If only Advani had...

[For an expanded version, with insider details of Advani-Vajpayee and Advani-Jaswant relations, see my column Coffee Break in Sunday Pioneer.]
These are not happy times for L K Advani. Colleagues in the BJP who were in total awe of Advani and owe their rise in the party as well as in politics to him have turned bitter critics. Fawning journalists who would call Advani’s office incessantly for an ‘exclusive’ interview or felt privileged to be invited for a cup of tea with him are now busy writing his obituary or ridiculing him pitilessly. The South Delhi commentariat, which has arrogated to itself the task of thinking for the masses, would want us to believe that five decades of public life can be summed up in 33 minutes and 47 seconds of discussion as was witnessed last Monday on NDTV.

When I met him on Tuesday morning, he looked his usual affable self. But his eyes reflected a sense of pain and despair. For a while we talked about books. Advani is a voracious reader although, unlike many of his critics, he does not flaunt intellectual pretensions.

The conversation meandered to what’s happening in the BJP and Advani sounded both upset and pained. “This is not the party I knew… it has changed so much,” he said wistfully. It has changed in many ways.

Thirteen years ago, when Advani was party president, the BJP projected itself as an ‘alternative’ to the Congress not merely in terms of political ideology but also policy and programme. Few people would know about it, and fewer in today’s BJP would care to recall, that he and Atal Bihari Vajpayee were constantly thinking in terms of ideas to craft an alternative agenda of governance. Vajpayee was the big picture man – “We should change the system, otherwise governance cannot change” – while Advani would think in terms of nuts and bolts, the small details, of how to change the system.

Today those who aspire to take charge of the party have neither the time nor the inclination to indulge in ideational thinking. Rhetoric has come to replace crafting of agenda. Any serious effort to engage them in discussing alternative policy ideas fails because they find it boring. It’s easier to outsource that task to lobbies and pressure groups: They come up with ‘alternative policies’ and these are then adopted as party objectives.

Advani was deeply pained about Jaswant Singh’s vituperative personal attacks against him. “He was in the party for 30 years, during which time for nearly 28 years he was an MP. He has held every possible post except that of party president and Prime Minister. Yet he now brushes aside his association with the party as if it does not amount to anything.”

On Kandahar, he sounded distraught that media was making a mountain out of a molehill. “I have merely said I don’t recall, I can’t recall a decision being taken on Jaswant Singh accompanying the terrorists.”

Actually, the Cabinet Committee on Security, as I have written in The Pioneer, did not discuss or decide the issue of Jaswant Singh accompanying the terrorists. What was discussed was his going to Kandahar and doubts were expressed whether it was the right thing to do as he could have ended up a hostage too and then the demands would have been spectacular. Jaswant Singh accompanying the terrorists was the result of last minute changes in travel plans. Pakistan gave over-flight permission for an Indian Airlines aircraft and not the Aviation Research Centre (a R&AW-linked agency) plane in which Jaswant Singh was supposed to travel. This resulted in his travelling on the same plane as the terrorists. Given the tight schedule, the CCS could not have possibly discussed this aspect all over again. In any event, a decade later, Kandahar is a bit of a non-issue.

Advani is equally pained by Yashwant Sinha’s criticism of him: “I have gone out of my way to help him… I have done so much for him... He owes a lot to me.” Sudheendra Kulkarni’s departure has not distressed him as much as his declaration that he was disassociating himself from the BJP due to “ideological differences”. Advani is not amused that it took 13 years for Kulkarni to discover these ‘differences’.

Contrary to popular perception, Advani said he would be more than happy to step aside and retire from active politics. “I could do so many things… read books, write. But there is always this issue of who will take over… There are enough young leaders. After all they have to take charge at some time.”

Each one of us has a fatal flaw. Advani’s fatal flaw, to my mind and reaffirmed after my chat with him, is that he could never assert himself. He admitted as much. Good men often suffer from the inability to force their way; or else Advani would not have succumbed to pressure to stay on, as he did after this summer’s election. Those in the party who persuaded him not to step down were concerned about themselves – not about Advani or the BJP. Advani could have stuck to his instinctive decision, but he did not.

Just as he failed to take a stand on the hasty and ill-considered decision to summarily expel Jaswant Singh from the party. Had he stood firm, the parliamentary board could not have gone ahead and done what it did. Nor could Gujarat have banned Jinnah - India, Partition, Independence. The ban is bound to be set aside by the courts, causing nothing but further embarrassment to the party all because Ananth Kumar clamoured the loudest for "immediate action" at the fateful parliamentary board meeting in Shimla and others thought it expedient to second his demand.

[Although, in all fairness, it must be said that Advani is not alone 'guilty' of letting down and abandoning Jaswant Singh. I have been witness to how Vajpayee was made to drop his name from the list of Ministers the night before the NDA team took oath of office in 1998. The then Sarsanghachalak, K S Sudarshan, did not want him included as he had "just lost the election". I carried the letter to Gopal Gandhi, then secretary to the President of India, an hour before the swearing-in ceremony. Jaswant Singh forgets that episode, just as he forgets that Advani did not forget to include him as Finance Minister in the 13-day Government, although he need not have done so.]

If only Advani had… But then, life is really about a whole lot of ‘if onlys’.

Which brings me to the issue of leadership change. The recent intervention by the RSS and elaborate consultations which took place in Delhi, apart from the comments by the Sarsanghachalak, Mohanrao Bhagwat, have helped bring about clarity on what needs to be done. These are:

. The old guard must step down and step aside. This cannot be delayed any further.
. The choice of future leaders cannot be restricted to those stationed in Delhi.
. The RSS will not interfere by way of micro-managing the party’s affairs.
. The BJP will have to decide for itself what is best for the party.
. The Sangh will provide any assistance that is sought.
. The RSS will play the role of moral compass: The BJP sorely needs this.

It has been decided, according to one of the senior leaders who was involved with the consultation process this past weekend, that the new president will be “young and energetic” with a high integrity quotient. Mohanrao Bhagwat has provided enough hint by saying there are “75 to 80” potential leaders in the BJP. This also broadens the choice for the party.

There will be two major changes in the coming days. Advani will step down as Leader of Opposition and become a party mentor, perhaps chairman of NDA or even chairman of the parliamentary party. Whether Sushma Swaraj will be elevated to the post of Leader of Opposition is anybody’s guess, although she would like to believe it so. I don’t think it’s a settled issue.

[Although not linked, I am curious about what qualifies Sushma Swaraj to head the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs. It would be in order to mention that this committee was once headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The job requires an instinctive feel for foreign affairs, foreign relations and diplomacy, apart from more than passing knowledge of countries and continents. Political officers at foreign missions in Delhi are amused, although what they have to say is not funny.]

I have no confirmed information. But the new president of the BJP could be a proverbial ‘dark horse’. Two names have been mentioned in various discussions – Nitin Gadkari and Manohar Parrikar.

My vote would go to Parrikar. By making him party president, the BJP would signal a tectonic shift. Parrikar can come across as a soft-spoken man, but those who know him will vouch that he cannot be bullied nor will he allow anybody to ride rough-shod over him. He has organisational experience and a clean image; he is ideologically sound and enjoys high credibility with the Sangh; and his youth appeal could prove to be a huge asset for the party among both urban and rural voters.

A new president will also mean a new team of central leaders, a new National Executive and a new set of decision-makers, including organisational general secretary and secretaries.

What needs to be remembered is that the new president’s term will come to an end in the winter of 2012. That is also the time when Assembly election will be held in Gujarat. The result of this poll will be a big factor in deciding Narendra Modi’s future role in the party. The next general election is due in 2014. So, irrespective of whoever holds whichever post today, whether in party or in Parliament, what will matter is the line-up that will emerge in end-2012/early-2013.

During the interregnum, the BJP needs to stabilise and regain the initiative it has lost in the past month. The rest can follow.

BJP's future tense: Don't worry, Advani isn't stepping aside

“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
[Abraham Lincoln]

As the BJP’s central office-bearers and members of the so-called ‘core group’ prepare to meet in Shimla from August 19 to 21 for the much-publicised ‘chintan baithak’, two developments have grabbed media attention.
The first pertains to LK Advani. On August 7, Advani held the customary ‘last day of the session’ Press conference, although this ritual has lost its relevance given the extensive coverage of parliamentary proceedings by media, especially television channels. As expected, mediapersons were least interested in the BJP’s performance in Parliament or issues of governance and policy. They were more interested in what has come to be known as the ‘leadership issue’ of the BJP, also described as the BJP’s ‘crisis of leadership’.
Advani was asked what was the road ahead for him. Before he could respond, his deputy, Sushma Swaraj, grabbed the microphone and said, “I will answer this question. He was ‘elected’ leader of the parliamentary party for a full term of five years, not with any deadline.”
But was he remaining in the post of Leader of Opposition reluctantly or under pressure? Mr Advani replied unambiguously: “Whatever I agree to is of my own volition. The kind of political life I have had and the kind of appreciation I have had from the country, I don’t do anything reluctantly.”
There is no ambiguity here. Advani will remain Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha. The question of his making an exit in the near future does not arise. The impression conveyed at the Press conference is that unless someone else takes over from him, a possibility ruled out categorically, he will lead the party in the 2014 election.
On Monday, August 10, RSS Sarsanghachalak Mohan Bhagwat met Advani in Delhi. It was a one-on-one meeting and apart from them, and anybody else to whom they may have spoken, nobody knows what transpired. But over the past three days, media has been claiming that Advani was confronted on his decision to stay put instead of stepping down for someone else to take over from him. How far this is true is anybody’s guess.
The second development pertains to former Chief Minister of Rajasthan Vasundhara Raje. The BJP’s ‘central leadership’ wants her to step down as Leader of Opposition in the Rajasthan Assembly for two reasons: To own up responsibility for the party’s defeat in the Assembly election; and, to heal the deep fissures in the State party unit on account of reported differences between her and the State unit president who has been hand-picked by Delhi.
Vasundhara is no pushover. She was formally and unanimously elected leader of the legislature party in accordance with the BJP’s constitution after the Assembly poll. She has decided to fight it out, and to demonstrate that she has the majority of the BJP legislators with her, will parade 57 of the 78 MLAs in Delhi before those who have issued marching orders to her. In brief, we haven’t heard the last word yet.
Vasundhara is not alone in being asked to carry the can for the party’s poor electoral performance which was entirely on account of infighting, motivated dissidence and poor organisation. BC Khanduri has had to step down as Chief Minister of Uttarakhand for the same reason.
It can be argued that State leaders must be held accountable for the party’s electoral performance and that they cannot wash their hands of responsibility. As a principle, this is unassailable. But must accountability stop with State level leaders? What about the accountability and responsibility of central leaders who led from the front?
The verdicts in Rajasthan and Uttarakhand, we are told, amount to a rejection of the leadership of Vasundhara and Khanduri; that voters have refused to repose faith in them; and, that they failed to enthuse party cadre and sympathisers as well as hold together factions and groups.
If this is true, what does the national verdict amount to?
Does the stunning 3.32 per cent dip in the BJP’s national vote share reflect popular rejection of the party’s frontline leaders? Who should be held accountable for the fact that the party’s vote share decreased in 21 States? Who is responsible for the national tally falling to 116 seats, 22 short of the 2004 tally? Is the accountability criterion not applicable while judging central leaders?
Three months after the Lok Sabha election results were declared these questions have not disappeared, much as the central leaders of the party would want them to. On the contrary, they have gained currency following the efforts to hold Vasundhara ‘accountable’ for the electoral rout in Rajasthan while glossing over the rout at the national level.
The upcoming ‘chintan baithak’ should be seen in the context of these and other questions that have been raised since May 16. To avoid the questions would render the Shimla conclave a futile exercise.
The BJP’s leaders need to focus on five key areas to revive and rejuvenate the party:

Ideology
Organisation
Policy and programme
Governance
Performance of MPs/MLAs

But any discussion on these and related issues will be meaningless unless the credibility deficit of the leadership is resolved. Leadership flows from clarity of thought and ideas. Clarity flows from political determination to act decisively. Political determination flows from courage and conviction.
At the moment, what is most visible is the absence of courage and conviction. The rest follows.
PS: Has anybody quite figured out the purpose of releasing the Urdu edition of My Country My Life?

Jihadis can grab Paki nuclear bombs

Exposed: At least three raids on N-arsenal sites despite elite guards

The world’s darkest fear – that jihadis will one day get to lay their hands on Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal – is not entirely unfounded. Loud claims by Pakistan’s dissolute ‘civilian Government’ and the Pakistani Army that the ‘Islamic Bomb’ is in safe custody need not be taken seriously. Nor should we be persuaded by the Obama Administration’s strenuous insistence that the nuclear weapons of America’s most-favoured terror-sponsoring country are in no imminent danger of becoming part of Jihad Inc’s armoury.
Prof Shaun Gregory, Director of the ‘Pakistan Security Research Unit’ at the University of Bradford in Britain, has made public the details of three attacks on Pakistan’s nuclear facilities, exposing just how vulnerable they are to being grabbed by jihadis.
“The risk of the transfer of nuclear weapons, weapons components or nuclear expertise to terrorists in Pakistan is genuine,” Prof Gregory says in an article, ‘The terrorist threat to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons’, published in the latest issue of CTC Sentinel, the monthly journal of the Combating Terrorism Centre at West Point, US.
Pakistan, says Prof Gregory, screens those selected to guard its nuclear facilities to ensure jihad sympathisers are kept out. Also, warhead cores and detonators are stored separately in underground sites. Citing Pakistani and French officials, Prof Gregory says 8,000 to 10,000 members of the Pakistani Army’s Strategic Plans Division and other intelligence agencies are deployed to protect that country’s weapons of mass destruction.
However, “despite these elaborate safeguards, empirical evidence points to a clear set of weaknesses and vulnerabilities in Pakistan’s nuclear safety and security arrangements,” Prof Gregory says in his article. As is known, most of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons infrastructure is located in the north and west, and in areas near Islamabad and Rawalpindi. “The concern, however, is that most of Pakistan's nuclear sites are close or even within areas dominated by Pakistani Taliban militants and Al Qaeda”, says Prof Gregory.
He has mentioned three attacks to bolster his point -- On a nuclear missile storage facility in November 2007; on a nuclear airbase in December 2007; and on nuclear weapons assembly site in August 2008. In the third attack, Pakistani Taliban suicide bombers blew up several entry points to the armaments complex.
A spokesman of the Pakistani Army, Major-General Athar Abbas, has predictably rubbished Prof Gregory’s claims as “factually incorrect” and part of “Western propaganda campaign to malign Pakistan and its nuclear facilities”. The bases at Wah, Sargodha and Kamra, where the jihadi attacks took place, were used to manufacture conventional weapons, ammunition and fighters jet, he said. “These are military facilities, not nuclear installations.”
Equally predictably, the Pentagon has pointed out that both US Defence Secretary and Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen are “comfortable with the security measures the Pakistani Government, the Pakistani military have in place to ensure that their nuclear arsenal is safeguarded”.
Curiously, a senior American intelligence official has confirmed to Fox News that Prof Gregory is not off the mark in his assessment. But he has also said that there is “no waning confidence regarding the safety of the Pakistani nuclear programme”.
Pakistan is believed to have stockpiled approximately 580-800 kg of highly enriched uranium, sufficient amounts to build 30 to 50 fission bombs. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists estimated in 2007 that the Pakistani arsenal comprised about 60 warheads.
[Read the full text of Prof Gregory's article here.]

Whom is the PM batting for?

Manmohan Singh's long-winded intervention on the Sharm el-Sheikh India-Pakistan joint statement debate in Lok Sabha has not answered important questions. Instead, it has left people confused.


Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made a rather long-winded, and convoluted, intervention during Wednesday’s debate on foreign policy in the Lok Sabha. A careful scrutiny of his speech will show that he has not said anything remarkably different from what he told Parliament on July 17, a day after the debacle at Sharm el-Sheikh where he met Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.

The joint statement issued after the meeting made four substantive points: Placing Pakistan, the perpetrator of jihadi terrorism, at par with India, the victim of jihadi terrorism; delinking action on terrorism from the composite dialogue process (which includes the ‘Kashmir issue’); transforming Baluchi nationalism/separatism from a purely internal affair of Pakistan into a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan, with India portrayed as the promoter of Baluchi violence; and, exchanging real time, actionable intelligence on terrorism with Pakistan. Together, they add up to abject capitulation by Singh, as I have explained in my previous two entries.

According to Ahmed Rashid and other commentators in Pakistani media, the inclusion of Baluchistan in the joint statement followed Gilani handing over a dossier to Singh, containing ‘evidence’ of India’s involvement in fomenting trouble in Baluchistan through its consulates in Afghanistan, and India’s assistance to Baitullah Mehsud and his Tehrik-e-Taliban or Pakistani Taliban.

Singh has denied receiving any such dossier. However, he has confirmed receiving a 34-page dossier from Pakistan, containing details of steps taken by Gilani’s Government to bring to book the perpetrators of the 26/11 outrage in Mumbai. Interestingly, XP Division of the Ministry of External Affairs, which is pro-active in denying stories or issuing contradictions, has not officially refuted media reports on the so-called ‘Baluchi dossier’. The Foreign Office in Islamabad has neither confirmed nor denied stories, but has actively briefed local and foreign journalists as well as diplomats posted in Islamabad on the ‘Baluchistan dossier’ and its contents.]

Back to the debate on Wednesday. The Opposition mounted a strong attack on the Prime Minister and the Government for the sell-out in Sharm el-Sheikh. Yashwant Sinha of BJP, who initiated the debate, was scathing. He made three main points: First, the Prime Minister has walked not “half the way” (to quote Singh) but “all the way to the Pakistani camp”; India’s Pakistan policy (act on terror or no talks) has been turned on its head thus breaching cross-party consensus; and, Singh has fetched trouble for India by agreeing to the inclusion of Baluchistan in the joint statement. In sum, the Opposition described the Sharm encounter as a sell-out.

The Prime Minister spoke at length, often meandering from point to point and seeking to obfuscate the real issues raised by the Opposition. His response was prepared in advance and in anticipation of questions being raised in the Lok Sabha. Yet, it was stilted, shorn of sincerity and lacking in purposefulness.

Singh played at five levels in his usual crafty manner, slyly attacking the BJP/NDA’s Pakistan policy while appropriating a misplaced claim of success.

Obviously at the behest of the Congress, which senses popular disquiet over the shameful surrender at Sharm and has not been enthusiastic in backing Singh, he tried to play to the domestic gallery by repeatedly referring to national sentiment and national position, and how people are opposed to talking to an unrepentant, callous Pakistan. To them his message was: Don’t worry, we are not going to talk to Pakistan. Even if the joint statement mentions ‘composite dialogue’, this shall not happen till there is verifiable evidence of Pakistan acting against terrorism. Intention: Calm frayed nerves and pander to public opinion at home.

He told the Opposition that other countries affected by terrorism emanating from Pakistan were talking to Islamabad, so no reason why India should not do so. He also recalled Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s peace initiatives and tried to place himself at par with his predecessor – ‘he was a statesman, so am I’ – which is truly audacious of him. Intention: He is not alone in treading the path to unmitigated disaster; others are also talking to and appeasing Pakistan.

He played to the Pakistani gallery by talking about the need for ‘peace’ and how ‘dialogue and engagement are the only way forward’. He also praised Pakistan for acting against the 26/11 masterminds, although he was cautious enough to say that more needs to be done. He spoke of ‘trust but verify’, which controverts his assertion that action taken by Pakistan and promises orally communicated to him are impressive and convincing. Intention: He has not abandoned his ‘younger Punjabi brother’, Gilani.

He pandered to his fan club, the lib-left intelligentsia and drum-beaters in media, by saying that war is the only option to no-talks. And since war is ‘not a solution’ between two nuclear powers (‘fear a nuclear holocaust unless we talk to Pakistan’) India must talk to Pakistan. Intention: Get his admirers to portray him as a grand strategist, a peace-maker, a statesman, who is the real winner of Sharm el-Sheikh despite being such a terrible loser.

And, he has let his friends and patrons in America know that he has taken the lead from the US. If Washington is willing to talk to Tehran, betraying the interests of its steadfast allies in West Asia, then there is no reason why New Delhi should not talk to Islamabad. Intention: Let America know he takes his cue from Washington, DC.

I have four questions.

First, the intervention makes little sense, unless it is meant to confuse the nation and confound the Opposition. Are we going to talk, or not talk to Pakistan? Will it be meaningful talks or casual tittle-tattle?

Does delinking Pakistani terrorism from composite dialogue mean a) the composite dialogue will resume even if Pakistan fails to act against terror emanating from territory under its control, as the joint statement says; b) Pakistan cannot make action against terrorism conditional to resuming the composite dialogue, as Singh says; or, c) India must resume the composite dialogue irrespective of whether or not Pakistan acts against anti-India terrorism, as Gilani interprets it? There is no clarity even after Wednesday’s ‘clarification’ by the Prime Minister.

Second, what was the compulsion to include Baluchistan in the joint statement? The Prime Minister’s bunkum about keeping an ‘open book’ means nothing.

Third, why is there this sudden turnaround in policy and at whose behest? This question needs to be answered conclusively.

Fourth, have no lessons been learned from the disastrous experience of trying to set up a Joint Anti-Terror Mechanism with Pakistan? Why have we agreed to share real time, actionable intelligence?

A last point: The Prime Minister waxed eloquent about the “shared future” of India and Pakistan. I don’t think secular and democratic India has any ‘shared future’ with the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Why indulge in such bogus rhetoric? Or does the Prime Minister really believe that a terror-sponsoring Islamic state and an open, plural, free society share a common destiny?

This is neither ‘grand strategy’ nor ‘bad drafting’. It is part of a larger game plan hatched somewhere else. The Prime Minister’s tactics remind me of his repeatedly misleading Parliament and the nation on the nuclear deal with the US. What finally emerged had no resemblance to what he had told Parliament.

Are we headed for a similar denouement?

Sharm debacle scripted in US

What made PM crumble so abjectly?

Shashi Tharoor may have been cavalier in describing the July 16 India-Pakistan joint statement, issued after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani in Sharm el-Sheikh, as a mere “diplomatic paper that is not a legal document” and hence not binding on either country or worth the attention it has attracted, but the Pakistanis are hopping mad. On Friday, Pakistan’s Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit said, “The insinuations made by Shashi Tharoor were unwarranted and inconsistent with diplomatic norms.” Both countries, he added, should refrain from remarks that “detract from the progress made in Sharm el-Sheikh.”

While Mr Tharoor’s supercilious comments, which should really have been put out by him as part of his daily ‘tweet service’ instead of being told to mediapersons at Parliament House, are unlikely to have stumped too many people within and outside the Government, what is surprising is that the Pakistanis are incensed. Here was an opportunity for them to turn around and say, “If the joint statement is not binding on India, nor is it binding on us.” And that would have put to an end needless speculation over whether or not Mr Gilani will fulfil his assurance that “Pakistan will do everything in its power” to “bring the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks to justice”, an assurance that, we are now told by Minister for External Affairs SM Krishna, prompted our Prime Minister to compromise national interest by delinking terrorism from talks.

But neither Mr Tharoor’s flippancy nor Mr Krishna’s stout defence of the joint statement answers questions that have come to dominate public discourse ever since our pusillanimous Prime Minister’s shameful capitulation in Sharm el-Sheikh. Nor, for that matter, does Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon’s sly attempt to deflect criticism of Mr Singh by suggesting that the joint statement’s “drafting was not perfect” provide us with a clue as to why our tough-talking Prime Minister turned so disgracefully timorous when he met Mr Gilani.

Soon after the 26/11 carnage in Mumbai, the Prime Minister told a shocked nation that “some Pakistani official agencies must have supported” the fidayeen attacks. On December 11, 2008, while speaking in the Lok Sabha, he was all fire-and-brimstone when he described Pakistan as the “epicentre of terrorism”. He added that “the infrastructure of terrorism has to be dismantled permanently” before India can even consider resuming dialogue with Pakistan. On June 16, when the Prime Minister met Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari in Yekaterinburg, he told him bluntly, and in front of mediapersons, “I must tell you quite frankly that I have come with the limited mandate of discussing how Pakistan can deliver on its assurances that its territory would not be used for terrorist attacks on India.” On July 9, Mr SM Krishna told Parliament, “Notwithstanding Pakistan Government’s assurances to us, terrorists in Pakistan continue attacks against India.”

Between July 9 and July 11, something happened that turned all that bluster into pitiful whimper. On his way back from the G-8 summit in L’Aquila, the Prime Minister, discarding all pretensions of pursuing a tough, no-nonsense policy on Pakistan, said India would “walk more than half the distance” if Islamabad offered a “renewed reaffirmation” of its promise to “bring the perpetrators of the Mumbai massacre to justice”. The demand that the “infrastructure of terrorism has to be dismantled permanently”, that “Pakistan must deliver on its assurances that its territory would not be used for terrorist attacks on India”, suddenly metamorphosed into a timidly expressed expectation of “renewed reaffirmation” of a promise that the whole world knows Pakistan has no intention of fulfilling.

By the time the Prime Minister met Mr Gilani at Sharm el-Sheikh, that expectation had turned into snivelling submission to Pakistan’s insidious motives, best exemplified by the inclusion of the implied allegation of India’s involvement in the separatist violence in Baluchistan in the joint statement. No less worse was the Prime Minister’s endorsement of Pakistan’s long-held contention that “action on terrorism should not be linked to the Composite Dialogue process and these should not be bracketed”.

Perhaps the Prime Minister believed that he would be feted back home for his gutless deed in Sharm el-Sheikh, if not by the masses then the morally bankrupt middle classes which had collectively ensured his continuation in office by voting for the Congress in this summer’s general election. We can also presume that he had hoped the Congress would be ecstatic and ruthlessly put down any dissenting voices in Parliament and outside. On his part, he would claim that nothing had been conceded to Pakistan, insist that it was a splendid diplomatic victory, and demand that all patriots should support the appalling sell-out of India’s national interest. After all, that’s how he craftily manipulated public opinion and political support in his favour so as to let the US have its way on the nuclear deal.

This time, however, the Prime Minister’s bluff has been called, if not by the middle classes, which are still besotted with him for not finding it offensive to be called an American stooge, then by the masses. There is national outrage over his capitulation in Sharm el-Sheikh and even the Prime Minister’s spin masters masquerading as journalists in the English language media have been compelled to ask some discomfiting questions. As for his party, the Congress, sensing popular revulsion, has steadfastly steered clear of coming to the Prime Minister’s defence.

To the Prime Minister’s credit, he did try to sell the sell-out as a great achievement that his genius alone could accomplish. No, he told Parliament, delinking Pakistani terrorism from peace talks does not mean we will talk to the sponsors of cross-border jihadi violence. Only to be controverted by his Minister for External Affairs who subsequently told India Today that the Prime Minister agreed to delink terror and talks because “we will have to continue to talk to Pakistan (as) there is no alternative”. But to talk, both Mr Singh and Mr Krishna insist, is not to resume the ‘composite dialogue’. That’s bunkum because the joint statement clearly mentions the ‘composite dialogue process’, which includes the ‘Kashmir issue’, and not casual tittle-tattle over tea and biscuits.

What, then, forced the Prime Minister to swallow his brave words and do a grovelling act? Was the debacle at Sharm el-Sheikh scripted in Washington, DC? Or is this the first step towards the Prime Minister facilitating the fruition of President Barack Hussein Obama’s AfPak policy which can succeed only if Pakistan is suitably mollycoddled and allowed to regain its ‘strategic depth’ in Afghanistan via the Taliban? That would also involve India winding up its development programmes and shutting down its diplomatic missions in Afghanistan. The line of least resistance which has come to define the Obama Administration’s approach to Pakistan is now being slavishly replicated in South Block under the Prime Minister’s tutelage.

[Appears as Coffee Break in Sunday Pioneer, Jyly 26.]

For Manmohan, Indian blood is cheap

So he compromises national interest; caves in to US arm-twisting; capitulates to Pakistani blackmail at Sharm el-Sheikh

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is a decent and honest man. His admirers would say he is an economist too. His detractors (a plague on their houses!) don’t quite see it that way and his critics (may they never escape the damnation of hell!) think he is a feckless man given to spinning webs of deceit to cover up his sins of omission and commission. So, there is no reason to doubt that when he met Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on the sidelines of the Non-Aligned Movement (yes, it still exists) Summit at Sharm el-Sheikh last Thursday, Mr Singh did the tough-guys-don’t-cry act with him.

“I conveyed to him the strong sentiments of the people of India over the issue of terrorism, especially the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. We are reviewing the dossier of investigations into these attacks which Pakistan has provided to us. I also conveyed to Prime Minister Gilani that sustained, effective and credible action needs to be taken not only to bring the perpetrators of the Mumbai attack to justice, but also to shut down the operations of terrorist groups so as to prevent any future attacks,” the Prime Minister told Parliament on Friday. Since he is a man of impeccable integrity, and because the Right to Information Act won’t allow us access to the ‘Record of Discussion’, we must believe that this is indeed what he told Mr Gilani.

And having read out the riot act, presumably in a stern though whiny voice and with an unsmiling face, the Prime Minister agreed to endorse a joint statement along with Mr Gilani, whose contents, in both letter and spirit, fly ruthlessly in the face of what he now claims to have said. Since 72 hours is a long time for public memory to remain fresh, it would be in order to quote the salient points of the joint statement:

“Both leaders agreed that terrorism is the main threat to both countries.”

“Prime Minister Singh reiterated the need to bring the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks to justice. Prime Minister Gilani assured that Pakistan will do everything in its power in this regard.”

“Both leaders agreed that the two countries will share real time, credible and actionable information on any future terrorist threats.”

“Prime Minister Gilani mentioned that Pakistan has some information on threats in Balochistan and other areas.”

“Both Prime Ministers recognised that dialogue is the only way forward. Action on terrorism should not be linked to the Composite Dialogue process and these should not be bracketed. Prime Minister Singh said that India was ready to discuss all issues with Pakistan, including all outstanding issues.”

Here’s a commonsensical interpretation, which is not quite different from how diplomats with commonsense would interpret it, of the joint statement, based entirely on an understanding of what used to be the Queen’s language:

The Pakistan-sponsored jihadi terrorism India has to cope with, and pay for with the blood of innocent Indians, according to Mr Singh, is no different from the bloodletting in Pakistan caused by those jihadis who have turned rabid and begun to bite the hand that once lovingly fed them. Nothing distinguishes the victim, our saintly Prime Minister believes, from the perpetrator of macabre misdeeds. So, 10-year-old Devika Rotawan, whose right leg has been disabled after she was shot during last November’s fidayeen attack on Mumbai, should feel contrite for deposing against Ajmal Kasab, the Pakistani who remorselessly crippled her and sat grinning in the court while she relived the horror of that night at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus.

Our firm and not easily persuaded Prime Minister demanded Pakistan must bring those responsible for 26/11 to justice. Mr Gilani assured him everything is being done in this regard. We must believe Mr Gilani, because our wise Prime Minister trusts him. Never mind minor details like Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, the chief terrorist of Lashkar-e-Tayyeba who operates under the cover of a bogus Islamic charity, Jamaat-ud-Dawa’h, and the mastermind behind the carnage in Mumbai, being allowed to walk free and plot the next attack on India. Nor should we feel distraught if others ‘arrested’ in the case by Pakistani authorities are also set free on account of ‘insufficient evidence’.

The US, more specifically the CIA, wants us to share real time, credible and actionable intelligence with Pakistan. The Americans have been haranguing us on this score for some time now. We might as well give in and do Washington’s (or should it be Langley’s?) bidding. Why rub the Americans the wrong way, especially since they have us by our short and curly over our now compromised nuclear programme? And why upset the 300-million-strong middle class which aspires to see India become an American stooge? After all, they determined the outcome of this summer’s general election and ensured that we would continue to have a decent, honest and, not to forget, economist Prime Minister who oozes integrity. So, we shall pass on real time, credible and actionable intelligence to the Pakistanis and they shall rework their terror strategy accordingly so that our security agencies cannot pre-empt future jihadi attacks. No, there's no need to get upset about it. To cavil would be unpatriotic as all patriots are expected to back the Prime Minister who genuinely believes capitulation will “serve to further advance India’s interests”.

Pakistan, we are now told, has “some information on threats in Balochistan and other areas”. The sly reference to Balochi separatism in the joint statement need not shock us, even though this amounts to legitimising Pakistan’s absurd claim that Indian agencies, more specifically R&AW, have been fomenting trouble in Balochistan. The Prime Minister says there’s nothing to fear, ours is an “open book”. So, why feel apprehensive that this shall pave the way to Islamabad accusing New Delhi, and convincingly so, that India has been doing unto Pakistan what Pakistan has been doing unto India? The Prime Minister’s silence on the inclusion of Balochistan in the joint statement when he spoke in Parliament need not intrigue us — he wasn’t being cunning or deceitful; that’s not what decent and honest men do; he was merely glossing over a minor detail whose consequences can be disastrous.

The Prime Minister sincerely believes “action on terrorism should not be linked to the Composite Dialogue process and these should not be bracketed”. He is also “ready to discuss”, as the US wants him to, “all issues with Pakistan, including all outstanding issues”. However, this does not really mean what it means, or so we are told by the Prime Minister. What it really means, and I quote from his statement in Parliament, is that “action on terrorism should not be linked to the composite dialogue process”.

Further comment would be tantamount to questioning the integrity of a decent and honest man, and lending credence to what the Prime Minister’s critics say, that he is a feckless man given to spinning webs of deceit.

Notes from Israel - I

The Rasta and the Haredi

Kanchan Gupta

The Ticho House is where Jerusalem’s artists, writers, musicians and anybody else who qualifies as an intellectual and is appropriately dressed in gloomy black representing the sandal-clad hip crowd’s existential dilemma gather every evening to while away the lazy hours of mid-summer stupor. Nava Bibi, in a billowing flower-printed dress, is a charming hostess. On the lush lawns a huge screen has been set up for the ongoing art film festival and the movie being screened, Seven Easy Pieces by Marina Abramovic, directed by Babette Mangolte, is reminiscent of Jean-Luc Godard’s Une Femme Mariée. Godard’s chosen medium was black and white; Mangolte’s use of bleak colours is equally brooding. Young Israelis watch the film intently; later, they dissect it frame by frame over wine and fish at Little Jerusalem, the Ticho House restaurant where it’s tough to find an empty table.

At a short distance, in noisy, raucous Ben Yehuda teenagers and twenty-somethings party late into the night. There’s live music (a woman belts out Jai Ho!) spilling into the street; most pubs throb with Goa Trance. In the din, a singer’s voice soars over the cacophony of club music: Idan Raichel, the Rasta Man with matted hair, is a rage in Israel. His music is unique and defies existing categories. He brings together musicians from Israel’s various immigrant communities — all of them are Jewish yet each of them is different. Raichel says it is his attempt to help new immigrants remain rooted in their cultural traditions while blending with mainstream Israeli society.

Meanwhile, the Haredim, who occupy the ultra-orthodox quarters of Jerusalem and collectively represent the anti-thesis of everything that secular Jews stand for, including their lofty disdain for the haredi way of life which is sustained by generous financial assistance provided by the Government and Jewish charities, fight it out with riot police over a perceived violation of Sabbath rules. A month ago, the Government decided to keep a newly-built parking lot across the walled city’s Jaffa Gate open on Sabbath when everything in Israel, especially in Jerusalem, comes to a halt and an eerie silence descends on the city.

The Haredim, appalled by this callous disregard of established tradition that prohibits people from, among other things, driving their cars on Sabbath, have decided to force the Government into withdrawing the order. So, for the past three Sabbaths, the Haredim, including young and old religious Jews, have been gathering in large numbers to confront the police. It’s a fierce battle that follows each Saturday afternoon, but neither side is showing signs of relenting.

In the West Bank settlements, redolent with the fragrance of flowers and ripening fruit, the resident Jews are in a fury. They see themselves as not just settlers grabbing Palestinian land, as they are made out to be by the Arabs and the international media, but as the true and legitimate inheritors of the ‘promised land’ of Judea and Samaria. All construction activity in the settlements has been halted; even building a new room now requires the approval of the Prime Minister of Israel.

The settlers don’t blame Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu (admiringly and loathingly referred to as ‘BB’) for the freeze on settlement construction activity. Their anger is directed at US President Barack Hussein Obama — the middle name is emphatically stressed in Judea and Samaria where settlers have miraculously converted the sterile desert into fertile farms and pine-scented woodlands.

Mr Obama is accused of appeasing Arab sentiments and addressing imagined grievances by forcing the Right-wing Government led by Mr Netanyahu to give in to his demand of halting all settlement-building activity. Israelis of American origin (many of whom still retain their US citizenship) despise Mr Obama with unguarded hostility. For them, the good news is that American gunboat diplomacy has frozen the peace process and restoring the Green Line as a step towards a full and final settlement of the Palestinian issue continues to remain a distant chimera. Abu Mazen is not complaining.

Israeli Arabs, full citizens of the Jewish state, are not complaining either. Any change in the status quo would cause them needless stress. In any event, most of them take a disparaging view of the situation in Gaza Strip and West Bank. Not surprisingly, they would rather live in Israel where law and order prevails than in the anarchy across the Wall.

Between faith and democracy, the choice is clear — at least for those who have benefited from Israel’s economic boom, which has remained largely untouched by the global financial crisis. Young Israeli Arabs may be less hesitant than their parents about speaking up for Palestinian rights, but that does not necessarily reflect split loyalties or subversive tendencies. On the contrary, they are eager to fully assimilate with Israeli society as that would afford them the freedom which Fatah and Hamas deny to Palestinians under their charge.

The certitudes in which the Israeli identity — overwhelmingly Jewish, largely exclusivist and dominated by the cultural preferences, if not biases, of the post-Holocaust generation that came from Europe — has been anchored for the past six decades are still there. But they have begun to yield space to other defining features. The Jewish narrative is witnessing subtle changes and the shift in the Jewish worldview is apparent; victimhood is no longer the main characteristic of the Jewish identity, nor is it cloaked in aggressive religiosity or political Zionism.

The new generation of Israelis is far more confident and aspirational than the previous generation. At the same time, young Israelis have begun to open their doors and windows to the world, absorbing and adopting ideas and accommodating those who were on the margins of a society whose social rules till recently were written by an European elite and religious rites were dictated by the Haredim. Modernity and tradition have found a new equilibrium without disturbing social harmony.

In this Israel, Idan Raichel is as much an inspirational force in reclaiming Jewish cultural identities as the Haredim are in enforcing orthodox Jewish traditions; the Israeli Arabs are not ashamed to flaunt their Israeli identity and the Jewish settlers remain defiant; and, in the heart of Jerusalem, Israelis of various faith and cultural denomination jive to the tune of Jai Ho! and Goa Trance. This Israel cannot but alarm Hamas, Hizbullah and Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Back in Israel...

The past couple of weeks have been one big, mad rush. I am now off to Israel at the invitation of the American Jewish Committee for a week. Hopefully, I will get to blog at leisure from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, a city that never ceases to amaze me. I am sure there will be interesting stories to tell. By the time I am back in Delhi, which has lived up to its name as the 'Dust bowl of India' with the rains giving this wretched city and the NCR a go-by, the silly season should be over. Meanwhile, I came across an interesting picture of the spot where the Bamyan Buddhas once stood before the Taliban came along with their guns and dynamite... Weep for the barbarity let loose by mullahs.

From here on, it's a lonely ride for the Left

There was an interesting story in last week's morning papers. Senior IAS officers — which means babus who are well networked with the New Delhi establishment — of West Bengal cadre are desperate to move out of Kolkata. We are told that “at least eight principal secretaries in the State Government, including two additional chief secretaries, are looking to leave” for assignments in New Delhi. “If you work in Delhi, you can deliver because of better work culture,” Urban Development Secretary PK Pradhan has been quoted as saying, “Also, in Delhi, there isn’t much political interference... Here, things don’t move.”

The claim, of course, is no more than hogwash. Bureaucrats are adept at the art of serving political masters, irrespective of the latter’s allegiance and ideology. In any event, a bureaucrat’s job is to turn political directive into policy and implement it. Rare is the bureaucrat who has the courage to resist directives that are flawed, patently partisan or motivated by concerns other than those for the nation and its interests. Equally rare is the Minister who is comfortable with a ‘thinking’ bureaucrat. That’s the way it is.

The issue, however, is not of senior IAS officers of West Bengal cadre feeling “frustrated” or wanting to prove their worth in a “better work culture”. That’s bunkum. It’s to do with babus sensing, as they alone can with unerring accuracy, the demise of the CPI(M)-led Left Front Government in the 2011 Assembly election. Between now and the Left Front’s anticipated exit from Writers’ Building, the seat of power in West Bengal, they would like to rid themselves of any perceived proximity with the Marxists and get into the good books of those who are expected to replace the decrepit Left regime — namely, the Trinamool Congress and the Congress.

The best way to achieve both purposes would be to swing a job in the UPA Government, preferably with a Trinamool Congress or Congress Minister. Curiously, there appears to be no resistance from the West Bengal Government to this cynical job-seeking by its bureaucrats. Has Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee accepted that defeat is inevitable in the Assembly poll? Or is it that he has lost the spirit to put up a fight till the empire built by the Marxists over three decades is actually lost?

Obviously a sense of despondency has overtaken Mr Bhattacharjee and his comrades after this summer’s general election in which the Left’s tally has been reduced from an unnatural high of 35 to an unexpected low of 15, with ‘committed’ voters in both urban and rural areas abandoning the CPI(M) in hordes. The Maoist takeover of Lalgarh, till recently a bastion of the CPI(M), and the need for Central forces to put down the rebellion after personnel of West Bengal Police, who owe their jobs to the ‘Party’, turned tail and fled, has only served to further accentuate the sense of defeat.

The CPI(M)’s debacle in Nandigram and Singur could be linked to Mr Bhattacharjee’s industrial policy, but the party’s fall from grace in Lalgarh is about repudiation of its politics by its core constituency — the toiling masses. Images of palatial buildings built by local CPI(M) leaders amid gut-wrenching poverty and squalor, deprivation and denial, being razed to the ground by those who till recently held aloft the Marxist banner and identified themselves with the ‘sarba haarar dal’ (party of have-nots) is unlikely to be erased from popular memory in the near future. To the contrary, it can only fuel similar uprising in other impoverished districts of West Bengal where yesterday’s mass leaders are now in an awful minority and stick out like sore thumbs for their affluence and prosperity which has been glaringly denied to others.

Mr Bhattacharjee and his comrades are painfully aware of this reality. They are also aware that nothing seems to work any more under their tutelage. The civil administration, which has been systematically subverted over 32 years and whose mainstay, the bureaucracy, has been only too willing to be emasculated and treated as a doormat, is virtually non-existent in vast swathes of the State. The party’s own organisation, which was used to supplant the official machinery, is riddled with corruption; the little that remains of it has become too slothful to respond in any meaningful manner. This became only too evident in the aftermath of Cyclone Aila when relief material, including emergency food packets, despatched from Kolkata for the affected villagers of the Sunderbans remained undistributed for more than 72 hours. Mr Bhattacharjee discovered this to his horror when he visited the Sunderbans for what is referred to as an ‘on-the-spot survey’, but by then it was too late and the damage had been done. Men, women and children who had to remain hungry and thirsty for three days and more because neither the Government nor the ‘Party’ delivered on time and with alacrity are unlikely to forgive and forget.

And, as the CPI(M) struggles to cope with the emerging reality of its fast-slipping grip over the masses it once mesmerised with its promise of ‘revolutionary change’ and whose unflinching loyalty it could bank upon in the toughest of elections, its fair weather friends have begun to distance themselves like rats jumping from a sinking ship. The ‘intellectuals’ of Kolkata — writers, actors, film directors, theatre personalities, artists and journalists, collectively referred to as the ‘Nandan crowd’ — who have benefited enormously on account of the patronage extended by the CPI(M), most notably by Mr Bhattacharjee himself, have been the first to turn their coats. Nothing illustrates this better than Aparna Sen aligning with the Trinamool Congress. The colour of activism has suddenly turned green.

But the ‘intellectuals’ are not alone in jumping the sinking Marxist ship. Look at the ease with which the CPI, which was rehabilitated by the CPI(M) after its shameful collaboration with the Emergency regime, now blames the Marxists for the Left’s problems. Mr AB Bardhan was the loudest and the most strident in demanding that the Left break ranks with the Congress over the India-US civil nuclear cooperation deal. Even before ‘marriage counsellors’ could get into the act, he had declared ‘talaq’ with the Congress — not thrice but many times over. Indeed, it could be argued that the CPI forced the CPI(M)’s hands, making the Left tread the path of no return.

Yet, Mr Bardhan is equally loud and strident now in blaming the Marxists and berating them for breaking the Left’s cushy alliance with the Congress. These are truly bad times — dushshomoy, as Mr Bhattacharjee would call it— for the CPI(M). It will only get worse here on.

Waffle at BJP National Executive meeting

[Update at the end]

The conventional assessment of the BJP National Executive meeting (June 20-21) is that its primary purpose of providing members with an opportunity to let off post-election steam has been achieved. This will put an end to trading of charges and levelling of allegations. It will be back to business as usual.

It is also being claimed (and I endorse this partially) that those who have been cavilling against the party’s ideology and its core idea, Hindutva, have been silenced. Ideology shall continue to enjoy primacy and Hindutva shall remain the guiding force.

Third, niggling doubts about the leadership issue have been put to rest. The party has asserted the principle of ‘democratic centralism’ and this is the way it shall be. Never mind what the party constitution says about electing leaders from bottom up.

My assessment differs on all these counts and more.

The unabashed finger-pointing that was witnessed marks a departure from the past when sobriety was the norm during National Executive meetings. Little or no purpose has been served by the mutual recrimination that marked the discussions till Sunderlal Patwa intervened with an emotional speech.

Patwa’s intervention may have forced an end to the ugly trading of charges, including between Shahnawaz Hussein and Maneka Gandhi, and diverted attention from the points raised by Arun Shourie, but the internecine war is by no means over. At best it is tactical retreat, not even temporary truce.

It is a pity that two ‘leaders’, whom LK Advani referred to as “two eminent Muslim colleagues of ours”, were allowed to adopt an abrasive tone and level all kinds of charges while others were disallowed to raise issues that are much more fundamental for the party’s well-being.

But I guess it is useful to promote the fiction that the BJP lost the election because of what Varun Gandhi said (or did not say) in Pilibhit. That way, the real reasons shall remain swept under the carpet.

[Sushil Modi in his intervention mentioned that Hindutva upsets the JD(U) and could strain the BJP-JD(U) alliance in Bihar. That’s as unconvincing as Naveen Patnaik’s claim that he parted company with the BJP because of the violence in Kandhamal. If Nitish Kumar is convinced that he can win a majority on his own he will part company with the BJP: Nobody likes to share power. A section of the JD(U) feels that an alliance with the Congress makes better sense because it would fetch political returns at the Centre here and now.]

Here is a fact that should have been the subject of serious discussion but was ignored by the National Executive: Of the sitting MPs in the 14th Lok Sabha who contested this year’s election, only 37 have been re-elected. In 2004, nearly a hundred sitting MPs of the BJP lost the election.

It would be absurd to suggest that barring 37 sitting MPs the remaining lost the 2009 election because of Varun Gandhi’s alleged inflammatory comments or a harsh and narrow interpretation of Hindutva. I don’t think there is any evidence to suggest that Hindutva was even mentioned during their campaign, leave alone giving it a sinister twist.

The reasons why such a large number of sitting MPs lost are four-fold:

. Poor track record of the individuals;
. Poor organisational back-up;
. Poor campaigning at the constituency level; and,
. Poor selection of candidates.

The BJP obviously does not want to discuss these issues as that would result in quite a few red faces at the high table. Patwa has saved them from acute embarrassment.

Second, there is no clarity as yet on either ideology or Hindutva.

Both LK Advani and Rajnath Singh stressed on the inclusiveness of Hindutva and how it militates against bigotry and fanaticism. That’s a nice thought. But what does it stand for?

. LK Advani said “BJP’s understanding of Hindutva is fully in accord with the unanimous judgement given by the 3-Judge Bench of the Supreme Court on December 11, 1995.”

. Rajnath Singh said “Hindutva … has a sense of respect and a place for everyone and it is a concept of co-existence. It is this cultural consciousness which has made Hindutva so benevolent and flexible.”

. The Political Resolution moved and drafted by Ravi Shankar Prasad said, “Hinduism or Hindutva is not to be understood or construed narrowly confined only to religious practices or expressed in extreme forms. It is indeed related to the culture and ethos of the people of the India, depicting the way of life of the Indian people.”

The Indian people’s “way of life” has nothing to do with politics or political campaigns to secure state power. If Hindutva is only what the Supreme Court thinks it is, then it should not be the political creed of any party, least of all the BJP.

The political resolution bizarrely equates Hinduism with Hindutva. This was best avoided. Hinduism is about faith, which is by definition narrow and exclusive. Hindutva is about political mobilisation, which has to be inclusive and all-embracing.

The party should have said:

Hindutva is rooted in India’s cultural and civilisational ethos, of which faith (Hinduism, Islam or Christianity) is only one inter-changeable component; it is representative of India’s identity as an ancient nation and a modern nation state; it links India’s past with its present and mirrors its aspirations for a better future.

It defines Indianness or Bharatiyata. It is the cornerstone of cultural nationalism, the BJP's USP.

It is rooted in egalitarianism, tolerance and compassion. It celebrates democracy. It harmonises differences. It rests on the principle of justice to all, appeasement of none.

Some may perceive merit in waffle we heard at the National Executive meeting, but it will not help remove the confusion that prevails at all levels. The party needs to enunciate Hindutva for our times. I wonder when the BJP’s ‘Blair moment’ will come.

The BJP would have done itself some good had it used this National Executive meeting to also clarify a related point: Core issues of the party are not core elements of Hindutva, they are at best tangentially linked.

Abrogation of Article 370 is to do with integration of the States and Centre-State relations. Retaining Article 370 keeps open the issue of Jammu & Kashmir’s full and final integration with the Union of India and allows others to refer to it as ‘disputed territory’. It also accords to Jammu & Kashmir a special status that is denied to the other States of the Union. None of these is a key component of Hindutva.

Article 44 of the Constitution states: "The state shall endeavour to secure for citizens a uniform civil code.” This is primarily meant to uphold the republican principles of equality for all, irrespective of gender, religion and caste. It is also aimed at modernising Indian society by ridding it of regressive personal laws. Where does the demand for Uniform Civil Code fit into the concept of Hindutva?

By not separating these two core issues from the core of its ideology, the BJP has failed to put an end to the campaign of calumny by the ‘secular’ political establishment and the ill-informed sections of media. More importantly, it has missed an opportunity to remove misconception in the minds of its cadre.

Advani has talked about organisational weaknesses and the need to address them as well as expand the party’s base in States where it is almost non-existent. The “train compartment” mentality he has referred to is extremely relevant. Hopefully it applies to all in the higher echelons of the party.

As for strengthening the organisation and strategise for the next 20 years, it will require a mindset change across the board at the top: The needless craving for allies and alliances has to be replaced by determination and a can-do spirit.

Unfortunately, those who speak about it are also strong votaries of subjugating State units of the party to allies so that local leaders don’t grow in stature and want a place inside the “train compartment”.

A last point: States representatives at the meeting were unanimous and unambiguous in their praise for Narendra Modi. Every where he visited during the campaign, they said, the cadre were galvanised and supporters enthused. Nothing more need be said.

UPDATE 24/06/09:

. This whole differentiation of 'moderate', 'soft' and 'hard' Hindutva makes little sense. Hindtuva needs to be seen as a concept, an idea, the core of the party's belief and the base of its political positioning. The moment it begins to label Hindutva, it suggests a certain discomfort with everything that this idea stands for.

. There are some in the party who believe that to be one with 'Young India' they must ape the worst trait that manifests itself in urban India among those who feel embarrassed about being an Indian and describe themselves as 'global citizens', which is no more than an imaginary identity as opposed to an identity rooted in the soil of your motherland. Hence, the effort to disown and distance yourself from Hindutva.

. Young India, we must note, lives not only in cities but in villages and district towns. That Young India is not yet a deracinated lot.

. The BJP will (hopefully) never come to resemble a Congress dominated by beautiful people who adorn Page 3 and mesmerise the chattering classes.

. The 'aspirations' that are often referred to in connection with issues the BJP should address to widen its support base cannot exclude Hindu aspirations, especially the aspiration to be treated with honour and dignity in Hindu majority India. This is not about crude majoritarianism but the majority's right not to be treated shabbily and with contempt.

. My own view is that Muslims will never vote (or vote substantially) for the BJP. The Bharatiya Jana Sangh was shunned by the Muslims as a 'Hindu' party (Varun Gandhi wasn't born then); the BJP was and continues to be shunned as a 'Hindu party'. The BJP can stand on its head and do a double somersault and a twist-and-turn. There will be applause but no votes. So, let those in the BJP who keep on plugging the secular/Muslim line not waste their breath. Muslims will either consolidate behind the Congress (if the party is seen to be able to practice aggressive appeasement, eg, communal job and education quotas) or they will vote tactically to defeat the BJP. Muslims are believed to be the decisive factor in 54 Lok Sabha constituencies; by 2014, this number will further increase. The mullah and the masjid will ensure the breach is never bridged, not even if Vande Mataram is replaced with qawaali.

. Similarly, the BJP should get rid of its diffidence for being seen as a 'Right-wing party'. Or else it should either disband of fashion itself as a clone of the Congress, a 'B' team, so to say. There is no halfway house on this front. To be 'Right' does not mean to be wrong. Nor is conservative or 'Right-wing' politics 'unenlightened'.

. Meanwhile, in the context of short-sighted political alliances, the BJP should ponder over what it has lost by striking an alliance with the Gorkha Jana Mukti Morcha in Darjeeling district of West Bengal. What it has gained is one Lok Sabha seat, limited to this election.

These are some stray thoughts I felt I should share with you after going through my notes on the National Executive.

BJP leaders feel the heat: A volcano about to erupt?

BJP’s deputy leader in the Lok Sabha, Sushma Swaraj, made an interesting remark in Bhopal on Monday (June 15) while refusing to comment on the apparent mess that prevails in the party at the moment. It seems, going by media reports, that she described the situation as similar to that of a ‘volcano’ and how the smallest of ‘sparks’ could lead to an ‘explosion’.

Despite much effort, I have not been able to get the exact quote of what she said. Did she describe the situation as ‘bisphotak’ (explosive)? Or did she use the word ‘jwalamukhi’ (volcano)? The media versions are conflicting.

If the situation is ‘explosive’, then things could ‘explode’ due to two reasons: External instigation (a ‘spark’) or internal pressure at the top or any level. If it is similar to that of a rumbling ‘volcano’, then it could explode due to extreme pressure from down below – that’s how volcanic eruptions happen.

Which brings me to the question: What’s happening in the BJP? Is pressure building up at the top? Or is the party leadership (LK Advani, Rajnath Singh, et al) feeling the pressure building up at the ground level, that is, among cadre?

There is reason to believe the cadre is getting restless. Vague talk of ‘introspection’ and ‘chintan baithak’ to assess the BJP’s electoral performance has not served to assuage feelings of despondency among karyakartas, disarray in the ranks and disunity at the top.

These feelings have only hardened in recent days with Jaswant Singh raising the three Ps and Yashwant Sinha dramatically resigning from all party posts to ‘set an example for others’, force a discussion on the need to link performance and reward, and generally seize the ‘moral high ground’.

The entire debate over the need for debate within the party is increasingly getting mired in personality issues, ego problems and the despair which comes with successive electoral defeat.

Two points merit attention.

First, after the electoral debacle of 2004 (which was far less expected than the defeat of 2009), there were, if memory serves me right, a series of meetings, at least two of them at exotic locations, to discuss the ‘way forward’. After much deliberation, the ‘way forward’ was decided and the course charted. Surely this is not the destination the party had set its eyes on.

Second, clearly those deliberations were worthless sessions of mutual ego massage and the decisions that followed were naturally flawed.

So, what is the guarantee, cadre are asking, that this time it will be any different? After all,

. The top leaders seem to be in no hurry to roll up their sleeves and sit down with facts and figures;
. There is great pretence of business as usual – you don’t have to go around in sack cloth and ashes but surely there should be visible concern?
. A two-day National Executive, of which half-a-day will go in presidential and valedictory speeches and another half-a-day on passing resolutions (which have increasingly become utterly meaningless and not worth the paper they are written upon), is the best way to fob off early, elaborate and genuine debate.

There is a view that the National Executive need not have been called at this point of time. Instead, the leaders should have gone into retreat for threadbare discussions and come up with a roadmap to rejuvenate the party and recover lost ground, as well as expand its geographical spread.

There is also the other view: Hold a National Executive meeting, give members an opportunity let off steam in a controlled enviroment, and then get back to doing nothing.

I feel that the first course would have been preferable. But before coming up with a conclusive roadmap, there should be intensive interaction with State units of the party, not limited to office-bearers in the capital cities but also with district units and the largest possible cross-section of party members.

Yes, the entire task would take at least three months, but the move could be initiated right away with a predetermined deadline, say by October, to come up with a tentative roadmap. The National Executive could have then deliberated on it, fine-tuned it, and taken it to the National Council for approval and implementation.

No, it won’t happen that way because over the past decade decision-making has become a hazy process with our own versions of Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley and Lauderdale deciding for all the stake-holders in the BJP what should really be decided at a larger, participatory forum. There is reasonable doubt about it being any different now.

Unlike others who have attributed profound reasons for the BJP’s miserable performance, I feel the causative factors are not that difficult to locate and are known to those who lead the party. I would list them as:

. Organisational problems – the party is in a shambles in most States, especially in those where it has been in alliance with others;
. Wrong choice of candidates – in at least 50-odd constituencies people voted against the party’s candidate and not the party per se;
. A meandering, directionless campaign with no clearly focussed ideas and over-reliance on issues on which the BJP’s record in governance is nothing to write home about;
. Failure to anticipate voting preference/pattern in crucial States like Maharashtra (where MNS’s ability to split votes was grievously under-estimated) and Uttar Pradesh (where the shift in caste alignments was fatally overlooked or not sensed) reflect disconnect with grassroots.
. Letting the media aggressively set the agenda and timidly responding to it, instead of the other way round; and,
. Giving the heave-ho to the concept of collective leadership.

I wonder if Varun Gandhi’s alleged ‘hate speech’ or the reprehensible behaviour of Pramod Muthalik, or, for that matter, the Kandhamal violence, had the kind of impact as is being made out.

After all, in Karnataka the BJP has done exceedingly well; in Orissa the BJD would have gone its own way irrespective of what happened or didn’t happen. I think it’s rather far-fetched to suggest that voters in Rajasthan or Madhya Pradesh were influenced by events in Karnataka and Orissa.

Since everybody harps on ‘good governance’ as the over-riding factor which determines voter preference, we should look at Uttarakhand where the BJP has governed well but has been routed in all five seats. Conversely, in Orissa, where Naveen Patnaik has little or nothing to show by way of tangible achievements over 10 years and social development indices remain abysmally low, the BJD has swept the polls.

It’s unfashionable to say so, but I think the outcome in Bihar (which had very low polling – down to 44.3 per cent from 58.02% in 2004) had more to do with getting the caste arithmetic right, Nitish Kumar tactically decimating the RJD’s support base and the Congress-RJD-LJP alliance falling apart, than with ‘good governance’.

As for Delhi, the real story why the party is on the verge of becoming inconsequential can be summed up in one sentence: The BJP’s inability to figure out the demographics of a cosmopolitan city.

The BJP won in 116 seats without aggressively promoting Hindutva; it lost in other places not because it was shy to promote Hindutva; it got its sums wrong because the figures fed to the leadership were horrendously misleading, apart from the reasons cited above.

So, let us not target Hindutva and make it into a bogeyman or an object of derision. On the contrary, the higher ideals of Hindutva – summed up by a stirring slogan no longer heard, ‘Justice for all, appeasement of none’, the essence of Ram Rajya whose contours are defined by egalitarianism, enlightenment and equity – should be reiterated forcefully.

Just because Hindutva is mocked at by the deracinated urban elite does not mean the BJP should disown its own identity. If Hindutva was relevant in the past, it can be made relevant for our times and the future, too.

What all this adds up to is the need for extensive groundwork to collect empirical data, process it intelligently to arrive at possible reasons why the BJP failed, and work on a roadmap to reach firm goals. Of course, this would simultaneously require rejuvenation of the party and regaining the cutting edge which propelled it ahead of the Congress in three successive general elections.

This is a gigantic exercise. And poses a litmus test for the leadership. If it fails, the BJP's situation would be akin to sitting atop a volcano with lava gushing up.

Blame game begins in BJP; knives are out!

[Update posted at the end.]

The blame-game has begun in the BJP. Those who are directly responsible for the party’s disastrous electoral performance are desperately trying to blame others lest their role comes under scrutiny.

The proverbial knives are out. On Wednesday (June 10) evening the ‘core group’ of the BJP met at LK Advani’s residence. There is nothing called the ‘core group’. Membership is extended (and/or withdrawn) depending on whether the ‘core group’ is supposed to massage bruised egos, indulge in collective hand-wringing, participate in self-flagellation, provide for limited expression of contrarian views, or snuff out voices of dissent.

On Wednesday, the ‘core group’ met for a bit of everything, so those who met were quite representative of the BJP as it is today, which is like a fish that has begun to rot head downward. [When we Bengalis buy fish, we check the gills; hence my choice of this metaphor.]

What was discussed at Wednesday’s meeting is really irrelevant and inconsequential. At the end of the meeting, everybody decided to meet again. As always, no decisions were taken. So much for the slogan, “Determined Leader, Decisive Government”. It’s not surprising that voters were not persuaded by it.

Jaswant Singh has made bold to raise the three ‘P’s – Prabandh, Parinam and Puraskar -- which should have engaged the party leadership after the May electoral debacle, but shall never be discussed.

Meanwhile, Sudheendra Kulkarni, 'Political Advisor, BJP', who undid the BJP’s election campaign in 2004 with the ‘India Shining’ slogan and fashioned the 2009 campaign which has taken the BJP to a low of barely-above-100 mark, has written an article for Tehelka, the magazine which tarred the NDA Government, causing it irreparable damage, and is now the favourite perch of those who inhabit the BJP’s inner courtyard, blaming all and sundry except those who are to blame. [Anil Chawla, his classmate at IIT Bombay, has circulated an 'open letter' by way of a rejoinder to Sudheendra Kulkarni's article.]

Sudheendra Kulkarni has made the following points:

. Everybody should own up for the party’s defeat, collectively and individually.

. Disunity among the party leaders contributed to its electoral failure.

. The Parivar (I wish he had shown courage by naming RSS) hobbled the campaign and made LK Advani look weak.

. Negativism ruined the BJP’s chances.

. Hindutva is the real obstacle between victory and defeat.

. BJP has failed to expand its ‘limited’ social base.

. Allies have been abandoned and new alliances haven’t been forged.

Here are my responses:

. The moral responsibility for the defeat is entirely that of those who led from the front. If they failed to enthuse voters, it is because they did not come across as inspirational leaders. The reasons for the credibility-deficit do not merit elaboration.

. Having abandoned the practice of collective leadership and placed individuals above party, not to speak of promoting those who thrive on divisions, groupism and factionalism, no purpose is served by pointing a finger at ‘disunity’ at the top.

. The RSS – as well as the greater Parivar – did nothing to hobble the campaign. The Sangh endorsed LK Advani as the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, instructed affiliate organisations to join the campaign, and made every effort to bolster him through word and deed.

. Negativism was the core of the campaign fashioned by Sudheendra Kulkarni and his team vested with over-riding powers. [They came up with a real election-winner: After coming to power, LK Advani's Government will gift a smart phone to every BPL family.]

. Hindutva is the new bogeyman. So blame it for everything wrong under the Sun. There’s a problem though. Even if the BJP were to abandon Hindutva – the Hindu ethos which once made the BJP stand out from others, the pride in India’s cultural heritage and civilisational identity, the unifying concept of nationhood – Muslims wouldn’t vote for the party. Not even after reading 'Advaniji at a glance (in Urdu)' and finding that all mention of Vande Mataram has been erased from the BJP Website by the 'laptop brigade' which was supposed to lead the party to a stunning victory, but instead led it to a humiliating defeat. Fiction: Muslim disquiet with BJP can be resolved. Fact: Muslim hatred of BJP is visceral. Problem: How do you work around it?

. BJP’s failure to expand its social base is directly linked to its Pavlovian response to forging alliances. In every State the BJP has forged an alliance, it has moved from nothingness to nothingness, and not strength to strength. It began with Uttar Pradesh (BSP gained at BJP’s expense). It has been seen in Andhra Pradesh (TDP used BJP’s vote share, weakened the party and then abandoned it). In Orissa, BJD used BJP to consolidate its base and then cast it aside. In West Bengal TMC used BJP, plundered its organisational base and then denounced it as ‘communal’. In Punjab BJP has suffered on account of Akali Dal’s politics. In Bihar we shall witness a repeat of all this and more before the next Assembly election when JD(U) dumps BJP. The best way to stop new leaders emerging from the ranks (and thus posing a challenge to the entrenched leadership of the BJP) is to stump the party in the States by forging alliances and forcing local leaders to don sack cloth and ashes and become grovelling supplicants in the courts of the allies.

Elections come and go but parties remain, at least those who are in politics for more than power at any cost, now or never.

The BJP’s leadership is suffering from a disease called ‘last bus syndrome’: If it can’t catch this bus to power, then it will never get to be in power.

I am tempted to recall what LK Advani once told me, many years ago, before another general election: “As things stand, we could win enough seats to come to power. But I often ask myself, are we prepared for power?”

* * * * * *
[This blog post was reproduced by rediff.com with the headline 'The knives are out in the BJP' on Thursday, June 11. The reader response is revealing. The BJP leadership would do well to glance through them, since those of the respondents living in India are voters.]


UPDATE:


When I found that the link to 'Vande Mataram' had been dropped from the redesigned official Website of the BJP, I had immediately contacted Sudheendra Kulkarni (whose team oversaw the sprucing job) on telephone as well as sent him an e-mail. He expressed great surprise ('How can this be possible! We will immediately have it restored. Don't worry') and was gracious enough to promise early action.

That was about two months ago. Regrettably, nothing was done.

I pointed out the omission in a couple of my articles and column, but I guess the powers-that-be in the BJP were too busy to take note. Then I mentioned it again on this blog post.

Coincidentally, I happened to meet some office-bearers of the party on Thursday (June 11) evening, and one of them, who had seen my post as well as the version published by rediff.com, raised the issue. Everybody was aghast; some were livid; one senior office-bearer said he would raise the 'distortion' at the National Executive meeting.

Instructions were obviously issued subsequently to restore the original link to 'Vande Mataram'.

On Friday, lo and behold, the home page of the BJP Website had a link to 'VANDE MATARAM' -- the all caps display was touching, but not sufficiently so. When I clicked on the link, I found the text had been truncated to less than the 'official' sanitised version (broadcast by AIR) and curiously omitted the words 'Vande Mataram':

Sujalam , Sufalam, Malayj Sheetalam,

Sasyashyamalam, Mataram !

Shubhrajyotsna Pulakitayaminim,

Pullakusumita Drumadal Shobhinim,

Suhasinim, Sumadhur Bhashinim,

Sukhadam, Vardam, Mataram!

This makes no sense. In fact, it is a mockery of India's National Song.

Or does it reflect the hesitation of those in charge of the Website (I am told it is still being overseen by Sudheendra Kulkarni and his team) to post the full text and link it to an mpeg file of the traditional version, as it was in the earlier site, lest it offend the mullahs and blot the party's 'secular' credentials?

I am now told that a hunt is on for the original post and the related files. Let's wait and watch.

June 12, 2009.

For BJP, ideology is irrelevant. So...

Those who resist the idea of the BJP returning to its ideological moorings argue that:
. Ideology is irrelevant in the 21st century;
. Ideology restricts 'flexibility';
. Ideology and mass politics are incompatible;
. Ideology ties the BJP to its core Hindu ethos; and, hence,
. Ideology causes an allergic rash among the BJP's allies.

(The allies are now reduced to the Shiv Sena, which has shifted from aggressive Hindu majoritarianism to opportunistic Marathi Manoos identity politics; Akali Dal, which remains committed to Khalsa identity politics; and the JD-U, whose politics is shaped by caste and communal identities, namely those of the EBCs, OBCs [Kurmis] and Muslims.)

The purpose of this blog post is not to elaborate on these points, but to underscore the real relevance of ideology: It acts as a restraining force, it serves as a moral compass, it binds you to probity and rectitude, it tempers a politician's penchant for pomp and splendour, it discourages abuse of power, it makes a party shame and shun the morally and physically corrupt.

And what happens when a party begins to dilute its commitment to ideology, distances itself from its core values and abandons morals and ethics to embrace that which is politically expedient, as the BJP has been doing since 1998?

. The party president is caught on camera accepting wads of notes.

. MPs, MLAs, Ministers are accused of having their snouts in the trough.

. Nepotism takes precedence over loyalty to the organisation and ability.

. MPs get caught in cash-for-question and MPLAD scams.

. An MP misuses his diplomatic passport for human trafficking.

[This is by no means a comprehensive list.]

And then when the moral slide gathers speed, stories like this appear in media:

The Times of India
Karnataka mantri spends Rs 20cr on son's shaadi
30 May 2009, TNN

BELLARY: This could easily be included in the list of the fattest weddings ever. Karnataka health minister B Sriramulu pulled out all the stops for the marriage of his 27-year-old MLA son (PTI says nephew), T H Suresh Babu, and is believed to have spent a whopping Rs 20 crore on the event.

Suresh, an MLA from Kampli reserved constituency, tied the knot with N Deepa, a middle class girl, with an extraordinary 40,000 people attending the mammoth ceremony at Bellary Cantonment on Thursday.

Four choppers to ferry VIPs from Bangalore to Bellary kept whirring in the sky all day. The wedding hall hummed with 500 air-conditioners and more than 200 chefs dished out a culinary extravaganza. Bangalore's political power shifted to this dusty sleepy district — including CM B S Yeddyurappa and his cabinet members. Also in attendance were top politicians from Andhra Pradesh.

Spanning 8 acres, the wedding arena had a huge palace-like shamiana and a dining hall to accommodate 5,000 people. There were also VIP and 'VVIP' halls.

Karnataka health minister B Sriramulu is learnt to have spent Rs 20 crore on the marriage of his MLA son, T H Suresh Babu.

All available lodges were booked for guests. Organizers made sure there was ample parking space even as 20 generator vehicles were used for back up. There was a choice of continental and Indian food and even though the reception area was jampacked, everything went smoothly.

VIPs were ushered in through a single door connecting two different halls while others were allowed to enter through the other side. Also, more than 100 ACs were fitted around the reception hall.

There were 130 responses to this news story posted on the Times of India's Website. Here's an unedited sample of what readers, who are also voters, had to say:

Sri,Bengaluru,says:Minister Sriramulu is a mining company owner who has earned crores in the last 5 years. To one estimate he earned crores a day when iron export to China was in peak. Need less to say the politicians should be model for others.

cpkaruppan,chennai,says:Advaniji, pl practice what you have preached. pl first find out how this minister got so much money-whether he paid incomtax! The Indian public did not take your word of bringing back the money from Swiss (banks) etc and that is why you have lost election. now is a chance to show you will practice what you preach!!!!!

Basavalingappa,Bellary,says:Loot the natural resources, exploit the situation & take shelter in god & wasteful rituals, parade ego... The message is who cares? Show must go on. The end result is poverty, conflict, violence & blame game for nothing. Who needs such gods & rituals?

thomas,bangalore,says:oh my god! shameless people.. wasting crores of rupees on nothing! instead he could have made the world a better (if not, at least a littttttle better) place with those 20 crores.

deeno,mumbai,says:Hahaha....Well PM Mr. Manmohan Singh now should ask a CBI to investigate and find out the source of income of the Minister. Normal people who pay tax are used in other's wedding. Black money for sure... 20 Cr. spend.. on Marriage..So many poor could have been fed..

Indian,Mumbai,says:Hahahaha, u think IT people will raid this minister. Forget the IT heads were also present there enjoying lavish wedding thrown by this corrupt minister.

bipin,uae,says:This shows how serious is his conviction towards serving the country and its people by blowing away such a huge amount of money in celebrations when millions are living in poverty. He should be brought to books by verifying the source of income by IT dept and penalised !

Setty,Bangalore,says:It is shame on the part of a clean party leader who is supposed to be model to others and going in a wrong way. It should have been condemned and discouraged by the party high command if they are really interested in giving good governance and maintain transparency. One should learn lesson from Late shri. Byre Gowda (ex. Minister) who performed his sons marriage in a very simple manner limiting the event only to his family members and said that it is a family function and not a public one. The rules and regulations and free advises in this country are only applicable for weak & hapless people and not for mighty persons. The Lokayukta's Net is not strong enough even to go near such mighty persons and only catching small fishes and make media publicity just to show their existence and of no use for the common man. God only has to take one more incarnation to clean this society for which let us all pray in the interest of coming generations. This 20 crores could have been spent for poor boys education especially in rural areas which could have been covered for thousands of people to make their fortunes bright.

narayana,muscat,says:since minsiters like musicians, sportsmen, cricketers, cinema people and other parasites do not produce one grain of rice / salt / a furniture , a home, a cloth or even 1 line of software code, they have got the money by virtual money creation techniques as opposed to creating money by positive value addition. So, why any one who survives on virtual money bother. It is only the hard working and earning tax payers who know the worth of even 1 rupee.

I do not know B Sriramulu and hence I would not question the source of his wealth. But we do know how people perceive such ostentatious display of wealth. And what they expect from the 'party high command'.

Unfortunately, the 'party high command' is not known to have taken a dim view of the event. With ideology at a discount, it couldn't have been any other way.

[My article in The Pioneer, June 4, 2009.]