One step forward
IT started in a riotous mela atmosphere, Prime Minister Vajpayee’s visit to Lahore. It soon quietened down to a solemn and serious mood and ended up, as all summit meetings do, with expressions of hope and very little of substance.

Case for education cess
WE are in the habit of talking too much and doing too little. Also, we make grandios plans but donot take the necessary care to implement these. This is true about the Government’s commitment to provide elementary education to all 59 million unfortunate children who are in the left-out category when the new millennium is knocking at our doors.

Conversions & convulsions
CONVULSIONS about conversions—past, present and future — do not seem to be getting the correct treatment. From Gujarat to Bihar, stories of people being forced to change and rechange their religion are being generated by active minds.

BUILDING TOLERANT SOCIETY
by M.S.N. Menon
THE issue before India is “conversion”, not the future of the Christians or other minorities. Let us be very clear on this. And it has nothing to do with the state of Hinduism, either, as some writers have made out. These are all beating about the bush.

Accepting wisdom from
all sources
by C. B. Muthamma
“LET good thoughts come to us from all sides” is an ancient prayer. Most Hindus live this prayer. They revere all sages and accept wisdom from all sources. Shri Ramakrishna and Gandhiji were only two of the most eminent followers of these tenets.

Bihar: wages of
one-upmanship
by P. Raman
ON THE face of it, the sudden ouster of the two chief ministers within a span of three days seems totally unrelated. True, from the very start, the political consequences of the Bihar operation looked far more serious than the routine change of guard effected by the Congress in Orissa. But the two developments in quick succession speak volume of the fragility of the present political arrangement, its inner contradictions and the deleterious style of functioning of both ruling alliance and the Sonia Congress.

Goodwill delegation turns glamorous
AT first it was a trickle and then the deluge. It all began when a well-meaning former official sent a note to the Prime Minister’s office suggesting that he take a goodwill delegation on the bus to Lahore. The suggestion had a historical perspective. It recalled that when late General Zia-ul-Haq visited India, his delegation included the then Chief Minister of West Punjab, Mr Nawaz Sharif, now the Prime Minister of Pakistan.

75 Years Ago

Editor of “Desh Sewak” prosecuted
SARDAR Phuman Singh Ajit, Editor, Printer and Publisher of “ Desh Sewak”, was proceeded against in the court of C.W. Jacob Esqr, Deputy Commissioner, Jullundur, when S. Gopal Singh, Translator, Punjab Secretariat, was produced as P.W.

One step forward

IT started in a riotous mela atmosphere, Prime Minister Vajpayee’s visit to Lahore. It soon quietened down to a solemn and serious mood and ended up, as all summit meetings do, with expressions of hope and very little of substance. A concession or two from either side would have lent the event a historic dimension which it was hyped up to be. And India was in a position to make a friendly gesture or two, but the no-changers seem have come in the way. As it is, it needs a microscope to search for any shift in the traditional stand of the two countries. There are, however, some semantic flourishes which will keep the experts busy for some time in offering sophisticated analyses. It is interesting to read for the first time about a “composite and integrated dialogue process”, an omnibus definition which accommodates all issues, even those which did not figure in the dialogue.

Still, the two countries gave up the “first Kashmir” and “Kashmir last” policy positions and bravely took up the issue. What was really discussed is a secret and that is as well. Any sign of either party moderating its old rigid position would have provoked the hardliners to get into an overdrive. But the two Prime Ministers had obviously gone round and round the ancient dispute and sprinkled the Lahore Declaration with some indications. Both “condemn and will combat” terrorism (one brownie point to India) and respect human rights (Pakistan levels the score). SAARC Vision 2000 will be realised, which means trade will flow freely. (India wins and Pakistan resigns itself to follow the example of Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.) On the vexed visa issue, there is no improvement, though India could have taken the lead. That is not the only opportunity that India lost in indulging in grand symbolism. The summit was a nice venue to unburden itself of Siachen, which is purely a prestige issue, without much strategic or security importance.

Solid work has been done in what is generally referred to as confidence building measures. The Memorandum of Understanding signed by the Foreign Secretaries spells out in great detail the steps the two sides will take to shut out any chance of an accidental war. There will be advance information about missile testing and the sea route to Karachi will be cleared up of any conflict-triggering devices. Discussion on nuclear concepts and doctrine should partly convince each country that the other is not working on a hidden agenda. As nuclear powers and as old antagonists, both have gone an extra mile to look peaceable. There is an intriguing phrase though. It talks of “any accidental, unauthorised or unexplained (nuclear) incident”. It is easy to understand an “accidental” happening; but unauthorised and unexplained nuclear accidents are hard to imagine. The world over everything connected with nuclear weapons has a fool-proof process and so it should be in the subcontinent too. Anyway, what about an authorised incident? The very thought is benumbing. There were remarks about India buying surplus electricity from Pakistan and direct hints that it should buy wheat from this country. This casual commercial comment would have acquired a strong political and diplomatic punch if India had also thrown in the customary offer of long term credit. Maybe the next time.

Case for education cess

WE are in the habit of talking too much and doing too little. Also, we make grandios plans but donot take the necessary care to implement these. This is true about the Government’s commitment to provide elementary education to all 59 million unfortunate children who are in the left-out category when the new millennium is knocking at our doors. According to the Saikia Commission report, India needs at least Rs 40,000 crore for realising its dream of universal primary education, but the recently approved Ninth Plan has an allocation of merely Rs 20,000 crore for the education sector as a whole! See the difference between the actual requirement and the arrangement for funds. Of course, the government spends Rs 840 per child towards achieving the target of universal primary education, as Dr Taruyoti Buragohai of the National Council for Applied Economic Research has estimated, but that is not sufficient, keeping in view the stupendous task ahead. The government must arrange for Rs 7,186 crore to translate its promise into reality. But that does not seem to be possible under the circumstances, as this will amount to spending a very big part of the national budget on education alone. That is why some economic and educational thinkers favour the imposition of an education cess after working out the modalities. This is not a tall order. One can be sure that those who will have to pay for providing the light of learning to the country’s poor and deprived sections will not grudge it. But there is a condition: the money so raised must be utilised specifically for the purpose for which it has been raised. The Finance Ministry is studying such a proposal. One hopes it will not take much time to decide the quantum of the education cess and how to cover a wider section of tax-payers for the purpose. Educating the poor should be the top priority of the nation, and the coming budget must reflect this commitment.

How tragic it is that a country like India, where millions of people have never been to school, has been ignoring primary education ever since Independence! Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee nearly admitted this on Friday when he said at a function at Delhi’s Hindu College that “funds are not enough for primary education”. What a paradox that elementary education has been a victim of resource crunch while higher education has been highly subsidised. The result is the lopsided growth of this vital sector. Normally, the children who go in for higher or professional education are from such families as can afford to pay. But they have been made to pay very nominally, thanks to education subsidies. At the primary level, the system has been highly discriminatory against the deprived sections. First, most of the poverty-stricken people have avoided sending their children to school because the little ones have to supplement the family income. Those of them who get their wards in a school prefer government-run institutions which have always been neglected in the matter of fund allocation. The reason is that the government-managed schools do not cater to the classes responsible for running the Government at various levels. All those who have acquired higher education and are in the tax bracket must be prepared to pay the education cess, besides the other sections whom the Government wants to bear this essential burden.

Conversions & convulsions

CONVULSIONS about conversions—past, present and future — do not seem to be getting the correct treatment. From Gujarat to Bihar, stories of people being forced to change and rechange their religion are being generated by active minds. There are a few genuinely objectionable cases among the reported incidents. But the religion of man is asserting itself. Neither hunger nor anger should be allowed to play a disorienting role in this sphere. Bharat Vikas Parishad, a national forum,organised a seminar on social harmony in Chandigarh on Sunday. In the opinion of its leaders and workers, "it is always better to build than to break". If the social fabric is fractured, unlimited chaos and violence follow. The proponents of all faiths know the fact that their goals cannot be attained by destroying mosques and burning churches. If religious rivalry is brought on the scene, even temples and other shrines would not remain safe. The organisation should be complimented for offering the first representative and largely attended forum on "Religious conversions and social harmony". Some ideological differences between Hindus and Muslims created countries which find it difficult to walk on the path of reason and understanding. The consensus emerging from the discussions is that religion cannot be seen as a social evil and those who spread religious hatred commit an act of contempt against secular Indian ethos. There is a big difference between democracy and theocracy. Our country subscribes to tolerant and secular values.

The Constitution sanctions ample opportunity for various religions to inspire the believers to seek spiritual enlightenment in various ways. One can be a follower of Christ without formally embracing Christianity. A good Hindu can be a decent Muslim or a fine Christian without acquiring new ritualistic tags. It is necessary to remember that by roasting alive a missionary and his two children in Orissa, no religion has gained divine grace or social advantage. The sad happening is being probed judicially and we should wait for the findings of the duly constituted inquiry commission. Meanwhile, discussion and debate must continue. The people should be made aware of the evil consequences of inter-religious conflicts often engineered by politicians. In a respectable tome titled "Some called it partition, some freedom" sent to us a couple of days ago by its author, Mr Avtar Singh Bhasin, there are these beautiful inaugural lines:

"Some died for freedom, some because of freedom

Some died for religion, some because of religion

Some died for ideals, some because of ideals

Some died for their honour, some because of others' honour

Some died for their shame, some because of others' shame...."

Within the framework of the usual calendar calculation of time, we are moving towards a new century. Many thinkers of this age say that a new world is about to be born. Such a new birth can never come about without pain or a price. But it is one of those prospects for which the universe and its agonies seem worthwhile, and suffering becomes part of joyful wisdom thoughtfully renewed. It is a long journey at the end of which we are faced with the oldest remedy. The cavern of darkness has to be traversed—how often who can tell? —before we can enter the temple! The disasters of a purely naturalistic approach, the tyrannous freedom of a dogmatically theocratic state, the nether zones of value-free sociology are the auguries of a blackout from pole to pole. GNP is not the last word in the wealth of nations. We may now have to think in terms of other categories, beyond unreason and religion. Without the priority of man's whole being, an at-oneness with the cosmos, the deep human longing to belong as well as for the Beyond, we shall never arrive. Religious aberrations should be corrected and cured. Bharat Vikas Parishad should silence the mushrooming Bharat Vinash Parishads.

BUILDING TOLERANT SOCIETY
Gandhiji on religion & conversion
by M.S.N. Menon

THE issue before India is “conversion”, not the future of the Christians or other minorities. Let us be very clear on this. And it has nothing to do with the state of Hinduism, either, as some writers have made out. These are all beating about the bush.

Conversion began years ago, first from Hinduism to Islam and then from Hinduism to Christianity. Islam got less support from its besotted rulers, but the Christian church was a partner with the British ruling class in the business of empire. L.S. Amery, the arch-imperialist, said: “A pioneer empire and a stay at home church went ill together.” He need not have worried. The church was very much out in the open flexing its muscles.

The Christian missionaries were no doubt over-confident. They first tried to convert emperor Akbar! Then they tried to convert the Brahmin scholars of Madurai! And finally they tried their hand on Gandhiji. Their failure was abject. Gandhi had said: “The ‘Sermon on the Mount’ was good, but the Gita was better.”

The church naturally turned its attention on the poor and the illiterate — the so-called Harijans, with whom one need not discuss philosophy.

During the worst days of British repression, someone asked the church representative in Calcutta why he did not interfere on behalf of the people. He said: Christ himself rejected the temptation of leading the nationalist movement against Rome! The message was clear: the church was not going to relieve their distress. So the repression continued.

But was this church a “triumphant” one? It was not. It was a beaten church. It was the time when the marriage of the Cross and the Sword was coming apart, when Europe had taken to the study of Greek philosophy, proscribed earlier by the church, and Europe had launched the Age of Reason. In short, the church was under attack and its authority was nowhere respected. Could this church have told us that it was better at tending men’s souls after its failure in Europe? It could have because it was in His Majesty’s service! The church was really in retreat in Europe against the rise of the philosophers, its deadly enemies (Nietzche had said: “God is Dead.”) and Wagner was celebrating the German Valhalla. The church was thus under universal condemnation, though not Christ himself. But it found refuge in the colonies, where the freebooters found the church a useful instrument to advance their plunder.

In India, the reformers — the Arya Samaj and the Brahmo Samaj — were on the defensive. They hardly knew their religion (they only confirmed the most rabid accusations of the missionaries) And what did the Bengal leaders know of India — almost nothing. Why we had not even heard of an Indian emperor called Ashoka till the British discovered him for us!

The British and Europeans rediscovered India for us. Sir William Jones put our faith back in our civilisation, and British education opened our bleary eyes. A people who were almost willing to change over to Christianity now resisted it.

And Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi appeared on the scene. While in England, the Anglican church had pursued him for his soul. But in South Africa, the white Christians bodily lifted him out of the compartment and threw him out on the platform. And he was conscious of the great inequality between the white rulers of South Africa and their black Christian subjects.

What was Gandhi’s view on religion, conversion and missionaries? Gandhi was never fascinated by God. What fascinated him was morality — a moral life.

(That is why I class him with the Buddha and Mahavira.) Hence his devotion to Rama — the greatest moral exemplar in Indian history. He judged scriptures by their ethical content.

But he was a sincere Hindu. Asked by an American lady why he was a Hindu, he said: “I have found Hinduism to be the most tolerant of all religions known to me.” He liked the freedom it gave to human imagination, speculation and reason. As a man dedicated to the principle of non-violence, Gandhi’s devotion to Hinduism grew. He had said: “Hinduism with its message of Ahimsa is to me the most glorious religion in the world.”

Did he think that there is a perfect religion on earth? No, he said. All faiths are imperfect and liable to error. Once he told a student delegation. “Among agents of the many untruths that are propounded in the world, one of the foremost is theology. I do not say that there is no demand for it. There is demand for many a questionable thing in the world.”

It is clear that Gandhiji was deeply prejudiced against all theologies.

You have to see his opposition to conversion in the light of what I have said. Gandhiji says the present effort of the missionaries is to uproot Hinduism from the very foundation and replace it by another faith. He gives a picturesque analogy: “It is like an attempt to destroy a house, which, though badly in want of repair, appears to the dwellers quite decent and habitable.” He would oppose its destruction, he said.

Gandhi was not opposed to conversion per se. But he opposed all “organised” conversions. On others he had a different approach. He says: “Cases of real honest conversions are quite possible. If some people for their inner satisfaction and growth change their religion, let them to do.” But even here, he was opposed to denationalisation.

Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, a devout Catholic, was another prominent person who opposed conversion. In a letter to Bapu (Gandhi), she said: “To me conversion or the desire to impel another person to change his faith has always savoured of an arrogance tantamount to a violent attitude of mind, which must be against that very doctrine of love for which I believe Christ lived and died.” She also disapproved of conversion of Harijans. “Not one of these poor, to whom I have spoken, has been able to tell me anything of the spiritual implications of their change of faith.”

If Gandhiji was ever “prejudiced” against Christianity, it must have been by the conduct of the missionaries. He writes: “The missionaries used to stand in a corner near the High School and hold forth, pouring abuse on Hindus and their gods. I could not endure it.” They were all whites.

He once told them: “You missionaries come to India thinking that you come to a land of heathens, of idolators, of men who do not know God.” (Do they still think so?)

Can there be greater tolerance and greater unity of religions? The answer is No. Nicholas of Cusa regarded all religions as expressions of the word of God. “It is you O God who is being sought in the various religions.” The Christian church will not accept this truth. Nor will it admit that there can be any religious unity. Asked by a Swiss professor about the prospect of unity, Gandhiji said: “It depends on the Christians. If only they make up their minds to unite with others, the job is done. But they will not do so. Their solution is universal acceptance of Christianity as they believe it...” Surely, this is the path of confrontation with all other faiths.

The missionaries continue to say that they will cling to the right of the church to receive converts. But do they recall what St. Paul had said about anyone trying to convert a Christian? (New Testament, Galatians, Chpt.I) “If a man preaches any other gospel unto you than ye have received,” exhorts St. Paul, “let him be accursed.” Why this double standard!

It is idle to talk of saving souls, as Gandhiji used to say. God is not so helpless. But the missionaries must know that every right has its obligations. And as the obligations are not being observed, there will be need to bring in legislation. Gandhiji once said: “If I had power and could legislate, I should certainly stop all proselytisation.” Well, we have power now. Let us stop this!

India has a unique civilisation and sense of destiny. That is far more important for us than the “rights” of missionaries. Father Peter Hans Kolvenbach, Superior General of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), during his visit to India observed that India’s role in the world was vital for mankind. He wondered: “How in India a people with many languages, religions, and cultures live together is a lesson to learn! India has an important role to play in shaping the destiny of mankind.” But which India? A Christianised India? An Islamised India? Or an India where the Hindu ethos will not have disappeared?

Yes, India is conducting a great experiment in diversity. Its success is needed for the success of the world. This diversity is a product of our eternal quest for truth. Out of it came many religions and systems of philosophic thoughts. We are richer for it. India is the greatest storehouse of religions and philosophic ideas in the world. That is what is unique about us. We have to revive that quest. We must try to find the answers to the imponderables. This is a task which neither Christians nor Muslims will welcome. Only the Hindu can take it up.

This is why we cannot allow further conversion in this country. That will be to subvert our destiny. For us, to live is to think. And to think is to serve God’s purpose in human evolution. These are very big ideas beyond the ken of the functionaries of established religions. Let me not tax their small brains with more thoughts.

Accepting wisdom from all sources
by C. B. Muthamma

“LET good thoughts come to us from all sides” is an ancient prayer. Most Hindus live this prayer. They revere all sages and accept wisdom from all sources. Shri Ramakrishna and Gandhiji were only two of the most eminent followers of these tenets. Hindu pilgrims go to Ajmer Sharif and to Velanganni. Mother Teresa’s establishments in this country are substantially sustained by charitable Hindus. Their universalist and inclusive attitude has found a response from the non-Hindus. There are those among them who go to Tirupati, and Ramana Maharshi had non-Hindu devotees. Rahi Masoom Raza, a Muslim who wrote the script for the Mahabharata serial on TV, when asked by Femina magazine about the Rathyatras, said: I am a Hindu Muslim. Shehnai Maestro Bismillah Khan told The Illustrated Weekly of India (now defunct) that his music was the gift of Balaji. If the Hindus see no contradiction between being Hindus and revering non-Hindu sources of wisdom and goodness, non-Hindus too have no difficulty in following their faiths while accepting the wisdom of Hinduism.

These things are possible because of the long tradition of sanity and humanity of this country.

But every country, at all times, has had its lunatic fringe. We have a very vocal minority that seeks to destroy our traditions and to propagate a diseased Hinduism which is as far from Hinduism as pornography is from love. We have a political system that enables them to take state power and to use all the instruments of power to spread violence and insanity across the country. What is worse, they use all available means of propaganda to distort the thinking of the unsuspecting public. Power in the hands of these people has the potential not only to destroy the solidarity and strength of our nation but also to destroy the very foundations of our civilisation.

The recent spate of violence and disorder in the country has been made possible because the perpetrators of these crimes feel that their patrons are in power, even though these patrons represent only a small minority of the people of this country. After the last general election it was reported that the BJP, which emerged as the largest single party, had well under 25 per cent of the votes cast. The Shiv Sena, which took power after Maharashtra’s assembly elections, was reported to have received 19 per cent of the votes cast. With these narrow support bases, they have been able to capture power and to hold captive the vast majority of the people who have rejected them.

The followers of the Sangh Parivar have mounted attacks against the Christians, as they had done earlier against the Muslims. The Shiv Sena chief, with his small minority in his home state, announces decisions for the whole of India — he would not permit a Pakistan cricket team to visit India. This fiat is backed by vandalism and threats to the cricketers of both sides by his followers. He has also tried to order Maharashtra’s Shiv Sena in government to take populist measures such as supplying free electricity to farmers to built a captive vote bank for him but this would have ruined the economy.

All parties play this kind of vote-bank politics, chasing sectoral minorities which can put them in power, to the detriment of national interests. They have got power on the strength of a minority of the votes cast, always at the Centre, and most in the states. Politicians who seek power by these methods are of a particular kind. It is not an accident that there is a growing criminalisation of politics and public life, and a gradual breakdown of institutions. Our politicians have a vested interest in a system that can give them power even when they have a minority of votes.

It is of crucial importance that we put an end to the possibility of winning power on minority electoral support. Seekers of power should be required to get the support of an absolute numerical majority so that they are subject to the discipline of appealing to the entire electorate, not to a sectoral and partisan vote-bank.

The author is a former Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs, and has been India’s Ambassador to several countries.

Bihar: wages of one-upmanship

by P. Raman

ON THE face of it, the sudden ouster of the two chief ministers within a span of three days seems totally unrelated. True, from the very start, the political consequences of the Bihar operation looked far more serious than the routine change of guard effected by the Congress in Orissa. But the two developments in quick succession speak volume of the fragility of the present political arrangement, its inner contradictions and the deleterious style of functioning of both ruling alliance and the Sonia Congress.

Though the comfortable majority enjoyed by the Congress in Orissa enabled it to contain the crisis without much difficulty, the origin of troubles in both states can be traced to the party’s misplaced enthusiasm for pepping up its moralistic image. This is not to ignore the bold experiments launched under Sonia Gandhi. They included denial of tickets to those with a blemished background. This had paid rich dividends in the recent Assembly elections. However, the moral standards the party has set itself for good governance in both Orissa and Bihar and the way they were sought to be enforced reveal a highly simplistic approach.

The removal of a Chief Minister by the party high command itself is bureaucratic. It could be applied only in extreme cases when things go out of control. The appointment culture and its indiscriminate use had caused immense damage to the Congress under Rajiv Gandhi. Under this bureaucratic concept, the term ‘moral responsibility has been widely misused. It is illogical to seek the head of a PCC President or Chief Minister alone for an electoral rout. It is more absurd because under the highly centralised Congress, every action of a Chief Minister or PCC chief is tightly controlled by a set of central leaders. Even the election campaigns are supervised by the central observers.

In the case of J.B. Patnaik, the Anjali Mishra rape case could have been more convincingly used to remove him — if that was the real purpose. A few cases of attacks on the Christians in the tension-bound tribal areas should never be reason enough for such a drastic measure. Barring the brutal murder of the Australian missionary, there has been no other major law and order problem that calls for the chief minister’s head. In any case, the attack on the missionaries has been the result of an organised hatred campaign conducted by a section of determined RSS parivar. It is not confined to one state. It could have been fought politically.

Apparently, the Congress establishment tried to impose its concept of ‘moral right to rule’ both in the case of J.B. Patnaik and the Bihar ministry as part of its strategy to give the party a highly moralistic image. Patnaik has thus been sacrificed at the altar of the party’s cherished political chastity. However, in its over-emphasis on political ethics, the Congress leadership also overlooked the instability forced by Delhi, some thing that had led to the emergence of regional parties like the TDP. The imposition of a colourless personality as Chief Minister is bound to heighten such sentiments.

The same ethical trappings have pushed the Congress into a deeper dilemma in Bihar. If the party manages to get out of the present troubles, it will only be due to political follies of the BJP. Even senior Congress leaders admit the bloomer contained in the statement that the Rabri government had “no moral right” to continue in power. This thoughtless remark was promptly taken advantage of by the Samata leaders to push the BJP to dismiss the government. Meanwhile, the BJP also spread the word that before sending the recommendation to the President, the Congress was also taken into confidence.

By the time a confused Congress contradicted the claim, the President had already signed the ordinance. The unintended Congress support to the dismissal of the Rabri Devi government was based on two factors. First, it wanted to stand by its moralistic posture which it had adopted in the case of its own chief minister. By saying so, it had meant to differentiate between the moral and legal rights. This it did not. Had it done so, it could have served the purpose of politically distinguishing itself from the Laloo party even while denying the post-dismissal advantages to the BJP-Samata combine.

Second, the Congress has been frantically trying to break it severe strategy dilemma in both UP and Bihar. The two largest states together account for 139 out of 543 Lok Sabha seats or over one-fourths. This is 10 more than the entire south put together. Therefore, for the Congress, any strategy aimed at capturing power at the centre should cover the two states. However, the party finds its political task in the two states most complicated and risky.

On the one hand, political realism should convince the Congress that unlike Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi, in UP and Bihar it would not be the sole beneficiary of the sweeping anti-BJPism. In the three states, the minorities had en bloc voted in favour of the Congress. It is not likely to be so in UP and Bihar where the minorities could look to Mulayam Singh Yadav and Laloo Prasad Yadav as better protectors at the time of riots, some thing which determines their support.

The victory in the recent Assembly elections has prompted the Congress to go it alone in all places, including UP and Bihar. This is in spite of the fact that the division of the votes between the Congress and Rashtriya Loktantrik Morcha might benefit the BJP and its allies. This, in turn, may reduce the total tally of the non-BJP block in the Lok Sabha. Despite this obvious disadvantage, the dominant mood in the Congress has been in favour of standing on its own feet in UP and Bihar. Thus the Congress remarks about the Rabri government losing the ‘moral right’ to rule, has to be viewed in the light of the former’s determination to simultaneously fight both the BJP and the third force parties in Bihar and UP.

While trapping the Congress in the post-dismissal Bihar politics, the BJP had its own calculations. The BJP thinks that at the moment, the Congress is not ready for an election. The party needs about a year’s preparation to reorganise its dormant units. Similarly, the Congress is also worried over the possible moves by the Samata-BJP combine for an alternative government by engineering defections from Laloo Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal. The Congress is also not sure about the actual political space available for it in the peculiar Bihar politics. The BJP had hoped that these factors would browbeat the Congress into supporting the President’s rule in Parliament.

With the government still unsure of the responses from the Akalis and the TDP, it will be disastrous for the Congress to be seen as voting along with the BJP in Parliament at a time when it is assiduously wooing the minorities and other sections. An influential section in the Congress argues that since the BJP had always been in the forefront of the attacks on the party, it is not duty bound to help it survive in Parliament. Thus opinion is gaining ground within the Congress that even while assailing the Rabri government for its failure, the party should not support the BJP on a measure that was taken without consulting it.

As compared to the Congress miscalculations, the mindless misadventure indulged in by each warring faction within the ruling alliance has turned Bihar into a political theatre of the absurd. Excited over Rabri’s fall, each one sought to take the credit for killing the Robbin. Every one wanted to grab the booty by usurping more powers in the muddled state, and in the process tried to settle score with each other. L.K. Advani’s one-upmanship was directed not against his former rival Sunder Singh Bhandari alone. In his usual measured words, Advani had assiduously tried to impose his personal views on the entire cabinet by making Bhandari’s removal a fait accompli. He had even leaked out the names of possible replacements for Bhandari.

He had conveyed the impression that the ouster of Bhandari was being done to get the Congress support in Parliament and impress the world about the government’s impartiality. By doing so, he also gave credence to the opposition charge that the former pracharak has been really a political governor. It is highly improper for the Home Minister to treat a Governor, an important constitutional functionary, as one of the transferable bureaucrats and make public pronouncements about him without taking the President into confidence. It also reflected the deteriorating relationship among the leaders of the RSS parivar.

Apparently, Advani had tried to impose the Home Ministry’s will on the day-to-day administration of Bihar through his own chosen group of advisers. His preferences conveyed through Yashwant Sinha, who was rushed to Patna, were not entirely acceptable to Bhandari.

Nitish Kumar, who was ready with his own plans to control the Bihar administration through his band of officials, also felt jilted by the Governor’s independent actions. The latter wanted to run the government more under the directions of the state BJP leaders. Both the Advani faction and Nitish Kumar also had an alternative plan to conduct a UP-style operation in Bihar to install a government of defectors. They were not sure about the cooperation for such moves from the conventional RSS veteran.

The tragedy of the Bihar operation has been that even after a full week, total chaos continued in the state with no effective machinery in sight to streamline the administration. The process started by the Governor remained incomplete while the assigned officials waited to see whether more reshuffles were coming. Thus, even if the Bhandari controversy is resolved, the tussle for domination between the Samata and local BJP groups will continue.

Goodwill delegation turns glamorous

AT first it was a trickle and then the deluge. It all began when a well-meaning former official sent a note to the Prime Minister’s office suggesting that he take a goodwill delegation on the bus to Lahore. The suggestion had a historical perspective. It recalled that when late General Zia-ul-Haq visited India, his delegation included the then Chief Minister of West Punjab, Mr Nawaz Sharif, now the Prime Minister of Pakistan.

Soon after, a telephone call was put through to Punjab and an invitation was extended to Chief Minister, Parkash Singh Badal. At first the inclusion of Mr Badal was to be the only exception and the Punjab Chief Minister, it was agreed, would board the bus at Amritsar.

By Friday morning, the situation altered. It was decided that instead of sending officials on the bus, the delegation members including personalities from various walks of life must be on the inaugural run and bingo, the officials were off-loaded and despatched to Lahore by the chartered plane ferrying scribes numbering over 150.

The delegation, apart from Mr Badal, included sports and film personalities like hockey Olympian Pargat Singh, cricketer Kapil Dev, evergreen Bollywood hero Dev Anand, actress turned MP Shabana Azmi, sarod maestro Amjad Ali Khan, Prof A.N. Khusro and veteran journalist Kuldip Nayar. It also included Mr Tarlochan Singh, former aide of late Zail Singh.

The jet to Lahore

It was amazing. A whole planeload of print and visual media personnel were ferried from Delhi to Lahore. It was like a grand family re-union with over 150 persons belonging to various news agencies, papers and networks winging their way to Lahore to cover from the other side of the border the historic moment.

After all, a new chapter was being added to Indo-Pak relations and the bus ride by Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee had various dimensions to it. The sheer number of media personnel and their support staff present on both sides of the border must have run into four figures.

Another interesting aspect of the special plane to Lahore was the composition of the crew and among others it had one of India’s most dazzling hockey forwards — Ashok Kumar — who works with airlines. The son of hockey wizard Dhyan Chand, he was unassuming carrying on his job nonchalantly notwithstanding the hype of personalities included in the Prime Minister’s delegation.

Samajwad and multinationals

The Samajwadi Party chief, Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav, personally does not seem to practice what he preaches to his partymen specially about Samajwad.

At the recent national convention of the Samajwadi Party held at Bhopal, the Rashtriya Loktantrik Morcha president went out of his way to encourage his partymen to take to Samajwad seriously and practice it to ensure that the control, which the multinationals were slowly attaining over the Indian economy, was broken. He pointed out that adopting Samajwad was the only way to improve the strength of Indian economy.

However what is interesting is that Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav’s son, who is also a member of the Samajwadi Party has been trying hard, with all the political connections, to ensure that his company got the contract from a multinational firm owning a chain of fastfood restaurants throughout the country for running its outlet in Lucknow. Well, charity doesn’t definitely begin at home for this Samajwad.

Taxing queries

For the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, Mr K.C.Pant, who took over his new post only recently, it has been a taxing time. With little time to study the voluminous Ninth Plan draft document, Mr Pant had the unenviable task of getting the Plan ratified at the National Development Council meeting last month. That it had not been an easy task to go through the complexities of the Plan in a short duration was evident when the Deputy Chairman addressed a Press conference to brief on the outcome of the NDC meeting.

When a scribe wanted to know the varying figures in the document on industrial growth in the Ninth Plan period, Mr Pant promptly passed on the question to another distinguished member of the Commission, Dr Montek Singh Ahluwalia. Not only that, Mr Pant was interested in knowing from the scribe whether he had really managed to go through the Plan document or the question just struck his eye. When the scribe informed that he had gone through the document, thanks to it being put on the Internet in advance, Mr Pant could not hide his surprise. He promptly congratulated the scribe for his initiative.

However, for other tricky questions, Mr Pant put to good use his wide experience in politics in the past. To a pointed question on whether the Commission would recommend taxation of the farm sector, the Deputy Chairman quipped he had learnt not to disclose his mind on such sensitive issues. He later clarified that since the subject was a state issue, he would first consult the Chief Ministers before making any comment.

Vajpayee’s subsidy blues

The Centre’s resolve to cut down on subsidies has become a debating point among the states. It was only natural that when the Prime Minister convened the National Development Council meeting last week, several Chief Ministers took him to task for not consulting them before announcing the hike in the prices of essential commodities supplied through the ration shops. At this stage the Prime Minister queried the Chief Ministers that if he had brought the issue before the NDC before making the announcement on the price hike, would the states have relented?

A Chief Minister told Mr Vajpayee that in all probability the states would have agreed to the measure provided they were educated about the ill-effects of the huge subsidy bill. But when the Prime Minister enquired whether it was possible that the states could have also refused to endorse the move, the Chief Minister replied in the affirmative. At this Mr Vajpayee disclosed that he stood to lose on two counts. Suppose he had brought the issue before the NDC and had failed to get its endorsement for the hike and later pushed through the same measure he would have been accused of brushing aside their objections. In either case I would have been at the receiving end, Mr Vajpayee quipped.

(Contributed by T. V. Lakshminarayan, K.V. Prasad, Girja Shankar Kaura and P. N. Andley )

75 YEARS AGO

Editor of “Desh Sewak” prosecuted

SARDAR Phuman Singh Ajit, Editor, Printer and Publisher of “ Desh Sewak”, was proceeded against in the court of C.W. Jacob Esqr, Deputy Commissioner, Jullundur, when S. Gopal Singh, Translator, Punjab Secretariat, was produced as P.W.

He had translated the Gurmukhi writing into English which he admitted to be true and correct and literal translation.

Sardar Phuman Singh filed his written statement alleging that he was the Editor, Publisher and Printer of “Desh Sewak”, that the matter published in “Desh Sewak” did not come within the purview of Section 124A, IPC; that he had explained the tyrannies, etc. by the police over the Akalis in the Doaba region and nothing against the Government and had no intention to do so.

A charge under Section 124A, IPC, was framed and Sardar Phuman Singh pleaded not guilty. He declined to cross-examine any of the prosecution witnesses or to give his defence. The 10th of March has been fixed for arguments.