Electoral reforms
PRIME MINISTER Atal Behari Vajpayee recently made two important suggestions for plugging the loopholes in the election laws.

Uneasy draw in telecom row
IT is neither a win nor a loss for the BJP-led alliance in the ongoing telecom controversy. The Delhi High Court has brought about this uneasy stalemate by refusing to give a firm order.

BUILDING ECONOMIC MUSCLE
Parties neglecting real issues
by Hari Jaisingh
THE Kargil crisis shifted the nation’s attention to core strategic matters, the problems of terrorism and militancy sponsored by Pakistan and the gaps in mountain warfare, and rightly so. Also, this shows that the mischief-mongers from across the border have only changed tactics. The basic objective of destabilising India remains unchanged.

Aberrations in electoral system
by Arvind Bhandari
INDIAN democracy is fundamentally flawed. If democracy means a government of the people, for the people and by the people (to borrow Abraham Lincoln’s definition), then all the governments of independent India have been more undemocratic than democratic. Those who have ruled the country — and the roost — have done so despite the fact that more people voted against them than for them.

Can India stand up to USA’s arbitrary ways?
by M.S. Menon
THESE are the days of dialogue — of “strategic” dialogues in particular. Is there a place for a monologue amidst all this plethora of dialogue? There are three ways of looking at the foreign policy task: 1) You accept the world as it is, making the best of the opportunities that come your way; 2) You transform the world in the way its majority wants it to be; and 3) You change the world to suit your selfish ends.

Home sweet home
by Raj Chatterjee
A FOREIGN magazine I picked up the other day carried an extraordinary story of two cats, French but four-legged and not, as you might imagine, employees of the Follies in Paris. I read that a Parisian she-cat was very much attached to an alley he-cat. A few weeks ago her master and mistress moved from their apartment in Paris to a town in the south of France called Bagnoles Sur Ceze, presumably in search of sunshine and clean air.

75 Years Ago

Lady Emily Lutyens’ views
BOMBAY: Lady Emily Lutyens, who is sailing for England this week, summed up her four months’ stay in India to an Associated Press representative. She had visited several parts of the country and spent a month at Delhi where she attended the Legislative Assembly as a visitor. What struck her most, she said, was the keen desire for dominion status which was common to all parties in India.

Electoral reforms

PRIME MINISTER Atal Behari Vajpayee recently made two important suggestions for plugging the loopholes in the election laws. The significance of the first suggestion, that the Lok Sabha should have a fixed term, has to be seen in the context of the failure of the various coalitions and alliances in the matter of ensuring political stability. It would be foolhardy to ignore the signs of decay in the institution of parliamentary democracy because of the continued and prolonged spell of political instability. One only needs to look at Pakistan to understand what would happen if parliamentary democracy is allowed to die in India. It can be saved only through drastic changes in the Representation of People Act and other poll-related laws. After the rout of the Congress in 1996 the country has seen the disturbing spectacle of three Prime Ministers having to prove their majority in the Lok Sabha on six occasions. However, it is not only the Lok Sabha which should have a fixed term. The situation at the state level is equally disturbing. Therefore, the Constitution should be amended to provide a fixed term for the institutions representing the people at the city, village, district, state and national levels. Mr Vajpayee also referred to the need for a second look at the anti-defection laws introduced specifically for putting reasonable curbs on the politics of “Aya Ram, Gaya Ram”. However, the anti-defection laws in their present form have merely forced the “political retailers” to enter the more lucrative business of “wholesale defections”. Of course, the simple remedy is that an elected representative wanting to abandon the symbol on which he or she was elected should be asked to go back to the electorate. The issue has been discussed threadbare by most political parties and there is even a broad consensus on the need for having a law which can effectively tackle the problem of what many call “suitcase politics”. But when it comes to introducing the necessary Bill for amending the anti-defection Act most political parties tend to look the other way because they do not want to foreclose the option of influencing legislators belonging to other political camps and extending the hand of opportunistic friendship to the “enemy” if it helps them and their faction, operating under the label of political party, capture power. The bitter truth is that there is hardly a political party which can claim on oath that it has never practised political duplicity on important public issues.

Whether it is the promise of providing 33 per cent reservation of seats for women in the country’s legislatures or delinking politics from crime no political party can claim to be practising what it publicly preaches. There is a broad political consensus on the need for the reservation of seats for women. With the exception of leaders like Mr Sharad Yadav (who hates “par katee aurat”) and Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav (who wants reservation of seats for Dalit and religious minorities within the seats proposed to be reserved for women), no party or leader has publicly opposed the proposal. However, without shedding their gender-friendly mask they have thus far succeeded in stalling the introduction of the women’s reservation Bill in the Lok Sabha. Ms Najma Heptullah, in a recent television interview, said that the Congress would stick to its promise of giving 33 per cent tickets to women candidates for the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. Thus far there is no indication of the policy being implemented by the Central Election Committee of the Congress. Reports from other political camps are equally discouraging as far as the question of reservation of seats for women is concerned. For the purpose of delinking politics from crime the Election Commission and the Law Commission have made workable recommendations. However, virtually the entire political class has ignored the recommendations because there is hardly a party which does not patronise crime syndicates and seek the help of those who thrive on black money generation. There should be no doubt whatsoever that constitutional and electoral reforms need to be introduced in the country without further delay for reviving the faith of the citizen in the institution of parliamentary democracy.It is not that the political class is not aware of the crisis facing the country because of loopholes in the election laws and the Constitution. However, it is unwilling to act because an error-free system would result in the political annihilation of “fly-by night” parties and self-seeking leaders who thrive on keeping the country in a state of perpetual instability.

Uneasy draw in telecom row

IT is neither a win nor a loss for the BJP-led alliance in the ongoing telecom controversy. The Delhi High Court has brought about this uneasy stalemate by refusing to give a firm order. It has a powerful point in its favour. Once it decided that the new telecom policy had to be debated and approved by the newly elected Lok Sabha, it found no merit in scrutinising the arguments in favour of or against the government decision to bail out the cellular and basic telephone operators. While allowing the government to go ahead and issue the necessary orders to the cellular phone operators to migrate from the fixed licence regime to revenue sharing, the court also directed the operators to give an undertaking to return to the present arrangement if the new Lok Sabha were to reject the changes. This order has the supreme merit of not stopping the government from implementing a policy it thinks is both urgent and life-saving while not making the arrangement final. It is thus a classic case of a yes-no verdict, the body of which is in the grey zone. While no party to the long-running dispute has criticised the interim findings, no one has welcomed the decision either. The government wanted to claim unconditional victory and when the court frowned on the attempt, it promptly backed down. The Congress is tongue-tied, turning its investigative skills to the purchase of telephone exchange equipment at an artificially high price from multinational companies by ignoring the offer of indigenous manufacturers. The CPM, a tireless anti-change campaigner, has gone on holiday, busying itself with election work. And in the absence of anyone to feed them with juicy details and pithy comments, newspapers too have dropped the subject altogether. All this attests to the fairness and the temporary nature of the High Court verdict.

The keep-off mood has infected the Election Commission too. It has now decided to let the issue rest on the court orders, despite its initial objection and indirect appeal to the court to overrule the changes. First the commission said it would wait for the court ruling and even after the court has cleared the way for it to pass any order, it has opted to stay its hand. By doing this the commission has achieved two things. One, it has rightly decided that the last word must be that of the court for the time being at least. Two, it has more or less delinked the dispute from the elections. That is the point Both the Congress and the CPM will find it very difficult to canvass support against the generous concession and the clandestine manner it has been given to the cellular telephone operators. However, if the two parties can offer convincing evidence of money changing hands in a big way, telecom can still become an election issue. The present spell of silence rules this possibility out. The reticence of the government, which had staked its prestige on pushing through the migration by July-end, to offer any comments is revealing. With individual operators unwilling to give the kind of undertaking the High Court wants and the banks unwilling to advance more money before the policy is firmed up, the policy is as good as being consigned to a limbo. The Election Commission’s decision to go by the High Court verdict will ensure that the new telecom policy firmly stays in suspended animation.

BUILDING ECONOMIC MUSCLE
Parties neglecting real issues

by Hari Jaisingh

THE Kargil crisis shifted the nation’s attention to core strategic matters, the problems of terrorism and militancy sponsored by Pakistan and the gaps in mountain warfare, and rightly so. Also, this shows that the mischief-mongers from across the border have only changed tactics. The basic objective of destabilising India remains unchanged.

I have often stressed the need for a total review of the policies and postures with regard to Pakistan. Equally vital is to find ways to counter the challenge of proxy war unleashed by Islamabad. I understand that some sort of exercise has of late been taken up in South Block. This is reassuring. For, Kargil may be fading out. But the monster of Pak-propped up militancy is playing havoc with Kashmir and the North-East.

The problems we are faced with are not going to disappear overnight. We have to work out both short-term and long-term strategies and also work out a concrete plan of action and implement it ruthlessly. We cannot afford to work on a piecemeal basis. The need of the hour is to correlate various problems and issues and evolve an integrated approach to tackle them effectively.

What is necessary, meanwhile, is to strengthen the infrastructure. Equally vital is the need to address ourselves to social distortions visible in Indian society. In fact, the politico-administrative leadership must gear itself up to improve the lot of the people and speed up the process of growth and development. Without a sound economy, the military success cannot be sustained. The strength of the gun is ultimately derived from the nation’s economic muscle. And this economic muscle can be developed on healthy lines if a national consensus is evolved on certain critical facets of the economy and the social wellbeing of the poor and the downtrodden.

Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee stressed this point during my recent conversation with him. Indeed, all political parties need to come together and work out a national agenda and fix priorities. The economy should not be a matter of competitive politics or be subjected to bureaucratic stranglehold. Red-tapism is a curse in a democracy. And we must come out of the colonial mindset.

For the present, however, the focus has to be on the coming elections. The political parties — there are about 40 — are getting ready for the battle of the ballot. Promises are galore. The overall stress is on politics, and less on core economic issues facing the nation. The growth process has itself got distorted. There is always a big gap between the demand and supply of goods and services. The majority of the people have a limited purchasing power because of low income and unemployment. A small section of the population, on the other hand, has been deriving a major share of the benefits of growth.

India’s economic growth has not been commensurate with the needs of employment growth. Nor has it helped create a rational structure of income distribution which could have eradicated poverty, substantially improved the levels of literacy and ensured the availability of minimum health services. Equally disquieting is the fact that even graduates and postgraduates are not getting jobs, though the Central and state governments have been spending the tax-payer’s money to educate them.

Then, look at the poor. Nearly 50 per cent of the population in the countryside and 40 per cent in the urban areas live below the poverty line. In this context, early assumptions of economic policies and strategies have turned out to be unrealistic. Certain new assumptions look fragile or misplaced.

Of course, the transition from an agrarian society to a modern industrial-cum-technological polity cannot take place without problems. But most of our problems are self-generated and, therefore, manageable, provided we have clear perspectives on basic policies and targets. The policy of liberalisation can certainly help us to move forward. But in the cross-connection of “swadeshi” and “videshi” promoters, we seem to have missed some of the finer points of human ethos and ground realities.

The economy is not a matter of bargain. Nor should it be a plaything of the politico-bureaucratic clique. We need to have a fresh look at the strengths and the weaknesses in the system with a view to tackling the problems with optimism rather than apprehensions of the unknown.

In today’s global setting, the state of the economy alone can make or unmake a nation. Ideology is, of course, no longer a driving force. Very few swear by the known creeds of yesteryears. As far as the present electoral exercise is concerned, it mainly centres on personalities. Who can honour the promises spelt out in party manifestos? Can Mr Vajpayee deliver the goods? Or, will it be Mrs Sonia Gandhi? This is the real issue before the voter. Perhaps, the answer is obvious.

The Indian voter has become mature over the years. He understands who is what and what is what. For him, the real issues are the prices of essential commodities, the fulfilment of basic needs, corruption in public life and apt handling of national affairs.

Interestingly, the economic indices go in favour of the Vajpayee government. The inflation is down to the lowest level ever. The rupee is more or less stable. The prices of edible oils have come down. The country is faced with the problem of plenty on the food front. Between now and the election time, nothing is likely to disturb the present trend.

There is actually greater confidence in the economy. This is evident from the growing participation by small investors. Perhaps, things will look up by the year 2000.

In short, the country is breathing new optimism. The benefits of all this are likely to go to the BJP-led coalition. More than the BJP, it is Mr Vajpayee who is on a very high pedestal. His deft handling of the Kargil situation has helped him emerge as the tallest of all leaders in the country. The Kargil crisis, for that matter, has stirred up an unprecedented surge of nationalism and patriotism among all sections of the population.

Looking beyond Kargil, the voter is seeking for an improvement in his living standard. He wants a better social and economic deal from the powers that be. Populist promises and slogans have ceased to interest him. This is because they are hardly fulfilled. Even otherwise, economic promises by most of the political parties turn out to be bogus. They are unable to come to grips with the economic challenges. A big gap exists between what is promised and what is practised. The economic causes have suffered because they are seen as a device to catch votes.

Unfortunately, we have the surviving feudal order which dominates the thinking and the system. It is also no secret that certain business families in the past kept our economy backward and prevented its modernisation and expansion. Too much protection has not only created a high-cost economy but also uncompetitive products. Today, there are vested interests of all kinds. And they all are creations of the system and the type of politics we have been pursuing.

The worst form of this distorted vision is subsidy. The country pays heavily to sustain various interest groups. In fact, they have grown so powerful over the years that they can threaten any government. For example, why should not a rich farmer pay income tax? Why cannot luxury items be taxed heavily to generate more revenue? What about unproductive government expenses?

All these harsh facts have reduced the revenue potential of the country which, in turn, has forced the government to borrow. No wonder, the domestic debt has touched intolerable levels, but nobody seems to bother about it. The Congress has promised to look into it in its manifesto. This must be because of Dr Manmohan Singh.

As for the BJP, its economic policies lack proper focus. As a party representing a set of vested interests, it is indifferent to welfare measures. It has even failed to critically look at its economic agenda and make it broad-based by blending the self-reliance concept with a forward thrust. It looks like a long fight. If Mr Vajpayee is voted to power again, which looks more likely than ever before, the BJP and its allies will have to address themselves to the basic issue of tackling social and economic ills facing ordinary citizens.

It is not yet too late to appreciate that social progress, individual freedom, cultural and spiritual fulfilment and economic growth are all interdependent. A modern India and a medieval India cannot peacefully coexist for long without serious social tension. If and when it happens neither the modern part nor the old part can remain what it has been.

It was British Prime Minister Disraeli who had portrayed England of his time as an arithmetic sum of two nations, the rich and the poor. India today is an arithmetic sum of two nations at one level and many nations at another. Why are our national parties indifferent to this paradoxical situation? The country needs efforts on a war-footing to combat the situation caused by widespread poverty, mass illiteracy, a high population growth rate and increasing unemployment.

We need to realise that economic growth as such means little so long as the fruits of growth do not go to an increasingly larger proportion of those who are in dire need of having some increase in their real income for sheer survival. We badly need a Kargil-like success on the economic front. Over to Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee.

Aberrations in electoral system
by Arvind Bhandari

INDIAN democracy is fundamentally flawed. If democracy means a government of the people, for the people and by the people (to borrow Abraham Lincoln’s definition), then all the governments of independent India have been more undemocratic than democratic. Those who have ruled the country — and the roost — have done so despite the fact that more people voted against them than for them.

Since substantive electoral reforms have been put on the back-burner, this skewed democratic picture may again emerge when a new government is formed after the forthcoming general election.

This aberration that ever since Independence India has been ruled on the strength of a minority vote has occurred because we have copied from Britain the system of direct election which is based on the first-past-the-post, the winner-takes-all principle. This means that in a constituency a candidate who secures the maximum number of votes is declared elected even though — as it invariably happens — the votes polled by him are less than 50 per cent, the balance majority vote being split among the losing candidates. Thus the representative credentials of the winner are to this extent lacking in legitimacy, if not flawed.

How this aberration at the individual level manifests itself as an imbalance at the party level is not difficult to see. If the members of the largest party in the legislature have been elected on the strength of a minority vote in their respective constituencies, it is only axiomatic that the total vote polled by this winning party would be less than the total votes polled by the Opposition parties.

Delving into the archives of the Election Commission is an eye-opener. Jawaharlal Nehru ruled India unchallenged for 17 years with a minority vote. In the first general election in 1952 the Indian National Congress polled only 45 per cent votes but got a brute majority of 364 seats from 489 constituencies. In the next general election in 1957 the percentage of votes polled by the Congress, the number of seats won by it and the total number of constituencies going to the polls were 47.8 per cent, 371 and 494, respectively. The story was again repeated in the 1962 general election, the corresponding figures being 44.7 per cent, 361 and 494, respectively.

In the 1967 general election Indira Gandhi’s Congress bagged 283 seats in a House of 520 by polling only 40.8 per cent votes. Her triumph in the 1971 general election reflected a similar situation: the Congress (I) 43.7 per cent votes, the seats won by the party 342, total seats 518. The Janata Party’s victory in the 1977 general election was marked by a similar aberration, with the Bharatiya Lok Dal (the main constituent of the Janata coalition) winning 295 of the 542 seats by polling just 41.3 per cent votes. Indira Gandhi returned to power in 1980, bagging 353 of the 529 seats by polling only 42.7 per cent of the votes cast.

When Rajiv Gandhi was swept to power towards the end of 1984 because of a pro-Congress emotional wave in the wake of his mother’s assassination, the brute majority secured by him (415 seats won out of 542) was backed only by 48 per cent votes. Coming to the present, although the BJP formed a government after the 1996 general election by virtue of its being the single largest party with 161 seats, the percentage of the votes polled by the party was only 20.3!

This basic flaw in the electoral system is discernible even in the present era of coalition governments. The total of the votes polled in the last general election by the constituents of the United Front comes to much less than the total of the votes polled by the non-United Front parties. The present ruling coalition led by Mr Vajpayee is also not free from this flaw. The BJP and its allies together secured only 37 per cent of the votes polled in 1998.

In Britain the direct election system worked satisfactorily for a long period because there were principally two parties, Conservatives and Labour (earlier called Tories and Whigs), for the past some time, however, the British democratic scene has also been besmirched by aberrations because of the advent of a third party, Liberal Democrats. If support by a majority vote were to be a criterion, Mrs Margaret Thatcher’s long rule and Mr John Major’s Prime Ministership lacked legitimacy. Mr Tony Blair also lacks a majority mandate.

The only way to reduce, if not eliminate, these aberrations — which detract from the quality of democracy — is to inject into the electoral system an element of proportional representation. This can be done by bringing into the legislature candidates elected on a proportional basis in addition to those elected through a direct vote. Such a dual type of arrangement is being experimented in some advanced West European democracies, prominent among them being Germany. Admittedly, this system combining direct election with proportional representation is somewhat complicated and requires a fair degree of sophistication on the part of the electorate.

Home sweet home
by Raj Chatterjee

A FOREIGN magazine I picked up the other day carried an extraordinary story of two cats, French but four-legged and not, as you might imagine, employees of the Follies in Paris.

I read that a Parisian she-cat was very much attached to an alley he-cat. A few weeks ago her master and mistress moved from their apartment in Paris to a town in the south of France called Bagnoles Sur Ceze, presumably in search of sunshine and clean air.

But the flawlessly white-furred Blanchette, which was the name of their cat, did not much care for the change of air because the love of her life had been left behind in Paris. So, one day, she just disappeared, much to the alarm and sorrow of her fosterparents.

A search, aided by the local gendarme, proved of no avail. Blanchette had vanished without trace and her sorrowful owners assumed that she had been run over by a car or kidnapped by some nasty-minded children and locked up in a damp and dismal cellar.

And then, lo and behold, Blanchette turned up in Paris where she was found purring contentedly by the side of her beloved tom.

The distance from Bagnoles to Paris is 700 km and it took Blanchette four months to cover it. Whether during that period of time her tom was faithful to her is immaterial to the story. Boys will be boys, on two legs or four.

Anyway, this somewhat unusual love story set me thinking. What would I do, I asked myself, if my wife decided to walk out on me after 58 years of connubial bliss?

The distance from Delhi to Amritsar is roughly the same as that from Paris to Bagnoles. My wife may suddenly take it into her head that she needed some peace and quiet having looked after me and put up with my tantrums for the best part of her life. She may, for instance, like to spend the rest of her life communing with her Maker while sitting cross-legged in the Golden Temple, which place of worship gives sanctuary to people of all religions.

Would I trudge 700 odd kms to join her in the holy city? Not at my age; 700-km padyatras do not fit into my scheme of things. If, on the other hand, if I undertook the journey in an air-conditioned coach, watching Madhuri Dixit on the TV screen, I may not feel like getting down at Amritsar and would probably do the return journey in the same coach for a replay of the film.

But then, I thought, I couldn’t be so heartless as to leave my wife where she was. She might develop cramps sitting in an unaccustomed posture. After all, we have shared the rough and tumble of life all this long. If, being out of sorts, she has nagged at me once in a while she has also borne my frequent fits of bad temper stoically and my penchant for saying what an excellent cook my mother was.

And what would I do without her in the house? Who would bring me my early morning tea? And who would whisper in my ear, every time I eyed a pretty girl at a party that she was younger than our eldest daughter?

All this, of course, is of purely academic interest. My wife is too fond of her simple, homely comforts to ever want to leave me, or them.

Can India stand up to USA’s arbitrary ways?
by M.S. Menon

THESE are the days of dialogue — of “strategic” dialogues in particular. Is there a place for a monologue amidst all this plethora of dialogue?

There are three ways of looking at the foreign policy task: 1) You accept the world as it is, making the best of the opportunities that come your way; 2) You transform the world in the way its majority wants it to be; and 3) You change the world to suit your selfish ends.

It is said of India that it had no military doctrine. It had no foreign policy either. That was true of nonalignment. It was no foreign policy. But like many new nations of the world, India too had its dreams of transforming the world — yes, to a socialistic form, that would meet the needs of the many.

Of the three ways, this is the ideal, and certainly laudable. But as this calls for the concert of many nations, which is not always easy, most nations fall back on what is possible. They accept the world as it is.

But this is not to say that one should give up the pursuit of an ideal, for in the face of powerful nations following selfish ends, there is no way but to get united to oppose it.

This was what India did in early fifties when it led the nonaligned movement against the US plan to militarise the world against the Soviet Union and Communism. India had to pay a heavy price for this.

But throughout the cold war years, the Soviet Union stood by India as a real friend. And it preserved India’s independence through its timely assistance. We thought that China, too, was a friend but we were mistaken.

Today, we have a different world. The cold war is behind us. Are we faring any better? We are not. The world has only one master today — America. Not two competing masters. And what it says today is the law. The world cannot accept this tyranny. This is a negation of democracy. But we cannot divide the world again into two opposing armed camps. This is hugely wasteful, and what is more, posing the greatest dangers.

But, have we a foreign policy to oppose this tyranny? We have none. And the world has none. This is unfortunate. This has emboldened the USA.

There is, therefore, a growing discontent in the world — almost about everything. More so about American arbitrariness. It is the US claim that it stands for democracy. Yet it has sidelined the United Nations — the only symbol of a world democratic order. It has imposed on the world a free market capitalism without any consultation with the world community. Are these examples of America’s commitment to democracy? Or, are these examples of the arrogance of power? Between Iraq and Kosovo this arrogance has grown in leaps.

The world is almost mute with fear in the face of these excesses of US power. Only three countries have raised their voice against them — Russia, China and India. But they cannot become the nucleus of a revolt, for they have hobbled badly — Russia with its abysmal economic problems, China because it cannot offend America for fear of losing its most-favoured-nation advantages and India because it is confused about the course it should take.

It has been said that there was only one man in this country who knew anything about the world and that was Jawaharlal Nehru. I do not think things have changed much since then. India remains a novice to the ways of the world.

The BJP claims it is a nationalist party. But as a party of industrialists and traders, whose interests are served by free market capitalism, its nationalism will always remain muted. It is bound to be dilettantish.

So we have our Foreign Minister engaged in “strategic” dialogues with every Tom, Dick and Harry. He had strategic talks with the USA for about a year; with UK, France and Russia, and more such talks are to be held with China and Japan. What is this “dialogue” all about? No one knows. He does not take the country into confidence. This is no way to evolve our foreign policy options. The world that is emerging is so complex that even the best brains can have only hazy pictures. And the “best brains” are very scarce in this country. In any case, politicians have no love for them. They do not want their illiteracy made public.

As a people, we are known for ad-hocism, dilettantism and permissiveness. We have an existential approach to serious matters. What we see today is nothing but an exhibition of this proclivity.

There is need to oppose the arbitrary ways of America. But how? We have not given the matter any serious thought yet. And we are not alone. Gone are the days when such worldwide discussions used to take place. Ideologies, commitment and a sense of sacrifice — all these perished with the collapse of the socialist experiment in Russia.

Of course, a threat of force against the USA is out of question. It has the power to destroy the world. What then? Can the world bring economic pressure on it? I do not think so. In the last 50 years, the nonaligned tried to bring economic pressure on America. We know with what result. America tied everyone of them hand and foot in debt. And the economists of the Third World looked on in wonder!

And the Third World countries had to cry “mea culpa” and surrender to Wall Street dictates. Why? Because politicians of the Third World, in their craze for power and votes, could not tell the people the truth and call for sacrifices.

There is only one way to hurt America and make it see reason. And that is by raising public opinion against the super power. It is true, we cannot own news agencies nor can we reach American readers. (By the way no outsider can start a newspaper in the USA). But we can educate our own people. This is what America fears. It cannot flourish in a hostile global environment. There may be many Bin Ladens to deal with.

Unfortunately, the media is increasingly owned by industry. They are all beholden to free market capitalism and globalisation. Hence the seed for a powerful public broadcasting system controlled by public spirited men.

This new “cold war” will have to be fought on the economic front too. If five big markets out of 10 can stand up to American arbitrary ways, we will have a new world order. But will they? We must try to persuade them.

Asia has cause for new concerns. NATO has expanded its sphere of operation. It is feared that Japan and the USA are inching forward to build up a “NATO of the East”, in which Japan is expected to pay the policeman in Asia. It is also trying to rope in China in this enterprise. Will China respond positively? It is difficult to say. That country has never acted by principles. Japan will be a willing party to US plans. Under the May 1999 “guidelines” passed by the Japanese Parliament, Japanese forces are expected to provide greater support to US forces in Asia. Do we want to have strategic talks with Japan in such circumstances?

At the end of the cold war, India entertained some self-deluding arguments. For example, that the attraction of the huge Indian market would make Washington tilt in favour of India. Nothing of that sort happened. India is too small in its reckoning. This market-driven diplomacy made India’s strategic perception rather myopic. There is nothing wrong with it per se. Only India is too insignificant. See how China is able to dictate terms to America? We should know what we should concentrate on.

The change in US policy towards India is welcome. Washington will expect a price. We should pay no price, for we have already paid a heavy price by accepting the process of globalisation. We have allowed US companies to reap where they have not sown. It is like giving a licence to print money.

75 YEARS AGO

Lady Emily Lutyens’ views

BOMBAY: Lady Emily Lutyens, who is sailing for England this week, summed up her four months’ stay in India to an Associated Press representative. She had visited several parts of the country and spent a month at Delhi where she attended the Legislative Assembly as a visitor. What struck her most, she said, was the keen desire for dominion status which was common to all parties in India.

Liberals and Swarajists: Indian Liberals and others who shared with them the credit and responsibility for working the first councils under the Reforms were, according to Lady Lutyens, much in advance of the Swarajists because they put their case on the unassailable ground of practical difficulties of working the Act of 1919.

She then referred to the speeches of Dr Tej Bahadur Sapru and Mr C.Y. Chintamani at the recent Liberal Conference at Allahabad to illustrate her point. Lady Emily said that she had not heard the case for further advance towards responsible government put forward with such force and conviction from any platform as by Dr Sapru and Mr Chintamani who spoke from the first hand knowledge of the administration.