Half a shuffle is better than none

By M J Akbar

P C Sorcar Jr, that supreme master of illusion who has made both the Victoria Memorial and the Taj Mahal disappear, loves to admit that there is one magician in India much bigger than him. B. Sorcar. Bharat Sorcar. He says this with a lovely Bengali nuance that merges Sorcar and Sirkar, name and nomenclature. This is one punch line with genuine punch. You cannot run the government of India without some of the arts of a magician. A Prime Minister has to juggle between illusion and reality, offering the first in the guise of the second to the people. This keeps the voter on his side. And handing out the second in the guise of the first to the politician. It keeps ministers on the edge. One false step and they could fall off.

Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee is exactly midway between one term to another. This is the point where he has to pause for some intellectual refreshment on an exhausting journey. His compulsions are obvious.

First, he has to measure the success of his government on economic issues. This is the key, because the nature of the economy defines the government. Any honest scale will tell Mr Vajpayee that the performance of his ministers with economic portfolios has been appalling. Finance minister Yashwant Sinha must be having nightmares about his cream budget. In any case his budget has only really been about thirty per cent of India's economy; he is a finance minister ruled by the stock markets of Mumbai rather than the agricultural markets of rural India. Agriculture has been stagnant under his stewardship.

If Mr Sinha's purpose was to drive the economy forward by fresh capitalisation and growth in the industrial sector, an unexceptionable target in itself, then he has failed. The stock market has become a manipulated lottery under his watch. The ministers who were in charge of other key elements of that exercise called liberalisation have literally no clue whatsoever about what is happening.

Of the economic ministers Arun Shourie at least cares about his beat, even if, under the most dire torture and interrogation he would not be able to tell you whether Air India was coming or going. You cannot fault him for sincerity: he handed over Balco at a throwaway price, but did it with complete honesty. He is clearly not familiar with the rules of a privilege committee, and called Priya Ranjan Das Munshi an ass on television in a clever-clever way, but once again did it with commendable sincerity. Such is the law of bad governance that Mr Shourie's sincerity is rewarded with a promotion to ensure that he can get out of his own way. When he is heaved upstairs he will have to leave disinvestments behind. The other ministers with economic portfolios do not really care about what happens to their watch, as long they have used their power to increase their individual influence by the distribution of largesse.

Second, Mr Vajpayee has to ensure that his own place in the power structure is not either diluted or compromised or challenged. One would imagine that this would be at the top of the agenda, but the real place for such contain is second.

Different political parties have separate ways of tackling the problem of leadership and challenges. The Congress does it by public sycophancy and private venom. This is inevitable. Sycophancy is so eventual moment when it can strike to kill. It leads to all sorts of contradictions. Congress leaders will accept nothing less than sycophancy and expect nothing else than betrayal. This is why you can give a Sonia Gandhi all the power she can use and never eliminate her insecurity.

Family parties like Mulayam Singh Yadav's or Laloo Yadav's outfits have simpler solutions. They leave no space for confusion. You have to be us loyal to the heir as to the king. This is fiefdo culture. A Bal Thackeray makes triply sure by keeping the signed resignations of all those who have won anything on his vote. Even doubt is punished by political elimination.

More democratic parties like the old Janata had a different formula. They used all the variable techniques of the dhobhi ghaat. Every bit of linen was washed on the banks of the media river. a dhobi ghaat is the natural paradise of a journalist.

The BJP dialectic is unique: it is a dhobhi ghaat hidden by a large flaping screen. The media river that flows beside this ghaat is in a single colour, but wit varying hues. The basic colour is saffron; the shades reflect different sectarian or individual loyalties. Publicly there is never dissent in the BJP, Privately there is substantial dissent in the BJP. How do the underprivileged denied access through the screen know this? Because BJP leaders, being politicians, also need to get the message of their stuggle across to their constituency. This entails the use of selective media, which in turn is available, eventually, to those who also serve while they only stand and wait.

It is common enough knowledge that building differences between Mr Vajpayee and his potential successor Mr L K Advani reached flashpoint over the Prime Minister's policy towards Pakistan. The combustion seared the government and almost led to a meltdown when Mr Vajpayee offered his resignation. Since that moment, when his party had to reaffirm that he was still needed, he has fought back to reassert his authority- particularly over those who sought to marginalise him. There have been occasions on which he has been unable to fully disguise his anger against this challenge.

However, anger is not a strategy. The Prime Minister has to assess just how bumps, potholes and sandtraps there are between that summit in Agra and an election to Lucknow. He survived failure in Agra; he cannot be certain he will survive failure in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. The stage is being set once again for a revolt. The temple-hardliner who visited him with an ultimatum were part of this play. In a deft protective felt, Mr Vajpayee has put Mr Advani in charge of the UP elections he is not going to take the blame alone. But that is limited protection. The Prime Minister knows that the BJP cannot win a majority on its own in UP. That is impossible. His aim is to deliver enough MLAs to be able to offer a coalition with either Mayawati or Mulayam Singh Yadav as a sop, with the BJP as junior partner.

In any case, Mr Vajpayee will need far more support from his own Government and party after Lucknow than he received after Agra. The reshuffle of this weekend is one part of his political response. It is a fallacy to believe that the ministers who are being inducted or promoted are meant to help the BJP's chances in Uttar Pradesh. Bringing in people from Bihar and Maharashtra cannot help you in Uttar Pradesh. That is why a UP leader like Kalra Mishra was not sworn in. What Mr Vajpayee is doing, after the necessary obeisance to some political compulsions, is to increase the strength of those who are ready to support him. This is something he has not done so far as Prime Minister, and in that sense this is long to overdue, Politics is a two-way street. If the sour joke in BJP circles is that Vijay Goel has reached the Cabinet by bringing jalebi for the Prime Minister from Chandni Chowk, then this too carries a message. It will be henceforth more profitable for BJP MPs to bring jalebi for the Prime Minister from Chandni Chowk than dosa for the home minister from Bangalore.

Mr Vajpayee is playing a numbers game both within the BJP and the National Democratic Alliance. He is promoting his loyalists within his party and expanding the alliance by bringing back parties like Trinamul to make himself less vulnerable in any future showdown. It is not accidental that the hostility towards the re-arrival of Mamata Banerjee was led by the pro-RSS element that eventually wants to replace Mr Vajpayee with Mr Advani. The Prime Minister had to virtually smuggle Ms Banerjee into the alliance. And he will put her into the Cabinet by October or November.

The most important fact about this reshuffle is that it is partial Given the limitations of, first coalition politics, and , second , the poor quality of material available to him, Mr Vajpayee cannot really do very much about the people in his government. The coalition partners for instance nominate themselves, and the BJP is not quite overburdened with genius. But he has in his power the right to allocate portfolios. He will use the yardstick of performance for a radical overhaul of departments in the second and more important stage of his reshuffle; that will be a coalition government with a Vajpayee stamp rather than a coalition government through a cocensus process.

The chess game of political power has different rules. The two opponents do not play one move at a time, one after another. This is more like a combination of chess and football; chessball. The pace is chess; the pieces are queens and knights and bishops and pawns but the strategies are those of football. When one side is on the offensive then there is a flurry of one-sided moves with the opponent protecting his positions before using either a mistake or an opportunity to mount a counteroffensive. From Agra to the moment when Mr Vajpayee offered his resignation. Mr Advani was on the offensive with lighting darts, jobs, pretty passing and , to mis games, checkmates to the king himself, Since that unaccepted resignation Mr Vajpayee has been gathering strength with slow and deliberate momentum. The Prime Minister is more elephant than horse, but he is now in control of greater space on the battlefield.

Even as he continues his central advance he will resurrect the Pakistan flank of his offensive, and use the New York meeting with President Musharraf to calm both the core sensitivity on cross border terrorism as well as to progress ideas like the opening of communications and trade. At this moment a second summit seems unlikely before the early part of next year, unless the two leaders extend their meeting during SAARC this December into a bilateral as well.

By the time of the UP election results, Mr Vajpayee expects to be once again fully in control of his own government. It will not put him in charge of the country, but it will be a start, or at least a restart.

PC Sorcar Jr has a lament. His magic shows work better abroad than at home, because audience abroad come to be entertained on a full stomach. In India, his weakness is also exposed. He can make the Taj Mahal disappear, but he cannot make a plate of food appear. People ask him why he cannot fill a man's stomach, or cure disease with his magic. This is where his contrived connect between illusion and reality breaks down. The use of illusion bcomes counterproductive.

Prime Ministers have the same problem when they use illusion to cloak reality. The finest speech, the most brilliant bit of powerplay in Delhi cannot make a plate of food appear for the Dalit in the village. Governments must live or die by that plate of food, not that spin of sentences or that masterly exposition of a worldview in a dialogue with George Bush in America.

It is the economy that defines a government. And the government does not know how to define the economy.

Value oriented education

By Rajeev Niryal

Teacher education is a continuous process. The teacher should be trained at every step to meet the challenges that appear while teachings and instructing young minds almost everyday, so that the child should be able to comprehend the working of civil and political institutions and develop social skills and civic contemporary social problems. In all, develop a national perspective which would enable him to be a good citizen, proud of his nation and competent to participate in the task of national building.

There is a growing concern over the erosion of essential values and an increasing cynicism in society. It has brought into focus the need for re-adjustments in the curriculum in order to make education a forceful tool for the cultivation of the social and moral values. This observation has been made in the National Policy on Education, 1986.

Values are those which are cherished and desired by people or are considered desirable. Education can change the way a child thinks, feels and acts. Today, education has degenerated into a process of information transmission with the sole objective of passing examinations and very little attention is paid to the development of social, moral, aesthetic and spiritual sides of human personality.

Long cherished values are in the danger of getting eroded. The goals of secularism, socialism, democracy and professional ethics have come under strain. The new generation is loosing track of their roots in India's history and culture. Crime, violence and indifference is increasing in the society. Narrow casteist communalist, linguistic and regional outlooks are threatening the nation's unity. The world today is facing the danger of a global nuclear holocaust. Today, we need a drastic change in the outlook of human beings towards their priorities, values in relation to self and the duties towards the present and future generations of flora, fauna, inhabitants of animal kingdom and fellow human beings.

India society is a pluralistic society, multi religious, multi ethnic, multi-linguistic and multi cultural. Inspite of this diversity, the feeling of Indianness nurtures a strong national identity. Positively, this feeling of national integration implies recognition and appreciation of diversities but negatively it opposes social conflict and prejudices based on these differences. To foster feeling of oneness education plays an accelerating role. It refines sensitivities and perceptions that contribute to national cohesion i.e. a scientific temper, spirit of inquiry and independence of mind. Education would foster universal and eternal values which will help eliminate religious fanaticism, violence, superstition and fatalism.

A good educational system and the specific role of a teacher in inculcating attitudes and values is positively related to national integration. The teaching of various subjects, various activities undertaken in the school, the entire school environment, should be conducive for inculcating values related to national integration. These values develop in the minds of children in a subtle way. These cannot be imposed nor imbibed through lectures and sermonizing. The teacher will have to explore situations in the school and in the community, based on which he or she can evolve a teaching programme. Even if she is faced with force of disintegration in environment outside the school she should pursue her efforts at value inculcation and restoration of the moral order. The teacher must present exemplary behaviour in his or her interaction with students. In thoughts, words, deed and action, teachers must be free from all prejudices of caste, religion, language, region and sex.

As we entered the next millennium, the questions which are often raised by all of us, irrespective of which continent we belong to, are what kind of a world will we gift to our younger generation? What preparation by way of planned education, of children, does the present and future world require? The increasing arms race, destructive capabilities of nuclear weapons, the unjust economic world order, and frequent instances of violation of human rights are the major global concerns which have made world peace and international understanding an impactive. It is because of this need and the importance of world peace and understanding that the National Policy on Education 1986 states: "India has always worked for peace and understanding between nations, treating the whole world as one family. True to this hoary tradition, education has to strengthen his world view and motivate the younger generations for international cooperation and peaceful coexistence. This aspect cannot be neglected". Therefore, the training which students gets to develop the right attitudes for national integration should, infact, form the right basis for developing international understanding. It is through schools and universities, a student learns to appreciate the basic rightness of different nations enjoying equal membership in the world community.

There is a need for the channels of intellectual and cultural discourse between different countries to remain open. Coombs says, 'Indeed any educational system which tries to seal itself off from the world community is bound to be afflicted with gargrene as surely as a human limb cut off from the arterial circulation of blood." It cannot be denied that in order to establish favourable conditions for freedom peace and progress, it is essential to create international understanding. We must first educate our children and youth to establish good human relations in the home, neighbourhood, town and State. Divisive prejudices at home, can never help in creating an attitude of appreciation for the culture of other people. The school which makes a deliberate and planned effort to remove prejudices against local communities racial or religion and thus seeks to provide for better and fuller understanding among the various groups, paves the way for national and international understanding.

The role of the teacher in promoting international understanding is immense. The teacher should never forget that man is a member of the human brotherhood before he is a member of any race, religion or nation. Teachers must know it too well that a potent source of misunderstanding about various people is defective teaching of history and civics. In this background it becomes very important to help students to become good and active citizens of their own country and as well as create a consciousness among them of their being a world citizen. For this purpose, the students should learn and understand the cultures of other peoples, particularly of our neighbouring countries.

The students must be made to realise that there are no innate differences between races and no particular race is superior to others. Students must be led to evaluate the contribution made to the human civilization by various races and nations. This will help to group against the dangers of narrow nationalism, on one hand, and create better understanding on the other.