2G scam: PM smelled something fishy but stayed away, says Arun Shourie

Source: ET

Former telecom minister A Raja's statements in court has opened a new political battlefront, withBJP demanding the resignation of the Prime Minister and P Chidambaram, who was finance minister when the 2G spectrum allocation was made. The telecom minister during the NDA regime, Arun Shourie , has been tracking developments on the 2G trial. In an interview to ET , Shourie discusses what he believes the PM knew, going by the file notings, Raja's defence that he inherited the policy, and other related issues. Excerpts:

Are you inclined to believe Raja's statements that he did everything with FM's and PM's knowledge?

Raja was very clever. He wrote about 18 letters to the PM during the 2G episode. And in each letter, he implicated somebody. For instance in his letter on 7 November, 2008, he says, "kindly recall my meeting with you on 4/11/2008 along with the honourable Finance Minister in connection with3G spectrum auction and one time spectrum charges for 2G. During the discussion, you advised me to meet the press, to explain the policy and rules.

Accordingly, I addressed the issues in the press conference today and explained the related issues including the dilution of shares as explained by the Finance Minister, of Swan and Unitech." The same day he issues a press release, in which he repeats that this issue has been explained by the Finance Minister. "This matter has been discussed and clarified with the Finance Minister," the press release says, in which this portion is in bold!

Then the FM himself has said, yes, the PM asked me to examine this particular matter. He says I examined it, I said it is dilution of equity and it was consistent with policy and procedure. If that is the case, how is it that now, the Enforcement Directorate, which is under the same ministry, has slapped a 7100 crore penalty on Etisalat? For violation of FEMA!

If everything was done as per policy and procedure, then how? It now transpires, according to ED, that Etisalat was given permission to bring in money from UAE. But it, instead, brought in money from an unknown unit in Mauritius. Secondly, on the same day, Syed Salauddin, a close associate of Mr Karunanidhi, brought in 380 crore. He was allowed to bring it in as a domestic investor and he brought the money from UAE. He has also been slapped with a Fema notice. Both things happened in Swan on the same day.

So, is Raja on firm ground?

All these statements these lawyers like Kapil Sibal are making now, saying everything was in order and there was zero gain to the companies, are statements that will be used by these companies to defend themselves in notices. Kapil Sibal is not the lawyer for the PM, he is the lawyer for Raja and the companies.

It is not Raja who is dragging in the PM now. You go back to Sibal's first press conference on this matter. There he said Raja kept the FM and the PM informed at every turn. I had said at that time that this is the sentence that Raja will use. That is exactly what has happened. Now you wait and see. When the Telecom Minister says the companies made no gain, that will be their defence.

The PM had said in Parliament in February that the then FM and Raja had agreed on a formula and this was communicated to him. Raja says the equity dilution inSwan Telecom and Unitech was discussed and cleared with the FM before the PM. FM says the PM wanted to know if it was a case of dilution of equity or divestment. This shows that the matter that has caused the most outrage, that these two companies benefitted from enormous valuation for a license they paid the government very little for, was known to the PM and he did nothing about the policy that allowed these companies to do this.

All this is in the public domain. Priority lists have been changed, the basis of first-come-first-served had been changed, cut off date had been advanced and 500 applicants were reduced for favoured companies. It now turns out from the CBI chargesheet that the license applications of three companies were approved even before the policy was announced.

You mean to say rivals would not have brought it to the attention of TKA Nair (Principal Secretary to the PM) and others in the PMO? Do you mean to say the Intelligence Bureau and CBI and others would not have brought this to their attention? I cannot believe that. Because our system is so structured that the PM and his office gets to know about every sparrow that moves in the government. That I can testify from personal knowledge.

This was all in public domain...

The notings on the file indicate that the PM was quite alarmed at what was happening. These licenses were given on 10 January, 2008. On 11 January, the Principal Secretary notes that the PM desires to take into account the developments concerning the issue of licenses. This means perhaps that he wanted to have a meeting about it. The file is submitted back to the PMO on 15 January. Now see what the Principal Secretary notes.

"Prime Minister wants this informally shared with the department. He does not want a formal communication and wants PMO to be at arms length". Why would he give this instruction to his officers unless he knew that there is murky stuff going on and it is better to stay away. I think he had full knowledge and I think he had deep apprehension that something terrible has happened and his only concern was let's stay away from the filth. That is not what a PM is supposed to do.

You mean, he knew but shied away from taking any action?

This particular sentence, at arms length, very well describes Dr Manmohan Singh's attitude in regard to CWG, defence acquisitions and every other major decision. Weapons purchases are not happening because Mr Antony (Defence Minister) also wants to stay at arms length on every decision. I think this will be an apt title for a book on Dr Singh's tenure as PM - At Arm's Length.

Raja has also said that if the policy was wrong, all former telecom ministers must be jailed.

Raja says that he was following earlier policies but he flouted them. Take first-come-first-served (FCFS): He says I will FCFS. Then he disregards pending applications. If you were following the policy, you should have dealt with them first. Then he says I will have this cut-off date of October 1. After the applications are received, he says no, I will advance deadline to 25 {+t}{+h} September.

Then he changes FCFS. First, it was time and date of application received. And suddenly it becomes time and date of fulfilling the conditions in the letter of intent. Where is LoI? People rushed for it. It says, within 40 minutes, bring a banker's draft of Rs1,650 crore. Companies he favoured already has those drafts from Mumbai and sitting in his office. How could they get it in 40 minutes?

When he could not find adequate spectrum for his favoured companies, he changes the priority list in the Punjab and Maharashtra circles. You show me one single, unique, solitary instance during my period or anybody else's period during NDA when any of this would have happened. So yes, people who do wrong should be in jail and continue to be in jail without bail.

Nobody fears SONIA GANDHI

Source: rediff

In part one of this interview, Arun Shourie, former newspaper editor, twice member of the Rajya Sabha, former Union minister, right-wing thinker and author, explained the minefield of the 2G spectrum scam and the Niira Radia tapes. Part I: 'BJP and Congress are one party'
In the concluding part of the interview with Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt , he explains why Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh are losing control over the government and the Congress party.
One of the issues revealed in one of the Radia tapes is that you were not given a chance to speak on a Budget-related issue in Parliament.
In her conversation with N K Singh, a former bureaucrat and now a Janata Dal-United MP, she says she didn't want you to be given a chance to speak by the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party).
Did you discover the alleged pressure on your party from the tapes or did you know about it before?
Do you think corporate people can influence the BJP?
Why don't you listen to the tape? I was astonished when I reached Parliament that day. But what can you do? I didn't know that such pressure had worked.
I don't blame the corporates as much as the political process and then these lies are being put out (in defence by the BJP).
And my friend N K Singh says this was a social chat. Arre, look at your tone. You are talking for nine minutes to Radia. Out of that for five minutes he speaks on how he was successful in subverting the BJP's speakers in the debate on the Budget.
N K Singh now says he rejected the proposal that favoured Mukesh Ambani's Reliance when he was revenue secretary.
How interesting! Then what about the tape? This concession (to Reliance's gas project) was made by (Union Finance Minister) Pranab Mukherjee.
A revenue secretary, who has written some clarification, overruled this concession. (N K Singh says on the tape) 'We have to get it restored, otherwise we are nowhere. The initiative they have taken will go nowhere.'
Therefore, Arun Shourie who has taken the difficult position in the BJP's party meeting, has to be managed, he says. He then says, we have got Venkaiah Naidu to speak first.
Somebody has analysed Venkaiah Naidu's speech, in which the sentence is there (supporting Reliance) that all these tax concessions must be continued and given for the gas infrastructure. Where is the doubt?

That's why you are saying that the BJP and Congress are the same.

From all sorts of circumstances. Why is the investigation into the IPL (Indian Premier League) not being pursued? Because you find the same group (the Congress and the BJP) is everywhere.
It is now only the pretence of the government and the Opposition. Actually, they are the same.
Unless, the people of India wake up these things will go on. No issue will reach its conclusion. This is cancer. This is not a scandal.

Have you seen a detailed debate on Indian defence, on the dangers that India is facing from China?

When I was writing on it three years, five years and even ten years ago about China they would say 'paranoia'! I wrote on Islamic terrorism, about Pakistan.

Have you seen anybody taking up these issues in New Delhi? Television will debate the issue to find out who is responsible.
Someone says Nehru, some will say Indira Gandhi, some will blame (P V) Narasimha Rao or Manmohan Singh. The debate is over and now let's go and see Shilpa Shetty!
That's the problem! Just drama that is going on and on. Inside Parliament, it is arranged drama.

  You have heard the 100 plus Radia tapes uploaded on the Outlook Web site. It gives us an insight into India 2010. It's a very important insight. That's why I am urging people please, please listen to it. I am urging people to please publish verbatim.
Please bring out books. Please bring out CDs and reproduce it. So, that people would know how things are managed in government, in the Opposition and in the media.
How polices are being made, how personnel are being fixed. It's a wonderful glimpse. We owe a great degree of thanks to Niira Radia, and, to the persons who recorded these calls and to the person who leaked it.
And, a very important point: These tapes also show the power of the Internet.
Apart from Open and Outlook, the whole print media blacked it out, but Internet users had perseverance. The Hindu has taken it up now. Individual journalists like Girish Nikam and others are pursuing it. Now, the tapes have got some focus.
What has surprised you in Radia's conversations?
Nothing has surprised me. This is what I have been saying since long is the state of affairs. That is now confirmed by these tapes. This is not the state of affairs of India. The Radia tapes reveal the state of affairs in New Delhi.

When you were a journalist and a top editor, you shifted to politics.

In those years when you were moving from media to politics, obviously, even your phone call would suggest that you crossed that red line. Don't you think so?

I don't think so. You can tap my phone, anytime. What red lines? I consider myself a writer.

When I was in government everybody said I am not a politician. That's true. I am not a politician. I don't think my behaviour with my contact would be different than my writing.

If you ask me today, 'Do you know Radia?' Yes, I met her once. What is there to hide?

Did you ever think that Radia would be so powerful?

I thought she was an articulate lady. I never thought that she knows everybody -- very effective in her job. We can't blame her.

What's the solution for the Indian media?

First, the media should write about itself. It is extremely short-sighted about the media to black out these things. The Mitrokhin Archives (external link) revealed how (the then Soviet intelligence agency) the KGB boasted that they were able to plant 400 stories in such and such Indian newspapers.

The Indian media blacked it out. Then, privatetreaties.com (external link) of The Times of India that other people have now adopted has been completely blacked out.
Only two, three journalists are exposing it on the Internet. Again, on the issue of paid news, only P Sainath of The Hindu wrote about it.
When the Press Council of India was forced to appoint a committee to look into the allegations about 'paid news', the Press Council itself suppressed the report.

These Radia tapes should be a gold mine for Indian media to show how things work in New Delhi. The whole issue has come down to Vir Sanghvi and Barkha Dutt. That is not the whole issue.

The arguments forwarded by many media outlets is that the source of the Radia tapes is not known and nobody is sure if they are doctored or not.

That's just the dammed rationalisation. Has any single person disputed the voices on the Radia tapes? No. Has anybody been able to prove that tapes have been edited? No.

Barkha Dutt has written to that effect.

She has written, but what else did you talk about? Is that not clear enough? We can't go by the rationalisation that has been offered.

Another issue that has cropped up relates to privacy.

How many private things in Indian journalism has not been disclosed? Every second day the Indian media is disclosing people's private matters. Only in this matter are they sanctimonious about the Right to Privacy.

Do you think Ratan Tata is right when he says that?

It's a separate matter. The distinction has to be there between private talk and the matter that has impact on public policy that is not covered by the Right to Privacy law. I don't think even Ratan Tata has asked to that effect.

He only says that his private conversation with Radia that relates to personal things should not be leaked. There are personal things like what kind of food he likes etc. But, why should the tapes of his conversations, which are in the public domain, not be heard?

Take the case of WikiLeaks. Is the Indian media reporting or not?

Are they verifying the authenticity of the source? Are they contacting the persons concerned? Are they checking if these cables are edited or not? No.

Yet, they are carrying it. These are arguments manufactured for shutting your eyes.

Do you think the (EM>United Progressive Alliance UPA-2 is increasingly losing its sheen?

The cancer is now in the fourth stage in our governance structure.

It has reached what (writer Malcolm) Gladwell has called the tipping point.

I feel the prime minister has lost complete control of the government. Sonia Gandhi has lost control over the political processes and of the Congress party.

Nobody fears her. Till now, she was the supreme court. The way Congressman feared her, they don't fear her now.

That is why you see how she took time to take action in Andhra, Maharashtra and corruption in the Commonwealth Games. They kept saying the government is not doing anything on the CWG.

There was an sms doing the rounds where someone asked why the government did not act when the country was getting such a bad name? The answer was that nobody told the prime minister that the Games are going on!

Similar is the case of Sonia Gandhi. She has unlimited authority within the Congress, and therefore in the government.

When the country's name was jeopardised, if not the prime minister, she should have acted. Both have lost authority in their respective space.

In May 2009 everything was looking so hopeful and good for the Congress party. Why this transformation?

Because of the tipping point. Things go wrong inside the body and we don't realise.

Second, I have seen during Rajiv Gandhi's time that the prime minister and rulers are often misled by the fact that they control the situation within Parliament. But they don't realise that the situation outside Parliament is going out of their hands.

This is what happened to Rajiv Gandhi. He had three-quarters majority in the House. He thought he controlled everything. He was in control, but things outside Parliament slipped out of his hands. The same things are repeating today.

They must be thinking that we have won. We have managed other smaller parties. The Opposition party is our pocket borough! We have managed them. They were confident of them. Call them for dinner and praise them a little bit in public.

People can be driven by flattery; you don't even need to give them money.

Some small fry could be praised in public. They became instruments in the hands of the government. The government felt cosy in that position. Suddenly things went out of hand.

Do you agree with the BJP's demand for a JPC (Joint Parliamentary Committee to probe the 2G spectrum scam?

The JPC will derail the investigation. The government will get a perfect alibi for two years that the probe would go on.

There were JPCs on Harshad Mehta, Ketan Parekh, insecticides. What happened to them?

If a JPC is formed, then the issue of 2G spectrum will be killed. The CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation is now doing the job.

A Raja is out and there are many indications that they are pursuing the matter. I know from personal knowledge that the CBI has got details of the transactions involving many, many telecom players and Raja.

The best way is for the CBI's investigation to be monitored by the Supreme Court.

There is the petition to that effect by advocate Prashant Bhushan. He says it should be monitored by independent people. I think it should be monitored by Chief Justice S H Kapadia in whom we have faith.

The CBI itself has said the investigation will be over by March. We should wait till then.

Pocket Edition

Arun Shourie

"Not one paisa has been taken from the Trust," declared the Congress spokesman with a show of righteous indignation. He was declaiming on the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts. But the charge had been altogether different -- that the Trust had been a Government-trust, that it had received Rs 134 crores of Government money and 23 acres of invaluable land, that it had been converted into a private Trust by fraud, that the conversion had been sanctified by collusion between a trustee and the President of the Trust, Sonia Gandhi. Not one of these facts had been disputed by the Congress. Within days, the Delhi High Court itself came down in the strongest possible words on the fraud. It went so far as to say that the pendency of the writ before it must not come in the way of the Government undoing the usurpation.

But the Congress was following the rule: when cornered, deny -- with great passion -- what has not been alleged!

That "denial" was typical. The entire campaign of the Congress has been crafted around the all-too obvious rules of advertising companies, and the all-too obvious propagandists!

"The bigger the lie, the more likely it is to be believed" -- Hitler, not Goebbels; the latter counseled against outright lies! As Congress has become a synonym for corruption, allege corruption in everything the present Government has done -- even when, as in the case of the Telecom policy it has been done at your urging; as Kargil was a striking victory, assert that in fact it was a defeat; as Sonia Gandhi's foreign-ness is an issue, portray Vajpayee as a traitor.

"Confine yourself to little, and repeat this eternally," "A thousandfold repetition of the most simple ideas" -- both Hitler and Goebbels. That rule in turn rests on what is a fundamental proposition with such cynics: that the people have an extremely limited understanding. One must have the "courage", they said, to go on repeating those few points endlessly. "The nature of propaganda lies in its simplicity and repetition," Goebbels wrote in his diary, "Only the man who is able to reduce the problems to the simplest terms and has the courage to repeat them indefinitely in this simplified form despite the objections of the intellectuals will in the long run achieve fundamental successes in influencing public opinion. If other methods are pursued he may influence a circle of unstable intellectuals here and there but will not even scratch the surface of the people."

Sugar scandal, sugar scandal, sugar scandal.... Even after the lie has been nailed, in fact specially after the lie has been nailed you must go on repeating it. When, in the face of facts, you keep repeating the lie, the people -- of limited understanding as they are on this theory -- are liable to infer, "There must be something to it, the fellow would not go on sticking to the allegation."

Hence,

(i) hurl a few simple allegations;
(ii) specially those of which the propagandists themselves are guilty;
(iii) repeat these endlessly;
(iv) specially in the face of facts.

The impression you want to convey about the adversary should be simple. To drill it in, you must have not one lie, but a barrage of them. In fact, you must not stick to one lie for long: the adversary will prove the truth with evidence. So, keep running. A fabrication every other day. True, soon enough that they were all falsehoods will be established, but by then the campaign will be over, the people will have been overwhelmed by other problems. Hence, Bhagwat. Then Mohan Guruswamy. Then Telecom Policy. Then telephone exchanges. Then sugar. Then wheat. Then planes. Then a Category-III flat! Back to sugar....

That Category-III flat was a quantum leap! The Congress spokesman had told all and sundry in Delhi with much flair that he was going to Lucknow to reveal a sensational, explosive scandal. The UP Congress scheduled a special press conference at noon for the explosion. A number of newspapermen turned up. Vajpayee applied for a flat and got an out-of-turn allotment in Delhi, announced the spokesman -- that was the explosion.

Pressmen were incensed. Is this what we were called for?, they remarked. At least Vajpayee paid for the flat. What about the persons sitting to your left and right? These leaders of your party in the state have not purchased a flat or two, they have just taken over government bungalows -- what are you going to do about that?....

Vajpayee has spent fifty years in public life. The "sensational, explosive" revelation of the Congress spokesman reminded people that he hasn't even a house to his name. That all he has is a Category-III flat. That too something he paid for. And who was the Prime Minister when this allotment was made?, the pressmen asked. Narasimha Rao, it turned out!

Soon it was established that some notable Congressmen too had been allotted flats from the same quota. The government had made the allotments for the distinguished services they had rendered to the country.

Not just that, the Supreme Court had instituted a detailed inquiry into out-of-turn allotments. Every irregular allotment had been scrutinized. The allotment to Vajpayee had never been called in question as being even faintly irregular. On the other hand, two Governors -- conspicuous members of the Congress -- had felt constrained to resign. Cases were going on against the then Congress ministers for converting their discretionary quotas into commerce....

The footnote to the story was truly delicious. It turned out that the spokesman who had traveled all the way to Lucknow to make this sensational disclosure, and his family members had received not a Category-III flat, but five plots of land from Bhajan Lal, the then Chief Minister of Haryana! Each one of the five had been an out-of-turn allotment. Bhajan Lal's largesse had been taken to court. A Division bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court had found the allotments to be so bereft of merit that it had canceled all of them in March 1997. Of the five plots, the spokesman and his family had to forfeit three -- the remaining two had survived because the Court chose to put the cut-off date at 1995, and these two had been made over earlier.

But it would be wholly wrong to think that there was any remorse at having hurled such a silly allegation. The purpose of such hurling is not to convince, but to confuse. Corruption was your characteristic. By these allegations -- wild as they are -- you convey that the facts which have been established about your misdeeds are also just allegations. Second, that similar allegations exist about your adversary too.

The Congress seems to have been advised about an additional advantage. Should your adversary bring up some new embarrassing facts about you during the campaign, you can take the high road, and regret that the campaign, "instead of focusing on real issues," has descended to personal attacks! Better still, you can get friendly journalists to lament "the levels to which the campaign has descended"! This in turn yields several advantages.

(i) You are seen to be concerned about "the real issues".
(ii) That you are the one who has been hurling baseless allegations is covered up.
(iii) You and the adversary are put at par.
(iv) Once you have conditioned the people to believe that everybody is hurling allegations and charges, you don't have to answer the facts that have been revealed about you -- they are no better than the baseless allegations which you have been hurling!

The more unverifiable the "event" the more useful it is for lies! Summarising the practice of master-liars, Jacques Ellul cautions, "Such lies must not be told except about completely unverifiable facts. For example, Goebbels' lies could be on the successes achieved by German U-boats, because only the captain of the U-boat knew if he had sunk a ship or not. It was easy to spread detailed news on such a subject without fear of contradiction." Hence, fables about unrest in the Army "because the Prime Minister is not speaking up to shield the higher command in the wake of the controversies that have risen as a result of the letters that Brigadier Surinder Singh is said to have written..."

As there is always the risk that some damned fool may come out with the facts sooner than you expect, a handy device is to demand, "All we are asking is that the Prime Minister come clean with all the facts." That leaves a way out: "After all, what did we demand? All we said was that the Prime Minister come clean with the facts." Even better, the demand sets you up as the referee! The Prime Minister is to state the facts, and you will decide whether what he has disclosed amounts to "all the facts"!

Recall Sonia Gandhi's response to questions about her friend, Ottavio Quatrocchi. There are no papers which link him to Bofors, she said. If there are any such papers, let them show us the papers, she demanded. The first part was an outright lie: when the judgments of the highest court in Switzerland, of the Delhi High Court, of the Supreme Court were given out, sudden silence.

A glance at the advertisements they have placed in the newspapers -- and even more, the advertisements worth crores which they have had placed in the name of a near-bankrupt organization, "Communalism Combat" -- will show that there are other Goebbelsian maxims too which the Congress has been following in this campaign.

The negative is stronger than the positive: not one positive advertisement in their entire series.

Hatred is stronger than love: killers of the Mahatma, butchers of Christians....

Fear is stronger than hope: the advertisements placed in the name of "Communalism Combat" are textbook illustrations of this maxim.

The central ingredient here is an instrumental view of truth! The test is not whether what one is saying is true or false. The only test is whether it serves the purpose!

In a sense, therefore, it is indeed appropriate that the Congress fielded a lawyer as its spokesman! In theory, lawyers are supposed to be officers of the court. In fact, large parts of the profession have come to believe that their job is to serve their client --- and for the purpose use whatever device seems handy.

So, it has been entirely in character, that the spokesman should -- in his capacity as a lawyer -- have appeared for private cellular operators and argued that the then Telecom Policy with its high license fees was a disaster, and, when the switch was made to a revenue sharing regime, the very same person should -- in his capacity as spokesman for the Congress -- have denounced the changeover, and alleged a scam. It was entirely in character for the spokesman to have raised doubts about the Prime Minister having acquired a Category-III flat in a perfectly normal manner, when he and his family members had got Bhajan Lal, the then Chief Minister of Haryana, to grant them -- not one but -- five plots out of the discretionary quota. It was entirely in character for him as the spokesman of the Congress to cast doubts at the professional integrity of the Attorney General, without mentioning that in his other capacity he is the lawyer for a paper in a suit which the Attorney General has been constrained to file against it for the falsehood it published about him. It was entirely in character for him to be releasing fabricated letters ostensibly written by a Brigadier, and thus, apart from advancing the interests of the Congress of which he was the spokesman, building up a sort of defence through the press, without disclosing that he was himself the lawyer of that Brigadier.

Of course, I do not want to push the parallel too far: Goebbels and his kind -- Lenin and his lot, to take an allied example -- were masters -- diabolic masters. These fellows are just pocket editions! Those masters would never have put out statements which were so patently false: that Vajpayee is a traitor, that he was arming the ISI and the Pakistan Army to invade Kargil... The lies of Goebbels, Lenin and company held the field for decades. These fellows' allegations could not withstand a simple miscalculation: that the campaign was a little longer than usual turned out to be enough for their allegations to be shown up to be the falsehoods that they were...

Saved again! In 1987-89 we had been saved by the ham-handedness of the forgers. This time we have to thank the incompetence of these fabricators.

India Connect
September 27, 1999

Annexation Through Technicalities

Arun Shourie

The day I entered Indiraji's household I became an Indian, the rest is just technical -- that is Sonia Gandhi's latest explanation for not having acquired Indian citizenship till fourteen years after her marriage to Rajiv Gandhi.

First the facts. Surya Prakash, the Consulting Editor of The Pioneer, has documented these in detail. Sonia married Rajiv on 25 February, 1968. Under section 5(c) of the Indian Citizenship Act she became eligible to register herself as a citizen of India on 25 February, 1973. She chose to continue as a citizen of Italy. She applied for Indian citizenship only ten years later, on 7 April, 1983.

A foreigner seeking Indian citizenship has to state on oath that he or she has relinquished his or her citizenship of the original country. This requirement was all the more necessary in the case of an Italian citizen: under Italian law, an Italian taking citizenship of another country continues to retain his or her Italian citizenship. Sonia Gandhi's application did not have the requisite statement, nor did it have any official document from the appropriate authorities in Italy. The omission was made up in a curious way: the Ambassador of Italy stepped in, and wrote to the Government saying that Sonia Gandhi had indeed given up her citizenship of Italy. He did so on 27 April, 1983. Sonia got her citizenship forthwith -- on 30 April, 1983.

Another nugget Surya Prakash has unearthed is that while Sonia became a citizen on 30 April, 1983, her name made its way to the electoral rolls as of 1 January, 1980! In response to an objection, it had to be deleted in late 1982. But sure enough, it was put back on the electoral roll as of 1 January, 1983. She hadn't even applied for citizenship till then.

All technicalities! If any ordinary person were to proceed in the same way, he would be up for stern prosecution.

Maruti was one of the most odious scandals connected with Mrs Indira Gandhi and her family. The Commission of Inquiry headed by Justice A C Gupta recorded that, though she was at the time a foreigner, Sonia Gandhi secured shares in two of their family concerns: Maruti Technical Services Pvt. Ltd. (in 1970 and again in 1974), and Maruti Heavy Vehicles (in 1974). The acquisition of these shares was in contravention of the very Act that Mrs Gandhi used to such diabolic effect in persecuting her political opponents, the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, 1973. Just another technicality!

But the Mother of Technicalities, so to say, is to be found in the way Sonia Gandhi, without having any known sources of income, has become the controller of one of the largest empires of property and patronage in Delhi. The Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Library and Museum is one of the principal institutions for research on contemporary Indian history. It is situated in and controls real estate which, because of its historical importance, cannot even be valued. The institution runs entirely on grants from the Government of India. Sonia Gandhi has absolutely no qualification that could by any stretch of imagination entitle her to head the institution: has she secured even an elementary university degree, to say nothing of having done anything that would even suggest some specialization in subjects which the institution has been set up to study. But by mysterious technicalities she is today the head of this institution. So much so that she even decides which scholar may have access to papers -- even official papers -- of Pandit Nehru and others of that family, including, if I may stretch the term, Lady Mountbatten.

Real estate, only slightly less valuable, has been acquired on Raisina Road. The land was meant to house offices of the Congress. A large, ultra-modern building was built -- the finance being provided by another bunch of technical devices which remain a mystery. The building had but to get completed, and Sonia appropriated it for the other Foundation she completely controls -- the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation. The Congress(I) did not just oblige by keeping silent about the takeover of its building, in the very first budget its Government presented upon returning to power, it provided Rs 100 crores to this Foundation. The furore that give-away caused was so great that the largesse had to be canceled. No problem. Business house after business house, even public sector enterprises incurring huge losses, coughed up crores.

The Foundation has performed two principal functions. The projection of Sonia Gandhi. And enticing an array of leaders, intellectuals, journalists etc. into nets of patronage and pelf.

But the audacity with which the land and building were usurped and funds raised for this Foundation falls into the second order of smalls when they are set alongside what has been done in regard to the Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts.

This Centre was set up as a trust in 1987 by a resolution of the Cabinet. The Government of India gave Rs. 50 crores out of the Consolidated Fund of India as a corpus fund to this Centre. It transferred 23 acres of land along what is surely one of the costliest sites in the world -- Central Vista, the stretch that runs between Rashtrapati Bhavan and India Gate -- to this Trust. Furthermore, it granted another Rs. 84 crores for the Trust to construct its building.

The land was government land. The funds were government funds. Accordingly, care was taken to ensure that the Trust would remain under the overall control of the Government of India. Therefore, the Deed of the Trust provided, inter alia,

* Every ten years two-thirds of the trustees would retire. One half of the vacancies caused would be filled by the Government. One half would be filled by nominations made by the retiring trustees.

* The Member Secretary of the Trust would be nominated by the Government on such terms and conditions as the Government may decide.

* The President of India would appoint a committee from time to time to review the working of the Trust, and the recommendations of the committee would be binding on the Trust.

* No changes would be made in the deed of the Trust except by prior written sanction of the Government, and even then the changes may be adopted only by three-quarters of the Trustees agreeing to them at a meeting specially convened for the purpose.

Now, just see what technical wonders were performed one fine afternoon.

A meeting like any other meeting of the trustees was convened on 18 May, 1995. The minutes of this meeting which I have before me list all the subjects which were discussed -- the minutes were circulated officially by Dr Kapila Vatsyayan in her capacity as the Director of the Centre with the observation, "The Minutes of this meeting have been approved by Smt Sonia Gandhi, President of the IGNCA Trust."

What did the assembled personages discuss and approve? Even if the topics seem mundane, do read them carefully -- for they contain a vital clue, the Sherlock Holmes clue so to say, about what did not happen.

The minutes report that the following subjects were discussed:

1: Indira Gandhi Memorial Fellowship Scheme and the Research Grant Scheme.
2: Commemoration volume in the memory of Stella Kramrisch.
3: Sale of publications of the IGNCA.
4: Manuscripts on music and dance belonging to the former ruling house of Raigarh in M P
5: Report on the 10th and 11th meetings of the Executive Committee.
6: Approval and adoption of the Annual Report and Annual Accounts, 1993-94.
7: Bilateral and multilateral programmes of IGNCA, and aid from U N agencies, Ford Foundation, Japan Foundation, etc.
8: Brief report on implementation of programmes from April 1994 to March 1995.
9: Brief of initiatives taken by IGNCA to strengthen dialogue between Indian and Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, China.
10: Documentation of cultural heritage of Indo-Christian, Indo-Islamic and Indo-Zoroastrian communities.
11: Gita Govinda project.
12: IGNCA newsletter.
13: Annual Action Plan, 1995-96.
14: Calendar of events. 15: Publications of IGNCA.
15: Matters relating to building project.
16: Allocations/release of funds for the IGNCA building project.

There is not one word in the minutes that the deed of the Trust was even mentioned.

This meeting took place on 18 May, 1995. On 30 May, 1995 Sonia Gandhi performed one of technical miracles. She wrote a letter to the Minister of Human Resources informing him of what she said were alterations in the Trust Deed which the trustees had unanimously approved. Pronto, the Minister wrote back, on 2 June, 1995: "I have great pleasure in communicating to you the Government of India's approval to the alterations."

The Minister? The ever-helpful, Madhav Rao Scindia. And wonder of wonders, in his other capacity he had attended the meeting on 18 May as a trustee of the IGNCA, the meeting which had not, according to the minutes approved by Sonia Gandhi, even discussed, far less "unanimously approved" changes in the Trust Deed.

And what were the changes that Sonia Gandhi managed to get through by this collusive exchange of two letters?

*
She became President for life.
*
The other trustees -- two-thirds of whom were to retire every ten years -- became trustees for life. The power of the Government to fill half the vacancies was snuffed out.
*
The power of the Government to appoint the Member Secretary of the Trust was snuffed out; henceforth the Trust would appoint its own Member Secretary.
*
The power of the President of India to appoint a committee to periodically review the functioning of the Trust was snuffed out; neither he nor Government would have any power to inquire into the working of the Trust.

A Government Trust, a Trust which had received over Rs. 134 crores of the tax-payers' money, a Trust which had received twenty three acres of invaluable land was, by a simple collusive exchange of a letter each between Sonia Gandhi and one of her gilded attendants became property within her total control.

The usurpation was an absolute fraud. The Trust Deed itself provided that no amendment to it could come into force -- on any reasonable reading could not even be initiated and adopted -- without prior written permission of the Government. Far from any permission being taken, even information to the effect that changes were being contemplated was not sent to Government. An ex post "approval" was obtained from an obliging trustee.

That "approval" was in itself wholly without warrant. Such sanctions are governed by Rule 4 of the Government of India (Transaction of Business) Rules, 1961. This Rule prescribes that when a subject concerns more than one department, "no order be issued until all such departments have concurred, or failing such concurrence, a decision thereon has been taken by or under the authority of the Cabinet." Other departments were manifestly concerned, concurrence from them was not even sought. The Cabinet was never apprised.

The rule proceeds to provide, "Unless the case is fully covered by powers to sanction expenditure or to appropriate or re-appropriate funds, conferred by any general or special orders made by the Ministry of Finance, no department shall, without the previous concurrence of the Ministry of Finance, issue any orders which may... (b) involve any grant of land or assignment of revenue or concession, grant... (d) otherwise have a financial bearing whether involving expenditure or not..."

And yet, just as concurrence of other departments had been dispensed with, no approval was taken from the Finance Ministry.

The Indian Express and other papers published details about the fraud by which what was a Government Trust had been converted into a private fief. Two members of Parliament -- Justice Ghuman Mal Lodha and Mr. E. Balanandan -- began seeking details, and raising objections.

For a full two and a half years, governments -- of the Congress(I), and the two that were kept alive by the Congress(I), those of Mr. Deve Gowda and of Mr. I. K. Gujral -- made sure that full facts would not be disclosed to the MPs, and that the concerned file would keep shuttling between the Ministry of Human Resource Development and the Ministry of Law.

As a result, Sonia Gandhi continues to have complete control over governmental assets of incalculable value -- through technicalities collusively arranged.

A latter-day Dalhousie -- annexation of Indian principalities through technicalities!

India Connect
September 13, 1999

Every Disaster, a Photo-Opportunity

Arun Shourie

"The secret of success is sincerity," reads The Cynic's Lexicon, "Once you can fake that, you've got it made." How hard Sonia Gandhi is trying to reach success by that route!

A flood in Assam? Visit the area. Have yourself photographed. Pronounce: Government's relief measures are wholly inadequate. An earthquake in Kumaon? Visit the area. Have yourself photographed. Pronounce: Government's relief measures are wholly inadequate. Cyclone somewhere? Visit the area. Have yourself photographed. Pronounce: Government's relief measures are wholly inadequate. Fighting in Kargil? Visit hospitals at a safe distance. Have yourself photographed with injured soldiers. Pronounce...

Upon checking with persons conversant with the areas she has visited for the photography -- government officials in UP, student leaders in Assam, journalists -- I find that, the visit over, there has been no effort to even ascertain what eventually happened to the victims of the disaster, to say nothing of doing anything substantive for them.

Though conditioned to this pattern, I have been appalled by the depth to which she and her dependents -- Natwar Singh leading the lot -- have stooped on Kargil. For weeks and weeks, they have been casting doubt, casting aspersions, throwing dark hints: "We have questions to ask on Kargil." Why are you waiting? Ask them now. "We have forty two documents." Disclose them now. The people will see what equipment was being sought year after year after year -- for fifteen years -- by the defence forces, by agencies like RAW, and who denied it to them. People will see who sought kudos from international lobbies for their "path-breaking disarmament initiatives", for their "decisiveness" in cutting allocations for defence.

We have questions to ask, Sonia repeats -- rather, reads again from pages written by someone -- convene the Rajya Sabha, she demands. Talk of security is an "excuse" to "shut up the people", she declares. That "shut up" with appropriate emphasis -- the sound byte for the evening bulletin on Star News.

She is not a member of the Rajya Sabha. Whether the session is convened or not does not affect her ability to ask questions. There is one forum which would be ideal for her to ask the questions, the all-party meetings. These she scrupulously dodges. She has been invited to choose any joint-forum of her choice to debate every aspect of the Kargil matter with some representative of Government or the ruling party. There has been no response. Perhaps because responding to such invitations is beneath what her dependents have convinced her is her dignity!

On the other hand, the Leader of her party in the Rajya Sabha, Manmohan Singh, and its Chief Whip, Pranab Mukherjee, have attended the all-party meetings. What their questions are worth can be gleaned from the list they have themselves circulated to the press.

The Pakistani intrusion points to grave weaknesses in the system of gathering and interpreting intelligence data and arrangements for border surveillance, and that is a very serious lapse, they say. And so, "the Congress(I) wants an assurance from the Government that steps have been taken to plug the loopholes." The standard demand, if I may say so. It never fails to amaze me: on the one hand, critics of this kind assert that the assurances of the Government are worthless, and on the other the only thing they can think of demanding is another assurance from the same Government!

"The Congress(I) wants authoritative information on the present military situation...., and the Government's assessment of the unfinished task...", they say. Information -- even in regard to on-going operations -- is being given every single day by the concerned officials. The Chiefs of Staff themselves briefed all who were present at the all-party meeting. For one and a half hours. With maps, slides, and the rest. Not "authoritative" enough?

"The party wants a coherent policy statement on diplomatic initiatives, particularly the Government's assessment of the US's views on de-escalation," they demand. Unable to bring themselves to acknowledge the success that has attended the Government's efforts in presenting India's case the world over, this is all they can spot as missing: "a coherent statement"! And there is a word of advice also from their "experienced diplomats" about how the "coherent policy statement" should be drafted: rather than "unwarranted euphoria", these would-be back-seat drivers pontificate, the Government's assessments of its "success" should be based on "solid, hard-headed analysis". And, of course, they will decide whether the analysis is sufficiently "solid" and "hard-headed"! As solid and hard-headed as it was in referring the Kashmir issue to the UN? As it was in returning the territories and heights our forces secured in 1948, and again in 1965, and yet again in 1971? As it was in returning 93,000 prisoners, and in signing the Simla Agreement without getting Pakistan to agree to a solution on the Kashmir question? As it was in stoking Bhindranwale? As it was in first arming the LTTE? As it was in then sending the IPKF to finish the LTTE? As it was in ousting Farooq Abdullah's Government, and thereby leaving the field free for the Jamiat-e-Islami, and Pakistan? As it was in packing Bangladeshis on to voting lists in Assam for winning elections, and then killing over eight hundred boys and girls for doing no more than demanding a stop to this treachery?

Government spokesmen have been making contradictory statements in regard to the likely duration of the conflict, and on crossing the Line of Control, they say. "The Congress(I) has urged the Government to speak with greater consistency, restraint and clarity," they say. That is a good suggestion. It is the sort of suggestion which several of us in newspapers too have been making -- the papers have not needed a Rajya Sabha session to do so!

"The Army Chief, General V P Malik, has spoken of shortages of equipment," they observe, and demand, "What is the Government doing on this score?" I just do hope that the Government will in fact answer this question in detail: it must prepare a list of the equipment that the forces have sought -- year by year over the last fifteen years, and what which government did about each item.

The BJP's crude attempts to politicise the conflict, particularly its Kashmir Day advertisements are highly offensive and should be discouraged, they say. Fine. I am sure their advice applies all round.

"The Government should make credible arrangements to look after the families of those who have laid down their lives and for rehabilitation of those who have been disabled," they pronounce. Typically vacuous counsel. Urging the obvious for the sake of saying something. Commitment would have required that the party study what is being done, and advance specific suggestions about what more should be done.

Vacuous, but entirely in line with what the Congress has been doing on every issue of the kind. Each time L K Advani tried to alert the country to the designs of Pakistan, of the ISI in particular, Congress spokesmen cried that he was a war-monger, that he was vitiating the atmosphere of peace which the Prime Minister was trying to build. When the atomic tests were held, they first shouted, sub-continent put in jeopardy, tradition of Buddha and Ashoka abandoned, sub-continent plunged in arms race.... Their incisive expert on foreign policy, Natwar Singh was the lead-shouter then also. Within days, the thesis shifted: actually this is nothing but a continuation of what we had done under Indiraji, they declaimed. The next week, the thesis shifted again: the atomic tests are terrible, but it is a glorious achievement of our scientists! And that very week their Working Committee passed a resolution scolding the Government for not having gone in for "nuclear weaponisation"!

They continued to berate the Government: for spoiling relations with Pakistan one day, for causing India to be diplomatically isolated the next. But then suddenly the Lahore Resolution etc. came. At first they belittled the entire episode: Natwar leading the chorus as usual, with, as usual, the major pretensions of a minor feudal! But within days, the public response stopped them: and so in the Rajya Sabha, they joined everyone in welcoming what had been done. And now: "The PM went on a ride, he was taken for a ride" -- that little witticism produced after so much cogitation by Natwar Singh!

Whatever will do for the day, do! So today "We have questions to ask," "Convene the Rajya Sabha". The line has nothing to do with the war-effort: quite the contrary. As persons who have attended Rajya Sabha sessions can testify, another session will not yield a single operationally useful suggestion, what it will yield is another bout of shouting and mock-fury. The line is pushed on calculation -- the PR Advisors' calculation that putting out such vague hints, that making such demands can be triply useful: it can lead people to believe that the other fellow is responsible for what is happening and make him forget what you were doing all the while; it can lead people to believe that you have some secret knowledge; and at the same time it can enable you to snatch a halo of responsibility: see, we are so responsible, we are refraining from saying things that may demoralise the forces in this hour of trial. In fact, if anything will demoralise the forces it is the vague, dark hint -- one that cannot be nailed precisely because nothing definite has been said.

That the "questions" will be forgotten the moment the invaders have been ousted is evident from the record. Have you heard of the Jain Commission recently? Yet Sonia and her advisors brought down two governments because of what they said that report contained. Have you heard of Bhagwat or of Mohan Guruswamy recently? Yet they paralysed Parliament for weeks on end because of what they said were "serious questions" these two had raised.

But in this Sonia is truly following the Congress tradition. Have you heard recently of the "international conspiracy" to kill Mrs. Indira Gandhi? Of the Report of the Commission they themselves appointed to unearth the conspiracy -- that of Justice Thakkar? That conspiracy was played up too. Dark hints were put out about what they alleged the Thakkar Commission Report contained. The Report was kept from the courts. Even from the Supreme Court. Kehar Singh was hanged as a consequence... And the aura of martyrdom was created. When the Report was published, the people learnt that what the Congress and its leaders had been saying was the exact opposite of what the Judge had said -- he had concluded that the one angle which needed to be examined was whether an inside aide had a hand in the conspiracy... And the last act of Rajiv Gandhi before he demit office was to sign orders dropping all charges against those accused of that so-called larger conspiracy!

When assassinations can be put to use, why not floods and earthquakes? When the assassinations of one's own can be milked, why not the deaths of unknown soldiers on some distant front?

And every day, a spin to belittle every initiative. "Don't be taken in by these claims of Pakistan having been isolated diplomatically," sneered Natwar Singh at a television discussion the other day. "It is nothing of the kind. The P-5 are just waiting for the operation in Kosovo to be over. The UN General Assembly will begin in September. Pakistan will bring up the matter in the General Assembly, and..." Weeks have passed. The isolation of Pakistan is now even more visible. Natwar Singh has moved on. He is using his having held jobs to spin other nonsense. "Pakistan is interested in stretching the war to September, and...", he said this week. Last week the thesis was that the BJP is interested in stretching the war to September so as to postpone the elections. And the month before that the argument was that the elections must not be held early.... The heat of May and June, the monsoons...

India Connect
July 6, 1999

As Soldiers Put Their Lives on the Line

Arun Shourie

Hostilities have but to commence and a rash of strategists erupts: indeed, it seems that everyone, except the ones actually running it, knows how to run the war. Just as suddenly, intelligence agencies start planting stories: every agency, it seems, knew what was going to happen, every agency sent warnings, but every other agency scuppered its reports; every paper, every commentator suddenly seems to know what which top-secret agency has told Government.

While these two rules apply universally, one applies specially to democracies like ours. In the first week, the nationalist response is so strong that even the opposition feels it prudent to endorse what is being done. Just a while later, sensing that the sky has cleared, opposition parties revert to extracting political mileage. In this age -- of momentary attention spans, of mental rhythms set by fleeting electronic images - the patriotic interval lasts less than a week. And once that week of mandatory abstinence is over, once again every half-truth, every concoction is good enough by which to traduce others.

"Kargil shows that the Lahore bus ride was a flop," the opposition charges, and adds the sound-bite for TV cameras, "The Prime Minister went on a ride, in fact he was taken for a ride." "The brazenness with which Pakistan has sent even regulars from its Army shows that the much-touted Lahore Declaration was not worth the paper it was written on," it pronounces.

The function such declarations serve is that they become the standard by which the conduct of the signatories is judged. That Pakistan just the other day had signed agreements with India, and that in plain violation of them it has sent its men and materials to occupy our territory has been of decisive significance in putting it in the dock. On the other side, that the Indian Prime Minister went so far is taken as testimony of India's earnest desire to ensure harmonious relations, to set aside the history of mutual bitterness. Together the two elements are among the major factors which have persuaded governments the world over -- including governments which have been not just the supporters but the props of Pakistan -- that the responsibility for the current situation rests squarely with Pakistan. But here, "Vajpayee was taken for a ride."

Look at it the other way. The Simla Agreement has been violated by Pakistan throughout these years, and that on the testimony of successive Congress governments too. Does that mean that in signing it Indira Gandhi and the rest were taken for a ride? Just recall the clauses, and contrast them with what Pakistan has been doing all these years -- during most of which Congress governments were in office here.

Article 1, Clause 2: that the two countries shall settle their differences through bilateral negotiations or by any other peaceful means mutually agreed upon between them -- for 25 years Pakistan has been screeching about Kashmir at every international gathering. Clause 2 again: that neither side shall unilaterally alter the situation, and that both sides shall prevent the organization, assistance or encouragement of any act detrimental to peaceful and harmonious relations between the two countries -- Pakistan has spared no effort to break India through insurgency, terrorism, secession. Clause 3: that both countries shall respect each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty, that they shall not interfere in each other's internal affairs. Clause 5: that the two shall respect each other's national unity, territorial integrity etc. Clause 6: that the two shall refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity etc. of each other.

Article 4: that in Jammu and Kashmir the Line of Control resulting from the cease fire of December 17, 1971 shall be respected by both sides..., that neither side shall seek to alter it unilaterally..., that both sides shall refrain from the threat or use of force in violation of this Line.

Now, in every particular instance, what Pakistan has been doing since 1971 has been in complete contravention of its provisions. Even this current incursion into Kargil is an eightfold violation of the Simla Agreement. Yet, Congressmen hold up the signing of that Agreement as the highpoint of statesmanship, and the signing of the Lahore Declaration as that of self-deception!

"But after 1971 we never lowered our guard," said one of these voluble Congress-spokesmen the other day during a TV discussion. Is it because you were always alert that Pakistan was able to organise such a lethal insurrection in Punjab -- one that cost the country 21,000 lives? Is it because your guard was always up that Pakistan was able to almost wrench Kashmir from the country during 1990 and 1996 -- an episode that cost the country another 15,000 lives?

Indeed, even in regard to Kargil specifically, several limbs of the problem are directly traceable to the shortsighted decisions of the leaders the Congress makes such a show of revering. The launching base of this incursion has been Skardu. But our forces had taken Skardu in 1948. They were asked to withdraw, and the place was left for Pakistan to reoccupy. The very points from which Kargil is shelled these days had been taken by our forces in 1965, and again in 1971. As had Haji Pir Pass. On both occasions they were asked to withdraw, and these salients were handed back to Pakistan. Our soldiers pay the price to this day. But "We never let our guard down," the spokesmen go on claiming. And TV channels continue to broadcast the claim, newspapers continue to reproduce it.

"Even now the Government has not realised the gravity of the incursion," said the other participant. Is there anything on the ground -- in the theatre of fighting -- which gives substance to such a claim? On the contrary, there has not been one single occasion during the last fifty years when an incursion has been met with such a massive response: the number of men who have been marshalled, the calibre of weaponry which has been deployed, the airpower which has been sent in -- the scale of the reaction has certainly registered on Pakistan. But here the charge, "Even now the Government has not realised the gravity of..." TV channels broadcast such nonsense, papers reproduce it -- without asking even an elementary question.

"But why did Fernandes promise safe-passage? Our soldiers are being killed, and he is promising safe-passage to the killers!", the spokesmen exclaim, their voices rising to project patriotism.

There certainly has been one good result of this incursion: it has made Congressmen and Communists talk the nationalist's language! Till the other day, they were denouncing as a chauvinist, a xenophobe, a revanchist, anyone who used words they are using today. There is calculation in this, of course. The question of Sonia's nationality having become an issue one way or another; the current incursion, the discoveries of explosives in various cities, having led people to wonder once again whether, in such a situation, it would be prudent to hand the country over to a person about whom they know nothing -- events and issues having taken such a turn, the Congress sees that it would be fatal not to be seen as super-nationalists. There is the positive advice too of the PR men: nationalism and security have been the USPs of the BJP, snatch these.

But even when the nationalist rhetoric is triggered by such calculation, I see progress. After all, what is it that the Congress and its PR experts think will win people over? Nationalism! Till the other day, the calculus was that it is by denouncing nationalism as jingoism that votes will be garnered! Mysterious are the ways of the Almighty!

Will people not see through the pretense? Will people not see that these parties are trying to put even aggression on our country to political use?

These narrowly-focused politicians apart, the media must see the way it is being used by them, and what the effect of that is on the ability of the country to handle even grave emergencies.

The week of patriotism over, and the need for diverting attention from its fabricated mourning around Janpath becoming urgent, the Congress reverted to its threefold strategy. Hurl the unspecified, but always sweeping insinuation, and insist that it is for the other fellow to disprove it, not for you to prove it: Mohan Guruswamy, Bhagwat, the "utter failure in handling Kargil". Second, what used to be the favourite device of our "liberals", target one man: in their case, you will recall, it used to be, "Just remove Rebeiro, the common Sikh has developed so much hatred for him personally"; then it became, "Just remove KPS Gill, and the common Sikh will come rushing back"; in Kashmir, "Just remove Jagmohan"; Fernandes has been the target-of-choice this time round. Third, reinforce the impression that this Government is in disarray, that even in the face of such a grave challenge it is not able to make up its mind: so, plant stories one day that Fernandes has been ticked-off by Brijesh Mishra, the next day that Advani has been sidelined on Kargil, the day after that rival media-cells have been set up by Vajpayee and Advani!

To see how the media is yoked to, and makes itself available for doing someone else's work, recall the stories about "safe-passage" to the invaders. They conveyed the impression that this was an offer from George Fernandes. But how did the story originate?

Fernandes had called some journalists for an informal briefing. A journalist asked him whether Government would consider some proposal to give the Pakistanis "safe-passage". If a proposal to that effect comes, Fernandes said, Government could consider it.

Now, there was no proposal. What the result of considering a proposal will be -- of considering any proposal -- will surely depend on the circumstances that prevail at the time the proposal arrives: in Hazratbal, in Charar-e-Sharif the Government -- having treated terrorists to embarrassing hospitality -- in fact accorded them safe-passage; in the case of the Hazratbal siege it did more, it provided superior-class transportation to them up to the Pakistan border. In one situation, the loss of its men, the barbarity of the invaders may convince a government that not one of the enemy should be allowed to return alive. In another situation, the professional assessment may be that, while the enemy's men can all be taken out one by one, doing so will result in very heavy casualties to one's own side, and therefore, a government may decide to accord them a way out. In Hazratbal, the Government decided that the terrorists could certainly be taken out; that even the casualties might be minimal; but that the mosque was liable to be damaged, and that would give Pakistan an opportunity to galvanize the Islamic world against India. So, what the ultimate decision, after weighing a proposal, will be, is certainly not settled when one says that, if a proposal comes, it could be considered.

That is obvious. Yet, the story was put out as if Fernandes had made this as a definite offer. Denunciations followed denunciations. The impression which had been conveyed by the original twist was thereby reinforced. The work was done.

The twist apart, lobbing a hypothetical question is by itself sufficient to work the mischief. For instance, supposing a correspondent asks Fernandes, "The Pakistan Foreign Secretary says that they can use any weapon. They have nuclear weapons. If they throw a nuclear bomb on Mumbai, what will be the Government's response?"

If Fernandes says, "No one should fool himself, we will retaliate in kind," the next day's headline will be, "We will use atom bomb: Fernandes." Peacenik turns war-monger, the "news-analysts" will observe. "Height of irresponsibility," the editorials will pronounce. If, on the other hand, he says, "We are not mad, we will not kill millions just to keep up with the madness of others," the next day's headings will run, "Peacenik Fernandes bangs door on option," the "news-analysts" will recount his having been associated with peace-movements in the past, his "links" with socialist and disarmament circles in Europe, editorials will pontificate how criminally irresponsible it is for the Defence Minister of the country to foreclose a strategic option, and how this will be music to the ears of Pakistani strategists. If Fernandes says, "That is sheer speculation, it is just not possible that Pakistan will use nuclear weapons for such a strictly local engagement," the headings will be, "Ostrich Fernandes, reality will disappear if I don't see it,"....

And it is enough to get one person, any person in authority to answer a hypothetical question, it is enough to get that one person to do so just once. That one answer broadcast, all you have to do is to ask him the same question again. If he repeats his earlier answer, you have renewed grounds for your earlier lampooning of him. If he reverses it, "Fernandes somersaults on free-passage." If he strains to correct what you had put out, "Fernandes tries to wriggle out."

You can ensure the same effect by asking the same question to some other person in authority. The Prime Minister and Fernandes are standing next to each other after the launching of INS Mysore. Ask the Prime Minister, "Your Defence Minister has offered safe-passage to the intruders. What is your view on the proposal?" If the Prime Minister repeats what Fernandes had said, the earlier outrage can now be directed at him. If he does not, "PM-Defence Minister at loggerheads on safe-passage"...

The lesson for ministers is obvious. In the Kargil case, for instance, the policy has been simple, it is a one-line policy: the place will be cleared of every intruder. Operational details on the day's developments are being provided by defence and civilian officials. It is only when there is a development in regard to that single-point policy that a minister need meet the media, and then only through a formal press conference -- a conference to be limited to that new development alone.

But there is also a lesson for the media. We also owe some responsibility. Assume for a moment that all the fault for the recent "controversies" lay with Fernandes. Should we in the media not pay at least some heed to the situation in which the country is? Even in normal times, but specially in times such as these, if we spot a moth on a friend's nose, should we wield an axe to remove it?

Perhaps an example will bring home the point better. There is as much distance between the justification for the NATO strikes in Kosovo and our action in Kargil as between the heavens and earth. There is so much more on which NATO officials can be pulled up, on which they can be ridiculed in regard to the airstrikes on Yugoslavia.

But in all those press-briefings -- available for all our journalists live on TV -- have you ever seen a European or American journalist heckle or even interrupt the NATO spokesman the way we have come to think is our right to do here? Have you ever seen anyone of them treat those spokesmen as if they were the enemy whom the journalists have to trap, and make a fool of?

The advent of TV has enlarged the reach of the media. And thereby its capacity to harm. It really is essential that our journalists consider the effect of what they are doing. And that they be wary of how others - within and outside the country -- are using them, for purposes that are far removed from the interests of the country.

The Observer
June 11, 1999

What a Precedent to Cite!

Arun Shourie

Who wrote the book, Sri Ramachandra, the ideal King? Who wrote that he was "Not simply a great warrior, a mighty King. He was an Avatara, a divine incarnation, and a divine incarnation of a special kind." "All men are divine incarnations," the person wrote. "But when we speak of an Avatar we mean more than this. An Avatara... is a special incarnation, a human form being taken in which the Divinity veils Himself and through which shines forth His glory. Not in germ, in 'divine fragments', as in us, but in full radiance of Deity, God reveals Himself in man to man."

Who wrote that the reason Sri Rama had taken form is the one which has been stated by Lord Krishna in the resounding verse of the Gita, "Yada yada he dharmasya... "? Who wrote that sometimes the purpose of Divine incarnation is to teach -- as in the case of Lord Krishna "whose divine 'song' is still the world's wonder"? That "Sometimes He [the Avatara] is also an Example; and as an example for men of the world... Ramachandra stands supreme, the ideal man in every relation of life... "? Who wrote that in Sri Rama's instance there was the additional mission -- "to shew forth the ideal Kshatriya", and that this is the ideal that India needed most at the time?

Who founded the Central Hindu College which became, in the words of a distinguished biographer, "a nucleus radiating the Hindu culture and ideals", and which eventually became the nucleus for the formation of the Benaras Hindu University? Who brought out -- in association of one of our most learned philosophers -- the Sanatan Dharma series to impart both knowledge of our religious traditions as well as reverence for and pride in them? Who wrote in association with that great philosopher what is till today one of the most instructive translations of the Gita? Who brought out a series of publications narrating the heroism of our Aryan ancestors to instill pride in our past?

The very Annie Besant whom sycophantic Congressmen are citing as precedent today! There literally cannot be a greater contrast between her and the one these sycophants seek to legitimize by invoking her. She did not alight into the Congress presidency from a helicopter. She had been in the forefront of Indian public life for two decades before she was anointed President. Indeed, for twenty years before she came to India, she had been in the forefront of almost every struggle for reform in Britain. It has been well said that the history of reform in Britain from 1874 to 1893 -- the year she came to India -- is coterminous with her biography of those years.

Struggles to improve working conditions of workers? She was in the forefront -- from the conditions of work of women making matches to those of municipal workers to those of dockers. The heartless eviction of tenants? She was the vanguard in the movements against the Coercion Act in Ireland. The establishment of the National Secular Society? She was the co-founder. The work of the Fabian Society? The spread of socialist ideas and the socialist movement in Europe? She was in the forefront. The rights of women? She was in the vanguard...

From architectonic measures to the minor things that we do not even think about, her role was of the first order. We live under that impact to this day. Consider a matter which seems simple in itself but has had a vital place in the evolution of freedom in regard to religious expression and belief. When a person assumes high office in India today -- from becoming the President to Prime Minister to Chief Justice to member of Parliament, whatever -- she or he has to take an oath. Our Constitution and laws provide that he may take an oath in the name of God or he may swear an oath of affirmation. Where does this option come from?

From a great agitation -- in which Annie Besant played a central role. The fighter and reformer that she was, she began working with Charles Bradlaugh. Both of them became anathema to the establishment -- in particular to the clerical establishment. Bradlaugh stood for Parliament. They were heckled, they were set upon. They were soon imprisoned for republishing a proscribed pamphlet advocating contraception -- they felt that, whether one agreed with its contents or not, it is important in the cause of free speech that it be printed and circulated. Her former husband, a narrow-minded clergyman, sued to snatch custody of their children: the case itself became one of the spurs to remedying the law that favoured husbands in such matters.

Bradlaugh won the election to Parliament. But he refused to take the oath in the name of God. The clergy and others seized this. A committee of Parliament was appointed to determine whether he could take his seat in Parliament by making a solemn affirmation. The House voted to disallow him. Declaring that its order was contrary to law, Bradlaugh refused to comply with it. The Sergeant-at-Arms was directed to remove him. Demonstrations flared up everywhere. The House rescinded its resolution. The opponents took the matter to court. The court held against him.

The seat was declared vacant. But Bradlaugh won again. A vast crowd, with Annie Besant in the lead, marched to enable him to enter the House. As they had forsworn violence, Bradlaugh was forcibly removed from the precincts. A huge protest movement erupted: a petition bearing a quarter million signatures was presented to Parliament. The movement was stoked by the incessant tours and writings of Annie Besant as much as by anything else: Sir C P Ramaswami, from whose brief biography of Annie Besant facts about this episode have been taken, recalls Mrs Besant writing that by the great wrong which has been inflicted on him, Charles Bradlaugh has become the incarnation of a great principle.

Bradlaugh was elected a third time -- this time in a general election. He introduced, and the House eventually passed an Oaths Bill -- from which flows the option we have today -- to take an oath in the name of God or to solemnly affirm...

It was this enormous work on a entire array of issues which had made Annie Besant one of the most conspicuous reformers long, long before she came to India. How considerable her reputation was can be gauged from the effect that the mere news of her accepting Theosophy had on Gandhiji at the time. Sir C P reproduces Gandhiji's observation:

"When I was studying in London in 1888 and after, I had become, like many like me, an admirer of Bradlaugh and Besant. Imagine my excitement when one fine morning I read in the London press that Annie Besant had become a Theosophist under Blavatsky's inspiration. I was a mere boy practically unknown to anybody. I would have been more than satisfied if I could have touched the hem of the garments of Madame Blavatsky and her distinguished disciple. But I could not, though some friends had kindly taken me to Blavatsky Lodge. When Dr Besant came to India and captivated the country, I came in close touch with her and, though we had political differences, my veneration for her did not suffer abatement."

Back in India, with the triumphs in South Africa on everyone's lips, Gandhiji broke journey in Benaras more than once just to pay his respects to Annie Besant. Even when they had parted ways because of political differences, Gandhiji's words for her remained reverential. Introducing her to the audience in Ahmedabad in 1918, we find him saying: "I have often said that there have been, and there may still be, differences between her and me; there are quite a few even today... Having said this, I admit I cannot but look up to her with reverence, honour her, pay tribute to her for her excellent qualities, for she has dedicated her very soul to India. She lives only for India -- to live thus is her sole aspiration... In my view, Ahmedabad has covered itself with unsurpassed honour by honoring one who has rendered such great services as she has... "

Pandit Nehru described his first meeting with Annie Besant as "one of the outstanding events in my life." "Her personality, the legends that had already surrounded her heroic career and her oratory overwhelmed me," he wrote. "With a young boy's admiration and devotion I gazed at her and followed her about." In his autobiography, Panditji writes of his going to attend her lectures in Allahabad: "I was deeply moved by her oratory and returned from her speeches dazed and as in a dream. I decided to join the Theosophical Society, although I was only thirteen then...." Mrs Besant herself conducted the initiation ceremony, he records, and adds, "I was thrilled." This was the impact she had on persons before her great work in India reached anywhere near the heights it eventually did.

Because of her, "Home Rule" has become a mantra in every village, Gandhiji said of her political work. She worked ceaselessly for an array of reform movements. Her contribution in restoring pride in Hindus for their own culture, religion, history was of the highest order. She crafted legislative proposals of far-reaching significance: from manifestos, statements, declarations, resolutions, which led, among other things, to the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms; from these to the Commonwealth of India Bill of 1925, one of the first attempts within India to draw up the principles of a constitution for the country.

Where is the comparable record of Sonia in public life? On every issue of the day, Annie Besant's view was known, it was thoroughly thought-through, openly and widely expressed: she was a prodigious writer, and an even more prodigious speaker -- her voice was incomparable, carrying to ten thousands in the open air even at that time, writes a biographer who heard and saw her for decades. On what issue do we know Sonia's view? Is there any indication at all even of the possibility that on any issue whatsoever she has a view of her own?

Indeed, by recalling Mrs Besant, Congressmen remind us how in every particular, she was the exact opposite of the one for whom they make her out to have been a precedent.

Writing: In his memoir of her, Sri Prakasa, the son of Dr Bhagvan Das, the erudite philosopher who was her collaborator for decades, and one who himself knew her since he was a toddler, writes, "All her letters... are in manuscript. She wrote all her articles, whether for newspapers or learned magazines, herself. The manuscript of all her books is also in her own handwriting... " Yes, two collections of letters have been put out as if they have been edited by Sonia: the letters were written by Panditji and Indira Gandhi, they were collated by others, the explanatory footnotes -- a few words a piece about persons and events alluded to in the letters -- have been compiled by the staff of the Nehru Memorial Library!

Speaking: Annie Besant gave thousands of lectures. She would speak for an hour or more. Audiences used to be mesmerized by her eloquence, her knowledge, to say nothing of her immersion in our culture and religion. Sir C P recalls as acerbic an appraiser as Bernard Shaw saying of her that she was the greatest orator in England and possibly in Europe. "I have never heard her excelled. She was then [he was writing of the time she took to socialism] unapproached." Just a single detail will speak to the distance between her and what we see today: Sri Prakasa writes, " ...She never carried any notes. She never consulted any papers as she spoke. Her memory must have been remarkable, and I believe she just rehearsed her lectures to herself once, before going into the lecture hall; and that was enough for her. She never faltered for a word and her voice never broke..."

All testified to the extreme generosity of spirit: she never spoke an ill-word of anyone, she bore calumny -- and much was heaped on her throughout her life -- without any thought of avenging it. Sir C P's observation is typical: narrating her isolation in the years when she had fallen out of step with the national movement, he writes, "Easy it is, if success blesses us, to possess some facile virtues and to prove and demonstrate them. But it is difficult for one living amidst calumny and obloquy, at all junctures to remain sweet-tempered, patient and forgiving, long-suffering, and yet hopeful of the future. As one who came across Mrs Besant very often during these years, I can say that I did not see one bitter expression on her face, nor did I hear from her lips one vengeful word."

Contrast the appropriation by Sonia of one governmental Trust after another, their conversion in effect into family Trusts with Mrs Besant making over the Central Hindu College to the Benaras Hindu University. Contrast it with what Sir C P writes of Mrs. Besant's uniform practice. She received large sums, he recalls, all of these she distributed in scholarships, in charitable gifts, in donations to worthy institutions. He writes that he "is personally aware of the circumstance that, generally speaking, at the end of each year, Dr. Besant used to draw cheques on all the banks in which monies were deposited to her credit and denude herself of all property..."

On every occasion, as at the Resurrection speech in Talkatora Stadium, all we hear is "Me and my family." Even in the Address she delivered at the very occasion these Congressmen cite as the precedent, the one she delivered on assuming the presidentship of the Congress in 1917, what is it that Mrs. Besant said? "....I have no words with which to thank you," she told the delegates, "no eloquence with which to repay my debt. My deeds must speak for me, for words are too poor. I turn your gift into service to the Motherland; I consecrate my life anew to Her worship by action. All that I have and am, I lay on the Altar of the Mother, and together we shall cry, more by service than by words: Vande Mataram!"

The very expressions -- Motherland, Mother, worship of the Mother, the Altar of the Mother, and of course Vande Mataram -- communal anathemas in the eyes of our Congressmen.

Every act, every thought had been in the public domain for forty years in Mrs Besant's case. Every act, every thought has been shrouded behind the speech-writer's script, the PR advisor's sheen today.

The Congress-presidency came after twenty years' unremitting labour in the service of India in Mrs. Besant's case. It has come as a measure of desperation by persons who have no other way of acquiring office today.

Even more important, indeed it is ludicrous to even have to recall it, was another fact. Even as she laboured for India, the Congress transformed -- under the Lokmanya, under Gandhiji. Mrs Besant withdrew to Adyar. It is too harsh to say that her foreignness was the inevitable factor, but something like it was. She could never reconcile herself to the demand for complete independence, the apogee of her aspiration for India remained Home Rule as part of the British Empire. So also her adoration for Hinduism. Even so adoring a devotee as Sri Prakasa expresses this -- ever so delicately. In one lecture at Benaras he heard her extol Hindu ceremonies for their ancestors, he writes. I don't believe any of this, he remarked to his neighbour. He was roundly reprimanded. But has she ever made offerings for her own ancestors?, he wondered...

Even during her lifetime -- she died in 1933 -- the Congress had moved far away from the 1917 in which it had elected her President. And that too for a year only. Today we are being told that because she was the President eighty years ago -- for one year, it is all right to have Sonia as President -- for life!

Every detail an opposite. And yet the claim, "We have a precedent."

And the one thing that enables them to get away with such travesty: the near-total ignorance of the rest of us.

India Connect
June 6, 1999

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