India’s corrupt “gang of four” (PO)

M D Nalapat

Although society in Europe and in the US has evolved significantly since the period when that continent enslaved much of the world, so that today Europeans are among the most liberal and enlightened of global citizens, yet because of the grip of elites over the media, several times they fail to appreciate ground reality. An example was the widespread belief in the US that Saddam Hussein was the chief of Al-Qaeda, when in fact that terror outfit spent many years trying to assassinate him. The demonization of the secular Saddam by US and EU media helped George W Bush and Tony Blair finish off the Iraq strongman. These days, a similar smear campaign has been launched against Colonel Kahafi, which is so extreme in its characterization that many in Europe and the US probably believe that the Libyan strongman - for whom NATO has prepared the same fate as befell Saddam - has horns and hooves. In reality, Libya is a country where women and religious minorities are given equal treatment, and whose life expectancy matches that of many parts of Europe.

The monopoly of the popular narrative by the economic elite has led to the uncontrolled explosion of greed that caused the 2008 collapse and which is leading to a fresh disaster by 20 12. Already, the same small group of speculators who cheated international investors of more than$6 trillion are once again up to their old tricks, sending up the price of commodities and spreading hunger and misery across the globe. The use of force in Libya is a warning by the NATO elites to the Arab elites not to go the Kadhafi way and seek to diversify their investments into non-NATO countries. Fear of NATO action will, it is expected, ensure that fresh trillions of dollars will be entrusted by the Arab elites to the same banks and financial institutions that cheated Arabs of more than $1.3 trillion in 2008. This fusion of criminal greed (of course, legalised and encouraged in the US and in much of the EU during and since the Thatcher-Reagan era) and a 19th century propensity to use military force to keep the natives cowed has meant that several countries face the danger of subversion of their own interests at the altar of seeking to rescue the NATO economies from the pit dug by its own elite.

Will Manmohan fall in March? (PO)

M D Nalapat

The Ides of March proved fatal to Gaius Julius Ceasar more than two thousand years ago, when he was felled by a large group of conspirators in the Theatre of Pompey in Rome. Several of those that stabbed him were his closest friends, people who may have been expected to defend rather than to murder him. These days, within Delhi and Mumbai, a similar group of conspirators has been active over the past eleven months, seeking to take away not his life but his job from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. And as in the case of Ceasar, many of those scripting his downfall are from his own party, and claim to be his ardent backers, often going before television cameras to “damn him with faint praise”.

Deja vu! A quarter-century ago, many of the same group that are nowadays active against Manmohan Singh were expending considerable effort on unseating his mentor, then Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao. The Congress Party’s second non-Nehru Prime Minister (after the short-lived 1964-66 tenure of Lal Bahadur Shastri had incurred the anger of loyalists of the family that owned the party, by his refusal to step down after two years in office and hand over charge to a faithful retainer, Kunwar (Prince) Arjun Singh, who had been Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh when the Bhopal disaster took place, and who made arrangements for the safe escape of Union Carbide chief Warren Anderson from Bhopal. Despite the fact that it was on his watch that the world’s biggest industrial disaster took place, his 100% loyalty to the Nehru family ensured that Arjun Singh was given his fill of important jobs, ranging from chief ministership to Union Cabinet status and also Governor of important states.

Chidambaram for soft policy on militants (PO)

M D Nalapat

The Union Home Minister of India, Palanipaan Chidambaram, was among the highest-paid lawyers in the country even while he dabbled in politics. He is therefore accustomed to reading from a brief, and sharpening the arguments that his clients seek to make. It is no secret on Raisina Road, the stately colonial-era avenue that fronts North and South Block, that although he is bound by the Constitution of India to report to the Prime Minister,in fact he reports to Congress President (CP) Sonia Gandhi, who since 2004 has enjoyed the benefits of unlimited governmental power without any legal responsibility. Within the Prime Minister’s Office, the loyal Minister of State Prithviraj Chavan used to consult her and her close associates before any major decision got taken.

Chavan’s ability to steer investigations by agencies such as the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) (the country’s premier police agency) is legendary. Suffice it to say that under his watch, no individual who accommodated the interests of the Congress President has suffered at the hands of the CBI, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and other agencies was harassed,while few individuals who went against those same interests escaped unscathed. These days,the CBI,the DRI and the ED have become bywords for corruption and cronyism, and enjoy sub-zero credibility within the Indian public. As for the efficiemt Minister of State in the PMO,he has been rewarded for his fealty by being annoited Chief Minister of the most lucrative state in India,Maharashtra,the capital of which is Mumbai.Another PMO official whose job was to ensure that the writ of the Congress President was followed within the Manmohan Singh government was sent off to a foreign capital for a well-deserved break,before he returns in triumph next year on a major promotion. As in Pakistan, in India as well,sweet are the rewards of absolute loyalty to well-connected individuals.

Will Manmohan Singh be forced to quit? (PO)

M D Nalapat

In the 1960s for over three decades, probably the most influential non-official individual resident in India was Ottavio Quatrocchi, an Italian who had the blunt demeanour of an Australian rather than the charm that the people of that ancient civilisation are justly known for. Nearly 70 key projects were sanctioned during this long period to companies that “Mr Q” was considered to favour, especially Snam-Progetti. Those officials who dared to sanction contracts to companies other than the few favoured by Quatrocchi found their careers in India ended, including Cabinet Secretary P K Kaul, who was shunted off to Washington before completing his term in office, after a contract was won by another company instead of Snam. The then Petroleum Secretary, A S Gill, who was in line to be Cabinet Secretary found his career at an end after this decision was taken,and the minister concerned was swiftly removed from his post, as were others who dared take decisions other than those believed to have the backing of “Mr Q” What the source of the power of this Italian fixer is remains obscure.

However, none of his political allies could save his career in India once his name was outed in the scandal involving the purchase of Bofors guns in 1986. A year later, Swedish radio claimed that about $65 million had been paid as bribes to get the contract (peanuts in this day and age), and the Swiss authorities established that “Mr Q” was one of the beneficiaries. The Central Bureau of Investigation asked that his passport be impounded. Instead, on the recommendation of the minister looking after the CBI, Quatrocchi was allowed to fly out of India on 29 July 1993 to the safety of Kuala Lumpur. Since then, he has depended on his family members to ensure that contact be retained with influential individuals in India, a task that they have done so well that even today, he is among the few who can “get almost anything done” through the Government of India, including ensuring the return of the money that the investigating authorities say was a bribe paid to secure the Bofors contract. While other governments seek to confiscate the money stashed illegally away by the powerful, the Manmohan Singh government returned it to “Mr Q” a few years ago.

India and a 21st Century Anglosphere (JINSA)

M.D. Nalapat

When President Barack Obama travels to India in early November, he will be visiting a country much more conscious of skin color than his own. Because of his mixed Euro-African ancestry, Barack Obama's election as President of the United States is seen in India as a transformational event. The fact that millions of American voters of European extraction preferred him to John McCain affirmed a truth widely believed in India about the United States, that America is culturally "quadricontinental" and not "unicontinental." The American melting pot has given the world not just a vibrant people (of multiple hues) but also a composite culture that is a fusion of strands from Africa, Europe, Asia and South America. Unfortunately, change even in the Obama administration seems to be only skin-deep. The contemporary Washington "establishment" obsessively considers itself and America to be, in effect, an extension of Europe, in much the same way as the ruling structures in Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

All three of these latter countries may be termed as belonging to the classical  "Anglosphere," the geopolitical construct ascribed to Winston Churchill in which ethnicity trumped almost all other qualities. It was Churchill, the wartime prime minister of Great Britain, who insisted over President Roosevelt's objections that the freedoms promised in the Atlantic Charter were to apply only to the peoples of Europe and not to those in Asia or Africa who were denied their liberty for years after the Allied victory in the "war for democracy." A war in which, let it be noted, more than two million Indian soldiers served (and a further six million auxiliaries worked in defense industries and logistics). This is a figure far in excess than the numbers mustered by France yet Winston Churchill rewarded France with a seat at the post-war High Table in preference to India. Had Churchill continued to get his way, even China would not have gained admission to the Big Five in the United Nations Security Council, as the country was not European or neo-European. While Churchill deserves the admiration of the world for the manner in which he confronted Germany's Nazi dictatorship, his attitude in matters of ethnicity marked him as belonging firmly to the 19th century.

With Barack Obama's 2009 entry into the Oval Office, it was expected that the United States would lead the way to what may be termed a "21st Century Anglosphere," the grouping of countries with common linguistic, cultural and, let it be admitted, colonial ties to the former British Empire. While this concept has been around for some time, especially since Churchill emphasized the unity of the "English-speaking countries" in the period since German aggression launched World War II, what may be termed the "Classical (or Churchillian) Anglosphere" had ethnicity in addition to the English language as its foundation. Churchill rejected Roosevelt's view that those of the English-speaking world but not of European ancestry had the same claim to cultural and other traditions of that world.

An Entrenched Establishment Retards India's Political and Economic Development

Along with the United States and, of course, the United Kingdom, India would be the major player in a 21st century partnership of the English-speaking countries. Given that India is still a "work in progress," a closer association with the Anglosphere should help to nudge the country's ruling elites towards the legal and institutional reforms needed for a deepening of its democracy. An obvious candidate for change would be the prevailing political party structure in India, each of which is dominated by either a single family or an equally self-perpetuating clique of individuals.

Nuclear Weapons: To Test or Not To Test? (UPIASIA)

M.D. Nalapat

Manipal, India — At precisely the moment that U.S. President Barack Obama is returning to the road travelled by Bill Clinton – trying to "persuade" India that nuclear weapons would make the country less, rather than more, secure – top scientists within the country have stated publicly that India’s 1998 nuclear test was a dud, and that the declared yields were false.

The assertion is not surprising – it dates back to the day of the test – but what is surprising is that this important question remains unresolved 11 years after the event.

The majority view among India's nuclear scientists has always been that the 1998 nuclear test was unsuccessful. Only a single scientist and his superiors in the Prime Minister's Office believed then – and still do – that it was a "great success." Understandably, the Manmohan Singh government is reluctant to conduct a serious peer review, preferring instead to rely on the opinions of a few in-house scientists on a matter critical to national security.

The "success camp," led by that determined scientist, R. Chidambaram, insists that the “yield” – or destructive capacity – was satisfactory. It relies on statements published in journals by the Bhabha Atomic Research Center, which made the bomb, to prove its point.

Its primary source is the internal BARC newsletter, which has no peer review process, is circulated only within the BARC/Department of Atomic Energy family, and has been known to publish practically anything that carries any senior BARC functionary’s name on it. In the case of the 1998 explosion results, the "proof" is the printed view of Chidambaram himself, as then director of BARC.

Killing Economic Reform in India (UPIASIA)

M.D. Nalapat

Manipal, India — Manmohan Singh, India's present prime minister, was brought back from Geneva to India as economic advisor to the government in 1990 by the commerce minister at the time, Subramanian Swamy. The long-time bureaucrat had been particular that a protege, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, be made the commerce secretary, a condition that was accepted by the minister.

A year later, Singh became finance minister in the first regular Congress government to be headed by an individual not from the Nehru family. P.V. Narasimha Rao was determined to accelerate the pace of economic reform, aware that the statist policies of the past had led India to bankruptcy, and in Manmohan Singh, found a willing instrument in the process.

Sadly for the country, by 1995, Rajiv Gandhi's widow Sonia began a political destabilization of Rao, afraid that his continuance would permanently block the Nehrus from reclaiming the Congress Party. From the beginning of that year till Rao's election defeat nearly two years later, the cautious finance minister obeyed the new signals and slowed down the reform process to a crawl.

Fortunately for Manmohan Singh, his numerous contacts in the Delhi media ensured that this phase was ignored, and that he -- rather than Rao -- got the credit for the 1992-96 reform package. It was therefore with substantial expectations that the 280-million strong Indian middle classes welcomed the takeover of formal power by Singh eight years after the 1996 election defeat of the Congress Party.

Nearly four years on, these hopes have died, together with the reforms.

Revenge on Rao (UPI)

M.D. Nalapat


MANIPAL, India, Dec. 27 (UPI) -- Appropriately for the capital of India, a country that has witnessed the demise of so many dynasties and empires, Delhi is a city dotted by tombs. To the many built to encase the remains of the numerous emperors of the Mughal era has been added their post-1947 potentates of democracy: Mohandas K. Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Sanjay Gandhi, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Charan Singh and Jagjivan Ram.

While neither Mohandas Gandhi nor Sanjay Gandhi was ever the holder of any public office, some may claim that the contribution to Indian history of the second son of Indira Gandhi may not entirely be on the same scale as that of the Mahatma. However, such niceties were not allowed to stand in the way of Sanjay, too, being granted the same privilege that was given to the Mahatma, a cremation site and memorial, or samadhi in New Delhi.

Both Rajiv Gandhi and Charan Singh -- former prime ministers of India -- died while they were out of public office, while Jagjivan Ram, who never became prime minister, was cremated outside of New Delhi. But his ashes were brought back and re-interred in New Delhi as a mark of respect by the country that he served for four decades.

Four of the eight post-1947 tombs have been created to honor members of the Nehru family, whose names are etched on airports, ports, roads, townships, public conveniences and much else in a country that has rewarded them with power and more in abundance.

Pamulaparthy Venkata Narasimha Rao, who was prime minister from 1991 to 1996, was not a member of the Nehru family. He was, however, the first prime minister from south of the Vindhyas, the first outside the Nehru clan to last a full five-year term in office, and the individual who -- together with his then finance minister, Manmohan Singh -- began the transformation of India through economic reform

MDN: Narasimha Rao's final humiliation (Rediff)

M. D. Nalapat

Appropriately for the capital of a country that has witnessed the death of hope so often, Delhi is a city of tombs. To the many built to encase the remains of numerous emperors of the Mughal era and their successors has been added those from post-1947: Mohandas Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Sanjay Gandhi, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Charan Singh and Jagjivan Ram.

Neither Mohandas Gandhi nor Sanjay Gandhi was ever the holder of any public office, although some may claim that the contribution to Indian history of the second son of Indira Priyadarshini may not entirely be on the same scale as that of the Mahatma. However, Sanjay too was granted the same privilege of a samadhi in New Delhi. 

Both Rajiv Gandhi and Charan Singh died while they were out of office, while Jagjivan Ram -- who never made it to the prime ministership -- was cremated outside of New Delhi, but had his ashes brought back and re-interred in New Delhi

Four of the eight post-1947 tombs have been created to honour members of the Nehru family, whose names are etched on airports, ports, roads, townships, public conveniences and much else in a country that is presumably grateful that such a brood chose to be born in their midst.

As some are aware, Pamulaparthy Venkata Narasimha Rao was not a member of the Nehru family. He was, however, the first prime minister from south of the Vindhyas, lasted a full term in office, and began the transformation of India through the economic reforms initiated by him.

Most would say that Rao's remains had at least the same right to a slice of prime New Delhi land as did Charan Singh's or Sanjay Gandhi's. The newspapers, who are extremely deferential to the actual powers-that-be, have been told and have reported that Rao was cremated in Hyderabad 'as per the wishes of his family members.'

This statement contains the same measure of truth as the comment that the former prime minister was 'regularly consulted on all important matters' by the current Congress president, Sonia Gandhi.

In fact, despite being a former AICC president and a prime minister, Narasimha Rao was not just excluded from the Congress Working Commitee since the current heir to the Nehru dynasty took charge of the party in 1998, he was not even allowed to become one of the numerous 'special invitees', most of whom get selected for their cheerleader skills rather than any other contribution.

Given that former prime ministers Rajiv Gandhi, Charan Singh and the non-prime minister Sanjay Gandhi were given state funerals and a final resting place in what may be termed the National Capital's 'Zone of the Dead,' the reasons why such a privilege was denied to Narasimha Rao are obscure.

They, however, are depressingly in line with a pattern that dogged Rao since 1992, when he refused to accept that he was not a public servant, but a Nehru Family retainer. In what follows, an account is given of the circumstances behind the final humiliation of Pamulaparthy Venkata Narasimha Rao.

A short while before he got hospitalised, Narasimha Rao -- whose antennae were always active in picking up signals, especially from the many former and current officials who were admirers of his policies -- was informed of a plan by senior politicians in his own party to implicate him and another former prime minister, Chandra Shekhar, in the assasination of Rajiv Gandhi.

For eight years, Rao had been the only former prime minister to have endured the torture of a series of cases filed against him. These had been masterminded -- and the legwork for them funded -- by the very same individuals who, he was now credibly told, were plotting to implicate him in one of the most heinous crimes of the century. The motive presented for Chandra Shekhar would be revenge -- Rajiv made his life a misery and finally made it impossible for him to remain dependent on Congress support with dignity. That for Narasimha Rao would be the job that he stepped into after the 1991 Lok Sabha election.

To those scripting such Stalin-style show trials, it did not matter that Narasimha Rao had himself asked Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 for permission to retire, and was looking forward during and after the election that year only to writing and to music, and to the company of friends. Or that Rao was the sort of individual who was incapable of violence or vengeance, even against those who were his enemies, which was why -- for example -- the CBI permitted Ottavio Quatrocchi to leave the country.

In Narasimha Rao, forbearance grew to the level of a vice. It was as absurd to imagine him plotting to see Rajiv Gandhi dead as it was to believe that Rajinder Kumar Dhawan planned the demise of the only person he worshipped, Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi.

However, to the Stalinist scriptwriters within the Congress party who hated Rao for his perceived lese majeste, truth and logic were never allowed to remain in the way of a slur.

Shortly before he fell so ill that he had to be taken to hospital for the first time before the final crisis, Narasimha Rao told the writer that it had been a very ugly past few years, thanks to the constant threat of imprisonment hanging over his head. He saw these legal entanglements as a way of paralysing him, removing his capacity to emerge as a player once again, and said that because of their fear of what he could do -- whether justified or not -- they would keep immobilising him through more such stratagems.

PV was calm, he was cynical in his humorous way, but far from resigned. The old fox, whom his father had hoped would become the patwari of his village, felt he had another innings left at the crease, one in which he would once again score a double century. Indeed, he had begun the process of re-entry into active politics by giving me a lengthy interview during the 2004 Lok Sabha election on just why it was wrong to place the destruction of the Babri Masjid at his door, that was carried across a page by The Asian Age.

This was to be followed up by another interview, in which he would explain the conditions in which he and an individual he loved and respected, Manmohan Singh, rescued the Indian economy from collapse, in the process setting it almost free. I would remind him off and on about this second interview, till almost the final days.

Was it the knowledge that yet another conspiracy against him was on the way towards execution that pushed his body beyond the borderline of viable capability? For years, Narasimha Rao had been tended by Sreenath Reddy, one of the finest heart specialists in the world, the son of a close friend -- Raghunatha Reddy -- who was himself as idealistic as his boy. Ever watchful, this surrogate son had monitored PV's health and made sure that the body worked well enough to keep that superb mind working at Concorde speed.

What goes on in the human mind, what short-circuit in the synapses causes a sudden collapse, is impossible to tell. Perhaps it was not this terrible information that pushed him across the red line. Perhaps it was something else. Perhaps it was nothing except perhaps a sudden onset of the common cold.

Even in hospital, even in his final days, PV exuded confidence. The doctors -- and they included many who had grown to love PV the man, if not P V Narasimha Rao the prime minister -- were grim-faced, as were the others clustered outside his room in the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. Not so PV.

Strangely, his physical collapse had led to a toughening of his will. The voice was low, one did not have the will to respond and thus force him to expend energy by replying to the reply, but PV was determined to keep on talking about what would be.

This time, he would not make the mistake of not reacting to the torment, he would resist his inbuilt aversion towards his friends fighting back on his behalf and allow them to. There had been something aloof and patrician about the man from Vangara village, that made any effort at self-defense seem a contemptible display of weakness. But he was aloof no more. The eyes were tired but fierce, the voice was often unable to reach the level of becoming audible, but there was a hardening in the timbre that had not always been present during the years in office.

But this fresh dawn never took place. Sometime after noon on December 23, 13 days after he had been brought to the hospital early in the morning following a cardiac incident, PV decided to call it quits. It was more than an hour before the doctors finally did.

Strangely -- or perhaps entirely expectedly -- despite a special Union Cabinet meeting at 3 pm on the subject of his funeral, at his 9 Motilal Nehru Marg home there were no arrangements made to receive the body and place it on a platform, nor flowers, nor any laying out of carpets by the administration for the mourning crowds to sit down on, nor even a shamiana on the lawns.

Finally, Kishore, a friend of PV's, made arrangements for both. The shamiana could get erected only by 8.15 pm. Carpets and flowers too were provided by family and friends and not by what seemed to be a totally bankrupt Government of India. As if to atone for his visible helplessness, the prime minister, Sardar Manmohan Singh, looked visibly moved as he quietly remained by the side of the body, which had been brought in from the hospital a little before 5 pm. As a gesture of supreme graciousness, Sonia Gandhi turned up and even stayed for a few minutes.

While some of those present then may be made to deny this later, the fact is that the family members -- as well as the crowd of mourners -- would have been happy to see the father of economic reform and the first prime minister from the south in the history of Free India be given the same honours as Sanjay Gandhi and Charan Singh, a State funeral in New Delhi and an appropriate memorial. Home Minister Shivraj Patil was clearly the emissary of some Unseen Power, for he came several times to the Rao home from some other place where he had apparently gone for consultations, to insist in his own courteous way on a funeral in Hyderabad.

It was clear to observers that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was not being consulted on this matter, there was not even a pretence of that on the part of the emissaries of the Unseen Power. A few such as Ahmed Patel could be observed giving regular updates via cellphone to Somebody about the situation in 9 Motilal Nehru Marg. A very useful man, Ahmed Patel.

It was decided Somewhere that PV's body would be sent back to his home state. Ironically, PV had spent the previous 30 years in New Delhi, as a Cabinet minister, as an AICC general secretary and as prime minister. Even when he had been the prime minister, no member of his family lived with him, they would come on (infrequent) visits.

In his last years to, he lived alone. Thus the attempt to justify a shift to Hyderabad on the grounds that "he was not a Delhi resident" was somewhat of a stretch. Another argument used to justify the move to Hyderabad for the final obsequies was that the Vajpayee Cabinet had passed a resolution against any more samadhis. Again, for a regime that has been talking of 'detoxifying' the country from the misdeeds of the Vajpayee Parivar era, this was somewhat ingenious.

The family behaved with quiet dignity throughout. They said that as their father had been a Congressman, a freedom fighter, a prime minister, they would leave it to the Congress party and the government as to what was to be done.

The only moment of friction came when a high official suggested that if the sentiment was so overwhelming within the circle of those who loved PV that the cremation take place in the national capital, then very well, it would take place, but in the Delhi cantonment, as though PV were some bacillus that the refined gentry living in the Lutyens Zone did not want to see contaminate their environment.

The response to this suggestion on the part of those close to PV was that they would then cremate him at the Nigambodh Ghat, along with the other common men, which after all was all that he seemed to be to the powers-that-be.

It was at this stage that a Heavy Hitter arrived, in the person of Y S Rajshekhar Reddy, chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, who 'cajoled' those close to PV into 'agreeing' that it would be best to cremate him in Hyderabad. Around this time, those who looked like Intelligence Bureau sleuths began nosing around the rooms. It had been known that PV had kept voluminous records, including the draft of a book on the Emergency. It is unlikely that any of this will ever emerge into the daylight, except in a very sanitised way.

The next day, December 24, the body of the former Congress prime minister was brought to the gates of the AICC office at 24, Akbar Road and kept there for 20 minutes, 'to pay homage.' Apparently, the body was so heavy that it would not have been possible to lift what was left of PV from the gun carriage into the Congress headquarters, which would have been the civilised thing to do.

After this final humiliation, P V Narasimha Rao left New Delhi for Hyderabad, this time for good.

http://www.rediff.com/news/2004/dec/28monu.htm

Vajpayee Fades Out at Last (UPI)

M.D. Nalapat 

MANIPAL, India, May 27 (UPI) -- Former Indian prime ministers A.B. Vajpayee and P.V. Narasimha Rao are close friends, but while Vajpayee is low on intellect and superb in chemistry, the father of economic reform in India is the opposite -- high on IQ, low on EQ.

Meeting Vajpayee is a delight. The man always smiles and looks at you in a way that makes you feel that his existence was spent waiting for you. Every now and again, there is the emotion-laden hug that warms you to the man. Each of Vajpayee's gestures give off a soft glow but the words actually spoken by him are seldom Einsteinian. They usually consist of self-evident homilies such as, "peace is better than war" or "progress does more good for humankind than stagnation."

Useful propositions perhaps, but not entirely unknown. Going through the thousands of speeches made by the Bharatiya Janata Party regime's prime minister, it is difficult to locate any that deal with issues in a manner other than goody-goody.

The 79-year-old Atal Behari Vajpayee has been blessed by the angels all his life. They allowed him to lead the existence of a lotus-eater, continuing even in his just-concluded job as a relaxed man-about-town who has thus far remained untouched by controversy.

It is not that he ducked when exposes were flung his way; there has never been any need for such exertions, despite the reality that the Vajpayee government was the most graft-ridden that India has seen since 1947.