A real chance in Kashmir

Byline by MJ Akbar : A real chance in Kashmir

Terrorism is an internal threat, and far worse than any external threat could ever be, for the enemy within is always much more dangerous than the enemy without.

What do Pervez Musharraf, Asif Zardari, Nawaz Sharif, Imran Khan, Altaf Hussain (chief of the MQM), Asfandyar Wali Khan (leader of the Awami National Party of the North West Frontier Province, soon to be renamed Pakhtunkhwa) and influential opinion-makers in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad have in common?

They have all come to a calculated conclusion: that the Indo-Pak impasse over Kashmir is now seriously detrimental to the economic and strategic health of Pakistan; that Pakistan has been held hostage to the Kashmir dispute and it is time to shake off the fetters of history and move on. These fetters have imprisoned travel and trade between neighbours and placed an expensive and unnecessary, if not quite unbearable, tension on the defence forces of Pakistan. They understand what common sense tells us: that free travel and mutually beneficial trade between India and Pakistan could transform the subcontinent, if not into a modern Europe then at least into the Europe of circa 1955.

They may not admit it publicly, but it is likely that the leaders of the Hurriyat in the Kashmir valley accept this privately. President Musharraf is on record as saying that borders do not have to change in any future accord. Zardari has told Karan Thapar in a television interview that Pakistan can no longer be held hostage on Kashmir to the detriment of its economy and defence. Columnists in influential newspapers like Dawn have written that Pakistan needs to break out of this suffocating straitjacket and get on with life. India and Pakistan have invested too much and too long in death.

This is not the view merely of an enlightened elite. The street is also tired of a hostility that promises nothing. War may have some meaning, however expensive and disastrous it might be, if there is a possibility of victory. But you do not have to be a strategic egghead to realise that Pakistan cannot capture territory in Kashmir from India. Since India is content with the status quo, it has no desire for a single square inch of "Azad Kashmir". What then is the point of confrontation?

The change on the street is reflected in an interesting shift of perceptions. 2007 was a traumatic year for Pakistan; the Afghan war had spilled over into the west of the country; the people were livid with Musharraf; and the turmoil peaked with the terrible assassination of Benazir Bhutto. But not once in the whole chain of lurching, searing events was India blamed for instigating any trouble. India and Kashmir were totally absent from the rhetoric of the Pakistan elections, for the first time in the nation's electoral history.

That old idiom has worn so thin that it can't be seen anymore. The people know that their problems begin at home and must be addressed there. A self-declared Arab friend of Pakistan was telling me, with despondent acerbity, that the national slogan of Pakistan has changed: "They used to say 'Pakistan Zindabad!' Now they say, 'Pakistan se zinda bhag!'" Terrorism is an internal threat, and far worse than any external threat could ever be, for the enemy within is always much more dangerous than the enemy without.

The solution is not with us yet, but it would be fair to suggest that the Kashmir dispute is over. The mutually-acceptable future border will be the present border: the line where the two armies ceased fire on the first of January 1949, and which they have guarded with such zealous ferocity for six decades. Six decades add up to two generations of lost sisters, forgotten cousins, and a relentless hostility that has aborted the potential of two nations. Everyone has heard the question: why do Indians and Pakistanis get on so well in a third country, and how come they do so well in a foreign habitat? The answer was always simple: because they were not living in India and Pakistan. Over the last decade India has begun to make such jokes irrelevant, but that is nothing compared to what it could achieve in harmony with a natural economic partner like Pakistan. It would vitalise SAARC, and set the subcontinent, which still has the poorest parts of the world on its landscape, on the long route towards self-respect.

Is this column too optimistic? Perhaps. After six decades of pessimism perhaps we should be permitted an hour of optimism. The dynamic of power has changed in Islamabad. While the military-civilian partnership could be fraught with tension in domestic affairs, it is a good fit for India policy. Zardari and Nawaz Sharif are talking the language initiated by Musharraf. (Now that Pakistan has also got a Dr Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister, it is more important to find out Zardari says.)

But of course the moment has to be propitious on both sides. One of the minor tragedies of the Indo-Pak equation is that when one side is ready the other is busy, or seems to be busy: it is easy to manufacture an excuse when you do not want to do anything. However, India is heading into its election season just after Pakistan has cleared its calendar. No one readily fools around with either war or peace on the eve of an election, unless you have become either careless or desperate. Delhi lost a great opportunity when Musharraf was riding high; but even if high drama is not possible, there can be forward movement on trade and travel. But whoever forms the government in Delhi after the next election cannot afford to waste time, because by then time might be running out in Islamabad.

Should those Kashmiris who challenged India on the strength of support from Pakistan feel betrayed or relieved by this swivel? Practical sense suggests relief, because they were caught in a deathly squeeze between quarrelling elephants. The idea of an independent Kashmir was always a lemon; neither India nor Pakistan would have permitted such a state on such a sensitive geopolitical flank. Punjab and Bengal were divided in 1947; Kashmir was divided in 1949. Those facts are unlikely to alter. The fate of Kashmir may be settled, but not the fate of Kashmiris. Peace between India and Pakistan will give them de facto if not de jure unity because it will restore free movement of people and goods across the ceasefire line. That is not a small gain in a life that is finite.

The danger of ignoring this moment should be obvious. If peace cannot be found when it is waiting patiently in the drawing room, then we are creating an opportunity for some future warmonger. The continued American presence in Afghanistan, the repeated American incursions into Pak territory and the resurrection of Taliban are creating tensions that are making Pakistan's Army vulnerable to internal pressures. Instability breeds unpredictable brats.

I have long held the slightly heretical view that India and Pakistan will have to work as allies in troubled Afghanistan, but for that to happen we have to find an alignment of self-interest and identify a common enemy. A resolution of the Kashmir dispute is a first, and urgent, requirement to meet a much larger challenge.

The World is Round

Byline by M J Akbar :The World is Round

The Congress theory of political success in the next election consists of simple arithmetic. Rural sops will bring the rural vote. The nuclear deal will bring in the urban vote. The massage of promises and words will retain the Muslim vote.

If Dr Manmohan Singh loses the next general election — predicted for October by the knowledgeable — he will know whom to blame: his best new friend George Bush. Bush has achieved something unique. He has globalised defeat.

The reasons and means vary. In Britain Tony Blair may be eased out and in Australia John Howard may be driven out, but the word in common is "out". Bush crippled himself long before time made him a lame duck. He began to cripple his friends at the height of his power, and the curse continues in the twilight of his term.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh escaped the swamps of Iraq, but he could become the victim of one bilateral Bush initiative, the potential nuclear deal with India, and the huge, chaotic mismanagement of the economy that has compounded the gushing fiscal wounds of the Iraq-Afghanistan war. Bush has financed this colossal misadventure with IOUs on history and debt from the world economy, setting off a sinful (as opposed to virtuous) cycle.

Debt and war have destroyed perpetrator and victim alike in the past. They are doing so again. Bush's wars cost $33.8 billion in 2002; they have ballooned to $171 billion by 2007. Joseph Stiglitz, winner of the Nobel for Economics, has estimated that the cost of the Bush wars could cross three trillion dollars by 2017, that is, in another ten years. Go figure, as they say in America. Where has the money come from? Debt.

Debt has helped weaken the dollar. Producers who sell oil in dollars, seeking to keep their income constant in real terms, and oil companies who profit in whichever direction the wheel spins, have kept raising the price of oil. A spiral effect has driven prices into the stratosphere. Oil was $23 a barrel when the Iraq war began; it is over $110 now. The pressure of prices has induced an impassioned chorus for alternative energy. Bush decided to subsidize the production of ethanol to produce this alternative energy. American farmers switched from food-for-the-stomach to crops-for-cash. There is now a critical shortage of wheat and rice around the world. The temptation of cash and higher prices impact on the pattern of agriculture. Cash crops replace staple crops. The prices of basic edibles join the spiral. India is now on the cusp of inflationary pressures that could go ballistic, even as the government has no solution in mind except a series of sops that will be throwing a bucket of water into a desert. Prices of basic food and oil in the Indian bazaar are rising at a dramatic pace. For the poor, this is a kick where it hurts most, in the stomach. Their pain will be reflected in the vote in the next general elections.

This too is globalization, a chain of sequence and consequence that is linked across the world.

The managers of 'globalization', a vast and varied array of vested interests that may not necessarily be in harmony on some issues but always closes rank to protect its core interest, take care to cohere globalization to good news. It is a brand that needs protection in order to get promotion. Bad news, even when it becomes a worldwide epidemic from a single virus, is never called globalization. No one uses the term when the New York Stock Exchange sneezes and Mumbai catches a cold. This would tarnish the image of globalization as the panacea in a post-Marxist age, a libertarian answer to socialism's impenetrable dogma. Very few — although Stiglitz is famously among the few — wonder about the tipping point, when the liberty of this philosophy morphs into license into virtually printing money.

One reason — of course, not the only one — why share markets today are as flat as the globalize world is because the meaning of capital has changed, shifting in the process the original goalposts of capitalism. Capital was the means necessary for the production of goods and services that could be sold for a profit, creating jobs and higher-standard lifestyles. Profit, of course, has always been an elastic word, stretching as far as the market will bear. Hence, marketing became a tool by which a need was enhanced into an illusion in order to raise prices and maximize profits. Thus soap, a need for the elimination of dirt, was elevated into a magic wand that would make you into a film star. Perfume is no longer a discreet veil over body odour, but a sex accessory. A handbag is no longer a convenience; it is a photograph of your bank statement. A watch no longer merely tells the time; it is a status symbol. But all this is acceptable because, at the core, there is a product, created out of capital.

But we have now moved into share markets and a world economy where there is illusion without a base, and value is attached to a fiction; and when the principal purpose of money is not to add to the quantum of goods and services but merely to make more paper or plastic money. The Sensex keeps rising in increasingly thin air, crossing peaks that are not made of rock but are arbitrary niches in the financial ozone layer. Even in the best of times, turbulence in the American economy, by far the most powerful, would have sent shudders. But connectivity now honed to marginal shifts in value, a sub-prime crisis in America wipes out ban profits in India. There is little insulation.

The Congress theory of political success in the next election consists of simple arithmetic. Rural sops will bring the rural vote. The nuclear deal will bring in the urban vote. The massage of promises and words will retain the Muslim vote. Hallelujah! We are all in power for five more years. The arithmetic could get disjointed by algebra. Prices cross the rural-urban divide, leaving anger in their wake. The minorities have heard the talk, and got nothing substantive; while Muslims are angry at the alliance with Bush which makes India a possible ally in Bush's wars against Muslim nations.

The most consistent fact of democracy is its ability to surprise governments who think they have won elections before the votes have been counted. This happened with the last national government in Delhi. The BJP has still not psychologically recovered from the shock that told the party that India was not shining as luminously as it thought. If the Congress does not watch out, it could face some shock therapy soon.

The Long Onion Road

M.J.Akbar The Long Onion Road

For the Congress, the Budget is less important than the continuous reconstruction of Rahul Gandhi as a future Prime Minister. He has the privilege of dynasty, and is above conventions. One can understand a touch of nervousness in a first speech by a new MP, but after four years in the House you have to live by its rules.

A short cut is often the longest road in politics. As the time to the next general election shortens to months from years, both the Congress and the BJP are searching for a short cut to power.

The temptation is understandable. Politics is a difficult journey, rife with roadblocks and accidents. But who will persuade politicians that voters live on the long road, not the short cut?

There is something very irresistible about a short cut, with its promise of speed and good luck. The massive loan waiver in finance minister P. Chidamabaram's end of February Budge is such a classic short cut that the only reaction from ruling coalition MPs has been a demand for more handouts. They want waivers on everything: you merely attach 'poor' to a bank loan and sanctify a political purchase. Debit is being converted into political credit. When you have run out of good sense, you throw money and hope for the best.

The opposite of a bad debt is a good debt. If you could make a nation rich by handing out cash to the poor, every nation in the world would be wealthy. It costs very little to print cash, as the Germans of the Weimar Republic discovered when they discovered that it was cheaper to burn currency notes for heating rather than buy fuel with it. Eventually the Germans burnt their respectable inflationary government and brought Hitler to power. There are many factors that are pushing up today's Indian inflation, but the sudden injection of non-productive cash into the system will certainly not bring inflation down.

You don't have to win the Nobel Prize in Economics to realize that an economy is lifted by an investment of good debt. How does that concept translate into policy in the case of a starved rural economy? You have to invest in a ruined farm, not in a ruined bank account; the future earnings of a revived farm should pay off the debt, which can be amortized over a longer period. It took no more than a day for the synchronized post-Budget applause to muffle. Economists and analysts punched holes in it.

Congress used an old tactic to cover up mistakes in the hurriedly-packaged offer, by packing remedies into Rahul Gandhi's speech on the Budget, which he read from a prepared text. He may not have fully understood the details, since economics is not his strong subject, but his staff did a good collage of newspaper clippings.

Why is there a convention in Parliament that you do not give your speeches from a prepared text? Parliament is not a test of memory. Parliament is not a classroom where the student with the highest rote-quotient wins the most coveted prize. An MP is permitted use of notes, and the best orators refer to them during a debate. Most debates are on complex matters of governance; much of the detail can be infuriating in its obscurity. But that is what governance and Parliament are about. The reason why you do not read from a prepared text is because you are meant to have a grasp of your subject. You place your own views in front of the House, not a speechwriter's; that is the difference between a speech that is delivered and one that is read out from a prepared text. For the Congress, the Budget is less important than the continuous reconstruction of Rahul Gandhi as a future Prime Minister. He has the privilege of dynasty, and is above conventions. One can understand a touch of nervousness in a first speech by a new MP, but after four years in the House you have to live by its rules.

A further privilege is that the dynast is placed in charge of all the good news. The bad news is left for minions to handle.

The BJP is consistent; it does not change its short cuts. It has only one short cut in its route map: how to bring Muslims into every argument. This has become a bit of a yawn, but it seems to have run out of other things to say. Or perhaps it is simply on-message: Muslims are not going to vote for the BJP so why worry about them? It needed a terrific leap of imagination to link this Budget to that of another finance minister of India, Liaquat Ali Khan.

The two Indias were as unlike as the two finance ministers. Liaquat Ali Khan was finance minister of united India, or, more accurately, British India, for the princely states did not come under the purview of the government in which he was a Cabinet minister. He held the finance portfolio in the interim government formed a year before independence, in which both Congress and the Muslim League participated, a sort of partnership in regress. The two parties had nothing in common, not even a country. Jawaharlal Nehru was Prime Minister: Gandhi and Jinnah, as symbols of their people, were above the latitude of mere governments. Finance was allotted to the Muslim League. Liaquat Ali Khan's most notable achievement was to throw dust in the machinery of government so that it ground to a halt; no one accused him of actually helping anyone, though he did hurt some businesses because, in the lexicon of that period, they were "Hindu". His name has been forgotten not only in India, and I suspect is barely remembered in Pakistan, although he was Jinnah's successor. That service was brief, since he was assassinated in Rawalpindi in 1951. I doubt if millions of votes will take a fast short cut to the BJP's ballot box because of its reference to Liaquat Ali Khan but there could be an inadvertent, minor revival of Khan's name.

In its desperate search for votes, the government – surprisingly, for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is an economist of standing, and has surely discovered the perils of electoral politics after four years in office – has taken its eyes off that dangerous curve ball that could become the most decisive factor in shaping the popular mood: prices. Inflation is running at over five per cent now, and the price of food is climbing at a much higher rate. This is not the first time that farmer-populism is being touted as the all-purpose panacea. One wonders if anyone remembers the name of Chaudhry Charan Singh. He too was a Prime Minister of India, if only for six months. Just before he took the top job he served as finance minister and threw as many lollipops as he could towards his core constituency in the only Budget he presented. Nine months later, Mrs Indira Gandhi swept to power on a decisive issue: inflation.

The price of onions made the government weep in the winter elections of 1979-80. Watch out for the onions, Prime Minister.

Double Play

Byline by M J Akbar: Double Play

The Congress election formula is in place. E=M multiplied by C raised to the power of 2. E stands for elections. M represents Money, public money of course. And C is for Chidambaram, the finance minister who delivers an annual elixir for permanent youth rather than a mere budget, unlike s more pedestrian finance ministers. When Chidambaram throws public money, he does so with a heft and dexterity that would be the envy of champions. Whether he heaves a discus or hurls a javelin, his target is the same: the ballot box. He is so delighted with the cheering from government benches during the presentation of the national Budget that he has been urging all and sundry to think of a general election as early as in May. He believes that Congress can sweep back to power on a Chidambaram wave.

Actually, he may get his wish, although not quite in the manner he expects, if the Left withdraws support to the UPA government this month over the Indo-US nuclear deal.

Hallucination comes easily to anyone in power, but is there any merit in the Congress presumption that it can pick up the rural vote with this massive loan waiver, and the urban vote with the Indo-US nuclear deal? The political argument for the nuclear deal was put forward by Mrs Shiela Dikshit, chief minister of Delhi, just after Prakash Karat, general secretary of the CPI(M) asked the government for immediate clarity, and set a deadline for 15 March. Mrs Dikshit was given this difficult job because she is one of the few Congress leaders who still retains some credibility with voters. Electoral politics is never an easy partner of credibility, and Mrs Dikhshit’s might have suffered a scrape or two when she charged the Marxists with being anti-national Chinese agents who were coming in the way of India’s progress. This sort of thing is about four decades too late; it went out of fashion by 1965. Marxist leaders [including Jyoti Basu] were detained as potential fifth columnists during the Indo-China war of 1962, but proved, in the very next elections, in 1967, that the people thought them patriotic enough. The Marxists came to power for the first time in Bengal as part of a United Front in 1967.

They are still winning forty years later. The Marxists created history with a sixth straight victory in the Tripura Assembly elections. The Left Front got 49 out of 60 seats, increasing its numbers by eight; the Congress was down to 10, decreasing from 19. The CPM got 46 seats, a majority on its own; its allies got three. The Congress had done everything it could: it engineered an impression, pushed forward by sections of compliant media, that there was a huge anti-incumbency wave in the state. The Congress poured money into its campaign, and patched together a cynical and unhealthy alliance with a man who was on every terrorist list not too long ago, Bijoy Hrangkhawl. Mrs Sonia Gandhi raised the pitch with an intemperate speech that indicated what the Congress line on the Left is going to be.

The turnout was extraordinarily heavy: 92% of the voters cast their ballots. This is generally considered bad news for incumbents. The Left stood conventional wisdom on its head. There is no electoral bribe by the Congress that could have changed such a verdict.

Those who believe that they can hustle voters with large lollipops underestimate the maturity of the Indian electorate. The Indian voter can be persuaded with honesty and good governance; he cannot be purchased with handouts or fiscal tricks. In the last phase of its recent campaign in Gujarat, the Congress ran up a substantial laundry list of promises, including the offer to waive loans. It made not the slightest difference; the BJP won. Cabinet ministers like Kamal Nath have publicly voiced their skepticism, and serious economists have questioned the Chidambaram waiver [the details of which, by the way, are still the exclusive property of his intelligence, but will hopefully be made available for public viewing soon].

The Marxists, in the meantime, have decided to withdraw support to the Manmohan Singh government if it does not end all negotiations on the nuclear deal. That is the simple meaning of the formal letter written by CPI general secretary A.K.Bardhan. The estrangement could develop into divorce even as early as next week. The Congress has bought time so far by deliberate waffle, but that purchase is now exhausted. The real arguments will begin, before the court of public opinion, after the break.

The Congress cannot pass the budget without support from the Left. If the alliance breaks, the Congress will accuse the Left and the BJP of sabotaging what it will surely advertise as the greatest gift ever made to farmers in the history of farming. That hoary old cliché, “an unholy conspiracy”, will be the centerpiece of every Congress leader’s cyclostyled speech.

The Left will respond with its own accusation: the Congress could have easily delayed the deal and pushed through the budget. But since Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi preferred America and George Bush to farmers, they sacrificed the farmers to placate America.

The BJP will watch the fun and talk of Rama Setu bridge.

The Congress is in election gear. It is looking for new allies everywhere, and pushing the patience of even loyalists like Laloo Prasad Yadav. Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee recently wooed Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar with a trip to China. Amend that: he offered an ego trip to China in an effort to create a rift between Nitish Kumar and the BJP in Bihar. It has also thought up a facile way in which to challenge Mayawati, by throwing up the idea of a Dalit for Prime Minister after the next elections. Anil Shastri wrote a piece suggesting this in the official Congress publication, and then prodded journalists to spread the idea through their media. Such semantics will not dent Maywati’s support, which is rock-solid in her community; but they could
damage one of the very few clean faces the Congress has, that of Dr Singh.

Is everything fair in love, war and elections? Not quite. Love is a relationship between two individuals; war is a contest between two armies. The outcome of elections is determined not by the contestants, but by a third force, a massive jury, the electorate. The morality, immorality or amorality of politicians is measured against the values of the voter. The prevalent mood of the Indian voter is to reward honesty, and punish corruption and deceit. If the farmer thinks that the loan waiver is an elaborate hoax, the Congress will suffer.

All sides will make their case directly to the voter in rallies. The voice of India will become the noise of India. Peace will return only after the general elections.

Queue and Collect

Byline by M J Akbar: Queue and Collect

A Common Man’s Budget has some remarkable characteristics. To begin with, it is not very common. The Common Man should consider himself extremely lucky if he gets a budget allotted to him once in the natural life of an elected government. He should thank his fortune, rather than crib, even if this budget turns up only in an election year, the only time that the Common Man gets any attention from a government.

A Common Man’s Budget is the only budget over which there is no secrecy. Everyone knows everything about it much in advance. The budget will be presented in Parliament at the end of February, but news agencies are already filing stories about lower taxes and correspondents are dropping heavy hints about concessions to farmers. Mrs Sonia Gandhi has told a public meeting at Rae Bareli that this year the nation will get a Common Man’s Budget, but she is hardly the only politician who is knowledgeable. The chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, the slightly garrulous Rajasekhar Reddy, has speculated that he would like every farmer to get a handsome loan: perhaps he got it the other way around. Leaders across the UPA spectrum have begun to demand that farmers should get waivers on their loans, and the Congress has trundled truckloads of farmers from neighbouring states to call on Mrs Sonia Gandhi in Delhi.

With so much political preparation, finance minister P. Chidambaram would be very foolish not to announce such a gift when he stands up to present an account of his accounts in Parliament on the last day of February. One of the reasons that brought this government to power was rural anger over farmers’ suicides. For four budgets, the finance minister has done a whole deal of nothing about farmers. Now that elections are back on the horizon, naturally he must remember they exist. Par for the political course. It only needs to be pointed out that when you claim that a particular budget is going to be for the much-valued Common Man, it is implicit admission that previous budgets were not quite for him.

The World Bankers who infest the government believe that the best economic policies are those that lead to indirect benefits for the Common Man; they are Trickledowners who are convinced that economic policy must be oriented to the objective of overall growth, from whence benefits will eventually trickle down to the famous Common Man. Alas, this Common Man expects a far faster rate of delivery than Trickledowners can offer. In a dictatorship this would not have been much of a problem, but a democracy has this inconvenient problem called elections. Voting takes place on the Day of the Common Man. Some governments have convinced themselves that the voter can be persuaded by last-minute lollipops.

For a journalist, the best thing about a Common Man’s Budget is that you can review it before it has been revealed, largely because there will be no great revelations. This is probably going to be a "Queue and Collect" budget.

The government will but naturally seek to cover all bases as it steps into election mode. The timetable has been disclosed from what might be described as supplementary sources. The American senators, including John Kerry, Jo Biden and Chuck Hagel, who dropped in on Dr Manmohan Singh on their way back home from Pakistan, offered a major clue. They extended the deadline for the completion of the Indo-US nuclear deal to July. The threat of death has been variable. Last year, American and Indian government voices suggested that if the whole process were not complete before January, all would be over. January came and the deadline was stretched to March. The Senators would apparently be too busy electing a new President of the United States to find time for a bilateral deal. Three Democrat Senators, Kerry, Biden and Hagel, have now extended the time limit to July. The elasticity is one measure of bipartisan American keenness.

If you think about it, there is no reason why the deal cannot go through even with a new President in office, because all three potential Presidents, John McCain, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are members of the present Senate. In other words, they are all committed to the deal and have signed on it with their vote. All are agreed in principle. A new President in Washington might want to alter a detail, but so might a new Prime Minister in Delhi.

However, it is perfectly understandable that Dr Manmohan Singh would want to do the deal on his watch, for personal as well as political reasons. He has pushed the agreement with a passion uncharacteristic of his personality. The Congress wants to sell this deal to the voter as the panacea that will bring electricity to every village, and would have already done so if those awful, China-loving Communists had not sabotaged it.

The Senate needs three months to pass legislation, so, working backwards, Dr Singh might need to sign the deal sometime in April. The Left objects, and Dr Singh can offer a thin smile, which he is good at, and happily recommend a general election in October. This would merge with Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, states in which the BJP is in power. The Congress can, therefore, expect to gain from an anti-incumbency depression, hoping that the carryover effect of regional anger will translate into more seats for the party at the national level.

There is an additional, and more crucial, reason for an early election. Food prices have risen sharply across the world, and India cannot be isolated from this pattern. The markets and bazaars are already telling us this much. The inflation rate, like a good statistic, hides far more than it reveals. The price of basic food items has risen far more than the average of all prices might suggest. If this year’s crop is less than bountiful, the pressure on prices will be unmanageable. Nothing hurts a voter more than a kick in the stomach. An aching stomach takes its revenge through the ballot box. The longer the government waits for an election, the worse it will probably be for the principal ruling party, the Congress.

The Common Man is getting a budget; does the Common Man have a face? Actually, yes. That brilliant Times of India cartoonist, R.K. Laxman, has given us the emblematic face of the Common Man. I chanced upon a Laxman original of Mahatma Gandhi in a friend’s office, and it struck me that Laxman’s Common Man, who has appeared for decades on the front page of the Times, is a variation of Gandhi. Gandhi redefined India and Indian nationalism, took it away from the grasp of elites and handed it over to the Common Man for safekeeping. Six decades after his death, the Common Man is getting one budget out of five. I suppose the Common Man should be grateful for small mercies.

Free for All

Byline By M J Akbar: Free for All

Chief minister Parkash Singh Badal should immediately stop all supplies of Punjab wheat to Raj Thackeray and all members of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, who believe they can milk votes for a dead cause by victimising Biharis in Mumbai. The point is not too difficult to appreciate. India is not a one-way street. India survives as a single nation of free people or it does not survive at all.

Freedom is non-negotiable: of faith, equality, democracy, travel, speech, employment and opportunity. Freedom has its attendant responsibilities. Speech cannot degenerate into libel. Democracy cannot be rigged, or exploited by extremist passions. The right to practise faith does not mean the right to denigrate someone else’s. But there is no question that unity must have an economic content for the poor. India is not a single nation only for those who command capital, and can invest it where they will; it has to be equally free for labour to find jobs where they can.

The world is moving towards shared values, not just because they are good in themselves, but because they are good for the common weal. Independence is not the antithesis of interdependence. The two feed off, and strengthen, each other. If President George W. Bush were to place a visa ban on Maharashtrians, New Delhi would protest such discrimination, and rightly so. If discrimination is poor policy in international relations, then it is taboo in national affairs.

Raj Thackeray is not protecting Maharashtrians with street hysteria. He is only trying to protect his political future, and doing a miserable job of it. He thought that he could inherit his uncle Balasaheb Thackeray’s mantle by aping the latter’s look and style. That rather transparent ploy flopped. He is now trying to put life into his politics with some medicine from the Sixties, when Balasaheb created political space by demanding the expulsion of Malayalis from Mumbai. It is pertinent to note that four decades later both Balasaheb and Malayalis remain in Mumbai. If this did not work in the 20th century, it is highly unlikely to work in the 21st.

There are objective reasons for such an assessment. Conditions were far more fertile for sectarianism in the Sixties. The national economy was trapped in a cycle of low growth. The internal dynamic of India was still subject to seismic regional pressures. Maharashtra itself was born in 1960 because Maharashtrians wanted an identity different from Gujarat. The birth of Maharashtra encouraged high aspirations, which could hardly be met in an era of low growth. The Malayalis had jobs in both the private and the public sector, and became easy targets. The outsider can so quickly be recast as an alien, and the alien reinvented as the enemy.

Time is a good judge of depth. The movement against Malayalis petered out because it was too thin to challenge a parallel rise in the emerging Indian consciousness: the growing power of nationalism.

The Sixties were the worst decade in modern Indian history. Language became as divisive a sentiment as jobs before it was subsumed and integrated into the idea of a free, federal democratic India. Pakistan broke because of dictatorial inflexibility towards language. India grew stronger when it let Tamil Nadu live by its mother tongue. Job insecurity was accompanied by border insecurity, perhaps inevitably, for perceptions of weakness encourage a neighbour into becoming an enemy. China tested India in 1962, and we were humiliated. The symbol of modern India, Jawaharlal Nehru, died in 1964. Pakistan launched its war for Kashmir in 1965; it was a close call. By 1966, the Indian National Congress, anchor of the nation, had begun to wither and was defeated in most of the states in 1967. That was the year when the prairie fire set off by Naxalites, a movement fuelled by hopelessness among the young, threatened to leave the country in ashes.

But India rediscovered herself in the darkness of such turmoil. Whether consciously or subconsciously, Indians realised that unity was the ultimate, and perhaps the only, weapon against instability and the collapse of an unprecedented exercise in nation-building. The exciting military victory of 1971 was the first manifestation of a new mood and a new strength. A nation that seemed to have lost its confidence proved that it could control the treacherous tides of war. It also proved that it could negotiate the even more difficult tides of peace. Only a supremely confident nation could have walked away from Bangladesh within just three months of victory, and left the infant nation to its own devices.

A common purpose had saved the skin, but a bigger question had to be answered: could it feed the stomach? The Indian farmer and peasant answered with the Green Revolution. The Sixties were the last decade in which we saw famine, in Bihar. A nation troubled by famine cannot find the energy for growth. The Green Revolution was the base, the foundation, on which the future could be built. When the Indian businessman was given his chance in the 1990s, he proved that he had the soaring imagination of the meteor.

Raj Thackeray’s naive politics is contrary to the spirit of economic growth, irrelevant to the culture which can breed national prosperity. He would not merit even the negative attention he has received if the Maharashtra government had acted to preserve the law. But the Congress-led alliance, with familiar hypocrisy, has been unable to resist the temptation of hunting with the hound while pretending to run with the hare. The arrest of Raj Thackeray was flaccid tokenism; and he was right to laugh it off. This was compounded by illogical equivalence. Abu Azmi of the Samajwadi Party may not be a paragon of democratic or social virtues, but he was not the source of the current tension in Mumbai. He was arrested along with Raj Thackeray in order to appease "Maharashtrian sentiment". Such thinking is particularly dangerous because it implicitly accepts that Raj Thackeray represents the prevailing local sentiment when such is not the case. The majority of Maharashtrians accept that Mumbai’s strength lies in its multicultural cosmopolitanism.

Speaking in Italy recently I argued that the European Union, a concept launched in the mid-Fifties, was analogous to the model established by the Indian Union through its inspiring Constitution, accepted as the bedrock of the Republic in 1950. I suggested that this would be the model for regions and groups of nations across the world, for these principles had not only held India together but had brought it to the verge of potential prosperity: democracy, federalism, equality of individual and faith, unrestricted internal travel, the right to labour migration, free flow of capital and goods, the unqualified assimilation of multiple languages. America, Europe and India today share these principles, and they will be the leaders of the world as long as they do not deviate from these principles. The principal deviations are military adventurism abroad and erosion of human rights at home.

The one thing that Raj Thackeray has proved is that we have to continually rescue our India from some of our politicians.

A Dhaka Diary

Byline by M.J. Akbar:A Dhaka Diary

Allah, worried about the fate of the faithful, called a conference of leaders of Muslim nations. The President of Iraq had only one question to ask: "When will I see peace and prosperity in my country?" Allah looked at him compassionately and said that would happen in about a hundred years. The Iraqi President began to weep, saying, "Alas, it will not happen while I am alive!" The President of Pakistan had the same question, but the answer was different. Pakistan, said Allah, would become peaceful and prosperous in about a hundred and fifty years. The President began to wail, "I will not be alive to see my country prosper". The President of Bangladesh was next. Troubled, despondent, beset by bandhs and the impossible deadlock to which no one had either a key or a clue, he asked when Bangladesh would become the dreamland of its founding fathers. This time, Allah began to cry.

The ability of the suave Dhakaiya to laugh at himself is only one of his endearing traits. No one needs to enumerate the political crisis caused by the inability of its two principal leaders, Sheikh Hasina and Begum Khaleda to cooperate. They hate each other with a passion that verges on the homicidal. If it were a personal matter, no one would bother. But their politics has shut the country down and led to a quasi-military regime. But nothing can defeat the spirit of the urban Bengali. Dhaka is not the capital of a rich country, but it is a capital with a rich heart.

The big debate in the city is: Has there been a sharp increase in the number of women wearing the hijab or the burqa? While there was always some incidence of both, Bangladeshi women have generally ignored the veil. On the face of it, to use a too-obvious phrase, the answer is no. Young women are as fashionably dressed as their circumstances will permit, and models pout sexily from hoardings. But friends insist that there has been a rise in the public appearance of the burqa, if not in upper strata Gulshan then certainly in other parts of the city. The familiar explanations are trotted out, from America to identity-assertion. But a thoughtful friend asks a lateral question. Could this also be because some conservative women, who never went out before, are beginning to do so now, and will only do so in a burqa? The implication is that this is a step forward, and the daughters of these women will eschew the veil altogether. We shall see. The rural areas are easier to understand. The veil in the village is a sign of affluence. Poor women have to work, and cannot afford the luxury of seclusion. The moment there is upward mobility, a woman flaunts her new status by covering up. But there is one reason over which there was no dispute: the impact of Saudi Arabia. By now, millions of Bangladeshis have worked in Saudi. Among the first gifts sent home by those employed there seem to be burqas for their wives, mothers and mothers-in-law.

How utterly enthralling to meet an unrepentant Stalinist. Badruddin Umar was an academic, and is now a political activist and author of the Communist persuasion. His father, a colleague of Husain Shaheed Suhrawardy, was a prominent leader of the Muslim League and later the Awami League. He has written learned books on the historic language movement of Bengal for the Oxford University Press, which is the reason for my visit and the proposed subject of our conversation. Beside a portrait of his father in the drawing room is a line drawing of Stalin. I point out that Stalin is not quite a politically correct figure these days. "I admire him," he responds without ambiguity. "They say he killed a few million people. If I had been in his place I might have had to kill a few more," he adds with a chuckle. Nothing personal; just historical necessity.

There has apparently been some interference in the historical inevitability of a revolution in Bangladesh, and one man credited with the interference is the Nobel Prize winner Dr Mohammad Yunus, managing director of Grameen Bank whose micro-credit schemes have brought him world fame. Badruddin Umar would prefer to describe it as infamy. He thinks micro-credit is worse than the usury of the old mahajans, a fraud on the poor heavily disguised with capitalist hype. He quotes Yunus as admitting he charges 20% interest. In September 1991, Yunus apparently said, "Of course we charge 20% interest. If anyone considers it high, well it is high. I don’t feel much embarrassed by that. After all, we don’t force anyone to borrow from us". As Umar archly added, the old village usurers did not force anyone to borrow from them either. Grameen Bank also collects over 80 million taka as a fee from its members. "What is the ultimate destination of this money and the interest derived on it?" Good question.

It remains to be noted that every single word of abuse from the classic Marxist dictionary — imperialism, reactionary, bourgeois et al — is included in the monograph published by Badruddin Umar.

Is a permanent traffic jam a sign of prosperity or despair? Both: there is a new prosperous class able to buy cars, and a government that is unable to provide the infrastructure. You cannot have traffic chaos without an urban middle class ready to spend good money on vehicles, although the city’s rickshaws can do a fairly competent job of snarling up all activity given half a chance. It has reached a point where the sensible stay in their part of the city. No one disputes traffic as an excuse for delay, which provides a lot of leeway to those who simply got up late. You can recognise the city only on the weekly holidays. The only solution that one could think of was to increase the weekly holidays to three, and give them on alternate days, with an additional twist. Half the city would get a holiday on one day, and the other half on the next. Only half the working population would work on any working day. Its productivity would probably double.

This has to be the most useless secret of all time. The British high commissioner to Bangladesh sent out an invitation for dinner for a select, elite group. Nothing unusual, for high commissioners dine often and well in the service of their nation. There was a curious lacuna though: the name of the guest in whose honour the dinner was being given was missing. Why? Security reasons. The guest of honour was the visiting British foreign secretary David Miliband. How did everyone know? Because the British foreign secretary’s face was in the morning’s papers, that’s how. There is something ludicrous about the current security paranoia. Did the securitywallahs at the British high commission seriously believe that one of their guests for dinner was an undercover terrorist who would leak delicate details of the prospective meal to a gang of unnamed terrorists in masks? I don’t know if anyone turned pale with fear after receiving the invitation, but I do know that a lot of people could not stop laughing.

A Wealth of Questions

Byline by M J Akbar: A Wealth of Questions

I just may have discovered the solution to communal conflict. Greed. For a long while — make that a couple of decades of reporting violence — I was under the illusion that peace was a logical human need. Conflict never made any sense, good, special or common. But when has good sense been the decisive criterion of human behaviour? The instinct of hatred needs a far more powerful antidote. It could have found its answer in greed.

One of the more remarkable facts of the last fifteen years is that there have been only two major communal riots in this period, the violence that followed the destruction of the Babri mosque; and the carnage in Gujarat after the Godhra incident. There have been minor incidents, but nothing horrific. The Eighties were an endless litany of sorrow: Moradabad, Meerut, Bhagalpur, Delhi, to cite but a few cities from the top end of memory. Ahmedabad and Hyderabad were centres of endemic violence, not just one conflagration of slash-and-burn, but a daily drip of dagger and poison that ate into flesh and nerve.

The transformation could not have come because Indians on some magical day suddenly grew angelic wings under their armpits. The answer could lie in the new culture spawned by economic reforms that were put into play by P.V. Narasimha Rao and Dr Manmohan Singh a decade and a half ago. Dr Singh might be a doctor in economics, but Rao was a master in politics: he persuaded a "socialist-protectionist" Indian elite to appreciate the virtues of entrepreneurship and self-help wealth.

An industrialist friend was remembering the Mumbai of the Sixties and the Seventies. No one discussed bank accounts. That was considered crass and vulgar. Status had other attributes. These days, it seems the principal job of every public relations agency is to advertise the personal value of its client. If you are not among the billions, leave the high table. Mumbai always had a stock exchange, but it was never quite the shock exchange that it has become today. Companies made profits, and money offered a reasonable return in the old dharma. The stock exchange has now become a rocket on steroids; it must continue to defy the law of gravity and never come down. It is a lottery with no losers as long as you have managed to get a ticket.

The moral of the story, or maybe the amoral of the story: Mumbai can either have communal riots or it can have a steroid stock exchange. It can’t have both. Violence means a huge net loss. The movers and shakers of the city cannot afford violence anymore, which is extremely good news. Peace is not the absence of old hatreds; it is the presence of new desires. Long live money. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Is Gujarat an exception to this rule? Not really. Narendra Modi realises that he cannot get investment if Gujarat lives constantly on the edge, threatening to descend into bloodshed every month. Communal riots were not born in Gujarat six years ago. For a decade in the Eighties, when the Congress was the only star in the political firmament, Ahmedabad suffered chronic, daily spells of rioting. It was a disease whose tentacles were wider than the breadth of the city. Violence is not a partner of profit.

It is a question worth investigating: has economic reform created a new mindset that can eliminate the noxious effects of India’s worst curse?

There comes a moment in any investigation when one must argue against oneself. Every part of India is not booming in the manner of Mumbai and Gujarat. Why have communal riots come down elsewhere?

First, the exception: Bengal. The CPI(M) did not need economic reforms to learn the virtues of communal peace. Its ideology was secular. Bengal, a partition state with a history of communal conflict far worse than Punjab’s, has been peaceful ever since the Marxists came to power. There are those who still remember how the present head of the state CPI(M), Biman Bose, personally stood at Calcutta’s street corners, along with his cadres, during the vicious pogroms of 1964, to prevent Congress thugs from setting Muslim localities to torch. The performance of the Left Front in Bengal is evidence that if a government wants to, it can always prevent communal tension from boiling over into a riot.

The mother of all paradoxes, of course, is that economic reform brought a hint of communal tension to Bengal in 2007, rather than reverse it. Being conscientious the Marxists have begun to implement a radical educational-cum-economic programme for minorities, crafted by Prakash Karat and the Bengal party. This virtual manifesto could be the most important benefit that Bengal’s Muslims have got since independence. In political terms: last year the Marxists in Bengal could not have escaped defeat. Elections this year will be a different story.

What of the great Hindi heartland, battlefield of a thousand complexes and indeed complexions?

The easy answer is that the Yadav-Muslim alliance created by Mulayam Singh Yadav and Lalu Prasad Yadav ensured the peace that had disappeared during the previous decades of Congress rule. This is only partially true. What is certain is that these Yadav leaders honoured the compact with Muslims by ensuring their security. The Congress in UP and Bihar took Muslim support for granted and then, without the least tremor of conscience, betrayed the community. But the Muslim vote has shifted partially, to Mayawati in Uttar Pradesh and Nitish Kumar in Bihar, and the old plague has not returned.

Mayawati and Nitish Kumar are not in the Congress, so they maintain the tradition of amity set by their predecessors. But the real answer may be in the behaviour of people rather in the predilections of politicians.

The agenda of the Indian voter has changed. He, and more importantly she, is no longer easily swayed by emotional appeals to crude forms of identity, whether it is religion or caste. Caste and religion peaked with Mandal and Masjid between 1990 and 1992; fifteen years later, there are signs that both volcanoes are finally still. Narendra Modi did not promise a temple at Ayodhya to win in Gujarat, and his attacks on Muslims were comparatively muted. He swept ahead on good governance. The Mandal maestros, Lalu and Mulayam Yadav, have been defeated. If Mulayam Singh Yadav is reviving in Uttar Pradesh it is because Mayawati is slipping on governance. If Lalu Yadav is still in the dumps, it is because Nitish Kumar is delivering on governance.

Obviously this is not a uniform reality. India is too complicated a polity for one formulation to cover all electoral nuances. But good governance is the expanding motivator. The traditional talisman is dead. The voter now keeps a balance sheet in front of him. When he hears that the Indian economy has grown by nine per cent he wants to know if an extra nine rupees has gone into his pocket for every hundred that existed.

Tough question. But you can’t have the right answer without the right question.

The poor may not want an insurrection against the daily millionaires of the stock exchange, but they are not going to be minused from wealth creation, or remain content with that infamous trickle that the World Bank has allotted to them, and which India’s World Bank clients in the present government think is sufficient for the poor.

Wealth is like knowledge. If you do not share it, it disappears.

Friends and Masters

Byline by M J Akbar: Friends and Masters

Being an unrepentant optimist, let me begin with the good news. (Pessimism may be reasonable and even virtuous, but it is just too boring.) Pakistan’s trauma seems to have become a serial saga, with every episode raising the intensity of pain. But as a Pakistani friend visiting Delhi remarked, the events that culminated in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto were the first occasion when neither the Pak establishment nor the Pak street blamed India for any role in the tragedy.

At the root of the India-Pakistan problem is the Indian conviction that Pakistan will use any means, including war, to get Kashmir; and the Pakistani fear that India wants to destroy and subjugate their nation. There is sufficient evidence for the Indian conviction, the two wars of 1947-48 and 1965 and the present support to certain jihadi elements operating in the valley. Pakistanis see their evidence in the war of 1971, and the politics leading up to the creation of Bangladesh. They trace their angst to statements made by some prominent Congress leaders, including Jawaharlal Nehru, that it did not seem likely that Pakistan would survive. That was a misjudgment by Nehru: nation states, once formed, do not disband themselves voluntarily, although the creation of Bangladesh did confirm that the original idea of Pakistan had to be kneaded and reshaped. This fear has fed such suspicion that almost anything that goes wrong internally is instinctively attributed to the enemy. It may have needed an awful tragedy, but Pakistan has clearly begun to shed that fear.

This cannot be either instant or accidental. It takes time to peel skin from the psyche. It was the nuclear bomb that gave the Pakistani street the confidence that "bigger" India could no longer destroy "small" Pakistan. "Big" and "small" are notional facts. Britain could have fitted easily into Bengal but still ruled half the world. But the correlation between big and strong is so deeply ingrained that it is almost impossible to remove it from the subcontinent’s dialectic. When India and Pakistan went formally nuclear, the MAD doctrine was in place: war could only lead to Mutually Assured Destruction. Fear and anger, the two dominant attitudes, began to ebb.

Anger has not disappeared from Pakistan. It has turned direction. It is now primarily directed at the Army, which has usurped power too often, raised itself above accountability, and delivered neither inclusive politics nor good government.

At one level is the wrath of the liberal, symbolised by the lawyer but extending to other sections of the middle and upper middle class. It is angry at the complete abolition of values by the Army in pursuit of power. No one expects the Army to be a paragon of democratic virtues, but General-President Pervez Musharraf has assaulted institutions and robbed them of a powerful virtue, self-respect, in order to preserve himself in office. The judiciary has been castrated, and media bled. The democracy that he is advertising as his creation is a car with five wheels, in which he is the fifth, and biggest, wheel. Of course the coming elections in Pakistan will be free, although not quite fair; because the voters will be free to defeat anyone except him. He remains in power. An election is nothing if it cannot also be a popular judgment on the incumbent. But Musharraf’s term in office is outside the frame of this poll’s reference. Whoever wins, Musharraf cannot lose. Such is the logic of Army democracy.

A number of retired generals, not all of them hostile to Musharraf for personal reasons, have described him as the problem, and asked him to step down. There are indications that senior serving officers have recognised that what is at stake is the credibility of Pakistan’s most important institution, its Army. They have begun to withdraw Army officers from civilian space. Musharraf used to buy peace with his peers-in-uniform by shoving them into comfortable jobs as head of public sector companies, or quasi-government bodies. Generals were not only fighting wars on the Frontier, but also running cricket. This had nothing to do with patronage. It was that old sin of autocratic rule: back-scratching. Backs were scratched so often that the country got eczema.

There is another, stronger, reason for anger on the street, creating a problem with inflammable consequences. The Pakistani in the bylanes, bazaars and villages wants to know why Musharraf is fighting America’s war against fellow Muslims. An answer is essential in order to make this war legitimate in the eyes of the people. It is possible that the jawan in the Pakistan Army might be asking the same question as well, although discipline would prevent him from voicing it. Strange stories are seeping through from the battlefields where the Pak Army is engaged with the Taliban and its allies in Swat and the Frontier, leaving observers to wonder whether in some cases there is any engagement at all. The dry fact is that large parts of this region are outside government control, and Taliban presence has not only crossed into Rawalpindi and Islamabad, but also reached Lahore.

As a retired Pakistani diplomat remarked, a Nato defeat in Afghanistan would no longer mean the Talibanisation of Afghanistan alone. It could lead to a surge and victory for the Taliban in Pakistan.

There are danger signals popping up all over Delhi as well, if there was anyone capable of reading the message in flashing lights. India has launched a spy satellite for Israel, and is planning to send up two more. If these were media satellites, it would be explicable. But Israel uses its spy satellites as weapons against the Palestinian people. Someone is bound to raise the question: why is Delhi fighting Israel’s war against Palestinians? Silence will be treated as a guilty plea.

The reason is not complicated. George Bush created an international alliance after 9/11, but he has failed to convince even his allies that he is fighting a genuine war against terrorism. Most Muslims — make that over 90% — believe that he has started a war against Muslims rather than against terrorism. If they had any doubts before, they were removed after America’s wanton invasion and occupation of Iraq.

The consequences of Talibanisation in Pakistan are not limited to Pakistan. They will have a direct impact. We do not have to buy into dread scenarios being offered in gruesome books about a coup that brings a Taliban-general to power in Islamabad and threatens India, and the world, with the nuclear arsenal under his command. Such hyper-drama may be off the wall. But common sense suggests that Indian foreign policy should tread a far more careful path than Pakistan’s gung-ho generals did.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called Bush India’s best friend. He might want to ponder over the long-term implications of such friendship. Bush has another best friend. His name is Musharraf.

Tailpiece: The surprise name in the annual awards handed out by the Government of India to the worthy and the faithful was external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee. Governments do not generally hand out gongs to a Cabinet minister. As a retirement benefit, it was a few rungs lower than an alarm clock; but clearly Mukherjee is not in any mood to retire. What on earth was the Prime Minister trying to tell Mukherjee? "Sorry, I couldn’t make you Prime Minister, which I know you want to be, but I’ve got the job; I could not make you President of India because you were apparently too invaluable at a more junior level. So here, take this gong. You are now at least as good as Sachin Tendulkar, Asha Bhonsle and Ratan Tata."

Even more intriguing question: why did Pranab Mukherjee accept the award?

A Roman Diary (Blood Brothers)

Byline by M J Akbar: A Roman Diary
Rome

India is the world’s latest quotation mark. Nepal has become a question mark, Sri Lanka an oversized exclamation mark; and Bangladesh is imprisoned between brackets, the space for leeway decreasing by the day. Pakistan is teetering towards a full stop.

China has turned into yesterday’s paragraph: still impressive, but with the contradictions becoming evident through cracks separating sentences.

What a wonderful feeling to be an Indian at that moment in history when the world begins to applaud as India comes within reach of that long-promised tryst with destiny, and shifts imperceptibly towards the centre of the stage. The auditorium is packed with distinguished Roman faces and eager journalists. The launch of the Italian Edition of my book Blood Brothers (published by Neri Pozza as Fratelli di sangue) is the excuse. They have come for another glimpse of the Indian story. The book is a portrait of the heart of India, pumping blood to its veins through valves distinct in faith but united in purpose. Italy is waking up to a question that has been asked and answered in India for a thousand years, that runs through three generations of blood brothers: how can different faiths live together? There are many convoluted answers. Here is a short one.

It takes two sides to make war. It also takes two sides to make peace.

The weights on the panel for the discussion about the book are heavy: Sandro Gozi, president of the Italian-Indian Association; Dr Roberto Colaninno, president of Gruppo Piaggio; Dr Guidalberto Guidi, president of Ducati Energia and Dr Giuseppe Marra, president of GMC. Italy’s businessmen are more interested in India than Italy’s politicians. That is the good news. The future is bright.

Businessmen succeed because they can read a balance sheet with bifocals. They also use night vision. They will not rev up the engines without foreknowledge of roadblocks in the night. I was asked direct questions. Let me mention two. What could sabotage India’s growth? And whatever happened to Gandhi?

Honesty demanded candour. Growth would be sabotaged only if there was continued neglect of the undergrowth. Growth was incompatible with poverty, or that corrosive, besetting sin, communal violence. The reason is not virtue. Morality is important, but pragmatism is more effective. Conflict is injurious to economic growth. Mumbai can have either riots or a booming stock exchange, not both.

As for non-violence: it was a brilliant strategy against an "invincible" empire. It is a hopeless glue for a nation state. The state cannot turn the other cheek against secession or terrorism.

One should have expected the favourite question of TV, print and radio journalists. What is common between Italy and India? I can think of two attributes immediately. Both Italian and Indian men are in love with, and in awe of, their mothers. And both drive cars in the heart of the city with the imperious impatience of maniacs. The Italians have an advantage though. Don’t bother if you are hit by most cars in a city like Torino. The car will get hurt. The small car is not only alive and well in Italy, but has all the impishness of a brat.

One could also suggest a unique sense of logic common to elements of both societies. The room service waiter at the friendly, gracious and very pretty Hotel Locarno in the heart of Rome, once a boutique residence of filmstars on a Roman holiday or on Hollywood business, was irrefutable. Twice he responded to my request for a bucket of ice and soda by saying that he could not take my order because his phone was not working. The third conversation was at his initiative. He, considerately, made the call. The phone was working now, he said, with more than a hint of triumph. I wanted to check how we had managed to communicate on a variety of subjects on the two previous occasions when his phone was not working, but decided that the dialectic might be in contravention of some labour law. I decided to let sleeping telephones lie.

Every human being has a friend. But only a few are privileged to have a friend like Dr Pippo Marra, the large-hearted baron of a flourishing media empire. Roman doors never remain closed before him. He had the imagination to start an Arabic news service that has become a hit across the Mediterranean: Italy is divided from the Arab world by a calm sea. His company shot to international fame when Al Qaeda chose to deliver its last message through his Arabic service. A cynosure of the media, he was the architect of the generous attention that Blood Brothers received. He offered me the ultimate hospitality, the liberal gift of his time. The highlight of his programme for me was a football match, AS Roma versus Torino FC, at the famous Roma ground, in the second of the two encounters between the teams in the knockout Italy Cup.

If news had spread that I was going to see Romano Prodi, it might have provoked a yawn or two. When people learnt I was going to see Totti, even friends could not disguise their envy. Prodi is a mere Prime Minister. Totti is a genius, star of Roma and sun of Italian football.

And how that sun dazzled! He did not come on to the field till about ten minutes after half time. Roma were still two goals in deficit from the previous game. The scoresheet was as blank as an accountant’s face. Play was stopped. Totti arrived. A thunderclap from Zeus roared down from the stands. Suddenly, touch, weave and thrust shifted the dynamic of a game that had plodded down narrow furrows. Totti flicked the ball, darted across, changed position. The field became wider side-to-side and shorter goalpost-to-goalpost. The Roma midfield and front line became touched with mercury. They found the net thrice in quick succession before Torino could understand what was going on, and then banged the ball into the net a fourth time after Torino lost their will. Totti scored his 200th goal in Italian football and received a standing ovation. I expect a standing ovation from my son when I eventually receive the signed Totti shirt that Dr Marra has promised to parcel.

It is mildly reassuring to be addressed correctly. Italians call people of the Islamic faith "Mussalmano" rather than the inelegant British "Moslem" or the absurd "Saracen". Crusaders used Saracen because they thought Arabs were children of Sarah, Abraham's wife. Mecca owes its origins however to Hajr, Abraham’s second wife. In such a fragment of language lies history. Arabs ruled Sicily till the 11th century.

Thoughts on a literary festival in Torino. The last temptation of an author, creator of characters, is to become a character actor in front of peers. Authors tend to write from the head and speak from the imagination. Perhaps it should be the other way around, but that would be far less interesting a spectacle. A literary festival is the space between ego and alter ego. Give an author a stage and watch a peacock dance. Some do it elegantly enough. Those with borrowed plumes never stop short of the Bhangra. The best, a rare few, sit on a stone in the corner of the stage, either waiting for Godot or chuckling at themselves.

Knockout Time

Byline by M J Akbar: Knockout Time

The logic of the last round can be significantly different from the strategies that have sustained a heavyweight bout thus far. When the contestants hear the final bell, they can be sure of two things in a democracy tournament: there will be a winner or a loser, because there is nothing called an inconclusive draw. Two, time is finite. This is a moment for decisions; the options of weave-and-duck are over. You need to conserve your maximum strength for the knockout punch in this winner-takes-all struggle.

Gujarat seems to have opened both the pores and the eyes of the Congress. From the pores has oozed some panic-perspiration. It remains to be seen whether open eyes will bring clarity. Mrs Sonia Gandhi has authorised some mobilisation of fresh recruitment to the ranks, and the person at the top of the wooing-list is Mulayam Singh Yadav, after three years during which Yadav was the target of some fairly ferocious pummelling. This is ironic, of course, since Yadav was humiliated, and then kept out of government, after he offered and gave full support to the coalition now in office in Delhi. A little more civility three and a half years ago, and the deal might have been in place all the while. Of course, if politics brings such bedfellows together, the Congress will suddenly convert Amar Singh from brash-lip to gentleman, and issue a character certificate to Amitabh Bachchan that he made no efforts to evade income tax and all along had been a bosom family friend. This is politics, or at least personality politics, a bane of Indian democracy.

The glue for a potential alliance is a common enemy, the forthright Ms Mayawati. The Congress should have realised many years ago that Mayawati and the Congress are incompatible because their vote-structure overlaps. If Mayawati succeeds, the Congress is sunk. She damaged the Congress in a dozen constituencies in Himachal Pradesh, and perhaps as many in Gujarat.
What can prevent a Congress-Mulayam alliance now? The same thing that sabotaged it to begin with: personal angst. Samajwadi Party leaders now have long lists of grievances, and unless they are remedied the acrimony will not suddenly disappear. The Congress will need more than one remedy in the North in the general elections that seem destined for this year.

The Left is still in a daze in Bengal, stunned by the virulent public anger over Nandigram and Singur. This is not an urban phenomenon, but has spread to the villages. The coming panchayat elections this summer will be as tough as any that the CPI(M) has fought. Moreover, the Muslims, who have been the strongest supporters of the Left, are slipping from its grasp. Justice Rajinder Sachar’s report has exposed the neglect of the community in Bengal; he is identified now not only with discrimination but also with justice. There is a double trap here. Even as the BJP plans to call Sachar report appeasement, Muslims are distancing themselves from their preferred parties out of disillusionment. The vacuum is being filled by the religious leaders, who have now created political platforms. The Left, averse to identity politics because of its conviction that class was the principal determinant, has become marooned.

To its credit, it has got the message and is addressing the problem, not just by windbag rhetoric, the traditional medication offered by politicians, but with a series of grass-roots’ programmes that have been sanctioned, and aim at basics like education and employment (including in the government sector). This may be insufficient to salve wounds before a general election, but it will be recognised before the next Assembly elections. The problem of Taslima Nasreen’s controversial book, and her immense desire to live among friends in Kolkata, has the potential to resurrect passions at any moment. If this book goes on sale at the Kolkata book fair in the last week of January this year, there could be trouble. The venue is the Park Circus Maidan, close to the Muslim localities of the city.

Can the Left do anything to recover before the Lok Sabha elections? It has one hidden asset, a bit of a negative one, but substantial nevertheless. We know what the Left Front is all about: the cumbrous economic transition process which has turned into a lurch rather than a trot; a stagnant administrative delivery mechanism that aborts the best of intentions; the weariness of incumbency. We know the size of each wart, and it is not a pretty sight.

But what precisely is the alternative, Mamata Banerjee, all about? We know she wants to be chief minister and throw the Tata car project into the Bay of Bengal. But how does she plan to provide jobs to Bengal’s young? We know she is censorious about the Marxist neglect of Muslims, but how precisely is she planning to deliver salvation? We have a lot of silence instead of coherent answers. The Left can exploit contradictions inherent in the personality-and-martyrdom politics of Mamata Banerjee if it has the skill and the will to do so. There was a time when ‘if’ would have been redundant. These days a qualification is necessary.

What can Dr Manmohan Singh do in the last months of his prime ministership? For starters, there is something he should not do. He must avoid the temptation to turn the last budget of his administration, due in February, into a charity jumble sale. Throwing money at vote banks simply does not work. It infuriates those who have been denied, and bores the beneficiaries, who wanted such inducements in the first budget, when there was time for implementation, and not in the last, when there is time only to ask for votes.

Everyone knows Dr Singh is a mild Prime Minister. That is admirable. Very few men are capable of modesty in high office. Power generally travels at lightning speed to their head, propelling them upwards like a gas balloon without a tail. Dr Singh remains simple and honest — even as all around him ego-wrecked ministers stack it up in sackfuls.
But the question Dr Singh must answer is this: has he been a weak Prime Minister? He has only one way left to kill such an allegation, and he has perhaps up to February and possibly March to do so.

The central thrust of his years in office has been the Indo-US nuclear deal, now wandering in the limbo of uncertainty and headed towards the purgatory of lost souls if left without a tether. The Americans are irritated at what they see as betrayal, or at least bad judgment. Indian supporters of the deal are aghast. If Dr Singh lets down the passion that he himself generated, he will not be given time for penitence.

As readers of this column are aware, I have opposed the deal because of many of the provisions of the Hyde Act, which I consider intrusive, abrasive and even impudent. (Why should Iran be mentioned 18 times in a bilateral deal between the United States and India?) But the Prime Minister believes very deeply that India can live with such conditions, and the trade-off is worth the benefits that will accrue to the country. He has always argued that the deal is in the national interest, in which case it is axiomatic that the national interest should prevail over the government’s interest, which is really nothing more than surviving a few extra months. It is not as if Dr Singh was being asked to sacrifice three years of his term. If Dr Singh stakes his government even now on the deal, you might be able to call him mistaken, but you will not be able to call him weak.

Without strength, he and the Congress might as well not even begin sparring for the last round — otherwise, instead of a knockout, we will witness a knockabout.

A Policket Quiz

Byline by M.J. Akbar :A Policket Quiz

Test your knowledge, analytical ability and skill as an astrologer through this simple quiz on two of the three great national entertainments of India, politics and cricket. Tick your preference, cut out, keep and check how right or wrong you have been by the end of 2008. (Even 2008 will come to an end, in about 360 days.)

1: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will
a) Abandon the nuclear deal and remain in office for another year
b) Go for it, and challenge the Left and Opposition to a sudden-death election in May
c) Do neither and hope for the best.

2: The Padma awards on 26 January this year will be
a) Dominated by CEO-types as government reinforces its liberalisation image
b) Full of handouts to unknown sycophants backed by unknown ministers
c) Go to those who genuinely deserve them.

3: The Union Budget will be
a) More leftist-than-thou, a sudden reversal to pro-poor policies
b) Packed with subsidies to minorities
c) A repeat of last year’s neither-here-nor-there prescriptions, but this time overdosing on quotations from Tamil poets.

4: The BJP will
a) Return to depression after losing in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan
b) Discover stability and an alternative economic policy and win
c) Behave as if it has already won the next general elections and swagger to another defeat.

5: Sharad Pawar will
a) Send flowers every month to Bal Thackeray
b) Smile at the Congress and sabotage it at every level
c) Import huge amounts of wheat when international prices are at their highest.

6: The decisive factor in the next general elections will be
a) The nuclear deal
b) Rising prices
c) Narendra Modi
d) Fractious alliances
e) Mayawati’s ability to cut the Congress vote in seats she can’t win.

7: Bengal’s chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee will
a) Reinterpret Marxism through a thesis titled Bindas Capital, which will be popularly known as Buddhism
b) Be replaced as chief minister after severe reverses in the summer panchayat elections
c) Re-establish control over Bengal through guns, cadres and sops.

8: The Left will
a) Play hide-and-seek with the Third Front
b) Play hide-and-seek with the Congress
c) Play hide-and-seek with itself.

9: The Congress will paint Prime Minister-in-waiting L.K. Advani as
a) Modi without a beard
b) Modi without Gujarat
c) Modi without Modi.

10: The BJP will portray the Manmohan Singh government as
a) Do-nothing jee huzoors
b) Do-nothing minority-appeasers
c) Do-nothing except both of the above.

11: The Congress will
a) Taking a cue from Barack Obama, project Rahul Gandhi and ‘change’ as the theme song of its next election campaign
b) Stick to the comfort-level of Dr Manmohan Singh’s prime ministership
c) Leave matters ambiguous, wait for the results to come in, and then see how the politics of power play out.

12: India and Pakistan will
a) Let relations stagnate for yet another year, using the excuse of uncertainty at the top and instability at the bottom
b) Search for a surrogate war in Afghanistan
c) Miraculously discover common sense and realise that unless they sort out Kashmir, and swim together against terrorism India will suffer and Pakistan will sink.

13: Rahul Dravid will unfreeze when
a) He realises that he was nicknamed The Wall, not Wall’s ice cream
b) Gets written orders from his wife to relax
c) Listens to his personal manager
d) Drinks six large malt whiskies in half an hour at a good Australian bar
e) Gets dropped.

14: We will get English cricket commentary when
a) Ravi Shastri realises that "batter" is a mixture of flour, egg and milk or water, used for caking food before frying, and not a man with a bat at the crease
b) When some unmentionables stop saying that it was not a very difficult chance, but not an easy chance either
c) When other unmentionables stop reading English in the Urdu script
d) When a basic grammar test is a compulsory requirement for anyone aspiring to be a commentator
e) When one or two commentators learn that people are interested in cricket and not in the volume of gas in their vocal cords.

15: The Indian Cricket XI by the end of 2008 will have
a) The present level of four Permanent Oldies, two regular Middle-Agers and young floaters
b) Seven Oldies, two MAs and two floaters
c) Three members of the Supreme Committee of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, seven Oldies and Shah Rukh Khan as coach-captain.

16: Sachin Tendulkar will score his fiftieth Test century in
a) 2010
b) 2012
c) At the age of 50.

17: Sourav Ganguly will
a) Be reappointed captain
b) Become chief minister of Bengal after Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee
c) Refuse to retire until he signs a Rs 100 crore contract to advertise casual shirts that come off easily without tearing.

If by the end of 2008 you discover that you have mastered both politics and cricket, you will be made a member of the Rajya Sabha and chair a special committee to investigate the role of bookies in fixing cricket matches.

Blind Faith

Byline by M J Akbar: Blind Faith

If you want to understand Pakistan today, try and imagine this scenario in India. It is 1984, Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale escapes during Operation Bluestar and disappears into an inaccessible range of the Himachal Himalayas. The Indian armed forces cannot find him; although Delhi will never admit it, Bluestar is a failure. The militants, operating under the command of General Shabeg, regroup, their loyalty to the ideological leadership of Bhindranwale reinforced by success in battle. Anger against Bluestar arouses the Sikh peasantry to the kind of fury and passion it displayed during Banda Bahadur’s war against the Mughals. The young take up militancy in self-generating numbers, making casualties irrelevant to the insurgency. Bhindranwale remains in regular touch with the insurgents, who now have safe sanctuary in certain gurudwaras, since the Indian government is hesitant to invade sacred space after the counter-productive calamity of Bluestar.

Simultaneously, inspired by Punjab, a violent jihad explodes in Kashmir, far more intense than the conflict that lacerated the valley in the Nineties. The Kashmiri jihad finds its own leader, and works in coordination with Bhindranwale. India’s military and paramilitary forces are so deeply engaged in the battles of Punjab and Kashmir that they have to thin out their presence along the China and Bangladesh borders, opening up options for those in the neighbourhood who are hostile to India’s unity.

By 1996, the Indian armed forces are battle-weary at the base and defiant at the top. They have grown tired of civilian politicians and parties that do not understand the meaning of "a free hand". When a fractious coalition patches together a government in Delhi, the Prime Minister is unable to provide any direction at all. He spends more time plotting to survive than planning to save India’s integrity. Kashmir’s jihadis taunt Delhi daily, and take a heavy toll on the armed forces. By this time, the South also has become vulnerable, with the LTTE finding friends on the mainland and terrorism becoming a constant threat in Tamil Nadu. Assam is ablaze. There is a coup in the name of national unity. The general who becomes India’s dictator is widely welcomed by the nation.

By 2000, however, the Army dictators have proved no better than the old politicians, and in the process destroyed the credibility of the democratic institutions by swearing in stooge politicians into their government, which naturally is headed by a toothless "Prime Minister". In fact, the government has lost control everywhere outside Srinagar, Ludhiana, Jullundur and Chandigarh. 9/11 saves the Indian dictators because they rush help to the America-led Nato invasion of Afghanistan, and follow it up with division-strength support to the American invasion of Iraq.

America guarantees the security of the China border. Pakistan is not a serious threat except for its encouragement of the surrogate war, and Bangladesh too weak to challenge India militarily.

By 2005, prices have steepled, the economy has tanked, the nation is in disarray; defence swallows up the budget. If the insurgency has not succeeded it is only because of the will of the Indian people, the sacrifices of the soldiers and an extraordinary geopolitical advantage: India has space. The Army can rely on supply lines and fresh recruitment; it can fight behind the Beas when necessary and at the Jhelum when it wants to. But the dictators have become deeply unpopular, and cannot hold back demonstrations that become more massive by the day. There is domestic censorship, but the world press cannot be prevented from reporting the turbulence. The generals are forced to call for elections. They are scheduled for the first week of January 2008.

The politicians return, some from jail, some from exile, some from hibernation, for the bitter campaign of December 2007. The insurgents choose their targets…

I could go on.

But let us pause to remember the martyrs who did not let India succumb to anarchy. Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi must head the list, but there are thousands of officers, jawans, policemen and civilians on that roll call of honour. There are leaders who are now forgotten: Sant Longowal and Beant Singh, the chief minister of Punjab for instance. There are leaders who are still with us: Who can afford to forget the fight that Farooq Abdullah put up against three years of unprecedented militancy in Kashmir?

The forces at play in Pakistan are, of course different, but the end result is a gathering anarchy. Pakistan is teeming with ideologues, banded under dozens of banners, each with its private army, who are determined to turn it into a theocratic state. Parallel forces operate within an informal alliance, their agenda overlapping; jihadis against the West, principally America; an Osama bin Laden still alive and officially untraceable, but in command of his armed sectarians; Taliban warriors who control regions on both sides of the Pak-Afghan border. Add to this a polity wrecked by inept civilian politicians and an obstinate military high command, and you have a cauldron brewed by the witches of misfortune.

Benazir Bhutto lost her life in a nation that has lost its moorings and is in danger of being marooned.

This phase of its history began with the judicial assassination of her father, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, now known to the people as the "Shaheed Baba". It will not end with the death of the "Shaheed Beti".

General Zia ul Haq, motivated by personal insecurity, was the first dictator to use death as an instrument of state policy. He was not the first general to stage a coup. But Ayub Khan ran a soft regime. Yahya Khan did not hang Sheikh Mujibur Rahman even though the charge was treason.
After Zia, the path to power became paved with peril and stained with death. The Afghan war changed the local dynamic. The gun was no longer in the custody of the state. It was handed, with the collusion of America, to non-state actors. They have not returned the gun. It has gradually become part of the culture of politics. Benazir Bhutto did not create the Taliban, but she gave it a nation and an unstoppable momentum by launching it in Afghanistan. The bullets, or those shards from bombs that killed her, have debilitated her country and broken yet another hope in a nation desperately in need of some.

Benazir’s friends will remember her with affection; her followers with pride; both will live with tears. Others will ponder over the cruelty of the angel of death, who is meant to take away exhausted lives but seems to hover mercilessly over those who have returned from despair. Benazir had matured enough, according to those close to her, to dull the edge of error. Rajiv Gandhi was plucked away at the very moment when he might have blossomed again. Serfs of this merciless angel arrive from anonymity to shift the course of history.

Blame is not a game, and yet it must be played out if only to seek some semblance of an answer, the only nutrient that can revive the fading embers of hope. Pakistan needs the courage of introspection. It did not introspect when an unknown assassin ended the life of its first Prime Minister, in Rawalpindi as well, Liaquat Ali Khan. It cannot afford complacency. Pakistan must look beyond the names of individuals to eliminate the forces that diet on havoc. Will it do so?

India is in comparative calm, but surrounded by nations at war with themselves. The calm is comparative, for Naxalites are asking for change from within the heart of India.

There is one immediate lesson ahead of many larger ones that will emerge with thought, analysis and an honest look at the mirror. It is simply this: Terrorism is an unmitigated evil. Long before terrorism can wound an enemy, it destroys its masters. If the governing elites of South Asia do not understand this stark, simple fact, they will gouge out their own eyes. Blind elites cannot see either a horizon or a mirror. Who can the blind lead, except the blind?

Big Chiefs

Byline by M J Akbar : Big Chiefs

The results of the Gujarat elections appear on 23 December, and politics resumes in Delhi on the 24th. Judging by the tension on the faces of politicians, no one really believes either the polls or the exit polls. Even the bookies, who were certain the BJP would get a majority, began to cover their bets just before results were due. The miracle of a genuine election is the secrecy of public opinion. A friend who met Narendra Modi after the last ballot had been cast found him a bit withdrawn, a little less than his ebullient sarcastic self. If Modi cannot be sure of what is lying in those electronic machines, you can bet that no one else is certain.

Two points need to be flagged, before we are all exposed as wearing blinkers instead of spectacles. The Congress has everything to gain, and little to lose in Gujarat. Results are measured in the balance of expectations. No one expects the Congress to win, so if it does pull off a surprise the political momentum will shift in its favour. It is difficult to say how long this momentum will last. In 2004, the BJP had convinced itself that three sweeping victories in the states would add up to a majority at the Centre. It is still kicking itself for that mistake.

The BJP has everything to lose in Gujarat, and not much to gain. In cold terms, another BJP victory will be a fairly impressive achievement. We think of incumbency only in terms of Narendra Modi, but the Congress has been out of power in Gujarat for 17 years. Modi replaced a BJP chief minister, Keshubhai Patel, only because the incumbency factor was beginning to wear out the party already. But since hyper-expectations have been established around Modi, a defeat will destabilise the BJP while a victory will be forgotten, or attributed to poison-politics.

The second point is about result comparisons. The normal tendency, in all statistical analyses, is to compare present Assembly results with those of five years ago, in the last Assembly polls. What is missed is the general election results of 2004. The Congress won in 91 Assembly segments in the 2004 polls. In other words, it won a slim majority in Gujarat, which has 180 seats. For Modi to win, he would have to reverse a natural slide that became all too evident in 2004. The Congress, on the other hand, needs to retain its 2004 tally to emerge as an undisputed champion. Modi has to win back lost seats. Modi’s task is harder.

Those who think that the Gujarat election results will determine the date of the next general elections miss the point. The government is not being brought down by the BJP. The government is in danger because its support from the Left has wobbled. The Congress and the Left are not in conflict over Modi. Their dispute is over the nuclear deal and the strategic relationship with the United States. When the applause dies down after the Gujarat electoral curtain goes up, the debate on the future of the UPA government will return to the deal. The Gujarat elections gave the Congress a little pause for breath, but that is over.

Within the next fortnight or month, the Congress will have to indicate clearly whether it is going ahead with the nuclear deal or not. That is the decision that will determine the date of the next general elections. If the Congress does well in Gujarat, it might be encouraged to test the national waters, but it will be the wrong reason for a decision that must be based on other considerations. The more important question is: if the Congress cannot win, will it regroup within the status quo, or will it still chase the nuclear deal? Certainly the party needs a bit of time now to throw out sops to its core supporters. We are bound to hear talk of a development plan for minorities, for instance; and if there is opportunity for a budget to be placed before Parliament, we can be certain that it will reek of generosity rather than economic reform. This is politics as usual. But there is also a view that too much has been invested in the nuclear deal to let it stagnate in the corner, neither fish nor fowl. This view believes that the Congress can mobilise a vote on electricity, and turn the nuclear deal into a national mantra for an energy-starved country.

There is very little that is general in a general election now. The results in Delhi are becoming a reflection of the popularity of state governments, driven by regional issues. As the federal instincts of India sharpen, the country is being run by chief ministers rather than a Prime Minister. It is their performance that holds the key to which alliance will get how many seats. The BJP’s last hope in 2004 disappeared when the Congress won as many as 12 seats in Gujarat. It is the chief ministers who will deliver the next Prime Minister. They are the Big Chiefs of Indian politics.

A seasonal tailpiece: Since British columnists (unlike Americans or Indians) love sending up VIPs, readers and themselves, one is never too certain whether what they say is a fact, an assertion or a tease. Rod Liddle wrote in the 16 December issue of the Sunday Times of London that he had met a certain Syaikh (sic; normal people would spell this Shaikh) Muhammad bin Shalih al-Uthaymeen, who had been advising British Muslims that to say "Merry Christmas" was forbidden. Assuming that the name is correct and the item is authentic, I have news for this Syaikh.

Islam and Christianity, both Abrahamic faiths, have of course many differences, but there is one important element of doctrine in common. Islam too believes in the virgin birth. Islam does not accept that Jesus died on the cross, and obviously cannot accept Jesus as the last prophet; but the Quran says repeatedly that Mary was a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus. The Quran mentions Mary (Maryam) more times than the New Testament: 34 to 19. There are references to Jesus (Isa) in 93 verses spread across 15 suras (chapters). Verse 91 of sura 21 is one of the references to the virgin birth: "And (remember) her who guarded her chastity: We breathed into her of Our Spirit, and We made her and her son a sign for all peoples". Verse 45 of sura 3 says: "Behold! The angels said, ‘O Mary! Allah giveth thee glad tidings of a Word from Him: his name will be Christ Jesus. The son of Mary, held in honour in this world and the Hereafter, and of the company of those nearest to Allah’."

The question arose: if Jesus was not born of a man (he is constantly called son of Mary) then it gave credence to the Christian belief that he was son of God. The Quran gave him the status of Adam, who was born of neither man nor woman and was yet not considered divine.
Muslims may not accept the Biblical version of the death of Jesus, but his birth is an essential component of Islamic history. So forget about that silly Syaikh with a silly spelling - and Merry Christmas!