It's money, not Modi (Asian Age)

By M.D. Nalapat 

The pundits have spoken. The 2004 verdict was a rejection by rural India of the city-centric BJP. Also, a recoil from the 2002 carnage in Gujarat, when ministers in the Narendra Modi government participated as zestfully in genocide as their Congress counterparts did during the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom. Atal Behari Vajpayee has himself claimed that his unwillingness to sack Modi resulted in his rejection by the Indian voter.

Almost every metropolis in India chose anti-BJP candidates this time, barring Bangalore, which went determinedly saffron. The richest constituencies in India, South Mumbai and New Delhi, went for the Congress Party, as did several others where the only rural people seen are in the movies. And as for Narendra Modi and the Gujarat massacre, the truth is that this was an issue only among the converted, those against the BJP's policy of "Hinduising" society and the polity. 


The RSS and (the intermittent) Venkaiah Naidu are correct. If Modi were such anathema to the Indian voter, the BJP would not have won in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh last year, and done so well in the admittedly moderate state of Karnataka this time. The party even managed a respectable number of votes in Kerala, another redoubt of the fashionable liberal. 

A close examination of the voting trends shows that the BJP's slippage was in the constituency that had been backing the party since 1998, the middle class. A large chunk of those who voted for Vajpayee that year and in 1999 either kept away from the polls or voted against the BJP and its allies. While the pundits have heaped the discredit for the Tamil Nadu debacle on their favourite whipping girl, Jayalalitha, the reality is that the AIADMK held on to its vote share, while the BJP lost a lot of its support. It was the BJP that cost the AIADMK the election, by scaring away minority voters, rather than the other way about. The Dravidian party actually got a higher number of votes this time around than it had in the past. As in many other states, it was Vajpayee's lack of shine within the middle class that did it in. 

And why this aversion to a man touted by the media as a cross between Lincoln and Tennyson? The reason was not Modi. It was money.

Astonishingly, no pundit has bothered to remember the hammerblows that the honest middle-class investor has received as a result of the graft indulged in by the Vajpayee government. Nobody remembers the Unit Trust of India with its 20 million depositors, most of whom got taken to the cleaners during the Vajpayee years. While it had been (then) finance minister Manmohan Singh who had first permitted the UTI in 1994 to invest the bulk of its corpus in equity rather than in safer assets such as bonds, it was during 2000-2002 that the corporation was systematically milked of its capital by forcing it to invest in shares of dubious companies, including several based in Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. Not only was the UTI forced to buy such dodgy equity, it had to do so at a hefty premium, which was presumably split up between the promoters and the hidden voices that ordered UTI to purchase useless stock. The mobile phone records of disgraced UTI chairman Subramanian will show just who made the calls that led him to squander public funds. 

While there has not been any effort at uncovering the names of those who fleeced the Indian investor of nearly Rs 45,000 crores, nor has any "anti-BJP" party cared to bring out the facts (now that they are in a position to examine the records), those who lost their savings because of the systematic fraud conducted via the UTI know who was responsible: the Prime Minister's Office run by Brajesh Mishra. And they got revenge the only way they could, by voting against Vajpayee.

It was not only the UTI. The BJP had been strong in the metros, the precise locations targeted by another scam, that of the Conditional Access System (CAS). In an era of broadband and the technology of convergence, the Vajpayee government attempted to force television viewers in the big cities to go in for an expensive and outdated technology for reasons that are obvious. Every one of those who either had CAS forced down her or his throat, or was facing the threat of such action, would have had a powerful incentive to punish the Teflon "poet" who gave Narendra Modi a clean chit in 2002 but discovered two years later that the man was evil. Worse, that the chief minister of Gujarat had caused him his chair.
No, Atal, it was not Modi. It was you. It was your men (and not a few women) who realised by 2000 that the Indian stock market could easily get manipulated to get a horde of sacrificial lambs to invest during artificially-induced peaks, then face ruin as values slid. Today, the Indian stock market is not a casino, for there is no element of chance in it at all. Operators manipulate prices, their operations constrained only by the aversion to the equities market that the honest investor is demonstrating. Naturally, none of this will ever be seriously investigated.

Even if we put aside the numerous financial scams that made the Vajpayee government the most venal in the history of the Republic, just the UTI and the stock market fiascos are enough to show just why the BJP's main vote bank — the middle classes — deserted the party this time. Those appearing on television to urge people to back Vajpayee were — almost to a man — from among the super-elite of the country, those who have risen from poverty to lavish lifestyles. They conduct their birthday parties in Paris and spend $150,000 on a single visit to London. Of course, that is a city with many — and expensive — diversions. Today, the "face" of the BJP are these individuals, each oozing money from the pore, eyes darting sideways to see where the next suitcase of cash will come from. 

Under Vajpayee and with the active connivance of the RSS the BJP has become the party of the nouveau riche, expensive watches, clothes, goggles and all. Were all these choices made by Narendra Modi? Each was made by Vajpayee, L.K. Advani being but a shadow that — despite inspired leaks in the media about his defiance — faithfully follows Atal Behari Vajpayee to this day.

During the 2004 campaign, those handpicked by Vajpayee to run the show used to descend on state capitals to bully local party workers. Often, they would be accompanied by charming "friends" who would shop in the afternoons while Netaji went about ensuring five more years of Atal. These delightful individuals would be accompanied by party workers, who would watch as items worth lakhs of rupees got purchased from a single outlet. All payments would, naturally, be made in cash, in Rs 1,000 bills. Small wonder that few of the honest — and that is the operational word — party workers felt much motivation to get out the vote. Even in Kashmir, this time around the "Hindu" constituencies showed a much lower voter turnout than the normal. There was a turning away from this corruption and misrule, even though few voters were aware of the non-economic ways in which the country has been shortchanged by those in government and by those then in the Opposition who remained silent.

Will Sitaram Yechury come forward and demand that the telephone records of the UTI's then chairman be made public? Will Harkishan Singh Surjeet or A.B. Bardhan ask how so many highway contracts went to Malaysian companies, or will they remember that Ottavio Quattrocchi was for long a resident of Kuala Lumpur, and desist? Will they ask that the mysterious "Q" be made to come to India to face justice? Unlikely. They are all now part of one big, happy family. Suresh Pachauri can be relied upon to do the job that Brajesh Mishra did during 1998-2004. After the next election, when the Congress-led coalition collapses, there will be another Narendra Modi, another red herring, to pin the blame on. The system will go on, the Swiss bank accounts will continue to grow, and millions of honest Indians will have no other way of showing their protest than by evicting Tweedledum and bringing in Tweedledee.


http://www.indiarightsonline.com/E5256E2F0022A29E/0/619958ED16203B2F65256EC30048E25A?Open&Highlight=2,nalapat

Avoid a Kuwait in Taiwan (UPI)

M.D. Nalapat

MANIPAL, India, July 25 (UPI) -- During his decade-long battle with Iran, Saddam Hussein was the recipient of support from the United States as well as from such countries such as the United Kingdom, which did not want to see a Khomeinists theocracy dominate the Persian Gulf.

Those in India who were in contact with the deposed president of Iraq and his advisers say that the belief among them was that the United States would not intervene to reverse a takeover of Kuwait, provided that the Iraqi forces did not carry the campaign forward into Saudi Arabia.

Former U.S. ambassador April Glaspie's ambiguous response to Saddam Hussein a short while before the decision to invade was taken was only one of a series of similar messages relayed to the dictator during that period. Soon afterward, Saddam Hussein took over Kuwait, and got thrown back - and, after another decade, out - by the United States.

Within the higher levels of the Chinese Communist Party, a similar debate is now going on about Taiwan.

Will Washington really intervene to reverse a PRC takeover, or will the United States simply indulge in some saber rattling, impose a trade embargo for a while, and then get back to business as usual with Beijing?

The Chinese Communists look at societies holistically, not separating out the different strands but conceptually weaving them into a unified entity with a common decision core. Hence, "casual" remarks from businesspersons or academics known to have close personal ties with senior administration officials are given the same attention as official statements, sometimes more.

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.

Sabahism, not Wahabbism (UPI)

M.D. Nalapat

MANIPAL, India, April 23 (UPI) -- Kuwait is a tiny sliver of land sandwiched between the three regional giants of Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Unlike the three, the country is free from extremism and is showcasing economic rather than religious or ethnic issues to underline its identity. Local women go about the shopping malls in denims, although the emir of Kuwait has not been able to persuade Parliament to give voting rights to this better half of the Kuwaiti population.  But it is to be hoped that the next elections will witness both women candidates as well as voters.

The ruling family in Kuwait, the Al-Sabah, are close friends of their Saudi cousins, the Al-Saud. However, the two dynasties have followed entirely different paths in managing their respective countries. For one, the Al-Sauds have been much more proliferant, now numbering an estimated 27,000 -- not counting more distant relatives. They have also taken seriously the message implicit in the very naming of their country after themselves, helping themselves to 36 percent of the total wealth of the kingdom, leaving the rest mostly to the families close to the court.

Many Saudi citizens -- especially in the Shiite east -- enjoy neither running water nor electricity. In contrast, Prince Abdel Aziz Al-Saud, the favorite son of King Fahd, has just done his bit for reducing unemployment in the kingdom by building a new palace in Riyadh at a reported cost of $670 million. No 30-year-old can be content with just a single home, so the austere Saudi royal is building another palace in Jeddah, although this will cost a mere $540 million.

The skies over Europe are filled with private aircraft ferrying the Al-Sauds from one hotspot to the other, and the boutique stores in Paris and London would close down but for free-spending Saudi princes and princesses. Sadly for the Saudi people, such largesse does not extend to home.

Move the UN to Ethiopia (UPI)

M.D. Nalapat

WASHINGTON, Nov. 13 (UPI) -- Those responsible for the creation of the United Nations conglomerate were idealists, intent on seeking to avoid another international conflict.

They succeeded in the conventional sense. The prospect of another conventional world war is remote, though regional and intercontinental conflicts continue and groups like al-Qaida -- not specifically nation-states though tied to one or more of them -- have emerged to fight a global war against the values and the systems of pluralist democracies.

The Peoples Republic of China is seeking to create a self-perpetuating super state independent of the people as a means of securing its interests. The PRC is supporting a slew of similarly authoritarian structures across the world with missile and nuclear technology.

Several democracies are having to battle against insurgencies and terrorism while AIDS has replaced tuberculosis as the primary killer of the world's poor.

What are the conflicts that the UN has succeeded in preventing?

The threshold of effectiveness appears low. In a few instances the UN system as such -- as distinct from the actions of a few of its member states -- was able to prevent a conflict or stop it once begun. The organization's principal value has been as a talking shop, a pulpit for the preaching of verities. Much of the "work" of the several thousand functionaries is comprised of going from one meeting to the other, organizing yet another "talk-a-thon" after getting through several.

Stripped of verbiage, the UN has value only as a clearinghouse of concepts and policies. It has value in a world in which several countries are below the radar of the attention of the powerful. If there were no United Nations, it would need to be invented -- but not along the lines of how the current organization as taken shape.

The Battlefield is the Mind (UPI)

M.D. Nalapat

MANIPAL, India, Oct. 13 (UPI) -- After World War I, the consequences of the Versailles "peace" were the rise of the National Socialists and World War II. That conflict was followed by the Marshall Plan, the democratization of Germany, Italy and Japan and their bonding with the United States and the United Kingdom into both a security alliance as well as an economic partnership. Both British values and American culture permeated the three former Axis powers, vacuuming away the hostility in the minds of their populations to the victors.

Today, some Germans (as indeed many Britons and more than a few French) may be against what George Bush did to Saddamite Iraq. Almost none are anti-American except in a narrow political sense -- in other words, except in the same way as many Britons are "anti"-Blair and several U.S. citizens "hostile" to Bush.

Why did the Peace imposed after World War II create a benign backlash while that which followed World War I create the Hitler-Tojo-Mussolini monster? The reason was that conquest was achieved in the 1914-1919 conflict only on the ground, over physical territory. In the second, it won over the mind of the "enemy" population pool as well. It can be argued that the extremely liberal treatment given to the Germans after they had backed the most loathsome dictatorship in history, a policy of forgiveness that took within its fold more than 95 percent of those who had been active in the NSDAP, helped avoid a second Hitler.

It is now clear that the formal respect paid to the Emperor of Japan and to the non-militaristic aspects of the culture of that civilization, together with an efficient MacArthurite democratization and integration into the modern economy of Japan, transformed a power that had been first suspicious of and then hostile to the West (at least for the previous two centuries) into a reliable ally, despite the horrors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima

Operation Enduring Freedom ought to have been conducted by giving the same billing to a "Free Iraq" leadership as was given to its U.S.-U..K participants. A Free Iraqi general conducting press briefings jointly with the non-telegenic Tommy Franks, four stars glistening on his lapel, would have had an effect similar to that created by projecting Charles De Gaulle as the heroic leader of a multitude of "Free French," when the reality in German-occupied France was that the level of resistance was far lower than that found in the eastern theatres, while active collaboration was high. The "Free French" were, however, wonderful in cinema newsreels and on the BBC and VOA, which was enough to preserve French pride in the postwar period, avoiding the kind of backlash that made Paris the prime mover behind the Versailles Treaty.

To Win in Iraq, Change Tack (UPI)

M.D. Nalapat 

MANIPAL, India, Oct. 2 (UPI) -- Foreign troops arrive as liberators, receiving a rapturous welcome from the local population. Soon after, small forces of armed men begin to emerge occasionally from the shadows, shooting at the occupiers -- who must respond indiscriminantly if at all because they cannot distinguish between friend and foe.

Civilian casualties mount. The welcome evolves into suspicion. The resistance grows bolder, thanks in no small part to increased support from within the population. The minor attacks multiply until the occupation force is goaded into carrying out major military operations that cause countless civilian casualties.

Post-war Iraq? No. It is Sri Lanka, circa August 1987, the year an Indian military force landed on the island to enforce a peace between Sinhalese and Tamils.

Within weeks irregulars from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam launched an offensive against the IPKF, using civilian areas as cover. Liberation movement guerillas would pop up from within a crowd, spray a passing IPKF convoy with bullets and disappear -- while the soldiers fire back on a crowd of non-combatants.

After more than a year of this, the Indians changed their tactics.

They began to emphasize medical and other services to win the hearts of the civilian population, and they used used radio and print to disseminate information about the ruthlessness of the LTTE towards any individual who opposed it.

U.S. losing Mind War in Iraq

M.D. Nalapat 

MANIPAL, India, June 23 (UPI) -- After World War I, the consequences of the Versailles "peace" were the rise of the National Socialists and World War II. That conflict was followed by the Marshall Plan, the democratization of Germany, Italy and Japan and their bonding with the United States and Britain into both a security alliance as well as an economic partnership. Both British values and American culture permeated the three former Axis powers, vacuuming away the hostility in the minds of their populations to the victors. Today, some Germans (as indeed many Britons and more than a few French) may be anti-Enduring Freedom. Almost none is anti-American except in a narrow political sense.

Why did the peace imposed after World War II create a benign backlash while that which followed World War I create the Hitler-Tojo-Mussolini monster? The reason was that conquest was achieved in the 1914-1918 conflict only on the ground, over physical territory. In the second, it won over the mind of the "enemy" population pool as well. It can be argued the extremely liberal treatment given to the Germans after they had backed the most loathsome dictatorship in history, a policy of forgiveness that took within its fold more than 95 percent of those who had been active in the NSDAP, helped avoid a second Hitler. It is now clear the formal respect paid to the emperor of Japan and to the non-militaristic aspects of the culture of that civilization, together with ruthless MacArthurite democratization and integration into the modern economy, transformed a power that had been first suspicious of and then hostile to the West (at least for the previous two centuries) into a reliable ally, despite the horror of Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

Forget that Operation Enduring Freedom ought to have been conducted by giving equal billing to a "Free Iraq" leadership as was given to U.S. participants. A Free Iraqi general conducting news briefings jointly with the non-telegenic Tommy Franks would have had an effect similar to that created by projecting Charles De Gaulle as the heroic leader of a horde of "Free French" when the reality in German-occupied France was that the level of resistance was far lower than that found in the eastern theatres, while active collaboration was high. The "Free French" were, however, wonderful in cinema newsreels and on the British Broadcasting Corp. and Voice of America, which was enough to preserve French pride into the postwar period, avoiding the kind of backlash that made Paris craft the Versailles Treaty.

Constrain, not contain, China (UPI)

M.D. Nalapat

MANIPAL, India, June 6 (UPI) -- Second of two parts

The Clinton administration tried to recruit Communist China as a strategic ally that would help Washington defend U.S. interests, but that strategy failed because China's long-term interests are significantly different from those of the United States.

China seeks the strategic withdrawal of the United States from Asia, and sees itself as the replacement.

It would like to ensure that an Asian Common Market get formed that would give member-countries -- principally itself -- preference over countries outside the bloc.

An Asian Common Market that included the Middle East, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and South Asia would isolate Japan, suck in South Korea, and in the view of the planners in Beijing, ensure Chinese prosperity at a time of increased tensions with Washington.

Today, throughout Asia with the exception of Japan and, until recently India, China has been conducting a quiet but persistent diplomacy designed to wean the countries of the region away from their "dependence" on the United States.

This has been only partially successful in the ASEAN region of Southeast Asia, as most of the countries belonging to this group are wary of the giant nearby, seeing it afar as a safer option, at least in private.

Constraining China (UPI)

M.D. Nalapat

MANIPUR, India, June 3 (UPI) -- After it became clear that Winston Churchill had been right at Fulton, Missouri after World War II and that the Soviet Union had imposed an "Iron Curtain" on postwar Europe, the United States began a policy of "containment" against Moscow.

This involved the putting in place of a cordon sanitaire that blocked Moscow from access to significant sections of Western markets and technology. Countries that were not already communist were sought to be kept away from Soviet influence, while within that bloc, those republics such as Yugoslavia that demonstrated some independence of the Soviet Union were encouraged in their behavior by access to Western financial and other resources

The Soviet Union, both individually and through its satellites, imposed a quarantine on Western -- principally American -- scholars and others from civil society, who were given either zero or highly restricted access to the Soviet bloc. However, the choking-off of such non-official contacts was not one way. Successive Cold War U.S. governments encouraged neither tourism nor investment to the Soviet bloc. In the case of countries such as Cuba, they were explicitly banned by Washington

This denial of markets and direct knowledge of the functioning of a modern economy resulted in the Soviet Union having to re-invent not one but several wheels, either by stealing or by developing technology on its own. Refused the chance of cross-fertilization with Western financial and mercantile infrastructure, the Soviet economy remained mired in a command system that often relied exclusively on quantitative measures of performance.

Why not an Asian NATO? (UPI)

M.D. Nalapat 


MANIPUR, India, April 26 (UPI) -- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other war planners in the Pentagon may bridle at the comparison, but the reality is that the U.S. military establishment follows the example set by the State Department in at least one crucially wrong assumption: the belief that European traditions and analytical models can suffice to analyze Asia.

After all, since Asia was carved up among different European countries until a few decades back, clearly that meant the Europeans knew their way around.

However, times have changed, and today's Asia is a fusion of local with Western mindstreams that paradoxically make the peoples of the world's biggest continent more difficult to understand by Western scholarship.

An example is Iraq. Several Asian scholars -- including the writer, in these columns -- had warned that the absence of involvement of local anti-Saddam Hussein militias and the prominence given to the British -- the former colonizers of Iraq and therefore a people the locals are understandably sensitive about -- by U.S. war planners was likely to lead to a bulge in support for the Saddam regime, fighting what is perceived as a new Western war of conquest.

The Clash of Civilizations (UPI)

M.D. Nalapat

MANIPAL, India, Nov. 24 (UPI) -- Our new 21st century is seeing religion-based extremism and authoritarian attempts at hegemony over democratic entities emerge as the twin threats to international stability, the way Japan and Germany challenged the Western democracies in the 1930s. Deeper than politics, even economics, it is civilisational currents that are determining the likely alliances in this conflict. Each of the four broad streams now extant on the planet has its own characteristics.

These four civilisational streams are: first, Euro-Indic; second, Arabian; third, Sinic; and fourth, African. Each is further divided into tributaries. The Euro-Indic has the most offshoots,including those dominant in India, Russia, France, the Spanish Peninsula, Britain, Turkey, Iran and Germany.

Several earlier manifestations,such as the Greek and the Roman, have effectively disappeared, as have those from other streams, such as the Egyptian. Each tributary contains elements of the others, and indeed significant strands of other streams. For example, African culture has gone deep into European music and dance.

Next in importance to the Euro-Indic is the Sinic,which again is divided into tributaries based in China itself. There are at least three major variants based ton the south, north and north-west of China itself: Korea, Vietnam and Japan. Several other countries, such as Cambodia, Thailand and Laos have a fusion of the Euro-Indic with the Sinic, while Malaysia and Indonesia have evolved a separate tributary based substantially on the Euro-Indic, but incorporating elements from the Arabian.

Mind Wars and Iraq (UPI)

M.D. Nalapat

MANIPAL, India, Nov. 11 (UPI) -- After World War I, the great powers imposed a peace on Germany that led to a fresh conflagration just two decades later, one far more virulent in its scope and effects. The coming military campaign against Iraq promises to be a duck shoot, given that country's eviscerated war machine. However, unless equal attention is paid to the "chemistry" of the campaign -- its "mind" factor -- as well as its "mechanics" -- the straightforward military aspects -- the very victory over Iraq may create the conditions for an intensification of the terror war against secular democracies.

This would affect the strategic interests of the democracies worldwide. To paraphrase a phrase from the 1992 Clinton campaign," It's the Mind, Stupid!" Defeating the Iraqi armed forces and toppling Saddam Hussein needs to be complemented by the creation of an atmosphere within the Muslim world that accepts such a success to be in their interests as well.

In other words, the strategy against Saddam needs to be a fusion of mechanics and chemistry .While the first deals with field mechanics and hardware, the second concentrates on the atmospherics and the psychological effects of such actions.

Islamic radicals have attempted to overcome their deficiencies in the "mechanical" with emphasis on the "chemical" in their war against modern civilization. This strategy has thus far been neglected by Western military planners.

In Afghanistan, it was not the air-dropping of peanut butter but the entry of fellow-Afghans into the battle against the Taliban that dried up support for that regime. In a similar way, there needs to be very visible -- and voluble -- Iraqi faces in the campaign against Saddam alongside President George W Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The Eagle Spreads its Wings (UPI)

M.D. Nalapat

MANIPAL, India, Sept. 6 (UPI) -- Since partial economic liberalization freed the Indian economy from the "Nehru" rate of growth -- 2 percent -- India has escaped from the South Asia box designed for it by China and its former Cold War adversary, the United States.

At the same time, Pakistan, with a real economy nine times smaller, is no longer able to generate enough torque to pin India down through sub-continental squabbles.

In the early 1990s, Kashmir represented around 50 percent of India's security problems. Today, that share of the Pakistani army's project has dipped to 20 percent.

China, insurgent bases in Myanmar, Bhutan and Bangladesh and the danger of proliferating Hindu and Muslim extremist groups has overtaken that unhappy vale, while the Pakistani military establishment appears determined to battle India to the last Kashmiri.

This freedom from fear of defeat in Kashmir has led what I describe as the Indian strategic eagle to spread its wings.

Geopolitically, India approximates an eagle with its torso over the country, one wing-stretching out toward the Middle East and Central Asia and the other positioned over Southeast Asia.

One talon is grounded in southern Africa, while the other locates itself in prospective partner Indonesia.

The head of the eagle is turned toward Tibet and Yunnan, two Chinese provinces with significant past and future cultural and economic synergy with India. 

That eagle is now spreading its wings.

Indo-Pakistan Nuclear Myth (UPI)

M.D. Nalapat

MANIPAL, India, Aug. 31 (UPI) -- Since the mid-1980s, there has been a vigorous campaign by academics in the United States and Europe to say that a "high" risk of nuclear war exists between Pakistan and India. Most of these scholars are "South Asia experts", a school formed in the crucible of the Cold War, when Soviet-allied India ranged itself politically against the United States, while Pakistan did the opposite, as did post-Deng China.

Since the beginning of economic liberalization in the mid-1990s, the rate of economic growth in India has risen from 2 percent during the Jawaharlal Nehru period to nearly 9 percent under Narasimha Rao.

Today, because of the inefficiency of the Vajpayee government, the rate of growth has fallen to 5 percent. India can easily achieve a double-digit growth rate, given a better government.

During 2001 several conferences on international investment pointed out that India was emerging as a better investment destination than China.

The reasons given were that: 1 -- more than 200 million Indians spoke English; 2 -- the country was a democracy with a Western legal and educational system; and 3 -- culturally the Indian people belonged to the same Indo-European family as the West.

The fact is that investment into India began to increase, from $1 billion five years ago to nearly $4 billion now. This is still far below China's huge totals, collectively estimated at $300 billion.

Ending 'Bootleg' Immigration (UPI)

M.D. Nalapat

WASHINGTON, India, Aug. 3 (UPI) -- What is inevitable cannot be prevented. It can only be redirected in ways either less harmful or actually helpful.

In the 1920s, several moralistic U.S. politicians enacted The Volsted Act, making the production and sale of alcohol illegal everywhere in American. Predictably, that prohibition led to the rise of nationwide organized crime and the proliferation of bootleg alcohol.

Three decades later, several states in newly independent India attempted the same experiment, only to lose hundreds of citizens through the consumption of illicit brew, and to watch crime syndicates multiply to meet the demand.

Modern demographic trends mandate significant migration into the European Union. Thanks to laws and procedures as unrealistic as Prohibition, traffickers in human beings, as opposed to bootleg hooch, are not in large part supplying the demands for labor, operating mainly out of North Africa, East Europe and the China coast

None of these three regions has institutions and societal habits that compare favorably to those found in western democracy. While most countries in East Europe are now democracies, at least partly, habits of the past five decades continue to infect the elites and the rest of the population -- further effecting their re-adjustment to societies where free choice is taken for granted.

It is not accidental, for instance, that the largely Italian "Mafia" that rule the criminal underworld in the United States and Europe from the 1920's on has, by the late-1990s, been replaced in several key European cities by their "Romanian"," Russian" and "Albanian" counterparts.

India and Russia: With China or the U.S.? (UPI)

M.D Nalapat

MANIPIL, India, June 15 (UPI) -- Under Russian President Vladimir Putin ties between India and Russia have recovered the closeness that was a geo-political given until the Yeltsin years. Before, the Mafia ruled in Moscow and external interests manipulated the two countries into compromising national interests for protection abroad.

Today, India's best friend has recovered from the chaos of those years and is on track to restoring its superpower status and responsibilities. New Delhi and Moscow come as a package. An alliance with the one implies an accommodation with the other.

While the United States is a bi-continental -- in fact, quadric-continental -- power thanks to its superb cultural amalgam of Europe and Asia, Russia is equally so because of geography.

Unfortunately, thus far, the hidden opposition of France and Germany -- eager to retain their shared domination over Europe, a control that would dissolve in the event of Russia's entry -- has prevented Moscow from being offered terms for integration into European structures that are commensurate with its potential.

Sonia to Vajpayee: Anyone but Alexander (Rediff)

Last month, Congress President Sonia Gandhi requested a meeting with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who -- as he has always done with the lady -- promptly obliged. Her message was urgent: the Congress would support any candidate as the eleventh President of India but Dr P C Alexander, the governor of Maharashtra.

Were, as a face-saver, the party to be given the vice-presidential slot, Sonia would ensure Congress backing for Bharatiya Janata Party MP Dr L M Singhvi or former Rajasthan chief minister Bhairon Singh Shekhawat. Why, even Vice-President Krishna Kant was preferable to Dr Alexander, the mild-mannered administrator who had served Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi for decades, and even named his first child four decades ago after Jawaharlal Nehru.

In 1995, in (a very different) Times of India, this correspondent had said Sonia wanted to become prime minister of India, and that P V Narasimha Rao's refusal to stand down after two years in office (which Sonia had hoped he would do as a gesture of loyalty to the new Empress of the Congress party) would result in open war with her. At that time, my analysis had been disbelieved. Sonia was considered just a simple Indian wife, tending to the 'family' trusts and ensuring that the legacy of the Nehrus was preserved. It took the dismissal of Sitaram Kesri as Congress president to show how wrong these individuals were.

The next year, Sonia encouraged J Jayalalithaa to break away from the BJP by promising to support an alternative government led by a non-Congress leader but containing Congress ministers. As soon as the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam supremo withdrew support to the BJP, Sonia became unavailable on the telephone to the very individuals she had been importuning for weeks to bring down the Vajpayee regime. Most of them realized her game plan only when television channels showed a smiling Sonia claiming -- erroneously as it turned out -- she had the 272 MPs needed to form a government. For two years she lay low, but by mid-2001, she was back to planning a second attempt at toppling the Vajpayee regime, this time with the help of that 1978 veteran, Kamal Nath

Prime Minister Vajpayee, it is understood, rejected Sonia's offer and made it clear that Dr Alexander was being considered as a Presidential candidate. The Maharashtra governor has an excellent track record besides a reputation for avoiding politicking. His two sons are both professionals, not businessmen or politicians. While the elder works for the Asian Development Bank in Manila, the younger son lives in India.

Vajpayee need not have been surprised by Sonia's plea. In January, she had assembled a war council comprising party leaders Arjun Singh, K Natwar Singh and Ambika Soni to veto Dr Alexander's candidature. Natwar Singh visited Rashtrapati Bhavan several times, requesting President K R Narayanan to contest a second term, telling him that Dr Alexander was out of grace with Sonia.

Thus far, it is learnt the President has refused to sully his dignity by agreeing to a contest with Dr Alexander, should the latter be the National Democratic Alliance nominee. Except for India's first President Rajendra Prasad, no other President has been granted a second term at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

President Narayanan is in poor health, a muscular ailment preventing him from discharging his duties. Moreover, the President's dislike of the BJP and affinity to Sonia is no secret, a factor that may have weighed with that party in rejecting pleas that he be given a second term.

Despite three meetings with Narayanan to persuade him to contest, Natwar Singh has thus far drawn a blank. The Communist parties are also trying to convince Narayanan to contest a second term, while former prime minister I K Gujral and some Andhra Pradesh leaders are working on Vice-President Krishna Kant's behalf. One powerful media house is rooting for Dr Singhvi, former Indian high commissioner to Great Britain.

The NDA has the advantage in electoral arithmetic. Together with the Telugu Desam Party, the AIADMK, the Nationalist Congress Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party, the NDA has a 126,000 vote margin over the Congress, Samajwadi Party, Rashtriya Janata Dal, the Left, and other political entities. The NDA and its friends have around 66,000 votes more than the 50% of the 545,000 votes in the Electoral College that elects the President of India

Since Narayanan is unlikely to get a second term and considering the Maharashtra governor's decades-long association with the Nehru family, Kerala Chief Minister A K Antony and his associate Oomen Chandy tried to mobilize support for Dr Alexander with Sonia. Like President Narayanan, Dr Alexander hails from Kerala. While Sonia kept mum, Arjun Singh ticked off the duo, telling them that the chances of Sonia becoming prime minister would decline sharply if a Christian were to become the next President of India.

http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/may/18prez.htm

Preserve the values of our Indic civilisation (Rediff)

Years ago, when it was still fashionable to knock India, V S Naipaul wrote sneeringly of the way Indians relieved themselves "everywhere". The assumption was that the people of this land fancied the open air as their latrine, when the reality was that this was the only available option. No doubt Sir Vidia would have, given the same [lack of] choice, held on and on and on rather than taken the easy way out.
It is not just a shortage of toilets, but of jobs, that is the residue of the decades of Nehruvian policies that this country has been battered with. Many are forced to beg because -- again -- there is no alternative.
But how does one describe those with options who nonetheless resort to beggary as the first and only line of action? In other words, how does one describe the policy of the A B Vajpayee government, which sent a delegation to Canberra and Wellington to beg Australia and New Zealand to restore order in Fiji, and another to New York to implore Kofi Annan to save the hapless Indian soldiers being held prisoner in Sierra Leone?
India is fortunate in its fighting forces. Despite being fobbed off with poor weaponry and execrable generalship during Kargil, our boys won back the territory that had been lost through the negligence of two commanders slated for promotion: Lieutenant General Krishan Pal and Major General V S Budhwar. Had the 21 hostages in Sierra Leone been from the US, the region would have been sizzling with warships and military aircraft. Instead, there are the usual set-piece reports about how well the hostages are feeling and how wonderful the conditions of their captivity are.
We heard the same litany during Kandahar, when Jaswant Singh told us of the five-star luxury that was being enjoyed by the hostages of the Pakistani irregulars who had hijacked the Kathmandu flight. After the capitulation, none of our "free" media outlets has bothered to conduct detailed interviews with the former captives, to give the Indian people a coherent account of the facts. Such publicity would upset the cozy relationships between the media outlets and those responsible for Kandahar.
And what of Sri Lanka, where the BJP-led government urged the Sri Lankan Army to surrender Jaffna? Fortunately for that island nation, this advice was spurned and the LTTE has been unable to march into the town in triumph, despite the best efforts of the Vajpayee government.
Reports are that the US is behind the Israeli help to Colombo. This writer has often criticised Washington, but -- as in 1990 when he supported Operation Desert Storm and called for Indian troops to fight alongside the Americans -- in this operation the only statement that can be made is: Three Cheers for America! The pity is that it is the vacuum created by New Delhi's abdication of responsibility in its neighbourhood that has resulted in Washington having to step in. Slowly the US is acknowledging the mutuality of interests that tie the two "giants of democracy" together, and this time around Washington would have welcomed an active Indian role. But given the pro-LTTE stance of the Vajpayee government, this was not forthcoming.
New Delhi was too scared of the US to actively help Velupillai Prabhakaran, so it did nothing, confining its efforts to diplomatic calls for a Sri Lankan surrender of Jaffna. Chandrika Kumaratunga has certainly been repaid for her India-friendly policy, a lesson that must not be lost on Sheikh Hasina Wajed and Girija Prasad Koirala.
Just whom is the puffed-up cockerel trying to fool? Cringing fear of the NATO powers, as well as of Japan and China, has prevented the Vajpayee government from pushing through the tests needed to fully operationalise Agni and Prithvi. When this cowardice became too evident to conceal, a single Prithvi test was permitted, reportedly after strong objections from Jaswant Singh.
Empirical evidence confirms that a major power such as India cannot be seriously affected by sanctions were it to develop its defences at the desired speed. Sadly, the Vajpayee government -- after the initial flash of bravado demonstrated at Pokhran -- is even more pusillanimous than the Narasimha Rao and Inder Gujral governments in sanctioning the tests needed to ensure a credible minimum deterrent. It is small wonder that US and other television networks have been making fun of India's puny arsenal, claiming that Pakistan's (foreign-backed) programme is much bigger.
Lack of an effective response from India only encourages such transfer of technology to Islamabad by forces too foolish to understand the dangers to their own security were Pakistan to become a nuclear weapons power. The best answer to such threats is to go ahead with the testing of DRDO [Defence Research and Development Organisation] missiles. For that, Vajpayee's remote control in the external affairs ministry (who is himself remote-controlled by "My friend Strobe") will need to lose the hold he has on the prime minister.
On the other hand, the government has been kowtowing to Ram Vilas Paswan openly and to Sharad Yadav and Parkash Singh Badal secretly. Small wonder that the finance ministry took fright at the plunge in share prices caused by a diligent income-tax officer finding out that most of the financial entities "headquartered" in Mauritius were using that route to speculate in the Indian stock market.
Thanks to the Port Louis loophole, capital gains tax can be avoided in the sale of equity shares in India by FIIs registered in Mauritius. As a result, rampant speculation is going on that is causing hundreds of thousands of small investors to lose their savings. Either Yashwant Sinha should create a level playing field by abolishing capital gains tax on all share transactions, or he should refuse to get blackmailed by a few operators in Dalal Street into blocking the enquiries of the income-tax department into the Mauritius scam.
In fact, it is not only Mauritius that is a haven for crooks wanting to cheat the Indian exchequer of revenue. London is a favourite address for entities wishing to avoid taxation in India. For example, in the past two years, Air-India has shelled out Rs 9 billion to a "nameplate" company that has no functional office or any aircraft, but which has been given the contract to ferry pilgrims on Haj. Naturally, no newspaper will write about this allegedly UK-based outfit. To do so would be against the rules, and may result in suspension of writing privileges for the journo who exposed the facts. Together with the [unreported] details about Sonia Gandhi's educational career and family financial history, these will go unwritten. The Boston-based son and Delhi-based son-in-law (who is the major shareholder in a hotel chain that is setting up 16 hotels across India, despite his middle-class origins) can rest easy. Details of the ownership matrix of the US $1.2 billion chain are unlikely to be made public.
What a wonderful country, where the leader of the Opposition and the prime minister shadowbox in public, but enjoy a cozy working relationship in private. Atal Bihari Vajpayee cannot be blamed for ensuring that Sonia Gandhi remains head of the Congress party, for it is this "leader" that -- in the view of L K Advani and others -- has consolidated the NDA. The blame has to be laid entirely on the members of the Congress Working Committee, the gang that begged Sonia to take over and today lacks the courage to throw her out, even though almost all of them despise her in private and many even voice contempt for the Orbassano school dropout openly. So long as the goodies keep coming in from her captive chief ministers, Sonia Maino will not surrender the AICC's presidency.
An unfortunate byproduct of the Sonia phase has been the development of an anti-Christian feeling in some sections of other communities. That Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka are practising Catholics is of no concern to the rest of us. It is their right to follow the religion of their choice. But her shrill attacks on Hindu organisations and the silence on pro-Pakistan outfits have created a "Jinnah" image for Rajiv Gandhi's widow. As a result, the ISI has been able to find eager recruits from among Hindu organisations to spark an orgy of Christian-bashing that is designed to distance the West from India.
The ISI is aware that interaction with the US-EU will help speed up Indian economic growth. By funding Hindu fanatics to burn churches and kill priests, the Lahore mafia is seeking to deter the inevitable co-operation between the West and India, which after all is home of the Mother Civilisation from which the Germanic, Gallic, Russic and Iberic versons developed.
There is a widespread belief that ISI agents invariably belong to the Muslim community. But information from relevant agencies indicates that many are Hindus, in fact those belonging to fanatic organisations that seek to introduce a Taliban-style society in India. Some of them may not realise where their funding is coming from, though others knowingly collect funds from ISI paymasters such as the D-company.
The rest of us need to realise that only a moderate social ethos can liberate India from poverty, and that any fanatic is evil, no matter which house of worship he or she frequents. Only by holding on to the core values of the Indic Mother Civilisation can we protect our land from going the way of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

http://www.rediff.com/news/2000/jun/22monu.htm

Clinton's two real loves (Rediff)

Small wonder that Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Kishanchand Advani have upgraded Sonia Gandhi's security cover to equal that given to the President of the Republic. But for the distaste in which most Indian voters hold the middle-school graduate from Orbassano, the BJP-led government would have fallen in weeks. Its twin leaders have both demonstrated their unwillingness to give a coherent administration to this opportunity-rich country. Indeed, if any progress is being made, it is despite the Advani-Atal government.

Sonia and her large family love chocolate, and the Rajya Sabha election has given them yet another chance to feast. Most of the selected candidates will have been chosen for their ability to lavish mithai on the charming family that is estimated to be costing the country's taxpayers Rs 3.6 million per day in security, infrastructure and related costs.

Of course, such sweet-filled considerations for selection have operated in every election since Sonia Maino took over the Congress party. And it is thus that upstanding citizens who have made weighty contributions to public life such as Mani Kumar Subba were selected as Congress candidates. Small wonder that even Kapil Sibal (who knows a bit of law and of Mr Subba) felt that Subba would be a candidate who would enhance the prestige and image of Mahatma Gandhi's party. Chacha Advani, who has voluminous data on this favourite of 10 Janpath, is as usual following his Three Monkeys policy of seeing, hearing and speaking no evil.

Were Lal to indulge in bedtime reading, he may perhaps look through information on the ONGC, for example. For more than two decades this organisation has concentrated on not discovering oil. Enquiries with staff would show the whys and hows of the sabotage of the country's petroleum capabilities by individuals responding to pressure from external interests.

Every once in a way -- by mistake -- the ONGC discovers a rich field. This is promptly sold to overseas interests who -- surprise, surprise -- ensure that production gets stifled. The juniormost engineers in ONGC are aware of the location of the proven fields that have thus been gifted to companies seemingly unable to extract oil.

Were the home minister to call into account just a few officials of the ONGC and the petroleum ministry, he may reduce India's import bill by billions of dollars. What he does do is issue bold statements on 'wars to the finish' against extremists and crooks, the most recent being in Andhra Pradesh, the home of some offshore finds that have been given away by the ONGC.

In this trait, he is following in the footsteps of his leader Atalji who kept repeating that he would not compromise with the terrorism at Kandahar till almost the hour when Jassu and his three passengers from Indian prisons were airborne.

Instead of backing the Kalyan Singhs and the Keshubhai Patels, were Advani to spend his diminishing energy on rooting out specific instances of anti-national sabotage such as:

1. the scuttling of oil discoveries by ONGC;

2. the denial of equipment to Indian troops facing Pakistan;

3. the causes behind the rotting of millions of tonnes of foodgrain;

4. the use of Kathmandu as a hawala channel and as the point of entry for counterfeit Indian currency (Attari is chicken feed, but then Nepal is a Hindu kingdom that can by definition do no wrong, which is why it is soon to be rewarded by the reopening of air traffic with India;

and

5. the throttling of the nuclear and missile programmes by a team of politicians and their henchmen, he may do some service to India rather than to just the two Holy Families at 10 Janpath and 5 Race Course Road.

Unlike Murli Manohar Joshi, who imprudently sought to take action on the Nehru trusts, our media-friendly home minister has been singularly inactive in probing -- much less booking -- political families that are auctioning Indian interests.

Poor Jassu. Even the Israelis treat him with contempt. Tel Aviv gave exactly four hours notice to the Indian foreign minister when it called off his visit to that capital. The explanation given by Jassu's admirers in the Indian media was that all the key personalities in Israel had rushed off to Washington, when the fact is that they were all very much at home.

Thanks to Jassu's forging spirit, even leaving aside Clinton favourite Pervez Musharraf, now Chandrika Kumaratunga has invited Knut Vollebaek of Norway to intervene in its internal dispute with the Tigers. The same Vollebaek had made some very dismissive comments on India while in New Delhi, for which he was duly lionised in Sacher-Masoch's spiritual home.

Today this sneering critic of India has insinuated himself and his masters into Sri Lankan domestic issues, to silence from New Delhi. At one time there were the glimmerings of a Delhi Doctrine; South Asian problems should be left to South Asians themselves to settle. Now, thanks to Vajpayee diplomacy, the region is experiencing significant alien intervention.

Had the forgetful Vajpayee remembered Indian interests, he would have dropped plans for an address to the joint session of Parliament by that declared enemy of India, William Jefferson Clinton. He would have factored in the fact that this anti-Indian president has thus far refused to give the privilege of a state visit to the head of the world's largest democracy.

Kocheril Raman Narayanan being made of different metal from Jassu and Atal, has refused to make a visit to the US unless he is treated with the dignity not only he as an individual deserves, but his country. And yet the Vajpayee regime is falling over itself to grovel before a chief executive who has insulted India's President by declining to offer him the same courtesies as he has to literally dozens of others. Clinton should be given the courtesies of the same 'working visit' he has offered our own President, rather than the ceremonial of a state visit.

Just as Pakistan's generals have, Clinton knows the one action designed to generate fawning accommodation from India's leaders is to hurt the country's interests hard and insult openly and personally. With every barb thrown from the White House, the welcome mat has got further dusted and extended in Delhi.

So what if Clinton is breaking several US laws by coddling up to a dictator busy trying to hang the last democratically elected head of government in Pakistan? He has always been a man who follows his instincts, no matter where it leads him.

The untold story about the Pakistan stopover is that many other powers besides China -- whose intervention was promptly disclosed -- secretly interceded on behalf of Musharraf, including a country from the ASEAN region and two from the Gulf. Should their own regimes get felled in the way that Sharif's was, perhaps the gentlemen who made the calls on Musharraf's behalf will remember this stab in the back of democratic values as they themselves get carted off to execution.

It is strange that countries that claim to promote Muslim interests forget the 130 million Muslims of India in their eagerness to help Pakistan's crazies destroy the world's biggest functional anarchy. However, the fact is that no such advice was needed: from the start, it was clear that Clinton would not let down Musharraf, especially after being briefed by favourite poodles of the Pakistan army not to allow those hateful Indians to dictate just where the US president should or should not go.

To be fair to Clinton, it is not that he hates every large Asian country. China, for example, is close to his heart, which is why he and Al Gore have done so much to promote the interests of that glorious People's Democracy and its vibrant leadership, so steeped in democratic traditions and methods.

When US law prevented Clinton from selling AWACS technology to Beijing, Clinton got Israel to transfer know-how. After legal advisors pointed to the risks of gifting midair refuelling technology to Communist China, Billy Boy made sure that Tony Blair acted as the deliveryman. Once Al Gore occupies the White House, it should not be long before the Motherland gets reunified with the return of Taiwan to its bosom.

The hearts of Gore and Clinton may fibrillate at the mere mention of India, but they beat in unison with Pakistan and China, both of whom are collaborating so readily in efforts to reduce the trade in narcotics and to stem proliferation of nuclear weapons.

The message is clear: if India wants to be loved, it should adopt (in its external relations) the methods that Pakistan and China have used to become the favourites of the Clinton administration. This advice is especially relevant were Al Gore to make his way into the Oval Office.

http://www.rediff.com/news/2000/mar/18clint1.htm

What counts, India or ties to a family? (Rediff)

During the last weeks of Sitaram Kesri's stewardship of the Congress party, there was a trickle of individuals heading for the exit. The same phenomenon is today visible in the Sonia Congress, with Meira Kumar being the most prominent of those deciding to quit a party dominated by an ill-educated lady and her children, sisters and mother. Yes, there are pressures on the Mainos, but there are compensations as well. Each week representatives of the Congress chief ministers come to Delhi to meet Ahmed Patel and to deliver "sweets."

However, Sonia and her brood are not the only ones enjoying a plentiful supply of Swiss chocolates. A check of passports will reveal several sons, wives, daughters and relatives of the well-connected ratcheting up frequent flyer miles on visits to Europe and the United States. Home Minister L K Advani has much of the details.

As Advani can find out if only he asked, both the UK as well as desi citizens have extensive networking in Washington, and regularly give several assurances of good conduct on behalf of their friends in India, among whom is that peerless follower of the Eduard Shevardnadze school of diplomacy, Jaswant Singh Rathore.

For years one fact has been well known about Jassu. It is that each evening, he becomes a high-spirited joy to his friends, the very heart of any get-together. Indeed, talk has it that the ISI planned the Indian Airlines hijack in the evening because it knew that Uncle Atal would entrust the resolution of the problem to kindred soul Jassu, who in the evenings is in a particularly generous mood and thus can be expected to take a lenient view of the ISI's pranks.

Which also explains why this evening-transformed soul was so generous towards both Pakistan and the Taleban, and why he insisted on accompanying such rambustious fellows as Masood Azhar to Kandahar. Small wonder that Uncle Atal sees him as the next prime minister of India.

Will India's home minister ask for the dossier on the three businesspersons who contact the prime minister of India so often? Will he check on the phone calls made from and to 5 Race Course Road from London and Geneva? Will he find out just why these favourites of both him as well as the prime minister visit Washington so often, and whom they meet while there? Or will he act as though he were responsible not to the people of India but towards a clutch of influentials?

There is hope, although a fading one, that the real L K Advani will speak out, will act, as his colleague George Fernandes has at last begun to do. Surely, the Indian people have a right to know the identity of the minister who ordered that the hijacked IA aircraft be allowed to leave Amritsar without attempting to keep it on Indian soil. Surely, we have a right to know the identity of the diplomat in a key western capital who advised that a surrender be effected and that three terrorists be released, and who recommended that such a view be accepted.

Should these facts be hidden now, they will come out later after the Vajpayee government goes. There are too many records of the verbal and other messages for the details to get buried.

True, looking at India's kept press, it would be logical for wrongdoers to assume that their errors can forever be kept hidden. Just as they howled in chorus during the time when Bill Clinton imposed sanctions on India, echoing the US chorus that these measures would "melt down" the Indian economy, today the Washington establishment has succeeded in making its numerous friends in the Indian media come out with lengthy reports on why it would in fact be desirable for Billy Boy to visits Islamabad as well.

The truth is that if Bill Clinton makes a stopover in Pakistan, he should be treated as unwelcome in India. You can either be a friend of democracy or a supporter of dictatorship. It is not possible to be both. Those who chorus about the "inevitability" of talking to Musharraf do a disservice to the people of Pakistan, who are still largely untainted by the fundamentalism unleashed by the narcotics mafia. Only by publicly snubbing Musharraf can such democratic forces get strengthened in Pakistan, and only if they do, can there be peace between the two cousins.

It is astonishing to read Brajesh Mishra's picked members of the National Security Council write about how a stable Pakistan (of course, under the current gang of thugs) is "essential to Indian interests". In the first place, a stable Pakistan is just not possible unless the current dispensation gets radically altered. In the second place, only a stable moderate Pakistan is in India's interests. If that country remains in the grip of the crazies, it would be better for Indian interests for it to fragment into a medley of states, including Seraikistan.

Given current trends, such a process is likely to pick up speed within five years. In such a process, New Delhi needs to be on the side of the disadvantaged in Pakistan, namely the women, minorities, Seraikis, Shias, Sindhis, Mohajhirs, Pashtuns and Baluchis. The peoples of Pakistan need help to resist the oppression of the narcotics mafia. They do not deserve to be ignored or to face the spectacle of the world coddling dictators just as Hitler and Mussolini were indulged during the 1930s.

There is also need to pay attention to Afghanistan. A proud race has been subjugated by Sunni Punjabis. The ISI now controls Afghanistan, making slaves of the once-proud Pashtuns. If the Taleban cannot escape from its present fate of being a servant of the Sunni Punjabis, then it deserves defeat at the hands of its foes.

Time is running out for Vajpayee. It may also be running out for the BJP unless its leaders realise that duty to the nation is more important than blind faith in a "supreme leader", now matter how charming and bountiful. Why is it that only George Fernandes has to battle against efforts at scuttling the nuclear and missile deterrent? Why does Advani allow Jaswant Singh to mortgage Indian security by demanding that India sign the CTBT under the humiliating conditions offered by Clinton?

The nation was fooled on Kargil. It opened its eyes at Kandahar. It will not forgive a third betrayal by the tired old men who rule over its destinies. This will come when Clinton insinuates himself and his country into the Kashmir cauldron in a month, thanks to the surprising welcome this enemy of Indian interests is being given by a Vajpayee government that talked of "zero tolerance" to the same terrorism to which it succumbed at Kandahar.

http://www.rediff.com/news/2000/feb/17monu.htm