India Retold

Jawahar Lal Nehru, India's first Prime Minister, will always be remembered for giving the priceless gift of democracy to India. The first general elections of 1952 marked India's real break from not only from its colonial past but also from the long rule of its many rajas and nawabs. For the first ever time in India's history, its citizens exercised the their power to choose and discard their rulers through the power of their vote. In effect, Nehru made ordinary Indians the real sovereigns of this nation.

That is what it would have been today had Nehru not allowed his paternal feelings to overtake his better senses, to plant the seeds of a new Indian "Raj". When he chose to groom his daughter Indira Gandhi to rise and wield disproportionate power in the Congress party in his lifetime, just because she was his daughter, he unknowingly struck the first death-blow to the then fledgling democracy and paved the way for new "princely states" to rise and flourish again in free India.

62 years after the British left and 59 years after India became a democratic republic, the Raj is back, in a new avatar.

At the national level, democracy died within the Congress party many years ago when Nehru's daughter formalised dynastic succession and placed the Nehru-Gandhi family above and beyond the party and even the nation. Her declaration of Emergency in 1975 to hold on to the PM's chair despite a court order striking down her election, her promoting her son Sanjay and, after his death, Rajiv, to succeed her, struck a knife into the very heart of the democratic process. In two strokes, she converted her family into the new Royal Family of India and turned the Congress party into a pliant tool whose sole purpose was to keep it in pole position, no matter what. What Nehru had started, Indira completed.

That tradition is now so firmly in place that hardly any one questions this blatant subversion of democracy these days. On the contrary we have countless courtiers who keep reminding us every single day that it is the divine right of the Gandhis to rule India and that the rest of over a billion people must not only accept that fact without murmur but also be grateful for it.

The recently held Lok Sabha elections have, not surprisingly, thrown up the often overlooked fall-out of the dynastic tradition put in place by the Gandhis. That cancer has, as it had to, spread to the whole nation now. For once, Vir Sanghvi has got disturbed by this development. Of course, thanks to long years of supplication to the Gandhis, he still is not able to see them as the fountainhead and foremost perpetrators of this debilitating turn. Nevertheless, despite all his limitations, he has made a beginning, no matter how late.

In a column in the Hindustan Times of May 31, 2009, Sanghvi laments the fact that a disturbing proportion of the newly-appointed ministers were born into political families. This dynastic trend, he notes, is not limited to the Congress party alone and rightly says that once politics becomes entirely a family business, it will become even more disconnected from the people. "Family dominated politics is a closed shop...true democracy is replaced by a kind of feudalism in which the peasants are given the right to choose between various aristocrats. The peasants can never enter the ruling class because the wrong blood flows in their veins", Sanghvi observes ominously, and quotes Neerja Choudhary to warn that if things continue like this, "within five years we would become a self-perpetuating dynastic elite".

Is this development sudden? Have we all not seen it coming for a long time? When the self-appointed Royal Family of India has been practicing this for decades and even aggressively promoting smaller princely families within the Congress party, is it any surprise that this cancer has now spread to the whole polity, save the Left and, to some degree, the BJP?

Despite this staring-in-your-face evidence, Vir Sanghvi cannot bring himself to criticise the pre-eminent position that Rahul Gandhi occupies due to his birth alone. On the contrary, he praises him for trying to "democratise entry into the Congress" and says that if he "can make Indian politics more representative, less dependent on dynasty and more open to those with talent", it will be watershed in our history. Read that again. How can Rahul make it "less dependent on dynasty"?

A parasitic creeper that has a huge tree in deathly embrace cannot be killed by lopping off a few of its branches. That will not save the host, in this case India's democracy. The parasite has to be pulled out of its very roots and burnt. You cannot place one family and one prince above all scrutiny and expect that the rest will agree to become commoners without a whimper. Who gave tickets to all these family politicians who are now on the verge of swamping the Congress? Who has now given ministerial berths to them? Can any one argue with their hand on their heart that Sonia Gandhi favours family dynasties while Rahul wants "peasants" as ministers?

This so-called "democracy" that Rahul Gandhi is ushering into the Congress is no more than a variant of the democratic sham that the British had introduced to humor and inflate the egos of a few Indians, and then use them to perpetuate their Raj. Rahul's exercise similarly places him and his family on a pedestal completely beyond reach of everyone else. It also does not upset the pecking order of other political princes lower down the order. All that is does is that it allows a few "peasants" to compete with each other to reach somewhat higher positions where they can become more visible to the Crown Prince who can then pick a few of them every now and then and give them an entry into the exclusive club of lower placed dynastic families. By doing so, he hopes to earn their everlasting gratitude and, at the same time, keep the existing minor royal families on their toes and within their limits.

The other ugly aspect that has come to the forefront in this election is that it has attracted a large number of very rich individuals who have fought and even won elections. This is the lot that missed the first dynastic wave and has now decided to start one of its own. They have the means to buy entry into any political party. Once inside, not only will they multiply their riches many times faster, now that politics has become big business, but will also be able to start their own lineage.

The political club is, therefore, already all but closed to ordinary people. Democracy, which is meant to empower people, has become the handmaiden of a privileged few. Till August 15, 1947, India had one ruling family that was based in London and hundreds of princely states who "ruled" over large parts of the country under British suzerainty or paramountcy. 62 years on, the wheel has nearly turned full circle. India again has one ruling family, based in Delhi, and many smaller princely families ruling various states and/or sharing the central pie through 543 "princes" chosen democratically by the peasants of India.

If one goes by the Rahul mania that is being created by the media and the dynastic character of the Union council of ministers, there is little doubt that India is sliding inexorably into the vice-like grip of a self-perpetuating dynastic clique. The way things are heading, there is no way Indians can democratically empower themselves like the Americans did last year when they sent a certain Barack Obama, a half-black from nowhere, into the White House.

Obama represents real democracy at its best. For an Obama to happen in India, all routes that lead to and perpetuate dynastic rule have to be ruthlessly cut. The rot started from the very top and it is only from there that its elimination has to begin. Cosmetic tinkering will yield no result. If Rahul Gandhi is actually serious about undoing the damage that his ancestors have done to the democratic process within the Congress and without, he has to totally remove himself and his family from the political landscape of the nation. He cannot talk of democracy while smothering it at the same time with his dynastic pre-eminence that is beyond the pale of examination. All those who overlook this basic truth which stares the nation in the face are just passing time and being plain dishonest.

Look at the irony. At a time when Nepal has removed its king and Bhutan's king has started the process of handing power over to the people, India has accelerated its regressive descent into dynastic Raj. And in the vanguard of this decay is India's supposedly liberal and modern media, and its so-called intelligentsia.

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Has Mayawati begun to show signs of panic?

First, it was Varun Gandhi's hate speech and his arrest drama that got her gut. That was somewhat understandable because she feared that he would take away her voters. So, in a huff, she booked him under the draconian National Security Act (NSA) and sent him to jail, much to the relief of his political opponenents. The net result was that those who had decided to desert her, and more, did not go to Varun but walked over to the party of his cousin. That unexpected reaction poured polluted Ganga jal over Mayawati's dreams of becoming the PM or something close to that.

Then Munnabhai Sanjay Dutt rattled her by offering to give her a "jaadu ki jhappi"! One does not know what she might have felt inside as a person, but as the untouchable - out of fear and awe, not caste - CM-dying-to-become-PM, she was appalled at this unacceptable offer made in full public view, and threatened to send him to jail too. Munnabhai quickly apologised and the matter ended. Or so we thought.

News has now come in that Mayawati's police in Kanpur has slapped the NSA on three young men who, after a few drinks, teased a girl. They were caught and beaten by bystanders before being handed over to the police. You and I may think that these guys should have been dealt with under normal laws, particularly after the corporal punishment that was given to them on the spot by 'vigilant' citizens without any trial. But no, they too seem to have become a grave threat to national security, and may languish in jail without trial for a year.

Amazing isn't it? Just a few months back, Mayawati had deliberately handpicked goondas and criminals, some with multiple murder charges against them, to fight the Lok Sabha elections as her party's candidates, and become India's law makers. And now, she is putting petty eve-teasers behind bars under the NSA!

Is Mayawati's misuse of the NSA a reflection of her anger and frustration at being cut to size in the elections? Are her pangs of insecurity becoming irrational? Are they also an indication of what she is going to do across the nation if and when she does become the PM?

Imagine what might happen if she starts using the NSA so liberally as PM too.

Political opponents will find themselves heading straight from Parliament House to Tihar jail under the NSA for saying something to TV reporters that she finds unpalatable. Auto drivers tampering with their meters will also join them, as will speeding bus drivers and petty thieves. Use your imagination to add to the list which can become very long indeed.

Even as across the country, petty criminals and offenders get booked in their thousands under the NSA for posing grave danger to the security of India, inside Parliament law makers will still be stoutly opposed to having and invoking any special laws to deal with terrorists who blow up and pump bullets into innocent Indians. Mayawati, like most other secular politicians, will know that it is impossible to come to power without "minority" votes; the majority can be kicked around without worry. So, every conceivable reason will continue be found to apply old toothless laws to terrorists. Since it is virtually impossible to get a conviction under these laws, the only guys roaming fearlessly in the country will be terrorists. And we will be told by Mayawati that we should try to understand with compassion these poor, misguided souls whose human rights we must never violate, failing which we will land up in jail under the NSA.

Prepare yourself for Maya raj. And till she becomes the PM, avoid going to UP; you just might find yourself in exalted company there for one full year! Unless of course you are rich enough to hire lawyers who can get you out via the Supreme Court.

Last year, some of us were surprised when someone who once wanted to become the Secretary General of the United Nations wrote in glowing praise of Sonia Gandhi. No one was in any doubt then that Shashi Tharoor was using Time magazine to bend over in such a manner only because he saw in it a fail-safe ticket to get into the Congress party and then into the government. And that is precisely what has happened with his appointment as a junior minister in India's Foreign Office.

While Tharoor's objective was clearly visible and somewhat justifiable too, considering the culture of the Congress party, how does one explain the unbelievably despicable level to which a journalist famous for passing off his sordid and politically motivated sting operations as exercises in public morality, has sunk to in his lowly endeavour to endear himself to, yes, Sonia Gandhi? In perhaps a first for Indian journalists - and that is saying a lot considering the lot we have - Tarun J Tejpal, editor of Tehelka, has crossed every possible red line that separates journalism and political sycophancy.

In an open letter “to the unlikely woman whose tenacity in staying the course changed the contours of Indian politics”, this paragon of secularism not only belittles India's many gods but lays obscene praise at her feet, including her famous 'renunciation' of the PM's post, by - hold your breath - crediting it to Tenth Commandment (Though shall not covet) of the "extra god" that he says she has brought along with her from Italy! Quoting Mathew's exhortation in 10:7, he lays bare his deeply ingrained religious and political hatred for the "devils", "the bigots who divide us" and the ones "who have taken a fourth of our dominions".

He does not stop here. Craftily, he even roots for dynastic rule and Rahul Gandhi: "No doubt with the help of your extra god, you have done a fine job of bringing up your son. He has humility, decorum, diligence, and he takes the long and inclusive view. We do not like the idea of dynasty, but we abhor the idea of divisiveness more". And then he drops the inevitable big bombshell, not wanting to take even the slightest risk of being found wanting along any dimension: "And yes, as I bid you speed and strength, with the extra god by your side, may I make a final plea. You have given us of yourself, and of your son. Now will you kindly also give unto us your luminous daughter"!

Now you know why this angel of morality and ethics and values and integrity lay silent for the five years that the Congress was in power. Now you know why no sting operation that could taint the government in any manner was done by Tehelka. Tejpal was not alone in this deceit. You would have noticed that it was only after the elections that the media suddenly started openly talking about "wet/ATM" ministries where big money had been made by ministers; DMK was also openly called "Delhi Money for Karunanidhi" and roundly criticised for becoming a family business, conveniently forgetting that the Congress was exactly that in Delhi. Why was everyone quiet for five years while DMK ministers were allegedly looting their ministries openly? Why the noise after the elections? It does not take great imagination to understand that the media brought all the muck into public glare only to embarrass the DMK and pressure it to give up its demands for all these lucrative ministries again! Poor Congressmen couldn't be made to suffer for another five years in "dry" ministries, could they?

Make any amount of money, loot the nation, do anything, but don't do anything that annoys or harms mommy. That is the credo that seems to be guiding the likes of Tejpal. Saving Sonia is more important than saving India. Cut that bullshit of the devil that you want India to see elsewhere, Tejpal; we can see him in you.

Remember how Tehelka did the original sting when the BJP was in power and crowed about its dishonest party President who was filmed receiving Rs 1 lakh in cash? Remember how Defence Minister George Fernandes, an absolutely honest man, was hounded by the Congress for corruption without even a shred of evidence except that some money was paid by Tejpal's flunkies to Jaya Jaitley in his residence? Remember how just before the Assembly elections in Gujarat, Tehelka did another sting on Narendra Modi solely to ensure that the Congress party won? Who can forget the recent Pink Chaddi campaign launched by one of Tejpal's reporters to bring the Congress back on track in Karnataka? I will not be surprised if that sting on Varun Gandhi was also done by Tejpal, to literally force Muslims into the arms of the Congress in UP. As is well known now, that did happen. Of course credit for that has, expectedly, been given to the genius of Rahul Gandhi.

Doing sting operations is a costly and time consuming affair, particularly if they are aimed at getting stunning political rewards for your political masters. Many, many stings have to be done before you get the kind of dramatic result that you are looking for in just one of them. One can only imagine the kind of effort that Tejpal's Tehelka hounds must have put in over the years to bring windfall gains for the Congress party, while pretending to be on a great unbiased and selfless national mission. No prizes for guessing where the huge funding and possibly more could have come from, for long years.

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal has exposed the rampant corruption that is prevalent in India's media. Apparently nothing comes for free. If you want coverage, you have to pay for it. And in the many cases where the media are closely aligned to a particular party, if you have a contrary view, you may not be covered even if you pay. The problem must be really serious if the WSJ sees "reporters, editors and newspaper owners holding the democratic process to ransom." That is why Paul Beckett is compelled to observe that a "corrupt press is both symptom and perpetrator of a rotten democracy".

Tarun Tejpal manifestly represents all that is rotten and stinking in India's media. Unfortunately he is not alone. There are many smug faces you can see out there, some hiding behind beards like him, who appear to be using the same route to riches and power. Recently in a TV discussion about Indian money in Swiss banks, Kapil Sibal, if my memory serves me right, told off a clever TV anchor that there were people even from the media who had parked ill-gotten money there. The problem is clearly far more serious than the glimpse that has been given in the WSJ.

When Shashi Tharoor sucks up to Sonia, everyone knows that like a seasoned bureaucrat, he is using that powerful, even if demeaning, tool to get rehabilitated respectably in India. But when a hardcore journalist like Tejpal crosses every single boundary of self-respect and honesty to do so, you have to question his motive.

Has this lick ass article been written out of gratitude for an overdose of Swiss fragrance received for a job well done or is it another you-pay-I-write job? Whatever it be, there is little doubt that it is a very loud signal that India's media and its democracy are far more rotten than ordinary Indians suspect.
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• A BJP government is likely to react militarily if there is another Mumbai 26/11 type of attack. After the terror attack on Parliament in 2001, the then BJP government had given the go-ahead for launching a military offensive that was called off only at the very last minute, thanks to the intervention of the US. Next time, a BJP government is more likely to not give in to US pressure. The Congress, on the other hand, made a lot of noise but did little after Mumbai 26/11. In future too it will try its best to avoid precipitating a crisis, no matter how grave the provocation, with an eye on Muslim votes.
• A BJP government will strengthen various anti-terror measures and mechanisms, including approving the anti-terror laws for Rajasthan and Gujarat that have been pending with the President for years, and make it relatively difficult for terrorists and Islamic radicals sympathetic to them to have a free, conviction-free run for another five years.
• Both the SP and BSP, and other regional parties, no matter what they say, are all capable of joining or supporting a BJP government if it comes to a crunch; it is only the Congress that will never be on the side of the BJP. The latter, therefore, can be defeated only of the Muslim vote goes to the Congress.
• The Congress has lost its core dalit vote in UP to Mayawati and Yadav vote to Mulayam Yadav. It also no longer has any core vote among remaining Hindus, who are vulnerable to advances of the BJP. Due to this fundamental weakness, it needs Muslim votes to survive and win. A Congress government will, therefore, be very soft towards the activities of the SIMI and the Indian Mujahideen, giving them much needed time and space to expand their influence and multiply their hit capability, to be activated at the right time. This will help in furthering ISI's long term strategy of bleeding India to death through a thousand cuts.
• The Congress will also turn a blind eye to the radicalisation of Indian Muslims that is vital to the creation and growth of a separate Islamic sub-state within the secular Indian state till the avowed objective of the SIMI and Pakistan to turn India into an Islamic state is achieved at an appropriate time.

• There has not been a single terror attack, big or small, since Mumbai 26/11. This is because the ISI ordered all such attacks to be put on hold at least till the elections to ensure that no votes get diverted to the BJP.
• Compared to 2004, the Congress has gained around 6% vote share in UP and some other states. But in UP, where the Muslim population is large, the party has gained a huge 10% compared to the Assembly elections in 2007, when it got just 8.56% of the votes. The fact that the only other party to gain vote share in the state since 2007 is the BJP, although by only 0.57%, while the both the SP and BSP have lost around 2% and 3% respectively, is conclusive evidence that it is mostly the Muslims who have shifted to the Congress in huge numbers. Mayawati has, in fact, already blamed Muslims for her party's poor show.
• This tectonic shift in the Muslim vote to the Congress in UP that has helped it increase its seat tally to 21 from a paltry nine, has taken place virtually unnoticed. This could not have happened on its own. There was obviously a concerted effort by influential and powerful extremist elements and possibly some fundamentalist religious leaders to keep this development under the wraps, as it were, to prevent any polarisation of the the Hindu vote in favour of the BJP and away from the Congress, as a reaction, because had that happened, this shift of the Muslim vote would have been negated.
• The decision of the Congress to dump the SP and go solo in UP was possibly influenced by confidential inputs received by the party from various sources that a very large number of Muslims had been convinced to quietly vote for the party, and that if it fought alone, it would win many seats where Muslim population was significant enough to make the vital difference.

Be that as it may, I do not believe that it is the ISI or outfits promoted and supported by it in India, or its sleeper cells, that have surreptitiously influenced Indian Muslims to come out and vote for the Congress in such large numbers. I think there is genuine concern among Indian Muslims about the BJP coming to power at the Centre, and they have democratically and rightfully done their bit to successfully ensure that it does not.
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In India's countryside, one sight that is common across the country is of the majestic Indian bull, called "saandh" in Hindi, generally lazing around doing nothing. Fed by villagers, the sole job of this animal, distinguished by its magnificent hump, is to mate with cows. In the cities, of course, you can spot many two-legged versions of the "saandhs" in various government departments. Since they too have little to do except feed off the government, they are popularly called "sarkari saandhs", government bulls. Of course, they don't get to mate 'cows'. But what the hell, the whole country is theirs to screw!

A genetic expert has recently warned that men are on the road to extinction since the Y chromosome that distinguishes men from women is deteriorating and is likely to disappear, not in a hurry though; a world without men might be a reality only after 125,000 years. That seems to be a long time, but the signs are already there. Sperm counts have fallen by a huge 20% in the last 50 years. Do the math.

Notwithstanding increasing cases of same sex relationships and marriages, which the Church and Sarah Palin frown upon as unnatural, no one can deny that without men, the world will be a terribly dull place. Imagine a Hillary Cinton without Bill the Groper or an Angelina Jolie without Pitt the Masseur. Here in India, what would Mori be if there was no Hrithik or Ash mean(in Hindi too) if Salman was not in the frame?

But, if Professor Bryan Sykes of Oxford University is to believed, there will come that time when there will only women on the planet. Now that is going to be very boring indeed. With no guys to fight over, no 'equality' issues, sexist remarks or sexual discrimination in the work place to rant about, and no domestic violence and cruelty to cry over, there will be very little left to talk! How much can women bitch about each other unless there is a guy to inflame them? And, since there will be only women around, fashion houses and lingerie and cosmetic manufacturers will have to reinvent themselves, places of pleasure and FTV will have to shut shop and the porn industry will all but disappear.

In 102009 AD, a hundred thousand years from now, 25,000 years before they vanish altogether, men will still be there but very few. There will be panic all round and no hi-tech solution in sight to the Y crisis, despite thousands of years of effort and many trillion dollars down the drain. Laboratories will be busy collecting as much of the virtually sperm-less seminal fluid that will be available then from unwilling, bored and exhausted last men still standing, to create a bank of Y chromosome bearing sperms that will be made available to equally bored and frustrated women. There will not be too many ladies excited about the idea of getting impregnated by the mere touch of sperm on their arm, no matter how sophisticated the simple-looking and painless procedure. Of course there will be women around even then who will argue passionately that men are not needed at all and that an all-women world will be a great place to live in. "Down with Y Banks" they will shout, saying that it was shocking that even after 100,000 years of evolution, women should still be wanting to give birth to a baby boy!

The battle for saving man will appear to be a losing one, no solution in sight. Suddenly, an Indian will dig out long lost archives and re-discover a low-cost "saandh" solution to ensure that men not only do not disappear altogether but even begin growing in numbers.

All men will be treated like the real "saandhs", the bulls, are today. They will be fed, clothed and taken care of by women who will become the new "worker bees" for their "King bees". That will the time to be a man. Every need met and nothing to do. Except mate. With as many and as often as possible, helped enormously by a new version of Viagra that will make priapism painless. That will keep the 'cows' and the 'bulls' very happy and very busy. And give women even more reasons to want to have baby boys and avoid baby girls. A G-pill consumed orally will automatically detect and destroy a foetus that does not have a Y chromosome. That will ensure that only a male child is born, no matter how many thousands of pleasurable attempts it takes for the almost extinct Y chromosome to touch base.

Gradually, the male population will increase, and after 25,000 years of great fun, men, instead of becoming totally extinct, will be back in numbers in full force, restoring the sex ratio to 1:1. And the world be back to the 'happy' equilibrium that it is in now! Scientists need to learn a thing or two from the great Indian Bull.

When your icon tastes success, however small and for whatever reason, after five long years, it is very difficult to control your emotions. All the frustration that had remained bottled up for so long gushes out uncontrollably from every orifice, transformed into perfumed words of praise. Ah what a relief! Thank you Rahul, you say following a deep breath, we thought this day would never come.

11 additional seats and a 6% rise in vote share in UP has sent the geysers shooting. And this is only the beginning. If it was Quick Gun Murugan Vir Sanghvi who beat every one to the discovery of the genius that lay carefully concealed in Rahul baba for 39 long years, thanks to that solitary "brilliant" move, it is now his good friend Barkha Dutt who is uncovering the "big winner" in him for pushing to travel solo "in the badlands Uttar Pradesh" and for "winning the Hindi heartland" for his party! With an 18% vote share? Did he not go solo in 2007 too? And has the Congress not done as well, even better, in many other states, about which no one is talking?

The contribution of the Prime Minister to the victory of the Congress is not only being ignored, he is even being belittled by sections of the media. What else can you say when a headline says: "When Gandhis let PM take centrestage", at his swearing in ceremony? Dr Manmohan Singh, after being sworn in PM for the second time, this time on the people's vote, must still be shown as subservient to the Gandhis and not allowed to bask for a moment in even his share of the shine of victory.

News has also just come in Rahul baba has once again refused to join the cabinet, as expected. When he had first refused the PM's offer last year, a leading Congress-leaning editor had justified it by saying that as a minister Rahul would have got "hidden behind" files and lost contact with the people! Some, in fact had gone to the extent of saying that he was not hankering for power and was making a sacrifice for the party. This time too, the reason given is that he wants to concentrate on building the organisation. But this time, the pretences are off. Barkha Dutt makes no bones about what is coming next when she says that he has taken the right decision because "it's the more grounded way to climb to the top". Decipher that!

To me it was always clear that Rahul Gandhi would never join Dr Manmohan's government for two reasons. First and most important is that unspoken arrogance that does not permit him to serve under someone who is his family's appointee/employee, and is there solely to keep the top chair safe for him. The last and only time a Gandhi did that in the government was four decades ago. The second is that while it is very difficult to quantify organisational failure and pin blame on him if things don’t go right, as a minister he will be in full public glare and his performance will be under a microscope. That is an unacceptable risk, because unlike when you are the PM, blame for poor performance cannot be passed on by you as a minister, and that too an all-powerful one like him, to another politician or bureaucrat. And considering some unbelievable statements that he has made that betray a very superficial understanding and average intellect, you can be sure that he will be found wanting, with nowhere to hide.

A caption on CNN-IBN said it all this morning: "Rahul revamping cabinet". He is not going to be there but his lieutenants - "Rahul Sena" - consisting of young second generation politicians like Sachin Pilot, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Jitendra Prasada etc are being inducted. "Rahul's stamp is bound to remain with the way the government and the party function" said a news reader on the channel. The ever grateful Veerappa Moily, now a minister after being gagged following Rahul Gandhi's famous interview, has also publicly said on the very first day after joining Dt Manmohan Singh's cabinet that Rahul will lead the Congress as PM for the next elections.

Baba raga is getting louder with each passing day. It is, in fact, already beginning to sound like a symphony being played by an orchestra whose conductor has miraculously reappeared after a long time. Enjoy the music. And ignore the well suppressed jarring notes in the background, at least for now. There is little else that you can do!
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A couple of years back, there was a chat show on NDTV 24/7 about whether Indians are still obsessed with royalty. I don’t know whether Indians out there give a damn, but the select, educated, liberal and like-minded few who had been herded into the studio by the show host, along with a few ex-Maharajas and Nawabs, were overwhelmingly of the view that they indeed were.

Four decades ago, Indira Gandhi had taken away the pompous titles and privileges of hundreds of Indian princes and turned them into ordinary citizens like you and me in a free, democratic India. Ironically, they are being made royal again, not by their erstwhile subjects who have forgotten all about them, but by the new princes of India's free media, happy perhaps at being 'elevated' to a position where they can socially mingle with them as equals.

Nowhere is this 'worship' of royalty more visible than in the manner in which the media treat the new Royal Family of India and its Crown Prince. In fact the way some of the really big names in the business blatantly manufacture credit for Rahul Gandhi for anything good that happens to the Congress is sometimes so demeaning that one wonders whether there is anything called self respect left even outside of the Congress, where in any case it died decades ago. Conversely, if there is anything negative that points to him, if it cannot be deflected to the "aam aadmis" of the Congress, they just give it the royal ignore.

Remember that famous press conference before the election results were out where Rahul Gandhi almost brainlessly reached out to almost the entire opposition for support even if it meant ditching the existing allies of the Congress who were not expected to do well? It needs no imagination to figure out as to what would have happened had the verdict been like what everyone then thought it was going to be. In the event, the Congress got a fantastic and most unexpected victory. As a result, not only did the many unimaginable blunders that Rahul Gandhi committed in that conference get hidden, the usual spin doctors have managed to even show him in a light that even he would not have imagined when he went to bed on May 15, 2009.

A victory can hide all blemishes instantaneously. Till 8 AM on May 16, 2009, there were a whole lot of people who were convinced that Rahul Gandhi was not blessed with the kind of intellect that would get him a decent job in the open market, much less the chair of the PM. It was only his surname, which made 21st century liberals drool like 17th century subjects, that had got him this far, was the dominant view.

But, after two short hours, Rahul Gandhi was converted by the media into a genius and given almost all the credit for the great showing of the Congress party. Secretly, everyone knew that Rahul had little to do with the victory that surpassed their expectations. Had it been otherwise, by now, Dr Manmohan Singh, the real face of the Congress and its leader for the elections, would have 'gracefully' stepped aside. That is why this great chorus has started now to build Rahul up in such a manner that at an opportune moment, he occupies that throne of his which has eluded him till now.

Almost everyone in the media has joined the Rahul bandwagon. Vir Sanghvi, not surprisingly at all, speaks for his huge tribe of sycophants, when he says: "We are all hailing Rahul as a genius"! And what is the only one point that they have found to turn the frog magically into a prince? The decision of the Congress party to go it alone in UP.

Was that decision a stroke of genius or did it flow out of simple commonsense and arithmetic? The Congress wanted to contest 24 seats in alliance with the SP while the latter was willing to give it 17, based on its past performance in the previous Lok Sabha elections where the Congress got nine seats, and the Assembly elections where it did worse. I am no genius but even to a man of very ordinary intelligence like me it has been clear for over a year that only the unreliable SP would emerge stronger out of the alliance while the tally of the Congress would remain almost the same. Only a fool will strengthen a potential foe in such a manner. That is the straightforward part.

The second part is the myth that is being promoted about how Rahul has worked wonders with the party in UP, the state he specifically looks after organisationally, due to which the party's seat tally has jumped to 21. Seen in isolation, a more than 100% rise in the number of seats is undoubtedly a huge achievement. That is what they want you to focus on, so that Rahul can stand out and glow. No one is even whispering about CM Gehlot for achieving a much more spectacular performance in Rajasthan where the tally of the Congress has jumped from four to 20, a stupendous feat by any standards, and the best by the Congress anywhere. Hardly any one is also talking about the impressive gains made by the Congress in Kerala and MP, and elsewhere where the credit cannot be pinned on Rahul.

There is also little talk about the fact that rise in the vote share of the Congress in UP is almost the same as in neighbouring Bihar, MP, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand, while it much less than the huge gains made by the party in Delhi and Punjab. It is as if they don’t exist and that there has been a miracle in UP alone due to the genius of Rahul.

So excited and eager is the media to crown him that CNN-IBN has actually gone to the extent of asking viewers if Rahul was a better politician than his father, Rajiv Gandhi! Then there are those who say that Congress won 75 of 120 seats where Rahul campaigned to drive home the point that the revival of the Congress across the country is only due to him. Some want you to believe that Rahul's brainchild, the loan waiver scheme, became a winner overnight while others think it is his pet project, the NREGA, that miraculously brought in the voters who voted differently from the recent assembly election in many states, even though these programs were on even then. One has also started hearing about how his initiative to work with the youth has done the trick, and how his Aam Aadmi Ka Sipahi(AAKS) scheme has worked and how it will now reach out in all panchayats across the country. The list is not only getting longer but also more ridiculous. Some social scientists, believe it, have suddenly discovered that it is Rahul's "fair and lovely" effect that has helped get voters!

Rewind a bit. Just two years back, Rahul Gandhi was the star campaigner of the Congress which then too had fought the Assembly elections alone in UP. He had then campaigned vigorously in over a hundred carefully chosen constituencies where the Congress had a chance of winning. At the end of efforts that got saturated coverage and glowing tributes by sections of the media, the Congress got just 24/403 seats and even suffered a loss of vote share. The genius could hardly have been uncovered then. The same thing happened in the Assembly elections in Karnataka, Gujarat, MP, Punjab, Himachal etc where also the Congress was routed. Did you hear even a whisper against him anywhere in the media or a call to sack him? No, the blame was passed on to faceless state leaders, as always.

Don't you find it very odd that nobody in the media has questioned Rahul's basic intelligence and the almost complete and dangerous lack of understanding about terrorism that he showed in that famous press conference? He was not kidding when he said that "All we have to do is empower villagers. Then we can sit back and relax and we will destroy it in 15 minutes". This is not all. A few months back, he had said at another press conference that he wanted to "create thousands of Obamas running around in this country". Thousands of Obamas on an assembly line? Does he himself measure up to and understand what Obama represents, to talk like this? Does he remember that while Obama became the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, around the same time he himself made an anonymous exit from the university without completing his education, as per some reports? And, of course, other than talking of the youth because he is still not old, have you really heard him speak of anything really new and radically different from what his ancestors did and who, as per him, were the only Indian leaders who got everything right?

In 1980, ABBA sang "The winner takes it all; the loser's standing small". In 2009, till the Lok Sabha election results were clear, two hours into counting, Rahul Gandhi was being dismissed as another dud who was where he was only because of his surname. The media in fact were beginning to see that missing magical spark, spontanety and intelligence in Rahul's sister Priyanka, with some even proclaiming that she would be India's PM one day. She too obliged by saying "Never say never" to politics. Rahul had almost been written off by them.

Then it happened. The Congress won. And ever since then, the large army of obsequious and dishonest media personalities that had for long been frustrated because of failed efforts to project Rahul as India's "Great and Only Hope", has gone crazy trying to make the nation believe that the only winner of these elections is Rahul Gandhi whose genius has at very long last been discovered.

The loser, BJP, is standing small. But not alone. The real winner, Dr Manmohan Singh, is there too. The Crown Prince has taken it all.
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4. President 'blessed' Obama, this is our moment
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5. I love Rahul Gandhi - because nepotism rules :D MUST READ

The recently concluded Lok Sabha elections were the first near-Presidential type of elections held in the country. Well before polling day, Indian voters knew who the two principal Prime Ministerial candidates were. The moment Dr Manmohan Singh was declared as the Congress candidate for the job, in the minds of many floating voters, the choice became clear and simple: Was Advani better or Manmohan, or was it worth voting for an unknown candidate to be chosen messily after the elections by the so-called Third Front ?

Since the UPA has romped home handsomely and the Congress on its own has got over 200 seats, conventional wisdom suggests that, for all its weaknesses, the Parliamentary form of democracy that we have chosen is fine. Is that really so? The question that needs to be answered is: Would the Congress have performed as well had Dr Manmohan Singh not been its Prime Ministerial candidate?

Let us take the example of Delhi and Punjab. In Delhi, the vote share of the BJP declined only marginally from the 36.83% it had in the Assembly elections, to 35.19%. But for the Congress, the change was dramatic, its share jumping from 40.31% to 57.04%, an astounding increase of almost 17%. Similarly, in Punjab, the vote share of the SAD was almost the same, 33.9% as against 34.3% in the Assembly elections. The story of the BJP was identical too, the party getting 10.1%, down just 0.4%. But the Congress, like in Delhi, had a huge 11% gain compared to the 34% vote share it got in the Assembly elections. The dramatic change in both these states after the Assembly elections, was certainly not due to NREGA or whatever. It was a vote for Dr Manmohan Singh. There can be no other explanation for this rise. He was the only new factor introduced after the state elections.

In Rajasthan, UP, Bihar and MP, the Congress gained around 6% in vote share compared to the last Lok Sabha elections. There has been much talk in the media of the huge contribution made by Rahul Gandhi to revive the Congress in UP, where its tally has gone up from nine seats to 21. Rahul Gandhi has been looking after the state for nearly seven years during which the party suffered its worst performance in the Assembly elections of 2007. Yes, the Congress has gained 6% in the state, but this gain is equal to or less than than the gains made by the party in neighbouring states in North India. Surely, the persona of Dr Manmohan Singh has contributed substantially to this change too.

In BJP ruled states, it is only in MP that the Congress has improved its vote share at the expense of the BJP. In Karnataka, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, it has lost substantially while in Gujarat it is down marginally by 0.5%. In Maharashtra, the MNS has got a 4% vote share in the state and 21% in Mumbai, helping the Congress to win, despite the poor performance of the state government. In Andhra Pradesh, the Congress has suffered a 2.5% loss but has got more Lok Sabha seats solely due to the 16% share that Chiranjeevi has taken out from the opposition. In Kerala and West Bengal, the party and its allies have put in their best performance, though due to local factors. In Orissa it has not done well only because the leadership and image of Naveen Patnaik has over shadowed national factors.

Overall, the Congress has got just 1.99% more vote share compared to 2004 but that has got it 61 extra seats to take its tally to 206. This is due to the concentrated vote surge in some states as shown above and multi-cornered contests. It is relatively straightforward to attribute the big gains made by the party in Delhi and Punjab - even Bihar to a great extent - to Dr Manmohan Singh alone because they have not come at the expense of the NDA. But, can it be denied that the gains made by the party in other states have also been substantially because of the image of PM? Also, does it take great intelligence to understand that even in some states where the party has not done well or just scraped through, it would probably have fared worse had the party projected someone else or no one as the PM?

No one had expected the people of India to throw up such a decisive result. Most exit polls had forecast a 10 seat or less difference between the UPA and NDA. Had that happened, the country would have been pushed into the arms of an unstable government that would have been hopelessly tied down to the politics of survival and the race to garner maximum spoils of office in minimum time. Also, the decision of the Congress to align with Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal would have emerged as its biggest blunder, with its potential ally, the Left decimated without the Congress gaining a single seat from it. In the event, thanks to the strong showing of the party elsewhere, that potential nightmare has fortuitously turned into a dream.

There is little doubt that this election has gone decisively the Congress way because the party put up a Prime Ministerial candidate of the caliber of Dr Manmohan Singh. His spotless reputaion, coupled with the very important fact that he is not from the Family, helped the Congress in a manner that no one had expected. LK Advani also inadvertently pushed a lot of floating voters to the Congress for a host of reasons including the fact that he launched petty personal attacks repeatedly on Dr Manmohan Singh, making him appear even taller.

It is worth mentioning here that this fine win notwithstanding, the vote share of the Congress is just 0.5% more than it was in 1999 even though its seat tally has gone up by 91 to 206. The vote share of the two national parties combined also remains roughly the same as last time. What this means is that there is every possibility that in the next elections, a hung verdict will be delivered by the electorate. This time that has not happened thanks to the fact the Congress projected a clean, respected and non-dynastic Prime Ministerial candidate. The BJP has perhaps not yet realised that the anti-Congress undercurrent that it speaks about has evaporated simply because the Family has receded somewhat into the background. That move by itself has got the Congress a lot of additional votes.

Can the country really afford to have, in this age and time, a government that is crippled and paralysed? Why the country alone? Even at the state level, the need of the hour is to have a government that focuses on governance and not petty politicking 24/7. The experience of the last few years has shown that voters have repeatedly rewarded good leaders who have performed, be it Sheila Dixit, Shivraj Chauhan, Raman Singh, Naveen Patnaik, Narendra Modi or Nitish Kumar. At the same time, thanks to the parliamentary system of democracy, we have also witnessed how governments at the Centre and the states have been held to ransom by shameless alliance partners, whenever the verdict has not been decisive.

The relief in the Congress at being able to form and run a government as it wants to is palpable, thanks to its clear victory. The Laloos, Mulayams, Sorens and Paswans of the world have been put in their place by the people. That is the way it should always be, no matter who is in power.

The people of India want good governments led by real leaders who deliver. The nation needs to make sure that they get a clear chance to elect them every time. That, as we all know, is not possible in a parliamentary democracy. Political parties, therefore, need to seriously consider and put in place a Presidential form of government somewhat like one that the US and France have chosen.

Our founding fathers chose a system that is fit for a tiny island but not for a huge, diverse country like ours. May be they never foresaw that a time would come when there would be many parties challenging the supremacy of the Congress, rendering governance virtually impossible. The completely unexpected but very welcome result of this near-Presidential election tells us that it is time we formally got a President who can run the country without being tied, bound, gagged and blackmailed. Rashtrapati Bhavan needs to become the unambiguous seat of power and authority that it was meant to be.
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2. Will the Congress do better without Sonia and Rahul?
3. Mayawati and dalit power
4. So who are the losers?
5. Election 2009: interpreting the results
6. India has voted

Till the morning of May 16, 2009, even the bookies were betting on the NDA forming the government, despite the new and improved projections in favour of the UPA given by CNN-IBN the previous evening. The results, which surprised all equally, have once again shown the collective wisdom of India's voters and spared the country another five years of a government in which the heartbeat of the Prime Minister is controlled by loose cannons within and outside his government.

Lots and lots of justifications for this decisive verdict are being given by jubilant TV anchors, politically committed journalists, TV channel owners and analysts who have greeted the result with unmitigated excitement. In fact some TV studios have began to look like outposts of the victorious Congress party! India's voters are being praised to the sky and beyond for their wisdom, and the BJP is being told condescendingly that its policies of hate have led to the downfall of the NDA and the victory of "secular" forces. Rahul Gandhi is already the new hero of this lot that is programmed to deflect any blame for any failure to others and create credit out of thin air for him given even a sliver of a chance; more had not been forthcoming till now.

Just imagine what would have been the scenes in TV studios had the verdict been exactly the reverse, with the BJP scoring 200 plus.

Big TV stars would have found it almost impossible to stomach the verdict and it would have showed on their faces, just as defeat is now showing on the faces of NDA leaders. Rather than celebrating the wisdom of India's voters as they are doing now, they would have been cribbing about how voters had been poisoned and polarised by Narendra Modi and Varun Gandhi. There would have been long and laboured discussions on how the politics of hate had corrupted democracy and secularism and how the minorities were going to feel insecure now. Many analysts would also have been predicting dark times ahead for India.

Some would have even been questioning the ability of illiterate and non-English speaking masses to really make a sound judgment about their voting preferences, and would have been siting the mature and secular choices made by voters of Delhi and Mumbai to press the point that democracy had still not taken root in India and that a large number of voters had been swayed by the explosive combination of money, liquor and hate speeches. Democracy, they would have argued with due sophistication, is a dangerous tool in the hands of such illiterate fools who have no idea about what equality and liberalism actually mean. What do slumdogs know about democracy and secularism? This would have been the most asked question, without being put into words for obvious reasons.

A lot would also have been said about how the Muslim vote had got split between various secular parties that had needlessly fought each other rather than unitedly fighting the NDA. Had they fought together, would have gone the arguments with statistical evidence, the BJP would have lost very badly. Of course, an intelligent analyst and "life-long BJP hater" like Ramchandra Guha would have asked the analysts, as he actually did on CNN-IBN, to use the word "minorities" rather than "Muslims", to give their essentially communal argument the cloak of "secularism" that they were croaking about!

Then there would also have been a detailed analysis of how the government would not last for long because secular leaders like Nitish Kumar were uncomfortable with the communal BJP and would soon walk out of the NDA, much like Naveen Patnaik had before the elections, and how other "secular" allies of the BJP would be better off dumping the party and crossing over to the UPA.

All this would have been dexterously mixed with visuals of Gujarat riots and Varun Gandhi's speech, to present a really gloomy picture with a foreboding of evil.

In short, India's so-called liberals and secularists would just not have accepted the verdict of the people with any grace whatsoever. On the contrary, most of them would have found every conceivable reason to reject it outright and blame the BJP for corrupting the minds of the people and destroying the very idea of secularism. Major TV stars would also have vanished from the studios in grief almost immediately after the results were clear and left the unpleasant task of continuing the coverage of the dreaded news to greenhorns.

Above all, there would have been no voices calling for the resignation of Sonia Gandhi or Rahul Gandhi. Nor would they have resigned on their own with the grace that LK Advani has shown by accepting responsibility for the defeat. All the blame would have been passed on to the likes of Laloo, Paswan, Mulayam, YSR Reddy, Mamata Banerjee and Karunanidhi, besides other faceless Congress leaders. In fact, some "teenaged" media fans of Rahul Gandhi would still have craftily dug out some statistic to show that the Congress had done comparatively better, even if marginally, in places through which he had driven in his SUV!

Oh yes. Tehelka and other sting operatives would also have woken up after five long years of slumber and started planning on a new series of sting operations to nail NDA leaders in some scam or the other, however small, to get the UPA back in business again as soon as possible!

PS. Someone has just told me that India's voters had foreseen all this and decided that they would be better off being less "adventurous" by voting a stronger Dr Manmohan Singh back to power.
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4. A new day

All fears that the country was in for a long period of instability, with regional players holding the government and the two national parties to ransom, have been been decisively put to rest by India's astute voters. The ruling UPA, beating the best forecasts, has romped home with 260 seats, leaving the NDA far behind with 158 seats. The so-called Third and Fourth Fronts have all but evaporated.

Last year, Dr Manmohan Singh showed the steel many thought he did not have when he threatened to resign if the Indo-US Nuclear Deal did not go through. At that time, he was criticised by many media luminaries and others, including Congressmen, some of whom even questioned the right of a "nominated" Prime Minister to create a political crisis which could lead to the downfall of the government prematurely. Congress-leaning journalists like Vir Sanghvi and Vinod Mehta, in fact, tore into the PM for his obduracy which saw the 59 MP strong Left withdraw support to the UPA government.

Like me, many other Indians, notwithstanding the fact that they did not understand the intricacies of the Deal, were then behind Dr Manmohan Singh, due to the basic understanding that if a spotless, non-political man like him was taking such a strong stand that could cost him his job, it had to be for the good of the country. No one was in any doubt that he had no hidden personal agenda of the sick variety that virtually all Indian politicians do. Most also knew that Congressmen were opposing the deal only because they were putting their own continuance in power ahead of the national interest that was energising Dr Manmohan Singh.

As a result of what the nation saw then, two very significant and interrelated things happened. First was that Dr Manmohan Singh earned unprecedented admiration and respect of Indians cutting across party lines and even of those who were 'apolitical' like him. The second was that LK Advani emerged from the issue with his image badly damaged, thanks to the ugly manner in which he and the BJP opposed the Deal solely on petty political considerations and the way in which the party unsuccessfully tried to strike a dirty deal with Mulayam Yadav to overthrow the government and grab power in a hurry.

Then itself, I had questioned Advani's ability to lead his party and become the PM, and had gone to extent of recommending that it would be better if he handed over the reins of the BJP to another leader. It was clear to me at least that Advani was less than half the man that he appeared to be with Atal Bihari Vajpayee and that he just did not have it in him to inspire people. He was palpably second best when compared to Dr Manmohan Singh by a long margin. But, the BJP persisted with him out of deference to his age and seniority, and declared him its Prime Ministerial candidate.

Perhaps the most significant fall out of the Deal, which no analyst picked up then, was the big hit that the image of the Left took after it withdrew support to the government, four years after supporting it from the outside without any responsibility and after having held it to ransom repeatedly during this period. The absolute arrogance of Prakash Karat and company climaxed in the manner in which they treated Lok Sabha Speaker Som Nath Chatterjee and expelled him from the CPM, for going with the Congress on the Deal.

Now it is more than evident that the people of the two states ruled by the Left, West Bengal and Kerala, wanted to punish the Left. In Kerala, that was relatively easy because the Congress led UDF is a force to reckon with. Its win there is no surprise. But who would have ever imagined even in his wildest dreams that Mamata Banerjee would become the rallying point for the humiliating rout of the Left in its impregnable bastion, West Bengal?

No opinion or exit poll predicted that the Trinamool Congress would get 20 seats and the Congress six in West Bengal which sends 42 MPs to the Lok Sabha. No poll had foreseen that the Left would be mauled there and get just 14 seats. Overall, from 59 MPs in the previous Lok Sabha, the Left is down to just 20 now. This is as bad a fall as can be, and is the real story of this election. Yes, there are local factors that have contributed to this tight slap by the electorate. But, it is only fair to acknowledge that its arrogant and unreasonable behaviour at the Centre and its withdrawal of support to a government led by person like Dr Manmohan Singh has contributed to its unprecedented downfall from which it will find it very difficult to recover.

The BJP has suffered a defeat, but has fortuitously avoided the debacle it should have faced due to the uninspiring leadership of LK Advani. He never could match up to Dr Manmohan Singh, but did not learn that lesson despite the blunder he committed last year. That is why he mindlessly made Dr Manmohan Singh stand even taller by launching petty and bitter personal attacks on him during the elcection campaign. Fortunately for the BJP, the performance and image its Chief Ministers in Karnataka, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Bihar, where Nitish Kumar of the JD(U) is in alliance with them, saved the party from being routed. It is primarily due to them that the party has managed a face-saving tally of 118 seats against the 138 that it had last time.

I have been writing for more than a year now that in UP, the Congress must go it alone, even if it loses a few seats in the short term, as any alliance with either the SP or the BSP would only benefit those two parties and make them emerge stronger and with greater power to blackmail the Congress. A few moths back, when the Congress finally decided to go it alone, after dancing with Amar Singh for a long time, everyone was lamenting that decision saying that it would prove very costly. But I supported that decision which indicated that the Congress was finally getting serious about reviving itself in the state.

I must confess, however, that like almost everyone else, I had no clue that the revival of the Congress would become visible in these elections itself. The voting percentages are not yet known but the party has stunned everyone by getting 21/80 seats, up 11 from the paltry nine that it had got last time and within touching distance of the BSP's 22 and the SP's 23. Had the Congress got into an alliance with the SP as everyone was recommending, it would have got around 10 seats while the SP would have got more than 40 and emerged as a powerful and dangerous competitor.

Nothing exemplifies the respect of the people that Dr Manmohan Singh has earned more than the performance of the BJP in Delhi. Here, the Congress has won all seven seats. Yes, Sheila Dixit's performance as CM has been a factor. But can anyone ignore the fact that people of Delhi, where both Dr Manmohan Singh and LK Advani reside and work, have given an emphatic thumbs down to the idea of Advani taking over the top job from Manmohan? Is that also one main reason why it is the Congress and not the BJP that has performed better in neighboring states like UP, where the BJP's tally remains at 10, Haryana, where the Congress has got 9/10 and Rajasthan where its tally has shot up from four to 20/25, in both states at the expense of the BJP?

Yes, people have voted differently in various states and there is no visible overarching national factor that has led to the magnificent victory of the UPA. But, it needs to be recognised that the rout of the Left and the defeat of the BJP was firmly set in motion in July last itself when they had an avoidable and unprincipled face-off with Dr Manmohan Singh. Let us not forget that the Congress had been losing elections in state after state, barring a couple of exceptions, for the last few years. and there was nothing new done by the party to suggest that it would win the national elections. Only Dr Manmohan Singh was not a factor in any of the state elections and had virtually not campaigned in any one of them as he was not thought to be a real "leader" who could attract voters to the party.

For the Lok Sabha elections too, initially there were serious apprehensions that the Congress would surreptitiously try to place Rahul Gandhi in the Prime Minister's chair after the elections, just like Farooq Abdullah had in Kashmir by making his son Omar Abdullah the CM after the results were out. Fortunately for the Congress, Sonia Gandhi sensed the damage that this would do the party's prospects and announced that Dr Manmohan Singh was the candidate of the UPA for the top job. That declaration not only removed a lot of misgivings in people's minds but also enabled them to look closely at and compare the two main Prime Ministerial candidates.

No matter what anyone might say now about the impact that Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi have made, as many will given the sycophantic culture of the Congress within the party and in sections of the media, everyone knows that the magic of Manmohan has a lot to do with the impressive score of the UPA. Had he not been projected as PM, we would have had a very different result.

The people of India have spoken loud and clear. And this time it is they who have made Singh their King. There can be no better example than this of the strength of India's democracy and secularism, despite all its ugly warts. India's much maligned voters deserve our salute.
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2. Will the Congress do better without Sonia and Rahul?
3. Congress begins battle for revival in UP
4. Congress: from sickle to cycle
5. Nuclear Deal: Do you have it in you Mr Advani?
6. Honour your pagri Dr Manmohan Singh
7. Nuclear Deal: Singh is King

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The recent advance of the Taliban in Swat and Buner has greatly encouraged the Al Qaida that now smells blood and is "intoxicated by the idea of a jihadist takeover in Pakistan". In an article in The New York Times of May 10, 2009, Mark Mazzetti and Eric Schmitt say that while it remains unlikely that Islamic militants could seize power in Pakistan, the concern is that by extending their territorial gains they could create "mini-Afghanistans" around Pakistan that would allow them even more freedom to plot attacks.

That the Al Qaida needs sanctuaries in Pakistan to survive and give shape to its long-term goal of establishing the rule of Wahhabi Islam over the West and the rest of the world is a no brainer. The real question is whether, given that objective, it will be satisfied with a few safe areas in that country. Only the naïve will believe that Osama bin Laden will leave present day Pakistan, a Muslim but "non-Islamic" country as per his definition, in its present democratic form while taking on the rest of the world. For the Al Qaida to sustain global operations, keep attracting new recruits and maintain the motivational levels of its operatives, it cannot for long live with the de facto defeat that its failure to convert the whole of Pakistan into a pre-9/11 Afghanistan will be seen as, sooner or later.

The Arab Al Qaida and its Pakistani arm, the Taliban, therefore have no choice but to convert the whole of Pakistan into a fully Islamic state. If they fail to do so, over time, the movement that Laden started will whither and die. Powerful jihadi type elements in Pakistan's establishment have evidently been aware and supportive of this plan and will be more than happy to turn Pakistan into what they had made Afghanistan before the Americans landed there after 9/11. This desire, coupled with Pakistan's strategic territorial ambitions both to its east and west, is mainly why for years, Pakistan played a double-game with the Americans.

Thanks in no small measure to the Bush blunder of going into Iraq and taking the focus off this region, Pakistan was able to appear to be fighting with the Americans while helping the Taliban to defeat them. But with the Obama administration now concentrating on winning this war - defeat not being an option at all - and holding Pakistan accountable for delivering quick and visible results, its leadership has finally been jolted into taking action. Much against the wishes of powerful elements in the military and civil establishment, it has been forced to fight against the Taliban in a manner that perhaps no one in Pakistan would have even dreamt of before 9/11. The presence of American troops in Afghanistan and Pakistan's critical dependent on US dollars for the very survival of the state is making Pakistan listen to the US and do what it wants, even if half-heartedly.

Troops have recently been pulled out by Pakistan from its eastern border against India and deployed to throw the Taliban out of Buner as well as Swat, where it had earlier entered into an agreement to hand over the valley to the Taliban. As per reports, commandos have been dropped into Taliban strongholds in both areas and have secured important towns and facilities that had fallen to the Taliban. The operations have sparked off a humanitarian crisis with more than half a million frightened civilian refugees streaming out of the three districts ripped apart by fighting.

American troops stationed in Afghanistan cannot as of now cross into Pakistan to hunt down the Al Qaida and the Taliban. On the other hand, the border is virtually non-existent for militants who can cross over to Afghanistan at will to launch attacks on NATO troops and then pull back into the safety of Pakistan, if and when the situation demands. So far, the US has deployed drones to target specific targets inside Pakistan. These attacks will force the Al Qaida and the Taliban to change tactics but will not be enough to defeat them.

The Americans are facing in Afghanistan what the Indians have been in Kashmir for two decades. There too, the border does not exist for militants, though the heavy deployment of Indian troops one one side makes movement relatively more difficult, despite Pakistani troops often helping militants to cross over. Indian troops also cannot go into Pakistan, nor can they use any other overt means to target jihadists in Pakistan, which is their nursery as well as sanctuary.

In short, Kashmir is India's high cost war and Pakistan's low cost one. Thanks to India's refusal to tackle it at source, it has lasted for so long, with no end in sight, unless something extraneous happens. India is not likely to do anything to force a closure; Indian blood is manifestly not so valuable, there is no political will and the military also lacks the punch to deliver a decisive blow below the nuclear threshold.

If the Americans want to win their war in Afghanistan without avoidable delays and pitfalls, they need to look at the lessons that India should have learnt from its war in Kashmir but hasn't, and the lessons that Pakistan has successfully learnt and is now using against the Americans. As the aforementioned developments show, it appears that they have begun to look at both quite closely.

The Afghan war has to be won in Pakistan, not Afghanistan, both physically and ideologically, no matter what recent history says about what happened to the British and the Soviets under very different circumstances. Unlike India, the US can compel Pakistan to use its military to kill the monsters that the latter has created. It has begun doing so, and some results are also beginning to come in. It can also exert pressure on it to choke the growth of Wahhabi Islam in the country by cracking down on Madrasas and other institutions that are involved in spreading it. This is absolutely critical for achieving enduring success. The US can, if required, also send special forces into Pakistan. It will most likely have to do that to go after really high value targets that Pakistan cannot take out or does not want to.

Only time will tell whether Pakistan will actually do enough to decisively destroy its "strategic tools" and re-calibrate the objectives that led it to create and deploy them. In all probability, Pakistan will try prolong this fight to tire the Americans to the point where public opinion forces the US President to do a Vietnam. That seems to be its current unstated objective. It will also attempt to double-cross the US about the situation in Pakistan and lull it into believing at some point of time that it has done the needful and that the US can withdraw its forces from Afghanistan without worrying about any resurgence of the Al Qaida and the Taliban.

India can afford to keep half a million troops in Kashmir indefinitely and still hope to tire Pakistan out, though at great human cost. The US, for many reasons, cannot do that in Afghanistan. It has to achieve victory as soon as possible. If it pulls out from the region before achieving total success, as the Al Qaida, the Taliban and powerful elements in Pakistan want it to, the consequences, as Americans will discover, will be disastrous.
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Readers may also read:
1. Zakaria's Afghanistan strategy: salvage or surrender?
2. Understanding and defeating the ideology of terror
3. Kashmir and Afghanistan are two sides of the same terror coin
4. India and Pakistan are not victims of the same terror