Yet another trade round
IN theory the 140 member-countries of the World Trade Organisation, which have one vote each, will discuss and shape binding rules for trade at the Millennium round in Seattle, the USA.

Insulting gender and justice
EVEN after the Supreme Court’s intervention in favour of strengthening the base of gender justice the office environment for women employees has not changed much.

Right to information
THE Union Minister for Law, Justice and Company Affairs, Mr Ram Jethmalani, has once again raised hopes about the introduction of the Right to Information Bill in Parliament.

GOVERNANCE BLUES
Economics of coalition politics
by Poonam I. Kaushish
“I ALWAYS pass on good advice. That is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself”. So said Lord Goring, a character in Oscar Wilde’s play, “Ideal Husband”. Politically speaking, this has become the stock in trade and trademark of Indian politicians.

India’s new image in USA
by A. Balu
NOT very long ago, India’s clout on Capitol Hill was marginal and at times the sentiment as expressed by US Congressmen was more pro-Pakistan than pro-India.

Softer image for Advani
by P. Raman
LAL KRISHAN ADVANI is depicted in Lakshman cartoons as a tall, sindoor sporting crowned king among the trishul-wielding, conch-blowing VHP sadhus. In contrast, Atal Behari Vajpayee is a rather affable person, desperately ever fighting to humanise the parivar.

On clearing the throat
by K.K. Khullar
CLEARING the throat is as common today as clearing the decks. Throat can be cleared by coughing but decks have to be cleared by something much more than mere coughing. Clearing the throat is now a part of oratory, poetry and music. Clearing the decks is a part of life, nay, it is also a part of death. Clearing the conscience, however, is a different issue.

75 Years Ago

November, 1924
Sikh Sudhar Committees and Government
AFTER the definite statement made by Sir John Maynard at a recent meeting of the Punjab Legislative Council in reply to a supplementary question by Professor Ruchi Ram Sahni, that “official influence in any shape or form is not being exercised in favour of the Sikh Sudhar Committees”, it is legitimate to expect that if in any particular case such influence has been or is being exercised in favour of such Committees, it should be promptly brought to the notice of both the Government and the public.

Yet another trade round

IN theory the 140 member-countries of the World Trade Organisation, which have one vote each, will discuss and shape binding rules for trade at the Millennium round in Seattle, the USA. In reality the decision will be taken in the hotel rooms of the US, European Union (EU) and Japanese delegations, mostly of the first two. Theirs is the three biggest economies and they account for a huge chunk of international trade. Why then this facade of a multilateral agreement based on consensus? Well, this process gives the final rules the status of a covenant and more importantly, it gives a chance to the three big players to armtwist one another in public and often with the other countries taking sides. This has made many countries sceptical of the conference making any worthwhile progress. The second reason is more weighty. The previous Uruguay round ended only in 1993 after 12 years of negotiation. Many countries are yet to fully implement its decisions and hence the feeling that the world is not ready for starting a fresh round. Anyway, the Seattle meet will merely signal the start of negotiations, and expectations are that it will drag on well into the first decade of the new century. Two of the contentious issues are to be reviewed next year and they are trade in agricultural goods, which has generated much acrimony between the USA and the EU, and in services covering professionals. On all other issues except the need for a multilateral pact on investment and competition policy (which will ease restrictions on foreign companies and goods) there is total unanimity between the two giants. On the other two items the USA has said a loud no in opposition to the EU which is an enthusiastic supporter.

The USA has made it abundantly clear that it would aggressively press for linking labour standards and environmental protection with trade. This is despite the earlier ministerial meeting of the WTO at Singapore rejecting the linkage, saying that the question of labour welfare rightly belongs to the ILO. The USA complains that lax laws and equally lax enforcement in developing countries have hit its interest in two ways. Many American multinational companies have shifted their operation to the Third World, particularly Africa, to save billions of dollars in installing anti-pollution equipment. This has led to job losses. Two, this factor and low wages combine to make products from the developing countries extremely price competitive, further affecting industry and employment. The dollar kingdom has erected several trade barriers to staunch the job haemorrhage. It applies a loophole in the WTO agreement to ban imports like it did in the case Indian nylon garments and more recently a popular brand of beedis (child labour is involved). Indian shrimps have been banned because the net used by fishermen do not have provision for freeing turtles! The environment linkage will receive powerful support from several non-governmental organisations while the entire block of the developing countries will oppose it. The USA may not have its way but the conference will certainly throw up some new ideas. Unlike during the Uruguay round, India is now better prepared with the Commerce Ministry seeking the help of economists and industrialists. This input shows in the overemphasis on protecting the concerns of the industry to the exclusion of the consumers. Maybe the Indian consumer is not ready for trade globalisation!

Insulting gender and justice

EVEN after the Supreme Court’s intervention in favour of strengthening the base of gender justice the office environment for women employees has not changed much. In fact periodic stories, which the media is able to dig out, of sexual and other forms of harassment of women colleagues at the male-dominated workplace call for a fresh look at the whole gamut of gender specific laws for plugging the loopholes. For every case of sexual, or other forms of harassment which gets reported there are at least nine which go unnoticed. A major reason for the increase in cases of ill-treatment and abuse of women workers has something to do with what can be called the “male ganging up syndrome” at the workplace. Take for example the case of a 37-year-old air hostess of Indian Airlines who went to the roster clerk at Indira Gandhi Airport for getting her duty rescheduled. The clerk, according to her version of the incident, demanded sexual favours for “doing the needful”. In the first information report to the police the air hostess alleged that when she refused to oblige, the clerk tried to molest her. When she screamed for help, he ran away from the scene. At least two air hostesses reportedly witnessed the incident. It would have been just another case of a female employee having had the courage to report the misconduct of a male colleague to the police. But the Indian Airlines management has given the episode an unpredictable twist by threatening to take action against the air hostess “for making a false complaint”. Even before the police could apprehend the alleged culprit for interrogation, the airlines management completed an in-house enquiry and pronounced the clerk not guilty of the charge brought against him by the air hostess! Why is the management trying to bail out the clerk? Because the “male ganging up syndrome” resulted in the in-flight service crew members issuing a statement in support of the clerk.

It is evident that without the intervention of the National Commission for Women and other gender-friendly organisations the complainant may end up as the victim of official action for having dared to report the incident to the police. It could indeed be a case of the air hostess having made up the story of molestation because her request for rescheduling of duty was turned down by the roster clerk. It does happen in films, but in real life even a slut in India would think twice before going public with a complaint of sexual harassment. The air hostess must have been a good actor to have broken down when told about the findings of the in-house enquiry. Be that as it may, it is evident that only an independent and impartial enquiry can explain the many twists in the tale. Looking at the issue in a larger perspective it can be said that incidents of workplace violence against women reflect the situation at home. Men who grow up seeing their mothers and sisters being subjected to physical violence and abuse by their fathers and other male members of the family cannot be expected to act differently at the workplace. They find the talk of gender equality irritating and are more likely to show “male solidarity” in the event of complaints of sexual harassment against any one of them by women workers. The problem can be tackled only through assertive and collective action by gender activists against such men as are unwilling to correct the civilisational fault line in their “social structuring” which compels them to treat women as creations of a lesser god. This fault line can only be corrected when the women of today decide to stand up against all forms of domestic violence inflicted upon them. Such an initiative would, of course, require a much greater effort than the one which is usually put in for setting the house in order. When such initiatives take the form of collective action they would mark the beginning of the long over due gender revolution.

Right to information

THE Union Minister for Law, Justice and Company Affairs, Mr Ram Jethmalani, has once again raised hopes about the introduction of the Right to Information Bill in Parliament. But the enthusiasm has to be curtailed by the fact that two draft Bills on the subject have been pending since 1996. One of them was presented by the Press Council of India and the other by the H.D. Shourie Committee. Anything that eliminates the odious Official Secrets Act is welcome, considering that this single Act has been responsible for breeding a hundred aberrations in the system. Secrecy has spawned corruption and the bureaucrats continue to withhold information from the public. And it has brought about a feeling of alienation in the mind of the general public and the common man feels that he is not allowed to participate in the decision-making process even in those matters which directly impinge on his everyday life. Only two states, Goa and Tamil Nadu, have definitive Acts in this regard, whereas it has to be there on an all-India basis. Once this relic of British rule goes, there will be at least a modicum of transparency, which will revive democracy to a considerable extent. Under the provisions of the Bill, as given out by Mr Jethmalani, all government departments and authorities will be bound to appoint a “public information officer” who will have to furnish the details sought by any citizen within 30 days. As long as such information does not fall in areas like defence, it cannot be denied. The officer will have to give a written explanation in case of any denial. What is more, the citizen seeking information will have the right to go in appeal against the denial. The Minister hopes that the Bill will also ensure greater freedom of the Press.

Positive that the contours of the Bill are, these will be meaningful only if it is quickly passed and then implemented. Otherwise, there is no dearth of well-meaning laws that have not changed the ground realities one bit in the past 50 years. When it comes to perpetuating the stranglehold of the well-entrenched bureaucracy, so many stratagems are used that all laws lose their efficacy. Politicians too join the conspiracy. Take for instance the issue of freeing the radio and TV from the control of the government. All talk of transparency has proved to be so much of gas. Even if one is not to doubt the intentions of the government, it is necessary to tailor the law in such a manner that the right to information is not limited to a select few but becomes a privilege available to each and every citizen of the country. Countries like Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Canada, Australia and the USA have already extended this right to their citizens. There is no reason why it should be denied to the Indians.

GOVERNANCE BLUES
Economics of coalition politics
by Poonam I. Kaushish

“I ALWAYS pass on good advice. That is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself”. So said Lord Goring, a character in Oscar Wilde’s play, “Ideal Husband”. Politically speaking, this has become the stock in trade and trademark of Indian politicians. The BJP-led NDA is no different. If talk is cheap, advice is even cheaper. Never mind if promises are meant to be broken and governance works out expensive. So what if their coalition politics makes little economic sense. Let the common man suffer from advice fatigue!

Barely 40 days into governance, Prime Minister Vajpayee has broken his first promise: of a down-sized government. “My government will be lean and mean”, swore Mr Vajpayee in the NDA poll manifesto. Instead, we were presented a 70-strong Council of Ministers at the outset. Last week, four more ministers were added. Making it one of the largest Union Ministries in India’s history. Plainly put, every fourth MP of the NDA is a minister!

Predictably, the government’s spin doctors hold coalition blues responsible for it. Gentleman Vajpayee would not be an astute politician if he did not follow the “please-all” policy, they assert. And coalition partners would not be worth their salt if they did not chorus: “We bug you, because we love you,” they add, of course for the time being. Isn’t it astonishing that to ensure continued loyalty of powerful caste groupings of the Bihari Hindi heartland, we are now settled with as many as 10 ministers from the state. One was added in the latest expansion because one community was earlier left out, which the ruling alliance could not afford on the eve of the state assembly election. The same holds true of the need for the inclusion of a Thakur from UP and a Sikh minister from Punjab. It is another matter that the Jats and the Goans are still clamouring for a share in New Delhi’s power pie.

The BJP leadership is conscious of the fact that mastery in the game of compromise and accommodation alone can enable it to operate effectively in the coalition milieu. Besides, when regional formations have become central to coalition politics, the Prime Minister has shown little hesitation in shedding all pretence of leanness in governance leaving his Finance Minister, Mr Yashwant Sinha, to ruefully make economic sense of the illusive austerity measures which remain a pipedream.

It is a pity that Mr Vajpayee has not heeded his able Finance Minister’s grim warning on the Centre’s worsening fiscal health and an overdue call for tightening of the fiscal belt. “The only remedy is a cut in expenditure. We just cannot afford the present level of interest payments,” Mr Sinha asserted recently, adding that “the ministerial all-time favourites of food and fertiliser subsidies, salary and pensions alone eat up all the revenues raised by the Centre. The government spends more than 11 per cent of its revenues on pay, allowances and travel expenses for itself, way above the 5 per cent allotted on this count”. That was before this jumbo ministry was sworn in. Come budget time, Mr Sinha will have a hard time explaining why the NDA added flab instead of losing it. Let the economists be alarmed that the biggest threat to the economy is the bulge in public consumption.

Sensible people who demand smaller governments, greater administrative efficiency and cut in spending have reason to feel aghast that just to accommodate his jumbo ministerial brood the Prime Minister has had to create work by bifurcating and setting up new ministries and departments for his colleagues! Take the Ministry of Human Resource Development, which was earlier overseen by one Cabinet Minister and two Ministers of State. Today this ministry has been bifurcated into two, to accommodate two Cabinet Ministers and three Ministers of State. The Urban Development Ministry too has now been bifurcated into two, with two Cabinet Ministers and two Ministers of State. The Department of Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution, which was earlier headed by a Minister of State, now has a Cabinet Minister and a Minister of State.

The Departments in the Ministries of Industry, Steel and Mines, Civil Aviation and Tourism too have been carved into full-fledged ministries, headed by Cabinet Ministers. And each has at least one Minister of State. Already, West Bengal’s predictably unpredictable stormy petrel, Ms Mamata Banerjee has sharply exposed the hollowness of the government’s claim of providing administrative efficiency. “When there is no work for one Minister of State in the Ministry of Railways we have now two,” she said and added “Perhaps, we should thank our stars that the TDP opted out of the government. Else we would have had an even more gigantic ministry”.

One wonders how the Union Ministries will remain within their budget? How will they prevent cost overruns? Restrict mindless increases in the emoluments of the staff or for that matter slim down the highly bloated bureaucracy? How will they cry a halt to the scandalous free lunches in the government? How will they tackle “unplanned”, uncodified and hidden wasteful excesses which are lost in the labyrinth of innocuous heads of governmental accounting to avoid the glare of public knowledge? Will they freeze their liberal spending? Aren’t they shamefully living beyond their means?

The buck doesn’t stop there. The antics of our rulers percolate down to various perks and privileges. So essential to proclaim their status symbols as ministers. Take the staff first. A minister is entitled to one Director-rank Private Secretary with one PA, two Additional PS, three PAs, (one for language), two typists, one daftry, three peons, and security guards. In addition, unlimited funds for entertaining whoever they like and any number of free foreign trips, with one staff member.

And the perks for self? A sprawling bungalow with several servant quarters. Modern-day zamindari, to say the least. Next the facilities. The cars. Five staff cars, including one for his PS, and one for odd jobs. Cars which run on water, not petrol! Everything is official. Including the visits to five star hotels, the bazaar and even the beauty parlour. The bureaucrats too emulates their political masters. Who cares that one needs a proactive approach rather than a mere active approach to expenditure management? And Mr Sinha’s recent D.O. letters to all the Union Ministers to cut government expenditure seem to be good enough only for the dustbins.

What the Centre can do, the states can do one better. None cares cahoots about Mr Sinha’s clarion call for cuts in their fiscal expenditure too. The new UP Chief Minister, Mr Ram Prakash Gupta, had publicly stated that his 90-member jumbo-sized ministry was due only to his (political) compulsions. Poor him. He had to accommodate not only his party rebels but his alliance partners too. All the MLAs of the ruling combine in Lucknow are either ministers or holding minister-level appointments elsewhere, like the chairmanship of various public sector enterprises.

Not just that. On the heels of all these has come the installation of yet another government in Goa — the fifth ministry in three years. Today, all the 11 “Congress breakaway MLAs are ministers in the Francisco Sardinha ministry. How did this come about? When the Congress had a comfortable majority of 26 MLAs in the 40-member assembly, the disgruntled power-hungry eleven, led by Mr Sardinha, broke away and joined hands with the BJP, the MGP and an Independent to form the government. So what if their greed for the “kursi” leads to instability and no governance whatsoever, even while it costs the taxpayer not a little to maintain them in ministerial pomp and splendour.

Look at the way India’s business capital goes to town about Maharashtra’s serious financial and resource crunch. Yet the Congress-NCP government is reportedly busy purchasing Siennas for its Cabinet Ministers for a comfortable ride on the road to bankruptcy. Earlier, the outgoing Shiv Sena-BJP government had replaced all its Ambassador cars provided to the ministers with Contessas. While the Ambassador cars had been shunted to regional and district offices, one wonders who the Contessas will be gifted too. So much for the NCP-Congress spat over downsizing its government it took over two months ago!

And what should one say of India’s Switzerland — Kashmir. Where government work came to a grinding halt and the ministers rushed to the airport to receive Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah’s son, Union Minister Omar on his first visit to Jammu, the state’s winter capital.

Knowing our polity, they will accuse the silly chair, called India Raj, as the culprit. But for how long can the people cut their stomach to satiate the voracious appetite of our “netagun”? An advice to usher in Ram Rajya is an old habit which dissipates fast into political quicksend. Leaving in its wake only grand illusions of governance. Time now for us to tighten the screws on accountability. Or else, we will make economic nonsense of coalition governance! — INFA

India’s new image in USA
by A. Balu

NOT very long ago, India’s clout on Capitol Hill was marginal and at times the sentiment as expressed by US Congressmen was more pro-Pakistan than pro-India. In the late eighties and the early nineties, the Khalistan and pro-Pakistan lobbies almost got away with their false and misleading propaganda against New Delhi. Mr Stephen Solarz, who was chairman of the House international affairs subcommittee on South Asia, was virtually the lone crusader for India, using his eloquence both in the House and outside to project it as the beacon of democracy in the region and to highlight its importance in the international arena. There were, of course, a few other Congressmen who would occasionally speak in favour of India, but the overall mood on the Hill was one of indifference, if not antagonism.

If there was lack of enthusiasm for India, the political instability marked by frequent general election in the country served only to raise doubts both on the Hill and in the US administration the value of establishing close ties and cooperation with New Delhi. The Pokhran nuclear tests in May last year and the uncertainty over India’s signature on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) were additional factors that contributed to the somewhat uneasy relations between the two countries.

In this context, it is no exaggeration to suggest that in recent times India’s position and status on the Hill have dramatically changed for the better. “We were down on the dumps and today our clout has increased significantly,” an Indian observer in Washington commented. The reasons for the change of Congressional sentiment in favour of India are not far to seek. The emergence of the India caucus, the role of the Indian-American community with their pockets of influence in the constituencies of Congressmen and, last but not the least, the sophisticated and sustained diplomatic efforts by the Indian Ambassador, Mr Naresh Chandra, and his deputy, Mr TP Srinivasan, and other senior officials in the Indian mission, have all helped in projecting a positive image of India in the USA. The mission has also done well in availing of the services of a leading lobbying firm to counter any distortions spread by anti-Indian elements. Mr Stephen Solarz is also registered as a lobbyist for India.

In recent months, Ambassador Naresh Chandra has received bouquets from members of the Indian community for doing “a wonderful job” in presenting India’s case during the Kargil crisis. In turn, Mr Naresh Chandra has complimented the NRIs for doing “a great job” and urged them to keep themselves informed and interact meaningfully with American friends, to point out areas of mutual interest and concerns. “This way, “he has told them, “we can utilise Indo-US relationship for the benefit of the South Asian region as a whole.

Indian diplomats cite some recent events on the Hill that underscore pro-Indian sentiment. The major victory for India was the resolution the House International Relations Committee had adopted during the Kargil crisis asking Pakistan to withdraw from the Line of Control. The resolution did not go to the House as the situation had changed by the time the House had returned from its recess. More recently, after the general election in India, the House of Representatives adopted by an overwhelming majority a resolution congratulating and hailing India as the beacon of democracy and urging President Clinton to visit New Delhi. The defeat of the Goodling amendment which was aimed at India because of its voting record (against the USA) at the United Nations was another significant development. Yet another victory for New Delhi was scored when the perennial India-bashing legislation sponsored by Republican Congressman Dan Burton, seeking to cut development aid to India, was withdrawn by him when he sensed certain defeat for his proposal.

The advent of the new government in New Delhi, headed by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, has obviously strengthened opinion on the Hill about political stability and continuation of the process of economic reforms first initiated by the Narasimha Rao government. The pronouncements of the Finance Minister, Mr Yashwant Sinha, during the recent Fund-Bank annual meetings in Washington that a new generation of reforms would be unleashed by the Vajpayee government have further contributed to an optimistic assessment of future Indo-US economic relations. It is also noteworthy that more than a score of Congressmen have written to President Clinton urging him to relax American opposition to loans to India by international financial institutions like the World Bank and not link it to nuclear non-proliferation issues. Observers in Washington have noted that the erstwhile Congressional pressure in demanding sanctions against India has completely gone and the whole matter has now been left in the hands of the President.

Simultaneously with the growing pro-India sentiment in the Congress, the Clinton administration is seeking to use the Jaswant Singh-Talbott talks for establishing greater understanding and strategic cooperation with India. The proposed state visit by President Clinton — the first by a US Head of State in two decades — is being awaited by both sides with keen interest and expectations for a new and meaningful era of Indo-US cooperation and collaboration. The demise of democracy in Pakistan has given the US lawmakers a new perception about India.

It can be said with some certainty that in the event of a Republican President succeeding President Clinton in January, 2002, India will continue to figure prominently in US strategic calculations. The Republican Presidential candidate, Mr George W. Bush, currently the Governor of Texas, and leading in opinion polls over his rivals for presidential nomination, has come out with a statement that “the coming century will see democratic India’s arrival as a force in the world.” In a recent foreign policy speech, he noted that India was debating its future and its strategic path and said the USA must pay its more attention and “we should work with the Indian government, ensuring it as a force for stability and security in Asia.”

Significantly, coming close on the heels of the Senate rejection of the CTBT, Mr Bush has expressed himself against the treaty, saying it is not verifiable and is not enforceable. “It offers only words and false hopes and high intentions with no guarantees whatever. We can fight the spread of nuclear weapons, but we cannot wish them away with unwise treaties,” he said India has made it clear to the USA that its approach to the CTBT will be largely determined by its own national security considerations. As Ambassador Naresh Chandra observed the other day, New Delhi is not thereby suggesting that international opinion should be ignored. While the attitude of the US administration and the vote in the Senate are important factors, ultimately, it is for the Government of India to decide what is in its best interest. More high-level bilateral-discussions should help in impressing on the US leadership the validity of his meaningful message.

(The author is currently in Washington.)

On clearing the throat
by K.K. Khullar

CLEARING the throat is as common today as clearing the decks. Throat can be cleared by coughing but decks have to be cleared by something much more than mere coughing. Clearing the throat is now a part of oratory, poetry and music. Clearing the decks is a part of life, nay, it is also a part of death. Clearing the conscience, however, is a different issue.

When Lincoln delivered his famous Gettysburg address he did not clear his throat, he cleared the decks. All that he had received was a printed invitation card and no one expected him to attend the function. But there he was. But no one was there to receive him.

“Look gentlemen, there will no fun at the dais till I reach there. Please give me the way”. This he called “clearing the deck”.

The second time he cleared the deck was when he had finished his address before even camera clicked. The audience thought he had forgotten the speech he had prepared, hardly realising that the world’s greatest speech had been delivered in less than two minutes.

“Boys give me the way, I have to get back early”. He said and drove off.

Lincoln had no throat. His voice came direct from his heart. And it appealed to the hearts of the listeners direct.

Gandhi too had no throat. Even his silence was eloquent, more eloquent than his speech. People learnt as much from his silence as from his speech. The guilty men of partition of our Motherland had not only to clear their throats but also their conscience before addressing any meeting.

In poetry clearing his throat is a poet’s birthright. Balwant Singh Panchkulvi, a Punjabi poet of no mean quality used to say that a poet cannot hide three things: “Ishq”, “Mushq” & “Khang” that is love, fragrance and cough, though not in that order. In his poetic career extending to nearly three decades he had coughed more on the mike than on his bed. He always kept with a bottle, quarter to be precise. He called it ‘Cough Mixture’ a la Om Parkash of “Aandhi” fame.

Nobody knew what exactly it was but since people liked his cutthroat poetry they let it go at that. He was found out only when he died with one hand on the mike and the other on his “quarter” in a mushaira which was held in front a hospital in Chandigarh. He was rushed to hospital but was declared brought dead. But lo and behold he was alive, in fact, deadly alive. The doctors had to cut a sorry figure. Asked how he managed all that he coughed and said: “I had to clear the deck”.

With singers and musicians clearing their throat is not their birthright but it is their fundamental right, right from Bade to Chhote Ghulam Ali Khan. They called it “Riaz” (practice). Silence has never been a hallmark of Punjabi culture.

Come to a politician the lid is off.

“Why is his throat so bad”? asked a voter immediately after the election results were declared.

“You know he has lost his deposit”.

Softer image for Advani

by P. Raman

LAL KRISHAN ADVANI is depicted in Lakshman cartoons as a tall, sindoor sporting crowned king among the trishul-wielding, conch-blowing VHP sadhus. In contrast, Atal Behari Vajpayee is a rather affable person, desperately ever fighting to humanise the parivar. More than the cartoon depiction, this has been the popular image of the two BJP stalwarts, so assiduously crafted and maintained for years. The fact of the matter apart, there has been of late discernible changes in the attitude, image and packaging of the two leaders.

A series of government decisions and pronouncements by the two leaders and the changing relationship within the party point to this undercurrent. A more comfortable majority for the coalition seems to have brought about a sort of change of the roles for the two. Apparently, after the elections L.K. Advani has been striving to remove his tough Sardar Patel image which he himself had assumed after the BJP came to power in 1998. The Sardar image was to serve a purpose. It was a cautious attempt to keep his role as a strong man — a hero — who cannot be cowed down easily, and an able administrator in contrast to a compulsive compromiser.

Such a role was expected to make him popular among the general run of hero worshippers. The restless Hindutva extremists like the VHP and Bajrang Dal who were then relentlessly fighting for retaining the exclusivist dogma, found some hope in him. It helped mollify them when they had caused a serious crisis in the parivar as to whether it should mortgage its Hindutva programmes for the sake of retaining power. The projection of the Sardar Patel vs Jawaharlal Nehru image might have come in handy in case the multi-party coalition experiment failed and the BJP had to go back to its old communal cocoon. This was what had happened when Vajpayee’s experiment in the early eighties flopped and Advani had to take over the command to salvage the sinking party.

When Advani gave a good certificate to the VHP when attacks on Christians were raging in Orissa and elsewhere, it went well with the Parivar. As a tough Sardar Patel, Advani had earlier despatched senior home ministry officials to Chennai to ‘report’ on the ‘worsening’ law and order situation under Karunanidhi. This scared the opposition governments until Jyoti Basu directed the state officials not to entertain such report seekers. Advani’s loud warnings to Pakistan to realise the ‘geostrategic changes’ in the sub-continent thrilled sections of people until the adversary too conducted its own blast. In a similar vein, Advani appointed RSS pracharak governors at Raj Bhavans of UP, Bihar, Bhopal and Pondicherry.

Under Advani, they went amok and allowed Raj Bhavans to be used as parallel administrations and for opposition activities. Sundar Singh Bhandari in Bihar had excelled the other Bhandari in UP in terms of subverting the accepted norms just to settle scores with the Chief Minister. Even a more sober Bhai Mahavir engaged in a running battle with his Chief Minister on academic as well as local issues.

Elections and the sudden shifting of the power centre within the BJP seem to have convinced Advani about the futility of donning the tough face. This has been the message of the Vajpayee ‘wave’, real or unreal precipitated on a multi-crore budget, for Advani. Just to enhance someone’s image, others need not play the role of a bad man. Advani seems determined to get out of this syndrome.

The Sardar Patel role fitted into the framework of an exclusivist, Hindutva-driven organisation. In a coalitional atmosphere, Advani too will have to have a pleasing packaging. In a rather short period after the elections, he has proved he could be as gentlemanly and acceptable as Vajpayee. A series of decisions taken by him in the past few weeks reveal his ability to outshine others even in conciliatory politics. He responded with dignity on the floor of the Lok Sabha to Sonia Gandhi’s outpourings on the inclusion of her dead husband’s name in the Bofors charge sheet. This was something not expected of a person depicted as combative.

A changed Advani took up on himself the task of assuring the nation on the Pope visit, possibly to remove the impression of being a hardliner. This had a sobbering effect on the VHP fanatics. Advani was the first to rule out the imposition of President’s rule in Tripura despite the fact that it had come from both the Congress and his own party. The latter has put on record its resentment over the home minister’s rebuttal. Not only this. He also offered the despatch of more paramilitary forces to Tripura to check violence. He has resisted a similar demand in the case of Bihar, which no doubt, could be due to tactical reasons in the state where assembly elections are due.

On Tripura, the government could have put the Congress central leadership in an embarrassing position as it had done on earlier occasions. What happened in the case of raising the number of the Election Commission from three to five was more noteworthy. At Rashtrapati Bhavan, Vajpayee had confirmed to newsmen that such a move was very much under consideration. However, almost simultaneously, Advani firmly contradicted the suggestion. By that time, the media had flashed Vajpayee’s remarks. Finally, in the evening an embarrassed PMO came out with a formal press note denying what Vajpayee had said at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Advani’s soft face is better reflected in the appointment of new governors and the recent nominations to the Rajya Sabha. There had been suggestions for inducting hard core Parivar adherents to the Rajya Sabha. But Advani rejected the Murli Manohar Joshi model and took the lead in nominating such non-party personalities as Lata Mangeshkar and F.S. Nariman. There cannot be much objection to the ruling parties nominating the likes of Cho Ramaswami and Nanaji Deshmukh. Advani scrupulously avoided playing too much of politics with the appointment of the governors as well. Viren Shah, a former BJP MP, was the only politician in the list. In Shah’s case, Advani had personally discussed the issue with West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu and got his consent. An effort was made to induct two hardcore BJP politicians as governors. But it did not succeed. Finally, three former bureaucrats – including Vinod Pande, once condemned as a V.P. Singh man – and a former Planning Commission member and a former commissioner of police, figured in the list. Appointment of governors has at times been a highly controversial issue. Efforts have been made to impose hostile persons on states like West Bengal.

All this has to be viewed in light of the raging controversies involving other BJP stalwarts like Murli Manohar Joshi. Unlike the newly packaged Advani, Joshi makes it a point to use every fora to serve the partisan interests of the RSS parivar. Joshi has ignored the academic protests over the appointments to the ICHR, ICSSR, UGC and NCERT. Prasar Bharati is being filled with pliable people to serve the ruling party’s partisan interests. Nothing seems to have been done to remove public scepticism over such politicisation.

The recent Cabinet expansion, mainly a handiwork of the Prime Minister’s backroom boys, has been messy affair. Apart from earning the distinction of being the largest union council of ministers the country ever had – every fourth NDA Lok Sabha member is a minister – it could not conceal the mindless play of caste politics and the main ruling party’s realpolitik.

Even the party spokespersons claim that the large crowd of Bihar politicians in Vajpayee’s team was aimed at improving the ruling alliance’s prospects in state assembly elections early next year. Thus it is officially admitted that efficiency and suitability of the incumbent to run the respective ministries were not the criteria but only party politics and caste pressures.

What has happened to Vajpayee? Has his affable nature and readiness for consultation gotten caught in the cobwebs of a swollen PMO with too many operators? Leaders of the alliance parties like Mamata Banerjee alleged that they were not even consulted on the reshuffle and expansion. According to her, Vajpayee had given the impression that the expansion would be only some time in February-March. Some bright chaps gave him the idea to put a BJP watchdog as minister of state under every non-BJP cabinet minister. And this was done in each case without fail – to the chagrin of the partners.

The way the whole thing was rushed through smacks of a Rajiv- style operation. Nitish Kumar was shunted through three ministries — Railways, Surface Transport and Agriculture — in five weeks.

Political power has a knack of eroding one’s sensibilities. This is what seems to be happening to Vajpayee. Has he totally lost his gift of persuasive best? His old magic failed to tame Ramakrishna Hegde. The Kalyan Singh episode is another grim reminder which got further complicated by gifting of a Cabinet post to his own Man Friday in UP. While Advani has become more liberal and accommodative, even the BJP leaders have begun seeing signs of negative changes in the Prime Minister’s responses.

This is in no way to suggest a confrontation between the two leaders who had durable relationship even in the worst of times. But the trends in the style and approach is abundantly apparent. As the PMO turns more intrusive, as is inevitable, the fault lines will become more apparent. Essentially, Advani has admirable ability to adjust to new situations. After the collapse of the old Vajpayee line, Advani as the new BJP president had established intimate rapport with the non-Congress opposition. The coordination had covered even the trade unions. Unlike Advani, Vajpayee’s real asset is his non-confrontationist methods. This is what seems to be at stake.

75 YEARS AGO

November, 1924
Sikh Sudhar Committees and Government

AFTER the definite statement made by Sir John Maynard at a recent meeting of the Punjab Legislative Council in reply to a supplementary question by Professor Ruchi Ram Sahni, that “official influence in any shape or form is not being exercised in favour of the Sikh Sudhar Committees”, it is legitimate to expect that if in any particular case such influence has been or is being exercised in favour of such Committees, it should be promptly brought to the notice of both the Government and the public.

If a Deputy Commissioner, for instance, or any subordinate official convenes a meeting of titled persons or others whom it is in his power to influence, either for the formation of a Sudhar Committee or, if such a committee is already in existence, for help being rendered to it in various forms, then both those actually invited to such meetings and those who come to know anything about its proceedings owe it as much to themselves as to the Government and the public to give the utmost publicity to the fact, for it is clear that such action on the part of such an official is wholly unauthorised.