INDIA, LEARN HOW TO GET PAKISTAN TO WALK

Shashi Tharoor may have said that it was just a piece of paper and not a legal document. Shiv Shankar Menon may have said that it was a case of bad drafting. Many analysts and all opposition parties may have accused Dr Manmohan Singh of selling out mindlessly. The Congress party may have been stunned into silence. The Pakistanis may have been gloating that they had defeated Indians on the negotiating table once again, with such ease. General Kiyani may have been emboldened to ask India to stop messing around in Baluchistan.

Whatever may have been the noise, was there any way that Dr Manmohan Singh was going to admit to the world that he had indeed blundered at Sharm-el-Sheikh? Or that the famous Baluch Blunder that everybody is talking about actually is much bigger because it covers the whole of Pakistan?

The Congress party, Shashi Tharoor included, is now singing a different tune and is backing the Prime Minister for the Joint Statement that he and Pakistan Prime Minister Gilani issued after the recent NAM summit. That stance is born out of a compulsion to prevent those who are leading this nation from looking like amateur fools who have learnt nothing from history and who have in 62 years not been able to formulate well defined foreign policy and security objectives for their country.

Does India know what is the minimum it expects from Pakistan or its other neighbours who fall in its sphere of influence? Are their any "Lakshman Rekhas" demarcated by it that it will not allow Pakistan, Bangladesh or other nations to cross without reacting with punitive force? Has any thought been given to how India expects its neighbours, including China, to interact with it 25 years from now, when India will undoubtedly be a super power? Is their any implementable integrated plan that visualises the active deployment of all instruments available to the state, if required, to make India secure against terrorism ? Has the option of recourse to use of force up to and including war been completely ruled out no matter what the provocation by any country as long as it is short of a full fledged military attack or invasion, at which point there is no real decision left to be made?

Clearly, there are no real answers available to the aforementioned questions and a few more. In fact it is evident that a serious thought has not been given to them structurally and in a professional manner. Had that been done, then there would have been by now visible efforts to develop strategies, capabilities and professional structures to ensure that the country's expectations are known to all concerned along with the fact it has the ability and, above all, the indomitable will to ensure that India's concerns are not ignored humiliatingly by some nations as they have been till now.

When the US says that India is an "absent" power or that it needs to start behaving like the big power that it is, you should know that they know that India is almost ashamed of becoming the power that its size dictates it must become. When analysts and those guys in the government who have made sure that India still does not know what it wants to be and where it wants to go as a nation, say that India is a "status quo" power, be in no doubt that this is not a carefully thought out positioning; it is the manifestation of the confused and directionless mess that India has got into, thanks to a strategy blind political leadership and a stifling generalist bureaucracy for whom status quo is the oxygen without which it will be found to be as useful for formulating national objectives, and strategies to achieve them, as a poisonous fly is in a critical ointment.

Such fundamental proactive preparations are vital for this soon-to-be super power that wants to influence world affairs by becoming a permanent member of the UN Security Council. It is bewildering that this elementary fact continues to escape our leaders who seem to have perfected the art of getting caught petrified on the back foot all the time. They want that seat in the UNSC out of goodwill of the big powers already there. Sucking up to them comes easily without embarrassment; standing up manfully to be counted as a big power and claim that seat by right is what they find embarrassing. Is that the way to get India ready to assume its global responsibility? Can a nation that has consistently displayed a disturbing paralysis in exerting its influence even in its immediate neighborhood be considered fit to assume the global role that it asking for, that is there for the asking the moment it is ready?

This mindset is not of recent origin. It has marked almost all our dealings with our neighbours since 1947, to India's great detriment. Starting from Nehru, India's leaders have been more than willing to walk more than half the distance unilaterally, without even bothering to look that the one they are walking towards is not only not stationery but is reacting by walking backwards to increase the gap, not reduce it, so that eventually he can get a settlement that initially even he did not believe was possible. Here are some glaring examples:

• In 1948, Nehru stopped the Indian Army from marching to Muzaffarabad when it was poised to, rejecting professional advise, and rushed to the United Nations to internationalise Kashmir. He was more keen to show to the whole world how reasonable India was and how clean its hands were rather than allow its military to consolidate its victory in a manner that would have, at the very least, made it immensely more difficult for Pakistan to create the mess that it has in Kashmir since then.
• In the fifties, Nehru kept walking gullibly into the arms of the deceitful Chinese even after there was little doubt left about their intentions about Tibet, Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh. To compound that blunder, he ignored the advise of General Thimmaya to raise the strength of the Army and increase the defence budget so that Indian troops would be in a position to take on the Chinese Army in the event of a war that looked very much on. Nehru showed greater faith in Chou En Lai and Panchsheel and blindly walked more than half the way. As a result, he was given a knock out "Punch-sheel" in 1962, from which neither he nor India recovered.
• In 1965, General Ayub Khan launched a war on India with the boast that he would have his evening tea in Delhi. India almost won the war. But in Tashkent, it was Lal Bahadur Shastri who walked more than half way and handed back to Pakistan the strategic Haji Pir pass that Indian troops had captured. Pakistan was not made to pay any price whatsoever for its misadventure that could have had an even more damaging result for India than the 1962 blunder.
• In 1971, India's armed forces created Bangladesh. Within four months, Indian troops were out of that country and Indira Gandhi walked almost all the way to trustingly leave the course of relations between the two countries solely in the hands of Mujibur Rehman who was grateful to India for helping him become the first President of Bangladesh. When everything changed dramatically after he was assassinated in 1975, India was found helplessly watching that country become increasingly anti-Indian. Today Bangladesh fearlessly shows India the middle finger, openly harbours Indian militants and blatantly allows the ISI to export terror to India from its soil.
• In 1972, Indira Gandhi returned 97,000 Pakistani soldiers who had been taken prisoner by the Indian Army without getting anything in return out of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. She decided again that it was more important to walk more than half the distance even as he was deviously outsmarting her to keep Kashmir and other outstanding issues alive to be exploited at an appropriate time.
• In 1999, Atal Bihari Vajpayee bussed more than half the distance to Pakistan and got Kargil in return within a few months. But he still did not learn the right lesson. When the architect of Kargil took over Pakistan after a coup, Vajpayee embraced him and got the attack on Parliament in return. Even that did not dissuade him from taking another long and disastrous walk in which he is reported to have trustingly made unprecedented concessions on Kashmir. That "bold gesture" has now been more than trashed with a resounding slap by the Kargil commando. In a recent interview to Karan Thapar, Musharraf has openly said that India was forced to start talking about Kashmir only because of the war he launched in Kargil which, therefore, was a great victory for Pakistan. Vajpayee's statesmanlike move to befriend Pakistan has, in one deathly stroke, been reduced to a "majboori", a helpless reaction forced out by the panic and fear created by the Kargil war. That is also what the Kashmir Deal that Manmohan Singh nearly got trapped into agreeing by walking more than half the distance has been reduced to by that statement.
• In 2008, Pakistan launched another Kargil, an urban one, in Mumbai. Eight months after that, a resigned Dr Manmohan Singh told the world that India had no choice but to talk to Pakistan (aur koi chara nahin hai), and walked more than half the distance yet again to sign another disastrous joint statement with a country that has never taken a single friendly step forward willingly and, as everyone except perhaps those in the Indian establishment knows, never will. What do you think Pakistanis are going to say some years down the line? They will claim a la Musharraf that 26/11 was a great success, just like Kargil was, because it got the India to start admitting its role in promoting terror not just in Baluchistan but in all other parts of Pakistan too, and also scared them into de-linking terror from talk.
  

Let us face the truth: Indian leaders are scared to death by even the thought of war. And they have somehow concluded that the only way to avoid it is by taking that famous long walk. Pakistan knows all this better than all of us do. Look at the irony. It actually should be Pakistan that should be scared of war but it is India that publicly admits that it is even more scared. Pakistan is very scared too, because after 1971 debacle, its generals know that they cannot win the next war. But you will never catch any of them ever say anything that even remotely gives their fear away.

In 1948 and 1965, Pakistanis thought they could win, so they did not think twice about thrusting war on India. In 1971, Pakistan knew it was going to be mauled in East Pakistan, and indeed was - and much faster than it had even dreamt - but was left with no choice but to fight. It is the fear generated by that humiliating and confidence-breaking defeat that forced Pakistan start a covert proxy war in 1989 to wrest Kashmir; it is that fear that made Musharraf do Kargil and save himself and Pakistan from a full fledged war by pretending that it was the mujahideen and not Pakistani troops who were responsible for it. It is that fear that made its Army and the ISI do Mumbai 26/11 and pretend that it was the work of "non-state actors" and say that no one in the mainstream establishment was involved. It is that very fear that makes Pakistan resort to nuclear blackmail whenever there is even a whisper of war for the Indian side.

Pakistan's generals are mortally scared of facing Indians forces on the battle field. The fear of defeat has got deep into their bones. They know better than anyone else that any future defeat will destroy the vast military empire that they have carefully built in Pakistan. That is why they do not want a war under any circumstances. This is a chink that an alert India should have exploited to the hilt. But what we have done is exactly the opposite. Our political leaders have brainlessly allowed Pakistan to exploit the fact that they are even more scared of war than the Pakistanis.

An Indian leadership that refuses to do anything that leaves Pakistan with no choice but to behave, that hugs Pakistan tighter after every attack on India, that keeps saying one way or another that war or anything even resembling it is simply not an option available to India, no matter what Pakistan does or allows to be done on its soil, is just the tonic that Pakistan needs to fire up its jehadi and other elements that have been deployed to bleed India to death through a thousand cuts, by telling them and the world that India is cracking under the relentless pressure that they have generated.

There is another malaise that has afflicted Indian Prime Ministers starting from Nehru: the desire to create history and leave behind indelible imprints of greatness grounded in "peace" and magnanimity. Atal Bihari Vajpayee too was driven by visions of being remembered as a great Indian leader who "solved" the long standing Kashmir problem with Pakistan. That is what drove him almost unthinkingly into the arms of commando Musharraf who was more than overjoyed at being naively given the opportunity of entering history books too as the only Pakistani leader who inflicted a humiliating defeat on India on the negotiating table by making it agree to start the irreversible process of handing over control of Indian Kashmir to Pakistan, all thanks to what he believes was a masterstroke in Kargil, and the follow up pressure generated by subsequent terror attacks.

The mild Dr Manmohan Singh is also, despite his erudition, manifestly driven by a strong desire to be remembered as a great PM, quite in the mould of Nehru, minus his Himalayan blunders. When he signed the Nuclear Agreement with George Bush in 2005, the first words that he spoke after coming out from that meeting were: "We have made history today". Regionally, he has nostalgically spoken of his dream to have breakfast in Amritsar, lunch in Lahore and dinner in Kabul, just like his ancestors used to in the good old times.

In some ways, therefore, he is even more motivated than Vajpayee was to strike a deal with Pakistan. Like Vajpayee he also unrealistically believes that Pakistan is also being driven, or can be, by the same noble motivation. On that belief alone rests his dream of a new and durable era of peace, friendship and brotherhood in the sub continent. Like Nehru, he too is mindlessly hurrying towards the creation of a new mess in Kashmir for which India will, in future, wind up paying with much more of the same blood that he is scared of shedding today.

The latest joint statement at Sharm-el-Sheikh is, thus, the fundamentally flawed outcome of Dr Manmohan Singh's total aversion to the idea of responding with force to repeated overt and covert acts of war by Pakistan, coupled with use of the repeatedly failed Indian tactic of unilaterally walking much more than half way and showing India's clean hands to get Pakistan to give up a policy that has become almost central to the existence, orientation and enormous power of its military establishment.

Getting into a political deal of "peace and friendship" with Pakistan is not like getting a straight forward nuclear deal from the US. That exception was made by the US for India only because it began to realise that a strong strategic relationship with India was in its supreme national interest. George Bush, for all his faults, was not clouded by a desire to create history.

There is not even an iota of evidence to suggest that there has been any similar change in the aggressive and offensive military mindset that runs Pakistan. A few tactical changes have been forced on it only due to the presence of US troops in Afghanistan. The admission about 26/11 has also been reluctantly made only because of the capture of Ajmal Kasab and the irrefutable evidence picked up by the US and given to it.

Look at the irony. It is the much weaker Pakistan that should be saying what our PM is: there is no alternative to talks (aur koi chara nahin hai). But what do we have? Musharraf threatening India, in New Delhi, with more Kargils if Kashmir is not settled, and other Pakistani leaders repeating ad nauseum that terrorism will not stop unless that is done, obviously in Pakistan's favour. This unending blackmail is the result of the inexplicable fear and guilt, and the resultant inability, of India's leaders to even think of making Pakistan pay back in the only currency that its military leadership understands, has used and threatens to keep using, to bring India's leaders literally to their knees.

Mulayam Singh Yadav spoke a buried and forgotten harsh truth the other day in Parliament when he said that "We always win in a war with Pakistan but always lose on the negotiating table". Why does that happen? Pakistan loses in war because on those battlefields it is dealing with superior minds that are on the same page. But when it comes to the wars fought on tables, it scores easy victories all the time because on those battlefields, it confronts totally different and hopelessly foggy minds that are unforgivably ill equipped to understand and defeat offensive military minds that are completely focused on achieving clearly laid down and understood national objectives.

The near capitulation on Kashmir that Vajpayee was negotiating with Pakistan through back channels was willingly taken forward by the Manmohan Singh government in its first tenure. In fact, had Musharraf not been forced to quit, we might have seen the face of that sell out deal by now. To top it, Dr Manmohan Singh has further accelerated that process, despite 26/11, by caving in even more, manifestly because he is desperate to strike that mirage of a historic deal before his term ends.

The sudden and unprecedented giveaway to Pakistan at Sharm-el Sheikh is the result of that personal urgency. And it is going to prove hugely costly to India in the long run. The only saving grace is that, unlike at the time of Nehru when decisions taken by the PM were barely questioned, the India of today is not going to let any PM sell away the interests of the country easily.

Dr Manmohan Singh needs to hit the pause button and consider, at great length once again, all developments post 1947, in consultation with guys who know who India is dealing with. Once he does that, the disastrous consequences for India as a result of any "magnanimous" deal that he strikes with Pakistan, will dawn on him and prevent him from proceeding further downhill on the slippery slope that looks invitingly smooth today.

Dr Manmohan Singh will also do well to remember that it actually is time for India to get Pakistan to walk more than half the distance towards India to prove that it has honestly metamorphosed and is ready to embrace with an open heart his Amritsar to Kabul dream. There is absolutely no evidence yet to suggest that it is willing to consider even a lunch in Lahore because for that it will have to shed the very basis on which it rejected India as its country, the hate-filled mindset that is based wholly on that position, and the theocratic angle that is integral to it.

There is, therefore, near zero possibility that, in its present form, Pakistan's establishment, particularly the military one that runs the country, will ever even consider turning its foundational fundamentals on their heads. Given that harsh reality, any amount of one way walking towards Pakistan is not going to yield the dividend that the PM sincerely wants to get for India.

The mentality of readily and repeatedly giving away vital ground during negotiations primarily on the basis of small promises dishonestly made, has to be discarded firmly once and for all. To be able to do that, Dr Manmohan Singh and India's other political leaders have to learn how to get inside the military mind that represents Pakistan. Till they do that, they are going to keep facing defeat after defeat in negotiations. It may not matter much to them. But India cannot afford such defeats.

NUCLEAR DEAL: MANMOHAN DID RIGHT

Last year, when Dr Manmohan Singh threatened to resign if the Indo-US Nuclear Deal did not go through and the communists withdrew support to the government on this issue, there was one question that was asked by a lot of people: what is the hurry to get the Deal through? That question has been more than satisfactorily answered. No one is in any doubt that Barack Obama would not have given such a Deal to India. He did support the Deal before he became President and says even now that he will honour it. But it is evident already that there is a fundamental mismatch between his views on proliferation of nuclear weapons and what the Deal promises to India.

Well before he became President, Obama had spoken of his vision of a nuclear-weapon free world. That is something he has reiterated often since as a long term global goal which he admits will not be achieved in his life time.

But, there is no doubt whatsoever that he is serious about setting in motion measures that will lead to the achievement of that vision. Towards that end he has already taken some concrete steps. A few of these are:

• In the first week of July, he reached an outline agreement with his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev. As per that "joint understanding" signed in Moscow, the strength of deployed nuclear warheads of both countries will be reduced to below 1,700 within seven years of signing a new treaty.
• He has also announced that he would seek ratification of the CTBT which the US has signed but not yet ratified.
• The US, along with other nuclear weapon states among the G8 members, has also decreed a moratorium on production of fissile material for nuclear weapons or other nuclear devices and is working towards a treaty that bans it. G8 members have also called upon all states to declare and uphold a moratorium on production of such material.

This defining call made by the G8 to all states, undoubtedly under the leadership and urging of Obama, to declare a moratorium on production of fissile material, has gone largely unnoticed in India. This is a major step towards putting a lid on proliferation of nuclear weapons. From this flows logically the much talked about interim ban imposed by the G8 on enrichment and reprocessing (ENR) items and technology sales to the countries that have not signed the NPT. There are only three countries who have not done that yet: India, Pakistan and Israel.

The G8 Statement on Nonproliferation marks a shift in the position of the nuclear powers as far as India's ambitions and plans as a de facto nuclear power are concerned. The Indo-US Nuclear Deal concluded between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President George Bush allows India to separate its military and civilian nuclear facilities with only the latter being placed under IAEA safeguards. India, thus, has became the only non-nuclear weapons power that is free to pursue its nuclear weapons program without attracting sanctions or facing a ban on import of dual use technology items, something that it had faced ever since it exploded its first nuclear device, stymieing its efforts to generate power through the use of nuclear energy.

The imposing of the ENR items and technology ban by the G8 effectively re-imposes the ban on some critical dual use items and dilutes the Deal to some extent. The government, possibly caught on the back foot by this development, should have seen this and more coming ever since Obama got into the White House. Russia and France have reportedly signed agreements with India that permit India to reprocess imported nuclear fuel on its soil. But that may mean little if these members of the G8 individually refuse to overlook the very ENR ban that they have collectively imposed a few days back. Will they do it?

The real picture is likely to emerge only after India starts talks with the US on a reprocessing deal to operationalise the Deal. Will it be possible for the US to say one thing at the G8 and do exactly the opposite with India thereafter? Or will it cite the 123 Agreement to make an exception in the case of India? After extracting it pound of flesh, of course! The decision that the US takes will set the tone for all other members of the NSG. A negative for India decision by the US will inadvertently see China achieve without effort what it failed to do surreptitiously at the NSG meeting in Vienna last year.

The G8 statement needs to be seen in the light of the nuclear test carried out by North Korea on May 25, 2009, the nuclear program being pursued by Iran and the real danger of nuclear weapons and/or technologies falling into the hands of terrorists. These immediate concerns coupled with the pacifist vision of Barack Obama have resulted in the statement which may impact India adversely and make it appear as if India has blundered in entering into the Deal with the US. But if you look more closely, it will become clear that is not so.

Would India have been better off today had it not signed the Deal? The answer is unambiguously in the negative. Without the Deal, its nuclear weapons program would have remained as illegitimate as that of, say, North Korea or Pakistan and it would not have been able to get the nuclear power plants that it is planning to now, from any country, to generate 20,000 MW of power by 2020. Even if the ENR ban stays, for whatever reason, for some time, the situation will still be better than it was before the Deal was signed. At least with the Deal and the NSG approval in place, India has a solid and exclusive platform to work on; it had nothing earlier. And if India continues to outgrow the rest of the world economically, soon it will even have much better bargaining power than it has ever had till now.

Barack Obama's views on nuclear proliferation may, at worst, see some temporary erosion in a few provisions of the Indo-US Nuclear Deal that Dr Manmohan Singh was astute enough to insist on pushing through when Bush was US President. It is now on the alertness of India's leaders and their negotiating skills to ensure that such erosion is minimal. It is also important that Obama's position on the subject is viewed holistically and not narrowly as anti-India.

India also needs to remember that Obama will have at best eight years as President. The Deal will outlast him. And who knows how the next US President will look at things and what the global security scenario will be then, particularly in the light of China's furious efforts to build a strategic military capability to rival that of the US? Let us give Manmohan due credit. He did right in pushing the Deal, as time will tell.

SINGH IS THE PEOPLE'S KING

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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Readers may also read:
1. The Manmohan victory: time we got a President
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

BUSH SCORES OVER OBAMA STILL!

Barack Hussein Obama has completed 100 days in office and his honeymoon with the American people is not over yet. But Indians still love George W Bush, perhaps not as deeply as Dr Manmohan Singh told him when the two met last, but certainly more than they do Obama. Obama's successful visits to a number of countries, his bowing to greet the King of Saudi Arabia, his offer of talks with Iran, his almost winning over Hugo Chavez etc have not impressed Indians deeply yet, if the results of a poll on this page are to be believed.

"Will Obama be better for India than Bush?" This was the question that readers were asked to vote on. Of the 202 readers who voted, only 63(31%) said "Yes" while 89(44%) felt exactly the opposite. 34(16%) were not sure - "May be" - and there were 16(9%) good souls who did not hesitate to say that they were "Clueless!".

Evidently, Indians still remember the support that President Bush gave to India on the Indo-US Nuclear Deal to scuttle the efforts of China and Pakistan to influence the Nuclear Suppliers Group against it, and the personal interest he took to push it through the Congress before he left office. That one solid gesture of support that he showed for India makes him a very popular man here, perhaps the only place on the planet where he is not hated or ridiculed.

Barack Obama, on the other hand, has not yet demonstrated unequivocally that he too is India's friend. There is a certain uneasiness among Indians about his new Af-Pak policy for dealing with the serious problem that the US and even Pakistan faces from the Al Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan. His statement on Kashmir during his election campaign is the source of that suspicion. Although he has been careful not to link Kashmir with the ongoing war on terror in Af-Pak after becoming President, many analysts apprehend that he will quietly put pressure on India to make some concessions on the issue to enable Pakistan to concentrate fully on eliminating the increasing threat that it faces from the Taliban and Wahhabi type of Islam. If he falls for that dishonest Pakistani line, it will just not go down well with Indians. In fact it will simply not be acceptable.

My understanding is that he will soon realise, if he has not already, that any concession given by India to Pakistan over Kashmir will be projected as a victory of the jihadists, of Islam, over infidels. As a result, rather than reduce tensions between the two countries, it will lead to a surge in terrorist attacks in Kashmir and the rest of India, and also attract more young men to jihad. Both against India and the Great Satan, the US, in Afghanistan as well as the mainland. Perhaps the much maligned Bush had understood this basic fact early on. That is why he backed India unequivocally where he could, without appearing to be anti-Pakistan.

Obama will follow suit too. With American troops in Afghanistan and their supply lines running through Pakistan, the US cannot afford to appear to be anti-Pakistan. At least not yet. And when this is better understood by Indians, his popularity will perhaps far exceed that of Bush. The tone of his administration is already beginning to change; Pakistan's bluff is being increasingly called and results are being demanded. This is a development that needs to be watched very carefully.

Perhaps Obama should visit this country in the next few months. Whenever he does, there is little doubt that Indians will be bowled over by this visionary American President who has has caught the imagination of people of the whole world in a manner that has not been seen in recent history. He too will not go back without being profoundly affected by the people of the land of Gandhi, the great leader that he too admires.
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1 - 2 - 3... IT'S A DEAL!

My consistent support for the Indo-US Nuclear Deal had a commentator on my previous post accusing me of writing "a load of partisan garbage" and putting "party and idol worship ahead of country".

For once, I am proud to be so accused, now that the deal has finally cleared the last hurdle in the US, paving the way for signing of the 123 Agreement between India and the US within the next few days. All the dramatic twists and turns, the strong opposition that the deal faced both in the US and at the NSG meetings, and the reactions of our principal adversaries, China and Pakistan, should leave thinking Indians in no doubt that India has got for itself a game-changing deal that will put it in a different strategic league besides bringing in enormous economic and technology benefits.

The naysayers need to answer one simple question: what has India lost due to the deal that it had till now? It has nothing now, except the theoretical right to test a nuke bomb as a pariah state that has been living with debilitating sanctions for 34 years. What will it get due to the deal? It is going to get nuclear reactors from all countries that have the technology to build them; dual use technology will also be made available; Indian companies will over time get large orders to build and operate nuclear power plants; India will retain the right to enrich uranium for making bombs; its facilities already involved in the weapons program will remain closed to inspection as will new such facilities that India will build in the future. All this without signing the NPT or the CTBT.

What does India lose by signing the deal? Don't buy the partisan horse shit that the commies and the BJP are throwing around to attack the Prime Minister through it. CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat can do little better than call the deal "a complete surrender" to the US. So pathological is his hatred for capitalist US that he is completely blinded to the possibility of any good coming India's way from that country. That is just what the communist Chinese would expect from their "belly up" ideological comrades who take great pride in sounding more 'Chinese' than communist!

The BJP, which has covered itself with the slimy grime of partisan dishonesty and political pettiness, says that it will not hesitate to conduct another nuclear test "if the security situation and and scientific research needs so required" and that it will renegotiate the deal if it comes to power. What exactly it will renegotiate to make the deal an 'equal' deal is left either hazily vague or is indirectly addressed by criticising specific provisions related to the freedom to conduct nuclear tests in future.

Let us face one simple truth which has almost completely been ignored in this whole debate. India lost the 'right' to be recognised as a full-fledged nuclear weapon power state in the sixties itself. When China exploded its first bomb in 1964, India had the technological capability to respond, like Pakistan did when India exploded five bombs in 1998. But at that time, instead of taking that vital step to match China and force its way by right into the exclusive club, India was actually busy deflecting that challenge by mounting the weak and meek and moralistic non-proliferation horse and actually proposing an NPT!

As a result, it missed the January 1, 1967, deadline for exploding a nuke to be recognised as a member of that club that China had cleverly joined. So, when Indira Gandhi responded 10 years too late and pretended that Pokhran 1 was "a peaceful nuclear explosion", nobody bought that story and India's nuclear apartheid and membership of the large group of small, insignificant nations officially began.

Given this background and the prevailing global security situation where the dangers from nuclear proliferation are real and grave, it is nothing short of stupidity that can make anyone believe that India can be straightaway given a blank nuclear cheque when all others are denied even a small break - even if the US and a few others are convinced that India deserves and needs it. Despite that, what is the only real conditionality placed on India? If India unilaterally tests a nuclear bomb, there will be a review of the agreement and nuclear fuel supplies might be stopped.

After the blasts in 1998, Atal Bihari Vajpayee had publicly declared a unilateral moratorium on testing. Note that this was without getting anything in return. After the deal, that state continues, but with a big nuclear ticket in hand. Testing without the deal was impractical and the sanctions were hurting India. Testing after the deal is actually possible, should China or Pakistan do so, or under some other justifiable circumstances, without attracting any penalty if the US and others agree that the test is needed to meet India's genuine security requirements.

One can argue about whether the US will agree at all and that submitting to such a conditionality is compromising India's sovereignty. But before you do that, find an Indian leader who could have got you a better deal. Also ask whether it was in India's interest to remain in the state that it has been since 1964. It will then be crystal clear that should the BJP come to power after the forthcoming election, it will do little more than offer crafty explanations for living with this deal after making nominal efforts to 'renegotiate' it!

Just a few months back, many analysts had declared the deal dead, given the tremendous partisan political opposition it faced and their personal disposition towards Dr Manmohan Singh. Some media luminaries had, in fact, lambasted him for spoiling the 'malai'(cream) of greedy politicians due to his single-minded determination to push the deal by forcing a premature election, even though 'inflation was high'. For months he also braved their vicious barb that having never won an election in his life, he had no right to take away the comfort and 'perks' of power away from those who had.

To Dr Manmohan Singh what mattered most all through was the future of India; to many others what mattered was their individual present. By unwaveringly sticking to his vision, the PM has displayed the highest standards of leadership and the practical application of the ideal that, to the nation's leader, the country must always come first. In the process, he has secured his place in history as one of the great Prime Ministers of India. That was never his motivation, as a few small minds, unable to get out of muck of daily petty politics, had been alleging possibly to deflect him from his focus.

With this deal, Dr Manmohan Singh has nearly won back for India the nuclear 'war' it had lost timidly in 1964 to China. 44 years after that monumental defeat, and 34 years after India became a nuclear pariah, he has managed to recover for India almost all the ground it had lost thanks to a fudgy, moralistic and spineless world view not befitting a big country. The minor irritant of conditionality on future testing is actually a small price to pay for the benefits that will accrue to India in its efforts to claim its rightful place at the high table of world powers. Economically too there will be enormous benefits. According to one estimate, the deal will be worth $500 billion over the next 30 years.

Whichever way you look at it after putting down tinted glasses, the clear picture that emerges is that India has got a rare second shot to keep its tryst with destiny that it had all but missed decades ago. And for that, Dr Manmohan Singh deserves undiluted credit in full.

INDIA AND THE US: PARTNERSHIP OR SUBSERVIENCE?

When India finally got an exclusive waiver from the Nuclear Suppliers Group(NSG) to mark its all but formal entrance into the Nuclear Club, a wave of elation washed over most Indians, particularly because it was perhaps India’s first ever ‘victory’ over the Chinese. Never mind that it was Bush who forcibly pushed it down unwilling Chinese throats; India had something to crow about.

The waiver caused a sudden change in India’s forever bullied stance against incessant Chinese arrogance and its belittling of India at every available turn. The Chinese ambassador was served a demarche at 3 AM, its Foreign Minister on a visit to India was made to face some music, and India made public its displeasure and anger at the devious efforts that China made to scuttle the deal despite assurances to the contrary at the highest levels. After 46 years, India began re-growing a spine.

No one knows why Bush went out of his way to do for India what he did at Vienna. Everyone knows, of course, that the US is very keen to enter into an altogether unprecedented strategic relationship with India. While most believe that the Indo-US Nuclear Deal is a manifestation and almost the beginning of that strategic partnership, the BJP and the commies think that the deal will actually lead to “strategic subservience”.

The celebration of this new relationship that two sovereign nations have entered into in their perceived national interests has, in many quarters in India, acquired a different dimension altogether.

Many analysts and commentators have once again started mixing up the ‘social partnership’ that Indians have always had with the US with the strategic partnership that India is embarking upon now. It is perplexing, to say the least, to hear leading and otherwise well informed citizens say that India and the US are natural allies because a lot of Indians study and work in that country, many Indians in the US are leading academics, entrepreneurs, business leaders etc; Indians love all things American, including TV shows, fast food, rock stars, music – the American way of life, in sum. Because of all these social factors, they argue, the Americans can no longer treat India as it has done in the past; the nuclear deal is simply an extension of this reality!

If nations had been guided by such sentimental and essentially irrelevant considerations, this world would have been such a nice, happy family.

Stalin, arguably the most powerful Soviet leader was not a Russian. He was from Georgia. Today Georgia is an independent country at war with Russia and dying to join the NATO. Millions of Bangladeshis have found a home and life in India. Yet Bangladesh is happy to play host to anti-India terrorist outfits ranging from the ULFA to HUJI. Till not long ago, people of Western Europe were fighting each other in a manner that the world had never seen. Pakistanis have more in common with Indians than Indians have with Americans, yet they our implacable enemies who want to bleed us to death ‘with a thousand cuts’. The Taiwanese are all pure Chinese. Need more be said?

This mixing up of the social with the strategic is a malaise that afflicts perhaps Indians alone. And the celebration of this social interaction is where the real subservience lies. Indians are happy to praise and be in awe of all things American. Their aspiration ends at getting to America and doing well there; they are satisfied that in that success they have become minor/major ‘celebrities’ for folks back in India. Most importantly, they are more than content to play second fiddle to America and Americans.

Disturbingly, playing second fiddle has almost become a part of the psyche of Indians, thanks perhaps to centuries of colonial domination. It is not just the Americans who are benefiting from the Indians' lack of national ambition and pride. The Chinese have gained the most from it. Both India and China were at the same level of economic and military capabilities in the fifties. In 1962, India meekly accepted a humiliating military defeat and then just watched with indifference as China went leaps ahead over the next few decades to become an economic and military super power.

Today, it is difficult to spot an Indian who wants his country to recover lost ground and get to where China has reached. There is a ready, defeatist and passive acceptance of being beaten without a fight, and remaining a distant second best as a nation.

The BJP is wrong. India’s strategic subservience to the US is not going to become a reality because of the clauses included in the 123 Agreement or the Hyde Act. It will happen because of the appalling subservience that exists in the minds of Indians who as individuals simply love admiring and aping all things American, except the ones that generate the pride and patriotism that have made America the greatest nation in the world.

Indians just never get fired to beat the Americans as a nation, as it were, by scaling new heights of excellence collectively as Indians. Individually a few former Indians will excel in the US. That is not India, that is America excelling, while India remains mired in the mediocrity that makes second-rate nations. Unless this is understood and corrected, India will remain little more than a subservient tool in the strategic vision of America. And Indians will keep taking great pride in all things American, as if they were their own.
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IT'S TIME BJP EMBRACED NUCLEAR DEAL

The BJP is in a terrible bind. Of its own making. It has realised, just too late, that it has committed what may turn out to be it its greatest historical blunder by opposing the Indo-US Nuclear Deal. Dr Manmohan Singh, with a generous push from George Bush, has emerged triumphant as a PM whom the nation can blindly trust. How many Indian leaders would have staked their own chair for the sake of securing the nation’s interest? Mr LK Advani, on the other hand, has plummeted into the abyss meant for the many petty, selfish and greedy politicians who place their own interests above that of the nation.

Who does India need to thank for rightfully elevating Dr Manmohan Singh and exposing Mr Advani and the BJP? For once, the Chinese have inadvertently helped Indians to see the high ‘highs’ and the low ‘lows’ of India’s political landscape. Nail-biting and agonisingly protracted negotiations preceded the exceptional waiver that was finally granted to India by the Nuclear Suppliers Group(NSG) in Vienna. Till the last minute, there was opposition from some countries to the preferential treatment being given to India by way of a clean waiver, without it having signed the NPT and the CTBT.

At one point it appeared that the waiver would not come through. That was when the hidden hand of the Chinese was revealed. They had all along been lobbying quietly with 30 odd nations to ensure that India did not get the deal. The whole nation waited as President Bush spoke to the Chinese President and others to literally bulldoze them into a ‘unanimous’ agreement. When that finally happened in the last meeting of the NSG, the decision was tellingly greeted by silence, not clapping. In fact, the Chinese, finding that they had been exposed and defeated, chose to skip that final meeting where India emerged victorious and in another league altogether.

For really petty political considerations, spurred by greed to get into power prematurely by toppling the government, the BJP had been opposing the deal on many specious grounds, including that India’s sovereignty had been compromised. Indian communists had been saying exactly that for long. Although nobody was buying the BJP’s argument even then, the party was deluding itself into believing that its strategy of saying that it would re-negotiate the deal if it came to power was being swallowed by a gullible nation.

The Chinese have left the BJP with absolutely no place to hide. India’s commies are in any case expected to be, and were, consistent in placing ‘ideology’ over national interest even it means that they promote the interests of India’s biggest and intrinsically hostile neighbour and rival. But the BJP on the same side? A party that claims that it is a nationalist party also working against India’s interests just as the the Chinese were, only for petty political gain? That is a blot that the BJP will never be able to erase.

Already, the party is looking for a way out. Unfortunately, seeing the way some of its leaders have conducted themselves during the past few months, there is little doubt that it will again look for a less than honourable and a dishonest and devious way to make peace with what will prove to be a historic deal for this country.

Swapan Dasgupta has already started that process. Writing in The Times of India of September 10, 2008, he admits that the BJP “cannot escape the opprobrium for refusing to share India’s moment of glory last Saturday” and that the party is in the “bizarre predicament of appearing on the same side as China.” He further goes on to say that the party has to now accept the deal and deliberate how best it can use it to promote India’s interests if it comes to power next year.

Even before the 123 Agreement has been cleared by the US Congress, the US is saying that its next aim is to make India a “full partner” in the NSG as it believes that such a status for India is important from a “strategic, political, economic and energy standpoint.” India has not even thought that far ahead yet for itself, which gives a clear idea of the vacuum of strategic planning that exists at the highest levels in a hierarchy dominated by generalist career bureaucrats who have neither the ability nor the motivation to look beyond protecting cadre supremacy. Putting dysfunctional pettiness above national interest is a malaise that afflicts not just India’s politicians.

The enormous benefits that will accrue to India due to the Nuclear Deal are becoming increasingly visible. As India opens up for nuclear trade, it will generate worldwide business worth $40 billion. India plans to set up 24 imported nuclear power plants in the next 11 to 15 years. As per the CII, the NSG green signal has directly opened up opportunities worth Rs 1,20,000 crore for global and Indian firms over the next 15 years. The benefits of the waiver will also be visible in other hi-technology areas like pharma, space, defence, chemicals, robotics, engineering, electronics etc.

All these economic benefits will not worry the Chinese in the least. What concerns them is the fact that with this deal, India will be in a position to quickly address the hopeless asymmetry that exists between these two giant Asian countries in their nuclear weapon and delivery system capabilities. That is why they tried to sabotage the NSG waiver. They were sure that India was not bartering away its sovereignty and becoming a vassal state of the US. It is not believable that these elementary facts were not known to the BJP too. Yet, the party chose to place itself above the nation. That is about as close to treason as you can get without attracting the charge.

LK Advani missed a historic opportunity to be on the side of India when he forced the government to seek a confidence vote in Parliament on the issue, in the fond hope that the government would be defeated and he would become Prime Minister. That is a blunder from which neither he nor the BJP will recover in hurry. But, the party still does not appear to have learnt the right lesson.

The US is in the middle of a closely fought Presidential election. That has not prevented Obama from supporting the NSG waiver and the 123 Agreement, even though the hated Bush is going to claim all the credit for it. The US would probably never have become the great nation it is had its politicians not shown the wisdom to display honest bipartisanship where it mattered to the country. That is one lesson that India needs to learn in a hurry.

It is no doubt too late for the BJP to recover anything from the wreckage of its stand on the Nuclear Deal. But that is no reason for it to compound its folly by adopting a deviously distorted stance that pretends to justify its opposition to the deal while making grudging peace with it. Arun Shourie is a master without parallel at dissecting every alphabet in a text. Unfortunately, in doing so, he sometimes loses sight of the big picture that matters. That is what his party needs to look at now.

The BJP will do itself and the country great good if it accepts and unflinchingly embraces and celebrates the Nuclear Deal. It is time for the party to manfully accept that it made an honest mistake. That is only way for it minimise the self inflicted damage to its image. Unfortunately, the dismal record of India’s politicians suggests that the BJP will continue to indulge in petty nit picking and wind up harming itself even more.

Let us see whether LK Advani can show some real bipartisan leadership and a bit of statesmanship even at this late stage.

This post was also published by Reuters.com

IT'S A KING'S DEAL AT VIENNA!

After days of agonisingly difficult negotiations with the Nuclear Suppliers Group(NSG) in Vienna, India has got the Deal. Is it a sell out to the US as the Communists and even the BJP claim or is it a historic deal, as Dr Manmohan Singh thinks it is?

For most who do not either understand the fine intricacies of the Indo-US Nuclear Deal or do not wholly buy the statements of Indian politicians, the litmus test is simple. Just look at who is opposing the deal and you will know where the truth lies.

It has now emerged that China had been quietly lobbying hard with at least 30 members of the NSG to ensure that India does not get the unprecedented, unconditional waver that it finally has. The other country who had been in league with the Chinese to see to it that this meeting of the NSG ended without the unanimity needed to push the deal through was, you guessed it, Pakistan.

Had the Chinese succeeded, it is possible that India’s nuclear isolation would have continued for long. With President Bush, due to whose relentless push the NSG finally came around, demitting office in a couple of months, this ok was critical so that Bush could get the Congress to give its approval to the Deal during his Presidency.

The Chinese were acutely aware that India’s commies were perfectly aligned with them in their opposition to the deal. One can keep arguing about the reasons behind that coincidence but the harsh fact cannot be ignored. Then, they had an unexpected stroke of luck when India’s supposedly ‘nationalist’ party, the BJP, chose to prefer petty politics over national interest, and started speaking in the voice of India’s communists.

Had this deal not been sealed with the NSG in Vienna, with elections due in India, there was a strong possibility that this ‘tide in the affairs of men’ would have been missed forever. This was a very small window in which everything was falling in place in favour of India, including the personal commitment of the US President, supported by his administration. The Chinese knew that had they succeeding in shutting India out in Vienna today, lack of political consensus in India would have ensured that India would have remained out in the cold for a long time.

Fortunately for India, Bush also knew what the Chinese knew and he moved swiftly and decisively to shut them out and get the NSG to open the doors for India. It is only because of the intense pressure generated by him that China finally retracted its concealed fangs and the other countries who were strongly opposed to the deal caved in today. While we may justifiably claim the credit for this success, it is worth remembering that it is Bush who finally swung it around for us.

The significance of the unconditional waver give by the NSG to India can also be gauged from the telling fact that the stung Chinese stayed away from the NSG meeting today. Surely the Chinese are not upset because India will now be able to generate 20,000 MW of power by 2020 by setting up more nuclear power plants!

This deal has grave long term implications for China, a fact well known to them, even though India has not spoken about it. India today has joined the big league of nuclear powers by getting them to open their firmly shut doors to let in India alone. Now, India can legitimately and legally pursue its goal of building a credible strategic nuclear capability which will radically alter the hopelessly skewed balance of power between India and China.

Till now, China, which had raced ahead and achieved the status of the one and only unchallenged military power in Asia, was beyond India's reach. Till now, India had no hope in hell of closing the huge nuclear gap between the two nations to a level of acceptable comfort and credible deterrence. Till now, India was hopelessly vulnerable to China’s possible future designs on Arunachal Pradesh and other bits of Indian territory claimed by it for long.

From now on, India can access technology and materials to quickly regain the position that it had meekly and, it must be said, foolishly surrendered to its intrinsically hostile neighbour. From now on, should it finally choose to, and as it should have done long back, India can stop benchmarking its strength against a small country one third its size.

India’s commies, due to ideological loyalties, and the BJP, due to political pettiness, are shouting hoarse that India has sold out to the US. India, they say, has surrendered its sovereign right to conduct nuclear tests in future. It has to be lack of intelligence and/or blatant intellectual dishonesty that can make someone make that kind of statement. Which country is going to give India a carte blanche to explode nuclear bombs without a serious reaction from the rest of the world and a possible collapse of the NPT regime?

Let us be real. India has already pledged not to carry out further tests voluntarily. Yet, it reserves its sovereign right to carry out further test should a need arise. Similarly, other countries reserve their sovereign right to react in the manner they deem fit, should India choose to explode a device in future. This imposes a certain responsibility on India to desist from doing so on a whim or to make an irresponsible political statement to its internal constituency. Considering the kind of leaders that India is throwing up within striking distance of the PM’s chair, that danger is very real.

Therefore, if a situation arises in future that necessitates a nuclear test, India will carry it out as a responsible nuclear power, after consultations with the Americans and others. If that constraint is unacceptable to the BJP, then that party is not fit to run this country. If it is just posturing for political gain, then it is even more unfit to govern.

Dr Manmohan Singh deserves all the praise for taking on the entire opposition and even the hungry-for-power-at-all-costs members of his own party to see the success signal from Vienna. No NPT, no CTBT. This so called lame-duck, ‘nikamma’ Prime Minister who many said was the weakest PM India has ever had, has got a victory for India that every Indian can be proud of. It is indeed a historic victory which will catapult India into the big league where it should have been three decades back and where it most definitely belongs in the 21st century.

Singh, you indeed are King.
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SINGH - KING, MANMOHAN - DHANMOHAN

Singh is now officially King. The politician by accident is now the consummate strategist. The lame-duck Prime Minister is now the ‘I'll-take-the-duck’ PM. Manmohan, the one who attracts others with his qualities, may now also have become ‘Dhanmohan’, the one who does the same with his money.

Dr Manmohan Singh was never like he was in the few days before he faced a Confidence Vote on July 22, 2008. The surprising spring in his stride, his never before seen body language exuding supreme confidence, and his emphatic thumbs up as well as victory signs flashed with real purpose to TV cameras, were clear signs that he had managed to get the magic numbers of MPs required to get that vote required to push the Indo-US Nuclear Deal through. And when the vote did take place, after Parliament had been disgraced by the flashing of bribe money in the House, Manmohan Singh signalled to the whole world that he had, finally, arrived as the determined and decisive Prime Minister nobody ever thought he was.

To be fair to Dr Manmohan Singh, he had more limitations and constraints placed on his functioning as the PM than any PM has had so far. To begin with, he got the job solely because he was handpicked by the real leader of the Congress, Sonia Gandhi, when she found that her foreign origins were going to make it impossible for her to become and remain the PM. The party was with Sonia, not with the PM. As if this was not a bad enough constraint, his government was completely dependent on the Left for its survival.

Manmohan proved to be the perfect choice as far as Sonia was concerned. They made and ran a great team in which there was never a danger that needless and dysfunctional suspicion and difference of opinion would derail the trust that they both had in each other.

It was the Left that almost succeeded in pushing Manmohan into historical obscurity by just not letting him get on with the task of implementing key economic reforms that are vital if India has to get into the next orbit of progress and prosperity. The economic dream team of Manmohan, Chidambaram and Ahluwalia could do little but dream about the day when they would actually be able to get a real move on. That stagnant situation for which the country has already paid a price would perhaps have continued till the elections next year. And, Dr Manmohan Singh would have then quickly faded away into obscurity, with all the charges made by Advani against him, the ‘nikamma’(no-good, worthless) PM, sticking forever like glue.

The nuclear deal that Manmohan signed with Bush was one achievement that he was convinced would earn him a place in history. But, there was little hope that it would go through, given the extremely hostile and unwavering stance of the Left and the equally extremely ridiculous negative stance of the BJP which placed petty political opportunity above national interest as seen by it. Then there was the demand to abort the deal from his own party men who did not want to risk losing out on power for even a single day, and certain media luminaries who shared their view. Almost any other ‘strong’ PM would have given in and forgotten about the deal in the face of such a relentless storm. Less than a month back, when all efforts to get the Left on board failed as they had to, almost everyone in India was convinced that Manmohan had indeed succumbed, once again, and that the deal was dead.

“They wanted to veto every single step of the negotiations which was not acceptable. They wanted me to behave as their bonded slave.” These were the strong and truthful words that Dr Manmohan Singh used in his reply to the motion of confidence on July 22, 2008. He was not allowed to deliver this speech by the opposition and had to place a written copy in the House.

That is really what the Left did to the government for more than four years and got away with it. For more than four years, the Prime Minister of the largest democracy in the world, the leader of more than a billion people was treated as a ‘bonded slave’ by a small, regional political group with proven extra-national loyalties based on an ideology that has been disgraced and dumped globally. For more than four years, leaders of this small group displayed unacceptable arrogance and irresponsibility, as they almost completely paralysed the government while pretending to support it imperiously from outside. For more than four years, these commies of India got away with murder even as, perhaps because, they refused to take any responsibility for governance or the decisions of the government by declining to be a part of it.

This blackmail and pressure that the commies, and to some extent other smaller parties too, resorted to raises the fundamental question about whether the present Parliamentary form of democracy is responsive to India’s unique social and political dynamics and whether there is an urgent need to holistically examine this issue. I have been arguing in this blog for long that this system has failed to deliver to the people of India what it was meant to, and that fundamental changes need to be made without further delay. It is time our leaders sat down and applied their minds to this seemingly intractable problem before it is too late.

By taking the fight into the commie camp and emerging triumphant, Dr Manmohan Singh has, in one surgical stroke, dispelled all notions about him as a man, a politician and a leader. Singh has proved that he is truly king, as the name and title track of the new Bollywood film, “Singh is Kinng”, loudly proclaim. But this crown is not the spotless one that one would imagine a man like Manmohan Singh wearing.

The shocking visuals of bribe money being flashed in Parliament, to cap the grave allegations that monetary and other inducements were being given in a shameless manner to secure the support/ abstention of MPs belonging to opposition parties, have sullied Manmohan’s name to some extent. He was well on the way into the hearts of most sensible Indians by his principled fight against the Left and the BJP. But, the way he first joined hands – had no choice really under the circumstances – with the Samajwadi Party whose USP is entering into and brokering sordid monetary deals, and then allowed dubious means to be used to secure a majority vote, took the sheen away from his well deserved victory.

It was a victory that was required by India. It could also have been a victory of the principles and the dignity and the superior human values that Manmohan represented. Unfortunately, the latter did not quite happen. Manmohan did become as sort of Dhanmohan for those few days before the vote took place. May be there was no choice. May be Manmohan was himself not involved in such deals, though at the very least, he was guilty of having knowingly looked the other way. Fortunately for him, the person accused of giving the bribe money displayed in Parliament was Amar Singh of the Samajwadi Party.

Even Dharmraj Yuddhishthir, the always truthful, spotless upholder of Dharma, was guilty of consciously uttering a misleading statement, if not an outright lie, to get Dronacharya to drop his weapons, which was the only way to kill him, on the battlefield of Mahabharat. Perhaps Dr Manmohan Singh has done more than that. But, a slip or two on the battlefield against a treacherous enemy is not enough to diminish his stature and belittle his terrific tenacity to do what he honestly believes is right and good for the country, no matter what the cost.

What the PM does in the next few months available to him to undo the colossal damage that the power-drunk commies caused to India while treating him as a bonded labour, will determine the real quality of the steel that he has shown he has, to the surprise of all. For now, there is little doubt that Singh is really King.

NUCLEAR DEAL: DO YOU HAVE IT IN YOU MR ADVANI?

Mr Lal Krishna Advani, once you had shown to the nation a glimpse of your ability to rise above the ordinary, to take that leap from the murky world of India’s politicians to the respected realm of its statesmen. For that bold and healing action, you paid a heavy political price, with the maximum opposition coming from within your own party.

Not many in India will have the courage to speak about the secular part of Jinnah’s soul. No doubt Jinnah is to blame for it but it requires rare courage and honesty to acknowledge and salute the secularist in Jinnah and that too in his mausoleum in Pakistan. You showed those fine traits during your visit to Pakistan, not knowing then that most human beings not only lack the ability to rise above the ordinary and banal themselves, they also are unable to comprehend someone else who takes steps to do so.

The Indo-US Nuclear Deal was a heaven-sent opportunity for you to show the world, perhaps even yourself, that your ability to view events and individuals with detached honesty and on sheer merit, as you saw it, was real and consistent, and that the inspirational moment in Karachi was not an aberration. Regrettably Mr Advani, this time you have failed not only yourself but have also let the nation down in an almost unpardonable manner. That is not something that is expected from perhaps the most dominant candidate vying for the PM’s chair.

India is watching with shame and horror as some politicians are blatantly behaving worse than prostitutes. They seem to have totally forgotten that they are meant to responsibly represent the will of the people in Parliament. The impending confidence motion in Parliament has brought out the worst in individuals and parties across the political spectrum. The deal is totally out of the frame. It is only personal enrichment, blackmail and some of the most unashamed turnarounds ever witnessed in India’s history that have occupied centre stage.

For letting this situation arise in the first place and then allowing all and sundry to shamelessly exploit it, you have to take full responsibility. Your culpability, Mr Advani, in this disgraceful failure of legitimate democratic processes and the bipartisanship that is the need of the hour is something that may well haunt you for a long time, if your conscience has not been completely clouded by your burning ambition to displace Dr Manmohan Singh, whatever it takes.

If Karan Thapar is to be believed, and there is no reason to doubt his spotless integrity, you had given your ok to the deal in person to the Prime Minister himself, way back in December 2007(Hindustan Times, July 20,2008). But, later you backed out under pressure from your colleagues. Your caving in to petty political considerations, even though your colleague Jaswant Singh had also earlier found the deal to be worth complimenting the government for, is not something that you can forgive yourself for, Mr Advani, particularly because this decision of yours has exposed the terribly ugly underbelly of India’s politicians.

You must be licking your lips in anticipation of what appears to be the imminent fall of the UPA government because it just might get you to the chair you have been eyeing for a long time. The possibility of getting there a few months earlier has got you and your party, the largest after the Congress, to activate your own department of really dirty tricks to work overtime to ensure that the government falls on July 22, 2008. In your blind obsession to get to power quickly, you are doing no better than those who are looking for the highest bidder to purchase their vote. They are blinded by money, you are blinded by chair.

Just two days to go for the confidence vote. Just two days for you too, Mr Advani, to show that you really have it in you to rise above scum and take a call based on your honest, bipartisan judgement. It is time you opened a new chapter in India’s politics by placing the nation above your party and yourself. So what if it is Dr Manmohan Singh and not you or your party that has got this deal through? A responsible and visionary leader will be the first to applaud his political opponent for a great job done. A petty opposition leader who believes that his political opponents are actually enemies who have to be opposed no matter what the cost to the image of the nation and its politicians, will do what you and your party are doing.

This vote in Parliament is going to be perhaps the defining moment in your life and career, Mr Advani. You do not have age on your side to help you rectify the horrendous blunder that you are making now. In fact, rather than get you to that coveted chair that Dr Manmohan Singh now adorns with rare dignity, this vote may well cause great revulsion against you and generate sufficient negative energy to snatch it away from you, even though it was possibly yours before this decision of yours that has unleashed most unacceptable and shameful developments.

Mr Advani, you have very little time to undo the enormous damage that you have already done to your image and the perception that many people had about your personal honesty and integrity. To do a volte face at this very late stage may look like political hara kiri. If you can muster enough courage and have the strength of character to say and do what you should have long back, you may actually wind up being politically resurrected and being subsequently placed in the Hall of Fame reserved for the really few great leaders that this country has produced. Just remember one thing: nobody, means nobody, in this country is buying yours and your party’s stated position on the nuclear deal; everybody is watching carefully the mockery that all of you are making of the institution of democracy. There will be a heavy price to pay.

This is your last chance to break away from and rise above the rest. This may be your last chance to show that you value your statesmanship far more than your manipulative political skills. Can you do it? Mr Lal Krishna Advani, do you have it in you? Are you going to be deserving of the real ‘Lal Salam’ that had earlier been hijacked by the commies and that has now degenerated to a sorry ‘Dalal Salam’?

CONGRESS: FROM SICKLE TO CYCLE

Look at the irony. Perhaps the only thing about the UPA government that will be remembered and that it can proudly claim as an achievement in the five years that it has been in power is the only decision it has taken, after much dithering, ignoring the uncompromising ideological opposition of the commies.

The most unnatural marriage of the mongoose and the snake is, finally, over. Unfortunately for the country it has come four years too late. Four years is a long time for a nation to lose to the blackmail of an ideological snake hell bent on paralysing a government with the threat of venom strong enough to kill it. The mongoose was never going to be comfortable sleeping with its arch enemy, but it still kept faking orgasms, even though it suffered humiliation upon humiliation. For what? For hanging on to power, no matter what it cost the nation.

Now that the marriage between the Congress and the commies is over bar the formalities, the Congress will get some time to sit back and objectively assess that this was a marriage of losses only. Nothing good came of it at all, either for the Congress or, and that is of greater concern to ordinary Indians, to the country. The dream economic team of Dr Manmohan Singh, P Chidambaram and Montek Singh Ahluwalia remained just that: dream team. It kept dreaming but was not allowed to push through a single worthwhile reform thanks to the commies who are still stuck in the era of the Mao and Stalin.

Who suffered? Not the commies, who were clever enough to shirk responsibility by not joining the government while retaining in full the power to dictate what they wanted. It was the Congress that paid the price, getting routed in election after election in various states across the country. Yet, no one in the party had the guts to call the marriage off, because that meant losing power.

Thanks to a determined Prime Minister who refused to give in to commie blackmail and staked his prestige to push through the Indo-US Nuclear Deal, the Congress has been forced to bite the bullet and put the commies in their place on the unwanted extremities of India’s political landscape, the only place they have to be in if India has to decisively move forward with the speed that is required for it to catch up with China. Simultaneously, to ensure that the heady brew of power is not lost for even a day, the party has gone in for what till a few days back seemed to be a most unlikely political realignment.

After throwing away the commie sickle, Sonia Gandhi has been forced to step off her stately limousine and hitch a ride on Mulayam Singh Yadav’s lowly cycle (the election symbol of the SP). For years, Mulayam Singh and his deputy Amar Singh, were political, even social, untouchables for the Congress. That made the commies doubly powerful and rendered the government totally impotent. After four torturous years with the Left, it is not just the Prime Minister’s position on the Nuclear Deal that is responsible for getting Mulayam and Sonia to ride a cycle together.

The Congress has realised that the magic that the party had expected with the entry of Rahul Gandhi into active politics has actually turned out to be some sort of a nightmare. The Prime Minister in waiting of the Congress has simply failed to enthuse voters, particularly the youth, anywhere in the country, and the party has faced an unbroken string of electoral defeats in the last couple of years. The situation in UP, the home turf of the Nehru-Gandhi family, is actually desperate.

With only about an 8 per cent share of the votes in UP, and no new voters being attracted to the party, the Congress has absolutely no hope of bettering its performance in the ensuing Lok Sabha elections. Mayawati has taken away all dalit votes in UP, and is in the process of doing so in other states too. An alliance with her, as I had warned even last year, means death. Mulayam’s SP, on the other hand, has taken away most of the Muslim votes, leaving the Congress with the votes of only the old and dying who will vote for the party no matter what, just as they have been doing since perhaps the first elections in Independent India.

Unlike Mayawati, Mulayam Yadav is, and will remain, a regional strongman confined mostly to UP. He does not threaten the Congress in other states. So, a pre-poll alliance with him in UP might prove to be beneficial to the Congress. At any rate, it will not harm the party like a tie-up with Mayawati will. That seems to be broadly the logic driving the Congress desperately into the arms of its latest honeymoon partner.

Mulayam Yadav, humbled by Mayawati in the last elections, can more than do with even the few additional votes that an alliance with the Congress might bring, helping him to emerge with more than the 39 MPs that he has now. Who knows, with the way the Congress is losing ground everywhere, that might just get him to the PM’s chair, with the Congress supporting him. That possibility will be galling to the Congress, and that may be one reason why it had been avoiding getting into bed with the SP till now.

The two national parties, Congress and BJP, have both lost considerable ground in India’s largest state. Mayawati and Mulayam have, between them, taken away their voters. And the situation is not likely to be any different within the next six months. The challenge before both of them, therefore, is how to reclaim their lost space. That is going to take a lot of hard work and a much better people-connect, along with the usual and overblown caste combos.

In UP at least, the Congress and the BJP have to realise that they are no longer fighting each other, and that trying to do that there in the next elections is only going to be mutually destructive. They both have to get their guns out for Mayawati and Mulayam if they want to have any chance of getting back into centre space. The Congress is, unfortunately, so weak that it has seems to have decided that it needs to be on life support, and for that it has chosen the lesser of the two evils, the ‘liquid oxygen’ of the old Ajit joke: the liquid will not let it live and the oxygen will not let it die. If the BJP similarly ties up with Mayawati, it will find itself with only liquid and no oxygen!

Notwithstanding what happens after the next elections, one thing is clear: the Congress has taken far too long to dump the sickle for the cycle. Had the commies been put in place much earlier, this government would have had a lot more to claim credit for besides the Indo-US Nuclear Deal. When the focus is on petty politics as a tool for pursuing political gamesmanship and not on healthy politics as a tool for delivering better governance, such blunders will continue to be made at great cost to the nation.