to a toilet, and pushed a valve. There was sudden spurt in air pressure in sanitary line and we could see the sponge balls floating in seawater above us through the porthole glass. This was both amusing and interesting as my assistants noted that submarines had airborne sanitary systems while our households had waterborne sanitary systems!

Raoism back as ‘winning formula’
by P. Raman

IN the last fortnight, six Indian States have got new Chief Ministers. Of this, half of them had their reining Chief Ministers out and new ones inducted in their place. They range from an orderly, well-planned change-over in the Left-ruled West Bengal to the most ugly sort of manipulations in Goa. The exit of the highly respected Jyoti Basu resembled more a smooth change of monastic hierarchy.

However, the way the change of guard was effected in other States and the shady bargains that followed illustrates the emerging style of power play and the extreme political brinkmanship. Along with this degenerating political culture, a new set of terminology is coming into use to give respectability to political manipulators. Those who engineer defections are admiringly called “master strategists” and low-level political intriguers “shrewd” politicians. Media hails the “acumen” of party-hoppers seeking power and perks thereby making the political weathercocks as role models for others.

The most striking aspect of the changes in Goa, UP, Jharkhand and Chhatisgarh has been the ease with which the politicians have begun resorting to or threatening to resort to defection to hoodwink the rivals. Defection is almost being taken as a legitimate political activity. Earlier, party-breakers and political horsetraders were seen as wrong-doers. In olden times, the early defectors themselves had nursed a sense of moral guilt for deserting one’s party for a ministership or any hidden bonanza. At least they had the fear of public ire. Most of the “aaya-Ram-gaya-Rams” of the yore in Haryana and elsewhere had failed to return in subsequent polls. Now engineering defections and forming governments with their support have become the most effective tools to wrest power.

Suddenly, Chimanbhai, Patels, Lals and Shekhawats have become honourable. When Kalyan Singh had faced with a ‘shortage’ of MLAs in September,1977, Shekhawat was dispatched to provide the right “knowhow” for the subsequent serial defections. In Goa, what Chimanbhai did 30 years back had become a virtual handbook for the BJP’s defection engineers last month. They resorted to the same tricks to bring down the Congress tally to just six MLAs from 21 they had won in the last year’s election. Three separate splits were induced in the past 11 months.

In the present horsetrading in Goa, the BJP had played a crucial role in each Congress split. The dissident Congress leaders were offered chief ministership with BJP support. It was following a deal with the BJP that Francisco Sardinha toppled the Congress Government a year back. Propping up Sardinha as Chief Minister and inclusion of the BJP in the ministry were part of the deal for the former’s defection from the Congress. But it did not take long for the BJP to ditch him; that too when he was holidaying abroad. Similarly, another group of five Congress MLAs split away but this itself split when four of them joined the BJP. That was the sordid story of swelling the BJP tally from 10 to 18 and finally wresting control of the Government.

Chimanbhai had boasted of his ability to induce defection and challenged the rivals to stop it. Now the apologists of the present chain of defections put forth the same old argument one heard during the Narasimha Rao era — to blame the “inability” of the bosses of the split-prone parties like the Janata Dal and Rama Rao-led TDP to prevent defections from their ranks. The BJP now says that it was Sonia Gandhi’s lack of control over her flocks that led to the defection in Goa. Even if there is an element of truth in it, the present kind of defection cannot take place without outside inducement accompanied by lure of power or money.

Rao may have rewarded the defectors with cash or other government largesse but he had made it a point not to make them ministers forthwith. In most cases, he had allowed a cooling period. Unlike under the Chiman and Rao models, the BJP’s suitors are more impatient and demanding. Apparently, the horses have little trust in the traders and they insist on an instant quid pro quo for defection. No elected member would risk their position if there is no prior assurance of an alternative arrangement. This is born out by the fact that in the BJP-induced defections, every defector has been instantly made a Minister.

This had happened in UP where the BJP Chief Minister had to subdivide government departments to find portfolios for its army of defectors from owner parties. In the process, the BJP leadership was also forced to give ministership even to many of those with criminal records. Thus it has been a combination of the defectors’ appetite for power and the BJP’s immoral politics that have led to unlimited floor-crossings. The BJP’s new political line of expansion through defections and poaching is now being applied in four States.

In UP the party has only a two-vote majority. Rajnath Singh claims that he was sent with the brief to “ensure” a smooth majority. Rajnath, and not Kalyan Singh, was the architect of the 1977 operation defection in UP. The party’s new Chief Minister has already spotted the soft targets for buying MLAs in exchange of ministership — Jitendra Prasada’s seven and some Janata men. Even in Chhatisgarh, the BJP is toying with the idea of pulling down the Congress Minister by weaning away the Shukla group. It has already sent feelers to V.C. Shukla for hoisting him as Chief Minister if he mobilised enough MLAs to the anti-defection law.

In Jharkhand, the BJP is set to split its partner JMM if its leader Shibu Soren insists on getting the chief ministership. It also eyes some RJD MLAs for a ministership-for-defection deal. Soren has warned that he could also hit back by aligning with others like the Laloo party. The Vajpayee BJP had tried split threat as a political blackmail even with Jayalalitha. A month back there were reports of a section of TDP MPs holding ‘dinner’ meetings. Narasimha Rao had found the TDP a soft target for defection. But the new rulers realise that Naidu has a firm grip on his flock.

During Mamata Banerjee’s latest resignation drama, there have been frantic counting of chickens in her pen. This had forced her to impose a short ban on her MPs directly dealing with the BJP managers. Two factors should strengthen the fears that the BJP under Vajpayee is determined to go with the policy of power grabbing through defections and horsetrading. First, its underplaying of the verdict against, Rao in the JMM case. For obvious reasons, the BJP has avoided any firm disapproval of the embracing of the defectors with rewards. If the court found defection for monetary reward immoral and punishable, what had happened in UP and Goa also deserved condemnation. After all, there is little difference between rewards in cash and kind.

Second, BJP President Bangaru Lakshman, who is widely known as Vajpayee’s “man Friday”, has now publicly asserted the party’s right to use the UP-Goa model in Jharkhand as well. For him it is just a winning formula. He said: “If somebody (presumably V.C. Shukla) asks for our help (in Chhatisgarh) we cannot remain silent.” His party spokesman J.P. Mathur was more emphatic when he asserted that “at the right time we will bring down the government” led by the Congress.

BJP strategists freely talk of their right to split. And it is for others to prevent it. But adoption of split’n-grab as a political strategy of growth by a major political party is bound to spell disaster for the democratic fabric. It will distort the voters’ verdict. With so many small parties, all vulnerable to easy lure of short-term power, it is pregnant with instability. The end of ideology and commitment in politics will make it still worse. Luckily, the Congress, due to its inability or on principle, so far remained shy of returning it in the same coin. When they — or those like Mulayam Singh Yadav — begin retaliating we will become at Italy of the earlier decades. Kidnapping and hiding MLAs will once again become order of the day. As leader of the ruling party, the onus of maintaining healthy democratic traditions rests with Vajpayee.

The mini political reshuffles have also confirmed Delhi’s ugly display of bossism and the mindless imposition of its decisions on the state units. After their bitter experience, this time the Congress made a show of finesse in foisting the high command’s nominee on its Chhatisgarh MLAs. Its observers went to Raipur to make a Kamraj-style farce of talking individual opinion. But the BJP high command did not even bother to make any such pretentions. All its Uttaranchal MLAs had to flock to Delhi to lobby for their nominees. When half a dozen aspirants simultaneously pressed their claims for chief ministership the Delhi durbar decided to impose its own nominee K.C. Pant. This faced stiff opposition from the local leaders who would not settle for anyone other than a sitting MLA or MP. What had surprised the high command was the fierce resistance they had mounted to leaving the final decision to the Prime Minister.

The Congress-style high command culture has been more uncouth in UP. The decision to impose Rajnath Singh was taken by Vajpayee and L.K. Advani alone. State President Kalraj Mishra was summoned to inform of the decision — not to consult. Even the party President and his Vice-President were kept totally in the dark. Thrusting a high command loyalist on the quarreling state leaders itself has caused bad blood. The same leaders had earlier fiercely opposed Rajnath Singh’s appointment. Now already there are signs of non-cooperation and resistance even though the faction leaders would not show it for tactical reasons. Sadly, we have reached a stage where observance of internal democracy can only led to infighting among state leaders. This is the case with most political parties.

Spiritual Nuggets

As I grew up, my Guru Instructed me thus:

— Atharva Veda, 3.30.5