The Misgovernors

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Byline by M.J.Akbar:The Misgovernors

Recognition of a mistake is the first step towards redemption. Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh have realised this, which is a sign of good sense. But good intentions are not good enough. There has to be accountability. That starts with replacing Jamir and Razi with men of known integrity.

Here’s a headache for which aspirin is not going to be easily available in the misleading stores of Delhi. What is going to be Jharkhand chief minister Shibu Soren’s next job? The fact that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairman Sonia Gandhi share this headache does not make it less painful for either head. If the government does not watch out this could become the cause of a major migraine.

I am assuming of course that the Three Blunderbusses (I can’t quite get myself to call them Musketeers), misgovernor Syed Sibtey Razi and his two ATM cash dispensers Subodh Kant Sahay and Priya Ranjan Das Munshi, do not succeed in the now limited time span at their disposal in buying out a couple of Arjun Munda’s MLAs and rig up a last-minute victory for Shibu Soren. Incidentally, they seem to be targeting the sole Muslim MLA with Munda. They’ve got it wrong. Life will be far better for this gentleman in a group where he has no competition in the minority quota.

Soren will need a job in the Union Cabinet if he is defeated in the state, since he hates the loneliness of neglect. He also wants the right sort of job. He insisted on coal and mines when sworn in last May. This was not because he had some grand vision in which India would be a leader of the ore-to-steel world by 2020. It was because mines are the most lucrative source of political and financial muscle in Jharkhand, both of which Shibu Soren needed for the just-concluded Assembly elections. Shibu Soren could not survive when he was forced to resign after a warrant in a murder case. The moment legal formalities had been taken care of he bullied his way back into the Cabinet. His mines portfolio was waiting for him. He refused to wait for a Cabinet reshuffle which is the normal means of reinduction.

In his calmer moments Shibu Soren must be wondering what the fuss is all about. In the good old days of Narasimha Rao, he saved the Union government in exchange for both hard and loose cash. Why should not he save his own government in the state through similar means? Did the political class berate Rao for immorality? Was it not true that the BJP paid perfunctory lip service to protest and the Congress admired Rao as a survivor of exceptional skills? Were such transactions an issue in the general elections of 1996? No. Has any political party been loath to buy wandering MLAs in a hung legislature? Isn’t it true that morality comes easily only to those who do not have the means to be immoral?

Where does this leave the two symbols of political virtue, one legislative and the other human? The written symbol is obviously the Anti Defection Act passed by Parliament with the conjugal consent of the Congress and BJP. Practice, and the authority given to governors and speakers, has made a mockery of the law.

There is prevalent fiction that a speaker is not partisan. A speaker is not nominated by the Supreme Court of India. A speaker is a politician elected on a party ticket and keeps on getting further rewards from the party that gave him the job. That is why a speaker so often has such poor mathematics. He even forgets how to count.

A bigger nonsense is that all governors are representatives of the President of India, guardians of the Constitution and models of propriety. If S.C. Jamir of Goa and Razi of Jharkhand are guardians of the Constitution then it is time for another Constituent Assembly.

The human face of political propriety is Dr Manmohan Singh. But every exercise in sleaze indulged by Congress politicians is going to leave one more faint scar on his visage. He has redeemed his image with the imposition of President’s Rule in Goa, and the President’s order to shorten the period in which Shibu Soren must prove his majority. But the irony could not have escaped his attention. The benefactor of President’s Rule in Goa is going to be the perpetrator of the mess, for the governor does actually rule during President’s Rule. If propriety had any place in our politics Jamir would have resigned. But this is expecting too much of a man who turned power into personal property (pun intended) when he was chief minister of Nagaland.

The Prime Minister consciously kept himself aloof from the skulduggery in Jharkhand, but he cannot keep himself aloof from correctives. There is far more at stake in Jharkhand than in Goa because in the case of Soren he has to restore democratic mores at the cost of a troublesome ally who could easily slip towards blackmail if he was thwarted. When the going is good, the good (like Manmohan Singh) look even better. But when the going gets tough, the good have to get tougher. This is what makes alliance politics a can of worms.

Three months ago the Congress was savouring the prospect of sweeping victories for either itself or its allies, to the point where voices urged that the momentum be carried forward into a snap general election. Victory was assured if the alliances of 2004 had been carried into 2005. Lalu Yadav would have won comfortably in Bihar and Jharkhand would have seen a sweep on the lines of Haryana. Instead, miscalculation led to a U-turn in Jharkhand, and an about-turn in Bihar. Throw in the fact that a frustrated Bhajan Lal has retreated into sulks and rage and you have a scenario that even the most optimistic BJP leader could never have envisaged.

Recognition of a mistake is the first step towards redemption. Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh have realised this, which is a sign of good sense. But good intentions are not good enough. There has to be accountability. That starts with replacing Jamir and Razi with men of known integrity.

Compared to the histrionics elsewhere Bihar has been comparatively quiet. One reason is because all the players there, including the governor, Buta Singh, are men of many seasons, honed by sharp success and dramatic failure. They also know that the repercussions of any decision there could ripple towards Delhi. Lalu Yadav is an angry man just now, but he will not choose the Bhajan Lal option of sulk and sabotage. His anger is already direct. When he was asked to talk to the Congress his initial response was that there was nothing to talk about. The time to talk was two months ago. If the Congress had listened to him both would have gained. His compensation prize will probably be the right to make the first claim on government but even if he gets all the Independents on his side majority will elude him. That is why the others are calm. His only real hope is to split Ram Vilas Paswan’s MLAs, but if he is allowed to get away with that the alliance in Delhi will flounder and a Goa-like situation emerge in the state. In other words, a mess.

President’s Rule might be Lalu’s best alternative because at least it would mean governance by an ally pending another election or, although this is more unlikely, a government headed by Ram Vilas with participation by the JD(U) and support from the BJP.

When all options are open, hard facts rule. The hardest fact for Lalu is that he has lost. No one else may have won, but he has lost.

While all this may be bad news for the Congress, this could mean good news for Dr Manmohan Singh. Fragile partnerships are not the best option for a general election, and allies would have to be extremely foolish to commit suicide on a national level after breaking their backs in the states.

Effect & Cause

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Byline by M.J. Akbar:Effect & Cause

One of the most familiar words in the English language is ‘because’, because events are generally ruled by the relationship between cause and effect. If there is a cause there must be an effect. This makes issues, trivial and important, understandable. Examples from mass culture will prove the point. Why do music channels keep showing Adnan Sami songs endlessly? Because that is a reasonably popular way to spend seven minutes of television time without paying a rupee. Why are new songs shifting to Punjabi-soul after years of only Bhangra-pop? They are herding into the Bulle Shah train driven by Rabbi Shergill. Why do murderers get trapped by brilliant detectives in crime thrillers? Because they have a motive. Why does the bikini issue of the American magazine Sports Illustrated (it’s heavily illustrated with a different kind of sport) get thicker each year (224 pages, according to the copy on my table)? Because, despite an inflated price, it sells out faster than bikinis. Why should the editor of this page get tempted to use one of those pictures from the bikini issue as an illustration for this column? Because that damn picture would get an ogle even out of an Edit or Op-Ed page. So why doesn’t that illustration get used? Because there are strict orders on the limits to which an Edit-page culture can go. You get the idea of cause-and-effect. The effect may be obvious but it is the cause that is the real story.

In mass politics, strangely, the sequence so often gets reversed. It is not the cause, but the effect that is the real story. Effect often reshapes and fundamentally alters the starting point. Clearly, this proposition needs some explanation.

This column is being written on the eve of the declaration of results of the Bihar and Jharkhand Assembly elections, hardly the best moment to pontificate on a dicey subject. Elections are also taking place in Haryana, but since the results in this state seem to be a foregone conclusion, we will leave them alone.

What is the situation in Bihar, where Lalu Prasad Yadav has been in power for 15 years? We can leave the scientific business of getting the results wrong to the opinion pollsters. Let us stick to the indisputable. The fact is that every political force, barring a section of the Left, has done everything in its power to defeat Lalu. I say a section of the Left because the most important Leftist group in Bihar are the Naxalites, and they were as determined to end Lalu-Raj as anyone else. The Janata Dal (United) and the BJP were natural opponents, so their mobilisation was on expected lines. In all fairness, the cracks in the Delhi-centric UPA were not unexpected. The logic that keeps partners together in Delhi does not extend to Patna.

If Delhi is the head, and therefore heady, then Patna is the base, and therefore basic. Ram Vilas Paswan cannot sustain his party by telling his followers that the doors of expansion are shut. Neither can the Congress. And in Lalu Yadav’s scheme of things, both Ram Vilas and the Congress were marginal factors, necessary to ensure his victory, but unnecessary in the exercise of power. It was an ideal situation for him, and precisely for that reason could not be sustained. This was a primary cause for the scatter of the Delhi alliance in Bihar. An equally important cause was that every political party overestimates its strength on the eve of an election. After all, elections are a human business. There cannot be precise markers. It is a fluid sum game. It is only in retrospect that the mind clears up. The BJP is still wondering (privately of course) what the tallies might have been if it had given the AGP an extra seat in Assam, Shibu Soren an extra seat in Jharkhand, and stayed with Om Prakash Chautala in Haryana rather than spurning him. If Lalu had felt that the arc of public opinion would steadily move away from him, he might have offered the fifteen extra seats that would have kept the Congress by his side. There was no way in which he could have retained the support of Ram Vilas, since the bitterness between the two is personal. But, in broad terms, when it comes to an analysis of causes, everyone has a story to tell.

No one, including Lalu, knows what the results will be, but the body language of the Lalu camp is edgy. Lalu Yadav himself does not believe in body language. He believes in language. Whether in victory or defeat Lalu Yadav is irrepressible. He has been using a few epithets about senior Congress leaders (apart from Sonia Gandhi) that will never be quoted in their authorised biographies.

There is only one realistic measurement of effect: when topsy and turvy have finished their game, who is in power? No one is getting a majority from the people; power will go to those who can cobble one in the Assembly. Lalu’s problem is that power has only one meaning for him: his wife becomes chief minister again. An ally as chief minister could be as problematic as an opponent in that chair, and a nominee from his own party perhaps the worst of all options. This is a peculiarity of all personality-driven parties. In Lalu’s case there is an added dimension of vengeance. He cannot afford to be out of power.

If Rabri Devi remains chief minister Lalu Yadav will have a vested interest in the status quo. If the dice throws up different numbers, and Ram Vilas, with 25-odd MLAs, can persuade the JD(U) to join his government, rope in independents and get non-participatory support of the BJP then the cracks at the base will turn heads in Delhi.

One nuance has already been established. Alliance in Delhi is no guarantee for a similar equation in the states. In Jharkhand, the Congress and Shibu Soren’s JMM first nudged the third partner, Lalu Yadav, out, and then set about poaching from each other. The aim was not merely to defeat the BJP-JD(U) but also to become the dominant partner of the alliance. This is also acknowledgement of the individual power of a chief minister. That single office outweighs the collective power of a bunch of ministers. This is partly because of the nature of the office, and partly because a chief minister, unlike a Prime Minister, does not have heavyweights as colleagues. This was why the Congress demanded, and got, this chair in Maharashtra, although Sharad Pawar had the larger number of MLAs. The rules were changed because the Congress could use its Delhi muscle.

The Delhi muscle did not work in Chennai. DMK chief M. Karunanidhi took pre-emptive action when E.V.K.S. Elangovan, the Congress Union minister, dared to dream of his party’s return to partial power in Tamil Nadu. The DMK was ready to go as far as to withdraw its ministers from the Central government. It was only a minor coincidence that Karunanidhi called for a meeting of his party on this for Sunday the 27th. This is the Sunday on which the results of Bihar, Jharkhand and Haryana will be announced. The difference between Karunanidhi and Sharad Pawar is but this: the DMK’s departure from the UPA rattles the coalition; Pawar’s departure raises a sigh, but nothing more.

Point of order: Guess who was beside Lalu Yadav in Central Hall, enjoying the wit in his customarily restrained fashion, while Lalu rewrote the profiles of senior Congress leaders? Sharad Pawar. This by itself means nothing. Power has very little to do with friendship and absolutely nothing to do with banter. Self-interest is the primary motive; and a brother’s interest is protected a long way later, if at all.

Point to note: If Lalu Yadav defeats his opponents and his friends, not to mention pollsters, crosses the 100-seat mark, reduces the Congress to 15-odd seats, emerges as the largest single party/group and dictates the shape of the next government, then what? That too will have its consequences in Delhi, because he will demand a larger share of power in Delhi. Could he extend his grasp to Ram Vilas Paswan’s portfolio? Logic suggests that he could. There has been no reshuffle of the Manmohan Singh government since it was sworn in, and these results could set the scene for a fresh check on equations.

When effect impacts on cause, there is but naturally an after-effect.

Compulsions of Peace

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Byline by M.J.Akbar:Compulsions of Peace

India and Pakistan, having fought over Kashmir for so long, have at long last found time for the Kashmiri.

War breeds vested interests that will not easily surrender their lucrative space. Peace must build its own vested interests. Natwar Singh has placed us on a bus that could create such interests: some at the emotional level, others at the economic level, for he has also opened up tourism in the valley to Pakistan.

Here is a thought for the war lobby that must have surely begun planning how to sabotage the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus link scheduled to start from 7 April. In the third week of October 1947 war began between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. The conflict has lasted 58 years. In the first week of January 2004 Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and President Pervez Musharraf signed the Islamabad declaration that has served as the basis of the current rapprochement. Peace will have lasted 58 weeks by the time the first bus leaves Srinagar for Muzaffarabad.

In 58 years of conflict uncounted thousands of young lives have been lost and not a single square inch of land has changed hands. In 58 weeks of peace, yesterday’s heresies have become today’s facts, and what was unthinkable five years ago will become a reality six weeks later. Fireworks in Srinagar welcomed the promise that Natwar Singh and Khurshid Kasuri offered in Islamabad.

India-Pakistan relations are an exercise in the art of the possible. Occasionally, as happened this week during external affairs minister Natwar Singh’s visit to Islamabad and Lahore, this is elevated to a fine art. While credit must always be evenly shared, a particular word of appreciation is necessary for the statesmanship of Natwar Singh. He did not let politics interfere with national interest. The Islamabad declaration was made by a bitter political foe, but instead of being petty and finding fault he built on that understanding and delivered far beyond conventional expectations. The declaration was a foundation, a statement of intent: nothing more, and indeed nothing less. The hard work still had to be done.

It says something about the state of the BJP that it has responded to the Kashmir bus like a crab with ulcers. If the BJP is searching for much-needed comfort in traditional anti-Pakistan postures, then I have some news for the party. Atal Behari Vajpayee made all that irrelevant.

The war lobby, which of course is a coalition of varied interests, must have an objective, for war cannot be an end in itself. Let us try and examine what it is as coolly and unsentimentally as possible. Militants, the self-proclaimed "jihadis" who have picked up the gun, believe that the status of Jammu and Kashmir can be changed by continuous, low-intensity, high-casualty warfare as long as they have the protection of a base outside the reach of the Indian Army. They underestimate the will of a state to preserve its geographical integrity. It is easy to be gulled by the rhetoric of a television debate, particularly when someone else’s child is being sent into the killing fields.

Situations do not remain static. India and Pakistan have taken significant steps in the last seven years to preserve their national integrity, the most critical element being that they are now mature nuclear powers with efficient delivery systems. This has created a sense of psychological parity, particularly in Pakistan, which laboured, with reason, under the weight of being the smaller and therefore more vulnerable nation. The new zero-sum game has a happy calculus: neither side can win, and both might lose all they have if they are not careful.

You could extend the syndrome. All the three principal military powers of Asia, China, India and Pakistan, are now mature nuclear states (North Korea would fall into the category of an immature nuclear state). China, India and Pakistan therefore lend the region from the Pacific to the Indian Oceans an unusual degree of geopolitical stability, for the era of defeat is over. So if a 1971 is now impossible, so is a 1962. A mixture of fear and opportunism was once the basis of uncertainty, and uncertainty promoted tension and adventurism. The beneficial paradox is that peace opens up opportunities that war once closed. China would never have recognised Sikkim as part of India under the threat of war. It has done so through the compulsions of peace.

Peace has its compulsions as well, but since no sabre rattles we rarely hear about them. The compulsion of war is sacrifice: eat grass if you must, but find the money for arms. The compulsion of peace is economic growth and a better life. People put pressure on their leaderships to deliver more consumer goods, better basic infrastructure, health care, safety and a whole clutch of freedoms: to talk on phones without being tapped, to get access to entertainment, to travel with ease across frozen borders. Rasheed Masoodi lives in Srinagar, is 65 years old and has not seen his father, who lives in Muzaffarbad, for 56 years. A son who is a grandfather will now meet his father. Raja Mohammad Hussain is 96 and cannot restrain his joy that he will be able to see his birthplace, Muzaffarabad, before he dies. Peace has relit hope that conflict had extinguished. Those in power sneer at sentiment. They deliver sermons on what they will do for Kashmir, and have no time for the Kashmiri.

India and Pakistan, having fought over Kashmir for so long, have at long last found time for the Kashmiri.

It would be a disservice to underestimate what has been achieved. The last time a vehicle plied between Muzaffarabad and Srinagar was in October 1947, and it carried men intent on war. That is not a facetious truth. It is a harsh memory that has led to more bitterness on our subcontinent than any other fact of our history barring partition. Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, father of Farooq, never forgot the human price that Kashmiris had to pay as a problem became a tragedy and the tragedy spiralled out of control. The dream of an open road that could reunite families was always a part of the National Conference manifesto.

It requires will to change a won’t. Natwar Singh and Khurshid Kasuri showed precisely how diplomacy can be used creatively when the will to do something positive exists. You can either find a solution for every problem, or a problem for every solution. And the bus was as tricky as it gets, for it involved issues as basic as identity and sovereignty. The two foreign ministers chose to look for solutions. They operated on the strength of a basic agreement, that no decision would be tantamount to any dilution of the known positions taken by the two countries on Kashmir. Pakistan could not accept a Kashmiri crossing a disputed border with an Indian passport for it would have been tantamount to recognition of Kashmir as a part of India. So a document was created that would contain all the details that a passport has, would be issued by the Regional Passport Officer (who is a servant of the federal government) and handed over to the other country for permission to enter, just as a passport is handed over for a visa.

Now, it was Pakistan’s turn to accommodate. Under UN resolutions, any travel across the Line of Control should have been regulated by UN personnel (who actually do exist, however nominally). Instead the travel will be handled bilaterally. Further, the Northern Areas of the original Kashmir state have been separated from "Azad Riasat-e-Jammu-o-Kashmir" by Islamabad. But under this agreement, residents of that region will also be permitted a Kashmiri status if they want to take the bus.

India dropped one of its demands to accommodate another agreement with extraordinary potential, the gas pipeline that will, if all goes well, run through India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran to Turkmenistan. At one level, it is a project that suits India’s needs much more than Pakistan’s, for Pakistan would have got the gas in any case. But that is not the main point of the concept. This is a daring example of what should be called eco-politics: the triumph of mutual economic benefit through the application of positive political skill. The crossroads of so many neighbours are policed by the devil. If India and Pakistan can cooperate and define common strategic goals for this energy-rich region, they can together challenge the domination of any power that seeks unilateral primacy in the Middle East and Central Asia. This is not a claim made without consideration, or a day dream.

Is there any significance in the fact that the bus was first mooted by India? Yes. It is evidence that Delhi is ready for flexibility. Not so long ago, rigidity was synonymous with patriotism. That cul de sac has been breached, and suddenly possibilities are opening up. India could become the meeting point of pipelines between Burma and Central Asia.

War breeds vested interests that will not easily surrender their lucrative space. Peace must build its own vested interests. Natwar Singh has placed us on a bus that could create such interests: some at the emotional level, others at the economic level, for he has also opened up tourism in the valley to Pakistan.

It is a significant achievement. But every achievement is only the starting point for the next one.

Peace Gets A Chance

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PEACE GETS A CHANCE BY M.J. AKBAR

In a single day of talks with President Pervez Musharraf, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, foreign minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri and the official delegation, Mr K. Natwar Singh achieved agreement on a gas pipeline that will change the eco-politics of the region; a bus route that was part of Kashmiri fantasy - Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service, which will begin from April 7, there will also be bus services between Amritsar and Lahore, and to religious places like Nankana Sahib. The Khokrapar-Munnabhao rail link will be reopened by October 2005.

PEACE GETS A CHANCE BY M.J. AKBAR



There is a law of Indo-Pak relations: nothing has happened until it has happened. So much scalding tea has spilled between the cup and the lip (the Agra summit being the most famous instance) that only the very brave predict good news. A sub-law indicates that when things begin to happen, everything seems possible.

In a single day of talks with President Pervez Musharraf, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, foreign minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri and the official delegation, Mr K. Natwar Singh achieved agreement on a gas pipeline that will change the eco-politics of the region; a bus route that was part of Kashmiri fantasy; CBMs on nuclear missiles that should be common sense but were uncommonly difficult to push through. As if this were not enough, he reopened the consulates in Mumbai and Karachi and even cleaned up the self-generated cricket tour mess. "The tour will go through," said foreign secretary Shyam Saran at his formal press briefing at the Marriott Hotel here on Wednesday evening. The two cricket boards will later pretend that they reached a decision.

Besides the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service, which will begin from April 7, there will also be bus services between Amritsar and Lahore, and to religious places like Nankana Sahib. The Khokrapar-Munnabhao rail link will be reopened by October 2005.

This is the first bilateral visit by an Indian external affairs minister since 1989.

One indication of the scale of Mr Natwar Singh’s achievement can be gauged from the point that the last people who came on vehicles from Muzaffarabad to Srinagar were the raiders who started the war in the third week of October 1947. As is well known, they did not quite reach Srinagar, being stopped by the Indian Army at the edge of the airport before being pushed back to what is known now as the Line of Control, or LoC.

It is such a history that has necessitated the complex procedure that will govern the bus route in Kashmir. Any Indian wishing to take the Kashmir bus from Srinagar will have to obtain a document from the regional passport officer in Srinagar, which will be handed over to the Pakistani authorities at the LoC checkpoint. This application will be processed and returned. Those given permission will be allowed to travel. In other words, any Indian taking the bus will travel on the basis of an Indian document. A mirror procedure will operate on the other side. This is a check to ensure that any person considered suspect by either side will not be permitted to cross over.

Mr Natwar Singh began the day with a call on President Musharraf that extended beyond the officially allotted time. The mood at the meeting was realistic, according to one official. This might indicate that they did not waste time on excessive pleasantries. As Mr Singh noted in a statement: "No doubt we have differences between us. This is only normal given the history and complexity of our relationship. However, as leaders, it is incumbent upon us to find ways through which we can enhance trust and cooperation, so that the differences can be addressed more productively." Mr Kasuri, noting that discussions on the "core issue" of Jammu and Kashmir had taken place, expressed "satisfaction" at "the overall improvements in atmospherics between the two countries. We have taken positive steps that augur well for the future of bilateral relations."

The gas pipeline, recently cleared by the Indian Cabinet, was a highlight of Wednesday’s achievements, and will leave petroleum minister Mani Shankar Aiyar free to pursue a grand idea that links India to Central Asia through Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran.

Referring to the controversy over the Baglihar hydel power project at his press briefing, Mr Shyam Saran said Pakistan’s taking the matter to the World Bank was "premature" as there had been "a degree of convergence" at the bilateral meeting of experts. There was no question of Pakistan either being "flooded" or denied water, he added, saying that India did not believe that this project violated the Indus Water Treaty in any way.

The two sides also agreed on an early Saarc summit in Dhaka. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will visit Pakistan after that. India and Pakistan have returned to the fast track that seemed to have got mislaid some weeks ago.

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The Answer alas is 'No'

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Byline by M.J.Akbar : The Answer alas is 'No'

If Saddam actually had nuclear weapons, would America and Britain have invaded the country? That might be called the nuclear paradox. But the world’s nuclear regime was challenged and changed not in East Asia but in South Asia.

The Answer alas is 'No;

The silence, as happens so often, was louder than an explosion. North Korea announced this week that it had nuclear weapons (for "self-defence" naturally) and suspended disarmament talks with China, Japan, Russia and South Korea. In simpler language, North Korea was telling America: "We have weapons of mass destruction. Come and get us." The answer so far is — I was going to resort to the familiar "deathly silence" but that phrase might be too close to the bone.

North Korea has been candid before. In September 2004 it announced at the United Nations, no less, that it had transformed material for nuclear weapons "into arms" but it wasn’t in the White House’s interest to shift the message from Iraq. The paradox is almost funny, except of course that it isn’t. America, which splintered the operating unity of the Big Powers in the United Nations over its determination to believe that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, ignored an admission as candid as it could get. The White House spokesman said that it was a "regional" issue that should be dealt with by North Korea’s neighbours.

How many national armies would have been lined up against Saddam Hussein if he had ever suggested anything even remotely as dangerous? How many armies will move against Iran if it suggests, even obliquely, what North Korea has claimed formally, officially, unambiguously, repeatedly? Have different standards been allotted to different regions of the world?

According to Leonard Spector, deputy director of the Monterey Institute Center for Nonproliferation Studies, writing for YaleGlobal Online, the United States has assessed that North Korea has an arsenal of "roughly eight plutonium-based weapons, and it is known to have production capacity for roughly one weapon per year". North Korea also has facilities for enriching uranium, another actual or potential source for nuclear weapons. So what happens? Nothing. So why isn’t anyone interested in spreading democracy to North Korea? South Koreans have democracy. America already has troops on the North Korean border. It does not need United Nations authorisation for mobilisation. And yet a great deal of nothing continues to happen. America urges Pyongyang to engage in talks, and offers scaled levels of incentives for de-weaponisation. When Iran is already engaged in talks with France, Germany and Britain over its nuclear status, Vice President Dick Cheney coyly suggests that Israel could, or perhaps should, bomb Iran while Condoleezza Rice icily suggests that the time for an invasion of Iran has not arrived "as yet".

One problem, of course, is realism. The cost of invading a nuclear state is far too high simply because of the horrendous damage it could cause even in its descent into defeat and destruction. North Korea has already indicated its missile capability by "mistakenly" sending a missile over Japan. So while it might not be able to threaten the United States, it remains a serious concern to South Korea and Japan, the bulwark American allies in the region. The threat of havoc makes nuclear weapons a supremely powerful deterrent. Israel has insured its national security by going nuclear, a right denied to any of its antagonists.

If Saddam actually had nuclear weapons, would America and Britain have invaded the country? That might be called the nuclear paradox. But the world’s nuclear regime was challenged and changed not in East Asia but in South Asia.

The world, as defined by the victors of World War II, was fundamentally altered in the summer of 1998 when India conducted three nuclear tests at Pokharan on 11 May, followed it up with two low-yield explosions on 13 May. On 28 and 30 May Pakistan joined the nuclear club with five tests in the Chagai hills of Baluchistan.

The two rewards that the five victors of World War II (America, Soviet Union, Britain, France and China) reserved for themselves were a veto in the Security Council of the United Nations and the right to nuclear weapons. The first was explicit, the second implicit. That was why there was little or no protest when China went nuclear in 1964, despite being outside the UN regime at America’s insistence (China’s seat was held by Taiwan). The rest of the world was offered sermons when it sought nuclear capability. Jawaharlal Nehru responded with a ruse. Conscious also of the Gandhi mantle that the Congress leadership still wore, he made disarmament the policy but encouraged India’s scientists to develop independent nuclear facilities. Indira Gandhi made this official with the Pokharan test in 1974. Pakistan began to build its bomb only after 1974 but by 1998 had acquired sufficient capability for psychological parity. In the past seven years both nations have enhanced their arsenals and improved their delivery systems. The geopolitical implications will be more apparent over time, particularly if tensions between India and Pakistan begin to come down.

The reality is that the nuclear club now consists of eight members and there is nothing much that anyone can do about at least seven of them. The jury is out on the eighth, North Korea. Does North Korea constitute a case for separate treatment?

One concern that the rational world shares above the host of differences in approach and policy is that terrorism is an unacceptable threat to stability and civilisation. One of the genuine nightmares in an age of expanding knowledge is the possibility of a garage bomb (a home-made nuclear device) being used by a terrorist group. Other nightmares include chemical, biological and radiological weapons being used against civil society. It is important, therefore, to identify a rogue state (or, more accurately, a rogue government) that would feel no sense of obligation to world order, and actively connive with terrorist groups or organisations.

Of course it is necessary here to define terms that we are using. An enemy government does not automatically become a rogue government. For more than four decades the western Anglo-European alliance led by America fought a cold war against the Soviet-led alliance that often simmered with a great deal of heat, but while either side had the power to blow up the world many times over neither did so. Even when one of the protagonists accepted de facto defeat, its government did not launch nuclear missiles in despair or anger. India and Pakistan have come to the brink as well after going nuclear, but have (perhaps to the disappointment of interventionists) behaved responsibly. If there is uncertainty, then it is only about the government of Kim Jong-II, son of a "Dear Leader" whose deadly idiosyncrasies were in the Idi Amin mould, and who runs a closed, totalitarian state that hides famine behind a cloak of terror. These are widely accepted perceptions.

It is curious that the United States, formally engaged in a worldwide war against terrorism, seems so disengaged about the one country that would fit many of the paradigms that it has designed to describe the syndrome. There is credible evidence that North Korea supplied uranium to Libya when Colonel Gaddafi was a customer. Its missiles are among the best in the world. What more does North Korea have to do to identify itself as a possible if not active problem? One is not suggesting that Washington leap into war, which of necessity must remain the last option. But question marks do begin to arise against George Bush’s apparent indifference. His predecessor Bill Clinton showed sustained concern and involved North Korea in a dialogue that showed some promise. George Bush has two eyes as well, but they are focused on only one point.

Is this because North Korea is not situated in the Middle East, astride substantive energy resources? Would George Bush have ordered another mobilisation if Pyongyang was where Baku is? "Let the neighbours worry; we have other things to do": would this have been the response if Syria had eight active nuclear bombs, the possibility of many more, and a missile delivery system that had a market around the world?

Such questions seek an answer, but there is a secondary problem: who is now credible enough to give an acceptable answer? Is it time to turn the United Nations into an NGO for tsunami relief and hand over such questions to a new world body? Is a veto by a victor of a war that ended sixty years ago still the means to a solution? I don’t know the answers to the previous questions, but I know the answer to the last one. No.

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M.J.Akbar's Blog

The Silence of Democracy

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Byline by M.J. Akbar : The Silence of Democracy

It is surprising that the George Bush White House, which was so good at picking up the silence of the Bible Belt, missed out on the silence of the Quran Girdle.

How long have Shias been waiting silently for power in Iraq? From one perspective I can count up to more than 1,300 years by the Roman calendar and 1,400 by the Islamic one. Ever since Hazrat Ali’s son Iman Hussain and his family and followers were martyred on the field of Kerbala in the struggle for power against the Umayyads, Sunnis have been in power in the region that constitutes modern Iraq.

There is an old and familiar Chinese proverb that might be appropriate for Bush just now. Be careful about what you want, because you might get it. He wanted democracy in Iraq. He has got just the first taste of it.

The Silence of Democracy

When pondering over a long election, look at the arc and hear the silence. One of the more interesting facts about democracy in its current, refined manifestation is that elections have turned from a comparative sprint to a laboured marathon.

Reasons differ. In America they have devised an electoral process that only a democratic fundamentalist would consider rational: they start with elections for elections, called primaries, making up rules as they go along. In Britain, they love the traditional English game of cat-and-mouse. A Prime Minister spends half his time threatening an election or shifting the date, depending on whether the threat to his job is from a foe or a friend. Politics remains in election mode long before a date is set. In India the first general elections, in 1952, started in winter and continued for six months. Those were considered the bad old days. In 2004 too the elections started in the previous winter and continued till summer. The reason in 1952 was that we still carried ballot boxes on bullock carts. These days we have instant electronic machines but we take so long because the Election Commission wants to protect the voter from thugs, bandits, looters and politicians armed with replica Kalashnikovs or the more compatible pistol. Welcome to progress.

A long election has a different dynamic from a quick one. It was the receding arc that got the BJP last year. 2004 was more evidence that once slippage begins, it is rarely reversed; and defeat builds further momentum beyond the election. The BJP is trapped in that slide. It could not, in alliance with Shiv Sena, find that extra edge in Maharashtra; and it is either stagnant or in danger of further erosion in Haryana, Jharkhand and Bihar. I am not saying this on the basis of exit polls after the first phase of elections in the three states. Only the very rich now believe in exit polls. In other words, only those who have a lot of money to waste — whether they are politicians or television czars — spend hard cash on such polls. Media is far from infallible. Nor is this an Indian phenomenon. Exit polls put John Kerry into the White House, sending him into stratosphere for a few hours. But if you get things wrong, decency demands a modicum of restraint along with a mea culpa. It was amusing to see the precision with which pundits, who got every prediction wrong last year, forecast how Lalu Yadav was slipping and would fall. I have no idea whether Lalu Yadav is going to win or not. History suggests that he doesn’t like losing. In any case, if we have lived with Lalu in power for 15 years, we can wait another three weeks for the Election Commission to let us know his fate in what has become a scatter-shot election.

The results of silence are more dramatic. It is surprising that the George Bush White House, which was so good at picking up the silence of the Bible Belt, missed out on the silence of the Quran Girdle.

How long have Shias been waiting silently for power in Iraq? From one perspective I can count up to more than 1,300 years by the Roman calendar and 1,400 by the Islamic one. Ever since Hazrat Ali’s son Iman Hussain and his family and followers were martyred on the field of Kerbala in the struggle for power against the Umayyads, Sunnis have been in power in the region that constitutes modern Iraq. Damascus was the capital then; Baghdad was built by the Abbasid Caliph Mansur. The Shias helped the Abbasids overthrow the Ummayads, and were speedily dispensed with once their fervour had been exploited. Abbasids, in turn, surrendered space and then power to Central Asian Turks before the Mongol Hulegu destroyed them and Baghdad in 1258. There were various successor states, divided between Turks and most famously the Kurdish family of Saladin until the Osmanalis (mispronounced as Ottomans) restored central authority, stability and unity till the British victory in the First World War in 1918. So far, so good, so Sunni.

In 1917 the British seized Jerusalem and Baghdad from the Turks; by 1918 they had all the Arab lands in their control, including Mecca and Medina — the first time in history that the two Holy Cities were occupied by non-Muslims. The British tried direct rule in Iraq. In the month of Ramadan, 1920, the Shias declared jihad against the British occupation in Najaf and Kerbala. They called the British "Franji", a term once reserved for Crusaders. Memories run deep. Sunnis willingly joined the uprising. The British had to withdraw their administrator, A.T. Wilson: since Iraq was also known as Mesopotamia, Wilson was nicknamed "Despot of Messpot". In 1921 Winston Churchill, colonial secretary of the Empire, installed a puppet government with an Arab face to appease sentiment. He imposed a Hashemite Prince, Faisal, as the new king of Iraq. Faisal had never set foot in his country till he was seated on its throne at six in the morning of 23 August 1921. The band played God Save the King.

Faisal was a Sunni.

The vicissitudes of colonial politics need not detain us, except to note that oil was controlled by western companies, and the British retained military bases long after they officially "withdrew" from sovereign Iraq.

Anger against the compromised family of Faisal finally turned savage, and on 14 July 1958 the ruling family was massacred (royal body parts were distributed by a delighted populace as trophies) after a coup led by the Free Officers of the Iraqi Army. The British ambassador Sir Michael Wright went into hiding, but within 24 hours struck a deal with the new strongmen assuring the protection of British interests. In February 1963, officers belonging to the Baath Party seized power from the squabbling coalition of interests. But irrespective of who was boss in Baghdad, every boss belonged to the Sunni minority. The last and most successful of these bosses was of course Saddam Hussein, who emerged at the top of yet another bloodstained heap in 1968. Of course Saddam was also a Sunni.

Shia political mobilisation in a modern context began after the coup of 1958, with the formation of the Al Dawa Al Islamiya by Mahdi al-Hakim and Mohammad Baqr al-Sadr. Its aims were to establish adult franchise and democracy (naturally, for Shias were 60% of the population), revive Islam, fight atheism (read Communists) and create an undefined Islamic Republic. In 1965 a fellow cleric and exile from Iran came to live in Najaf: Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. In a series of lectures between 21 January and 8 February 1970 at Najaf he defined that Islamic state and offered a diagnosis for the "hopelessness and impotence of the Muslim world". The pro-establishment Shia leadership in Najaf, led by Grand Ayatollah Abolqassem Khoi, supported by Saddam, came out sharply against Khomeini and for the Shah of Iran. But the Shia street was talking a different language. The slogan there was stark: "We are there for you to sacrifice, Khomeini!"

Saddam and Khomeini came to power in the same year: 1979. Khomeini gave a call to Iraq’s Shias to rise against Saddam and he responded as only he could. No one knows how many were executed. Ayatollah Hakim was sentenced to death but later allowed to go to Iran. In April 1980 Sadr and his greatly-respected and loved sister Amina were executed by Saddam. Since these surnames have returned to the daily news, perhaps you can make your own connections.

Perhaps the Bush White House made two miscalculations. It transferred the Shia hate for Saddam into a welcome for America. And it mistook silence for consent. Washington’s calculation was that its preferred Shia, Prime Minister Ayad Allawi would get enough votes from his community to cobble an alliance with the pro-American Kurds that would enable him to remain at the head of government during the writing of a Constitution. (What Iraq has voted for is a Constituent Assembly and an interim government.) But the leader of the Shia silence was Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. In the first hint of the future, the Ayatollah had over 70% of the vote against Allawi’s 18%. Ayatollah al-Sistani has waited for this day. His message to his community was simple: keep quiet, leave the violence to Sunnis, and keep your powder dry for the elections. That is why he reined in Moqtada Sadr, when Sadr picked up the gun. The Shias could turn to the gun if they are denied power.

There is an old and familiar Chinese proverb that might be appropriate for Bush just now. Be careful about what you want, because you might get it. He wanted democracy in Iraq. He has got just the first taste of it.

Nothing New About Page 3

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Byline by M.J. Akbar : Nothing New About Page 3

The Gazette was launched by James Augustus Hickey.However, Hickey’s own publication did not survive much longer, but it was not "scurrilous" journalism that brought him down. He lost the battle of power with Hastings. On 14 November 1780 a diktat was issued from Fort William: "Public notice is hereby given that as a weekly newspaper called the Bengal Gazette or Calcutta General Advertiser, printed by J.A. Hicky, has lately been found to contain several improper paragraphs tending to vilify private characters and to disturb the peace of the Settlement, it is no longer permitted to be circulated through the channel of the General Post Office."

Nothing New About Page 3

Exactly 225 years ago this week, the first Indian newspaper, a weekly, was published from the capital of the rising (although still far from pre-eminent) power of the subcontinent, the British Raj.

It was in the language that would soon become the lingua franca of power, English. Its owner was egoistic enough to name the paper after himself, which made him suitable for media. The owner was also its editor, which makes him a contemporary spirit. And it might be of some comfort to present-day newspaper owners to realise that Hicky’s Bengal Gazette had a second name, the Calcutta General Advertiser.

It appeared on January 29, 1780, the year in which Writer’s Building was completed in Calcutta to serve as the office of the junior civil servants of the East India Company; Gwalior became a feudatory state of the British; Haidar Ali an ally of the French when they declared war on Britain; and governor general Warren Hastings fought a duel in Calcutta with the aspirant for his job, Sir Philip Francis (neither died, though Hastings had the better of the encounter).

No line has better summed up the nature of the media business than the Gazette’s motto: "A Weekly Political and Commercial Paper, Open to all Parties, but influenced by None." News must be political and commercial. A newspaper must be open to all interests but subject to none. It must offer due respect to advertising. When you consider that there was a spelling mistake in the title, and lots of Calcutta gossip on its pages, then all the components of a modern newspaper may be found in the path breaker. After all, what is a newspaper without a typo?

The Gazette was launched by James Augustus Hickey (I presume you’ve noticed the typo), one of the most exotic stars of a multicoloured era. We think of the British as staid Victorian gentlemen with stiff necks and stiffer upper lips. But they stiffened after the uprising of 1857, when India was incorporated formally into the British Empire. As long as the buccaneers of the East India Company, who created British rule, were in charge, life was not only more flexible but also more interactive with Indians. The officials of John Company were a different breed whose favourite toast after victory at Plassey (Palashi) was to hope for "a lass and a lakh a day". After the excesses of Robert Clive and the corruption charges against Hastings, a lakh a day became more difficult, but the former option flourished. Many of the Sahibs were delighted to turn "native" as they discovered the pleasures of not merely living in India, but living in India like Indians.

Job Charnock, who founded Calcutta, married Leela, a beautiful Brahmin girl he rescued from suttee. Francis Day chose the site of the Madras fort only because it was near his Indian mistress’ home. The first British resident after the capture of Delhi in 1803, David Ochterlony, popularly known as "Loony Akhtar", deserves all the legends attached to his name; he was accompanied by all 13 of his wives when he went out to "take the air" every evening in Delhi, each wife on a separate elephant. Reginald Heber, Bishop of Calcutta between 1823 and 1826, could not take his eyes off Bengali beauties bathing in the river at five in the morning and confessed that "the deep bronze tint was more naturally agreeable to the human eyes than the fair skins of Europe".

Hickey, a good journalist, wrote a splendid account of his Indian Bibi, the superbly named Jemdanee who "lived with me, respected and admired by all friends for her extraordinary sprightliness and great humour. Unlike the women in Asia she never secluded herself from the sight of strangers; on the contrary she delighted in joining my male parties, cordially joining in the mirth which prevailed though never touching wine or spirits of any kind".

So it was an exercise in double standards (typical, did I hear?) when Hickey sent the circulation of his paper up by sensational reporting on the first adultery case to reach the Calcutta High Court. The principal accused were Madame Grand, a young Dutch-English woman of exceptional beauty, who was born near Pondicherry and blossomed in Chandernagore, and, astonishingly, went on to marry Napoleon’s brilliant foreign minister Prince Talleyrand; and Philip Francis, Hastings’ quarrelsome deputy, who was caught by unobliging servants while clambering over the wall of her compound while her husband was away at dinner. (The servants refused to accept a bribe for letting their prisoner get away.) The first sittings of the trial commenced on 8 February 1779, just in time for circulation growth. There is something to be said for the theory that Francis left India not because of his duel with Hastings, but because of the scandal.

If the laws of libel made it difficult to publish a story, Hickey happily switched to transparent pseudonyms like "Pompos" or "Turban Conquest" or "Hooka Turban" or "Chinsurah Belle". Here is an example of journalist double entendre: "March, 1781. Public Notice: Lost on the Course, last Monday evening, Buxey Clumsy’s heart, whilst he stood simpering at the footstep of Hooka Turban’s carriage: as it is supposed to be in her possession, she is desired to return it immediately, or to deliver up her own as a proper acknowledgment."

There is nothing new about Page 3.

As one commentator noted, Hickey "admitted contributions which, while hypocritically affecting to teach and uphold public and private morality, in reality pandered to the impulses of the prurient and the vicious". Anyone recognise anything familiar? The owner-editor, of course, never descended from his high pedestal, pompously noting, in one instance, "Lothario’s letter and poetry is received, but is not fit for insertion, nor will anything ever be inserted in the Bengal Gazette that can possibly give offence to the ladies".

He was always happy, though, to give offence to the men.

Success, but naturally, encouraged competition. Success was not necessarily financial success, but Hickey’s power became phenomenal. And so a salt agent called Peter Reed, in partnership with a theatre-person named B. Messink (I could not have made up a name like Messink for a fictional newspaper proprietor even if I had tried), started the India Gazette in 1781. Hastings, who hated Hickey’s guts, helped the new paper. It was "well-printed," with four pages of 16 inches long, divided into three columns. Hickey joyfully nicknamed his rivals "Peter Nimmuck" (as in salt, of course) and "Barnaby Grizzle" (for reasons I have not been able to discover, but perhaps Messink was fat and bearish). Hickey was in rapture when the India Gazette closed down because Grizzle cheated Nimmuck.

Hickey’s own publication did not survive much longer, but it was not "scurrilous" journalism that brought him down. He lost the battle of power with Hastings. On 14 November 1780 a diktat was issued from Fort William: "Public notice is hereby given that as a weekly newspaper called the Bengal Gazette or Calcutta General Advertiser, printed by J.A. Hicky, has lately been found to contain several improper paragraphs tending to vilify private characters and to disturb the peace of the Settlement, it is no longer permitted to be circulated through the channel of the General Post Office." In a private letter to a friend in England, Hastings explained why he had been emboldened to act against Hickey. Hastings wrote that since his formidable enemy, Philip Francis, announced he would leave India, "I shall have no competitor to oppose my designs, to encourage disobedience to my authority, to excite and foment popular odium against me. In a word, I shall have power, and I will employ it."

I shall have power, and I will employ it. How many rulers of India have thought the same since!

And how many journalists have responded in the manner Hickey did? Enough to ensure the honour of the profession. His paper was more noble in death than it had been in life.

Talking in the third person, Hickey responded: "Before he will bow, cringe, or fawn to any of his oppressors … he would compose ballads and sell them through the streets of Calcutta as Homer did. He has now but three things to lose: his honour in the support of his paper, his liberty, and his life; the two latter he will hazard in defence of the former, for he is determined to make it a scourge of all schemers and leading tyrants; should these illegally deprive him of his liberty and confine him in a jail, he is determined to print there with every becoming spirit suited to his care and the deserts of his oppressors… Shall I tamely submit to the yoke of slavery and wanton oppression? No!"

Enough said.

Fried Rice

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Byline by M.J.Akbar:Fried Rice

Secretary Rice’s comments about Pakistan, accepted amicably by Republicans and Democrats, underscore the new American doctrine that sovereignty must be subordinate to America’s perceptions of its self-interest. That is why she was not probed on what she meant. All rules have been eliminated in the war against "Islamic fundamentalism" because such "fundamentalism" is seen as a challenge even more serious than Communism or fascism.

Fried Rice

A funny thing happened on the way to Condoleezza Rice’s nomination as the new secretary of state of the United States of America. She privatised the Pakistan government and placed it among the pile of her achievements. She told American Senators that the Bush administration has a "contingency plan" to prevent "Islamic fundamentalists" from getting access to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons if something happened to President Pervez Musharraf and they succeeded in capturing power.

How? No one pursued the most obvious question, but of course you don’t want state secrets to be disclosed when millions of "Islamic fundamentalists" across the world might be glued to their television sets. The imagination boggles at possibilities. What happens if, as Ms Rice stated so coolly, "something happens" to President Musharraf?

I suppose the first requirement is to define an "Islamic fundamentalist" in Pakistan, since they are hardly likely to take the oath of office wearing a badge on their chests. Would that rule out anyone with a thick beard and a thin moustache, the approved hairstyle of some of the Jamaat-e-Islami brethren? But General Zia-ul Haq had a thick moustache and clean-shaven chin. How would Washington deal with that? Would General Zia be considered an "Islamic fundamentalist" today? It didn’t matter back in the Eighties of course because American officials and Senators were getting themselves photographed with "Islamic fundamentalists" when they were at war with the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. The CIA’s motto was simple: the longer the beard, the greater the funding. But it is a serious question. How would Washington deal with a General Zia now?

General Zia did not advertise his ideology when he sent Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto to jail first and the gallows later. A future General Zia is not going to take an advertisement in the New York Times either declaring jihad on America. So when does the contingency arise? On suspicion, before General X or Civilian Y is sworn in, based on the latest curriculum vitae nestling in CIA computers? On accumulated evidence over a spell of monitoring? That might be a little late, because X or Y already has his finger on the nuclear button by then with lots of alternative fingers in queue just in case his get broken in a sudden strike. It is fair to assume that the present group of Musharraf-appointed generals are "safe" by Washington’s septic standards, but who knows what time might bring. General Zia was made Army chief by Bhutto precisely because he was considered "safe".

Can we rule out a Civilian Y from the calculations? Has America decided that it is too risky to trust a nuclear Pakistan with civilians? Many of the candidates who won the last elections in Pakistan from the North-West Frontier Province and Balochistan campaigned with the picture of Osama bin Laden on their placards. The articulate Maulana Fazlur Rahman, who certainly considers himself a candidate for the top job, has, to put it mildly, views slightly different from Condoleezza Rice on Osama. What happens if he ends up on top of a coalition pile after "something happens", to return to Ms Rice’s arsenic phrase? Does Secretary of State Rice trigger her action plan without further fuss?

And what could this "plan" be? A Senate committee hearing for confirmation is no place to be airy, and certainly not the environment to be fairy. Every word is on record, and every nominee held to the record. Ms Rice could not have made an off-the-cuff remark. It was a commitment made in utter seriousness. She could not have promised a plan if there was no plan. That does not justify it, or indeed guarantee its success in a crisis, but it does mean that something will happen if "something happens".

So what could this plan be? Crack teams of paratroopers that descend on Pakistan’s nuclear installations in the dead of night, and aided by on-the-ground forces, capture them and "sanitise" nuclear warheads? Does this plan assume that Pakistan’s armed forces will succumb meekly to such an invasion? Or has Secretary Rice suggested that the United States has assets within Pakistan’s nuclear community who will do Washington’s bidding at some pre-arranged signal? Very unlikely. If oil is synonymous with nationalism in the Arab world, then its nuclear capability is synonymous with nationalism in Pakistan. Even a quisling would tremble at the idea of betrayal. What else could the plan be? Another "shock and awe" operation? But regular wars, however brief, leave enough time for someone to press a nuclear trigger. Is America ready to risk a nuclear war in order to keep such weapons away from presumed "Islamic fundamentalists", such fundamentalists to be defined by the Rice Concise Conflict Dictionary?

That dictionary has clearly no term for sovereignty. Secretary Rice’s comments about Pakistan, accepted amicably by Republicans and Democrats, underscore the new American doctrine that sovereignty must be subordinate to America’s perceptions of its self-interest. That is why she was not probed on what she meant. All rules have been eliminated in the war against "Islamic fundamentalism" because such "fundamentalism" is seen as a challenge even more serious than Communism or fascism.

It is a view that travels across the Anglo-American world, and down the social hierarchy. This is why establishments are not unduly worried when reports emerge of brutal, dehumanising torture. The British have been caught this week with their own Abu Ghraib. What shocked me was not the pictures of torture. I did not expect some British troops to be any better or any worse than some of their compatriots from America. What shook me was it needed the conscience of a British girl at a photo shop to bring these atrocities to our attention. The torture was done fairly publicly. Enough officers must have been aware of what was going on, and, in the normal course of duty, reported it upwards. The Tony Blair government opted for silence, and remained silent even after the exposure. The British people still remember the concept of conscience. The Blair government does not. Its scepticism is probably justified. The Abu Ghraib scenes did not worry enough voters in America and the British atrocities will not worry enough voters in Britain. As long as Blair is cynical, he is safe. Doonesbury, the political comic strip by Gary Trudeau, was brilliant this week. The young recruit to the CIA is getting his first lessons in torture management. The only thing absolutely impermissible now, says the instructor, is a digital camera. The recruit wonders why America needs torture now when it lived within the law during the world war against Nazis. Because, sneers the instructor, the President at the time was spineless. Let me tell you what the "Islamic fundamentalist" is going to suggest: no torture was permitted in the Second World War because the Nazis were not Muslims.

His election victory has justified the occupation of Iraq, says George Bush, as if the only opinion that matters in the world is American opinion. After the exceptional journalist Seymour Hersh reports in New Yorker that Pentagon is far ahead in its preparations for the invasion of Iran, George Bush refuses to rule out the possibility. Now Secretary Rice has added Pakistan to the list of nations suitable for American intervention if the circumstances justified it — all justification to be by White House standards.

It would be immature on the part of Islamabad to send a questionnaire to the new secretary of state. It would be equally foolish to ignore what she said. President Musharraf has excellent personal rapport with President Bush. Perhaps he could find out, very quietly, what precise plans Bush has, not only for contingencies, but for the ordinary course of real life. Will America seek to find solutions to genuine problems like terrorism through shared decision-making, or through unilateral war?

We are still in the early stages of a phase of history that began with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Shift and flux, rise and fall have only begun. Would India have gone nuclear if still within the Soviet embrace? It would not have needed the United States to stop us; "friendly" Soviet Union would have done so. In that sense, the collapse of the Soviet Union was a moment of opportunity as the world began to redefine itself. Confrontation of some kind was inevitable, and it did not have to be what it has become. If the United States had co-opted Osama bin Laden into its war against Saddam Hussein for the liberation of Kuwait, as Osama offered, different equations would have emerged. Who could have visualised what the last ten years have been? Who can predict what the next ten years will be?

Why am I in Power?

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Byline by M.J. Akbar : Why Am I in Power?

The question that Dr Singh will have to answer this year, and the sooner the better, is simple, basic and vital. Why is he in power? He may have come to power by accident but he cannot remain in power by accident. Power can be sustained only by a defined purpose. What is that purpose?

Last year Dr Manmohan Singh was fortunate. This year will determine whether he will be successful. All successful men require a degree of good fortune. But all fortunate men are not necessarily successful. Fortune opens at least one door through which you can depart from the predictable trajectory of life and enter the realm of the memorable. Success comes when you can sustain the memorable.

Dr Manmohan Singh has used his first two hundred days in office to sustain his personal reputation. This is good news. He has not changed from the person we discovered when P.V. Narasimha Rao made him finance minister. His central virtue remains integrity. The country has responded warmly and his stock has been rising at a very Manmohan pace: steadily. He must of course be aware of the inherent dangers. The biggest is that of high expectations, for integrity is much more than financial honesty. It extends to intellectual and moral integrity. The disappointment therefore will be far higher if he is ever seen to succumb to the traditional political demands of obsequiousness or compromise beyond a common sense-level.

The common sense-level can be identified by an application of common sense. No one expects him to risk his government by measuring Lalu Yadav or Shibu Soren by the yardsticks of the Prophet Moses ("Thou shalt not steal" etc). And yet, it will hurt his image, and do so soon, if he gives the impression of being impotent. He may not be the moral arbiter of past sins, but there must be no sin under his watch.

The question that Dr Singh will have to answer this year, and the sooner the better, is simple, basic and vital. Why is he in power? He may have come to power by accident but he cannot remain in power by accident. Power can be sustained only by a defined purpose. What is that purpose?

It cannot be yesterday’s purpose. He cannot become Prime Minister in order to become better finance minister. The story of economic reforms is not over. Much remains to be done, and doubtless will be done in either micro or macro leaps, depending on opportunity, ability and the vagaries of coalition politics. But the fact is that economic reform is yesterday’s story, begun by Rao and given a bipartisan dimension by Atal Behari Vajpayee.

Dr Manmohan Singh cannot be in power as a holding operation while the Congress rearranges its leadership options. That, apart from being the waste of opportunity, would reduce him to being in office rather than being in power. The difference is obvious. Gulzarilal Nanda, Charan Singh, I.K. Gujral and Deve Gowda were in office. Each was removed, in a matter of days or months, before he could come to power. Others found their own route maps to legitimacy. Rajiv Gandhi inherited the office through a national tragedy. He acquired credibility through a general election. A quirk of politics and the inflexibility of Morarji Desai made Indira Gandhi Prime Minister. Her road to credibility was perhaps the most difficult of all. She took time to define her purpose, and when she did so had to fight exceptional battles within her own party, within Parliament and then at the hustings. Vajpayee was merely in office until a paradoxical defeat on the floor of the Lok Sabha opened the door of victory in the general elections of 1999. You can also begin by being in power and end up being in office, as Morarji Desai did between 1977 and 1979. This is the potential nightmare that Dr Singh must beware of.

If Dr Singh wants to lead India, rather than merely govern the country for whatever period God has placed in his destiny, then he must address the theme question: "Why am I Prime Minister?" He needs to formulate an answer with depth and sufficient length to stretch for five years. When he has formulated it, he needs to let us know what it is.

For in that answer will lie the hinge of his credibility. Power is a curious animal. It comes to life only when it has been injected with credibility. Power is not the ability to give orders, whether you are sergeant major or Prime Minister. Any fool can give orders, and lots of fools do. Power is the ability to get those orders obeyed. That is why power is best sustained by wisdom and dissipates so easily with arrogance. Dr Manmohan Singh can never be accused of arrogance. His modesty is one of his fundamental assets. But he might want to check out the humility levels of some of those who speak in his name.

Neither is power static. If it does not sweep forward like a tide, it ebbs. The pace in either direction is slow and often invisible when you are surrounded by the protective screens of office, making the obvious invisible. You can take it as a law: when there is no progress, there is definitely regress. The forward momentum of power is propelled by the search of a new horizon. Which is the horizon towards which Dr Singh wants to take his country? What are the new realities that will be his legacy, his memorial, his raison d’être for having been Prime Minister of India?

Dr Manmohan Singh is a good man, but being good is not good enough. Nor is it necessary to be a missionary in order to have a mission. As I noted, the laws of Moses can be left to the domain of Moses. And yet every Prime Minister needs to define the Promised Land towards which he is leading his people.

In an interesting departure from image, Dr Singh opened the new year with a significant political ploy. He was in Bengal, the fortress of his principal ally, the Marxists. Bengal is the true power base of the Left, not Kerala, and the stakes in any election in Bengal cannot be higher for the Marxists. Using a remarkable blend, as delicate as the finest Darjeeling tea, in a tone not quite casual and not quite definitive, the Prime Minister invited Mamata Banerjee, the Left’s greatest adversary, not only back into the Congress but also back into the Union Cabinet. The second part of the perfectly nuanced offer was even more significant than the first, and gave the lie to those who believe that our economics-driven Prime Minister does not understand politics or political manoeuvre. It was a signal from a lighthouse that did a 360 degree turn, throwing beams in every direction.

Mamata Banerjee does not have MPs, so Dr Singh was not adding to his Parliamentary score. His sharpest signal was aimed twelve months into the future, at the Bengal elections of early 2006. It was an assertion that the Congress was not ready to live in the margins of Bengal in order to appease the Marxists. The party in Bengal, in other words, would not be hostage to the coalition in Delhi. This is a legitimate horizon. The danger of coalition politics as it has emerged with the formation of the present government is that it threatens to reduce the Congress to a tattered and sporadic force in Indian politics, picking up seats where it can, rather than a cogent national party. There are serious implications for India’s polity if the Congress remains a marginal player, unable to consolidate or grow, for if the next general elections are held, as due, in 2009, the party could be further weakened by the lash of anti-incumbency. That would mean that of the two national political formations, the Congress and the BJP, neither is expanding and both are conceding space to regional forces. Today the two coalitions have a centre around which they can circulate. If that centre weakens beyond a point, the nature of coalition politics will change. When power fractures, will the polity hold? I don’t know the answer, and maybe our constitutional structure has the strength to heal such concerns, but do not rule out the possibility of new temptations — perhaps in the office of the President of India, for starters. The seeds of the future are always sown in a complacent present.

As Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh must use power to chart a road map for his party. But that is only part of his mission. His substantive contribution has to be to create an agenda for every Indian. It cannot be a multipolar agenda that stinks of unachievability and is therefore dismissed as familiar political hypocrisy. Dr Singh is still believed, because he is believed to be honest. He must not dilute that confidence by promising all things to all people, which of course ends up by meaning nothing to anyone.

What could be his core mission? I could of course name a few of the great unfinished tasks of the Indian nation state: the abolition of poverty and illiteracy, or the creation of peace with Pakistan, and there would be nothing new in them for we still have not had a Prime Minister who promised to increase poverty or to incite war with Pakistan (do not rule the second out, though, for hysteria has many lovers). Such noble intentions as the creation of national wealth have been ill-served by lip service. If one expected the same from Dr Manmohan Singh, I would not have wasted time asking the core question. It is not where we want to go that is the question, but how we will reach there, and how soon. The time has come for an answer. The answer can only come from the Prime Minister of India. As far as we are concerned: well, we also serve who only stand and wait.

Conscience Management

Edited & Brought to you by ilaxi

Byline by M.J.AKBAR: Conscience-Management

The United States started by offering some twenty million dollars, or some such equally stupid figure. It now wants to save the world by raising that to 350 million dollars. How much is the United States spending on the military occupation of Iraq every day? Check out a relevant website; these figures are now posted on the net by the watchful. Let me offer a ballpark figure; even if it is an overestimate, it will not be by much. Would a figure of one billion dollars a day surprise, perhaps shock you? That is one thousand million dollars a day. This may even be an underestimate, because which accountant has the courage to evaluate what the Pentagon really costs?

Holy Quran mentions charity (as in Verse 162 of Al Nisa or Verse 55 of Al Maidah) it always adds a qualification — it asks for "regular" charity, not occasional charity, not mere tsunami charity. It says, "If you disclose charity, it is well. But if you conceal it, it is better."

Why do we need a disaster to provoke generosity? Why is generosity accompanied by PR pictures? It is entirely commendable that the victims of tsunami (now, incidentally, a Hindi word) are being nursed by the rich and the powerful. But do we need an earthquake under the ocean to bring clean water to the children of the coast? Have the owners of this world and spenders of its wealth ever checked the shoreline to find out what kind of water is drunk by the poor when there is no tsunami?

Pardon my cynicism, but is free bottled water another seed being planted in the vast forest of forward marketing? The rich are already being made to pay for what was once considered a natural gift of nature. The poor will pay for water only after the rich have made it standard practice, because imitation is the best form of profitability.

Governments of course have formally abdicated from any intervention into profitability, so there is no reason to suppose that those who have sold water mixed with sugar and carbon as a health drink will not sell plain water as medicine. (If it’s good for pesticide, it can’t be bad for human beings, can it?)

The morality of donors who refuse to give a cheque without a clutch of photographers at their side is only one side of the story. But why do Prime Ministers and destiny-dispensers queue up to accept cheques that are cashing in on publicity? Is it because governments have converted disaster into another instance of taxation? The condom over this tax is that it is "voluntary". It takes a great deal to make this "voluntary", most of all media hype. I wonder whether governments actually need this money. What happens to the cash that goes into the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund? Does it fund help or does it fund only disaster-management? Rajiv Gandhi became deeply unpopular with powerful sections of the country when he spoke the truth and said that 85% of development spending went into that curse called the government rather than to the poor. Since then the situation has changed, but by how much? It was at least partly due to Rajiv Gandhi’s honest rhetoric that the climate was created for privatisation. The model is equally valid for disaster-management. What the government can do — send out navies for instance — the private sector cannot, and there is no donors’ budget that can pay for navies. What the private sector can do the government should not. The PM’s relief fund has an average balance of about Rs 300 crores. Compare this with what the government spends on itself each year. Rs 477829 crores. Put the commas into that number wherever you want because I have lost count of commas.

Extend the analogy. The United States started by offering some twenty million dollars, or some such equally stupid figure. It now wants to save the world by raising that to 350 million dollars. How much is the United States spending on the military occupation of Iraq every day? Check out a relevant website; these figures are now posted on the net by the watchful. Let me offer a ballpark figure; even if it is an overestimate, it will not be by much. Would a figure of one billion dollars a day surprise, perhaps shock you? That is one thousand million dollars a day. This may even be an underestimate, because which accountant has the courage to evaluate what the Pentagon really costs? I am not making value judgements. I am merely drawing attention to the pitiful fact that Kofi Annan has to appeal for a billion dollars and then add that he wants the money in cash because he does not trust commitments that are made for public consumption in the heat of publicity, and then never honoured. This is not an underground anarchist making the accusation. It is the most respected and I daresay respectful man in the system doing so. And he is asking for money for what is visibly the worst disaster in memory, a disaster that has set off unease among seaside property developers from Dubai to New York. Appalling? Don’t be appalled so easily. The European Union, more practical, has announced that it will suspend debt repayments from the affected countries for a year. Suspend the debt, not cancel it, just in case you misunderstood. This gesture alone will save the affected countries some five billion dollars in interest and repayment. You can calculate, if inclined, what the total debt must be. Now to the really bad news. What do you think the governments of countries like Sri Lanka and Indonesia will do with the money saved? Spend it on the victims? What makes me doubt that? Trust me, most of the money will disappear into that curse called government gluttony.

Now to the real question. Why doesn’t the world mobilise on a much larger scale, every day of the year, to tackle a much bigger tragedy than the tsunami, that tragedy called poverty? There are at least three hundred million people in India alone who live below the poverty line. Does any reader of a newspaper know what that means? Why is hunger — hunger as a permanent reality, day after day, night after night, with gnawing, restless, tired sleep as the only relief from hunger — less of a tragedy than a tsunami? Why doesn’t President George Bush send his brother Jeb (clearly his preferred successor in the White House) to slums so that he can mobilise the overfed to fight the world war against hunger? Is it because hunger isn’t as glamorous as a thirty-foot wave chasing you like a beast from some horror movie? Is it because there are no tourists enjoying the sun outside hotels, and therefore have no stories to tell their local newspapers in London and New York and Berlin? Is it because the poor don’t rise up to kill the well-fed? When will that great multinational which controls cricket organise special one-dayers to fund food for children who cannot get one meal a day, for girls who succumb to prostitution as their only hope, for parents who cannot convert their only asset, sweat, into minimum subsistence levels of a few calories a day?

Have you noticed any difference in the pictures emanating from the disaster areas in the last couple of days? The initial images of shock, at the horror, and grief, at the loss of relative, have given way to smiles and even the occasional laugh. I am looking at a picture distributed by Associated Press of women sitting in a group awaiting rations, one of them being prodded by a police baton to chuckles all around as all of them wait for the wheel of charity to grind in their direction. Why shouldn’t they laugh? Suddenly there is food available without the pressure of unending effort. Suddenly the children of Aceh and Sri Lanka can try on a dress and choose a colour they prefer. Have you ever thought about this? About the luxury of choice? Do the poor ever have a choice? They wear what they get. The only choice they have is to find something cheaper. Does anyone below the poverty line know what it means to prefer even one vegetable to another?

Disaster then becomes a luxury to the poor. The rich discover that the poor are also alive. Tomorrow — tomorrow, not the day after, for I am in the news business and know how ephemeral is the nature of news — the tsunami will ebb from the headlines. The poor will remain with us. The privileged will return to their indifference. That is why the poor are chuckling today. They are not cynical. They are simple and practical. They are enjoying the brief luxury of disaster while it lasts. The privileged, in the meanwhile, are wallowing in conscience-management. Every so often the rich need a tsunami after another glut of Christmas shopping, or Id wastage, or Puja excess. What on earth would we do if we could not find a tsunami to be sombre about?

Why are we indifferent to poverty? First, since the poor are not one of us, why bother. But I suspect there is more. We also have a politically incorrect and therefore publicly inadmissible contempt for the poor, as if they deserve their poverty because they are lazy, or worthless, or stupid. This is the theory of the caste system, by which the untouchables are condemned to be where they are because they are considered too stupid to be of any other use to society except the disposal of waste.

One of the five pillars of Islam is charity, or zakat. It means purification and is, therefore, a form of the Great Jihad, the struggle for self-purification, to cleanse oneself from within. But when the Holy Quran mentions charity (as in Verse 162 of Al Nisa or Verse 55 of Al Maidah) it always adds a qualification — it asks for "regular" charity, not occasional charity, not mere tsunami charity. It insists on charity as a way of life, not as a balm for death. There is another very real and very realistic instruction from the Holy Book. It says, "If you disclose charity, it is well. But if you conceal it, it is better."

If only the Muslims of this world understood at least this much.

A judging Experience

When I set out for San Francisco in April last year, there was only one thing I was certain about: my friendship with Andy and Andy’s deep, and deeply held, humanism. I had met Andy over more than two years, in varying circumstances, from time spent together waiting for a meeting to an accidental encounter on a flight. Enquiry led to conversation, conversation to knowledge, and knowledge to decision. Andy was an exceptional human being. That was sufficient to justify a journey across three continents and two oceans to see a few pictures.

I knew from the moment I stepped through the doors of the FiftyCrows Gallery that I could not take my responsibilities lightly. The air of commitment was too strong; the gallery was space galvanized by belief and conviction. The wonderful thing was that this came without any pompous baggage. Commitment so often wears a long face. When you see it wearing a smile, you know that it comes from the heart, as much as from the mind. A judge can only be as good as the case before him. I dare say if the work placed before us was routine, our involvement would also have been routine. But even a first look at the work submitted for competition was evidence that Lillian and Andy have created a strong international equity in the organization that they created together. It was not the spread of entries, from across the world, that impressed me as the depth and the homogeneity. It is clear that photographers all over now know that a Fifty Crows award is identified with the unspoken truths of the contemporary human condition. It was a particular privilege to experience images of the underprivileged leap into one's consciousness. It is ironic that I found a word that was symbolic of a different context very useful to describe what was happening to me over the two days I spent with the pictures: so many visions of truth were getting embedded into my inner life. They would become dormant over time, but they would never leave. It was as if each photographer had seared me with the power of his or her pictures. I was particularly impressed by the dimensions that women brought to their work. They probed with a fierce gentleness, and there was nothing paradoxical about it. The best of them had a world view that married spirit to image, micro to macro, heart to universe and made them indistinguishable.

- M.J.Akbar

The Future is Bright

Edited & Brought to you by ilaxi

Byline by M.J.Akbar:The Future is Bright

The military forces of George Nero Bush will not leave Iraq, despite casualty levels at least as high as they were in 2004. A conflagration never frightens Nero, but acts as an aphrodisiac. The Bush expectation is that an elected government in Baghdad will administer the country, or those parts of it that are willing to accept the rule of Baghdad, while American troops, living in modern Crusader fortresses, protect the oil and retain the right to swoop where they want in search of prey that is considered hostile to American interests.

Terrorism? All enemies become terrorists when they declare war.

It’s natural: in the first week of January every right-thinking Indian wants to know what will happen in the coming year.

The problem is not uncertain vision, or the inability to predict. The worry is that truth outstrips the wildest imagination or the bravest astrologer. Take a test. Stand on the edge of a date and let the options in your mind scream on the brink of impossibility. Truth, you will discover, has been stranger than any fantasy. Who could have stared at the horizons of Eurasia in 1990 and seen the implosion of the Soviet Union? Who, in the confident America of 2000, could have seen the twin towers of the World Trade Center being blown out of the sky? You can start at the top and run down a pretty long list of impossibles that have become contemporary realities.

So it may be a much safer call to check out what will not happen this year. Will not? Sorry, amendment needed. May not. For the one thing you can be certain about in life is uncertainty.

1: The wise in Delhi appreciate that power is both transient and limited, but only the very foolish surrender power senselessly. The coalition in power in Delhi has problems, but folly is not one of them. Contradictions will spurt through, but they will also be managed. The operating principle will be: a Cabinet position in hand is worth two in the bush. Moreover, Dr Manmohan Singh is not vulnerable to the traditional Delhi disease, flattery. So he is not going to slip on the grease with which every politician is massaged every morning. It will therefore be a year of status quo, at the Centre and in most of the states (most, because February will see the departure of Om Prakash Chautala in Haryana and the BJP in Jharkhand). This is good news for the ruling coalition, but worrying for the Congress because its aspirations are, justifiably, far above its present status. A squeeze in Bihar and a squash in Uttar Pradesh cannot be comfortable, status-wise. But to change things would risk the status in the coalition, so status quo.

2: The military forces of George Nero Bush will not leave Iraq, despite casualty levels at least as high as they were in 2004. A conflagration never frightens Nero, but acts as an aphrodisiac. The Bush expectation is that an elected government in Baghdad will administer the country, or those parts of it that are willing to accept the rule of Baghdad, while American troops, living in modern Crusader fortresses, protect the oil and retain the right to swoop where they want in search of prey that is considered hostile to American interests. The Pentagon, in the meantime, will plan for the impossible by stretching the scenario through awkward questions. What happens to the Sunni insurgency in case the Shias form a government in Baghdad? Does it reach an accommodation and spread its net into Saudi Arabia? What are the implications for the House of Saud in that case? What will be the Iranian response to an American-Israeli threat to its nuclear capabilities? Nuclear power has become synonymous with nationalism in Iran and Pakistan: can America afford to provoke Iranian nationalism? Was, forgive the heresy, the wrong country invaded in 2003? If the shock and awe had to be turned on somewhere for reasons of re-election, should that country have been Iran? Nuclear installations would have been found, there would have been tacit support from Arab governments and Washington could have appointed a Viceroy for the Afghan-Iran region. And now to the most bizarre thought of all: could Osama bin Laden be legitimised and his support base in the Arab world turned into an asset for the West? He was once an ally, after all. Terrorism? All enemies become terrorists when they declare war. The labels can be taken off if the deal demands it. Mao Zedong was worse than a terrorist; he was a Communist. Kenya’s Jomo Kenyatta was a Mau-Mau terrorist, the ogre of a million children’s nightmares. Yasser Arafat was a poster-boy terrorist. Think.

3: India’s biggest private sector industry, cricket, will head in only one direction: the bank. The faded, jaded Sourav Ganguly will remain captain till he is 50 years old and Jagmohan Dalmiya 75, whichever comes first. The dispute between Sharad Pawar and Dalmiya over the elections to the BCCI will remain in the courts till after Pawar’s elected term is over, which means Dalmiya wins even if he doesn’t. Doordarshan will telecast the Indo-Pak cricket series since Subhash Chandra’s offer for telecast rights will be substantially dented by his legal bills. Lawyers will also be the principal beneficiaries of the war between the Birlas and Lodha for an alleged

Rs 5,000-crore bequest. Alleged, because no one has counted. Sachin Tendulkar will make three more centuries until he crosses the SPE (Saturation Point of Exposure) Index: that is, consumers begin to reject products that he advertises. Zahir Khan and Irfan Pathan will alternate in the team due to injury problems. Harbhajan Singh will go straight and join the Zee cricket commentary team.

4: The fourth anniversary of India’s biggest private sector dispute will be celebrated with prayers at Tirupati, Hardwar and Mathura by Anil Ambani, and six board room resolutions by Mukesh Ambani giving him plenipotentiary powers over all interior design decisions in any Ambani office worldwide, including the international headquarters of Crocodile Investments. On the advice of astrologers and haute couture consultants from Paris, Anil Ambani will stop wearing black, the colour of Rahu and so yesterday in any case. Special yagnas will be organised to eliminate the impact of Rahu, currently in occupation of Aries, Anil’s presiding star. Simultaneously, other yagnas will be done, on behalf of Mukesh, to persuade Rahu to carry on what he is doing, and not be in such a tearing hurry to move away from Aries. Both brothers will laugh whenever seen in public, either singly or together.

5: The BJP will not accept defeat at a national conclave of the party in the last week of 2005. In a special resolution drafted by Pramod Mahajan and seconded by rising star Satpal Malik the weather will be given its due share of the blame; if it had rained earlier in the summer of 2004 the base vote would have come out and tilted the balance in 36 Lok Sabha constituencies, including Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh. Uma Bharti will not become chief minister of Madhya Pradesh after seven more attempts, but will check out how she looks with the mantle of prospective prime ministership resting easily on her tender shoulders. Narendra Modi will continue to ignore her. Atal Behari Vajpayee will bring the House down four times in the Budget session, twice with quips on Lalu Yadav and twice with speeches on the future of the nation if the Bihar pattern of voting is repeated nationally.

6: Lalu Yadav and Rabri Devi will not settle outstanding tax claims on income from the milk of their private herd of 270 cows which will, by the end of 2005, cross Rs 5 crores. Lalu Yadav will explain that the results of the Assembly elections have vindicated his stand on income tax. Lalu Yadav will announce the creation of 200,000 more jobs in the railway budget of 2005, for young persons between the age of 32 and 42, bearing the surname Yadav from the districts of Barh, Chapra, Nalanda and Madhepura, trained in special martial capabilities in order to end crime and terrorism in Indian Railways. Dr Manmohan Singh will be sorely tempted to change Lalu’s portfolio from railways to fishing but will be restrained by the taciturn hand of Sonia Gandhi.

7: The state of Telangana will not come into existence by 1 November 2005, one year after the deadline for mayhem on the streets and pillage in the villages. However, a subcommittee to examine regional demands in the light of socio-economic conditions in 1954 and agricultural-industrial prospects in 2032 will start gathering evidence on the feasibility of smaller states in the Indian archipelago/subcontinent within the parameters of overall development in the IT sector. The chairman of the subcommittee will be an economist of the World Bank with visiting rights to Hyderabad.