Daily Excelsior... Editorial

EDITORIAL

By Kedar Nath Pandey

Uma Bharti’s wrath has burned the BJP’s vaunted body of discipline to a skeleton - in full glare of cameras leading to her expulsion from the party. Uma...........more

India keen to see
peace, in West Asia

By V Mohan Narayan

West Asia constitutes an integral part of India's extended neighbourhood and their civilisational linkages date back to several centuries.........more

Bushed again

By Atul Tushar

EDITORIAL

Another Prime Minister:
Another visit

The visit of the Prime Minister anywhere attracts wide notice. If he or she happens to go to a terror-affected region his trip assumes added significance. As the topmost functionary of the country such spotlight on him is but to be expected. Our State has had its own share of these excursions. Beginning with Jawaharlal Nehru almost all Prime Ministers have kept close links with Jammu and Kashmir. Nehru was, of course, the darling of the crowd be it in Leh, Srinagar or Jammu. One of his last visits was at a time when his ‘friend’ Sheikh Abdullah was in jail (not without his approval) and the ‘BBC’ (Bakshi Brothers Corporation, euphemism for the Sheikh’s associate-turned-foe Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad and his brothers who wielded incredible authority) ran the show. Nehru was taken in an open jeep in Srinagar. A highly emotional person himself he was overwhelmed by the crowd’s response and nearly jumped out of the vehicle on nearing the Lal Chowk. He addressed a largely attended meeting. The huge size of the gathering and its spontaneous participation was in a way surprising because he was after all one of the authors of the discomfiture of the Valley’s tallest leader. He proved that his own charisma was second to none. It is doubtful whether the Sheikh had nursed any bitterness about Nehru, which he appeared to have reserved for the Bakshi. Personal chemistry between Nehru and the Sheikh seemed to go beyond their politics. The former facilitated the Sheikh’s historic trip to Pakistan in 1964. Unfortunately his sudden death brought an abrupt end to it. The Sheikh had flown back to New Delhi and wept unabashedly as Nehru’s body was driven to the cremation ground. In sharp contrast he declined to condole the death of the Bakshi making it abundantly clear that he had not forgotten and forgiven his one-time comrade for having stabbed him in the back. Since then, as all of us know, no popular head of this State has parted with the Home portfolio lest he should be deprived of access to the intelligence inputs.

Lal Bahadur Shastri had played a crucial role in the State even before he became the Prime Minister. As the Minister without Portfolio at the Centre he was deputed to handle the crisis created by the theft of the holy relic in the Hazratbal shrine. His simplicity endeared him to everybody. Once in the top slot he had his name firmly etched in the sub-continent’s history as he led and won the war against Pakistan in 1965. His death in Tashkent too occurred in the midst of his efforts to establish peace in the region. Indira Gandhi was destined to figure frequently in the State’s turbulent politics. With Ghulam Mohammad Sadiq as the State’s last Prime Minister (he ended the dichotomy by changing the nomenclature of his designation to the Chief Minister and that of the Sadar-e-Riyasat to Governor) doing the groundwork with his liberalisation policy (he released the Sheikh from his incarceration) Indira Gandhi made a dogged attempt to win over the alienated sections. Her accord with the Sheikh was a significant milestone: it caused ripples in the neighbourhood (not only Pakistan for its own reasons but China also panicked describing it as ‘India’s annexation of Kashmir’) and paved the way for the latter’s return to the mainstream. Somehow, however, Indira Gandhi as a continuously humming political bee was not averse to undoing her own good work. Having succeeded in bringing the Sheikh back to power with the support of her party in the State Assembly she could not resist the temptation of trying to sell the impression that she was the real strength behind him. One fine evening her party withdrew support to the Sheikh (replacing Girdhari Lal Dogra with Mufti Mohammad Sayeed as leader of the legislature group in this game) and staked claim to form the Government. Clearly she and her associates had not read the State Constitution that came in handy for the Sheikh as the Chief Minister to seek the immediate dissolution of the Assembly as well as fresh elections which he swept. Indira Gandhi was again in her elements in 1983. Having failed to persuade Dr Farooq Abdullah as the Sheikh’s self-appointed political heir to align with the Congress she led an untiring electoral battle. That was perhaps the only time when one had seen Dr Abdullah in full control of himself. He hit back with intensity not associated with him since and clinched a convincing victory. How could Indira Gandhi take it lying low? She replaced the Governor bringing in Mr Jagmohan to axe Dr Abdullah, Mr Jagmohan’s long explanation to the contrary notwithstanding. Indira Gandhi had two stints in power. In between Morarji Desai held the office and won fulsome praise for free and fair conduct of the Assembly elections (caused by the withdrawal of the Congress support to the Sheikh) in 1977. In fact, it is interesting in retrospect that the Sheikh had become jittery during these polls as the Janata Party put up a formidable challenge with the support of quite a few local stalwarts.

Paradoxically if the Indira Gandhi-Dr Abdullah confrontation had meant well for the State politics raising for the first time the prospect of a two-party system, the unwritten Rajiv Gandhi-Dr Abdullah accord helping the NC leader to resume power worked to their mutual disadvantage. In the case of Prime Ministers who followed we may find ourselves too close to the history. Of them only Mr P.V. Narasimha Rao and Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee completed full tenures. Mr Rao made a vain effort to persuade Dr Abdullah to take part in the elections. Mr Vajpayee did take a few bold initiatives earning for him the global acclaim so far as the task of achieving peace in the sub-continent was concerned. Locally, however, he could not make a major impact as what he had set out to achieve as the Prime Minister was totally out of tune with what he had preached as an opposition leader. In the name of managing contradictions Mr V.P. Singh added to the mess. Mr Chandra Shekhar hardly had any time to go beyond making a few routine statements. Mr H.D. Deve Gowda despite his non-descript personality succeeded in holding the 1996 Assembly elections. Mr Inder Kumar Gujral who perhaps had the best contacts at the ground was lost in a maze of his own making: he spoke of dialogue with the Hurriyat Conference only to eat his words in less than 24 hours. The new man in, Dr Manmohan Singh, will undertake his maiden visit this week. As a first step, he has sought goodwill in the Valley in particular by announcing reduction in troops. He may do well to learn from the experience of his predecessors: there is no half way or short cuts in this State.

BJP's fading illusion

By Kedar Nath Pandey

Uma Bharti’s wrath has burned the BJP’s vaunted body of discipline to a skeleton - in full glare of cameras leading to her expulsion from the party. Uma, who has been locked in a war of nerves with several senior leaders, accused some collegues of spreading stories to "lower my prestige" and demanded a discussion at a meeting of the party’s central office-bearers. When Advani refused, she walked out saying. "I want you to take disciplinary action against me." The rebellion is a pointer to BJP’s sickness But can Dr Lal Kishen Advani cure it? The party is already being described as the party of "two babas (old men)". Both Advani and Atal Behari Vajpayee are at the fag end of their political careers. The party which has little prospect of coming to power till 2009, needed somebody who could lead it to electroral victory five years hence and then be the prime minister for another five.

Yet the BJP has chosen 77-year old L.K. Advani as its president. Advani would be 82 when the next general election is held. And should the BJP win that election and Advani get the top job, age-wise he would be competing with Morarji Desai as the olest prime minister of India. And this at a time when more than two-thirds of the country’s population would be below 35 years of age.

Had the BJP thought strategically, it would have looked around for someone young with the potential to lead the party for at least a decade. It would not have shown the haste it did in anointing Advani, summoning a meeting of office-bearers and other "avallable" in Delhi. Heavens would not have fallen if it had deliberated over the leadership issue. What would have been strategically desirable was sacrificed at the altar of tactics.

It is possible that even though astrologers have failed the BJP, it is still hopeful that the United Progressive Alliance will collapse under the weight of its internal contradictions. Witness therefore Vajpayee quoting to the faithful a Deutsche Bank report on the imminent collapse of the UPA at the time of the coming West Bengal elections. Advani is clearly positioning himself for that fortuitous even tuality. This is not necessarily a bad political calculation.

Was there an obvious younger leader who could have taken Advani’s place? Unfortunately for the BJP, the pure pursuit of individual ambition and power is evident not only in the two ageing leaders but also in the second rung which is plagued with the problem of too many equals or PPMs (Potential Prime Ministers). The games of oneupmanship between these leaders are the staple of party jokes in the capital.

Recently one of these BJP leaders was insulted by another who called him a man with a "lop -sided face" and apparently threatened to "drag him around by his moustache" for not supporting her public programmes. She also declared that party discipline did not apply to her as she took orders only from her religious guru.

The second-rung leadership of the party is also not very inspiring for the cadre. Earlier, BJP leaders almost invariably came into the party after having been Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh pracharaks or organizers and participating in mass movements. Today, almost the entire second-rank leadership of the BJP is bereft of this experience.

This has impacted both their outlook to politics and their lifestyle. The RSS organizers were akin to full-time workers of the communist parties or erstwhile Gandhians - frugal and simple in their day-to-day lives. There is no comparison between how a trade unionist like Dattopant Thengadi lived or how Nanaji Deshmukh or Sundar Singh Bhandari live even today and the lifestyle of the younger BJP leaders. K. S. Sudarsha, the sarsanghchalak of the RSS still does not sleep in air-conditioned comfort.

The fact is that the second rank of the BJP has not proved itself to its cadre either in politics or in the way the leaders conduct their personal lives. A clear hierarchy is yet to emerge within them. The summary removal of M. Venkaiah Naidu shows that artificial attempts at creating one will not succeed. Only those who can either win elections, pull crowds or have a political vision that transcends individual ambition will eventually be accepted as leaders of the party. In short, their leadership would have to be validated by the masses rather than by their proximity to Advani or Vajpayee.

At the programmatic level, the BJP is plagued by confusion. Hindutva paid the party rich dividends, although at tremendous cost to the country’s secular and inclusive fabric. However, today the BJP finds that like every market-expansion strategy, after a point Hindutva fetches only diminishing returns. But the party has not made a decisive choice to opt for newer strategies aimed at farmers, Dalits and other deprived sections of society. "Cultural nationalism" and "integral humanism" have become its catch-all terms to paper over stark choices that stare at the party.

What has further compounded the BJP’s problems is that the party is not renewing itself. Unable to identify with any mass movements, the dominant source of new blood for the BJP is the student movement, which essentially represents only the conservative and insular element in the middle-class yearning for self-importance. The RSS, which could have been a source of fresh blood, is itself plagued by a membership that is aging. The average age in the RSS branch meeting (shakhas) is over 55 and the attendance has been shrinking.

The main source of strength for the RSS used to be mofussil youngsters unsure of themselves in an increasingly Westernized external environment, and looking for an indigenous identity as an anchor. Today, they are no longer inward-looking. Easier access to Westernized culture and career pressures have encouraged them not to opt out of the market but become a part of it. The RSS itself has changed tack and one of the things it is doing is to aim for the professionals - doctors, engineers, accountants, and so on - who may have no time for shakhas but whose Hindutva has been reinforced by the growth of Islamic fundamentalism and terror. The quality and growth in VHP membership points to this - Praveem Togadia himself is a doctor and runs a nursing home. The RSS may still be recording growth but amongst the obscurantist urban professionals who only represent themselves and not the common people of this country.

The quality of the synergy that used to exist between the RSS and the BJP has also changed. The real and full-time general secretary of the BJP is still an RSS nominee, the rest are essentially only part-time functionaries. But in the last decade or so, the party has seen to it that the public profile of the RSS nominees in the BJP structure does not become too prominent. The last RSS man to be allowed to do so was Narendra Modi.

Under these circumstances, Advani cannot do much. He would have no choice but to follow reactive politics. The three or four journalists who advise him will ensure that with their help he continues to occupy media space. Through their efforts, the BJP would continue to be top-of-the mind for the newspaper-reading public. If that is the modest aim that Advani has set himself, he will succeed in it. But nobody least of all the RSS and its family of organizations, would be fooled into believing that this is the cure for the party’s unhealthy state. Advani may temporarily stabilize the patient but he has no cure for it. INAV

India keen to see peace, in West Asia

By V Mohan Narayan

West Asia constitutes an integral part of India's extended neighbourhood and their civilisational linkages date back to several centuries.

Developments in West Asia today have a direct impact on Indian economy and society. With the lure of greener pastures in the Gulf, there are now over 3.5 million Indians working in that region with remittances estimated to be six billion dollars annually--constituting an important source for India's foreign exchange.

Another important factor is that over 60 per cent of India's crude oil imports are sourced from that region. Official statistics reveal that West Asia is now the third largest destination for Indian goods.

With its long-standing political, cultural and economic ties, India is very keen that the trouble-torn West Asia traverses the path of peace and prosperity, leaving behind an era of violence and counter-violence, and raising the hopes and aspirations of people who have suffered for long.

Just as India is the birthplace of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism, West Asia is the fountainhead of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Both have a creditable record of religious tolerance and these spiritual links form a human bridge between the two regions.

A noteable symbol of this is the large number of Indians who perform the Haj every year. Pilgrims from this country also go in sizeable numbers to Nazareth and Bethlehem.

About 70,000 Jewish community of Indian origin live in Israel. Palestine and Iraq, two nations strategically located in the region have been in the limelight recently but for all the wrong reasons.

New Delhi has chosen to, time and again, condemn the escalation of violence in Northern Gaza as also the disproportionate and large-scale use of force by the Israeli forces.

India has voiced its concern at the unwarranted loss of innocent civilian lives, including a large number of women and children in such acts of violence and called for an immediate end to the military operations and a return to the path of negotiations.

Taking the initiative, New Delhi has been insisting on serious, sincere and urgent efforts to re-start the peace process in accordance with the relevant UN resolutions and the Quartet Road Map in order to achieve a just, comprehensive and durable peace in the region.

An ailing Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, regarded respected and loved in India as a symbol of the Palestinian cause, is undergoing medical treatment in France, triggering talks of who will handle the mantle after him.

India has strongly taken up with Israel as also in the international community the issue of isolation and confinement of President Arafat in his Ramallah headquarters. It has cautioned that continuation of such action would engender popular frustration and encourage extremists on the Palestinian side.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, a fierce opponent of Arafat, has said the Palestinian leader would be allowed to return to his Ramallah headquarters.

Arafat has always been recognised by India as an elected leader of the Palestinian people. It has opposed irresponsible pronouncement regarding him.

New Delhi has taken the line that any effort to remove him from the scene would be indefensible in international law and serve no purpose. It would negate all efforts towards reconciliation and prove to be politically counterproductive, apart from having a definite negative impact on the Middle East peace process.

India's solidarity with the Palestinian people and its attitude to the Palestinian question was given voice during the freedom struggle by Mahatma Gandhi.

Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French, Gandhi had written in 1938. The policy towards Palestine was consolidated under the leadership of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

In tune with this approach, the office of the PLO in New Delhi was accorded full diplomatic recognition by the Indian Government in 1980 and eight years later, India was one of the first countries to recognise the State of Palestine.

Since the UPA Government assumed office, it has made it clear that it remains fully supportive of the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people and committed to their cause for a homeland of their own.

A source of grave concern to India as also to the international community has been the vicious cycle of violence and counter-violence. Since September, 2000, about 3,700 Palestinians and about a 1000 Israelis have perished in this violence.

India is of the strong view that a just, comprehensive and durable peace in the region can only be achieved through negotiations on the basis of relevant UN Security Council resolutions as well as the 'Land for Peace' principle, resulting in Palestine and Israel accepting each other as neighbour and living peacefully within secure and universally recognised borders.

Israel's intention to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and from settlements in the West Bank, contends Inda, should be within the framework of the Quartet Road Map and any such disengagement should not preclude a resolution of final status issues through negotiations between all the parties concerned.

In the delicate balancing task of maintaining good relations between both the warring parties, India's relations with Israel are seen as purely bilateral in nature and not directed against any third country, particularly the Arab world.

The developments in Iraq too is viewed as worrisome. New Delhi has all along been against unilateral intervention by the US-led forces in Iraq and sought a central role for UN in the political and economic reconstruction of the war-ravaged country.

The UN endorsement of the interim government of Iraq is looked as the first step for ensuring full sovereignty to the Iraqi people.

Though the new US administration may seek to renew its request to India for sending troops to assist in Iraq in some form or the other, there is little likelihood of New Delhi acceding it.

While there is a shared interest in peace peace, stability and regional security, the situation is complex in the Israel-Palestine crisis and Iraq requiring vision, statesmanship and bold steps to bring it out of the vortex of violence, suspicion and distrust.

PTI Feature

Bushed again

By Atul Tushar

With hindsight it can be said that it is really not all that surprising that the world is saddled with another four years of Dubbya-rule. Certain hidden forces in the US have always worked to the advantage of conservative right-wing politicians to shield the country from the more liberal forces that they think can endanger the core 'American values'.

In the past four years President George W. Bush and his team of 'neo-conservatives' or 'neocons' have pursued, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, a rather distasteful variety of right-wing polices that has alienated the American leadership from much of the world and created sharp divisions within the US itself.

But clearly that did not bother enough Americans to deny Bush another term at the White House. Going by media reports, in the end it was the 'tough guy' image of Bush-a man who could be trusted to lead the country in a 'war' and one who would not bend before the world---that won him the day. The simple interpretation of this would be that the majority of Americans have given their approval to Bush to pursue certain policies even when they have the potential to jeopardise world peace and, what is more astonishing, policies that 'isolate' the US instead of the other way round.

The question now being asked is if the new Bush term would see him offer more of the same or less of the same? If it is going to be more of the same would he not be making the world unsettled for years to come and sow further seeds of dissensions and divisions across nations and communities?

How could he even think of continuing with his 'cowboy' style of polices-shooting first and then refusing to answer questions honestly, as he did in Iraq where he sent his army for reasons that looked suspicious from day one and when the truth was out, stubbornly refused to own his fault. The result is that the very scourge that he had pledged to uproot-terrorism-has now taken deeper roots.

It can be argued that the full dimensions of the damage his ill-conceived policies brought to him and his country dawned on him too late in the day as the Presidential poll race in the US had begun almost a year ago. He could not change course at that stage without seriously damaging chances of his re-election. But surely now is the time for him to reflect more soberly and alter the course of his polices that affect the rest of the world. And these are not confined to war and peace but include some other issues like trade and environment.

A clue to his thinking would perhaps come from the new team that he chooses. Speculation about those changes has already begun. In India many appear happy at the prospect of the former US ambassador in India, Robert Blackwill, becoming the national security adviser to Bush.

Mere change of face should not be taken to mean a basic shift in policies. At best it may mean changing from Tweedledum to Tweedledee if Bush does not realise that some of his polices require a basic makeover. And speaking of Blackwill in particular, it will be rather naïve to assume that the 'pro-India' proclivities he had allegedly shown while serving in Delhi would resurface if he takes up a senior position in the Bush administration. Blackwill will be serving an American administration, not an Indian government.

India enjoys little leverage in shaping US policies. But that does not mean that India cannot and should not take any initiative in setting the course of its relations with the US. The present Indian government inherited an upbeat mood in Indo-US relations that was in reality the outcome of a willing subservience shown by the NDA government to the US.

One result of this is that for all practical purposes the US has begun to 'mediate' in the Kashmir dispute. It was the previous government in New Delhi which was openly asking the US to step in when things were getting hot in Kargil and once the US obliged, the then rulers in Delhi took one genuflecting step after another. Thus no sooner had the 9/11 tragedy occurred, India was rushing to virtually implore the US to take its 'cooperation' in fighting the 'war' on terror.

The US disdainfully turned down the gratuitous Indian offer but leaped to embrace Pakistan-forgiving and forgetting all its sins and enriching India's 'enemy' in every possible way. Then it was another servile exhibition of unsolicited opinion when India became the first major country to heartily endorse a new US missile defence system that had aroused suspicions in most countries.

The US would not lift sanctions on high-tech exports to India, but the then government in Delhi would have us believe that relations with the US were reaching the sky.

This government, which reportedly has to work under the handicap of a perennial Marist shadow, need not reverse the flow of Indo-US relations, for that would be foolish. But some course correction may be in order.

What has been seen in the last six years or so is that despite all the reverence shown by the Vajpayee-led regime to the US, it was the US, which decided what shape these bilateral relations would assume. It was as if India had no card to play in dealing with the US. That may not be entirely true.

India has to be vocal and forthright in expressing its views on certain pernicious aspects of US foreign policy and even certain domestic issues that relate to India and Indians and global health-for instance, the US refusal of subscribe to the Kyoto protocol. India has to speak up against the US double standards in dealing with nuclear proliferation issues and also the so-called war on terror, which allows one country to openly run terrorist camps and shelter known terrorists and crime lords. After lecturing the world on the merits of open and free trade, the US has no hesitation in taking protectionist measures.

Visiting senior US officials-their journey into India becoming uncomfortably frequent-have often been telling India that they do not hyphenate their relations with India with those of Pakistan. The previous government took it lying down when it was all too clear that it was not the case. The present government could begin by asking the US to give some concrete examples in support of that statement.

Take the case of the sale of certain 'sensitive' defence equipment to India. Whatever Washington might say, the fact is that the US decides that issue after satisfying itself that such a deal will not displease the Pakistanis. That might have been fine with India, except that in the past Washington has never shown a similar concern towards India.

The US might tell India that it cannot open the door for full Indo-US cooperation in certain high-tech areas because of proliferation concerns, but the fact is that it is the weight of Pakistani nervousness that holds that up. And after the disclosures about A.Q Khan's nuclear black-market in Pakistan-under the benign eyes of the Pakistani military rulers and their American patrons-the US has lost the moral right to talk about proliferation.

Indian officials have started to hope that the US President would visit India within the next 12 months to show that he is serious about forging stronger and lasting ties with India. Again, it is hard to say that an early India visit by the US president would indeed be an indicator of his earnestness towards this country. But one thing is almost certain. Whenever he comes to India he would be stopping over in Islamabad.

In other words, even a visit to India has to be clubbed with Pakistan, lest the General in Islamabad feel slighted. And here we have the Americans saying that they do not see India with the Pakistani prism. To say that it makes for better logistics to combine visits to India and Pakistan does not make much sense.

One, do logistics decide relations between two countries?

Two, if logistics is indeed a consideration with a cash-strapped (?) US, then it might be better to cover countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Middle East in one leg.

The Indian visit could be clubbed with visits to other countries in the sub-continent or the South East.

The merit in such an itinerary would be that India would be spared the American sermons on how to deal with a US client next door and a hint that Indo-US relations are out of the India-Pakistan-US ménage a trois. (Syndicate Features)