Arun Shourie on the Mitrokhin Archives OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Part-I

Standard Operating Procedure
The weekly organ of the CPI(M), People's Democracy, September 2005, declaims, ''The Mitrokhin balloon of lies has been well burst recently. The statement of the secretary of the Bengal unit of the CPI(M), Anil Biswas on September 21 may well perhaps be the last nail on the coffin of the 'archival misdemeanour'. Anil Biswas told the media at the Muzaffar Ahmad Bhavan that 'after having procured the so-called Mitrokhin archives and poring over it, we find no reference of the kind alleged or otherwise, to the late Promode Dasgupta'.''

There are just two short chapters in this book about India. On the very second page of the very first of these, we read, ''As KGB operations in India expanded during the 1950s and 1960s, the Centre (that is, the KGB headquarters in Moscow ) seems to have discovered the extent of IB's previous penetration of the CPI. According to a KGB report, an investigation into Promode Das Gupta, who became secretary of the Bengal Communist Party in 1959, concluded that he had been recruited by the IB in 1947 . Further significant IB penetrations were discovered in the Kerala and Madras parties...''

Did the ''poring over'' not reach even the second page? But this is standard procedure for Marxists — lie outright!

In the full confidence that no one will look up the original material.

The second, adopted this time round by the Congress too, is to just dismiss revelations. Extracts from The Mitrokhin Archive had but to appear in the press, and they, and their favoured commentators pronounced, ''No evidence...,'' ''Fiction...,'' ''An author in search of lies.'' And simultaneously, ''There is nothing new.... These things have been well known for long!'' Well known for long, but require new proof!

The third device also has been on display this time round: paste motives on all concerned. A favourite of Marxists, it has been deployed even by ''intelligence experts'' this time. One of them writes that the book has three aims. The first, he says, is ''To discredit the present Russian leadership.'' Presumably this is accomplished by indirection: as Putin is known to have been in the KGB, as it is well known that he has appointed his former colleagues from the KGB to vital posts across Russia, pointing to what the KGB used to be doing, tarnishes ''the present Russian leadership''. Second, our expert says, the purpose of the Mitrokhin account is ''to drive a wedge between the present leaderships of Russia and India .'' And, third, the British secret service has always been hostile to leaders of the Labour Party in the UK , this has been a plot to discredit the Labour Government and leaders of Britain.

Assume all this to be true, does it amount to a reason for India not to examine what the disclosures spell for our national security and governance? The fourth device is to smear whoever has brought out facts that are inconvenient. ''A former low-grade clerk of the KGB archives,'' they write about Mitrokhin, he was not the head of KGB archives. Assume that to be true: low-grade clerks are as useful sources of information as heads of departments! Mitrokhin was an incompetent officer, they say — if he had been any good at field work, he would not have been assigned to a backroom tending old records. But the point is whether, having been relegated to backrooms, he had access to thoe tell-tale records. Just one who ''stole'' those ''clandestinely obtained'' documents, they say. But does that suggest that the records he transcribed were genuine and valuable or does that establish that they were fakes?!

As it isn't just Vasili Mitrokhin who was involved in this project, the British professor, Christopher Andrew who collaborated in writing and editing the volumes also comes in for the standard treatment. The professor, we are told, ''was alleged to have been embedded in the intelligence agencies.'' He becomes ''the ever-obliging Christopher Andrew.'' The CPI(M) mouthpiece, People's Democracy, is even more elaborate: ''No wonder, these scions (those running the 'corporate media' here in India) have now picked up the Soviet defector's ramblings, which have been put together in a fashion in a book by an English author who is not only not known for his scholarship but also just not known in the academe as a practicing historian.'' That phrase is literally standard issue.

When ''Why?,'' does not work, ask, ''Why now?'' That is the standard device since Lenin's time! And this time too we have had it in full display: Mitrokhin defected in 1992, why is this book being released now, in 2005? demands one of these tele-Communists. In fact, the six cases full of notes that were brought over were examined threadbare for years, and the first volume was printed in 1999! But again, standard.

In truth, there never is a right time to talk the truth about them! Communist journals in India used to be full of glowing accounts about the industrial excellence of East Germany and Czechoslovakia, about the achievements of Ceausescu and his Romania, about the unequalled might of the Soviet Union; about how unemployment had been abolished, how ills that plagued capitalist societies — divorce, crime — were non-existent in Communist countries. If before 1989 you questioned the claims, you were denounced, ''Do you think one-third of humanity is wrong, and you alone are right?'' And after 1989, when the entire Soviet bloc collapsed?

True to form, this time also we read in the CPI(M)'s mouthpiece, People's Democracy, ''The principal reason why this cheap thriller (the phrase for the Mitrokhin record) is being played out in the corporate media now more than ever is not difficult to guess. The recent resurgence of the communists, socialists, and the Left across the globe has certainly made the imperialists press the panic button.... In India, the presence and growth of the CPI(M) has long since been a worry for the ruling classes and their friends and patrons out in the West. The corporate media has, as a willing handmaiden, been periodically albeit regularly feeding out stories maligning the Party and its leadership.''

Facts about Mitrokhin's records:
To gauge the worth of these denunciations, recall that Vasili Mitrokhin defected in 1992. Between 1992 and 1999, his notes were subjected to minute and most careful examination by various levels of the British Government. They scrutinized the information, they examined who to engage as co-author, they weighed how the material ought to be published. Questions such as these were considered by senior civil servants, intelligence agencies, by an interdepartmental committee, by Ministers, by two Prime Ministers. The way the material was handled was subsequently debated in the House of Commons and was examined threadbare by the Intelligence and Security Committee of the UK Parliament. The Committee was tasked in October 1999 to examine whether it had been handled well. The Parliamentary Committee submitted a detailed report in June 2000. This report was debated extensively.

The first volume of the present work was published in 1999. No one in India made the kinds of allegations that are being hurled now. While we are being fed insinuations to belittle Mitrokhin; while we are being fed the line, for instance, that the entire project has been a conspiracy of British intelligence agencies to discredit British Labour Party leaders, this is what Jack Straw, then Home Secretary and currently the Foreign Secretary of the Labour Government - to tarnish whom we are being told this plot has been engineered — said about Mitrokhin. He told the House of Commons on 21 October, 1999,

''....I entirely endorse what the right hon. Gentleman says about Mr. Mitrokhin's courage. It required huge courage to do what he did. I do not doubt that a great many other people working in the KGB during that long period were pretty disgusted with the work that they were asked to engage in, but very few of them had the courage and tenacity to work, as Mr. Mitrokhin did, to record the huge amount of what was passing across his desk and then to make himself known to intelligence agents in Moscow and have himself and his family brought out at considerable risk. I pay tribute to his courage and acknowledge the benefits that the whole of the West has received as a result of his disclosures''

Similarly, the Parliamentary Committee observed, ''The Committee, during the course of the inquiry, had the opportunity to meet Vasili Mitrokhin. The Committee believes that he is a man of remarkable commitment and courage, who risked imprisonment or death in his determination that the truth should be told about the real nature of the KGB and their activities, which he believed were betraying the interests of his own country and people. He succeeded in this and we wish to record our admiration for his achievement....'' But in India, ''a former low-grade clerk,'' one who ''stole documents,'' one who was so incompetent that he had to be consigned to a backroom dusting archives....

Similarly, while in India the account has been dismissed as ''vague'', ''complete fabrication,'' ''fiction'', ''a spy thriller,'' Britain's Parliamentary Committee had this to say about the value of the material that Mitrokhin had brought over, and on which the Mitrokhin-Andrew volumes are based, ''We are aware that the Western intelligence communities are extremely grateful for Mr Mitrokhin's material, which has shown the degree to which the KGB influenced and penetrated official organizations. Historians also find The Mitrokhin Archive of tremendous value, as it gives a real insight into the KGB's work and the persecution of dissidents.''

But in India , to use Lenin's phrase, ''a shroud of angry words to cover inconvenient facts''! The one question we should be asking, is not being asked: Indian and British intelligence agencies have had close relations; was the material offered to us, as it was offered to other agencies? What did we do about it?

Instead, all sorts of red-herrings are being thrown in the way. Why was this unknown professor, why was this person who was ''alleged to have been embedded in intelligence agencies,'' why was he of all persons chosen as co-author? It just so happens that this question too was examined by the UK Parliamentary Committee. It concluded that in Professor Christopher Andrew of Cambridge University, just the right man had been chosen for the project. Andrews had previously worked on the Gordievsky books. He had been security cleared and had signed the Official Secrets Act, the Committee noted. ''The Committee regards Professor Andrews as a distinguished academic who has specialized in the espionage field,'' the report stated. ''He was a good choice to undertake this work.'' But in India....



Part-II
A society and state in denial In his justly famous memoir, Encounters with Lenin, (Oxford University press, 1968) Nikolay Vladislavovich Volsky, who wrote under the pen-name Valentinov, narrates what is for Communists the hadis in such matters. He recounts what Lenin said to him: ''Marxism is a monolith conception of the world, it does not toler ate dilution and vulgarisation by means of various insertions and additions. Plekhanov once said to me about a critic of Marxism (I've forgotten his name) 'First let's stick the convict's badge on him, and then after that we'll examine this case.' And I think we must stick the convict's badge, on anyone and everyone who tries to undermine Marxism, even if we don't go on to examine his case. That's how every sound revolutionary should react.''

As that is the operating procedure for the much lesser offence — that of mere ''dilution'' of the doctrine — you can imagine how much greater must be the zeal with which the ''convict's badge'' is stuck on one guilty of the much greater crime — the crime of revealing the truth about them.

In a word, we should see that the put-on derision with which Communists and the Congress spokesmen have been trying to bury Mitrokhin's records is just standard procedure, and not let it deflect us from the revelations. For there can be no doubt at all that, as far as India is concerned — our governance, our national security — Mitrokhin's records point to the gravest danger. Remember that the two brief chapters in this volume are but the distillation of trunk-loads of scrupulous notes taken down over twelve years. Even this briefest of brief accounts speaks of penetration by foreign agencies of departments of our Government, including intelligence agencies; of Mrs. Indira Gandhi's coterie; it speaks of the foreign agency's intervention in what we regard as our hallmark, our ''free and fair'' elections; it speaks of the confidence with which the agency maneuvered to build up preferred successors to Prime Ministers; it speaks of funding of Left parties, of trade unions, of the Congress itself; it speaks of how one of the prides of that period — Indo-Soviet trade — became such a handy channel for secret funds; it speaks of infiltration of our other hallmark, our ''free and fair'' media — it recounts the ease with which the KGB and the CIA were able to plant stories; it speaks of the ease with which, and the paltry sums for which the KGB was able to organize ''spontaneous demonstrations'' by Muslims....

Consider just a single paragraph from the chapter: ''Oleg Kalugin, who became head of FCD Directorate K (Counterintelligence) in 1973, remembers India as 'a model of KGB infiltration of a Third World Government': We had scores of sources throughout the Indian Government — in intelligence, counterintelligence, the Defence and Foreign Ministries, and the police.' In 1978, Directorate K, whose responsibilities included the penetration of foreign intelligence and security agencies, was running, through Line KR in the Indian residencies, over thirty agents — ten of whom were Indian intelligence officers. Kalugin recalls one occasion on which Andropov personally turned down an offer from an Indian minister to provide information in return for $ 50,000 on the grounds that the KGB was already well supplied with material from the Indian Foreign and Defence Ministries: 'It seemed like the entire country was for sale; the KGB — and the CIA — had deeply penetrated the Indian Government. After a while neither side entrusted sensitive information to the Indians, realising that their enemy would know all about it the next day.''

Even if we have become so immune to shame by now that we are not led to hang our heads on reading a passage such as this, at least we should consider what that kind of information implies for our national security. Moreover, as the KGB had such ingress into our governmental structures, agencies of other countries too would have had no greater difficulty in suborning persons and influencing policies and decisions. And can that surprise us? When every corporate house is able to plant stories, what difficulty would a foreign government face? And remember, that passage is about the state of affairs thirty years ago. Since then, there has been a precipitate deterioration in both the quality and integrity of persons in public life as well as in the civil service.

For none of the things that Mitrokhin records is the KGB is to blame. That agency was just doing its job for its country. The question is, what were we doing for our country? The question is, what are we to now do to protect our interest? Recall what the British Parliamentary Committee reported about the worth of Mitrokhin's disclosures, and how invaluable these had been to agencies of other countries to neutralise dangers those countries faced — ''Western intelligence communities are extremely grateful for Mr. Mitrokhin's material...,'' ''a case of exceptional counter-intelligence significance, not only illuminating past KGB activity against Western countries but also promising to nullify many of Russia's current assets''.... ''the most detailed and extensive pool of CI (counter-intelligence) ever received by the FBI''.... ''the biggest CI bonanza of the postwar period'' — contrast these acknowledgments, contrast the way agencies of other countries put the material to work, contrast all that with the resolute shutting of eyes in India.

Several lessons leap out from this episode. Notice first what the Communists, their megaphones and their current dependents would have been blaring had even one-thousandth of such disclosures come out about some organization or individual affiliated to the RSS. Two points arise from that contrast. First, is such penetration a threat to our national security if it relates to the RSS and not a threat when it relates to the Communists or the Congress? Second, where do the disclosures leave the high moral ground that the Left appropriates?

It is entirely true that just because someone is named by a foreign intelligence agency or agent, that does not establish him to have been a spy. But surely the right response would be to inquire, at least to find out whether British agencies had offered the information to us and we had failed to follow it up. Nor is this a one-off. Professor Patrick Moynihan was one of the most respected of American academics. He was appointed Ambassador to India during Mrs. Indira Gandhi's time. As Mrs. Gandhi's speeches about the ''foreign hand'' — that always meant the CIA — became incessant, Moynihan commenced an inquiry into what Americans had been doing. In his memoir of the period he wrote that he came across two occasions on which the CIA had provided funds to counter Communist candidates. He wrote, ''Both times the money was given to the Congress Party which had asked for it. Once it was given to Mrs. Gandhi herself, who was then a party official.'' His book was published in the US as well as in India . If what he had said was untrue, what could be a clearer occasion for a defamation case? But absolutely nothing of the kind was done. Just the standard operating procedure: denounce, smear, bury. When the Government so resolutely refuses to make any inquiries, whether the account is of Moynihan or Mitrokhin, what should one conclude?

In the case of the Communists, disclosures about their having received money are the least of the matter — and it does seem to me that the Mitrokhin figures are gross understatements, as if some few zeros have got left out. The figures of Indo-Soviet trade, the quantum of Indian purchases of Soviet arms, and what was said in those days of the sudden wealth of the private parties through whom the Soviets insisted these transactions be made, would suggest transfers of much, much larger amounts. But in their case, money is the least of the matter. Their entire outlook, their ''line'' has been foreign, it has been derived from, to use Mao's phrase, ''the dung-heap of textbooks written abroad.'' And, as has been documented time and again, from instructions received from abroad.

As a result, working for the interest of heir ''international movement'', specifically for the ''fortresses'' of that ''movement'' — the USSR, China — is in their very genes. They traduced Gandhiji and the freedom movement from 1939 for not taking advantage of Britain's difficulties — the war in Europe is just an ''Imperialist war'', they shouted; Gandhi is guilty of collaborating with the Imperialists by not launching a movement to liberate India when Britain was caught defending itself against Hitler. Hitler was, of course, on the side of history then as he had signed a non-aggression pact with Stalin.

Then they switched suddenly — the ''Imperialist war'' became ''People's war'', not because India 's interests had changed but because Hitler had attacked the Soviet Union. They now denounced Gandhi for launching the Quit India Movement! And there was no doubt about the reason: the Soviet Union is ''The Only Fatherland'' for us, they proudly announced in their resolutions, and, in accordance with this new ''assessment'', they entered into a secret understanding with the British Government in India to sabotage the Quit India Movement. In 1947, apart from the Muslim League, they were the only party that advocated the vivisection of India. When India became independent, they declared that India was in fact still under the tutelage of capitalist, Imperial powers, and so its Government must be overthrown.

In 1962, their thesis was that India is the aggressor, not China — which, by definition, could never launch aggression as it was a ''workers' State''. In 1975, they — they, we now see, at the goading of their KGB minders - were all for the Emergency. When China exploded its atomic bomb, they proclaimed it to be a great triumph — a fitting answer to the Imperialists, a decisive step that breaks the monopoly of Imperialist powers. When India went in for atomic weapons, they denounced it — a blow at world peace!

The Mitrokhin disclosures are particularly disturbing for them as they remind us once more, among other ''well known'' facts, of how they and their fellow-travelers, unable to work their Revolution, worked at securing the same goal by infiltration — of the Congress; a sort of ''Revolution-by-stealth''. This was the famous ''Kumarmangalam thesis'' that, as Mitrokhin reports, got such enthusiastic assistance from the KGB. But surely that is not just a reminder of what is past. The Communists have never been closer to attaining that goal as they are today — what with a supine Congress so completely at their mercy.

Nor is it just that the Congress is so completely at their mercy. As Swapan Dasgupta pointed out the other day, the danger is twice compounded — the Congress is completely dependent on the Communists, and the Communists are completely compromised. The Communists have been busy denouncing Mitrokhin's revelations. But as Dasgupta points out, there are several other caches that are coming to light. He draws attention to the fact that the private diaries of a former Soviet Ambassador to India, I. A. Benediktov can now be accessed on the Internet — at the website of the Cold War International History Project of the Woodrow Wilson Centre, Washington, DC ( http://wilsoncentre.org) In these diaries, Benediktov records plaintive pleas of Bhupesh Gupta, Secretary, National Council of CPI, for funds. He records Gupta's plea that, with Ajoy Ghosh through whom the monies used to be received and disbursed, gone, Namboodripad should be allowed to be brought in to handle funds from the Soviets.

A little later, during China's invasion of India in 1962, Benediktov records Namboodripad's fevered appeals to the Soviets that they abandon their support for India, and the sycophantic gratitude Namboodripad expresses for an editorial that Pravda has carried that suggests a shift away from India. Namboodripad asks Benediktov to inform the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union ''that the publication of this article and the advice of the CPSU contained in this letter of the CC CPSU, truly will help our party get out of the extremely difficult position it is now in. Before this, there were moments when we felt ourselves to be simply helpless, but now the party will be able to help this situation. We are grateful to the CC CPSU for this help. You can transmit this personally from me and from Comrade B Gupta.'' In a word, the Congress is completely in the hands of the Communists, and the Communists can be ''motivated'' by so many — those who gave them assistance and guidance, as well as those who may reveal what they got, and with how much gratitude they received it.

So, first of all we must see through their invective. As the Government is in their grip; as, given what Mitrokhin records about infiltration into Mrs. Indira Gandhi's circle, of its own accord the Government itself will not want to pursue the matter, inside Parliament and outside, citizens must put pressure on the Government to institute a full and public inquiry. It must be made to request the British Government for access to Mitrokhin's records, and it must be made to make public what those records reveal about India. But we do not have to go on waiting for the Government to do something in the matter. Papers of several senior Soviet officials are now in various archives. We should form teams of scholars on our own and scrutinize that heap of material for entries that pertain to India.

These are important steps, and they must be taken. But even they are but tiny ancillaries to the main debility we must overcome. The reaction in India, that is the non-reaction to The Mitrokhin Archive is but a symptom — of a state and society in denial. On every matter — what Pakistan was doing in Punjab; what it has been doing in Kashmir as well as its current stratagem to acquire it ''peacefully''; infiltration from Bangladesh; jihadi curricula; the threat Naxalites pose and their links in Bihar, in Andhra; the threat ULFA poses and its links in Assam; the militarization of Tibet, the modernization of Chinese defence forces and their deadly implications for India; the opportunity that the breakdown of governance in vast tracts like Bihar spells for the country's enemies — on each and every matter, our society and state just do not want to face the facts.

The media must see how it assists in this shutting of eyes. By the current ''your reaction journalism'' for one. Mitrokhin's volume is published. It goes to someone from the BJP, ''Sir, this new book by this Russian alleges..., what is your reaction? In brief.'' And then to a Communist, ''Sir, this new book by this Russian alleges..., what is your reaction?'' Both sides covered. Balanced story on air. End of matter. This is the condition that we have to reverse, and disclosures of the Mitrokhin kind are yet another occasion when we can commence to do so. On each of these questions, at each of these turns, induce readers, compel governments to face the facts, and thereby take steps that would save the country.

(Concluded)

“The Left distorts” (Interview with Arun Shourie)
Author: Swapan Dasgupta
Publication: India Today
Date: November 23, 1998

Controversy and Arun Shourie are inseparable. He, has taken on
governments, politicians and corporate houses, championed
contentious causes and assumed the role of India's permanent
gadfly. After questioning the mythology centred on Babasaheb
Ambedkar and offending Dalit activists, Shourie has now targeted
Left historians. Eminent Historians: Their Technology, Their
Line, Their Fraud (ASA, Rs 350), released last week, is a
characteristically robust attack on India's history
establishment. He has accused it of shoddy scholarship, wilful
distortion and even milking the exchequer He spoke to Deputy
Editor Swapan Dasgupta on his latest battle. Extracts:

Q: Let me start with a question you accuse communists of
constantly asking. Why now?
A: It is what the Gita calls a war unasked for. We should never
shirk work that has been brought upon us. Some magazines
published reports that the BJP Government had changed the
resolution of the Indian Council for Historical Research (ICHR)
by converting "rational" into "national". It was a concoction by
some CPI(M) members and I learnt from the ICHR staff that the
letter circulated to the newspapers was typed in the ICHR office.
A staff member told one of these so-called historians that it was
not true. He replied. "Who cares? Let it go." That was the
origin. And every newspaper just swallowed it. I contacted the
editors but none of them retracted the story. Even the story
carried by INDIA TODAY was about the eminent historians not
having accepted one penny as if there was a genuine other side to
it.

Q: So you believe that in this controversy there is no other
side?
A: Not yet. Not in the three limited matters which I have touched
upon in the book. Which are: the technology by which they acquire
these institutions and the uses to which they put it to; the
pickpocketing that they do; the complete and systematic
perversion of facts. I don't think there is another side.

Q: It's curious that it took a non-historian to question some of
these assumptions. Why hasn't this challenge come from within the
discipline of history?
A: There are too many establishments in India, the Indian
journalists service, the Indian intellectual service, the Indian
historians service. They capture institutions. There is a great
timidity in India in all intellectual circles. You want a
promotion in the history department, increase in research funds,
funds for travel, promotion, everything depends upon certificates
>from these persons. If you want to challenge the accepted
notions, you not only need a person who is outside the discipline
but one who is deaf to the reproaches of these persons.

Q: Your interventions in history have aroused claims and
counterclaims that you are waging a proxy. political war?
A: These are allegations. Have they found anything wrong with my
facts? When they quote a source, I look it up and I find it is
the opposite. Then they say that he did not look up the correct
one. Whatever they write is politics. So why are they so
surprised that an honest man may also write?

Q: Part of the problem in your view has been caused by shoddy
scholarship and shoddier journalism.
A: Yes. That, as well as slavish scholarship and journalism. One
and a half paras from Stalin's Short History of the CPSU(B). Just
look up any one the books of R.S. Sharma, Satish Chandra, Romila
Thapar or D. N. Jha. It is the slavish mentality, providing
examples that substantiate those one and half paras on
periodisation. Even the Soviet historians have liberated
themselves from those categories. We got stuck in the categories
of the 1920s and 1930s.

Q: But you haven't stopped at mere intellectual slavishness. You
have actually accused these "eminent historians” of milking the
state.
A: Yes. It is a pitiable milking by current standards-all for
just Rs 12,000 or Rs 6.5 lakh. But it is a gross misuse of
authority and position. If the NBT or NCERT send a proposal that
R.C. Majumdar's edited Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan series on the
history of India should be translated into Indian languages,
these people would pass a resolution saying that it was not worth
translating into any Indian language. And lo and behold-they will
recommend their own works or that of EMS (Namboodiripad), the
great historian.

The deputy director of ICHR gives a project to Dr Paramatma
Saran, one of the great medievalists in India. He translates and
sends it to ICHR. After his death, the deputy director takes that
manuscript and gets a PhD for himself from Rajasthan University
without changing anything and publishes the book dedicated to
Nurul Hasan and thanking Irfan Habib who wrote a laudatory
foreword to it. In his office there is a picture of him
presenting his book to the then President Shankar Dayal Sharma,
another great scholar. So it's not just milking the state.

Some people in ICHR have told me that well known sociologist A.R.
Desai had been given a project to compile the history of the
trade union movement in India in 15 volumes. He completed the
task before he died. Then it mysteriously disappeared. The
current ICHR chairman has succeeded in tracing these manuscripts
inspite of non-cooperation. By doing so, he has deprived 15
people of their mock PhDs.

Q: None of these details have been seriously contested. But your
detractors sail they will not give you the pleasure of a de
defamation suit because you are beneath contempt?
A: Why aren't they replying through the newspapers. They are
always issuing statements, these six eminent historians, 10
leading intellectuals. They put on lofty airs because they have
no answers.

Q: How should people, governments and public spirited individuals
approach the question of teaching history in schools?
A: I feel that each time their books are recommended, mine should
be too. The students should see what great perversity they are
being made to swallow. There is no sufficient professional
scrutiny, no professional discourse on what has been published.
The same thing gets repeated. Nobody goes back to the sources.
Also, it is a bad idea for governments to get into the business
of preparing textbooks just as it is a bad idea to have
institutions like ICHR. It only leads to the patronage of
intellectuals. This is the bad legacy of Indian socialism.

Q: Will the book be of assistance to the BJP governments which
have also been accused of doctoring history?
A: Firstly I do not know what changes have been brought about by
them. I have asked them (Left historians) to show me those
textbooks which they think have been changed. But they haven't.
It can't be that you set one standard and any departure from that
stand is communal. The cure is that if someone perverts the next
set of history text books then they should also be subjected to
professional scrutiny

Q: Has the spirit of inquiry completely gone out of Indian
intellectuals?
A: Yes, I think so. By and large our work is very derivative in
most subjects. I find this in the case of many subjects. In
history it is slavishness to the verbiage of the 1920s and 1930s.
There is a lack of creativity even in activist movements in
India. When an issue became prominent in the West, five years
later you'll see it prominent in India like feminism, human
rights, big dams, child labour and child prostitution. We are so
blind that someone has to yank our eyelids open for us. I am
considered disreputable if I depart from the standards of
political correctness set by the establishment.

Q: Why does it fall on you to yank open the eyelids, whether it
is on Ambedkar, Ayodhya or ICHR?
A: First. I'm deaf, and secondly, I'm shameless. I am not looking
for a job and find it quite easy to survive without a job. Of
course, they will say he is not a historian, that it is part of a
political agenda. It starts with allegations and smear and will
not stop till they say facts are not as important as social
revolution. It doesn't affect me. I hope readers will see through
it.

What more is needed to stoke reaction?

Arun Shourie: Saturday, December 29, 2007

The Task Force on Border Management, one of the four that were set up in the wake of the Kargil War, reported with alarm about the way madrassas had mushroomed along India’s borders. On the basis of information it received from intelligence agencies, it expressed grave concern at the amount of money these madrassas were receiving from foreign sources. It reported that large numbers were being ‘educated’ in these institutions in subjects that did not equip them at all for jobs — other than to become preachers and teachers producing the same type of incendiary unemployables. It expressed the gravest concern at the way the madrassas were reinforcing separateness in those attending them — through the curriculum, through the medium of instruction, through the entire orientation of learning: the latter, the Task Force pointed out, was entirely turned towards Arabia, towards the ‘golden ages’ of Islamic rule. It pointed to the consequences that were certain to flow from ‘the Talibanisation’ of the madrassas. [In spite of what the Task Forces themselves advised, namely that their reports be made public, the reports have been kept secret. Accordingly, I have summarised the observations of the Task Forces in some detail in Will the Iron Fence Save a Tree Hollowed by Termites? Defence imperatives beyond the military, ASA, Delhi, 2005.]

And what does the Sachar Committee recommend? ‘Recognition of the degrees from madrassas for eligibility in competitive examinations such as the civil services, banks, defence services and other such examinations’! It recommends that government use public funds to encourage formation of Muslim NGOs and their activities. It recommends that government provide financial and other support to occupations and areas in which Muslims predominate. It recommends that Muslims be in selection committees, interview panels and boards for public services.

It recommends that a higher proportion of Muslims be inducted in offices that deal with the public — ‘the teaching community, health workers, police personnel, bank employees and so on.’ It recommends ‘provision of ‘equivalence’ to madrassa certificates/degrees for subsequent admissions into institutions of higher level of education.’ It recommends that banks be required to collect and maintain information about their transactions — deposits, advances — separately for Muslims, and that they be required to submit this to the Reserve Bank of India! It recommends that advances be made to Muslims as part of the obligation imposed on banks to give advances to Priority Sectors. It recommends that government give banks incentives to open branches in Muslim concentration areas. It recommends that, instead of being required to report merely ‘Amount Outstanding’, banks be told to report ‘Sanctions or Disbursements to Minorities’. It recommends that financial institutions be required to set up separate funds for training Muslim entrepreneurs, that they be required to set up special micro-credit schemes for Muslims. It recommends that all districts more than a quarter of whose population is Muslim be brought into the prime minister’s 15-point programme.

‘There should be transparency in information about minorities in all activities,’ the Committee declares. ‘It should be made mandatory to publish/furnish information in a prescribed format once in three months and also to post the same on the website of the departments and state governments...’ It recommends that for each programme of government, data be maintained separately about the extent to which Muslims and other minorities are benefiting from it. But it is not enough to keep data separately. Separate schemes must be instituted. It recommends that special and separate Centrally Sponsored Schemes and Central Plan Schemes be launched for ‘minorities with an equitable provision for Muslims.’ It recommends special measures for the promotion and spread of Urdu. It recommends the adoption of ‘alternate admission criteria’ in universities and autonomous colleges: assessment of merit should not be assigned more than 60 per cent out of the total — the remaining 40 per cent should be assigned in accordance with the income of the household, the backwardness of the district, and the backwardness of the caste and occupation of the family. It recommends that grants by the University Grants Commission be linked to ‘the diversity of the student population.’ It recommends that pre-entry qualification for admission to ITIs be scaled down, that ‘eligibility for such programmes should also be extended to the madrassa educated children.’ It recommends that ‘high quality government schools should be set up in all areas of Muslim concentration.’ It recommends that resources and government land be made available for ‘common public spaces’ for adults of — its euphemism — ‘Socio-Religious Categories’ to ‘interact’.

It recommends that incentives to builders, private sector employers, educational institutions be linked to ‘diversity’ of the populations in their sites and enterprises. For this purpose it wants a ‘diversity index’ to be developed for each such activity.

It recommends changes in the way constituencies are delimited. It recommends that where Muslims are elected or selected in numbers less than adequate, ‘a carefully conceived ‘nomination’ procedure’ be worked out ‘to increase the participation of minorities at the grass roots.’

It notes that there already are the Human Rights Commission and the Minorities Commission ‘to look into complaints by the minorities with respect to state action.’ But these are not adequate as the Muslims still feel that they are not getting a fair share. The solution? Here is its recommendation, and a typical passage:

‘It is imperative that if the minorities have certain perceptions of being aggrieved,’ notice the touchstone — ‘if the minorities have certain perceptions of being aggrieved’ — ‘all efforts should be made by the state to find a mechanism by which these complaints could be attended to expeditiously. This mechanism should operate in a manner which gives full satisfaction to the minorities’, notice again the touchstone — not any external criterion, but ‘full satisfaction to the minorities’ — ‘that any denial of equal opportunities or bias or discrimination in dealing with them, either by a public functionary or any private individual, will immediately be attended to and redress given. Such a mechanism should be accessible to all individuals and institutions desirous to complain that they have received less favourable treatment from any employer or any person on the basis of his/her SRC [Socio-Religious Category] background and gender.’

The responsibility is entirely that of the other. The other must function to the full satisfaction of the Muslims. As long as the Muslims ‘have certain perceptions of being aggrieved,’ the other is at fault...

So that everyone is put on notice, so that everyone who is the other is forever put to straining himself to satisfy the Muslims, the Committee recommends that a National Data Bank be created and it be mandatory for all departments and agencies to supply information to it to document how their activities are impacting Muslims and other minorities. On top of all this, government should set up an Assessment and Monitoring Authority to evaluate the benefits that are accruing to the minorities from each programme and activity...

This is the programme that every secularist who is in government is demanding that the government implement forthwith. And every secularist outside — the ever-so-secular CPI(M), for instance — is scolding the government for not implementing swiftly enough. What splendid evolution! Not long ago, unless you saw a Muslim as a human being, and not as a Muslim, you were not secular. Now, if you see a Muslim as a human being and not as a Muslim, you are not secular!

Consequences

The first consequence is as inevitable as it is obvious: such pandering whets the appetite. Seeing that governments and parties are competing to pander to them, Muslims see that they are doing so only because their community is acting cohesively, as a vote bank. So, they act even more as a bank of votes.

For the same reason, a competition is ignited within the community: to prove that he is more devoted to the community than his rival, every would-be leader of the community demands more and more from governments and parties. When the concession he demanded has been made, he declares, ‘It is not being implemented’. And he has a ready diagnosis: because implementation, he declares, is in the hands of non-Muslims. Hence, unless Muslims officers are appointed in the financial institutions meant for Muslims... With demand following demand, with secularist upon secularist straining himself to urge the demands, the leader sets about looking for grievances that he can fan. When he can’t find them, he invents them...

Governments make the fatal mistake, or — as happened in the case of the British when they announced separate electorates for Muslims — they play the master-stroke: they proffer an advantage to the community which that community, Muslims in this case, can secure only by being separate — whether this be separate electorates in the case of Lord Minto or separate financial institutions in the case of Manmohan Singh.

The community in its turn begins to assess every proposal, every measure, howsoever secular it may be, against one touchstone alone: ‘What can we extract from this measure for Muslims as Muslims?’How current the description rings that Cantwell Smith gave in his book, Modern Islam in India, published in the 1940s, of the effect that the British stratagem of instituting separate electorates for Muslims had had on the Muslim mind. The separate electorates led Muslims, as they had been designed to lead them, he observed, ‘to vote communally, think communally, listen only to communal election speeches, judge the delegates communally, look for constitutional and other reforms only in terms of more relative communal power, and express their grievances communally.’ [Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Modern Islam in India, Second Revised Edition, 1946, reprint, Usha Publications, New Delhi, 1979, p. 216]. Exactly the same consequence will follow from implementing the Sachar proposals — and the reason for that is simple: the essential point about the proposals is the same — that is, the Muslims can obtain them by being separate from the rest of the country.

The reaction cannot but set in. ‘As Muslims are being given all this because they have distanced themselves from the rest of us, why should we cling to them?’ the Hindus are bound to ask. ‘On the contrary, we should learn from them. Governments and political parties are pandering to Muslims because the latter have become a bank of votes. We should knit ourselves into a solid bloc also.’

Do you think they need a Pravin Togadia to tell them this? The genuflections of governments and parties write the lesson on the blackboard. And the abuse hurled by secularists drills it in: by the excellent work that Narendra Modi has done for development, he had already made himself the pre-eminent leader of Gujarat; by the abuse they have hurled at him, the secularists, in particular the media, have enlarged his canvas to the country.

The 'main hun na' school of budgeting

Arun Shourie: Saturday, March 29, 2008

Arun Shourie puts the Budget to the aam aadmi test and argues why the UPA fails miserably

In the Budget for 1990/91, the VP Singh Government announced a loan waiver of Rs. 10,000 crore. The Government was soon out. I am not on the precedent, but on the accounting! The waiver had been included in the Budget.

Soon, a new Government was in office. Delivering the Budget speech on 24 July, 1991, the then Finance Minister was as stern as he was scornful about the loan waiver, and about the way it had been budgeted.

‘There is one large component of non-plan expenditure that is a burden on the exchequer,’ he told Parliament. ‘I refer to the Government’s obligation under the Rural Debt Relief Scheme. Unfortunately, there was a gross under-estimation of the total fiscal liability under this scheme which was introduced last year. In addition to the sum of Rs. 1500 crores provided in the revised estimates for last year, we have to provide Rs. 1500 crores in the current year. But this is not all. We may need a similar provision in the next year.’

Guess, who was so punctilious then. The words constitute paragraph 39, of the Budget Speech delivered that day by the then Finance Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh.

And now? No provision at all for the Rs. 60,000 crore that the loan waiver is supposed to cost. ‘Main hun na’… ‘Credit me with some intelligence...’ ‘Funds will be found...’ ‘Modalities are being worked out…’

After much bewildered talk, the Prime Minister and Finance Minister did hit upon one source for financing the waiver: we may sell Public Sector equity, they suggested. On behalf of the CPI(M), Brinda Karat shot that down with one sentence. Chidambram then told Parliament – and this is after two weeks of confusion -- that he was confident that he would be able to carve Rs. 40,000 crore out of buoyant revenues this year, and that he was equally confident that it would not be difficult for whichever Government is in office next year to find the remaining Rs. 20,000 crore.

Take him at his word for a minute. If it is possible to be so confident on 14 and 17 March when he said as much to the two Houses of Parliament, why it could not have been said while announcing the waiver a fortnight earlier?

Here is Parliament being asked to approve a scheme of Rs. 60,000 crore with no inkling of where the money will come from, and, hence, with no idea of what its impact will be – on prices, on interest rates… Even of whom the waiver will benefit. Is this ‘accountability’? ‘Transparency’?

And this is just a typical omission.

The Sixth Pay Commission is to report soon. Given that election loom, the Government will certainly implement the pay hikes. The Fifth Pay Commission had increased emoluments by 35 per cent. There will be cascading effect for state governments, for municipalities, indeed for each and every institution even vaguely linked to the State machinery. There is no provision at all for this certain outlay in Chidambram’s Budget. When it is prudent to include Rs. 5,000 crore in the Railway Budget as the likely outflow on account of the Sixth Pay Commission increases, why is prudent not to make a provision for the same contingency in the General Budget?

Similarly, subsidies on petroleum products, on food and fertilizers are mentioned, but not included! The latter two alone are estimated to be over Rs. 63,000 crore. The Fiscal deficit is put at 1,33,287 crore in this Budget. Once you include the four items that have been left out – the loan waiver, the subsidies on petroleum, food and fertilizers -- plus the impact of the 6th Pay Commission, it is liable to be double the figure that has been indicated. Fiscal responsibility?

A reform they were to institute

‘Seven years ago, I placed before Parliament the first paper on subsidies,’ Chidambram said in the Budget for 2004/05. They need to be sharply targeted at the poor and the really needy. So? He has, he said, initiated a new study on them!

By the next Budget, he had taken further action: he had placed the study before Parliament. Subsidies are necessary, ‘However, we must now take up the task of restructuring the subsidy regime in a cautious manner and after a thorough discussion.’

Nothing was done even by the 2007/08 Budget. ‘The issue of subsidies is proving to be a divisive one,’ Chidambram said, ‘but I would urge Honourable Members that it is imperative that we make progress on this front if we are serious about targeting subsidies at the poor and the truly needy.’ It isn’t that he had done nothing: ‘My Ministry has held extensive discussions with stakeholders on three major subsidies, namely, food, fertilizer and petroleum. We have also sought the views of the general public. Working groups/committees have gone into the question of fertilizer and petroleum subsidies, the latest being the Dr. C. Rangarajan Committee. I would urge Members to help the Government evolve a consensus on the issue of subsidies.’ Another consultant to Government.

The Prime Minister, of course, alternates his emphasis: reforms one day; reforms with a human face the next! And yet, at least on occasion, he has spoken clearly. The Gross Budgetary Support for the 11th Plan is going to be double of what it was during the 10th Plan, he told the Planning Commission last November. ‘These are large increases by any reckoning,’ he continued. ‘This will only be possible if we have strong growth, if tax revenues remain buoyant as they have been in recent years and if non-Plan expenditure is checked and checked effectively. We need to address the problem of mounting subsidies in food, fertilizers and now, in petroleum which is a recent phenomenon. Over Rs. 1 lakh crores are going to be spent this year alone on these three items. I would like my cabinet colleagues and the Planning Commission to reflect what these mean for our development options and what development options these subsidies are shutting out. Do they mean fewer schools, fewer hospitals, fewer scholarships, slower public investment in agriculture and poorer infrastructure? It is important that we restructure subsidies so that only the really needy and the poor benefit from them and all leakages are plugged.’

The warnings having been given, the task is done – what more are consultants to do, after all? There is no mention of the subject in Chidambram’s Budget speech this year.

But there is mention of one of these subsidies – that on fertilizers – in the document distributed with the Budget, Implementation of Budget 2007-2008. In the Budget for 2007/08, Chidambram had emphasized the need to distribute fertilizer subsidies by some alternate way – so that they reach the farmer directly rather than being eaten up by fertilizer companies. So, what is going to be done? ‘The fertilizer industry has agreed to work with the Department of Fertilizers,’ he told Parliament, ‘to conduct a study and find a solution.’ And what will happen once the study has been done? By now, you should be able to guess: ‘Based on the report, Government intends to implement a pilot programme in at least one district in each State in 2007-08.’

That was the last Budget. And what are we told now about what has been done on this matter? ‘The modalities for providing an alternative method of delivering the fertilizer subsidy directly to the farmer are being worked out. The proposal was examined by a Group of Ministers (GOM) and the Report is being finalized.’

In the meanwhile, all the ills continue: the industry does not get reimbursed in time; the farmer does not get the full benefit; the application of fertilizers remains distorted and our land is harmed.

Exactly the position in regard to the other subsidy, of Rs. 32,600 crore – that on food: the 61st Round of the NSS reveals that one half of the poorest quintile do not have either a BPL card or one for the Antyodaya Anna Yojana. On the other hand, more than a sixth of the richest quintile have BPL cards!

The Italians have the right expression for it

‘The Eleventh Plan target for additional power generation capacity is 78,577 MW,’ Chidambram told Parliament while speaking on this new Budget, adding, ‘which is more than the total capacity added in the previous three Plans.’ In the 10th Plan the target was 41,000 MW. Additional capacity that got commissioned was just about 21,000 MW. But why be niggardly in setting targets? John Galbriath had a word for Indian Planning: ‘therapeutic targetry’! But the sentence that scores for gall is the next one: ‘By end March 2008, we will achieve Commercial Operation Date (COD) on about 10,000 MW, marking the best first year in any Plan period.’

Just pause for a moment, and read that sentence again: ‘By end March 2008, we will achieve Commercial Operation Date (COD) on about 10,000 MW, marking the best first year in any Plan period.’ The trick in it is the benchmark that has been used, ‘Commercial Operation Date (COD)’ – a plant that has been completed is said to have attained ‘Commercial Operation Date’ once it has been in operation at full load for at least 72 hours. Ten power plants contributing 3020 MW were included when totaling up the achievements of the last year of the 10th Plan on the ground that they had been ‘commissioned’. They have been counted again among the achievements of the first year of the 11th Plan – on the ground that in regard to them ‘Commercial Operation Date’ has been achieved! The plants are the same ten. Nor is it just that: among these ten, is Ratnagiri CCPP (Dabhol) II, a plant that was completed in the Ninth Plan; among them is the atomic power plant at Kaiga – which is virtually shut for want of fuel; among them is Karbilangpi, a plant of the Sixth Plan! Nor indeed do the remaining ten plants – accounting for 3090 MW of the 10,000 MW for which Chidambram takes credit – testify to either reforms or execution in the power sector having improved. Each one of them has been under construction for years – among them is another Dabhol plant, Ratnagiri CCPP III, which too was completed in the Ninth Plan; among them are two plants at Purlia which were sanctioned in the Eighth Plan!

Claims and promises in regard to the Ultra Mega Power Projects in Chidambram’s successive budgets have been even more farcical, even more brazenly misleading. It is our intention to award five projects before December 31, 2006, he told Parliament in the Budget for 2006/07. By the 2007/08 Budget, this became, ‘Seven more UMPPs are under process and we are confident that at least two will be awarded by July, 2007.’ In this Budget, he says that the fourth UMPP ‘will be awarded shortly,’ and that five more can be brought to the bidding stage provided the states extend the requisite support. After listing four Ultra Mega Projects, his document of ‘accountability and transparency’, Implementation of Budget 2007-2008, reports ‘Five other suitable sites have been identified by the Central Electricity Authority’ – it proceeds to list five sites in five states. The fact as of 20 February, 2008 is that not one site has been finalized, not one. In regard to each of them, letters are going to and from central and state governments: I can supply the list at short notice.

And yet you can’t quite say that the Government has lied – notice the words it has used, ‘Five other suitable sites have been identified by the Central Electricity Authority.’ That doesn’t mean they have been settled, and, if you concluded as much, well, that is your problem.

The Italians have the right expression for this kind of reporting: suppressio veri suggestio falsi – to suppress the truth is to suggest the false!

A symptom

And yet the Budget is but a symptom of the ways of the Government:

•Just go on announcing schemes;

•Grab existing schemes, group them, give them a new name, and proclaim them as historic new initiatives;

•Announce huge grants and outlays, forget them;

•Advance false claims: those ‘Action Completed’s;

•Shove problems to the future – as in the loan waiver; shove blame on the past – even when doing so flatly contradicts what you have yourself stated in Parliament, as the Prime Minister’s ‘the unpaid distress bills of the NDA’ is flatly contradicted by what is set out in the Economic Survey 2003/04 that Chidambram himself tabled;

•Mislead – as in the calculation of the deficit;

•Double-count – as in regard to power;

•Proclaim the desirable –‘we must aim at outcomes, not just outlays,’ the necessity for reforms as in the Economic Survey – and make people believe that, because you have proclaimed the desirable, you are straining to attain it.

And do all this with full faith – that no one will actually read the documents you pile on them; that, even of they do, they will soon forget; that the media are the easiest to bamboozle…Mismanagement

The Budget is a symptom also of gross mismanagement of the economy. Apart from the fact that reforms have been at a complete standstill ever since this ‘dream-team’ of ‘reformers’ took office, their management has brought the country back into the vicious cycle of high interest rates, declining growth, and inflation. Till 2004 April, foodgrain stocks had been scrupulously kept 40 to 50 per cent higher than norms set by experts – so that fixers always knew that, were they to raise prices, Government could, and would, counter them by releasing stocks from its godowns. Ever since, stocks have been allowed to fall below the norms – with the result that traders today know that the Government just does not have the wherewithal to stabilize prices.

The result has been worsened by erratic policies. Exports of non-basmati rice were banned; soon the ban was lifted. Government did nothing as wheat output fell short; then it floated a tender to import wheat; then it cancelled the tender, then…

As prices kept rising, it hurtled to swat a fly with an axe – the axe of monetary policy: higher interest rates, tightened money supply… Prices continue to rise, and naturally so. Investment is discouraged, and naturally so. Growth rate of manufactures has already begun falling, predictably so…

The dream-team…

(Concluded)

For all stories visit www.indianexpress.com/arunshourie

TRACKING TERROR: Ceding Kashmir

TRACKING TERROR

PART-2: Ceding Kashmir

Third-class governance can’t give first-class response to terrorism

Arun ShourieWednesday, August 02, 2006

In the concluding part of his analysis, Arun Shourie details how a weak-kneed government response, in terms of both administration and diplomacy, has cost India the momentum and the edge in the Kashmir issue

By the end of 2003, we were being told that our agencies had neutralised over 160 ISI modules — counting only those outside Jammu and Kashmir and the Northeast. Since then, up to July 11, 2006, again counting only those outside Jammu and Kashmir and the Northeast, another 75 modules are reported to have been neutralized.

These are substantial achievements — we can imagine how many more deaths and how much more dislocation would have been caused if these had not been got at and the persons caught or killed. But the figures have another side to them.

First, that there were that many cells to be neutralized shows that ISI had been able to set them up. Second, the cells that have been unearthed were found to exist across the entire country.

Going by the tabulation of the cells that have been located and finished just since January 2004, we see them having been found in state after state, town after town. In Andhra: Hyderabad (several), including one at the Begumpet airport, Nalgonda; in Karnataka: Alamati, Hesaraghatta on the outskirts of Bangalore, Jelenabad area in Gulbarga district; Delhi (several separate ones in several localities across the city); in Bengal and neighbouring regions: Ghosepur, Darjeeling district, Rishra, Hooghly district, Chowgacha village, Nadia district, Kaliachak, Malda, Kolkata; in Uttaranchal: Dehra Dun; in Maharashtra: Mumbai, Aurangabad, Manmad, Malegaon; in Rajasthan: Jaipur, Ajmer, Jodhpur; in Punjab, where a serious effort is being made to stoke up Sikh militancy: Jalandhar, Amritsar, Nawanshehar, Ropar, Hoshiarpur, Batala, Malerkotla; in UP: NOIDA, Lucknow, Hardoi, Lalkurti; Goa; in MP: Gwalior; Faridabad; in Gujarat: Ahmedabad; and so on.

The list of these 75 modules apart, just look at the far-flung places from which suspects of the July train blasts in Mumbai are being picked up — that itself shows the long reach of the ISI and its terrorist limbs within India, of the faraway places at which they have been able to set up sanctuaries.

Finally, that the blasts and other terrorist operations have continued unabated shows that the cells which have been located are but a fraction of the ones that have been set up. Several factors have afforded such easy access for the ISI. The principal one is the near collapse of law enforcement — from intelligence to investigation to combat to the courts.

As is well said, you cannot have a first class response to terrorism in a third class system of governance. Why should anyone be deterred from executing another round of blasts in Mumbai trains when he sees that those caught for the blasts executed 13 years ago are well and kicking; when he sees that their lawyers have been able, and with such ease, to ensnare Government prosecutors in the courts?

But the evaporation of governance and of the law-enforcement mechanisms is just one aspect, indeed it is in large part a consequence of complicity. In particular, of the perversion of pubic discourse — by which every action against terrorists, their sponsors and their collaborators is called into question and the national resolve dissipated; second, by the ever-strengthening nexus of rulers and criminal elements. And by the permissive atmosphere that has been fomented by these factors.

Which terrorist group, which potential recruit to terrorism will be deterred when he sees the solicitude with which the prime suspect of the blasts in Coimbatore, Abdul Nasser Mahdani, is being looked after? When he sees, as The Indian Express has reported (July 24-25, 2006) the comforts that the DMK Government has arranged for him, including Ayurvedic massages — with 10 masseurs and a senior physician labouring over him; and that too at the tax-payers’ expense? When he sees that even the elementary restrictions on Mahdani’s moving about in the prison have been cancelled in the face of opposition from security services?

When he sees that the representatives of the CPI(M) come calling on him in jail to seek his help in fighting elections? When he sees the Kerala Assembly pass a unanimous resolution on his behalf — and sees that that Assembly has not passed any comparable resolution for any other individual?

When he sees how doggedly the Government of Karnataka holds up the investigation into Telgi’s doings? When he sees a Chief Minister defend SIMI, an organization that has been banned for secessionist and anti-national activities? When he sees what happens in our Parliament — how members shout each other down and cannot speak in one voice even while discussing the blasts in Mumbai? When he sees how, even after the Supreme Court has struck down the IMDT Act as unconstitutional and as a threat to national security, the Government, the principal party of which depends on votes of illegal infiltrators from Bangladesh, incorporates those very provisions in the Foreigners’ Act? Who would not feel emboldened to sign up for the greater glory of jihad and shahadat?

THE FATAL CONCESSION

Nor is it just the terrorist module that is encouraged. The organisers and controllers of these modules are given a free hand. In the statement that Mr Vajpayee and General Musharraf issued on 6 January, 2004, the words that Pakistan was made to agree to were very, very carefully chosen. There was great resistance from Pakistan. But, in the end, it had to agree to those words. By that declaration, Pakistan was made to commit that for sustaining the dialogue it would stop cross-border violence, and ensure that no part of the territory under its control — that is, including PoK — shall be used for terrorism.

By contrast, in the statement that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh signed with General Musharraf in April 2005, India agreed that to ensure that terrorism will not be allowed to thwart the ‘‘peace process’’. This was a fatal concession — for by it Pakistan was in effect enabled to continue terrorist activities at will. The onus would henceforth be on India to continue the ‘‘peace process’’ and the ‘‘dialogue’’ in spite of the terrorist attacks.

The result has been dramatically brought home in the wake of the Mumbai train blasts. The Prime Minister’s address to the nation was anaemic. Perhaps that registered even in the Government. The second statement had a hue of firmness. And with much background briefing — ‘‘we won’t put up with this nonsense forever’’ — the Foreign Secretaries’ meeting was called off.

And then? The Prime Minister goes to Moscow. Meets Bush. And suddenly, the official line becomes, ‘‘We won’t let the terrorists succeed in their design to halt the peace process’’!

So, Pakistan can pursue both limbs — talk peace, wage war! And all we can do is to go through the ritual again.

Blasts in Mumbai. Blasts in Srinagar. Another debate in Parliament. Another slew of statements — ‘‘We resolutely/ strongly/unequivocally condemn this dastardly/ cowardly/treacherous/barbaric act... It shows their desperation... Government remains committed to fighting terrorism in all its forms... We will not allow them to disturb communal harmony… We will not allow them to derail the peace process...’’

The Home Minister repeated all the standard phrases in his statement to Parliament last week. He also implied that his ministry had done its job. ‘‘The Central Government has been sensitising the state governments/UTs about the plans and designs of terrorist outfits. They were asked to streamline physical and protective security of vital institutions...’’

And the Government is on the job even now, he assured. “The Government has made an assessment of the situation following these blasts,” he told Parliament. And what did the assessment yield? “The security apparatus has to focus greater attention and improve intelligence-gathering capabilities particularly at the local level to collect actionable intelligence... There is also a need to further enhance physical security and access control at airports, metros, vital installations... besides accelerated border fencing, overall coastal security... State Governments have been asked to improve coordination between the Railway Police Force and the Government Railway Police to enhance security of trains and railway stations...’’

Should he not have said, “The Government has made yet another assessment of the situation following these blasts”? And did we really need yet another “assessment of the situation”? After all, what is new in this list? And what happened to that claim of 100 per cent of the recommendations of those Task Forces having been implemented?

THEIR SUCCESS

But while we keep repeating, “Terrorists will not be allowed to succeed,” the fact is that through them Pakistan has already succeeded in several respects:

• It has succeeded in creating the impression — I dare say, in India too — that the status of Kashmir vis a vis India is not a settled issue. Indeed, that what will happen in the future, what some Government of India will do is an open question. When it is asked in Parliament, “Does the Government stand by the unanimous Resolution which Parliament had passed, namely that the only unfinished business relating to J&K is that we have to get back the parts of the state that Pakistan has usurped?,” the Government remains silent.

• Pakistan has succeeded in establishing that it shall have an equal say in what the final solution shall be.

• It has succeeded in establishing that the secessionists it has been patronising, arming, financing are the representatives of the Kashmiris, and so they are the ones to whom the Indian authorities must talk.

• And the Indian authorities must talk to them without the secessionists agreeing to anything in advance — in the Rajya Sabha, on July 26, the Home Minister was specifically asked by Yashwant Sinha, “Has Hurriyat agreed to give up violence?”; all he could claim was that they are giving the impression that they are willing to do so! As for their avowed goal of taking Kashmir out of India, they are not even giving any impression that they have diluted that goal one whit.

• Pakistan and its local agents have already accomplished the “ethnic cleansing” of the Valley, having driven the Hindus out. They are now systematically driving them out of Doda.

Equally ominous is the fact that, while India has always maintained that issues between Pakistan and India shall be dealt with bilaterally, that we will not agree to any third party mediation, now the US is the very visible third party in everything. Recall the change in the Prime Minister’s tenor after he met Bush in Moscow.

Moreover, the initiative has by now passed completely into the hands of Musharraf. He is the one who is forever proposing formulae, and we are put to reacting. Worse, he has succeeded in bringing the various political groups in Kashmir to talking his language. Omar Abdullah, the PDP leaders as well as the Mirwaiz are now lauding Musharraf’s formulations, and proclaiming that these — “Self Rule,” division into Regions — are the ones that show the way forward.

FUNDAMENTALISATION OF DISCOURSE

It is because our media is so preoccupied with the “controversy” of the day, it is because it is so preoccupied with “life-style” journalism, it is because there is the censorship of “political correctness” that we do not realise how fundamentalist the discourse has become in Kashmir. We keep repeating nonsense about the great tolerant traditions of Kashmir, about the “Sufi Islam” of Kashmir, about the unique catholicity of “Kashmiriat”, about the incomparable blend of Shaivism and “liberal Islam” in Kashmir.

In fact, the very persons who are “people like us” are now taking positions that cannot but shock every Indian, and cannot but wreak a terrible outcome. Hari Parbat is sacred to every Kashmiri Hindu: how do you feel when Hindu refugees hear it being referred to in speeches and publications as Kohi Maaran — the hill of evil? Can you imagine a person who has held high office in the state telling Kashmiris that hey must learn from Hamas? Can you imagine his leading associate denouncing the Amarnath yatra as “a cultural intrusion”? Can you imagine a situation, when persons holding a peaceful observance against the massacres in Doda are killed, the Chief Minister proclaims in effect that the protestors invited the deaths upon themselves? Can you imagine a person who was till the other day Chief Minister telling the second “Round Table Conference” that we must accept “One country, two systems”? Can you imagine a leading political light of the Valley tell the same conference that the Kashmir Constituent Assembly was a “sovereign body”, that Article 370 was a “treaty between two sovereign bodies”?

How do you feel as you see the glee with which a Pakistani website reports a mainstream, “nationalist” Kashmiri politician proclaim that New Delhi “is responsible for the volatile situation in Kashmir, where its troops are killing Kashmiris unjustifiably and forcing them to take up arms”? How do you feel when you read him demanding to know, “Why is India killing innocents?,” and declaring, “By these evil designs, India forces our youth to take the gun and sacrifice their lives”? When he declares that the Indian Army has been given “a free hand to kill innocent people”? When you see that his charge against his political rivals, that is the current Government in the state, is that it is “in league with the occupation authorities to run a campaign of terror against Kashmiris”?

Such rhetoric is the staple today. And the results are brought home every other day. When a Lashkar man is killed these days, four to five thousand turn up for an ostentatious demonstration in his honour. The counter-insurgency groups which had been built up with such great effort have all been abandoned by Delhi. The killings by the terrorist bands become more and more brutal by the week — corpses are left with their heads hacked off, people are sent back to their homes with their limbs and parts sawn off... New technologies are introduced — car bombs; grenades — the man who throws it is paid when he produces the pin...

Has Pakistan not succeeded? Has its instrument, terrorism, not succeeded? And our Government applies itself to organizing yet another “assessment of the situation.” Actually, it does more. It is only by a hair’s breadth, it is only at the very last minute that the decision that had been taken — namely, to agree in the Indo-Pak meeting of May 21, 2006 to withdraw troops from Siachin — was abandoned.

The terrorist infrastructure remains intact in Pakistan, and securely in the hands of ISI and the Army. Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and other such groups have been allowed a free field to operate in POK after the earthquake — to organise relief, to open “educational institutions”. A better opportunity to pick up recruits for jihad and shahadat could not have been provided. Musharraf remains set in his singular aim.

HENCE

The first thing that is required for standing up to what is in store can be put in the words that were used by a high-up in the present Government itself:

• The PM and others must see that this Government does not have the mandate to make any fundamental changes in our foreign policy, certainly not in our defence policy; that it does not have the mandate to take decisions that will jeopardise our country’s territory;

• They must give up the delusion that problems that it has not been possible to solve in 55 years can be solved by “out-of-the-box thinking” in five weeks;

• Individuals must give up the delusions of what has been rightly called “the Gujranwala School of Foreign Policy” — the delusion, namely, that while others have failed, I will succeed because I am manifestly more sincere, because I am from that part of the sub-continent.

Next, the Government must spell out what the ultimate solution is that it has in mind for Kashmir. It must share with the people and Parliament what is happening in talks around Round and other tables.

In the alternate, Parliament must insist that it be taken into confdence. Once the deed is done, it will be too late.

Parliament must also get Government to specify what it understands by “Self Rule”; by “making borders irrelevant”; by “autonomy” - is “the sky the limit” still?; by the proposals that are being bandied about — joint management for power, tourism, horticulture...

Most important, it must rescind the fatal concession it made in the April 2005 statement — that we will continue the “peace process” irrespective of terrorism.

And a final plea — to the media: report in detail what the “nationalist”, mainstream political leaders of J&K are saying in the Valley. Unless the country is alerted now, obituaries will be all that will be left to pen.

(Concluded)

POTO: Approve Swiftly, and then Toughen it (Part II of II)

Arun Shourie

The provisions of TADA were much more stringent than those of the new Ordinance. The constitutionality of those provisions, of TADA itself had been challenged in the courts. The Supreme Court specifically upheld TADA, and declared its provisions -- the much more stringent provisions -- to be in accord with the Constitution.

While I happen to be in Government, my assessment for Parliament is the opposite one to that of the critics: the Ordinance bends too far back to accommodate human rightists, and that includes some impractical judgments too -- like that of the Supreme Court in D. K. Basu Vs State of West Bengal.

Under TADA, as we just saw, the accused was allowed only one appeal that to the Supreme Court. Even with that restriction, the judgment in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case took all of eight years. By allowing another intermediate appeal -- to the High Court -- we are ensuring that the period would be not eight but a multiple of eight years!

Similarly, recall the provision that allows a lawyer to meet the accused while he is being interrogated. Imagine that the police have nabbed a terrorist sent across by the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba. He is certain to have been saturated with indoctrination to the point that he is nothing but a killing machine. Do you think he is going to give you information over a cup of tea? And if lawyers are going to be meeting him from time to time during interrogation, is there the slightest chance that you will be able to extract information -- information about their plans, about their networks, that is information which is literally a matter of life and death for our people and our country?

But-such is the condition of public life and public discourse in India today, and so far removed from reality are some of our judgments that a provision like that one about lawyers has had to be incorporated in the Ordinance.

Based on their experience in dealing with organized gangs of criminals, the states of Maharashtra, Andhra, Karnataka have formulated laws. Why should the law for combating terrorists be more circumspect than the laws required for neutralizing gangsters? But that is what the Ordinance is. To give just one example, the state laws provide that the Review Committees -- to consider orders passed by the Home Department shall be headed by the Chief Secretary, but the Ordinance requires that the corresponding Committee for terrorists must be headed by a High Court judge. What entitles terrorists or their agents to greater solicitude?

Similarly, consider the deletion of "disruptive activities" from the Ordinance. TADA provided that any action that questions or disrupts the sovereignty and territorial integrity of India or is intended to do so, or which is intended to bring about or supports a claim for the secession of any part of India from the Union shall be a crime under TADA. Imagine how far we have fallen when even such a provision has had to be jettisoned -- even from a law the specific purpose of which is to thwart terrorists out to break our country.

The charge that such provisions were used against Muslims, that TADA was an anti-minorities law was a travesty. The facts, as I had pointed out at the time, were completely to the contrary. The notorious case of abuse was by the Congress-I led Government of Gujarat: it threw almost 19,000 persons in jail under TADA, and these were farmers opposing its policies. I don�t recall any protests against that abuse by those who are now imagining possible abuses in the future. Just as important, ninety eight per cent of those arrested in Gujarat got bail under that very Act from the courts. In Kashmir it is true that the overwhelming proportion of persons held under TADA were Muslims: but they were arrested not because they were Muslims, they were arrested because they were out to break the country. These two instances apart, the proportion of Muslims among the total arrested under TADA was only 4.5 per cent.

But such is the shadow that the falsehoods circulated at the time cast, that even six years later, and with thousands more having been killed by terrorists, the provision about activities aimed at disrupting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country has had to be excluded from the Ordinance.

"But what was the need for an Ordinance? Should the Government not have first evolved a consensus on the matter?"

Is there never to be a finality? Not even in a matter relating to the security of the country? Guess since when the efforts to bring about a consensus on this law have been going on? Since May 1995. TADA was allowed to lapse because opportunist politicians looking for issues that would curry favour with the Muslim vote bank saw an opportunity. That itself was a crime -- an instrument vital to the security and defence of the country was sacrificed to the crassest political calculation. Then began the long march.

A Criminal Law Amendment Bill was drafted and circulated in 1995. It was abandoned. Consultations continued with all and sundry. The matter was eventually referred to the Law Commission in 1998. That Commission deliberated on the question for two years -- giving its report and draft Bill in April 2000.

That draft was considered at meetings of Directors General and Inspectors General of Police, of Chief Secretaries and Home Secretaries of state governments. It was considered at the Chief Ministers� Conference on Internal Security last year. It was sent to the Human Rights Commission for its observations. It was sent to the state governments for their comments.

Should the process go on indefinitely? And what are the prospects of "evolving a consensus" when it has become an article of faith of everyone who is out of office that his job is to block everything a Government does? That his job is to block even what he was doing when he was in office, in fact even what he is today doing in the states in which he is in office?

The comments that the states sent to the draft Bill themselves tell the tale. The Congress(I) is opposing the Ordinance. In fact, when the Law Commission�s draft was circulated, the (Congress-I) Government of Delhi supported the enactment of the law in toto. The (Congress-I) Government of Karnataka supported the enactment of the law in toto.

The (Congress-I) Government of Nagaland supported the law in toto. The (Congress-I) Government of Madhya Pradesh, the (Congress-I) Government of Rajasthan, and the (Congress-I) Government of Maharashtra supported the enactment of the law, they sent suggestions about specific clauses.

The CPI(M) Governments of Kerala, West Bengal and Tripura sent their usual "principled" opposition. That Government in Kerala has gone. The one in West Bengal is trying to cover up its embarrassment for having finalised its own version of the Maharashtra Act. The Government of Tripura, after some initial show of reluctance because of "the party�s stand", has begun using corresponding provisions from other enactments relating to national security.

Not just those governments in the states, representatives of those parties at "the national level" have in general endorsed the need for a law to deal specifically with terrorists and their organizations. The leading figure in Parliament from the CPI(M) went so far as to counsel Government that it should study what Israel is doing in the matter. One of the most highly regarded leaders of the Congress(I) in Parliament stated that the Indian Penal Code is inadequate for combating terrorism, that a special law is needed, that in fact the draft Bill itself was not adequate. Nailing the falsehood that is being circulated, he said that the Bill does not shift the onus of proof on to the accused, that the provisions only seek to raise a presumption in certain circumstances. He said that there were many loopholes in the Bill, and for that reason it should go to the Select Committee or Standing Committee of the House...

This process has been going on for six years. In the meanwhile terrorists have continued to maim, kill, blow up, bum...

Fifty-five thousand people killed... that is five times the number we have lost in the 1962, 1965, 1971 and Kargil wars. And we are still stalled -- awaiting a consensus before getting even a law in place to deal with terrorism.

My plea, therefore, is the one opposite to that of the critics: the Ordinance should be approved at the first opportunity, and soon thereafter toughened -- the diluted provisions should be replaced by tougher ones -- closer to those of TADA.

Part I - POTO: Interception, Confession, Confessions, Torture

BJP Today
December 1-15, 2001

Some Good Even From This Crisis

Arun Shourie






Even so deplorable and uncalled-for a crisis has yielded some good. 1. At long last, the real Sonia Gandhi has stepped forth: and shown that she is just another politician, that the image which had been so assiduously projected -- the shy, reticent lady, concerned only with the security of her children, a lady who hates politics, who shuns power -- was just nail-polish. Her ambition, her readiness to use all means for acquiring office, her willingness to twist and turn -- "A minority government of the Congress, take it or leave it" one day, the magnanimous openness to a coalition the next, and the Papal, "No, we are not ready to pardon," the third -- were all put on display. As have the limits of the astuteness with which she was getting to be credited: thus far she had been dealing with the doormen and doormats of the Congress; as they would bend and genuflect each time she looked their way, it was easy to seem astute; what happened when she had to handle Mulayam, Laloo, Jayalalitha, Mayawati...?

Even more graphically we had a chance to glimpse her disposition to untruth. "We have the support of 272 MPs," she declared one day. She had nothing of the sort, it is clear. The President gave her 48 hours to furnish the letters affirming this claim. When she came out of Rashtrapati Bhavan after her second meeting with the President, she and her minions -- Arjun Singh leading the rest -- led everyone to believe that the President had advised her to "complete her efforts for forming an alternative Government as early as possible." I was quite astonished, I confess. For if this were true, it would mean that the President was straining to see one combination out and a particular one in. I requested a friend to send me the text of what had been put out by Rashtrapati Bhawan officially. Just read what the President's office stated in writing. The relevant para ran as follows: "Smt Sonia Gandhi gave to the President a list of 233 MPs who would extend support for the formation of a Congress Government. When it was put to her that the numbers did not add up to the requisite strength, she conveyed to the President that she would continue her discussions with parties and individuals who voted against the Motion of Confidence on April 17, 1999 and advise the President on her efforts, as early as possible." She, Sonia Gandhi, told the President that she would "advise" him of the results of her efforts. And that was twisted to read that the President had advised her to do whatever she had to in this regard as early as possible! That reversal is more than an Italian's English: it is the exact replay of what used to be done during Rajiv Gandhi's tenure. Moreover, it is evident that, for advancing her own chances, she -- and of course her factotums -- have no compunction in putting the President's office and credibility in jeopardy.

No blackmailer could have blackballed himself as effectively as Jayalalitha isolated and marginalised herself. Even had the Government she had banked on come into being, her power to bully it had been substantially diminished.

People got to see how spurious were "issues" these politicians had been shouting about these last few months: did anyone mention a word about Bhagwat or Guruswamy at any turn during the week?

The perennials of every conspiracy -- Harkishen Singh Surjeet, Arjun Singh, Subramaniam Swamy -- out-conspired themselves. Prudence kept everyone from saying anything against Swamy. In Papaji's case, on the other hand, the long-suppressed resentment against him of his own partymen was expressed in the strongest language even to a person like me. And Arjun Singh was being blamed for what is in the sycophantic Congress the cardinal sin: he is the one who has caused embarrassment to Madam, went the charge.

That these parties and leaders care nothing for the country's condition and interest was brought home to all: "In one minute, we will put the alternative in place," they claimed; in fact, as events showed, they had pulled down the Government, and plunged the country into such uncertainty, with nothing in hand -- except their private calculations: each had convinced himself -- and herself, let us not forget -- that, once the existing Government was out, and he or she out-played the others in obstinacy, the others would have no alternative but to hand the crown to her or him.

The Third Front was blown to pieces for the nth time -- its obituary pronounced by the very one who had used it the most for indulging his habit: Surjeet.

The image which leftists have created for themselves -- larger-than-life monoliths -- was cracked. First the Left Front couldn't agree. Then the sharp divisions within the CPI (M) -- between the Kerala and Bengal units of the party, then the emotion they share -- intense hostility towards their General Secretary, Surjeet -- were on display.

The incessant claim of these parties -- that they have been fighting for "secularism" -- was blown. Trust between "secular forces" always in short supply, was erased altogether: Sonia isn't the only one who is saying, "No, we are not ready to pardon." The public also got another chance to see through their pretensions: to the cliche, "We will do everything necessary to consolidate secular forces," was added another, "Jo bhi Bahujan Samaj ke hit mein hoga hum voh hi karenge"!

Even as they persisted in painting the "communalists" as untouchables in public, politicians of all hues were in touch with the BJP leaders: typical was an incident to my knowledge -- having made a crucial move, leaders of a secularist combine phoned a BJP bigwig and told him, "We are going to abuse you fellows a lot today, don't black it out from Doordarshan, it is important that our supporters hear the message in full"!

As every vote counted, and as no one knew who he might have to ally with tomorrow, politicians became ever so polite to one another.

The Budget, which till the day before the opposition had dubbed a "communal budget", an "Ashok Singhal budget," was passed unanimously, without so much as a proforma discussion.

Parliament was adjourned, sine die, and the country was so much more at peace.

At the height of the crisis, newspapers too decided to go on strike, peace became tranquility.

Enthusiastic newspapers made Jayalalithas of themselves: few have lent themselves so shamelessly as megaphones for broadcasting rumours as them: like Jayalalitha, they overdid their part, and thereby readers see what they have been doing -- The Indian Express took the prize by concocting minatory remarks, and attributing them to the President: so much so that the President's office had to put out an official contradiction. As an exercise, go back to the paper and compare the display of the concoctions and of the official contradiction.

Even politicians saw that goodness pays: that it was Atal Behari Vajpayee who had been done in by the conspiracy is what hurt conspirators the most -- "People think it to be gau-hatya," my friend Surya Prakash said.

Means still seemed to matter. The President's decision of asking Vajpayee to seek a vote of confidence instead of letting the opposition parties settle their differences and move a motion of no-confidence; and the decision which was pasted on him by Sonia Gandhi -- to give her an indefinite length of further time -- were widely perceived as efforts to help one side. And thereby the norm that persons occupying high office must be non-partisan was reaffirmed. Wicked devices still seemed to boomerang: by seducing one TDP MP, the Congress got headlines for a day; but it simultaneously confirmed allegations of the means it was using; more consequential, it clarified Chandrababu Naidu's mind: for all their protestations and the soothing suggestions of their brokers, Chandrababu was reminded that Congress leaders will not hesitate one second to prise his flock from him.

Among the means the Congress and the Communists deployed the most was rumour-mongering: Mulayam has given his letter, one minute, Dilip Rai has met Sonia and the Biju Janata Dal is as good as broken the next, Ambani has sent 75 crores, the exodus has begun, Chandrashekhar has met Sonia, Farooq Abdullah has just talked to her and pledged his support, the Samata MPs have agreed on the promise that they will be given ministerships after a month, the President has made it clear to the BJP and alliance leaders that under no circumstances will he ..... Every other hour some such rumour would sweep the capital. But each rumour buried the preceding, one, together they discredited that whole lot -- the mongers of rumours.

The people didn't just -- once again --- see politicians for that they are. They saw that in the current system only such politicians will float to the top, that in each round the current arrangement is yielding a worse and worse lot. The lesson that it is the system that needs to be refashioned was thus reinforced.

The nemesis of "progressive politics" was brought home just as effectively: the electorate have been fractured in the name of "social engineering" -- casteism, in plain language -- the Government, and therefore the country has been placed at the mercy of every blackmailer with a vote in Parliament. Surely, people will remember this when they go to the polls next time.

The BJP and its allies lost a Government, but benefited a great deal. Everything had been pulling them apart till this blow. The way Karunanidhi, Badal, Murosoli Maran, Vaiko, Mamta Banerjee, George Fernandes worked to stage off the challenge brought the allies much closer. It isn't just that they worked harder, their contribution was greater than their effort -- for they had far better contacts in, a far deeper reach into the Congress and other opposition parties.

The BJP was suddenly a different party than it had been for months. Ever so often we see the phenomenon in day-to-day life. Some trifling thing happens, we take it to heart and stop meeting a friend. He is suddenly killed in an accident. How much we regret that quarrel! We see in a flash how trivial was the issue which we had taken to heart. This is what this near-death experience did to the BJP. Suddenly, everyone was working as one.

And in the end, the best possible solution remained the only one: elections. Had either side got to form a Government with a majority of twos and threes, it would have been, and hence the country would have been at the mercy of twos and threes. It is far better that the country spend a thousand crores as many times as it takes to get Governments with clear majorities than that the Government of India be so vulnerable that some Jayalalitha can in a week inflict a loss of 50,000 crores on the assets of small investors.

May be all this is not just a sequence but an omen, I tell myself hopefully, may be the good will hold. The day before Mulayam Singh was to Syed Naqvi. "Aao, main tumhe apne gaon ki baat batlaata hoon," he said, "Come, I will teach you something of our village." If a girl comes of age, if her nose is pierced and the nose-ring threaded, if her ears are pierced and she is adorned with ear-rings, if new clothes are stitched, ornaments are brought, if the engagement is done, if gifts are exchanged, if mehndi is put, if the shehnai commences, if the guests arrive, and after all this there are no pheras, if after all this the wedding doesn't go through, in the village that girl doesn't get married ever, he exclaimed. So, if Sonia does not become Prime Minister tomorrow.... At least this time she didn't. As for the future, Long live Village India!

Daily Excelsior
April 30, 1999