.

EDITORIAL

POLITICAL CORRUPTION

Union Communication Minister Mr Ram Vilas Paswan justifies his party's joining National Democratic Alliance Government as indispensable to check rampant political corruption. In support thereof he quotes how Laloo Prasad Yadav's RJD government looted the public exchequer to the detriment of the impoverished people.....more

GENEVA CONVENTION

The seminar on International Human Rights (IHL) held recently points out many loopholes in the Geneva Convention which need to be addressed constructively in the changed environs the world over. When this Convention was adopted under the auspices of United Nations, it took congnisance....more

The cracking mould

By Kedar Nath Pandey
As the voting percentages of the first two parties _ Congress 28.4 and BJP 23.7 _ in the recent elections show, neither can be called truly ....more

Alarming singnals
from Pakistan

By S. K. Dutta
Nothing has changed in Pakistan to indicate a positive swing toward normalisation of relationship with India. General Pervez Musharraf, who.....more

Oxytocin: A much misunderstood harmone

By Dr K B Mathur
Attempts to get Oxytocin, a drug widely used in the dairy industry to increase milk yield, banned have been foiled, thanks to the wisdom of the .....more

EDITORIAL

POLITICAL CORRUPTION

Union Communication Minister Mr Ram Vilas Paswan justifies his party's joining National Democratic Alliance Government as indispensable to check rampant political corruption. In support thereof he quotes how Laloo Prasad Yadav's RJD government looted the public exchequer to the detriment of the impoverished people of Bihar. Net result of such political corruption has been aggravation of poverty and near total jungle raj in the State. When politicians become corrupt they invariably take within their ambit bureaucrats and police as well. With such nexus complete, politicians become law unto themselves. Mafia gangsters are the product of such nexus to safeguard and perpetuate their misdeeds. While corruption may be an All India phenomenon, the loot in Bihar has been indiscriminate. Today, no business premises are safe and extortions and murders are a rule rather than exception. True, they are ultimately booked and punished by the electorate, yet Laloo and others of his ilk have the capabilities to come back full circle. That is manifested by their continuation in politics because law of the land could take full life time to punish the corrupt. Under the circumstances, the next best thing is to launch political offensive so that such politicians corrupted to the core who have made life of the people insecure are cornered at the husting. Single-handed Janata Dal (U) cannot remove the likes of Laloo. It thus transpires that Ram Vilas and others in the JD (U) opted to join NDA. In strict political terminology, it implies compromising of principles or to what one can term as opting for the lesser evil to take on the full evil. To that extent it is as much the compulsion of JD (U) as the NDA to join hands for putting the country back on the rails.

Paswan has also given another reason. He quotes formation of Janata Party wherein all opposition parties professing different ideologies joined hands to oust Congress Government led by Indira Gandhi. The Congress did lose the elections heavily in 1977 polls. All parties had buried their ideologies for giving good governance and ridding the country of those who trampled democracy by imposing emergency besides giving birth to other evils like corrupting the polity. Such amalgam of various parties fought elections under single banner and even the invincible lady like Indira Gandhi was defeated by feather-weight Raj Narain in Rae Bareilly constituency. This experiment was a success as regards eliminating political corruption because each of the constituent kept close check on the other. Such mutual restraints and checks did provide corruption free government. It is quite another thing that personal egos brought the government down. Paswan thus corelates formation of NDA to erstwhile Janata Party government led by Morarji Desai and fully motivated by Jai Prakash Narain. NDA, according to him, is continuation of same theme. If BJP can bury its agenda, there is nothing wrong in JD (U) and DMK doing the same for the overall good of the nation.

Another aspect that motivated JD (U) become part of NDA is to give stability to the country. Coalition culture having come to stay for the next few years no single party has been able to get clear mandate during the decade, not even the Congress government led by Narasimha Rao in 1991. Political maturity thus demands to come out of the narrow cocoons of individual and respective party agendas when National Agenda of Governance comes into play. A developing country like India can ill afford the luxury of being exposed to election every year. The economy also suffers and no welfare programme is possible until the government is stable. It thus becomes national duty of all the parties to sink petty ideologies and come on a platform to give the country not only corruption free government but also a stable one. There is a definite commitment even from the Prime Minister that poverty amelioration programmes for social justice would receive NDA's utmost attention and laws needed to safeguard their rights would be suitably amended. In this context Prime Minister Vajpayee has mentioned amendment of Constitution to provide reservation in promotional aveues as well for the SC/ST employees. It may be mentioned that Apex Court had upheld reservations only at the initial stage of recruitment although SC/STs have enjoyed promotional reservation and resultant seniority all these post-independence years. Constitution has already been amended to extend the reservations for SC/STs for another 10 years and its follow up amendment is on cards. This is proof enough that NDA led by Prime Minister Vajpayee is not only committed but taking practical steps to give due protection to the rights of underprivileged. Paswan is right on course when he says that a government that stands for social justice and remains corruption free is going to be pretty fast on delivery.

It may be mentioned that during the last 20 months of NDA rule, economy has looked up, inflation rate has gone down and liberalisation is on course to enter the next millennium confidently. It is estimated that Software exports alone are going to fetch India a hefty foreign exchange of 50 billion dollars annually by the year 2010. There is the supporting news that after USA interest in Indian software capabilities, China has also proposed joint ventures with India to be established in that country. This is tribute to our engineering capabilities and vast potential. Incidentally, Vajpayee Government has given top priority to Information Technology which is in demand worldwide, including giants like USA, Russia and China. Social justice needs resources that stem from increased production, more exports and the resultant increase in GNP. Ram Vilas Paswan who is the leading Dalit luminary of this country is right on course as regards National Agenda for Governance.

GENEVA CONVENTION

The seminar on International Human Rights (IHL) held recently points out many loopholes in the Geneva Convention which need to be addressed constructively in the changed environs the world over. When this Convention was adopted under the auspices of United Nations, it took congnisance of only regular war between two countries or number of countries and defined the rights of prisoners of war taken by any country and how these are to be safeguarded. It never took cognisance of nuclear war and rights of the victims of nuclear holocaust. With more and more countries becoming nuclear capable, (including India, Pakistan and Israel), Geneva Convention needs to be suitably enlarged or amended to include the rights of victims of such wars. Likewise, there is an obnoxious worldwide phenomenon of transborder terrorism in the name of religion, ethnic reasoning or political compulsions. Such transborder terrorism is more sinister and insidious than even the regular war. These terrorist outfits have most sophisticated weapon systems and capabilities to take on regular army. It is happening in Chechenya right now where these terrorists have resisted mighty Russian Army. It has happened in Kargil too. It is happening all along LoC and IB. It thus transpires that Geneva Convention must define the rights of the soldiers which stood totally trampled and compromised as manifested by brutalisation of 6 Indian soldiers captured by Pakistan in Kargil war.

The cracking mould

By Kedar Nath Pandey

As the voting percentages of the first two parties _ Congress 28.4 and BJP 23.7 _ in the recent elections show, neither can be called truly representative of popular opinion. Their support base is evidently limited. Although the vote share of the Congress in its heyday was also well below the 50 per cent mark, the party's nationwide spread gave its claim of speaking for the country some legitimacy. The BJP's dependence on allies to cross the crucial halfway mark in Parliament denies it of any such opportunity. But it is not only the low percentage of the two main parties which is worrying. Even more so is the uncertainty of what they stand for. Before the BJP embarked on its policy of embracing whoever came in the way if he could promise a few seats, there was at least no doubt about its ideology.

Nineteen hundred sixty seven signalled the break-up of the old one-party dominance of the Congress and the rise of kulak power, particularly in the states. 1975 was the year of the Emergency _ the attempt to find an authoritarian solution to the instability that was now becoming a permanent feature of the polity. The elections of 1977 made clear that generalised authoritarianism was not the long-term answer to endemic instability. By 1984, the new, more plebiscitary Congress re-established its position of re-dominance and in doing so seemed to confirm that though the Congress electoral base had now become more volatile than ever before and its internal organisational structure had become a shambles, the basic mould of Indian politics was still broadly unaltered.

That is to say, given the segmentary, pluralist and hierarchical divisions of the Indian society, only a centrist political formation with a capacity to appeal to the broadest cross-section of the public could rule at the Centre, even if this formation need not always be the Congress alone. This made consensual rather than polarising or confrontationist politics the strategy for assured success. But it certainly did not rule out, indeed it promoted, sharp differences on specific issues as the main way of distinguishing the major rivals for electoral power in the Lok Sabha polls.

The crucial importance of 1991, of the performance of the BJP especially in major areas of the Hindi heartland, is that this received wisdom (the inevitability of centrist dominance) of over 40 years of Indian history since independence no longer seems so obviously valid. Has the basic mould of Indian politics been broken? Or at least cracked? If so, why, and what are its implications?

The mould has been cracked, and not by a left-centrist alliance, which in many respects has seemed more natural direction for the polity to veer towards. Mrs. Gandhi till the end, even while pursuing more rightwing economic policies and playing more frequently the Hindu nationalist card herself, always had a hankering or just such an arrangement but, of course, on her terms.

But a rightwing aggressively Hindu nationalist party, the BJP has broken out of the political periphery to become the major rival of the Congress at the Centre. Right after the 1991 elections, Mr. V. P. Singh perceptively said that the Janata Dal had to avoid centrist regrouping so that the BJP did not monopolise the opposition space. With the elimination of JD and the fortune of the Congress on decline, the BJP has become pole of reference. This then, has been the crucial development since 1991 _ the growing political and intellectual legitimisation of a mass, cadre-based party.

The mainstream space of Indian politics remains centrist in that any party wishing to have stable rule in New Delhi must still appeal to a broad cross-section, both socially and geographically. But the content of centrism is in the process of being redefined away from the old Nehruvian consensus. There is a fight, then, for the creation of a new consensus which at least in part cannot be imposed on the electorate but must also reflect the changing perceptions of the populace, of the balance of social forces below the strictly political fight by political actors.

Broadly speaking, we can focus on three areas _ socio-economic, political and cultural, the inter-relations among them. One of the most important developments of the last 25 years has been the rise of the backward (sometimes called middle) castes, particularly of its upper echelons. Their upward economic social and political mobility has reinforced pressures for cultural redefinition. Given the cultural and status limitations of backward caste identification, cultural mobility upwards has taken the form of much greater emphasis on a "larger" Hindu identity. Insofar as the political vehicles of Hindu nationalism remain strongly in their orientation, this limits their attraction for the middle castes. But the general process of an expanding Hindu collectivity, identifying itself consciously as Hindu, creates a much more fertile ground for the politics of Hindu identity to take stronger root.

The urban middle class has also been much more strongly attracted to the idea of Hindu self-assertion. The urban trader and self-employed belonging to the "middle class" or "lower middle class" has always been the traditional social base of Hindu nationalism. The reasons for this have already been well analysed. What is new is the attraction now exerted on the more westernised, English-speaking upper middle class and on sections of big business.

The much more limited growth of a Hindu collectivist or Hindu nationalist sentiment among the low and lowest castes of rural India is probably much more directly connected to the long-term impact of Indian electoral politics in general and to the short-term impact of the specific mobilising campaigns of the RSS/VHP/Bajrang Dal and BJP. But the fact that there has been such an impact cannot be disputed and is a reminder that one should neither exaggerate nor minimise the intrinsic resources of "folk Hiduism" in its face-off with politicised Brahminical Hinduism.

By appropriating non-Brahmin symbols, the BJP can widen and has widened its appeal. The long practice of electoralism has effectively institutionalised the principle of mobilisation along caste and communal lines. The Muslim vote bank was a reality. But the fact that avowedly secular parties did tailor their electoral behaviour according to the perception that such a vote bank existed was itself the most damaging practice of all. The Hindu nationalist attempt to carve out a Hindu vote bank is the same kind of political practice except on a more enlarged scale.

Can it succeed in this endeavour? The underlying mechanisms that have led to a rise in a collective Hindu consciousness unevenly dispersed among different classes and castes are clearly not going to disappear or recede into a more distant horizon. In that sense, the Indian social soil is being fertilised in ways which will encourage the rise of a modulated Hindu nationalism. The economic centre of gravity of what can be called the mainstream consensus is now well to the right of what it was in the past. There has been a much weaker but nevertheless real pull to the right as far as the fulcrum of the earlier secular consensus is concerned.

What still stands in the way of a Hindu nationalism carrying the day is the segmentary character of Indian society, the ecumenical character of folk Hinduism, the growing consciousness of Dalits and backward castes of their caste oppression, the sheer size of the Muslim community, the multiplicity of social and economic problems confronting the poor and the relative strength of forces committed to the preservation of the existing level of secularity of the Indian state.

The point is that there is no simplistic relationship between the prospects of further institutionalisation of Hindu nationalist. The first can grow even if the prospects of the BJP become dimmer. Therein lies the rub and the magnitude of the task confronting secularists and secular forces. The BJP has done the right thing from its point of view in putting the Mandir-Masjid issue on the backburner and taking up many other issues. This is certainly a better way for it to convince a wider cross-section of its "nationalist credentials".

Despite its trajectory of success in the last few years, the BJP has its own serious dilemmas. In the states it rules. But the central dilemma still concerns the strategy it must pursue. Should it still try to be the party of the "Great Hindu Reassemblement?" Or should it try to become an Indian equivalent of Christian Democracy, though rather more Hindu than Christian Democracy is Christian?

The latter course would still seem to promise more, but it does entail a more distant relationship with the RSS/VHP/Bajrang Dal and a more conciliatory approach to one or other centrist forces. This creates its own tensions for the BJP. Since coalitional politics will probably still dominate at least the next Lok Sabha elections, this adds its own pressure on the BJP to follow more classical policies of compromise rather than confrontation.

Though the BJP has been setting the political agenda since late 1990, there is now a real sense in which it must simply wait and watch and hope. If the Congress can sustain itself as an effective political outfit and organise itself internally, if it can benefit from centrist realignment, if it can make at least a partial comeback then the picture will be that much bleaker for the BJP.

If on the other hand, the Congress becomes more ineffectual, incoherent and unpopular than it is, the BJP is the party that stands to gain the most. Such a decline of the Congress can either provide the BJP with the space for it to grow independently, or the Congress will be greatly pressured to pursue the option of an implicit or explicit alliance with the BJP, or split-offs from the Congress may join the BJP. Furthermore, these three possibilities are not exclusive. INAV