While the courts need to admit petitions only after satisfying themselves that there was sufficient prima facie material to support them, they should also be careful while dismissing the petitions. Consider, for instance, the enormous burden of proof on the petitioners to prove distribution of government patronage by ministers in the elections. How will a petitioner prove to the court that there was a bargain between the minister and the people for votes?

Of couse, there are academics who favour imparting primary education only in the child’s mothertongue. Punjab has chosen the middle road by opting for the teaching of English from Class III. The real challenge for the Himachal Government will be to make available teachers who can teach English the way it should be taught. That should not be an insurmountable hurdle, given the state’s track record. After Kerala and Mizoram, Himachal Pradesh has emerged as the front-runner in banishing illiteracy. The state has achieved the target of universalising primary education and is now making efforts to bring about a qualitative improvement in education. The dropout rate has come down to barely 2 per cent.

On Thanksgiving Day he assumed many new identities when he sneaked into Baghdad, obviously unannounced, to cheer up the embattled troops, fighting a faceless enemy. The local population was reminded of the tales of the Thief of Baghdad. However, the local folk hero was anything but a thief, because his visits to the palace and the harems of the nobles were usually formally announced. The revised version of the most famous book of Arabian tales can now be called "A Hundred and Two Nights", the last one being a gripping account of how a superman came to visit the troops on a day when most Americans spend time with their families.

It is the same contrast that has been conspicuous in POTA’s use in Gujarat. The draconian law was invoked against all the accused in the Godhra arson case, but was deemed entirely inapplicable in any of the instances of the post-Gujarat carnage. No embarrassment was evident in the only official explanation to have been offered. Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani made a fine distinction between the “terrorism” enacted in Godhra and the mere “communalism” exhibited in the Gujarat aftermath. Unstated, but analogous is the distinction made between Jammu and Kashmir and Assam: the specially enacted measure stalked the “terrorists” in the former but was not extended to cover the “ethnic extremists” in the latter.

It is “terrorism” with a minority community’s tag that is the target of the law and its authors. The spirit of the law, we have been told, is a sharp focus on “Islamic terror”, while it is the letter of the law that has been used, or misused, against terrorisms of other affiliations. The law, of course, is for the States to implement, but the Centre has not been an uninvolved observer. It has tried to intervene in cases where the law has been used for allegedly unintended purposes. A high-profile instance has been the imprisonment of Tamil Nadu’s V. Gopalasamy alias Vaiko for the crime of canvassing public support for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), with several leaders of the government and the NDA critical of the step despite the Tigers’ inclusion among the terrorist organisations listed in the law. A similarly selective interpretation of “terrorism” can alone explain the Centre’s and the NDA’s silence over a role for the law in Assam, even though the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) is also one of the listed organisations.

Of course, the Congress, the ruling party in the State that has to implement the law, is officially opposed to it. But the opposition has not been principled enough to prevent the law’s use in Jammu and Kashmir, where the Congress is part of the ruling coalition. And, certainly, it did not prevent the Centre from advising the strongest possible action by the Assam government to put an end to what threatened to snowball into an inter-State conflict. The sage counsel from the Centre, on the contrary, took the form of an “appeal for restraint” on the part of all concerned. Such devout appeals have not been the Centre’s response to terrorist atrocities of another description.

The point is not that POTA should have been used in Assam, or that the Centre should have pressed for its use. It is about the signal sent out by the Centre that proved a shot in the arm for the goon armies, to which the State, especially parts of it where terrified ethnic minorities were trapped, was handed over for days on end. The rampaging mobs were not exactly restrained by reports of the Centre’s reluctance to rush armed assistance to the State, which was forthcoming in adequate strength only after Laloo Prasad Yadav’s special plea to the Prime Minister. Efforts to restore peace suffered a bigger setback with local reports (not highlighted in the national media) about the State BJP joining the “anti-Bihari” offensive in quite a few places, with members of the “parivar” like the Bajrang Dal pitching in with shrill expressions of support for the chauvinist campaign.

This brings us to the ideology behind the offensive. This is the ideology that has found a more eloquent assertion in the Shiv Sena’s strident support for the campaign than in the political games played by the power-circumscribed party heading the coalition at the Centre. The Sena, a constituent of the NDA and considered a natural ally of the BJP in Maharashtra, has seized the occasion to show off patriotism of a paradoxical kind that it shares with the “parivar”. This is an ultra-nationalism that is also an adversary of national unity.

For the Sena, Assam has brought an opportunity and an occasion to reassert its root cause. It was as an anti-“outsider” gang that the Bal Thackeray outfit was born and brought up. It grew up, of course, to become a formidable anti-“foreigner” force, which has usurped some functions of the foreign office: it once ordered deportation of “Bangladeshi infiltrators” detected in Muslim areas of Mumbai, cancelled a cricket match with Pakistan by literally queering the pitch, and has denied its unofficial visas to Pakistani artistes seeking to visit Bollywood. Anyone who thought that the Sena has now become entirely national in its concerns has had another think coming. Televised scenes of the brutal treatment meted out to non-Maharashtrian applicants for railway jobs in the Sena’s own part of the sacred motherland must have reassured its original constituency that treasures memories of the Thackeray-ordered raids on Udupi hotels, long before his calls for pre-emptive strikes on terrorist camps in Pakistan.

Quite the reverse has been the course of development for the Sena’s comrades in Assam. ULFA may not technically qualify for the tag of “patriotism” even of the paradoxical kind, as it calls for a separate Assam. As part of an entire political camp in Assam, born and baptised in an anti-“foreigner” agitation, it does qualify for the description. It is no secret that the non-secessionist Asom Gana Parishad and the All-Assam Students’ Union, besides the BJP and the Bajrang Dal, have all been behind the anti-“outsider” campaign that has left Assam broken and bleeding.

The history of the anti-“foreigner” hordes in Assam and Maharashtra has put them both in the broader camp of “Hindutva”. The “Bangladeshi” identity of the “foreigner” is what made an alliance of the BJP — despite the “Akhand Bharat” (Undivided India’) legacy its parent, Jana Sangh, which once prohibited any truck with any regionalist party or force — possible with the Sena in Maharashtra and with the AGP and the AASU in Assam.

The family had no reservations and the marriage was soon solemnised. For us children, a marriage in the family was great fun. Those days there were no caterers to supply food. Relatives from distant places assembled in the house a few days before the marriage and helped in the preparations. Food was all cooked at home. We reveled in the celebrations. We were all excited to have a new member in the family.

Suddenly everything went out of kilter. We heard wailings from uncle's bedroom. Elders began hush-hushing about the goings-on inside. We children had no clue about what went on inside the room. Every time auntie came out of the room, we could notice that she was crying. Uncle also had a hassled look. Their marriage seemed to be on the rocks.

Slowly, auntie began to speak out: "Why did he marry me if he already had a girl in his life?" Oh, it was a serious matter! My mother, who was very much elder to her, tried to pacify auntie but she would not listen. As she shed copious tears, all we knew was that it was something serious. Auntie kept on saying that she should not have been cheated in this manner.

Until then, nobody in the family had ever heard about the other woman in uncle's life. But then they could not have been all that certain as uncle lived in distant Waltair, employed as an executive with the multinational oil company, Caltex.

What puzzled everybody was how Auntie was able to find out about the "love life" of uncle within days of stepping into our house. Nobody had the courage to confront him and crosscheck the facts. The question was: Who will bell the cat? Meanwhile, the elders exchanged opinions on how best the crisis in the family could be tackled. They even pleaded with auntie to overlook his past. "After all, who has not sinned? Now that he is married, he will be all right. Give him a chance."

All this had no effect on auntie. Obviously, uncle was at the end of his tether. At one point, he got so angry that he slapped her with the back of his left palm. Auntie ducked in time and his hand hit against a coconut tree. Soon there was swelling on his palm, necessitating grandma's ayurvedic intervention.

It was no longer a minor issue. The elders decided to take the bull by the horns. "On what basis are you saying that your husband had an affair?," they asked her in a chorus.

Cornered, auntie rushed to the bedroom and brought Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd my uncle was reading at the time. From the paperback edition, she took out a colour picture card of a beautiful girl. Scribbled on the card were these words "With love" and the signature was that of Asha Parekh. Everybody had a hearty laugh except auntie who felt sheepish when told that the lady in the picture was a famous film actress.

Zimbabwe’s membership of the Commonwealth was suspended in March,2002, over allegations that Mugabe had rigged the election to defeat his rival Mr Olu Falae of the APP-AD. President Obasanjo’s visit to Zimbabwe was interpreted by his critics as an attempt to create an impression that things were moving in the direction of a dialogue between Mr Mugabe’s ruling ZANU PF and the MCD of Mr Tsvangirai.

Zimbabwe’s violation of the rule of law, human rights abuses and targeting of critics and opposition members had cast its shadow over this year’s Cricket World Cup, hosted in February-March jointly by South Africa and Zimbabwe. England and New Zealand had surrendered their games scheduled in Harare. Two Zimbabwean players had worn black arm bands to show their disappointment over the rule of terror and repression in their country.

Although Zimbabwe was suspended from the Commonwealth for a period of one year, the secretariat had set up a three-nation committee to review and report the situation in Harare. Australian Prime Minister John Howard, South African President Thabo Mbeki and President Obasanjo represented the troika that was to decide whether Mr Mugabe’s government had stopped violating human rights and the rule of law besides fulfilling three other benchmark requirements for re-admission to the 54-nation grouping of former British colonies. One of the conditions stipulates that the government of Zimbabwe should seek political national reconciliation, on the pattern of South Africa, for re-admission.

The Nigerian President is playing a crafty diplomatic game, at the behest of certain pro-Mugabe African nations, for manipulating the rules that clearly prohibit Zimbabwe’s re-entry into the Commonwealth at this juncture. By meeting both Mr Mugabe and Mr Tsvangirai he sought to create the impression that the process of national reconciliation had started in Zimbabwe.

But the MCD leader was not amused. He told the media to ask Mr Obasanjo the purpose of his visit. It is clear that Mr Mugabe and Mr Tsvangirai are still not on direct speaking terms. And the possibility of a dialogue between them through President Obasanjo was given short shrift by the Zimbabwean opposition leader, who is considered by the West as the best bet for restoring democracy in former Rhodesia. Development and Democracy is, incidently, the theme of the Abuja summit.

Mr Obasanjo’s effort to win friends and influence nations in favour of Zimbabwe’s re-entry was shot down by other countries also. For instance, British Foreign Office Minister Chris Mullin told a highly charged Parliament that the suspension of Zimbabwe would remain in place and would be discussed at Abuja, as part of the CHOGM agenda.

Zimbabwe’s Foreign Affairs Minister Stan Mudenge, on the other hand, sought to create the impression that President Obasanjo’s visit would pave the way for a formal invitation to President Mugabe for attending the CHOGM next month. In what was clearly a loaded statement he told his country’s parliament that “it is now up to member states to rally behind Nigeria so as to make it possible for the country to live up to its duties and obligations as the CHOGM host to invite all members entitled by the rules to attend, and that includes Zimbabwe”.

It is a tough call for the Nigerian ruler who is keen to present the progress his country has made in re-establishing democracy after the 1999 elections that marked the end of a bloody and tyrannical phase of military rule in the country. Whether Nigerian leaders would have succeeded in overthrowing military dictator General Sani Abacha, had he not died in the company of four prostitutes (including two Indians!) in his palace in June, 1998, is debatable. President Obasanjo himself is a product of the same system that destroyed the Nigerian economy through years of military rule.

The Nigerian ruler’s democratic credentials were fine-tuned by the western media, helped in this task by his “admirers” in Washington and London. It was based on his handing over power, when himself was a dictator, to a civilian government in 1979 and his imprisonment by General Abacha in 1995.

There are subtle indications of the Commonwealth grouping being marginally divided on racial lines over Zimbabwe’s re-entry. South African President Mbeki supports, along with his Nigerian counterpart, the lifting of the suspension. But Australian Prime Minister Howard has reported little change in Zimbabwe to justify its return to the Commonwealth.

President Obasanjo is keen not to spoil the mood of the summit over the sensitive issue of inviting Zimbabwe to the high table of free and fully functional democracies. According to a media report that announced the formal decision by Malta to bid for hosting the 2005 summit against Uganda, the Nigerian President told journalists at his residence in Lagos, the former capital of the country, that Mr Mugabe has not been invited. “He will not have an invitation”, according to the host of the 2003 CHOGM.

Internally divided, but disciplined through the remote control from Delhi, Congress leaders are poor campaigners. When sent to Gujarat to help their colleagues in that beleaguered state, Congress leaders busied themselves with their known extracuricular activities. Their night operations made more headlines than their daytime work. The Akalis did expose the ministerial misadventures in Gujarat, but nothing concrete emerged.

Wisely, the top Congress leadership in Delhi this time decided not to take a chance with the party ministers and MLAs in Punjab, and assigned the job of campaigning to the Chief Minister only. Capt Amarinder Singh has a knack of creating a controversy where none is required and unnecessarily invites trouble for himself and his government. As directed by the party, he went to campaign in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, and going by the present indications, the Congress is set to lose power in both states. No, the Captain is not to blame for this.

In Rajasthan, the Chief Minister showed unwarranted generosity and promised to the Rajasthan voters what they love the most: more water from Punjab. His critics were quick to pounce on him. The state government is fighting a running battle with the Haryana Government over the water issue, refusing to build the Satluj Yamuna Link canal despite directions from the Supreme Court. The Punjab plea is that it has no surplus water to spare. How can Capt Amarinder Singh announce on his own that Punjab will give more water to Rajasthan, they ask.

In Madhya Pradesh, the Chief Minister broke his own record as a bad campaigner. He told the media how Madhya Pradesh was marching ahead under Mr Digvijay Singh, leaving Punjab behind. The CM in Madhya Pradesh, he said, has “implemented all points of the panchayati raj”, while he has not implemented even one. Punjab has piled up a massive debt of Rs 42,000 crore compared to Madhya Pradesh’s Rs 36,000 crore. Madhya Pradesh farmers get more power supply than their counterparts in Punjab. Absenteeism among doctors and teachers in both Congress-ruled states was rampant. For votes, the Punjab Chief Minister belittled his own state, his own government.

Already, the Captain is hard put to explain the use of the state helicopter for electioneering. His (mis)use of the helicopter costs the state Rs 1.44 lakh a day and the issue had figured in the assembly also. I remember what the Chief Minister had said when asked by a journalist at a press conference in Chandigarh in April this year to comment on the alleged use of the helicopter by his party leaders for a political function. Dismissing the question as “irrelevant”, he had said: “I am the CM and I have full authority over it”. This kind of answer, however, is unlikely to satisfy the Chief Election Commissioner, who has a reputation for being stubbornly honest and a stickler for the rules.

I have watched with detached interest Capt Amarinder Singh perform his arduous duties as CM: how he gave a clean chit to Mr Mukul Joshi, IAS, when the inquiry was still on, how he became the first CM to sit in dharna outside the PM’s residence demanding a higher MSP for wheat while himself denying the promised paddy bonus to farmers, and more recently, how he publicly snubbed the DGP and ordered large-scale police transfers without showing the deserved respect to the office of DGP.