A CRUCIAL "THREE IN ONE" WEEKEND Author - VT Joshi

By an interesting configuration of stars three major national events overlapped and virtually rocked the country over a crucial weekend early this month (March 2003) as few events have in the recent past. "Three-in-one", as a popular cliché goes. Jaswant Singh's maiden budget coincided with the assembly elections in Himachal and three states in the northeast, and both were overshadowed by crazy cricket.

Most important among them and of considerable political significance was the Himachal election result, which has at least partly reversed the disastrous Gujarat trend towards brutalized Hindutva of Modi and Tagodia brands. The Gujarat assembly election results, barely four months ago, had gone to the head of the Sangh Parivar, especially the extremist elements in Vishwa Hindu Parishad. The electorate of the tiny Himalayan state has given a befitting reply which should knock some sense into them. It has shown that India extends well beyond Gujarat. It is far too vast and complex and complicated a country to admit of extremist ideology of any hue or colour.

By the same token the Congress party, which has recorded a good showing in the Himachal poll, must not allow it to go to its head and resist the temptation to believe that it has already "conquered" the country on its own strength and jaded secular slogans.

The plain fact is that it is the people of Himachal Pradesh who have defeated the Bharatiya Janata party despite its feverish attempts to claim that it was not a vote against Hindutva but only a reflection of the so-called anti-incumbency factor besides internal "factional feuds" and (unstated) corruption. The BJP contradicts itself when it says that it has given good governance to the people of Himachal Pradesh through good roads and clean administration abysmally absent elsewhere, and rues that yet they voted against it. Ironically it is at pains to blame its defeat on its own factional rivalries --obviously in a desperate attempt to "save" itself, at least partly, from the "stigma" of rejection by the people of a discredited extremist ideology. The people have indeed tried to save the BJP from itself. It is for the party to sit up and reflect calmly. The BJP must realize that it is doomed if it follows the path of senseless, brutalized Hindutva overtly or covertly.

The party also conveniently forgets that its regime in HP was born in sin. The sin of inaugurating its regime, after the 1998 elections, in association with the likes of Sukhram who had been dropped like plague by all parties including the Congress after grave charges of corruption against him -- and against whom the BJP itself had earlier held the parliament to ransom for risen above the narrow confines of religious extremism on the one hand and, on the other, reduced Sukhram's party to a "one-man" show in the recent polls. (Incidentally Sitaram Yechury, the incorrigible Marxist star in the fading world of communism, says the Marxist party has retained power in distant Tripura because it has "linked itself to the people" while other parties like the BJP and Congress have "linked themselves to moneybags"!).

The real test and challenge before the Congress party, indeed before the whole nation, lies in the assembly elections, due later this year, in four prominent states - the national capital of Delhi and Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh and Rajasthan in the so-called northern cow-belt. The cow has already become an electoral tool in these regions. The most important political parties in the fray are vying with each other to curry the bovine favour. In Madhya Pradesh it is feared that shades of communal frenzy and disturbing incidents are likely to recur in one form or another till the assembly polls in November this year.

ANTI-HINDU TRAP

The Congress, as the principal opposition party bidding for power, has to beware of the trap being laid by the BJP to show it in a poor light as an "anti-Hindu party", a label that seemed to help Narendra Modi and Tagodia to win the Gujarat poll handsomely. Deputy Prime Minister L. K. Advani's bait to the Congress to support it on issues like anti-cow slaughter bill, uniform civil code, Ayodhya, women's reservation bill, terrorism as a national threat etc. is apparently designed to confront it with a Hobson's choice.

A case in point, for instance, was the wanton controversy over a portrait of V. D. Savarkar in the central hall of parliament -- which none should have objected since he was undoubtedly a great revolutionary and brave son of India whatever his views on various other ticklish issues might have been under the circumstances obtaining in his time. As Shivraj Patil, a veteran Congressman, unlike the present-day lesser breed of his partymen, pointed out in defence of having "not objected" to it in the concerned committee meeting, it was never the policy of the party to oppose putting up the portraits of political adversaries and he cited the instance of Jayprakash Naryan's portrait in the central hall. By thoughtlessly opposing Savarkar's portrait in the Central Hall of Parliament the Congress has virtually walked into the anti-Hindu trap.

Caught between the leftists who have precious little to lose and the right wing BJP which is presently a formidable ruling coalition, the Congress finds itself on the horns of a cruel dilemma. Accused of following what is derisively called "soft hindutva", on the one hand, and "anti-Hindu", on the other, it lacks bold and mature leadership which can stand up to both and take a balanced path forcefully. It is ludicrous to call it a "soft Hindutva" party or the "B team of the BJP", as it has become fashionable to say, all because of Sonia Gandhi's visit to temples. She as well as her ardent but largely sycophantic supporters lack the courage to retort sharply and ask their detractors if they want her to abuse Hindus day in and day out to prove her party's secular credentials.

It is the greatest tragedy of the country that great religions like Hinduism and Islam have been so disgustingly vulgarized that both have become terms of abuse and misuse in sharply polarized rival political camps led by pygmies hell bent on dividing the polity.

A DREAM-LOST BUDGET

The second most important event was his maiden Union budget presented by Finance Minister Jaswant Singh in his inimitable, robotic style. As in the past it once again proved that economics and poverty are too serious a matter to be left to economic experts to tackle. They keep on harping on terms like fiscal deficit, inflation, and subsidies only to confound the common people. Thanks to media's and inventive energy the budget has been variedly, indeed flamboyantly, described as a populist budget, feel-good budget, please-all budget, pre-poll budget and so on. A close scrutiny, after the media-sponsored euphoria evaporates, indicates that it is none of them, nor is it a poor man's budget much less a capitalist endeavour. As always, budgets are a device meant to rob Peter to pay Paul, and, in the bargain, the government feathers its own nest for itself. As a wag remarked, if at all it is it is truly a populist budget to help the poor and garner their votes let there be an election every year!

A CRAZY OBSESSION

The third most important factor that continues to disturb and baffle is the hysterical craze for cricket and the world cup. "We do not want this kind of madness", the players themselves are quoted to beseech their rowdy fans given to hooliganism. It is the media which created a sort of hysteria through its highly commercialized cricket coverage for weeks and months in advance. "Think it over", the players themselves have also pleaded. They have also contributed to the mess in no small measure with their lure of the lucre in the shape of tons of ad-money. For instance, the best of them, Sachin Tendulkar, the brightest star of the cricketing world, has thoroughly debased himself by lending his name and face to promote all kinds of substandard products in silly, senseless, humiliating advertisements. It should therefore be no surprise that the team, praised sky high in season and out of season, rues when it finds itself at the receiving end. This is not to condone the miscreants among the fans and emotive public but only to put the matter in a proper perspective.

Tailpiece

A Times of India editorial aptly remarked that during the Indo-Pak world cup cricket match at Centurion Park President Bush could have invaded Iraq or Musharraf could have attacked India, and nobody would have noticed or cared. The whole of the Indian subcontinent was so obsessed and engrossed with it. It reminds one of a brilliant British film "Seven times Seven" made some years ago. It is a story of how seven convicts conspire to escape from prison, go to the Bank of England and hurriedly manage to print currency notes for a million pounds, and rush out to bury the counterfeit at a secure place before returning to the prison safely. And all this was done within the pace of a keenly fought soccer match which the entire British nation was so totally engrossed in watching that nobody noticed anything else.

VT Joshi

14 March 2003

VT JOSHI (1925-2008) worked for more than fifty years as a journalist. He retired from THE TIMES OF INDIA in 1989. During 1985-89 he was the Special Correspondent of THE TIMES OF INDIA in Pakistan. His books "PAKISTAN: ZIA TO BENAZIR" and "INDIA AT CROSS ROADS" (co-author GG Puri) were widely reviewed in both India and Pakistan.

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