COWARDOG 'SUPERPOWER'

Mumbai 11/26 is not going to be the last terror attack launched by terrorists inspired or sponsored by Pakistan. Prepare yourselves for many more. No, I am not reiterating what I have been saying for long but am citing what Brian Jenkins from RAND corporation and Ashley Tellis have told the US Senate's committee on homeland security. "India will continue to face a serious jehadi terrorist threat from Pakistan-based terrorist groups. However, India lacks military options that have strategic-level effects without a significant risk of a military response by Pakistan."

Why does India continue to lack that vitally required military option? Why did Pervez Musharraf have the audacity to occupy large chunks of Indian territory in Kargil without being afraid of a response from India? Why did India, even when it discovered what had been done, limit its response to fighting the 'war' within its own territory and not take the battle across the LOC to make Pakistan pay a humiliating price for its misadventure? Why did India let Pakistan get away so lightly and still claim victory? Why did Pakistan follow up Kargil by an attack on India's Parliament that, had things gone according to plan, would have found hundreds of MPs held hostage within the precincts of its symbol of democracy followed by the setting free of hundreds of terrorists held in Indian prisons and other humiliating concessions to secure their release? Why did Mumbai 11/26 take place?

The two American experts mentioned above think that "India has turned out to be a terribly soft state neither able to prevent many of the terrorist acts that have confronted it over the years nor capable of retaliating effectively against either its terrorist adversaries or their state sponsors in Pakistan." The bitter truth is that India is not just a "terribly soft state", it is a cowardly state that is mortally afraid of exercising the tough options without which it cannot become secure.

Bharat Karnad has quoted erstwhile ISI chief Hamid Gul telling him years ago that India would never counter Pakistan's strategy of creating disruption in India by adopting a similar strategy in Pakistan because of its "buzdili" (cowardice). Karnad believes that that Pakistanis have the measure of the risk-averse Indian government. So is anyone under any illusion that all the diplomatic theatrics that we are seeing post Mumbai 11/26 will scare Pakistan into ensuring that India does not face any further terror attacks by terrorists coming from Pakistan or by the many of its "sleeper cells" that are in position within Indian territory and about whom the Indian state does not have a clue?

This buzdili that Hamid Gul and other Pakistanis speak tauntingly about is born out of an attitude of helpless resignation that got into India's bones in 1962 when China routed it militarily. The Indian state has somehow become so "power-averse" that not only is it not concerned about the huge leap in comparative strength that China has taken post 1962 but is comfortable with allowing a small country to fearlessly execute its plan of bleeding it to death by inflicting on it "a thousand cuts" knowing that India will just not build a military capability that will enable it to exercise the option that has "strategic-level effects".

After terrorism erupted in Kashmir in 1989, the response of the Indian establishment, both military and civil, was bizarre to say the least. Those days there was great talk that the era of open wars was over and that in future there would be "low intensity conflicts" only. There was not even a thought then of taking the fight into Pakistan to make it pay for the zero-cost option that it had adopted to get India out of Kashmir. It was generally thought that terror would be worn out over time, just like insurgency had been in the North East.

In fact, the thought of war had so been dismissed even from the minds of a myopic military leadership that when Musharraf sprang the Kargil surprise, the Indian Army found itself naked to conventional ground and air assaults because it had no camouflage nets. It appears that the Army had stopped procuring them because they were not needed to fight terrorists and a conventional war was not foreseen. Such was the fatalistic acceptance of the proxy war launched by Pakistan that a response was never thought of, nor was an escalation of that war by Pakistan.

Has anything really changed after Kargil and Parliament 2001? Not at all. Not only has nothing been done to build the much needed capability that can allow India to deliver that strategic-level counter-punch should Pakistan not mend its ways, the Army is actually weaker today than it was 10 years ago. It has taken Mumbai 11/26 for the babus in the Ministry of Defence to clear purchases of anti-tank missiles that are critically deficient. No artillery guns have been procured since 1986, some air defence weapons are of almost Second World War vintage and there are critical shortages of combat equipments across the spectrum.

Is it, therefore, any surprise that army commanders refused to launch an attack on Pakistan, as desired by the political leadership, after Mumbai 11/26? Does not Pakistan know the sad state of affairs that India has willfully landed itself in? Can it ask for a better environment to continue to prosecute its asymmetric proxy war in India, without any fear of a costly response? Does it not know that this nation that is dreaming of becoming a superpower is a coward-dog that will put its tail between its legs and run, if not lie on its back in surrender when challenged?

Who is responsible for creating this mess? Who will be accountable if something goes really wrong tomorrow, as it surely will if things continue like this? Is anything still being done to holistically address the security requirements of this about-to-become-superpower? You can be rest assured that little will be done. The national security apparatus and the ministry of defence are in the vice-like grip of generalist babus who have no clue or accountability to anyone, and are trained to question and endlessly delay, not deliver. The politicians to whom they notionally report to are disinterested/even more clueless.

Has India ever had a Defence Minister with any professional knowledge or background? Have there been any posts in the ministry of defence headed by serving military professionals who are accountable? The blunder that India made on the economic front till the then PM PV Narasimha Rao gave charge to professionals headed by Dr Manmohan Singh is continuing to be made on the defence and national security front. This is a recipe for a colossal disaster which may hit the country any time.

India's aspiration of becoming a superpower is fundamentally linked to its ability to secure itself against the now almost inseparable internal and external threats that it faces and is likely to confront in future. Scorching economic growth and a drastic improvement in living standards have to be matched by a corresponding rise in safety levels of individual citizens, businesses and the nation as a whole. And that is not going to happen on its own. Nor is it going to happen as long as the Indian state continues to be perceived to be a 'cowardog' by its enemies. And changing that perception is going to take some doing and a strong political and national will. Otherwise, India is going to miss that superpower bus that China got into four decades back, once again.

A slumdog can become a millionaire; can a nation that is a cowardog become a superpower? Ask Hamid Gul.
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2. China and India: Winning wars Vs defending the country
3. India's "power": Weakness=virtue; strength=immorality
4. War on terror: Will it take God's wrath to undo the rot?
5. Wake up to Islamic terror, this is just the beginning

OBAMA: BORN TO BE PRESIDENT

Barack Obama has been US President for under 10 days. But, watching him go about his brand new job, one that his predecessor always looked weighed down by, it appears as if he has been in the Oval Office for a long time and that the job sits lightly on his shoulder. And this when he has inherited an America that, in eight of George Bush, has literally plummeted from the heights of invincibility to the the depths of vulnerability that it has not seen for a long time.

Already, America and the world are beginning to see a new America that wants to lead the world by example and respect rather than by making examples of others and bulldozing its way by its arrogant might. Obama's first act as President was to sign an executive order to shut down the inhuman Guantanamo Bay Prison. His first ever interview as President was to Al Arabiya, an Arabic channel based in Dubai, to send a clear message to the Muslim world that he makes a clear distinction between ordinary Muslims and Muslims engaged in terror activities. His offer of meaningful dialogue with Iran and North Korea, his decision to stop development of new nuclear weapons, his hyphenation of Afghanistan and Pakistan in the war on terror and the de-linking of India and Kashmir from it etc, are some of the other dramatic steps that he has already taken in these few days.

Not only has Barack Obama signaled a clear break from many past policies, he has put his personal stamp emphatically on them already. It may be recalled that during the election campaign, his biggest weakness was perceived to be lack of experience. John McCain never tired of saying how he knew all about most issues because he had seen and experienced them over many years. But Obama's promise of real change based on his unusual vision caught the imagination of many over the limitations and conditioning of experience that McCain offered.

America and the world is beginning to discover the paradigm shifts that are possible by a vision not entrapped by the inertia of experience. There is no naïveté in Obama's world view. There is a luminous transcendence to it, a transcendence that has been honed in his razor-sharp mind thanks to his multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-nation upbringing, that has no parallel in the Western world. That is why he able to see beyond the obvious and immediate, beyond confrontation to reconciliation and beyond narrow national destinies to the shared global destiny.

No wonder, therefore, that after 100 hours in office, a Gallup poll shows that he enjoys about a two-thirds approval rating for his performance as President. It is not that racism is dead in America. It is simply that with Obama, you are forced to look beyond the colour of his skin. The content of his character, to borrow the words of Dr Martin Luther King, the force of his intellect and the sheer audacity of his positive vision have virtually mesmersied Americans and impressed and filled with hope many others around the world.

When George Bush became President, his body language and words gave away the fact that he had landed in an office to which he would take time to grow up to. That happens to most people when they move up to the next rung in the hierarchical ladder; there is a certain vulnerability, an uncertainty that dissolves only over time, before a man becomes fully comfortable and one with his new station, if at all.

But with Barack Obama, right from the moment he gave his inaugural address, there have been no false steps, no nervousness of unfamiliarity, no awe that he, a black man, is now through the biggest glass ceiling in the world. And this, despite the massive jump in status that his elevation means. He is so supremely confident that you would think that he has been living in the White House and sitting in that chair in the Oval Office forever. It appears as if he was born to be the President of the United States of America and the leader of the world.

In India, the Obama phenomenon has sparked a hunt for his desi version. Many names have been discussed and some have even claimed that they have it in them to create thousands of Obamas in India. Is there an Obama anywhere on the Indian horizon? Can you close your eyes and imagine any Indian leader who, when he becomes Prime Minister, will look like one born to the office from the moment he steps into it? Concentrate. Is an image beginning to emerge? Or is it still a blank slate?

WHAT WILL RAJ TARGET NEXT TO 'TAKE OUT' PAKISTAN?

Raj Thackeray is losing it. His efforts to carve out an identity as a Thackeray distinct from The Thackeray is forcing him to keep looking for new targets that Uncle hasn't thought of yet. Earlier, it was North Indians Vs Marathi Manoos. The terror attack on Mumbai on November 26, 2008, changed the dynamics of the situation completely and the real enemy was rediscovered.

For nearly two months Raj Thackeray pondered over the manner in which he and his Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) would launch a counter attack on Pakistan in a manner that Uncle had never done. Finally, he spotted a genuine Pakistani target right in Amchi Mumbai, a target that his macho manoos could take out sweetly, without any risk of retaliation by Pakistan.

The target? A sweet shop in Mulund. Was it where Ajmal Kasab and his gang of 10 had sweets before they launched the worst terror attack in India's history? Was it where arms and explosives used by them were kept? Or was it where terrorists involved in earlier terror attacks used to rendezvous?

It was actually worse. Or so thought Raj T. Right in the middle of Amchi Mumbai, this shop was flaunting its Pakistani connection openly. How can an Indian name his shop 'Karachi Sweets'? Karachi is where the terrorists came from. And Karachi is Pakistan's commercial capital. How can a patriotic Indian have anything to do with anything related to those Pakistani dogs? So what if the poor owner of the shop came from Karachi after Partition and there is even a 'halwa', available all over India, which bears the city's name?

So, a terror notice was sent to the shop owner, asking him to change the name of the shop. A helpful Mumbai police even suggested a new name to the hapless guy. Yes, "Mumbai Sweets" was the MNS-friendly name they came up with!

Earlier, MNS activists had forced the Oxford Bookstore at Churchgate to remove all books by Pakistani authors and driven out Pakistani stand-up comedian Shakeel Siddiqui from a set in Andheri. But this attack on a shop bearing the name of a Pakistani city was a brilliant masterstroke, something no one else could have thought of. Is there an easier way to obliterate something 'Pakistani', without loss of life or limb?

One does not know whether the MNS has a presence in Delhi, because there is a very popular restaurant there called 'Pindi', after Rawalpindi. Similarly, there are many other shops and establishments named after places in Pakistan by those who migrated to India in other parts of the country too. Are you going to target them too Raj? Why, there are a lot of people who still carry surnames of places in Pakistan, like Sial, for example, after Sialkote. Are you going to 'Indianise' them too?

Hold on. There is a real biggie coming. Raj Thakeray has just read the National Anthem and is fuming. There is Pakistan in it too! That cannot be tolerated at all. A terror note is currently being drafted asking all Indians to refrain from including the word 'Sindh' in the National Anthem while singing it or printing it!

And since the space vacated by 'Sindh' has to be filled up, Raj T has decided that it will be replaced by, you know it, Mumbai. Why not Delhi? Because Mumbai is the financial capital of India and pays 60% of the country's Income Tax, even after all the evasion by the underworld and the politicians. It even has world famous Slumdog Millionaires! Delhi is no more than a poor pretender, a nobody's city infested with corrupt babus.

Surely, Raj, there must be better ways of 'taking out' Pakistan and getting votes? Or are you going to ensure that your Mumbai does go to dogs thanks to what you and your macho MNS guerrillas are doing?
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WILL THE CONGRESS DO BETTER WITHOUT SONIA AND RAHUL?

The Prime Minister, whose heart was always in the right place in any case, has got its plumbing done too. He is now good enough to lead the Congress party into the next elections and the nation for five years thereafter. Dr Manmohan Singh is the face that has been the saving grace of the government, the UPA and the Congress party during the last five years. Despite having been appointed Prime Minister rather than having been elected as one by popular vote, he has emerged as the most respected and least controversial leader of the country by far.

Everyone knows that over the last couple of years, the performance of the Congress party in various state elections and by-elections to the Lok Sabha has been dismal, even disastrous in some cases. Its only major saving grace has been its unexpected victory in Delhi for which the credit goes solely to Sheila Dikshit's performance as Chief Minister.

Rahul Gandhi was launched as the party's star campaigner in the elections held in UP in 2007. Amidst saturated media coverage and a carefully constructed 'wave' that was visible only in TV studios and news papers, it was expected that the Congress party, under the leadership of this youth icon would visibly, if not dramatically, start its recovery in the home state, the 'karma bhoomi' of the Gandhis, where it had been virtually wiped out. What was it that actually happened? He could get his party victory in just six of the carefully selected 108 or so constituencies that he campaigned in and the party wound up with less than eight percent of the vote share and just 21 seats, a performance that was worse than in the previous election.

Right till the results started showing the bitter truth, the imaginary wave and better performance of the Congress were being attributed to Rahul Gandhi by hyper-excited media personalities like Prannoy Roy, Barkha Dutt etc. who appeared to be have keen personal interest in pushing the young Gandhi into the top leadership slot. But, the moment the disastrous results showed unambiguously that he had failed to catch the imagination of the voters, both he and Sonia Gandhi nonchalantly put the blame for the failure squarely on the local leadership of the state.

Exactly the same thing happened in Gujarat where, in addition to vigorous campaigning by Rahul Gandhi, the electoral battle became an almost personal one between Sonia Gandhi and "maut ka saudagar" (merchant of death) Modi, as she famously described him during the election campaign. Modi routed the Congress - there was no state level leadership worth mentioning - and the mandate was again immediately dismissed as polarised and communal.

In Karnataka too, Rahul Gandhi was sent in as the star campaigner of the party, its Prime Minister in future. There the party was sure of winning. So, it did not want anyone other national leader to take credit for the expected victory. So much so, even the Prime Minister was not allowed to address a public meeting. His one appearance was a speech to a small number of people in a auditorium. In the event, the BJP won, increasing its vote share by 5.6 per cent while the Congress lost, with a loss of 0.7% in the vote share. The blame, you guessed it, was put on the local leadership again.

The story in Punjab, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and, recently, Madhya Pradesh, Chhatisgarh and J&K was the same. In Rajasthan, where the Congress 'won', it needs to be remembered that it got 96 seats against the 78 that the BJP got despite 60 rebel candidates, of whom as many as 27 won.

The Congress has a long standing tradition of not naming a Chief Ministerial candidate while going to the polls in a state. What is the real reason behind what appears to be a bizarre strategy that has been failing the party repeatedly? It is so straightforward that it is surprising that no one outside the Congress has exploited it so far. Within the Congress, the complete absence of inner-party democracy does not permit any one to question what must be questioned for the health of the organisation. But why has no one outside the Congress asked?

The non-naming of any state-level leader is simply because the Congress has always asked for a vote in the name of the Family alone. When you vote Congress, you vote for the leadership of Nehru/Indira/Rajiv/Sonia/Rahul. Period. They were/are the real and only leaders of the party. The Chief Ministers that they appoint/remove are little more than 'worker bees' picked solely to execute the Family's policies and directions. They are not leaders of the people; they are mere followers of the real leader!

Out of this tradition has flown the tradition of attributing all the credit for success anywhere in the country to the Family and all blame for failure to local leaders. Nothing adverse is ever allowed to stick on the Family whose position is well above, distinct from and greater than the party. It is by this simple expedient that its pre-eminence and unchallenged status has been artificially sustained for decades. The party, as a result, is now little more than a family enterprise with managers appointed solely to look after its private estates across the country. It is due to this vice-like grip that the grand old party is suffering reversal after reversal and is slowly but surely dying an inevitable death.

Many believe that Rahul Gandhi, despite his youth, does not represent any change at all; he is the same old wine in a new tumbler. That is why he has not been able to excite and enthuse a very young India looking for genuine change.

Despite all this, no has yet asked the question that would have been asked a thousand times by now if the Congress party had been not been led by a member of the Nehru-Gandhi family. The question is not academic. It is based on the twin pillars of performance and accountability, without which no edifice of any stability or strength can be built.

As the recent elections in the US have proved once again, people are excited by and vote for leaders, not just parties. Who could have imagined that an unknown Barack Obama would wrest the Democratic nomination from Hillary Clinton and then go on to become President? Conversely people also vote against leaders who fall short or are thrust into that role for reasons other than their own ability.

Under the leadership of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, the Congress party has begun to resemble the Mughal Empire as it was during the time of Bahadur Shah Zafar. The influence of the Gandhis has now effectively shrunk to a small but powerful coterie that has the whole party in a vice-like grip, and a similarly disconnected lot of media personalities who have a vested interest in promoting the Emperor-with-no-clothes, as it were.

It is only a question of time before the pretence of the empire is shattered. The vultures are already beginning to hover. Sharad Pawar, Laloo Yadav, Mulayam Yadav, all leaders of the UPA, have already spotted the carcass that will be theirs to feast on after the elections. They are not going allow a dying Congress to place Rahul Gandhi in the PM's chair ahead of them, come what may. Unless a miracle happens between now and the elections, they all can see that Congress is going to find itself considerably weakened when the election results come in.

Is there any way to stem what appears to be the impending decline, even fall of the Congress?

Should Sonia Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi resign from their positions in the Congress party and give a real chance to other leaders to rejuvenate it by wringing in some badly needed changes that are visible to the people and will attract them to the party?

What do you think will happen if Dr Manmohan Singh is made the Congress President and the Chairman of the UPA, and asked to lead the party and the alliance into the coming elections as its clear, unchallenged leader? Dr Manmohan Singh may have not fought any election yet. But undoubtedly he is the tallest and most respected political leader in the UPA today, despite everyone knowing that he is somewhat of a puppet under compulsion. The popular and correct perception that the real centre of power is not the PM has not helped the Congress at all. If anything, it has and will cost it dearly.

So, if the 76 year old Dr Manmohan Singh leads the Congress into the elections as its supreme leader, relieved of the faded magic/burden of Brand Gandhi, will the performance of the party and the UPA suffer or improve? Will such a move strengthen other pretenders to the throne or will it put them firmly in place? The Congress has consistently performed poorly under the leadership of Sonia and Rahul. There are many who believe that the party will perform much better with eyes firmly focused on a new future rather than remaining stuck in a past rooted firmly to the achievements/failures of the Nehru-Gandhi family.

Often, disruptive and unexpected moves yield disproportionate dividends. Status quo invariably yields little, if at all. Is the Congress party ready to take the big step that may well usher in the much needed change in the fortunes of the party? Or will it do so after the elections, when it might be a bit too late?
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HOW TO GET THE SECULAR BADGE, NO QUESTIONS ASKED!

India's national political landscape consists basically of two groups, one that is ostensibly secular and the other similarly communal. The torchbearer of the secular brigade is the Indian National Congress, with the communists providing it most rigid and uncompromising ideological support. The communal corps is headed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Hindu right wing party that draws ideological sustenance and more from the RSS.

As far as the secularists are concerned, the BJP is an 'untouchable' party with which there can be no political truck under any circumstances. Most smaller and regional parties, however, do not believe in this variant of the caste system and have no political 'red lines' that they cannot cross. For many of them, secularists and communalists are both potential partners into whose bed they are willing to jump without any ideological clothing as long as that gets them the ambrosia of power and wealth, the only things they are in the business of politics for.

The main protagonists on both sides of the irreconcilable political divide behave as it they belong to two different and hostile countries between whom no dialogue is possible. They will not talk to each other but are both more than willing to have a dialogue with terrorists who have been killing innocent Indians for decades. And, at the first available opportunity, they all want to be hugged by Pakistani leaders who have let loose jehadis to bleed India to death by inflicting on it a thousand cuts!

In fact, if you hear or read the venom that some of India's leftists and secularists spew on the communalists, you would come away convinced that India faces no danger whatsoever from Pakistan or terrorists; the real enemies of India are elements of the Hindu right, including one of its two main national parties, the BJP!

One would imagine that with such hostile and intractable positions, India's communalists would always have to live in isolation with that 'stigma' till their last breath. But no, India's secularists are not as dumb as they want you and I to be. They know what power can get them and what unacceptable 'loss' they have to suffer if they lose it. So, even as all of us get our throats sore and blood pressures soaring in trying to shout down the communalists or the secularists, depending on which political camp we support, street-smart politicians are furtively working all the time like termites to hollow out the core of the 'enemy' parties before they get to know what has hit them!

So, how does a rank communalist become a pristine secularist in one stroke, all sins forgiven, no questions asked? He just has to get greedy enough to bite the bait of better offers from the secularists and desert the communalists!

Remember Kalyan Singh? He was the Chief Minister of UP who sat back quietly and allowed lakhs of kar sevaks to not only assemble in Ayodhya but even demolish the Babri Masjid at the height of the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid agitation that catapulted the BJP into power. Secularists have been telling naïve Indians and the rest of the world that it is because of that destruction that Pakistan got the idea of starting terrorism in Afghanistan, Kashmir, USA and, yes, even the rest of India, if not Chechnya! Kalyan Singh's acts of omission and commission to allow 'Hindu fanatics' to destroy an ancient mosque just because they believed that it was built on the spot where a mythical character called Ram was born, are easily more unforgivable than those of Narendra Modi.

But, is Kalyan Singh as hated and reviled by the secularists? No, he, in fact, is now one of them, once again! Babri Masjid? That was not his fault; Advani was responsible for it, they will tell you now. What could poor Kalyan Singh do? How has this remarkable transformation from ugly moth to beautiful butterfly come about? With elections fast approaching, the secular and SIMI-loving Samajwadi Party (SP) of Mulayam Singh Yadav has embraced not only him but his son who has been made general secretary of the party! In one stroke, the fortunes of the Congress-SP combine in UP have improved because Kalyan Singh is expected to get in critical votes of the Lodha community. In one stroke, BJP's Babri Masjid 'star', the communalist due to whom innocent Indians are being killed by terrorists, has become a champion of secularism and has even declared that the BJP will lose in UP!

Kalyan Singh is not the only communal Chief Minister who has become the poster boy of the secularists. Former Gujarat Chief Minister Shankar Singh Vaghela of the BJP is now the leader of the Congress in the state, and a minister at the centre. Former Maharashtra Chief Minister Narayan Rane was also, till recently, tipped to lead the Congress in Maharashtra, having helped it to defeat the communal Shiv Sena, whose fiery leader he was, till the Congress did to him what he had done to Bal Thackeray! There are numerous such example of smaller leaders whose all communal sins were washed clean the moment they "turned coat"!

Modi is the man most hated by the secularists today. It seems that the ghost of the Gujarat riots of 2002 is going to haunt him for the rest of his life. No one is willing to forgive him. One does not why he is enduring so much of pain for no reason. All that he has to do is to resign from the BJP and join the Congress! Once he does that, the riots will suddenly start looking spontaneous and his action to control them timely and praise worthy. The report of the Nanavati Commission which is now being condemned for absolving him will become his magic-wash. And, after he leads the Congress to victory in Gujarat, he will be sworn in as its spotlessly secular Chief Minister!

If Modi can do it, why not Advani? The UPA is currently in a serious leadership crisis with Laloo Yadav and Sharad Pawar throwing in their hats in the Prime Ministerial ring, where Mulayam Yadav's hat has been lying for a long time. There is also a silent move to slip in Rahul Gandhi's hat there too at the right time, forgetting that Dr Manmohan Singh's pagri is still there, spotless, even if he is in hospital now.

Advani has already announced formally that he is running for PM from the opposite camp. Imagine the chaos that he will create if he joins the Congress as its PM candidate with a signed-and-sealed agreement that he will quit after a year in favour of Rahul baba. In one stroke, not only will he get Babri Masjid and the communal slur off his back, he will also dramatically improve his chances for getting his name on that board in South Block.

I have not written this because of any inside information that I have about the developments in the political bowels of Lutyen's Delhi. But an angel has just whispered into my ear that Vaghela and Kalyan Singh are hard-selling this idea of getting the secular badge to both Modi and Advani. Fed up of being political untouchables for so long, they are both reportedly on the verge of turning secularists, damn the BJP, that communal party. The promise of a clean break from communalism and complete freedom from any culpability for past communal crimes by just hopping over to the secular camp, without any loss of power, is proving to be too tempting even for them to resist, if the angel is to be believed.

Watch this space!

FOR INDIA, IF BUSH WAS GOOD, OBAMA WILL BE BETTER

When Barack Obama first said during his Democratic Presidential bid that he planned to talk directly to Iran, North Korea and Syria without any pre-conditions, he signalled a clear departure from the foreign policy followed by Bush. At that time, in fact, his announcement was sought to be attributed to his inexperience and less than complete understanding of the complexities of the situation. Similarly, when, in January 2007, he proposed to start withdrawing combat brigades from Iraq no later than May 1, 2007 and complete the withdrawal by March 31, 2008, even as Bush was planning to induct more troops, seasoned experts thought that he was naive.

Obama was clear from day one that the US had made a mistake by going into Iraq as that had resulted in diverting attention and resources from the war on terror in Afghanistan due to which the Al Qaeda and the Taliban had not only escaped destruction but had emerged stronger, particularly in Pakistan. That is probably what prompted him to declare as early as in August 2007, that US troops will go into Pakistan to hunt down terrorists there, even without permission of the Pakistani Government: "If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will.”

Within a day of his taking over, President Obama has outlined his foreign policy agenda on the White House website. The focus of the Obama-Biden team is evident from the fact that the greatest threat to America's security has been identified as the "resurgence of the Al Qaeda and the Talban in Afghanistan and Pakistan" resulting in a resolve to finish the fight against theses organisations and to "secure nuclear weapons and loose nuclear materials from terrorists". This is topped by the statement that Obama and Biden will "increase non-military aid to Pakistan and hold them accountable for security in the border region with Afghanistan".

It is indeed surprising that these potentially game-changing foreign policy statements have not drawn the kind of attention that they should have in the Indian media. The only aspect that seems to have caught attention is Pakistan's response to being held accountable, with its ambassador to the US Hussain Haqqani even threatening to "review all options if Obama does not adopt a positive policy towards us".

If one takes an overview of Obama's policy towards this region, based on his previous pronouncements and the foreign policy agenda put out by the White House, it is clear that Obama wants to pull out of the needless and enervating war that Bush got the US into in Iraq and concentrate all resources to conclusively defeat terror whose epicenter lies in Afghanistan and Pakistan. "Those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you." That was the warning he gave in his inaugural address, even as he held out a hand to Iran - " we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist." - an offer repeated in the White House website.

Shia Iran is not involved in the web of terror that has taken deep roots in large parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan. This terror is rooted in the Saudi-financed Wahhabi Islam that sees Jews, Christians, Sufis and even Shias as enemies. Bush had repeatedly threatened to take the war into Iran too, if that country did not terminate its illicit nuclear program, as if America's power was limitless and its coffers bottomless. Obama has, wisely, discarded that Texan cowboy approach, to focus on the one problem that needs his attention and the resolution of which will make America and the world safe.

A couple of months before he became President, in an interview with Joe Klien of Time magazine, Obama spoke about working with India and Pakistan to try to resolve the Kashmir crisis in a serious way. But, the important point that perhaps did not get due attention was that his idea was to get Pakistan off Kashmir to better face "the biggest threat...coming from the Afghan border". He did not, in any way, make the preposterous and ill-informed suggestion that British Foreign Secretary Dave Miliband did during his recent visit to India, linking Kashmir with terrorism in India.

As I had argued in an earlier post, Afghanistan and Pakistan are essentially two sides of the same terror coin. Any attempt to solve the dispute in a manner that gives even a notional victory to Pakistan and it terror infrastructure will only fuel more terror attacks on India, not eliminate them. Post Mumbai 11/26, Miliband must be in an ignorant minority of only one to believe otherwise. People like him should not even be allowed to enjoy the pleasures of dalit tourism that demeans dalits, without the poor, simple folk even realising that they have become a new source of entertainment for the rich and powerful of the whole world. You never know what he may have to say about them at some point of time.

President Obama is clear about his resolve to defeat terror that is centred in Afghanistan but that survives because of, and is fed by, Pakistan which since the time of Zia-ul-Haq has nurtured and used it as an instrument of foreign policy. He is acutely aware that any premature pull out from the region before the battle is decisively won will be totally disastrous. He knows that FATA and the Frontier have already become Taliban land, as has 70% of Afghanistan. He also knows that powerful elements of the Pakistani state are still sleeping with the enemy - that is why the linking of the aid with accountability.

He must be already aware, or will soon be, that more important than taking out the weapons in the hands of terrorists is taking out the ideology that has created this monster, an ideology that has not only overrun Afghanistan and large parts of Western Pakistan but has seeped deep into Punjab and the Punjabi dominated military too.

As per The Times of India of January 22, 2009, there is some dismay in New Delhi that Obama's foreign policy agenda document does not carry any mention of India as one of America's major allies. Given the situation as it obtains today and the fact that 70% of the supplies needed for troops in Afghanistan go through Pakistan and the Khyber Pass, the US needs Pakistan as an ally in its war on terror, even though the latter is cheating unashamedly. Overtly, it can name only one of the two hostile neighbours as its 'ally'.

Notwithstanding this situational constraint, there is little doubt that there is near congruity in the national interests of the US and India in so far as the war on terror is concerned. President Obama's world view and his foreign policy agenda announced a day after he became President should please India rather than dismay it for frivolous reasons.

The common problem of terror that India and the US face is becoming so intractable that what appears to be the setting for the Fourth Battle of Panipat, this time in Pakistan's Punjab, has already begun to take shape. Whether that battle takes place physically or not will depend upon the of ability of ordinary Muslims of Sindh, Punjab, Baluchistan, FATA and the Frontier to defeat and eject the ideology that can only bring ruin to them.

Either way, the only real and natural allies in this fight are the US and India, and elements in Pakistan who do not owe allegiance to intolerant merchants of death and destruction. Who will know it better than President Obama, if not today, after a few months in the saddle?

Bush may have been good for India; Obama will only be better.

PRESIDENT 'BLESSED' OBAMA, THIS IS OUR MOMENT

"People of the world, this is our moment, this is our time." With these words, Barack Obama electrified 200,000 people who had gathered to hear him speak at the Berlin Victory Memorial on July 24, 2008. Then there were not many around the world who believed that this black man was actually going to be sworn in as the 44th President of the United States of America on January 20, 2009, in front of a record two million excited people filled with hope and excitement. Despite the promise of real and authentic change that he was representing, despite his inclusive vision that was not limited by existing barriers and despite a world view that made him stand apart from, and taller than, all global leaders around him, few really thought that America was ready for him, for the big change.

Men of destiny often arrive at their destination even as others believe they are still on the way and are not sure whether they will reach. I had been following Barack Obama on his campaign trail for a few months before he delivered this speech and had already begun to feel that there was something not ordinary about this charismatic man who spoke like no other politician does.

But on that day when I watched him speak and listened to what he had to say to the people of the world, as if he was the leader of them all and not just of the people of the United States, I had little doubt in my mind that he was destined to grace the Oval Office and lead not just America but the whole world, and not just as a political leader but as a unifying, inclusive beacon of morality and hope. The very little doubt that lingered in not my mind alone had nothing to do with the man; it had everything to do with the remnants of racism. "There are many people in this country who are scared that a "black" President may become one of the best in our history", wrote a commenter in The Huffington Post in response to Obama's speech, giving a peek into the unsettling effect that Obama rise was having in America.

As I then travelled more often with Obama on his journey till Election Day, the continental physical distance between us notwithstanding, my thoughts moved back and forth between what was happening in India and the US and elsewhere, inspiring me to write as many as 15 posts with the persona, the idea that Obama was, as the prime mover.

Like many others, I was struck by the similarity between the names of Osama and Obama. They somehow reminded me of the story of Saul who became Paul, and led to my first post on Obama. The dissimilarities between Obama and Bobby Jindal were, again, too glaring to be missed and the resultant post was one of my most read efforts. When I watched Michelle speak at the Democratic Convention, I was struck by how she complimented and completed Obama, and could see that she was going to set new standards of grace, dignity, character and charisma as the First Lady of the US. And when Obama chose his running mate, the coincidence of Obama and Biden Vs Osama bin Laden seemed to be prophetic and not just an accident.

Shashi Tharoor and Rajdeep Sardesai inspired me to question the 'search' of some Indians for an Indian Obama in Harvard, a view that completely missed what the Obama phenomenon was really about. Laloo Yadav's shocking antics were the food for a comparative reality check, as was Rahul Gandhi's announcement that he was going to create thousands of Obamas running around the country. Hillary Clinton's acceptance of Obama's offer to become Secretary of State was an eye-opener to the fact that something similar was inconceivable in the Indian political landscape that had become a hereditary affair. There were other Obama based posts too; all of them can be found here.

Today, an unprecedented more than two million souls charged by the call for change have descended on Washington to join Obama as he completes his long and remarkable journey to the White House. Today, a record breaking hundreds of millions more around the world are with him there through their television sets, computers and mobiles. Today, Obama's journey of a making promises gives way to the journey of delivering on them. Today, the Oval Office welcomes him and places at his command the power and the tools that he needs to give concrete shape to the 'change' that he wants to bring to America and the world.

From today, Obama will be judged not by his eloquence but by his actions. From today, the people of the world will start watching what he, who presented himself to the people of Berlin as a citizen of the world, does to better the "shared destiny" of all people of the world. From today, they will want to know what he is doing to to "defeat terror and dry up the well of extremism that supports it". From today people will weigh his every action against of the ideals of Dr Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi that he has been telling them about.

Will Obama actually prove to be the transformational global leader that he appears to be? Or are his inspiring speeches to be to be viewed through the same prism of skepticism that is used to filter the often dishonest election speeches of other political leaders?

In a poll on this page which ends today, 43% of the 101 have who have voted believe that Obama is going to prove to be the transformational leader that he had been projecting himself as all through the long Presidential campaign. 35% believe he won't - some influenced no doubt by their Indian experience, others by the American one. 16% are not sure while 6% don't know. For a such a large percentage of people to repose faith in a black man from nowhere even before he has spent a single day in office is nothing less than a miracle, a miracle no crystal ball gazer could have foreseen.

At this defining moment in history, as Barack Hussein Obama has become the President of the United States even before taking the oath of office, there is more than high expectation and hope in America as well as the forgotten corners of the world, where the word has already reached. This man, whose name means "Blessed", is alive to the significance of the sacred moment. He knows its connect with past that he has inherited and the future that he wants to bequeath.

"People of the world - the scale of our challenge is great. The road ahead will be long. But I come before you to say that we are heirs to a struggle for freedom. We are a people of improbable hope. With an eye toward the future, with resolve in our hearts, let us remember this history, and answer our destiny, and remake the world once again." With these goose-pimple raising words, Obama had roused Berliners and people around the world on that July afternoon, like no other American leader had ever done.

Today, we the people of the world welcome President 'Blessed' Obama with open arms and hope in heart that he will waste not a moment to start redeeming his pledge of answering our shared destiny and remaking the world once again. This is our moment indeed.

KASHMIR AND AFGHANISTAN ARE TWO SIDES OF THE SAME TERROR COIN

A lot has been written about the real message that the people of Kashmir Valley have conveyed through their vote in the recently held elections in Jammu and Kashmir. For the first ever time, they defied the boycott call given by the separatists and militants, and came out to vote in record-breaking numbers. The verdict they delivered was split but in such a manner that only Omar Abdullah's National Conference could form a government in alliance with the Congress party.

Ethnic Kashmiri Muslims of the Valley are the face of the anti-India sentiment that the world sees and that Pakistan has been trying to exploit since 1947 to gobble up the part of the state which is still with India. Since 1989, the instrument of a low intensity war, also referred to as terrorism, has been used by that country to wear India down to the point that it is compelled to at least start the process of accepting Pakistan's claim on the state, even if it does so without appearing to.

As part of that strategy, separatist groups, ranging from those who demand merger of the state into Pakistan to those who want 'independence' from India, have been effectively used to discredit and dismiss all instruments of governance that symbolise the fact that the state is a part of a secular India. These groups have always opposed elections because they legitimise the state's relationship with India. That is what they did this time too smug with confidence that with the Amarnath Land issue still fresh in their minds, the people in the Valley would reject these elections en masse.

The unexpectedly overwhelming response of ethnic Kashmiris and people of all other ethnic groups stunned not only the separatists but also pleasantly surprised mainstream political parties and analysts. No one, it seems, had his finger on the real pulse of the people. Yes, ethnic Kashmiris voted differently from the the way voters in the other two regions in the state did. Yes, their vote was in sum not for India. Yes, most likely they did not even vote for secularism.

But, what was most significant was not what they voted for but what they voted against. And, what they clearly came out in large numbers to reject through the silence of their vote was Islamic extremism, the increasing Talibanisation of society and the jehadi culture that has not only proved to be Kashmir's curse but has also completely claimed Afghanistan and vast swathes of Pakistani territory along its Western border.

Somewhere in their souls, Kashmiris have understood that the road that Pakistan has put them on is not going to turn their Valley into the promised Islamic paradise. And they are clear that they do not want it to become what Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan have become. They do not want to regress further in that direction which, to all but the most fanatical, is a descent into a black hole of oppression, violence and intolerance of the worst kind. In the 21st century.

These elections, therefore, represent a victory of the ordinary Muslim over the fanatic Muslim represented by the Taliban and the various jehadi groups spawned by the state of Pakistan. The significance of this unexpected and remarkable victory that can change the course of history is not limited to Kashmir. It extends right into the heart of Pakistan. And into the whole world.

In Pakistan, free and fair elections were held in 2008, perhaps for the first time after 1950. In those elections too, Pakistani Muslims voted emphatically and dramatically to tell all those who had thoroughly messed up the ideology of Pakistan envisioned by its creator Jinnah, that they wanted the country to get off the road of religious extremism that was hurtling them all towards disaster. What was even more significant was the fact that despite the presence of the Americans next door in Afghanistan, the people of the Frontier, most affected by Islamic extremism, thrashed the extremists through the ballot.

Unfortunately, Pakistan has failed to live up to the promise that that was held out by the people's verdict. The events of the last few months, including the terror attack on Mumbai on November 26, 2008, have left no one in any doubt that Pakistan has relapsed into its old ways. The military is back in effective control, the ISI is still on the destructive pathway that has brought Pakistan to the brink, and the jehadi terrorists continue to be patronised and encouraged by powerful elements as an instrument of a state policy that has become Pakistan's cancer.

Pakistan is, thus, not defined by its people. It is defined by its military, including the ISI, with the help of an influential anti-India section of the Mohajir and Punjabi elite that is closely aligned with it. It is well known that the Sindhis, Baluchis and Pashtoons have never harboured the kind of anti-India feelings that have been made central to the very idea and existence of Pakistan by its military-led elite. The military cannot shed this positioning as then the very basis of its power and motivational underpinnings will fall apart. If that happens, it will lose its muscle and centrality in the power matrix of the state. That is something it is not going to allow to happen and that is something that no one in Pakistan has the power to make a reality.

As long as the the Pakistani military establishment, of which the ISI is a part, retains its primacy as the executor of the will the state of Pakistan as defined by it, there is going to be little real change in the country's views about its neighbours either in the east or west. That means that the same destructive, expansionist policies on both fronts will continue to be persisted with.

The presence of the US in Afghanistan has forced Pakistan's military to pretend to be America's ally while it continues to covertly support, encourage and promote the elements fighting against it. The tactic being used is conceptually the same as is being used against India in Kashmir.

Wear the Americans down in Afghanistan to a point where they are forced to seek an 'honourable' exit from there and leave it back in the hands of Pakistan through a new and improved Taliban, quite like it was before 9/11, minus the Al Qaida. This is the cornerstone of Pakistan's position on the 'war on terror' as the ally of the US. Pakistani generals reckon that the US will bolt from Afghanistan much faster than India will from Kashmir. Therefore, they will do everything to ensure that the Americans effectively lose their Afghan war, just like the Soviets did. They will, in fact try their utmost, without totally giving themselves away, to ensure that the US dose not achieve a decisive victory there, because that will probably deal a death blow to the Talibani and jehadi infrastructure that has been painstakingly set up by the military over decades. The rout of these elements will wind up being a body blow to the military itself.

It needs be understood, therefore, that neither the Americans nor the Indians can afford to lose their wars in Afghanistan and Kashmir respectively. These two flash points are the the last real battlegrounds of a retreating ideology that, as per Maulana Wahiduddin, is based in the mistaken belief that "Islam is a political system and that it is the duty of all Muslims to establish the political rule of Islam in the world".

What is happening in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and elsewhere and what happened on 9/11 is not due to "random terror", an aimless jehad, that Vir Sanghvi and, possibly, a few others have suddenly discovered it to be. As Maulana Wahiduddin explains, although terror attacks will not eliminate non-Islamic rule or bring down governments immediately, jehadis believe they can at least destabilise them and pave the way for Islamic rule. Due to lack of military power to force a change through open war, this strategy of chipping away has been adopted for bringing about the desired result of establishing Islamic rule in an open time-frame beyond what is normally considered by the US and others while developing responses to defeat it.

This ideological problem affects the whole world, as it does moderate Muslims in Pakistan, India and elsewhere, including the US. A defeat in Kashmir for India and/or the US in Afghanistan will have disastrous long term consequences from which no nation of any consequence will be immune. Even a notional defeat is not an option because it will be touted as a triumph of terror and used as a powerful motivator to attract more people from around the world to join the 'holy' cause and take terror to new levels.

This is the most fundamental aspect that needs to be understood and properly internalised so that myopic and disjointed political and military strategies can be avoided in future.

Viewed in this context, the proposal of the British Foreign Secretary David Miliband that a 'resolution' of Kashmir will stop terrorism against India from Pakistan, indicates that there is still no holistic understanding in the UK of the real dimensions of the problem of terrorism from which even his own country is not free. Implicit in Miliband's statement that appeared, much to India's discomfiture, in The Guardian even as he was being given a guided rural tourism tour by Rahul Gandhi in Amethi, is the suggestion that a resolution acceptable to Pakistan will necessarily involve India giving and Pakistan gaining. As almost everyone in India already knows, if that happens, Pakistan sponsored terrorism will only get fuelled further, not put out.

There is a view in India that a strong Pakistan is needed to keep Talibanis away from India's borders. This implies that Pakistani Punjabis and Sindhis will willingly allow such elements to convert their provinces too into another Afghanistan once the protective umbrella of Pakistan is removed, and join them in their holy war against India. This deduction appears to be completely erroneous. Ordinary Punjabis and Sindhis, like the Kashmiris in India, have no illusions about the fact that these elements have become their own cancer, a fact that has been admitted even by President Zardari. But, since they are seen to be fighting against India, they do get a measure of support due to a mindset created by the ideology adopted by Pakistan that sees a secular India as an enemy that has to be defeated.

It is, therefore, only natural that once ordinary Sindhis, Baluchis and the Punjabis are lightened of the heavy ideological anti-India baggage of the state of Pakistan, they will most likely vigorously cleanse their own provinces of these elements and ensure that they are confined to FATA. They may well take steps to weaken them there and in Afghanistan too by denying them the strong ideological and logistical base that the state of Pakistan has been providing to them, and without which they cannot survive for long.

The results of the recent elections in Kashmir Valley and Pakistan have clearly indicated that ordinary Muslims do not support this ideology of terror and the social repression it promises - if it affects their own lives. They may cheer it from the sidelines, but do not want it to reside in their homes. There is no reason to believe that the people of Afghanistan do not share the feelings that their ethnic brothers on the Pakistan side of the Durand Line have expressed in the elections there. But, they are themselves terrorised by ruthless AK47 wielding fanatics who can cross all limits of brutality without batting even the proverbial eye lid.

Ordinary Afghanis may hate the presence of US troops on their soil but that does not mean that love for the Talibanis and other jehadi groups is overflowing in their hearts. If the fear factor is decisively removed from their midst, they too will not opt for a Talibanised Afghanistan.

Both India and the US, therefore, need to work in unstated unison to ensure that Pakistan's military and the ISI are weakened to a point
where they are no longer able to hijack the agenda of the people of Pakistan again. Terrorism needs Pakistan's military and the ISI to survive; they need it to flourish to protect their relevance and the idea that Pakistan has become.

Strengthening of Pakistan's military to help the US in its war in Afghanistan is not going to yield the dividends that the US is hoping for. Rather than strengthen the war on terror, it is going to lengthen it. Worse will happen in the long run if the US pushes a deal favourable to terror in Kashmir in the hope that it will enable it to de-induct from Afghanistan after wiping the Al Qaida out from there by leaving that country in the 'safe' hands of the Pakistani military.

Kashmir and Afghanistan are two sides of the same terror coin. The war on terror has to be decisively won in both these places. The US cannot afford to make the mistake that it made when the Soviets had invaded Afghanistan. That mistake resulted in 9/11 and more. This time, the consequences of a mistake will be far worse for the US and the rest of the world.
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Readers may also read: Understanding and defeating the ideology of terror

MODI AND REDDY: THE CHOICE IS CLEAR

$200 billion in two days. Yes you are reading it correctly. Investment commitments worth a staggering nearly Rs 10 lakh crores have been inked in two days flat at the just concluded Vibrant Gujarat Investors' Summit (VGIS) 2009, breaking all records. This is on top of Rs 4.6 lakh crore ($100 billion), Rs 1 lakh crore ($20 billion) and Rs 66,000 crore ($14 billion) worth of investment promises that were made at the summits in 2007, 2005 and 2003 respectively.

The world might be in a recession, China and India may be slowing down; Modi's Gujarat is pulling powerfully ahead, all cylinders firing.

There is no one who is anyone in India's industrial landscape who is not in Gujarat already or is not going to be there soon. Ratan Tata, India's most respected business leader, had famously said at the last VGIS in 2007 that one who is not in Gujarat is stupid. He followed up his words with his money by moving the Nano plant there from Mamata's Singur. He has now pledged an additional investment of Rs 21,000 crores besides declaring that he will also set up a geo-thermal power plant. Like Tata, no one else wants to show his stupidity by not rushing to a state that is set to developmentally break away from the rest of India and look like a different country altogether 10 years down the line.

Gujarat is today the perhaps hottest investment destination anywhere in the world, thanks solely to Modi. There can be no better acknowledgment of the honest, no-nonsense, clear-headed and visionary leadership that Modi has shown as Chief Minister of the state.

In stark contrast, with an ever growing scandal, YSR Reddy's Andhra Pradesh has plummeted to new lows and has become a hot potato that no one wants to touch, much less claim.

The way skeletons are popping out in the Satyam-Maytas scandal in Andhra Pradesh, it seems that the rot is far deeper than anyone thought and is not limited to the IT firm promoted by Ramalinga Raju. It is also beginning to appear that the money trail does not end in Hyderabad and probably runs right up to Delhi. All-out efforts are on to ensure that this scandal, already far bigger and more rotten than the Bofors scandal that brought the Rajiv Gandhi government down, does not explode right in the face of the Congress party just before the general lections.

When he quit Satyam, Raju had claimed that he and his brother were the only two who knew about the Rs 7000 crore rigging of accounts that had been going on for years. Expectedly, he was dishonest in his confession then as he was in running the company. With every passing day, the list of those involved in the scam is only growing longer and more damning, despite the desperate efforts of Reddy and the Central government to prevent what is likely to be an inevitable blow out that cannot be capped for long.

Satyam CFO Vadlamani Srinivas has already been arrested and former CEO Ram Mynampati is likely to be arrested soon, as is the former dean of the prestigious Indian School of Business, Ram Mohan Rao. In yet another stinging indictment of India's bureaucracy that has become the prime mover of the rot that has hollowed all institutions, former Union Cabinet Secretary TR Prasad is likely to be arrested soon. Prasad has, in the meantime, resigned for the board of another Andhra Pradesh based firm, GMR, that is building the new airport in Delhi. One does not know how many other companies have similarly 'benefitted' from his powerful tentacles in the corridors of power, but one can be sure that none of them would be following desired norms of corporate governance and transparency and that their managements would be milking them scandalously.

CM YSR Reddy has yet not felt the heat, as he should have by now, thanks to the protection that he is continuing to receive from the Congress High Command, whose choice for the post he was. Allegations against him are flying thick and fast and it is only a matter of time before they stick.

Only the most naïve believe that Raju and family could have bought thousands of acres of prime land in Hyderabad worth Rs 30,000 crores at rock bottom prices, without giving a hefty cut to Reddy. It is an open secret that they also could not have won, in a single year, Rs 18,000 crore worth of projects, including the Rs 12,000 crore Hyderabad Metro project, whose route was changed to enable him to make a killing on the land owned by him, without scandalously partnering with the CM in the loot. And the CM couldn't have got away with this brazen dacoity for so long, even after E Sreedharan had cried foul last year, if he had not generously shared his loot with his bosses in Delhi.

The muck that is floating in Andhra Pradesh is making the much maligned Modi stand out taller than ever. He is clearly a man on a mission, a selfless mission to power his state to development and prosperity in a manner that has not been done in India by anyone anywhere, and at a scorching pace that even now seems impossible in any state except Gujarat. In a country where a hopelessly corrupt, unresponsive and inefficient bureaucracy has stalled India's progress with single-minded ruthlessness through the weapon of an all-pervasive red tape, in collusion with corrupt politicians, Modi has proved that impossible is nothing indeed.

Modi has become the beacon that has illuminated the truth that an honest, competent and visionary leader can single-handedly turn red tape into a 'red carpet' and get errant and arrogant babus to do their jobs as they are supposed to. No wonder Gujarat is by far the the best governed state in India and is motoring ahead of all other states. The most heartening thing is that despite so much of money being invested there, there is not even the whiff of a scandal anywhere. The absence of kickbacks to politicians and babus and a rare collective zeal inspired by Modi to get things done for the people is getting the world to rush to Gujarat.

Despite this near revolution that Modi has unleashed in a corrupt India that is being mirrored by Andhra Pradesh, our media, unfortunately, continues to treat him as a pariah, thanks to the shrill campaign of a few disconnected 'intellectuals' stuck in 2002. In a lively discussion on CNN-IBN on January 12, 2009, about the CNN-IBN Indian of the Year, Sagarika Ghose was blunt enough to voice the fact that, thanks to them, Modi will not be in any list where "a certain degree of the values of the awards are at stake". To them, politicians with suitcases full of looted money have been, and will continue to be, acceptable. But anyone who does not conform to their warped idea of 'inclusiveness', despite all evidence to the contrary, will have fight to earn his prize in the heat and dust of real India. They will not gift it to him in a five star hotel, no matter that he may actually be beyond all competition. That is saying a lot about the credibility of such awards, but who cares!

Fortunately, the people of India are far wiser than most of those who do the rounds of TV studios. They do not carry either fake ideological baggage or ulterior motivations to promote or pull down political leaders. They know well the difference between what is happening in Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh. They know that Narendra Modi personifies the symbol of his party perfectly as much as Reddy personifies the filth that is draining India. In this vast ocean of politico-bureaucratic muck, Modi stands out as the pristine lotus. Sure he is not the only one out there. There are a few, really few, others too, but he is clearly the tallest and strongest.

Narendra Modi is emerging as the transformational leader that India has been yearning for. With every passing day, that realisation is dawning on more and more of those who were violently opposed to him earlier. That is why Suhel Seth, once one of his greatest critics, is now one of his staunchest supporters. That is why the captains of India's industry have given him a 21-gun salute. That is why the people of India will pull him sooner rather than later to lead them and their country to long delayed glory.

The way the genie that unexpectedly emerged out of Satyam is growing despite best efforts to keep him covered, there is little doubt that, no matter how hard the government may try, the 'aam aadmi' will not be fooled. He knows exactly which face of India is represented by Modi and Reddy, now better than ever before. He is seeing the impossible being turned into a reality in Gujarat. He is also seeing in Andhra Pradesh the ugly underbelly of politicians from whom he had no escape earlier. He knows that he now has before him a clear choice to make. And he will make it wisely, no matter what efforts are made to confuse him with falsehoods yet again.

There is hope yet for India.
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Readers may also read:
1. Covering up the mother of all corruption scandals
2. Tehelka unearths a Prime Minister
3. E=M^2: the Modi phenomenon
4. Single and on a mission: India's alpha (ge)Ms
5. Is Modi BJP's answer to the Manmohan-Mayawati challenge?

MAYTAS: TRUTH INVERTED; GREED IS KING

Maytas is 'Satyam' (Truth) written backwards. It appears that Ramalinga Raju named the IT firm that he established in 1987 'Satyam' after a great deal of deliberation. During those initial days he was perhaps motivated by the trail of truth that had been blazed by Narayana Murthy led Infosys that had established new norms in corporate governance and transparency. Or was it that he chose that name only to project an Infosys-like face to hoodwink employees, shareholders and other stakeholders about the bug of greed that had bitten him even then? Whatever may be the truth, 21 years down the line, he finds himself in jail and his Satyam in respected hands led by HDFC Chairman Deepak Parekh.

It is common knowledge that when greed takes grip, the first casualty has to be truth. No one ever admits that, except to friends bathing in the same 'hamam'. But, the signs begin to show. Maytas, the name of the company set up by Raju in the name of his son for his forays into real estate, construction, infrastructure etc, represents that unconscious slip. It may sound trendy and not repulsive like 'Mar' (kill) that emerges when you write 'Ram' backwards, but it cannot conceal the inversion of 'Truth'. Not now in any case when the truth has finally emerged.

Is it any wonder that Raju bled Satyam and fed Maytas over the years? As the skeletons tumble out, it is emerging that Raju was not just inflating Satyam's profits; he was siphoning money out of the firm to fuel his limitless greed for land, among other things. According to his own admission, Maytas Properties, owned by his family, has a land bank of 6800 acres in Andhra Pradesh, most of it in Hyderabad. And, according to some reports it has been acquired in collusion with the government at rock bottom prices, to make a killing thanks to projects bagged by another sister firm.

Maytas Infra Ltd has grown exponentially over the last few years. In three years, its turnover has increased eight times, from Rs 220 crores in 2005-06 to to Rs 1,670 crores in 2007-08. Last year alone, it won more than Rs 18,000 crores worth of new projects, including the Rs 12,000 crore Hyderabad Metro project. It may be recalled that E Sreedharan, the spotless father of the Delhi Metro, had in September last year said that "The BOT operator (Maytas) has a hidden agenda which appears to be to extend the Metro network to a large tract of his private land holdings so as to reap a windfall profit of four to five times the land price." But, then no one was listening to him, we now know why. On the contrary, Chief Minister YSR Reddy was going over the top in extolling the virtues of the project. Naturally.

The inversion of 'Truth' dose not end at Maytas. Raju has also floated an ambulance service company, the Emergency Management and Research Institute (EMRI), ostensibly a not-for-profit organisation, that has entered into partnership with governments in 10 states. It already runs 1300 ambulances and plans to increase the number to 10,500 by 2010-11. This translates into a capital expenditure to the state governments of Rs 1,800 crores for the vehicles and Rs 300 crores for control rooms. In addition to this is a recurring annual expenditure of Rs 1890 crores on the ambulances. All this on a platter, without competitive tendering.

Raju had manifestly spun a complex web of bribes and kickbacks across the country, involving top political leaders and babus as well as those in the lower echelons in the government, to facilitate his blind greed. Satyam was apparently the cash cow that he looted to death to finance his blazing growth. Everything was going according to plan and he would have probably covered his tracks too had there not been an unanticipated global meltdown and a slowdown in the Indian economy resulting in a crash in property prices and virtual evaporation of demand in the real estate sector.

But, that was not to be. And today, Ramalinga Raju's empire based almost solely on untruth has all but collapsed and he is sharing a prison cell and an Indian-style WC there with ordinary, petty criminals.

Not all Rajus are going to meet this fate. Many have got away undetected and many will still pursue their dreams in the same fashion. "Greed is...good". Michael Douglas had uttered these famous words in the 1987 movie 'Wall Street'. In 2009, in the light of what we have seen in Satyam and in Wall Street, he would have not hesitated to say that those words were a serious understatement.

As the Satyan-Maytas-EMRI saga unfolds more and more, we will get to know, at least in whispers, that the amount of money stolen by everyone in the system is much, much more than what Raju had obliquely admitted in his clever letter of 'conscience'. He may be down and out today, but don't be surprised if, at the end of it all, he and all others at the top of the power heap who have made untold fortunes by deceit, get away lightly.

The establishment in India has not just institutionalized corruption, it has turned it into a fine art respected and prized more than a Hussein painting. On top of it, our lax judicial system is designed to make conviction almost impossible, at least in a practical time frame. So, it is now the turn of a few great lawyers to make the biggest killing of their lives on the ruins of Satyam. They too will spare no efforts in milking Raju and co, in a manner little different from the one the latter had adopted to milk Satyam and the state of Andhra Pradesh.

Greed is King. Has been, will be. The Satyam fiasco is not going to stop those who are consumed by it. On the contrary, considering the fact that Raju and gang almost got away with billions with ease, it will only make them greedier and 'smarter' in a world that defines almost everything in term of bucks. Black bucks may be an endangered species in the wild, but in the thick jungle of corporations and governments, their population is only going to rise exponentially.

Vemaytas Jayate!

Modi and Reddy: The choice is clear
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GILANI, DURRANI, KIYANI, BIRYANI AND THE BUTCHER!

Had it not been in the backdrop of the terror attack on Mumbai on November 26, 2008, what is happening in Pakistan now would be easily have been termed hilarious. In any case, it has certainly upset bananas as their fair name is being tarnished in describing the state that calls itself 'Pure' (Pak). Ajmal the Butcher (Kasab means butcher), the lone terrorist to have been fortuitously captured alive by the Indians, has created more mayhem and panic in Pakistan than he and his gang of 10 did in Mumbai.

Right from the moment Ajmal was captured, Pakistan went to a hyper-denial mode about his being a Pakistani. Even when the media reached his village and his father came forward to tell the world that it was his seed indeed that had done Pakistan proud, no one in the establishment was willing to accept that Kasab was his father's son. The agitation, it has now been learnt from reliable sources - as reliable as you can get them in Pakistan - was not about his nationality but about his surname. How possibly could the state of Pakistan, the ISI and the military, allow Ajmal, a class four drop-out and once petty criminal, to walk away with the supreme honour of being called Kasab?

President Zardari, a mild Sindhi man more interested in collecting monetary cuts than inflicting physical ones of the Kasab variety, was aghast at the idea of being branded a butcher himself, being Head of State. Army Chief Kiyani, who was ISI chief before he took over the reigns of the whole Army, was, on the other hand, furious that the credit for months of painstaking efforts that had been put in by the ISI to assemble a hit squad of mindless fools, was being hogged by one idiot who had missed his date with virgins.

Prime Minister Gilani was already smarting from the humiliation that Zardari was inflicting on him, having appropriated his powers, after quietly breaking his earlier promise of giving up all powers that Musharra had earlier illegally transferred to the President. Gilani should have known better than to expect better from a Sindhi. But, he was powerless to do anything and was looking worse than a bad joke-r in the pack that the world thinks runs the Pure Land. National Security Advisor Durrani silently shared the views of Zardari but had to follow the orders of Gilani who was supposed to be his boss, and who in turn had to listen to Kiyani who was the real behind-the-scene boss of them all.

So, when India sent in the dossier giving credible evidence about everything they all always knew to be true, Giani, Durrani and Kiyani got together and decided that Ajmal's nationality would not be owned up under any circumstances; it was a question of national honour and pride, after all. There was also an added bonus inherent in maintaining the denial: the other nine terrorists who had died before they could tell the tale could, with some difficulty, be passed off as Hindu-Zionists who were planted by India to spoil the 'pak' name of peace-loving Pakistan.

With India thus neutralised, preparations would begin in right earnest for the next Mumbai 11/26 that would be 10 times bigger and would be executed by terrorists trained to consume potassium cyanide, LTTE style. They could not be allowed to find out that the Indian legal system and its media were their best bet to get to the paradise of super-stardom on earth itself, and that there was no need for them to die in their prime only to get virgins.

This was the ill-cooked biryani the three of them thought would they would be able to shove down the throat of a reluctant US that had been rendered helpless due to its dependence on them for its war on terror in Afghanistan. Once the US took a bite, they reckoned that India would have no choice but to polish off the left-overs! Indians had to visibly demonstrate that the did love Bush deeply; they couldn't let their PM down when he needed them most.

After this seemingly logical decision was taken, it was easy for the trio to get usual suspects like Mushahid Hussain and a string of retired generals to get on Indian television channels, always more than eager to embrace and promote Pakistan's democracy rather than present and expose its brutality, to summarily dismiss the evidence submitted by India, and continue to deny that the Butcher was a Pakistani.

Unfortunately for Kiyani, this biryani was not palatable to Zardari, the scheming businessman who became a husband to a PM and then the President himself after she died, to better his business and, some say, love interests. So, he got hold of the amenable Durrani and got him to officially accept what was already known to every boy in every Pakistani and Indian street : Ajmal Kasab was a Pakistani indeed.

When Kiyani heard that the thunder of all the terror that he and the state of Pakistan had generated for decades had been stolen by Ajmal, he was livid. So, he in turn immediately got hold of the hurt Gilani to try and get him to get one back on Zardari. Gilani happily hopped across to the Kiyani camp and immediately sacked Durrani for letting the cause of Pakistan down for that slippery, scheming Sindhi. But, by then, the damage had been done and it was no longer possible for anyone to continue to deny that Ajmal's illiterate father had indeed fathered him in Pakistan and not in Kathmandu or somewhere else beyond the shores of Pakistan while on a business visit. The "na-na" republic suddenly became a "banana" republic, much to the dismay of that great fruit!

Kiyani is still uncontrollably furious at the unexpected turn of events. For the Army Chief who is the most powerful symbol of a nation that has fathered the Taliban, mothered the Al Qaida, brothered the Kashmiri separatists and slaughtered the Indians, what can be worse than to hear again and again that one rustic Pakistani is Kasab? Decades of hard work has been undone, only because a puppet civilian President and not a military one is heading the country.

Kiyani's dreams lie shattered. He was looking forward to the Day when, after successfully routing the US in Afghanistan, he would have appeared live on TV to utter three magical words to the whole world: "Pakistan is Kasab". The thunder of those words, he had thought, would finally eclipse that of the immortal words of Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak, words that had for long rankled him as even MA Jinnah could not better them in his lifetime.

But, the treacherous Zardari and the meek Durrani have stolen the promised moment from right under, and despite, Kiyani's cane. Worse, they have given the supreme honour that rightfully belongs to the whole nation to one illiterate Pakistani whose name does not even figure in the national data base of Pakistan! What an unpardonable double insult.

Last heard, Kiyani was busy cooking another terrific biryani with Gilani and some other "ani" that will enable him to come out of the closet and claim the lesser of the two prizes still available to him for the asking. If all goes well, and that is hoping for a lot in Pure Land, he will soon appoint himself President and send Zardari back to where he should have been in the first place: jail! Zardari, on the other hand, is working equally hard on a fool-proof plan to ensure that, this time, the plane carrying the Army Chief does not land anywhere in Pakistan...