India Retold

G Parthasarathy, a well-meaning retired career diplomat, is considered a hawk by a lot of woolly-headed analysts. They continue to blindly believe that the interests of a nation as big and as potentially economically powerful as India will be best served by being a harmless dove in an international environment where the power of a large nation needs to be projected and protected by its military strength. While Parthasarathy does represent the somewhat more realist face of the foreign policy establishment that is trapped in a compartmentalised and Nehruvian mindset, there is little doubt that even he is somewhat stuck in the same dysfunctional mould that has prevented India from properly activating what it needs to, to even reactively face the challenges that it must successfully deal with.

Parthasarathy's column in the Times of India of June 29, 2009, exemplifies the deep-rooted disease that has enervated the Foreign Office which, like most other government departments, functions in splendid isolation and with a misplaced arrogance. Thanks to a colonial legacy, career diplomats, like their counterparts in the IAS, have placed themselves at a hierarchical rung at which they will not be found in any other modern nation. With most politicians of today having a zero or at best a unifocal world view, foreign policy formulation and response has fallen into the laps of career diplomats who themselves are not trained or equipped to holistically address all issues intimately connected to it. To make matters worse, they are focused on preserving and promoting their turf even at the cost of national interest.

China, as Parthasarathy brings out correctly, is of late displaying a "new aggressiveness" in its approach to India, including issuing of "not too thinly disguised warnings about its territorial claims to Arunachal Pradesh which it refers to as Southern Tibet". Even more ominous is the fact that it has now begun to display its proactively developed military might openly, going to the extent of asking the US to recognise that Indian Ocean is a "Chinese sphere of influence". It has also unilaterally extended its maritime boundaries with Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines. There are other areas too where China is now aggressively working against India's interests. It may be recalled that last year it had tried very hard to prevent the Nuclear Suppliers Group from giving the required unanimous clearance for the Indo-US Nuclear Deal.

The latest agreement that China has signed with Myanmar for a 20 million tons oil and a 100 billion cubic meters gas pipeline, has not even been mentioned by Parthasarathy even though this is one deal that will not only take Myanmar firmly into the Chinese orbit, but will also, without a doubt, lead to the establishment of a Chinese military base in that country and open up an all weather route to the Brahmaputra Valley, making annexation of Arunachal Pradesh and a lot more easier for them. Having secured the deal with Myanmar, they have already started showing "growing aggressiveness" in their claim to the entire state of Arunachal Pradesh.

Was the Indian Foreign Office sleeping for all these years when China was working on Myanmar? Why was India looking west to that disastrous gas pipeline from Iran through Pakistan when it should have done every possible thing to get the Myanmar pipeline and more that the Chinese have got, knowing fully well that China was aggressively expanding its military influence in the region and had been claiming an Indian state for decades?

The blame for this new game-changing threat rests solely on the shoulders of the Foreign Office and the NSA, both of which have to date shown little or no understanding of the strategic security threat that India faces from China. This absolutely straightforward and unbelievable deduction is based on the simple truth that India has neither developed a credible reactive response - proactive is not even on the horizon - nor has shown any intention of doing so till now.

See the irony which no one wants to even whisper about because it exposes this country's security apparatus completely? At the time of Independence, Tibet and Myanmar were India's buffers and its spheres of influence. In the background of the experience of the Second World War, India should have not only done whatever was needed to keep them in its fold, but should also have actively developed a naval capability to make the Indian Ocean it sphere of influence too. Tragically, India forgot it all. But the Chinese up north did not. So, 62 years down the line India has lost all three and they are now are almost firmly in the bag of a China that never forgot to see far ahead.

There will perhaps be no parallel in the world where such a tectonic shift has taken place in the balance of power with the adversely affected nation doing absolutely nothing about it at any stage. For this criminal neglect, one day we will have to pay.

These developments are serious enough to give sleepless nights to those leading India. But, thanks to the sedating advice they seem to be getting from India's babus, they are not even concerned. What, for example, is the solution being offered by Parthasarathy to "deal with the strategic challenge that China poses in our Indian Ocean neighbourhood"? Proactive diplomacy. Period. What else does he say? He advises Indian service officers that "mature nations do not speak strongly or publicly about military deployment on disputed territories"! The Chinese don't think so; they speak aggressively about their military ambitions and intentions and openly call Arunachal Pradesh "Southern Tibet".

Is Parthasarathy's advice meant for a "mature" nation or a "weak" one that obdurately refuses to learn lessons from its own history, thanks to its security and diplomatic structures being in the vice-like grip of strategy-blind babus? Come to think of it, is their anything else that he can suggest? No. His expertise as a career diplomat ends there. But the nation's interest does not. Unfortunately that is something that no one wants to admit and that is something that has not ever been holistically dealt with in a government that works in water-tight compartments stifled by generalist babus. That is why India has a cop as its NSA and, yes, a cop, in a global first, heading an elite military commando outfit called the NSG. The disease is very serious and terribly deep-rooted indeed.

Can a nation be really so dumb as to believe as a national policy that the growing might and aggressiveness of China can be contained merely by talking and writing papers high in moral content with no hard power to back them? Was 1962 not lesson enough? Why is the better informed and equipped military leadership quiet about this hijacking of the nation by a few timid and self-serving generalist babus who are intent only on increasing the power of their own cadres to the exclusion of all others, nation be damned?

With every passing day, the Chinese are tightening the noose around India, the one country that they think will be in a position to challenge their dominance in the long term. Could they have ever done, or even thought, what they have, had they had civil services cadres of the type that India has and pushed the PLA out of the highest decision making loop, as these services have in India to create their own empires?

India is on the verge of becoming a super power. We may not be able to see it but the Chinese saw that a long time back. And they took proactive steps to be in a position to counter our rise. That is why China is only going to get more aggressive in the months and years ahead and will, without any doubt, use its military to humiliate and put India back and into an inferior position as it had done in 1962, at a time of its choosing.

The only way, as even a child should know, to prevent that from happening is not through something as ridiculous and meaningless as proactive diplomacy but by enhancing something as real and substantial as military strength. Only that can make the Chinese understand that the result of 1962 cannot be replicated. Will India wake up to this reality before it is too late, or will it allow its nose to be put to the ground by amateur generalists who cannot see and do not know?

Image source: Social Earth
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Governments in India love to get into more and more areas where they should not be in the first place, and where historically they have failed to deliver without cost and time overruns, if at all. The compulsions of competitive politics aimed at attracting more voters is the ready excuse justifying many such schemes, but does it have to be the government which should take upon itself, in the 21st century, the task of putting up and running plants to provide safe drinking water to people in the villages?

In Andhra Pradesh, the Byrraju Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation had launched Project SWEET(Safe Water for Everyone using Effective Technology) in 2004, to provide safe drinking water as per WHO standards to people on payment of a nominal charge of 12.5 paise a liter to ensure sustainability of the project. So far, access to safe water has been provided to 8,50,000 people in 171 villages through 57 plants. In addition, livelihood has also been given to 450 persons for operating the plants and distributing water within villages.

Possibly inspired by the success of this project, Andhra CM YSR Reddy believes that this is one fail-safe scheme that will help his government connect with the masses in the same way as the the free TV set and subsidised rice schemes have done for other politicians.

Notwithstanding the fact that it is votes, and not people, that have inspired one more politician to launch one more scheme, one has to welcome the basic idea because water borne diseases afflict a large number of people in the country. The same, however, cannot be said about the manner in which YSR Reddy plans to go about implementing this scheme. That reeks not only of some sort of a scandal in the making but is also likely to see poor delivery and needless waste of taxpayer's money due to inefficient and corrupt management of the project.

As per the scheme, Andhra government will install water treatment plants to cater to about 72,000 villages at a cost of Rs 200,000 per plant, to provide five liters of safe drinking water per person per day. This will involve a capital expenditure of over Rs 1500 crores. Thereafter, going by the operating costs worked put by the Byrraju foundation on each plant with an output of 7,500 liters of water per day, there will be an additional recurring expenditure of Rs 21,000 per plant per month, or over Rs 1800 crores per year.

It is possibly because of the large sums involved that the government plans to buy, install and run so many small plants in all villages with a population of 1500 and above. As per the news report, it is only "over time" that these will be handed over to women's self-help groups whose members will be trained for the purpose. This means that for an unknown period of time it will be the state government that will in this business.

There is little doubt that there is a crying need for a safe drinking water project to be launched nationally. It is not a matter to be left to the whims and fancies of politicians who want to make small political capital out of it, if not anything else. With poor or no government healthcare facilities available to a large section of the rural population, availability of such water will drastically cut down on incidences of water borne diseases.

The real question that needs to be answered in the context of what Byrraju has achieved in Andhra Pradesh and what the state government there plans to do is whether the government should become the manufacturer and supplier of such water to the common man. At a time where more and more public service utilities are being privatised because the state has failed to do what it was never meant to in a non-communist society, this step can only be considered regressive and one which will lead to massive corruption at every single stage, not to mention the real possibility that people will probably never get their full quota of water without fail. If they still are forced to drink contaminated water even once a week, the incidence of disease is not likely to register the kind of drop that is desired, defeating the very purpose of the scheme altogether.

It is, therefore, time for the Centre to step in and lay down a national policy on the provision of safe drinking water to all Indians. This appears to be one area where public private partnership involving the panchayats can make a dramatic difference in quick time. In any case, there is no case for either the central or state governments to get into the business and operating end of what is clearly a national mission whose time for implementation on a war footing has come.

Byrraju has been able to provide water at just 12.5 paise a liter, with its small plants. With the economies of scale that will kick in with bigger plants, it may be perhaps possible to provide it at much lesser cost despite the additional cost of transportation to a group of villages that will be dependant on one plant. Providing safe drinking water free when consumers have to pay for even ordinary tap water makes neither economic nor social sense. However, should the government decide to subsidise it and make it free, it must go in for the option that costs the exchequer the least since there is going to be a substantial recurring expenditure to the state for a long time.

What the Andhra Pradesh government is planning to implement in a fit of populism is going to do the exact opposite. This flawed Reddy solution, therefore, needs to be dropped and replaced by a more sensible and transparent national one that puts the tax payers' money to better use, and delivers too.


Photo source: The Hindu

The BJP is heading into Nowhereland. Despite its disastrous performance in the Lok Sabha elections, no leader has been man enough to stand up, take responsibility for the failure and step aside. Like small children not willing to part with the toys they have got, no matter what, everyone has started taking pot shots at each other while hanging on to their posts, as if everyone else but them is to blame. The icing on this rotten cake is the "collective responsibility" drama being played out now. That is actually is a no-one-is-responsible shame designed to shield, among others, the twice-failed, Teflon-coated master strategist and TV-studio-only leader who was disdainfully holidaying in London when the party was meeting to debate its debacle.

If that was not bad enough, the party has now made a mockery of even this stand and fired one more shot into its bleeding foot by finding a solitary scapegoat on whom blame has been placed squarely. Uttaranchal Chief Minister BC Khanduri has been sacked for the party's failure to not win even one of the five Lok Sabha seats in the state. Is that result any different from what the party has done in neighbouring Delhi, UP and even Rajasthan? Then why has only Khanduri been held accountable and not Arun Jaitley and Rajnath Singh?

It appears there is much more than is visible behind Khanduri's sacking. Some powerful TV studio leaders and journalists who claim to be the official-sympathisers-cum-unofficial-spokesmen of the BJP are manifestly already looking ahead to the 2014 elections and want to make sure that by then they have either hijacked or destroyed the party completely. Anyone who is likely to pose a challenge to their leadership in the party by then will be sidelined systematically. And the process has begun with Khanduri.

By now there is little doubt that there is a very serious crisis of leadership in the BJP. It has no leader, other than Narendra Modi, who can lead the party in the next elections. Modi, as we all know, has been chained by Gujarat 2002 and is still under investigation. It is possible that by 2014, he might be given what will effectively be a clean chit by the Supreme Court. But, it is equally, if not more, likely that his opponents, including those in the BJP, will try every dirty trick in and out of the book to ensure that does not happen. If they succeed, then who does the BJP have to project as its Prime Ministerial candidate?

Let us look at other BJP CMs who are arguable doing a reasonably good job and are therefore potential PMs. Karnataka's Yediurappa, Madhya Pradesh's Shivraj Chauhan, Chhatisgarh's Raman Singh and Uttaranchal's BC Khanduri are the ones who can stake a claim for the top post. Who is easily the best and most acceptable one out of the lot?

Yediurappa, Raman Singh, Shivraj Chauhan and other similarly good leaders are the Amol Palekars of Indian politics, as Shekhar Gupta had once described them. They are not stars who can light up the BJP's sky nationally and help it win 2014. At that time, most probably the Congress will go into the elections under the leadership of an uninspiring Rahul whose individual shortcomings will be more than made up by his surname and the massive support that people-like-him in the media will extend to him and the Congress party. To beat that formidable combination will take some doing, led by a challenger who can bring to the table something that no leader of the BJP, save Vajpayee, has been able to till now.

Other than the controversial Modi, BC Khanduri is the only leader who is capable of taking the fight into the Congress camp. He has not only done a good job as CM, but had also earlier performed exceptionally well as Vajpayee's Surface Transport Minister. It was under his leadership that the Golden Quadrilateral, and the North-South and East-West Nation Highway projects were executed at an unprecedented pace without any scandals. Before he got going, India had been building an average of just 11 kms of new roads per year, since Independence. He ensured that the country started building 11 kms every day, a stupendous achievement by any standard and one which the UPA government simply could not replicate even by a long shot.

Khanduri is also a retired general. His military background gives him a huge pan-national trust and acceptability advantage that no other BJP leader can hope to achieve in the next five years. Every single survey in the past many years has shown that the Army is the only remaining government organisation that India's middle class across the whole country trusts and has respect for. In a sea of discredited politics and politicians, Khanduri stands out both as an honest and dependable politician and as a respected Army man who has proved that he can deliver with badly needed honesty and without discrimination.

When Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the BJP's biggest leader, many people voted for the party because they trusted him and his brand of Hindutva. They also knew that he did not have a hidden agenda. And they could sense that he had a national vision that transcended petty party politics. With him no longer on the scene, and no similarly trustworthy and tall leader in sight, a serious trust deficit has arisen among most communities and that has cost the party heavily in the 2009 elections. This deficit has to be made up before the BJP can even dream of getting back to power.

BC Khanduri's background provides the best possible canvas on which the BJP can re-write its increasingly out of sync Hindutva without fear of it being rejected by the people. The soft, inclusive Hindutva mantra that BJP leaders are chanting now will be better accepted by wary voters belonging to both the majority and minority communities if it is presented with a trustworthy military face like Khanduri who people will believe does not have a hidden agenda. All other national BJP leaders who have been on the scene for long will be viewed with varying degrees of suspicion. Notwithstanding what anybody might say, in normal times, hard Hindutva whose voice is often against other communities, is not going to help the party attract additional Hindu voters, much less voters from minority communities.

The sacking of Khanduri as Chief Minister of Uttaranchal, therefore, raises a serious apprehension that a powerful but rootless caucus in the BJP is maneuvering to position itself as the party's next face that will lead it in the 2014 elections, should Narendra Modi get enmeshed in the huge net that his opponents have laid out for him out of mortal fear, knowing that if he gets through it, he will most likely be the next PM of India.

One has long suspected that the bunch of journalists and studio party leaders that the BJP has chosen to project itself to the people, have done it incalculable harm. Taking only one example, can anyone miss the furtive, approval-seeking glances that Swapan Dasgupta gives to other Congress-supporting panelists in every discussion? Does he not always make it appear as if he is their poor, backward cousin who has to keep defending and unsatisfactorily justifying BJP's indefensible ideology and actions to them? The BJP's battle is lost in the minds of most viewers the moment he opens his mouth. There are others too who have harmed and are harming the party similarly.

One cannot shake the feeling that it is this very group that is now busy hijacking the party completely.

The sacking of Khanduri, who is one of the BJP's priceless, untainted and nationally acceptable assets, shows that the party has learnt nothing from its defeat. If things continue like this, as it appears they will, the party may well be decimated in 2014. Don't be surprised if some of those working to so destroy it are in reality Fifth Columnists who have tasted success in the recent elections. Unless they are quickly identified and removed, the BJP will disappear like the once mighty Janata Party did.

India's first Prime Minister's self-confessed biggest failure is now set to become complete surrender. In the 21st century, instead of putting in place a contemporary and responsive bureaucratic set up, India is on the verge of making its dysfunctional colonial babudom that Nehru wanted to dismantle but could not, even more unaccountable and powerful than it was during the Raj.

So dangerous is going to be the result of a proposal under consideration that it is surprising that there are no voices being raised against it. Perhaps that itself is an indication of the power and reach of India's babus even today.

Let us get some basic things straight. This country is meant to governed by political leaders who are chosen by the people, the real sovereigns, to whom they are accountable. In effect, Chief Minister are CEOs of their states while the PM is the CEO of the whole nation. All organs of the government, including the IAS and IPS that are about to give a fatal punch to this fundamental concept, are no more than changeable instruments that exist solely to assist these CEOs to do their jobs efficiently and effectively.

As it is, thanks to the colonial bureaucracy that frustrated and defeated even a tall leader like Nehru, these CEOs have only a very small pool of talent from which they can select individuals who can faithfully execute their plans and projects. Unlike in modern countries like the US, a PM cannot, for example, appoint a Cabinet Secretary of his choice; he has to pick from less than half a dozen IAS officers who fall in that seniority bracket. The same constraint is faced by CMs in states. They all have to appoint generalist babus of the IAS cadre alone to head the secretarial support staff in all departments. Due to this constraint that will be unacceptable in any modern and responsive administration anywhere in the world, over time, the IAS cadre has become extremely powerful.

As things stand today, all that an individual has to do is get through one Civil Services exam. After that, he need not do anything at all. The system has been systematically sabotaged in such a manner that he will rise to a very high rank and retire a very rich man. Unless he does something criminally unacceptable and is caught and convicted, he is set for life. There is no pyramid; it has been turned into a vertical cylinder. And the very few who do not reach the rank of Additional Secretary are assured many other usurped and lucrative alternative options, including in the public sector.

In addition, having successfully sidelined the military and other professions and cadres from all top positions in the government, the babus - and that includes IPS officers who think they are IAS guys in uniform and not the cops that they are meant to be - are now all set to push even politicians aside. As it is, most politicians, having never worked a day in their lives in a result-oriented organisation, are led by the babus who make them take most decisions that the babus want. So much is the control execised by these babus that, often, decisions pushed through against their wishes are simply not implemented till the minister changes, after which in any case they do not need to be. All this and more will get exposed if the notings on files are made available under the RTI. That is why they are opposing that proposal so strongly.

See the trick and the dysfunctional aberration here? Babus wield the real power already; they compel politicians to take most decisions due to their written recommendations which, unless a minister is well-informed and strong, are accepted. But, the babus don't want to be held accountable for them in any manner. The accountability has to rest with the political decision making authority alone.

There is no doubt that responsibility and accountability of the government has to rest with leaders chosen by people to lead them. If that be so, then, it logically follows that such leaders should have the freedom to choose and appoint the secretarial staff and professionals to help them do so. Unfortunately, over the years, politicians have not covered themselves with glory and some have actually gone berserk in misusing their powers.

The deterioration in the quality of political leadership is a matter of serious concern and measures need to be taken to correct it. But that should be done by politicians at the political end. However, what the unresponsive bureaucracy that is effectively not accountable to anyone, is trying now is insidious and dangerous. In the garb of "insulating" IAS and IPS officers from politicians, it is taking the country backwards in colonial time. Let no one be under any illusion that if the proposed Civil Services Bill 2009 is passed, bureaucrats, who are essentially no more than secretarial support staff to leaders, will become even more powerful than the leaders chosen by the people.

• A new Civil Public Service Authority (CPSA) will be established to "professionally manage" civil services (IAS and IPS) and serve the interests of babus and citizens. The CPSA will aid and advise the government in all matters concerning the organisation, control, operation and management of public services and servants. It will also frame public service codes to facilitate babus in discharging official duties with competence and accountability, care and diligence; responsibility, honesty, objectivity and impartiality; without discrimination and in accordance with the law.
  
• The rank of the Chairman of the CPSA will be equivalent to the CEC and he will be appointed by a committee comprising the PM, HM, Leader of the Opposition and a Supreme Court Judge. The Cabinet Secretary will be the convener of the CPSA.
• The Cabinet Secretary, Chief Secretaries and DGPs will selected out of a panel by the PM/CM, HM and the Leader of the opposition.
• The new rules also give enough importance to performance parameters of officers considered for top posts.
• All bureaucrats will have fixed tenure of three years and will have to be compensated for inconvenience and harassment if moved out earlier.
• If the government deviates from these norms, it will have to inform the Parliament about the reasons for doing so.
  
• These rules apply only to IAS and IPS officers only. Civil servants of other 'inferior cadres' will remain under the thumbs of these cadres as before.

• The taking away of powers of appointment from the PM/CM and involving the Leader of the Opposition in the process will simply erode executive authority and eventually ensure that the political leadership will be left with no choice but to pick the senior most officer declared eligible for the job by the CPSA. This means that even when people vote out a government because it has failed to deliver, the new government will be forced to work with the same permanent team of not-accountable-to-anyone babus who ran the failed administration that was rejected by the people. What is this going to lead to, as even an uneducated person can tell you? Even more sloth, unaccountability and colonial arrogance of the sort not seen for 62 years.
• As of now, the only real power that political leaders have over babus is that of transfer, particularly to lucrative appointments, because babus have already played havoc with organisational hierarchy to ensure promotions up to the near-top level, irrespective of performance (this talk of changing the system of evaluation is no more than a red herring to hijack control). If tenures are fixed at three years, the above-the-government CPSA is empowered to question it, the government has to give reason to the Parliament for moving someone out early and the concerned official has to be compensated for it, then it means that a political leader will invariably be stuck with the same failed officials (even politically inconvenient ones, rightly or wrongly) till their tenures are over. As a result, these already unaccountable officials will become the real masters wherever they are, without being answerable to any body and without any fear whatsoever of anyone other than their equally unaccountable cadre superiors.
• Presently, the Cabinet Secretary is the senior most bureaucrat who reports to the PM and who can be appointed and removed by India's CEC at will. After the bill is passed, the Chairman of the CPSA will become the Supreme Leader of India's bureaucrats, the babus' Ayatollah, as it were. He will not only be totally out of control of the government but will actually become a superior, independent authority that can question any decision of the political leadership in the states and the Centre in all matters concerning postings, promotions and issuance of orders in accordance with the law.

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Forget the threat from the Taliban or Pakistan. The real threat upon India is not from the West. It is from the forgotten, far away East. The Chinese have just signed a deal that will complete the encirclement of India on land and sea from all sides. The Chinese Army will soon be within breathing distance from India's border with no Himalayas to stop its march into India whenever China wants, as one day it certainly will, to bag claimed Arunachal Pradesh.

The latest development, facilitated by decades of neglect of Myanmar by India, may well prove to be an even more colossal a blunder than was the "gifting" of Tibet to China by Nehru in the fifties. At that time, in one fatal stroke, Nehru blindly converted India's buffer against China into that nation's buffer against India, without securing India's interest in any manner whatsoever. That enabled China to move its troops forward by more than a couple of thousand kilometers to sit right on India's head and inflict on it, in 1962, a humiliating defeat, a rout so complete that any self-respecting nation would have vowed never to forget and allow to happen to it again. Not India, which, instead of learning any lessons, chose to simply bury its head in the sand and pretend as if China did not exist.

The Chinese have just signed an agreement with Myanmar's military junta to build an 1100 km long oil and gas pipeline from Kyaukryu on the West coast of Myanmar to Ruili in the Yunan province of China. Construction will start as early as September this year. The pipeline will transport 20 million tons of crude coming from the Middle East and Africa annually to China. The gas pipeline, which will be further extended by another 1700 kms within China, will transport 12 billion cubic meters of gas annually, to be increased to 100 billion cubic meters in a few years. Compare this with the 29.2 billion cubic meters that will flow eventually from the KG basin gas wells of Reliance Industries and you will get an idea of the enormity of the deal. There is also talk that later more oil, not just for China but for Korea and Japan too, could flow through this pipeline. This agreement comes on the heels of China beating India to win a 30 year concession from the military junta besides launching construction of hydroelectric projects in that country.

For long, as India has known too well, China has been eyeing a shorter trade route to Europe via Myanmar because not only will it reduce the transportation route by over 1200 km and cut shipping time to Europe by over a week, it will also enable it to avoid the pirate infested and strategically significant Malacca Straits. The signing of this pipeline agreement is only going to accelerate development of this trade route.

China's National Road 320 presently ends at the border town of Ruili. The construction of the pipeline to that town will certainly be followed by a road from there to a sea port on the Myanmar coast. Once the railway line between Kunming and Mangshi is also ready, Myanmar railway, which ends at Lashio, will be only 143 kms away from China. It will then be only be a matter of time before the two networks are linked, enabling Chinese freight to be carried right up to and from a Myanmar port to China without any transhipment. Myanmar has also proposed a tri-nation road network between China, Bangladesh and Myanmar, which China is much interested in setting up.

The security and strategic implications posed by these developments for India are so grave that it is a wonder that there has been virtually no national debate and no media interest. The focus of the nation has not been allowed to move beyond the Tailban and Pakistan, both of which pose not even a fraction of the danger that these developments will in the next few years. If things move at the speed Chinese have shown recently, within a decade or so, a large percentage of Chinese freight traffic from other ports further east will get diverted to least two Myanmar ports that will then perhaps handle more Chinese freight than any other port. This freight will move to China through the entire length of Myanmar by road and rail. More oil and gas will also start flowing along the pipeline.

With so much of its economic activity becoming dependent on Myanmar, China will get the perfect excuse to expand its military presence in and around that country. That will, first of all, lead to deployment of Chinese Navy in considerable strength in the Bay of Bengal, within handshaking distance of the Andaman Islands and a little more than shout away from the West Bengal coast. Let no one be in any doubt that it is only a question of time before China gets Myanmar to give it a permanent Naval base on its soil. On land too, the Chinese will get proactively involved in protecting the pipeline and the rail and road traffic, necessitating the stationing of at least some military personnel in Myanmar.

In any case, thanks to these excellent lines of communication, the Chinese Army, known as the People's Liberation Army (PLA), will be in a position to roll straight into the Brahmaputra Valley through Myanmar, bypassing the harsh and high Himalayas completely. Winter will cease to India's friend against China, forcing it to physically deploy a large number of troops in Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram to meet this new threat. What the Chinese might do to inflame insurgency at that stage or get into some sort of a military pact with Bangladesh is anybody's guess. One thing is sure: they will do whatever it takes to hem India militarily and make it easy for China to simply lop the North East off.

It is not an accident that China has supported the military junta since it came to power 21 years ago and vetoed all Security Council resolutions against it. It foresaw long back that it needed Myanmar in its national interest and stuck to the task of securing that without wavering. India, on the other hand, has remained completely confused, as always. It has been gripped and weakened even more by vague but "supreme" moral pangs that have caused it to place democracy and Aung San Suu Kyi above all else. That is why, it has done nothing except resorting to a weak "engagement" with the junta that has got it nothing and has allowed Myanmar to fall right into the lap of a Dragon that is fully alive to its strategic interests that dictate that it should build and display its military might in the region.

The Chinese may have given up Mao's disastrous economic and social policies but they have not for a moment forgotten his immortal quote: power grows through the barrel of a gun. India, on the other hand, despite having foolishly placed itself at the business end of that barrel once, still hates power as being something "immoral". As a result, over the last 47 years, as China has grown stronger, India has meekly allowed itself to grow comparatively weaker.

This had to happen and will continue to unless India completely overhauls, professionalises and contemporises its national security set up which has been hijacked by selfish and greedy generalist career bureaucrats who advise politicians who themselves have not even a clue of this complex subject. They have proved time and again over the last 62 years that they are no more than ham-handed amateur middle-men who are more interested in asserting their "superiority" over the military - usurped deviously after the British left, thanks to ignorant politicians - than letting accountable professionals and political leaders respond with alacrity to meet the nation's security needs.

Myanmar never wanted to go into the arms of China; it was always wary of the dragon. It wanted India to be its partner. But India, as one Myanmar leaders said, did nothing and just "sold" it to China. The same India that has been embracing a series of military dictators in Pakistan because its national interest demanded it, found it very difficult to apply the principle to Myanmar, ostensibly because of democracy. More disturbingly, however, it seems that it is the obsession of India's career diplomats with the West and its glamour, coupled with their continuing strategic blindness, that has ensured that India's far away East has always remained neglected. The mindset that led Nehru to quickly bid goodbye to the people of the region from India when Chinese troops reached the outskirts of Tezpur in 1962, remains essentially unaltered.

That is why, while China is securing deal after deal in Myanmar and making the country increasingly dependent on it, India which had a large number of Indians living and working in Myanmar till the fifties, initially only helplessly watched them being thrown out, and has since done the same as China has shown increasing interest in that country. As a result, focused and result oriented Chinese government officials working with a clear strategic vision, have beaten India comprehensively to acquire not just a foothold but what is going to turn out to be near complete control over Myanmar.

See the irony? China is going to start building pipelines, highways and railways through the length of Myanmar soon. India, on the other hand, has not yet been able to finalise a contract for a gas pipeline from there either overland through Bangladesh/Assam or across the Bay of Bengal. Now that the Chinese have beaten them to the contract, they will undoubtedly buy up any spare gas that Myanmar might think of selling to India, killing India's project completely. While the Chinese have been making inroad after inroad into Myanmar, some Indians led by former Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar, once a career diplomat, have been pushing for a gas pipeline from Iran through Pakistan to India, despite the fact that it will prove to be a huge security disaster. Criminal neglect of the East by India continues.

The British had envisaged Tibet as India's buffer to the North. In the East, that role was to be played by Myanmar (then called Burma). In the fifties, India lost Tibet to China. Almost half a century later, the same script is being written in Myanmar. India's obsession with a much smaller country, Pakistan, its puppy love for all things Western and its inward looking mindset that has cost it heavily all through history have led it to lose Myanmar too to the Chinese. India's encirclement is now complete.

The price for this inexplicable and absolutely inexcusable strategic blunder is going to cost India so heavily that 1962 will pale into into insignificance. India's failure to prevent Myanmar from going into the Dragon's mouth will ensure that Bangladesh will also follow suit soon, and very willingly. Even the thought of what the situation will be 20 years hence is disturbing.

Will India's leaders and their generalist, colonial henchmen learn any lesson and do what it will take to keep India secure, no matter what the cost of this near-Himalayan blunder? A leadership and bureaucracy that have not got for India new artillery guns for over 25 years and that routinely take decades to provide weaponry required to meet even huge existing shortages, can hardly be expected to start being visionary, proactive and quick in decision making. Thanks to them, India, now surrounded by hostile powers from all sides, is more vulnerable than it ever has been since Independence. And the way things are, the situation is only going to get worse.
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5. Democracy, morality and national interest

This must be music to many Indian ears. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is getting ready to become the President, not of the United States, but of Austria! Surprised? US law prohibits anyone not born in the country from occupying the Oval Office. Arnie was born in Austria and continues to hold an Austrian passport along with his US citizenship. As per a report, he could well become the President of the country he was born in as early as next year, after his term as Governor expires. "I'll be back...as President". This is what he has told his home country, in response to requests from politicians there that he should stand in the 2010 Presidential election.

This news has sent waves of excitement in India, Italy and the rest of the world where persons of Indian origin live. The possibilities that Arnie has unleashed are endless.

Sonia Gandhi, for example, could be the next to be asked to become the PM of the country where she was born. Decades of experience in managing Indian politicians have given her a priceless advantage. Besides there is no danger whatsoever of an Italian Sushma Swaraj threatening to shave her head and live on grams if Sonia becomes the PM of that country. Italian women have far better things to do. To cap it, Silvio Berlsconi has enough problems on his hands, not the least of which is his unusual interest in an 18 year old girl who even spent a week at his villa, and the fact that his wife is filing for divorce. All Sonia needs to do is go to Italy and make an Arnie-like announcement.

Just imagine the pride that will puff Indian chests if Sonia become the PM of Italy and Rahul of India, with Priyanka ready and waiting for any one or both the jobs!

There is great excitement among ordinary NRIs too. There are many potential Arnies in the US, the most prominent being Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. He must now seriously start working on becoming India's PM should he fail to make it to the White House. Hang on. He could even do it the other way round. He could become India's PM and then, at just the right moment, jet right back to the US where he was born and run for President! As it is, the BJP is in the throes of an unprecedented crisis, with not a leader in sight. The party could project him as their next "mazboot" neta. And since he has converted to Christianity, he would just be the secular face that the party needs to reinvent itself!

Sons and daugthers of Indian politicians are most heartened by this news. Now they don't have to go to the US to just mark time till papa calls them back to become MPs. They can actually get into US politics and then make the switch to India when they hit the ceiling there. In fact, Indian politicians have already started planning on sending their pregnant wives to the US in future to get US-born kids so that they become eligible to hit the top job in both countries! Since the US allows only two terms to a President, an NRI US President can then come back to India and rule it as PM till his sons/daughters are ready to step into his shoes, preferably in both countries!

Arnie may be opening the door but it is Indians who will eventually make sure that the US gets "Bangalored" in politics too! India will rule the world. Instead of the likes of Laloo and his groin-scratching friends, there will then be smart US born and bred politicians and leaders and other beautiful people gracing your and my TV screens 24/7. English will become India's national language. Rich Indians will be respected and welcomed across the globe. In the middle of all this excitement, the ecstatic aam aadmi will, of course, continue to remain where he is meant to be, unseen and unheard, except at election time. Bliss.

Till date, it is not clear who plagiarised whose slogan. Was it Nestle that stole BJP's line that it was a "party with a difference" or was it the BJP's leaders who so liked the Maggi sauce advertisement that said "It's different!", that they made it their own?

For the first few decades after Independence, the grand old tomato ketchup and Congress party dominated their respective markets, with chilly sauce and and all-other-political-parties attracting the remaining few takers. In the eighties, Nestle developed Maggi Hot and Sweet sauce that was positioned somewhere between the two and claimed that it was "different". The Jan Sangh too did something similar in the political landscape by re-naming itself as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and made the same claim. Both offerings were liked by bored and taken-for-granted consumers and, as they say almost every other day theses days, history was made.

Both continue to claim to be "different", but if you ask Pankaj Kapoor, who featured in the original Maggi Hot and Sweet Sauce ad in 1989-80, to identify what exactly makes it "different", he will only gape at you with that "what-a-silly-question-to-which-I-have-no-answer-look", if you can imagine such a "different" look. The same silent reply, with an added "hurt" look, will greet you if you ask Advani, who was the star of the original campaign of the BJP that helped it erupt on the national scene dramatically in the nineties.

Maggi sauces continue to remain popular with that "It's different" line, thanks to some great ads starring Javed Jaffery, backed by great sauces that retain their edge in quality and taste over the many copycat products that have hit the market since. The BJP, on the other hand, has lost the plot completely, and has begun to look and taste like the original tomato sauce (Congress) would, long after the expiry date, with a dash of other local sauces thrown in to confuse the taste completely. No wonder it has got so badly bashed in the recent elections.

These days, the BJP is being called "a party with differences", "a party no different", "a different kind of BJP", "the party with no difference", "still a party with a difference" etc. After India caught the party trying to pass off old bottles of sauce as new and "different", and rejected them in favour of the tried and tested, though bland, taste of the Congress sauce that they were sick of and had earlier rejected repeatedly, the BJP has gone into a peculiar "atma manthan", introspection. Its leaders are now showing other leaders where they have gone wrong and what introspection they need to do. Every one thinks every one else has blown it while he has done a terrific job!

Its master strategist, who had thrown a national fit during the campaign and remained at home for two weeks to put in place the COO and his confidante, and then taken all but complete control of the party, has suddenly discovered that Indian tastes have changed and that people are not willing to accept the same sauce that they had loved in the nineties. The excellent distribution and marketing network that had set up, he says, cannot be blamed because it is the product that stinks; people no longer like the "chatpata" and "teekha" stuff that the likes of Muthalik, Sahu and Varun put into the recipe.

The ad man, who looks like RK Laxman's common man, had saturated the media and the net with the "mazboot neta" campaign and written all those winner speeches that exposed Dr Manmohan Singh as India's weakest PM ever, as well as a "nikamma" one, and turned the fight into a one-to-one contest between him and the PM-who-is-no-longer-even-in-the-waiting-list. He too is now blaming the use of wrong ingredients in an out of date product for the dismal performance. He has conveniently forgotten that he had focused mostly on how bad the other sauce was, and not how good and "different" his was. People already knew how bad the other one was; they wanted to hear how much better BJP's "different" offering was in real terms; what they got instead was the smug mug of the mazboot CEO everywhere, doing little more than running his competent and compelling competitor down.

The CEO, who had briefly offered to step down after the debacle, is now sticking on to ensure smooth ascendancy of his close confidants, since he can no longer ensure the same for his son and daughter who were with him 24/7 during the long campaign, ready to claim their share of the victory pie. The master strategist, despite his failure and despite the fact that he himself has never personally succeeded in selling even one bottle of sauce ever, has been given a promotion. Other senior Vice-Presidents who successfully managed to meet sales targets in their territories are out in the cold, some fuming, some still quiet and some happy at getting the load off their chests by complaining to a COO who himself has never had a clue about what it takes to run such a large company, and is more worried about his future than anything else.

Ideas are coming in thick and fast. Some are suggesting that the party should revert to the original tomato sauce formula that the Congress is sticking to, while others are warning that it should not even think of dumping the "different" base that is its USP. As always, there are those who advise a broad cautious middle path by suggesting that while the base should not be thrown away, its proportion should be so reduced that only those with the most sensitive of tongues can detect its taste, and those who are allergic to it do not get any reaction and be put off for ever.

Forget the product. Look at the process. Who says the BJP is not a party with a difference? So much churning, so much of near rebellion, and so much criticism of the CEO cannot even be dreamt of in the Congress. In that family owned party, be it victory or disaster, the family is never questioned; like Lord Tennyson's brook, it goes on forever. Is that why the Congress has survived for so long with so bland and adulterated a product? Is that why taking a cue from the Congress, the CEO of the BJP, instead of looking at the rejected sauce, is now concentrating on protecting his own coterie? Why instead can't he and others see that powerful scientists working on product development in their R&D Headquarters in Nagpur and centres elsewhere still dress like the British and some of their subjects used to over a century ago? With that dress code, how can the mindset change, and a contemporary product conceived, much less produced? Can't they see that the Congress - smart guys - did away with a separate R&D Wing altogether in 1948, the moment Gandhi died?

The troubles in the BJP are only growing with every passing day. Yes, everyone knows that the party at one time had only two MPs in the Lok Sabha and now has 116. But those days, it was struggling to grow. This time it is different. The party is sliding after having peaked. No wonder some of us are beginning to believe that the party is going the General Motors way. It seems now as if small, loss making units of the party will be bought across the country by competitors while the main party itself will file for bankruptcy. In the US, Obama has given GM the dole and promised to keep his administration out of management despite owning 60% of the company, and let it recover.

Will that happen in India too? Not at all. Here, if the party does not wake up and TV studio leaders, who know they will get rehabilitated in the Congress whenever they leave, don't give way to real ones who have successfully managed to sell the bad "different" sauce and make people like it despite all its shortcomings, dilutions and additions, the shell of the BJP will simply be taken over by the Congress and merged with it, and the party will go totally under. With nothing "different" left, life will become boring once again. Till someone inevitably puts together a political "Nirma" to take on the might of "Surf"; the cycle will then begin again.
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For 15 years, Laloo Prasad Yadav ruled and ruined Bihar, enriching himself, some say, enormously in the process.. Then, as Railway Minister, he miraculously turned into a management guru overnight and taught students of Harvard and IIM(A) tricks that helped him turn Indian Railways around dramatically. Despite his irritating bluster, crude humour and bare understanding of a range of issues, a few sophisticated media barons actually went overboard and called him a superstar!

No wonder then that till reality hit on May 16, 2009, Laloo used to boast: "As long as there is aloo (potato) there will be Laloo". Forgotten were huge corruption scandals that had been haunting him for years, forgotten was the fact that he had almost single-handedly destroyed an already weakened Bihar, forgotten also was the basic understanding that Laloo was not only unjustifiably reaping the benefit that the Railways had got from an economy rampaging at 9%, but also the fact that had there been a more honest and professionally competent Railway Minister, the Railways would have done far better.

Why was Laloo protected and favourably projected by the media for so long? Would he have been so spoken of had he been the Man Friday of, say, Atal Bihar Vajpayee? For five long years, Laloo exploited the "soney ki chidiya", as he had once described the Railways, for personal gain, just as he had Bihar when he was Chief Minister. In fact he had become so bold, thanks to his proximity to the Congress "High Command" and the encouragement that the media were giving to him, that he had not only dismissed all previous allegations of corruption against him, including the famous fodder scam, but had gone to the extent of declaring boldly: "How can a person sitting in a high chair become a thief or do anything to harm the nation?"

Now that he is out in the cold after stabbing Sonia Gandhi in the back, his corrupt ways are beginning to become visible, again. What amazes one is not his blatant corruption and seemingly unlimited greed to which everyone had turned a blind eye, but the fact that more than 20 years and countless crores later, he remains a petty thief who will still "steal even an underwear" if he gets a chance.

On May 19, three days after the election results came out and when it was clear that he was not going to come back as Railway Minister, Laloo issued an order providing all former Railway Ministers free lifetime travel in First Class AC along with three companions and an attendant in Second AC Sleeper. The existing scheme which provided for such facility with one companion, was not enough for Laloo; he wanted three more guys travelling free with him till death. This petty loot would have gone undiscovered but for the honest rib of another former Railway Minister who was going to personally benefit too. Ram Naik, however, answered the call of his conscience and wrote to the new Railway Minister that the order "amounts to misuse of powers and promotes an unethical practice".

That is not all. Laloo not only got a railway line built to connect his native village to his wife's native village, he made money in the project by first getting some land allotted illegally to three of his close relatives who were falsely shown to be "landless" and then by getting the Railways to procure that land from them at a phenomenally high price! The scandal surfaced only after the elections, when his elder brother protested against the delay in receiving the compensation from the Railways. Laloo had earlier also been accused of giving away railway jobs in lieu of land, but nothing came of it.

We have been seeing a lot of sting operations done by the media to expose corruption across the spectrum. Schools have been exposed for asking for capitation fees, policemen have been shown asking for and taking money as have been many other petty government officials; lawyers have been exposed in a case that the media had got interested in pursuing; chemists have been caught selling Tamiflu over the counter. The list is long.

But, when it comes to politicians who really matter, and not small fry, have we ever got anything except the famous Tehelka sting in 2001 that showed the then BJP President receiving money? Not only have the media turned a blind eye to this daylight robbery and loot of the nation, guys like Prannoy Roy and Shekhar Gupta now openly talk of ATM/wet ministries in which ministers make pots of money, by right! If these guys are comfortable with and accept blatant banditry at the highest levels in the government, how can they go around stinging petty government officials and traders, and still claim the high moral ground of being watchdogs?

How can corruption be acceptable and kept under wraps at the top, and frowned upon and exposed at an octroi post? Laloo, for example, has according to many accounts, been so corrupt for so long and so openly that he could have been stung innumerable number of times by the media had they wanted. Why has that not happened? Is there some truth in the rumors that stings have been done, not only on Laloo but other senior ministers too, but have not seen the light of day? Any idea why that has happened, if it has? Does it have something to do with the belief that some media stars have also stashed money in Swiss banks? Is that why the media are not pursuing that case at all?

As far as Laloo is concerned, he has shown once again, if the above reports are correct, that there is no level to which he will not descend, to make even more money. Time and again he has displayed limitless greed coupled with a matching disdain for the welfare and betterment of the people of Bihar. Every time, he has managed to get away and emerge even more powerful. Don't be surprised if he succeeds this time too, even though at the moment the "aloo" is there but Laloo is out.

No matter what the outcome of the latest charges against him, one thing is clear: As long as there is aloo, corrupt will be Laloo!
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6. From Obama to Laloo: a rude reality check

In his inaugural speech on January 20, 2009, President Barack Hussein Obama had spoken of seeking "a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect" with the Muslim world. Nearly five months later, he significantly chose the "timeless city" of Cairo to tell Muslims across the globe that America and Islam were not exclusive and did not need to be in competition. Quoting from the Holy Quran, he also sensitively sought to drive home the point that America's fight against "violent extremism" was not a war against Islam, or a manifestation of a clash of civilisations, and that the US and the Muslim world had to confront this challenge jointly. For perhaps the first time ever, Muslims across the world listened to an American President with open minds and many even welcomed his words.

Thanks to his multi-cultural and multi-racial background, Obama has taken a road no white US President could have even considered. Jack Shaheen sees elements of King and Gandhi in Obama, and believes he is a leader "who has respect for all faiths; he has the vision to see the commonality among all faiths; and is a leader who respects their differences". That is why, when Obama says that America is not and will never be "at war with Islam", his words don't ring hollow and do not sound like that of an average politician trying to make a clever political statement. That is why, even though on ground America's policy on terror remains undiluted and its "war of necessity" in Afghanistan is being prosecuted with renewed focus and vigour, Obama's carefully chosen words are designed to make them more palatable to Muslims and not arouse the kind of hostility against the US that they had till now.

As far as Af-Pak is concerned, Obama's words and actions are also likely to make it that much more difficult for Osama bin Laden to justify and find recruits for his brand of war as a holy jihad against the great Satan America. It was not surprising, therefore, that a few days before Obama spoke in Cairo, an alarmed Osama bin Laden attempted to undermine his efforts to isolate the Al Qaida and the Taliban and project America's war against them in Afghanistan and Pakistan as no more than one against violent extremism that had nothing to do with Islam. In a taped message broadcast by Al Jazeera, Osama tried to whip up emotions against Obama saying: "Obama and his administration have sown new seeds to increase hatred and revenge on America. The number of these seeds is equal to the number of displaced people from Swat Valley...Elderly people, children and women fled their homes and lived in tents as refugees after they have lived in dignity in their homes. Let the American people be ready to reap what the White House leaders have sown...".

A couple of years back, Imran Khan, Pakistan's westernised playboy cricketer with a Talibani mindset had blasted President Musharraf for joining America's "war on terror" because that had led to "Muslims killing Muslims" as against Muslims killing non-Muslims earlier. That statement had echoed the then popular, black and white sentiment in Pakistan that the US was at war with Islam and had to defeated, not befriended. That is why Musharraf was so unpopular. That was also one reason why Pakistan was simultaneously fighting against and with the Taliban, in the hope that eventually the Americans would be forced to cut their losses and pull out, leaving the trophy, Afghanistan, back in the hands of Pakistan.

Obama is attempting to change that perception through this speech and many other gestures and words that add up to portray him as a sensitive, visionary and determined leader who can feel and share the pain of Muslims, but wants them to also know at the same time that he will not rest till the extremists are defeated and Af-Pak ceases to pose a security threat to the US.

That clear determination has most likely prompted Colonel Imam, the retired ISI officer who ran a training program for Afghan resistance to Soviet occupation from 1979 to 1989 and trained Mullah Omar, to say that the Taliban will never be defeated. Imam also seeks to demolish the "good Taliban" theory of Fareed Zakaria, saying that there are no number two Taliban and that those who break away from mainstream Taliban have no place in society. The Americans, he adds, must negotiate with Mullah Omar who is the only man people listen to in Afghanistan. In short, the face-saving solution that Imam is offering to the Americans is one which will restore the position as it was on 9/11, and leave the Al Qaida intact.

In support of this capitulation strategy, Imam recalls the defeat of the British in Maiwand in 1880 and that of the Soviets in 1989, saying that the Afghans "couldn't care less about loss of property or loss of life...the more you kill, the more supporters will come". The Taliban will not win, he admits, but believes that in the end the Americans will tire. Imam does have a point: Afghans have little property to lose and decades of war has made them impervious to loss of life too. But, he forgets that they too are humans. He may revel in the fact that they can keep counting the dead and not flinch, but must know that there has to and will come a point when they too will tire; and when they do, it will be for a very, very long time.

Obama's words and follow-up actions will aim to de-couple this fight in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan from Islam and take the jihadi fire out of it. If he succeeds in achieving this objective in some measure, the will to fight will evaporate and the tiredness of centuries of fighting and deprivation will take a firm grip. Osama and Imam perhaps recognise this. That is why this response and that is why we must expect some spectacular attacks in the near future as the Al Qaida and Taliban try to grapple with loss of support, low morale and fewer recruitments.

Apart from these predictable responses, Obama's speech has been generally favourably received in Muslim countries, including the Arab world, that has tuned into Obama rather than Osama. It has also drawn its share of criticism from across the world, the sharpest being from some Westerners who don't like the idea of there being something called the "Muslim world", see little good in Islam and believe that there is as much common ground between Islam and Christianity as can be found between a mass murderer and Mother Teresa. Pakistanis are unhappy primarily because he did not mention Kashmir and lost an opportunity to win the hearts and minds of Pakistanis. Some Indians are not pleased because not only did he not talk of India, but also because he all but apologised to Muslims for what America had been doing without finding any fault with Islam or them, while others feel that he touched heights of greatness . Then there are those who have found him great in eloquence but lacking in substance. Such reactions indicate the influence that the Obama phenomenon has begun to exercise over the whole world.

One speech, as Obama said himself, is not going to change perceptions and prejudices overnight. He has made a beginning, an honest one, to reconcile mainstream Islam with the rest of the world based on mutual respect. No one is in any doubt about the sincerity behind this vision that has the potential of radically altering societal dynamics not only in the US but across the world based on greater tolerance and acceptance of different view points and religious beliefs, and rejection of religious extremism and violence. No one, at the same time, should also be in any doubt that this is not going to be easy.

What happens in the Hindu Kush mountains and the plains of Pakistan in the next few years will determine whether it is the vision of Obama or the viciousness of Osama that will prevail. A tectonic change that will profoundly impact the course of all mankind is under way.
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A warship stranded in the high seas, sails torn, engines seized, oars broken, rudder gone, GPS knocked out, the old Captain rendered hors de combat and a dejected crew quite clueless about what to do next. This is the picture that comes to mind when one thinks of the state that the BJP finds itself in after the recent Lok Sabha elections.

When IPS (Indian Political Ship) BJP, was under construction, its designers thought they were building a futuristic platform equipped with state-of-the-art weapon and propulsion systems needed to take on and defeat enemy warships by unmatched maneuvering ability and firepower. A well-trained crew, led by an astute Captain, was also placed on board to maximise the impact of this game-changing vessel. Initially, the impact was dramatic, and there were many spectacular victories that put fear and despondency into the hearts of the BJP's opponents.

As others quickly geared up to spruce up their old weapons and tactics and ganged up to stall the journey of this great ship, its designers panicked. The design was too rigid and exclusive, many said, adding that it was a mistake to have ignored the old and time-tested systems that had served ships of the enemies well for a long time. So, acting on suggestions that it was not wise to depend on a unique propulsion system alone, no matter how powerful, sails were added, as were oars, along with additional crew to operate them. Similar additions were then made to the weapons systems too. When the job was done, they all sat back satisfied that they had created a terrific all-in-one vessel that could barely be distinguished from those deployed by others. With so many systems on board and so much of redundancy built in, they were all sure that the Titanic that they had created was unsinkable, no matter what it had to face.

Till now, no one knows what exactly hit the ship and from which direction on May 16, 2009. Although the ship is still afloat despite crippling damage, it can only drift helplessly, not knowing where land is, and how far. With most systems having been badly damaged and no qualified repairmen at work to take on such a colossal task, it seems that it is only a question of time before most of those who can will get onto life boats and hope to hit land or another ship. Smaller ships that were once part of the flotilla are already on their own and looking for another big ship to attach themselves to at the right time.

The situation seems hopeless for IPS BJP. The hapless Captain, who is now clinically almost dead, has been put on life support systems and strapped to his chair so that everyone thinks he is still in charge and will pull the ship out of trouble. Knowing better, however, a fiesty lady familiar only with obsolete weapons that are no better than pea-shooters, has been tasked to look after the navigation and weapon systems from behind the Captains chair, while a combative solicitor trained to propel things through his voice alone on land, has been asked to put the ship's propulsion system in order and get it moving in the sea.

There is little doubt that both these appointees are not suited at all for the jobs they have been given and will be able to do nothing to get the ship going, much less restore it to its past glory. Why, then, one may ask, have they been chosen? That is where the extreme difficulty lies. There seems to be no one on the ship, save the Captain on life support, who has the ability to not only lift the morale of the crew but also harmonise and deploy them to restore the ship to its original lean and mean glory by ruthlessly dumping the many redundant systems that had made the ship very heavy and difficult to maneuver. There are many claimants to the chair but not one with the ability and experience that is needed at this make or break juncture. These two are arguably the most acceptable of the genuinely bad picks available.

So, is there no hope for this once magnificent ship that once ruled the waves for six years at a stretch? Is it ready to be sent to Alang, to be broken into many pieces and consigned to a few lines in history books?

Some believe that all is not lost and that there is one Captain who knows exactly what is needed to be done, and more, to not only restore the ship to its earlier glory but also lead it to a stunning victory. According to them, the hard truth is that though there are many pretenders who are busy running him down, he is the only one who has the ability to do what is needed to be done.

To make matters worse for the BJP, for a lot of outsiders he is not the captain of a warship. He is Captain Jack Sparrow who, no matter what a great job he may have as captain done or what exceptional skills he may have shown, cannot be forgiven for behaving like a pirate and temporarily hijacking his own ship sometime in 2002. They are not going to treat him or let him get away like the Jack Sparrow of 1984, whose descendants are now leading the flotilla that has all but destroyed this great ship.

IPS BJP is undoubtedly in deep trouble in the deep blue sea. It is at times like these, when almost all seems lost and there is no hope in sight, that a real leader can turn "Defeat into Victory", as Field Marshal William Slim did in the North East and Burma during the Second World War. So, if the BJP wants to turn things around, it has to find a real leader first and then back him to the hilt. Carrying deadwood, both human and ideological, and bloated egos is not going to save the ship at all; it will only speed it to Alang.

The results of recent Lok Sabha elections have driven home the very disturbing fact that politics in India is fast becoming a family business. If this trend continues, as indeed it will unless major changes are made, India will soon find itself being ruled "democratically" by just over a thousand families who will fight among themselves every five years to send 543 MPs to the Lok Sabha.

Given this development which will sound the death knell of democracy both at the Centre and in the states, it is indeed surprising that the real implications of the Women's Reservations Bill that President Pratibha Patil has said will be passed within 100 days, are being overlooked completely. It may be recalled that the bill had been introduced thrice earlier but could not be pushed through because of staunch opposition from some political parties who wanted sub-reservations, within this 33% reservation, based on community and religion.

Is sending 181 women MPs to the Lok Sabha really going to empower women, as the nation is being made to believe, or is it only going to lead to further concentration of power in a few political families?

In the present Parliament, there are 58 women MPs, the highest number ever. The main reason for there being so few women MPs since 1952 is their poor win record, as they have to fight male candidates. This time, for example, in Uttar Pradesh out of 61 women contestants, only 7 managed to get elected. In West Bengal, the tally was four out of 34, in Andhra Pradesh it was 3 out of 21, in Haryana only one out of 8 won and in Madhya Pradesh three out of 30 made it.

That is perhaps why our wise politicians and already empowered women have fallen once again back to the the arguably regressive reservation route to empower 183 women politically. In reality, even these few women are not going to be empowered in the manner that the proponents of the bill have visualised. Consider this: of the 58 women MPs elected recently, as many as 36 are widows, wives, daughters or daughters-in-law. Of the remaining 22, there is reason to believe that most are in Parliament due to some family political connection or the other. There are hardly any women who have made it to Parliament on their own.

The results of the recent Lok Sabha elections have also starkly brought to fore the fact that at the national level, so far it is the Congress party alone that has many flourishing political dynasties, starting right from the top. The BJP is also beginning to get afflicted with this disease, though it has very few such political families yet. It is only the Left that has remained untouched so far. Most regional parties have, of course, already become small, single family business houses.

Does this not make the arithmetic straightforward? Or are you also not able to see it yet? Once the Women's Bill is passed, 181 women will fight only against women and, naturally, only women will win. So what is going to happen? All parties will go hunting for women candidates who can win. That is where the Congress will win hands down. It will be easily able to find 181 women who are part of or connected to its long established and powerful political dynasties.

Unless there is a wave against the Congress, therefore, most of its candidates will easily win against candidates put up by other parties in seats reserved for women. The recent victories of family backed women candidates against powerful male candidates should leave no one in any doubt about what the outcome will be when they are pitted against weak, "commoner" women candidates. So, after the next elections, we will have, for example, not just Sachin Pilot in the Lok Sabha but also his mother Rama and wife Sara, both elected easily from reserved constituencies. The same or a similar story will be repeated in the case of Jyotiraditya Scindia, Jitin Prasada, Prithviraj Chauhan, Prateek Patil and many, many others.

Do you get the big picture? 181 normal seats plus 181 women's seats, that means 362 seats, or two thirds of Lok Sabha, can theoretically become the borough of only 181 political families. Therefore, if the Women's bill is passed, in the next election the Congress will find itself in a position to easily get more than 272 MPs into the Lok Sabha and form a government on its own, if there is no wave against it. If there is a small swing away from it, it will still be able to hang on to power with the help of allies. A non-Congress government at the Centre will be almost an impossibility unless there is a massive wave against the Congress or till other parties get their own political dynasties going to make it an even fight between two or more women belonging to one "royal gharana" (family) or another.

Perhaps the Congress, in the light of the results of the recent elections, has already spotted the pot of gold that this reservation for women is going to bring for the party. That could be one reason why it is in a tearing hurry to push the bill through, before other political parties wake up to its implications. It is very surprising that they are still blissfully unaware of the tectonic change that reservation for women is going to unleash to perpetuate democratic dynastic rule.

If politicians and women's organisations are genuinely serious about empowering women, then they should be thinking about provisions that will prevent the degeneration of reservation into family businesses where the role of women will remain as it has been forever. Don't you find it strange that no one is talking about prohibiting wives, mothers, sisters, daughters, daughters-in-law, mothers-in-law, first cousins etc of male Rajya Sabha MPs and Lok Sabha MPs/candidates from contesting from seats reserved from women? Why are some politicians instead asking only for more sub-reservations based on community/religion alone? It seems they all want to tweak the bill in a manner that will help them promote their own little dynasties/empires while preventing any real transfer of power to women.

In a recent discussion on Headlines Today, a fiery lady who has been aggressively pushing the bill for long, admitted that initially only wives etc of politicians would get elected. That was fine by her, she said, because she hoped that things would change over time and lead to real empowerment of women, like it had happened at the panchayat level in some states.

Is that really going to happen? The Parliament is not a lowly panchayat where the stakes are small. It is big business. Have we not already witnessed how, thanks to virtually no restrictions placed by law, our politicians have managed to increasingly ensure the concentration of political power in the hands of a few political dynasties? Are they going to foolishly let this golden opportunity slip away, and let 183 women MPs get empowered in the manner that some of us are simplistically hoping they will some time in the distant future?

The proponents of the Women's Reservation Bill have got it all wrong, I believe. Reserving seats for 183 women in Parliament is not going to lead to the empowerment of ordinary Indian women in any manner whatsoever, ever, bar the high decibel chatter. All that it is going to do is to make political gharanas even more powerful, with their women playing primarily the stereotyped supporting role of adding the weight of numbers to the family jaagir (estate).

Passage of the bill in its present form will, thus, only hasten the ongoing take-over of India's democracy by political gharanas. When that transition is complete, general elections will become a farce in which a few hundred families will go to the ordinary people of India every five years and ask them to choose 543 MPs out of members belonging to their very exclusive club.

Is that what we want to see happening? If not, then this bill needs to be opposed fearlessly for all the right reasons.
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2. 62 years down the line, the Raj is back in a new avatar