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Maya’s game plan Marxists
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Naughty
age
Rise of
the regions
Ifs of
life and history
For this Punjabi,
charity begins at home Delhi
Durbar
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Maya’s game plan AFTER keeping the Congress on tenterhooks for several weeks, the Bahujan Samaj Party has announced its decision to go it alone. The first list of 205 Lok Sabha candidates party chief Mayawati released on Wednesday shows that she is determined to play her role as a spoilsport. Nothing else seems to have mattered to the BSP leader than the caste factor. The list shows that her primary target was the Samajwadi Party followed by the Congress and the BJP. If last time she fielded a large number of upper caste candidates with a view to expanding her party’s base in Uttar Pradesh, this time the candidates were chosen with the specific purpose of hitting the Samajwadi Party. By fielding several Muslims and other backward class candidates, she feels the BSP will be able to cut into the SP’s traditional vote bank, keeping the Congress and the BJP at bay. Obviously, it does not matter to Ms Mayawati that in most constituencies, her candidates will only facilitate the upper caste consolidation behind the BJP. The party which might stand to gain the most from her cynical one-upmanship is the saffron party. But then she is not in the fray to win the elections and form a government at the Centre. All that she wants is to strengthen the BSP and use the clout to bargain with the big players – the BJP and the Congress – in case they fail to get a clear majority. Hence she was not overtly enthused by the prospects of an alliance with the Congress because she knew that the Congress was not in a position to transfer its votes to the BSP in the manner the BSP was able to transfer its votes to the Congress. But this time the BSP has to struggle hard to retrieve the ground she has lost after the exit of her government. The Taj Corridor controversy has shown her in a poor light. But this is unlikely to dampen the enthusiasm of those who vote for the BSP in the belief that it will help the Bahujan Samaj to rule the country one day. Ms Mayawati wants to be regarded as their sole leader. It remains to be seen whether she is able to keep her vote bank intact. |
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Marxists mark present Even those inclined to dismiss the CPM's manifesto as ideological clap-trap outdated in the time of globalisation and economic reforms cannot ignore the party's key role in the culture of coalition politics. There are attempts to make the polity bipolar, but the ground between the Big Two — the BJP and the Congress — has been expanding if only to be occupied increasingly by disparate regional, state and caste forces. Most of these smaller parties are ideology-free and expedience dictates their alliance with the Congress or the BJP. If some, like the BSP and the SP, are unaligned, that is also for reasons of expedience - to leverage their positions for post-poll bargaining. In such a scenario, the CPM's role and influence, which have always been out of all proportion to its numerical strength in Parliament, would be crucial. When the post-poll numbers game begins with blocs of 20 and 30 MPs jostling for coalition space, the CPM, which has maintained its strength of around 32 Lok Sabha MPs for the last 15 years, would be in an advantageous position. Hence the significance of party General Secretary Harkishan Singh Surjeet declaring that the CPM's role in government-making would be decided when the time comes after the elections. Mr Surjeet's influence, especially in such crucial situations, extends far beyond the CPM and the Left Front. It would be unfair to attribute this solely to Mr Surjeet's skills as a political manager, because the CPM's role in national politics was never limited by the fact of its 'regional' vote base. The CPM has tried to play a trans-party role when it comes to persuading smaller parties sitting on the fence to decide which side they should go with. This is a conductor's role in which the CPM has excelled, and a fractured verdict may once again call for Mr Surjeet's resourcefulness to be brought into play. |
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Naughty age When Demi Moore started dating Ashton, much younger in age, the media had a rollicking time calling him the boy-toy of the American superstar. For years men have had to endure the increased scrutiny of their coming and going by their wives on turning 40. The game of tambola (bingo or housie) reinforced the myth that men indeed become naughty when they turn 40. They evidently found younger women more attractive. Demi Moore provided them the opening to turn the heat, as it were, on members of the opposite sex. If she could do it, what was there to stop other women from seeking younger dates? Of course, it takes two to tango, but for reasons that are difficult to fathom men allowed the naughty myth to grow. They were also lulled into believing that male predators lose interest in 40-plus women. Perhaps, they do. So, when naughty men went out to play they presumed that their wives would faithfully follow the commandments for them. The thought that women too can develop a healthy interest in younger men never crossed their mind. The good news for men living under the burden of guilt is that close to a third of women in their 40s through 60s are going out with younger dates. The most comprehensive survey ever on the dating habits of men and women, conducted by a magazine for the 50-plus age group, has placed both of them in the same dock. Or the same pedestal? In any case, the survey examined the dating and not cheating habits of men and women in the twilight zone of their age. As far as cheating is concerned, women have a lot of catching up to do. Only 2 per cent encouraged intimacy on a first date. But in the case of men, 20 per cent did not mind going ahead on their first night out with their new and younger partners. |
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Thought for the
day I design plain truth for plain people. —
John Wesley |
Rise of the regions Mr Lal Krishan Advani’s recent remarks criticising regional parties at a public meeting in Haryana have caused considerable surprise and amusement in his own party as well as among its partners in the NDA. The Deputy Prime Minister perhaps forgot how crucial some of the regional political parties have been for the Vajpayee government to provide a sort of stability the country had not seen for some years. Perhaps, Mr Advani was letting out how uncomfortable he and the BJP are feeling these days having to strike bargains with regional parties which are claiming a bigger share of seats than the BJP would like to give them. It is also possible that despite the hype sought to be whipped up by the “Shining India” campaign and the projected “Feel Good” factor, Mr Advani’s ambition to see the BJP come to power on its own is proving vastly over-pitched in the party’s internal calculations. May be, the ground realities are harsh. The party’s campaign may be peaking too soon although four more weeks are left for finding a way through the heat and dust of the elections. Perhaps, Mr Advani is realising that the BJP may not win as many seats in the Lok Sabha elections as it would like to. This means that he is worried that the party may still be dependent on smaller parties as it has been in the outgoing NDA government and that the BJP may have to give a disproportionate share of power to them in case the NDA gets a majority in the new Lok Sabha. It is a different matter that some smaller parties in the NDA are privately complaining that the BJP has been unduly overbearing in its attitude in the pre-election dealings. Apparently, these parties are reserving the right to demand their pound of flesh when the time comes to count heads. Unlike Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Mr Advani has always been feeling ill at ease with the BJP’s partners in the NDA. These smaller partners had also been having greater faith in the Prime Minister than in his deputy. And Mr Vajpayee in turn drew on their support whenever he felt hemmed in by pressures built on him by the Sangh Parivar’s hardliners on such questions as Ayodhya or his policy of seeking a détente with Pakistan. Whether Mr Advani and the BJP like the regional outfits or not, they have to seek an alliance with Ms Jayalalithaa’s AIADMK. In Punjab, there is no choice for it but to go along with the Akali Dal. It has also to go through the uncertainties the BJP is facing in Uttar Pradesh where it has burnt its boats with Ms Mayawati and has to accept the reality of the rise of Mr Mulayam Singh’s Samajwadi Party. The BJP may again have to take care of rival claims of Mr George Fernandes and Mr Nitish Kumar. The Congress is also not having a ball with regional parties. Reduced to a tally of 113 seats in the last Lok Sabha elections, the Congress, however, does not want to face greater disappointment in the next elections. The Congress, which has ruled the nation for as long as 40 years, knows that it simply cannot make a bid for power at the Centre on its own. It is also in search of allies, although it has few takers. The Congress party’s need for support from outside is so dire that it has had to go through the humiliation of seeking the company of the DMK, which till the other day was being held responsible by it for supporting the LTTE which assassinated Rajiv Gandhi. In West Bengal, even the sympathetic CPM is not giving any quarter to the Congress. In Bihar, Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav has made it known that the Congress will have to accept whatever seats his party – the Rashtriya Janata Dal – chooses to offer it. The Congress cannot have relished the recent experience of dealing with Ms Mayawati who has chosen to go her way throwing up more problems for Mrs Sonia Gandhi’s party in Uttar Pradesh. Only electoral compulsions could have made Mrs Sonia Gandhi swallow some pride and join hands with even Mr Sharad Pawar who not long ago was summarily thrown out of the Congress along with Mr
P. A. Sangma for questioning Mrs Gandhi’s right to be Prime Minister because she was not born in India. An alliance with Mr Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party can help Mrs Sonia Gandhi’s party win a few more seats in Maharashtra than she would have got otherwise but it is not going to be all hunky-dory between them for a long time. The enhanced presence of regional parties in India’s political landscape may be galling for Mr Advani and the BJP and may be causing a great deal of discomfort to Mrs Gandhi, who till the other day believed in following a go-it-alone policy. The regional parties, however, cannot be ignored either by Mr Advani or Mrs Gandhi. The texture of India’s political landscape is diverse and essentially plural. Several religions, castes, tribes and ethnic groups with varying cultural backgrounds have contributed to what is called the national mainstream. The two national parties have to understand this social and political reality to lay claim to a national status and role. The Congress, being a product of the freedom struggle, understood this and allowed several political and social streams to flow into what became a national movement. After Independence, the Congress retained for some time its capacity to assimilate and as such could rule the nation without a serious challenge for several years. Indira Gandhi scuppered her own regime in the seventies when she imposed her Emergency Raj in a blatant exercise of authoritarian power. In the process, the country suffered, so did democracy. The Congress itself paid a price for it. Not only was it thrown out of power in 1977, the party became inward-looking and its constituency became still narrower. It also lost much of its absorptive capacity. The result has been the diminishing of its strength in the Lok Sabha and a role in national politics. And now the Congress has to face the ignominy of picking up whatever crumbs the regional parties throw for it! The old Jana Sangh converted itself into the BJP in the late 1970s in an attempt to enlarge its appeal to different sections of society. It showed a few signs of resilience in the beginning but soon hardliners in the Sangh Parivar, who had no faith in the exercise, scuttled even a mild effort. The result was the demolition of the Babri Masjid which was projected as a victory of Hindutva. The demolition of the Babri Masjid has delayed its emergence as a dominant national political party with a sweeping appeal. The mosque was demolished, but barriers came up between the BJP and those who had started looking at it as a party with a difference. Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee understood this much earlier and displayed a capacity to take others along. The result was his continuance in power for over six years and making his leadership indispensable for the BJP for fighting next month’s polls. Possibly, Mr Advani is coming to realise, although belatedly, that the BJP would need a wider constituency in case it is to remain at the centre- stage. Both national parties have problems. The Congress cannot widen its appeal so long as it remains dependent on one family. The BJP cannot do so until it sincerely gives up its ideological baggage which seeks to exclude chunks of what is essentially a plural society. Till the two national parties do what the Indian reality demands, their dependence on regional forces will remain acute and relations with them ad hoc and opportunistic. They cannot be wished
away. |
Ifs of life and history Everybody is familiar with the “IF, ONLY IF” syndrome, signifying, inter alia, wishfulness, condition, or supposition. How it affects or might have affected human behaviour and history is a very fascinating and provocative study. Let us take a brief glimpse of a rather large canvas. The “wishful” form — here the yearnings of a student lotus-eater — may run something like this. “If only I can beat the whimsicality of the examiners, I should pass the examination with high merit...If the chairman of the selection committee were somewhat favourably disposed, my appointment as a lecturer is quite certain...If I come by an appropriate topic of research and ah! a benevolent guide, I could easily win my PhD...If luck smiles on me just one more time, I might win the hand of the Vice Chancellor’s daughter...” The use of ‘if’, to express a ‘condition’, can be even more interesting. An example would illustrate. Gender equality is much talked of, but truly speaking, in a male-dominated society, the concessions man gives to woman are hedged by many ‘ifs’. This is what Mclntyre says on the subject. “Nobody objects to a woman being a good writer or sculptor or geneticist, if, at the same time, she manages to be a good wife and good mother, besides being good-looking, good-tempered, well-groomed and non-aggressive.” It is seldom realised that with children around it is impossible for a woman to remain supple and svelte, domestic chores don’t leave her always kissable, and a taxing job does take a rather heavy toll of feminine poise and grace. Of what use is freedom, if fettered by “ifs”? “If” acquires great import and profundity when it implies “supposition”, in relation to events of history. Consider this poser of John Keegan: “What if, in the summer of 1941, Hitler had chosen to make his major attack not into Soviet Union but across the Eastern Mediterranean, into Syria and Lebanon? Would he have avoided the defeat he suffered outside Moscow that winter? Might he have not won a strategic position that would have brought him eventual victory?” Or, going back to an earlier period, what if, in 1812, Napoleon had invaded England and not Russia, where the man of destiny had to accept, first defeat, and then abdication? Instead of reaping
humiliation, might he have not gone on to win glory and supremacy? Who can answer these eerie ifs? Again, contemplate for a moment, the oft-quoted remark of Pascal: “If Cleopatra’s nose had been a little shorter, the whole history of the world would have been different.” Really, one wonders! These forays into human affairs and history should, I imagine, bring to the reader a better understanding of the aspirations, passions, follies, misfortunes, and idiosyncrasies of mankind. And prepare him in charting his future more clearly and
wisely.
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For this Punjabi, charity begins at home
Mr Madanjeet Singh is
a Paris-based Goodwill Ambassador of UNESCO. Patrick Glaize, a
French journalist, interviewed him recently. Here are the excerpts: Q.
Are you a Punjabi? Please tell me briefly your family background. Originally,
both my parents hailed from Jammu and Kashmir bordering present-day
Pakistan, until my mother’s family settled down in Lahore where I was
born on April 16, 1924. My father, Sardar Dogar Singh, had by then
returned from England and was appointed a professor at Hindu University
in Benares. He was a ceramic expert and later moved to Travancore at the
invitation of the Maharaja who wanted a china-clay factory built at
Kundara. On completion of my high school in Trivandrum, I was sent back
to continue my studies in BHU when Mahatma Gandhi’s Quit India
movement suddenly erupted. I was arrested and imprisoned for nine
months. On my release from Mirzapur jail, the UP authorities issued an
externment order which obliged me to continue my studies in Lahore where
my grandfather Sardar Bahadur Makhan Singh’s considerable influence
enabled me to join the Government College. "I am a South
Asian!", I told a baffled Pakistani immigration official at Lahore
airport during my last visit, as my United Nations diplomatic passport
does not show my Indian nationality. Q. How come you are so
concerned about poverty to have given away almost all you have towards
charity? Some teenage experiences are so charged with emotion that
they nestle deep in the heart and keep eating away the soul. A bizarre
scene of a poverty-stricken mother with her four naked children I once
saw at the railway station in Coimbatore in south India almost half a
century ago, seems as if it happened yesterday. The scene is described
in my book, This, My People, to which Jawaharlal Nehru had written a
preface in his own hand way back in January 9, 1949. The flowers of
charity bloom with compassion rooted in culture, was the lesson I
learned from my mother Sumitra Kaur. At the time I was on a scholarship
in Rome when my book, "INDIA, Paintings from Ajanta Caves",
was published in the UNESCO World Art series (1954). I jumped with joy
as it was the second publication to which my mentor Jawaharlal Nehru had
written the preface, and UNESCO paid me as much as US$ 3000, enough at
the time to buy a Mercedes sports car. My mother’s reaction was
astonishing. She wrote back, urging me to observe the customary practice
of giving away one’s first earnings towards "dharm arth"
(charity). I ignored her advice `D1 and regretted it ever since. As if
to make amends, on my mother’s death in 1995, I sold my Vasant Vihar
house, recently vacated by the Embassy of Oman in New Delhi, and used
the amount to establish Sumitra Foundation after her name. At the time I
had just published a book on solar energy sponsored by UNESCO for the
World Solar Summit in Harare, Zimbabwe (1996), highlighting that renewal
energy was the only recourse for people living in remote areas. It
inspired Sumitra Foundation to build a number of health and education
centres equipped with PV systems in Bastar, an isolated region in
Chhatisgarh mostly inhabited by marginalised Gond and Halbi tribes.
"You must be mad," said a friend of mine, "who would ever
think of selling his own house to help some God-forsaken tribes?".
Q. How could distance learning promote regional cooperation? It
occurred to me that should the open universities in South Asia jointly
design courses of study, they would avoid duplication of work and costs
and at the same time develop a spirit of regional cooperation among the
teachers and students alike. My suggestion was readily accepted by the
eight Vice-Chancellors/Rectors of the leading open universities across
the SAARC countries whom I invited to a meeting (September 28-29, 2002).
They formed a Steering Committee and its time-bound SAF Distance
Learning (SAFDL) programme was endorsed by all the other South Asian
Open Universities. Q. Will the decision to fund 10,000 SAF-Madanjeet
Singh scholarships also help in promoting regional cooperation in South
Asia? The SAF scholarships programme is an integral part of the
SAFDL and available only to boys and girls from economically and
socially disadvantaged backgrounds in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan,
India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Scholarships are
also allocated to SAF-affiliated organisations as SOS villages and
scouts associations subject to SAF membership which is free of cost.
Each member is required to sign a pledge stating that a dynamic South
Asian culture of peace and democracy can emerge only through promotion
of regional cooperation, nourished with the energy and idealism of
youth. Q. Was the establishment of "UNESCO Madanjeet Singh
Prize for the Promotion of Tolerance and Non-Violence" also related
to your efforts to promote regional cooperation? The damaging
consequences of the fratricidal conflicts between India and Pakistan
were very much on my mind when the UNESCO Executive Board during its
146th session at Paris and Fez on May 16 to June 4, 1995, unanimously
decided to establish the prize on the occasion of the United Nations
Year of Tolerance, and marking the 125th birth anniversary of Mahatma
Gandhi. Hence I was delighted when an international jury, chaired by
Nobel Prize laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, awarded the 1998 UNESCO-Madanjeet
Singh Prize jointly to two NGOs from India and Pakistan — the Shanti
Sena (Peace Brigade) dedicated to religious tolerance and non-violence;
and the Joint Action Committee for the People’s Rights (JAC), a
coalition of some 30 women’s organisations in Pakistan, working to
promote human rights and mutual understanding and friendship between
India and Pakistan. |
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Delhi Durbar The cricket fever, it seems, has not spared even the Supreme Court. During the hearing of Ten Sports’ petition, Chief Justice V.N. Khare refused to take note of a point made by the sports channel’s counsel, Kapil Sibal, after dictating the order regarding providing the signal to DD, observing: “I have bowled the final ball and the match is over.” Not to be left behind, Justice N. Santosh Hegde, another judge of the bench, told Sibal: “You have bowled a no ball.” At another point when advocate Rajiv Dhawan raised the issue of protection of the consumers’ right to watch the matches live, Mr Justice Khare said: “Don’t remind me about that, I am myself a consumer.”
Nitish Kumar
eyes Nalanda There appears to be a toss-up between Defence Minister George Fernandes and his JD (U) colleague and Railway Minister Nitish Kumar as to who should contest the Nalanda Lok Sabha seat in Bihar. Though Fernandes insists that he will contest from Nalanda which he represented in the dissolved 13th Lok Sabha, Nitish Kumar wants to change his Barh constituency as he is uncertain about his prospects from there. Notwithstanding the public assertions that the relations between the two leaders are on an even keel, Nitish Kumar believes he should have the first preference of deciding from where he wants to contest.
To Gurdaspur
via Pakistan Congressmen whose names are being bandied about for contesting the Gurdaspur Lok Sabha seat are unwilling to enter the poll fray. Yet there are others willing to throw their hat in the ring but the party high command is not paying them any heed. Roop Lal, who spent over 20 years in Pakistan jails on the charge of alleged spying and returned to India to an understandably low-key welcome, has been trying hard to convince the AICC leaders about the potential of his candidature. Talking of a
favourable caste equation, he has with him letters of support from about 150 village heads in the constituency.
It’s Najma vs Sinha After the transfer of former OSD in PMO Kanchan Gupta from the Indian Cultural Mission in Cairo to Mauritius, the post in
Egypt is being hotly pursued by many. The top contenders for the post include the personal assistants of Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairperson Najma Heptullah and External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha. A little bird tells us that Najma’s man may beat Sinha’s assistant as her political clout, because of the Lok Sabha elections and the minority votes, is going to be an important input in the decision making by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee or his Principal Secretary Brajesh Mishra.
Tough going for
Anand Sharma Though Congress spokesman Anand Sharma was seen as a favourite for the Rajya Sabha from Himachal Pradesh, it was not a smooth sailing for the former Indian Youth Congress chief. Lobbies against Sharma started tracing his
ethnicity to a neighbouring state and complained about his being ``abrasive.’’ Largely formal in his interaction, Sharma managed to scrape through apparently because of his long service to the party and having the ear of Congress President Sonia Gandhi. Contributed by S.S. Negi, Satish Misra, Prashant Sood and S. Satyanarayanan |
Know the Self as Lord of the chariot, The body as the chariot itself, The discriminating intellect as The charioteer, and the mind as the reins. — The Katha Upanishad As great as God Himself is, so great are His gifts and bounties. — Guru Nanak The higher the position of anything in the scale of reality, the deeper and more unified is the consciousness that is revealed in it. — Sri Aurobindo |
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