Beyond the expulsion
THE expulsion of Mr Sharad Pawar, Mr P. A. Sangma and Mr Tariq Anwar for six years from the party is on expected lines. It is basically a quick emotional response by the Congress Working Committee to a highly complex situation.

Democracy wins in Nepal
PRIME MINISTER Girija Prasad Koirala’s victory from both his traditional strongholds is not as significant as the impressive performance of the Nepali Congress under his leadership in the third general elections in the Himalayan Kingdom in nine years.

Violent delight, violent end
MR Asif Ali Zardari has been occasionally referred to in Pakistan as a progressive businessman and almost consistently described as a ruthless manipulator, a corrupt politician and a former incompetent minister.

KOSOVO CONFLICT
Grave dimensions are emerging
THE NATO bombing of Yugoslavia has entered the second month, with the country’s economy having been reduced to rubbles. With both Russian envoy Chernomyrdin and Secretary-General Kofi Annan trying to work out a settlement, hopefully the bombing would cease soon.

Presidential system is the answer
by Arvind Bhandari
AGAIN and again the nation is witness to the ludicrous spectacle of ageing politicians doing arithmetic sums like tiny-tots in a kindergarten class. The tamasha will resume when a new government is to be formed after the elections.

by Tavleen Singh
She uses politics to end ‘Dalit oppression’
IT was shortly after Mayawati’s five votes caused the end of the 12th Lok Sabha that I requested my old friend, Akbar Ahmed, to arrange a meeting for me with his leader. He is now in the Bahujan Samaj Party but I have known him since the days when he was Sanjay Gandhi’s lieutenant.

DD fails to get Ravi Shastri’s commentary
AS if cricket and the elections were not bad enough, we now have the Sonia Gandhi-Sharad Pawar contest in full cry. The focus, as usual, has been on news and if, in the race, some channels have pulled up their socks, it is all for the good.

Middle riddle
by Anurag
MORE out of modesty than sincerity, please permit me to admit that I’m made of middlebrow stuff, whatever that means. And I believe this to be reason enough to attempt this middle about matters middle, not necessarily middling . Let me assure that this has nothing to do with midsummer madness. No, not Shakespearian!

75 Years Ago

Communal leaders’ conference
WE are sincerely pleased to learn that it has now been definitely decided to hold a Conference of All-India Hindu and Muslim Leaders to settle communal disputes in Northern India.

Beyond the expulsion

THE expulsion of Mr Sharad Pawar, Mr P. A. Sangma and Mr Tariq Anwar for six years from the party is on expected lines. It is basically a quick emotional response by the Congress Working Committee to a highly complex situation. The CWC apparently wanted to act decisively and firmly so that the “fence-sitters” within the Congress are not influenced by the “rebels”. Also, they did not wish to overlook the “angry sentiments” of Congress workers who had been flocking to 10 Janpath for the past three or four days seeking the withdrawal of the resignation by Mrs Sonia Gandhi as party president. Only time will tell to what extent the CWC was correct in taking this swift step. Indian politics, in any case, does not move along straight lines. It is a highly complicated phenomenon which does not fit in pre-conceived ideas. This has been the pattern of politics in recent years. The entire polity, for that matter, is in a state of flux. Realignment of political forces is very much on the cards. The expulsion of the trio will only add one more factor to the country’s political manthan.

It is true that the public position taken by the three “rebels” is prompted by their short-term and long-term calculations. They have raised several inconvenient questions to which the party has reacted sharply. Theirs is a gamble and their success or failure will depend on how the Congress conducts itself in the crucial weeks ahead. Avoiding discussion on sensitive issues may not help. The answer to odd situations in politics has to be found dispassionately and objectively. Emotional responses are a poor substitute to shrewd counter-moves. Perhaps a better course for the Congress Working Committee would have been to issue a show-cause notice and allow hard feelings to subside. This is what some moderate leaders wanted. But the hardliners had their way. Apparently, they had their own compulsions and thought that visibly hard action might help them to keep the party united. This is a matter of perspective. The trouble with the Congress is that it does not have tested grassroots leadership that Indira Gandhi once symbolised. The party has been in the process of rebuilding itself and it needed a couple of years to take new shape. Much will again depend on Sonia Gandhi’s response. There will be a serious political vacuum if she sticks to her present position.

The continuing importance of the charisma factor in Indian politics cannot be denied. It is a fact that Mrs Sonia Gandhi does possess the charisma of belonging to the Nehru-Gandhi family. That is the main reason why most Congress leaders have reacted so emotionally. They constantly think of their future in terms of electoral politics and that is why they flock to the person who has the potential to win elections. Be that as it may, Congressmen will do well to know a thing or two about double-talk and double-think. It is only the open mind that can help them face the challenges ahead. They have to sift the ground realities and attempt to evolve some coherent patterns in political management and response system. It is equally pertinent to remember that coterie politics can hardly help them to apply the necessary correctives for a healthy growth of the party and improve its overall functioning on democratic lines.

Democracy wins in Nepal

PRIME MINISTER Girija Prasad Koirala’s victory from both his traditional strongholds is not as significant as the impressive performance of the Nepali Congress under his leadership in the third general elections in the Himalayan Kingdom in nine years. The verdict reflects the people’s aversion to continued administrative instability born out of the coalition politics of opportunism. It may be too early to state that parliamentary democracy has at least struck firm roots in Nepal although the mandate suggests that the new dispensation introduced nine years ago, after a long struggle, is in robust health. In the overall context, nine years is a small period and the resultant political instability a small price to pay for making the people understand the value of their vote. Reports from Kathmandu suggest that the basic concern of the people, after the restoration of multi-party democracy in 1990, in place of the Palace dominated system of Panchayati Raj, was to give themselves a stable political option of governance. In this election, the people seem to have discovered the power of their vote and overwhelmingly rejected the politics of coalition by giving the Nepali Congress an absolute majority to rule. The biggest sufferers have been the “kingmakers” of the Rashtriya Prajatantra Party in the dissolved House. Their number of seats in the new Parliament has dropped to single digit.

In the run-up to the general elections Prime Minister Koirala’s biggest worry was the threat of violence by the Maoists who in March had killed a United Marxist Leninist member of the dissolved House. He had promised not to allow anti-India activity from Nepalese soil and had appealed to the Indian government to check the entry of infiltrators for disrupting elections. The good news is that the two neighbours kept their promise and poll violence in Nepal did not grab the headlines. An interesting aspect of the restoration of multi-party democracy in Nepal is the strong presence of the Left parties in what is often called the only Hindu Kingdom in the world. In the current elections the United Marxist-Leninist party has emerged as the second largest after the Nepali Congress. Overall the Left parties do not seem to have as strong a presence in secular India as they have in Hindu Nepal. Mr Man Mohan Adhikari had the rare distinction of heading the first Communist government in the Himalayan Kingdom. The Left’s acceptability at the grassroots level in Nepal is significant because of the popular view that Communism is both anti-religion and anti-monarchy. To understand the Nepalese phenomenon, it is essential to separate Hinduism from Hindutva. Hinduism, perhaps, is to Nepal what Islam is to Turkey. Islamic Turkey does not allow religion to dirty its secular Constitution.

Violent delight, violent end

MR Asif Ali Zardari has been occasionally referred to in Pakistan as a progressive businessman and almost consistently described as a ruthless manipulator, a corrupt politician and a former incompetent minister. The husband of Ms Benazir Bhutto has never been out of the limelight since his marriage to the late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s daughter on December 18, 1987. General Zia-ul-Haq had ousted Bhutto in a military coup in 1977 and hanged him in 1979. Ms Bhutto and Mr Zardari have lived in a twilight zone of Pakistani politics for their own specific reasons but defended each other fiercely, often being branded as fellow-criminals. Now when Mr Zardari is accusing the Nawaz Sharif regime of torturing and trying to murder him, Ms Bhutto is petitioning US President Bill Clinton from her shelter in Dubai to restrain the tormentors and save her husband’s life. And the global super “supreme court” interventionist is unable to influence the course of the Zardari case in any manner. The Pakistani government puts forth a queer mixture of truth and lies. It says that Mr Zardari tried to commit suicide during an interrogative session by attempting to cut his throat with a piece of broken glass. The government hospital found the convict-cum-suspect bleeding profusely from the mouth because of a major “tongue injury”! Ms Bhutto and her supporters cry “torture to cause murder”. Coincidentally, Mr Zardari is being kept in solitary confinement in connection with a double murder case which should not be confused with the charge of killing Ms Bhutto’s estranged brother Murtaza.

Among the various cases of corruption against the former Prime Minister and him is the one in which both have been sentenced recently to five years in jail and fined 8.6 million dollars. One must not forget the moments of arrogance — and impure jubilation — when Mr Zardari, then a minister, went into a series of celebrations even when President Farooq Ahmed Leghari was trying to seek clarifications from Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto regarding media reports about her husband acquiring a 350-acre estate in Surrey for over £ 2 million and an apartment in London’s Mayfair area. The unverified tales of Swiss bank accounts made the rich and famous couple an object of envy all over the wealthy world. What is happening today is not strange. Nobody knows it better than Ms Bhutto or Mr Nawaz Sharif that murder and ill-gotten wealth have nothing surprising about them in Pakistan. But then, in Allah’s limitless kingdom, nemesis is an inevitable thing. The sooner the rulers of the land and the fugitive former Prime Minister realise this fact, the better it would be for the people for whom our hearts still bleed. Mr Zardari must get justice but his wife and he should remember the Bard: Violent delights have violent ends......

KOSOVO CONFLICT
Grave dimensions are emerging
by T.V. Rajeswar

THE NATO bombing of Yugoslavia has entered the second month, with the country’s economy having been reduced to rubbles. With both Russian envoy Chernomyrdin and Secretary-General Kofi Annan trying to work out a settlement, hopefully the bombing would cease soon.

The NATO intervention in Kosovo was soon followed by its 50th anniversary at Washington when NATO leaders came out with a new strategic concept whereby NATO could intervene in “volatile regions” beyond their borders. NATO’s intervention in Kosovo itself and its intensive bombing on Serb cities were without the UN authorisation and the new NATO doctrine does not also require the UN backing to its proposed role. More importantly, NATO has come out with a new doctrine of war which is nuclear-oriented since it has affirmed that conventional forces alone cannot ensure credible deterrence and nuclear weapons remained essential to preserve peace. NATO has also quite categorically asserted that there will be no adherence to the “no-first-use” principle as it would tempt its adversary to launch aggression against it. The “no-first-use” principle in any country’s nuclear doctrine thereby gets a permanent burial.

Russia has been exercising restraint, not by choice, but forced by the dire economic chaos in the country. Russia announced that it was revising its military doctrine to face the new threat from NATO’s intervention in Yugoslavia. Plans for dismantling whole Soviet missiles were reportedly abandoned and development of advanced nuclear weapons authorised. President Yeltsin declared that the entire technological chain of the nuclear weapons complex, from the scientific research in the field of nuclear weapons to carry out nuclear tests, to production of such weapons would be taken up. These expected developments in the Russian defence doctrine, in response to NATO’s intervention in Yugoslavia and its subsequent announcement of a new aggressive defence philosophy for NATO, seems to have ended any hope for nuclear disarmament in the foreseeable future. Thereby within a period of two months, at the turn of the second millennium, the NATO powers, led by President Clinton and British Premier Tony Blair, have drastically changed the strategic climate in Europe.

After eight rounds of talks between Foreign Minister, Jaswant Singh, and American Deputy Secretary of State, Talbott, the negotiations have not made any worthwhile progress. The present political atmosphere in the country, after the dissolution of Parliament, the question of signing the CTBT by September is out of the question. Signing the CTBT or any of other treaty pertaining to fissile material or missile production and deployment etc., has to be reviewed afresh in the wake of the NATO nuclear doctrine and the Russian announcement of a revised nuclear programme. The extensive use of cruise missiles in Yugoslavia has also added a new dimension to the doctrine of war, with the indispensability of missile technology, both for tactical and strategic use having been clearly demonstrated. India has been trying to come out with its own nuclear doctrine in the near future but it would certainly call for extensive rethinking and revision in the light of the recent developments in Yugoslavia, and the neo-nuclear doctrine of NATO and the decision of Russia to revise its nuclear programme.

There is an even more sinister twist to the Kosovo intervention. Speaking to the American public soon after the bombing commenced on March 24, President Clinton said that the intervention in Yugoslavia was a moral imperative and important to American national interests. British Prime Minister Tony Blair was even more emphatic in justifying the extensive bombing of Yugoslavia in the cause of human rights. The Kosovars who were once considered terrorists and communists have since come close to NATO and in any future settlement the secessionist KLA would play an active role. It is quite clear that Kosovo would become a protectorate preparatory to becoming an independent state after a year or two.

President Clinton and his NATO allies seem to be committing a historic blunder in Europe which will have serious consequences in the third millennium. After Bosnia, Kosovo is all set to emerge as another independent Muslim country, in spite of all the protestations made by NATO that their ultimate aim is only to ensure the autonomy of Kosovo. Albania is no more a Communist state as it is fast turning into an Islamic country. The emergence of three Muslim countries at the heart of Europe is an important development in European history, after the Ottoman Turks were pushed out of the area more than three centuries ago. Clinton spoke of historic fault-lines in the Balkans but were they also not civilisational fault lines, as defined by Prof Samuel P. Huntington? Huntington’s fault line is drawn right over Bosnia and Kosovo in the European map sheet in his article, and the conflict between Western and Islamic civilisations had been going on for 1300 years, according to him. Huntington foresees the eventual convergence of Confucian (read Chinese) and Islamic interests to counter the military power of the West. Are the Americans and NATO unwittingly sowing the seeds of such an eventual linkup? Time will tell. It took 30 years for Robert McNmara to confess about America’s blunder in Vietnam. “We were wrong, terribly wrong”. This confession could hardly mitigate the tragic tribulations of the Vietnamese people for more than two decades. Clinton, who was against America’s intervention in Vietnam, has now emerged as the hero of Western machismo unleashing a cruel war on a sovereign nation. When would he come out with his confession?

Some observers have seen the traces of a Clinton Doctrine in his Serbian venture, the essence of which is that America would fight against ethnic cleansing and slaughter of innocent people. An American commentator has dismissed it saying that it is not a policy at all but righteous self-delusion. The danger is such righteous self-delusion has the potential of affecting the lives of other nations. In its lead editorial two days after NATO started the attack, the Economist asked, “How would the West respond if one day China, say, were to carry out air strikes against an Indian government fighting to prevent its Muslim-majority province of Jammu and Kashmir from seceding?” So it is a scenario which could not be totally excluded from the realm of possibility. Pakistan has indeed drawn a parallel between the Kosovo crisis and the Kashmir situation and along with other Muslim countries, supported the NATO attack on Serbia.

A leading American weekly came out with an editorial recently saying that it was incumbent upon the USA to clarify its policy of humanitarian interventionism. “Is the USA the defender of last resort of every minority anywhere in the world? Is it willing to sacrifice good relations with Russia and China, both of whom have restive minorities, for a foreign policy of unfettered global moralism?” The US intervention in Yugoslavia can hardly be described as humanitarian interventionism. The description of USA as the bandit sheriff by Pascal Boniface, Director of the Institute de Relations Internationales et Strategiques, Paris, seems more appropriate. Be that as it may, the presence of “restive minorities” in our own country constitutes sufficient cause for anxiety and the need for eternal watch.

Presidential system is the answer
by Arvind Bhandari

AGAIN and again the nation is witness to the ludicrous spectacle of ageing politicians doing arithmetic sums like tiny-tots in a kindergarten class. There is only a temporary respite from the numerical skulduggery that accompanied the defeat of the Vajpayee government. The tamasha will resume when a new government is to be formed after the elections.

Is this the way to govern a huge, polyglot nation beset with endemic problems of poverty and socio-economic injustice? India needs a strong, stable government which can take bold decisions with alacrity and implement them expeditiously.

Since in a parliamentary democracy a government draws legitimacy from numerical superiority in the lower house of a bicameral legislature, the resultant numbers game inevitably injects an element of instability into the political system. Experience shows that this inbuilt instability gets accentuated, manifesting itself in centrifugal tendencies, if ruling formations are based on coalition politics.

Therefore, India should switch over to some variant of the presidential system. A constituent assembly should be called for the purpose.

This opinion has been expressed more than once by none other than Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee. A number of other eminent persons have also expatiated on the need to go in for a presidential system. They include former President Venkataraman, former Speaker Shivraj Patil, noted jurist Nani Palkhivala, former Union Minister Vasant Sathe and Murli Manohar Joshi, Human Resource Development Minister, in the caretaker BJP-led government. The quintessence of their thinking is that experience has shown that the parliamentary form of government is inferior to the presidential system in various ways.

One, because of the instability built into the system, a lot of time and energies of the leader of the parliamentary party (or coalition) holding the reins of power are frittered away in keeping the flock together in order to survive in power, with the result that governance suffers.

Two, striking of political deals, not unoften involving wheeling and dealing, vitiates the atmosphere and lowers standards of public probity and accountability. Three, this also not unoften leads to unwieldy and top-heavy governments with creation of sinecure posts because of the compulsion to placate a large number of aspirants with the loaves and fishes of office, resulting in wastage of public funds.

Four, post-election hobnobbing and hopping by elected representative from one side to another — in other words, defection — is tantamount to flouting the mandate given to them by the voter, who cast his ballot in their favour because he believed them to be representing a particular position. This violates the ethics of democracy. Five, in a parliamentary system it is difficult to have a government of talents because those who get elected do not represent the best talent available in the country.

We adopted the British system of parliamentary government. It has worked more or less satisfactorily in that country, for two reasons. Britain has traditionally had only two major political parties, Conservative and Labour, the third one — Liberal Democrats — coming on the scene only in the recent past. Before 1906, the year the Labour Party was born, there were principally two parties — the Whigs and the Tories. Secondly, a fairly high level of literacy in that country has been conducive to a greater degree of political morality and ideological commitment, which means less horse-trading, less defection and less political wheeling-dealing. In India, neither of these two conditions obtain.

The American and the French presidential systems are often mentioned as possible examples for this country. Under both the systems, the President is elected by direct universal suffrage and exercises executive power. Some feel that the French system might be better for Indian conditions because under it the President shares executive power with a Prime Minister, who is appointed by him and who, along with his Cabinet, is responsible to the National Assembly.

Those sceptical about a presidential system point out that in a largely illiterate country like India concentration of so much power in the hands of one individual may lead to dictatorship. Such scepticism needs to be tempered by facts. In the USA, the system of checks and balances, with sufficient powers vested in the Congress, which acts as a counterweight to the chief executive, has functioned quite effectively, so that American Presidents have generally enjoyed less untrammelled power than some runaway Indian Prime Ministers.

In the earlier years after Independence, the inbuilt instability of the parliamentary system was not visible because of the dominant position enjoyed by the Indian National Congress under Jawaharlal Nehru. But ever since the Congress Party lost its monolithic position in Indian politics, the numbers game has often degenerated into bizarre happenings, besmirching the political scene at both the central and state levels.

Middle riddle
by Anurag

MORE out of modesty than sincerity, please permit me to admit that I’m made of middlebrow stuff, whatever that means. And I believe this to be reason enough to attempt this middle about matters middle, not necessarily middling . Let me assure that this has nothing to do with midsummer madness. No, not Shakespearian!

Middle is meaningful. Middle is magical. It is often mysterious and mirthful. It has a ring to it. It has a zing to it. Neither big nor small, neither good nor bad, neither high nor low, it rests regally betwixt and between. A newspaper middle revels in banter and burlesque. And much more.

Middle marks moderation. “Middle Path” was the hallmark of Buddhism which spread far and wide, thrived across the continents and outlived many a religion in time and space. It preached the path of the golden mean. Though an overdose of Buddhism, inter alia, led The Mauryan empire to its decline and fall.

Modern-day management concepts lay great store by the middle-of -the-road counsel. Without trivialising the tissue of issues, Tommy Lasroda, an American baseball manager confessed: “Managing is like holding a dove in your hand . Squeeze too hard and you kill it; not hard enough and it flies away.”

Female fashion buffs would recall the following which the apparel “midi” commanded whereas the “maxi” and the ‘mini’ (skirt) had a limited clientele, though unlimited (sex) appeal! Our culture is yet to find its moorings somewhere between the maxima and the minima.

Belonging to the Great Indian Middle Class (GIMC) is as romantic as any. Pavan K. Verma , the quintessential diplomat turned essential writer, has in GIMC, blatantly blamed the ever expanding middle class for the mess we as a nation state or as a nation market, find ourselves in today. As a class, the middle class defies definition. There are many a middle within the middle class. Your guess is as good as mine, though Bernard Shaw believed a middle class person to be possessed of a moderately useful education, a moderately decent job, a moderately beautiful wife and a moderately honest life. Any takers?

Middle age is another riddle of the middle. The hardest decision for a woman to make is when to start middle age. The surest sign of middle age is the sudden discovery that you have become contemporary with all the wrong people. Given the growing generation gap, the middle -age-spread tends to transport you towards the Middle Ages.

Have heart, my dear. Life begins at 40. Let sobriety be my middle name as I graze the golden mean of life. This is the time when man is most creative. Though a little less procreative! Armed with both education and experience, he has the benefit of both retrospect and prospect. So make the most of it. Before it is too late.

Second best is always the best. Happy tidings.

by Tavleen Singh
She uses politics to end ‘Dalit oppression’

IT was shortly after Mayawati’s five votes caused the end of the 12th Lok Sabha that I requested my old friend, Akbar Ahmed, to arrange a meeting for me with his leader. He is now in the Bahujan Samaj Party but I have known him since the days when he was Sanjay Gandhi’s lieutenant. He was reluctant and so was his leader. She said that I had written against her in the past and how could he guarantee that if she met me this time that I would not rubbish her as the “Manuwadi press” has frequently done. He told her that he had known me for many years and that he had warned me that if I did a hatched job on her then it could mean the end of his job. He told me this before he put her on the phone. She was charming. Even when I asked her whether she had done the right thing by bringing the government down and forcing another election upon the country she was able to answer without taking offence. “We do what is right for the Bahujan Samaj,” she said pleasantly “and we believe that it is in the interest of the Bahujan Samaj to have frequent elections because shares at the stock exchange go up or down, the state of the economy makes no difference to our voters who earn their living through their labour - unko to mazdoori he karni hoti hai, chahey kucch bhi ho.”

It seemed to me a fair answer and since Akbar was keen that we do an interview only after I had seen his leader in action in Uttar Pradesh, where the BSP has kept a steady control of 25 p.c. of the vote, I agreed to travel to Benares and then follow her around in the interior of eastern UP where she was due to address a series of meetings. The tour was designed to coincide with Buddha Purnima because in one of the villages she was visiting a farmer had lately recovered from his fields an ancient statue of the Buddha which she had been invited to consecrate so that a temple could be built there.

The problem was, Akbar explained, that they would be flying down from Delhi in her helicopter and there really wasn’t room for any more people so I should go by train and meet them in the village the following day. I went by train and arrived in Benares in the early of the morning. Then, after a quick shower and a change of clothing, I found myself a taxi and set off for the village of Aarangi, beyond Ghazipur, more than 70 km from Benares. It was a long, hard drive. We drove along dusty, unpaved rural roads, through villages that looked abysmally poor, over a bridge on the Ganga that looked as if it might collapse even as we crossed it, and then along more kilometres of broken, bumpy roads till we got to Aarangi. We arrived an hour before Mayawati was scheduled to arrive but in a field baking with heat hundreds of people had already assembled and were waiting. Some had come from distant villages but neither the intense, white heat nor the long wait seemed to bother them.

They sat - men, women and children - with extraordinary discipline and listened to endless speeches which basically contained the same message. The upper castes were bad, the Dalits had been exploited for centuries and the only person who had helped them was Dr Himrao Ambedkar. Dalit poets sang songs in his praise. Na rab ney diya hai, na sitamgar ney diya hai, jo kucch bhi diya hai voh Ambedkar ney diya hai,” The message was clear. Neither God gave us anything, nor did those who exploited us. If anyone has given us anything it was Ambedkar. The song went down well, judging from the cheers it drew.

After what seemed like hours of waiting, Mayawati’s helicopter appeared in the white, hot skies. The cheering and the singing and the slogan-shouting became frenzied as she finally arrived to be among them.

She wore a simple, beige salwar-kameez but she had the imperious demeanour of a leader, a queen. When she addressed them she talked about Buddha and about the current political situation and they listened in reverent silence. Then she flew off to the next meeting leaving us to follow in her wake in our rattling Ambassador car along the same dusty roads we had travelled to get here. I found myself mulling over what the difference was between her exploiting the Dalit vote-bank and Congress exploiting it as it had done for all those years before the BSP came along. The difference, and it is the only difference, is that whereas Congress leaders had exploited Muslims and Dalits they had also attempted to bring them into the wider umbrella of the upper castes whereas the BSP had begun its rise to popularity by abusing the upper castes.

This has changed. From Aarangi Mayawati went on to address a Kshatriya sammelan at Odhihaar junction, near Ghazipur, and later that evening when we caught up with her in Benares she addressed a gathering of more than 5,000 Muslims.

The next day when I interviewed her at the local Circuit House I asked her why the BSP was no longer sticking to its original Dalit vote-bank and she said. “Because we have learned that the only way to help the oppressed castes is by coming to power and we cannot come to power only on Dalit votes. This is why we want to try and bring together all those people whom we think have been equally exploited by the Manuwadi parties. These include Muslims, Sikhs, Christians and Parsis.”

She was not prepared to talk to me for more than 15 minutes but in this short time she came across as one of our cleverest women politicians. She made it clear that to her politics was more than just winning elections. She had become a politician to help end the oppression she had seen inflicted on her community since she was a child.

She never took time off from her job, she said. She had no time for leisure of any kind because she believed that if leisure was what she wanted in life then she should not have become a Dalit leader. Why had 50 years of reservations and the emergence of important Dalit leaders on the national scene not been able to end the oppression of which she talked? Because, she said, they had tried to achieve their ends by making common cause with Manuwadi parties. This is why the BSP had been formed.

She spoke with the aggression of someone who fears that any chink in the armour will lead to an unexpected attack. In the end what she conveyed was what used to be a vote-bank which any party could exploit was now a vote-bank that was clearly of the BSP. Will this vote-bank expand to include Muslims in UP? Who knows. But, it could becoming the deciding vote on who forms the next government in Delhi.

Amita Malik
DD fails to get Ravi Shastri’s commentary

AS if cricket and the elections were not bad enough, we now have the Sonia Gandhi-Sharad Pawar contest in full cry. The focus, as usual, has been on news and if, in the race, some channels have pulled up their socks, it is all for the good.

Doordarshan, for instance, was the first to get an exclusive interview with Sharad Pawar on Tuesday for the simple reason that its correspondent had spoken to him in Marathi in Bombay and DD ran it with sub-titles in the English bulletin. The full melodrama of the several resignations, the dharnas and the rest were beautifully captured by the cameras and provided a good deal of light relief to jaded audiences sick to death of grim political intrigues.

Zee News has recently reorganised itself and is really putting in a superhuman effort to catch up. It has regular half-hourly bulletins, it has more outstation correspondents and some new newscasters. It tries to provide variety in its items and has succeeded to a great extent. The only problem is that its human element still needs a good deal of training and improvement. The women newscasters come dressed to the nines and are very lovely to look at, but there should be more to newscasting than appearances. The men, on the other hand, whether newscasters or reporters on the screen, seem to lack personality and screen presence. With Vinod Dua presiding over its election coverage, things ought to become much more professional.

The Najam Sethi story was intensively covered on TV, including despatches from Pakistan. One of the most interesting programmes was an interview by Paranjoy Guha-Thakurta just a week before Sethi returned to Pakistan and his subsequent arrest. The interview proved to be prophetic in the circumstances. His wife was particularly effective on TV and some of the correspondents in Pakistan spoke with admirable courage.

I have mentioned the criminal investigation programme “India’s Most Wanted,” by Suhaib Ilyasi before this and still consider it an innovative and courageous programme, associating viewers with the tracing of criminals evading the police. But of late, and particularly in last week’s programme on Pappu Yadav, I found the advertisements completely destroying the coherence and continuity of the action and dissipating the concentration of the viewer. It is natural to assess the success of a programme by the number of ads it attracts, but surely these can be staggered in some way so that they do not cut into the programme in such an irritating way. I am also not sure that the woman’s voice which now does most of the narration is in character with the spirit of the programme. I feel Ilyasi himself does much better.

It has been cricket, cricket and cricket and may I add my voice to those protesting about the absence of commentator Ravi Shastri on the channels available in India. It seems as usual DD bungled and some foreign channels not seen in India snapped him up.

Also I must register a protest, although it is unlikely to have any effect, about the constant pep talk by the Pakistani wicket-keeper during the match. His comments and shabashes come so loud and clear that they interfere with the commentary and also distract the viewer’s concentration. Sometimes the comments are not even in a civilised language. Such as his shouting during the match against the West Indies. “Come on boys, kick them.” If he must shout encouragement, its language and duration should be within bounds.

75 YEARS AGO
Notes and comments
Communal leaders’ conference

WE are sincerely pleased to learn that it has now been definitely decided to hold a Conference of All-India Hindu and Muslim Leaders to settle communal disputes in Northern India.

According to an Associated Press telegram, this conference will be held at Bombay on May 23 and invitations have already been sent to prominent leaders all over India.

Such a conference has long been needed, and the fact that it was not held earlier was due, first, to the enforced absence of Mahatma Gandhi in another place and then to his illness.

Now that he is once more in our midst and is presumably able to take a moderate part in public affairs, no further delay is considered justifiable in terminating a state of things which has done no end of injury to India’s national life.

We can only hope that the Mahatma will be equal to the strain which this conference is sure to impose upon his still poor health.