K for Kosovo; K for Kashmir?

"We have taken note of the Unilateral Declaration of Independence by Kosovo. There are several legal issues involved in this Declaration. We are studying the evolving situation. It has been India's consistent position that the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries should be fully respected by all states. We have believed that the Kosovo issue should have been resolved through peaceful means and through consultation and dialogue between the concerned parties."

In other words, India has nothing to say. Yet again, an important world event is unfolding before our very eyes and we do not have anything to add to the diplomatic dialogue. The urge to obfuscate, to avoid looking other nations in the eye and to act only in half measures is taking us nowhere. At present, India is negotiating a nuclear deal with the Unites States, developing missiles with Russia, building a gas pipeline from Iran, buying long range radar from Israel, sending Prime Ministers to Cuba and holding joint military exercises with China. To become a superpower, India must take part in the power game. And there is no way one can play a game without choosing sides.

This one time, however, the diplomats have a real riddle on their hands. On the international front, the situation demands that India indicate its choice between the two (still extant and recently regrouping!) power clubs led by America and Russia. At home, the Left is pressing the Indian government to do whatever irks America the most. And worst of all, we cannot help wondering whether something similar could happen in Kashmir.

And that is where it gets interesting. If India sides with most of Europe and America in recognizing Kosovo as a sovereign nation, what’s there to say that these same Western countries would not welcome the secession of Kashmir from the Indian Republic? If India joins Russia and China in decrying the obvious, free will of the people of Kosovo, isn’t it a virtual admission of our ‘guilt’ over Kashmir?

The Oracle opines that India should strive to avoid giving such impressions. There are many ways in which one might arrive at that conclusion. First, the Chinese, who haven’t taken kindly to Kosovo, will support an independent Kashmir anyway, or for that matter, anything that hurts Indian interests. Secondly, as I have said before, Kosovo could serve as a toy ground for India to try out power games; we have to start somewhere, don’t we? And finally, the risk of secession of Kashmir is minimal and India should have the confidence to make a clear distinction between Kosovo and Kashmir. For instance, while Kashmir is integral to the democratic institutions in India, Kosovo has been ruled under a separate UN mandate ever since the fall of Slobodan Milosevic.

Furthermore, since the ‘Kashmir’ refers not only to the parts held by India, but also the whole of PoK, the creation of a separate nation can only occur through agreement between the two countries. Also, unlike Kosovo, Kashmir lacks an independent legislature that could take such outrageous action: for it is clubbed with both Ladakh and Jammu.

It will soon be election time in Jammu and Kashmir. The inexorable father-son duo of Farooq and Umar Abdullah are haranguing the Kashmiri people with promises of “autonomy”. If Farooq had the force of will needed to take such a gigantic step, he would have done so on one of the myriad occasions before when India was much more vulnerable. And worst comes to worst, India has an imposing military presence in Kashmir that can deal with any eventuality.

Unfortunately, none of this will solve the very real problem of alienation in the minds of the people of Kashmir. It is very easy to talk about banal things like “building schools, colleges, hospitals, factories”. Indians, just like elsewhere in the democratic world, are addicted to a feeling of guilt and we need to dig out of it. The reason that there are no “schools, colleges or hospitals” in the first place is that A) Kashmir is located in difficult terrain that will always be one step behind in development B) The politics of the region has been dominated by fake nationalism and later been hijacked by fundamentalism. As long as the government does not give in to deliberate prejudices over developing Kashmir and deals firmly with anti-India forces, India can have a clear conscience.

What's next for Pakistan?

Two things were certain even before the elections in Pakistan were held; one, that the people would vote against their unpopular President/General and two, that the outcome of this election would have very little impact on the country, if any at all. Even so, a segment of the Pakistani people came out and voted with conviction on Feb 18, while a larger disaffected remainder stayed indoors, even though so much was at stake. The Oracle salutes those who persevered in democracy and tries to understand why numerous others did not share their convictions.

1. The greatest surprise of this election was that there was no foul-play on the part of Musharraf’s regime. There is no doubt that the President could have used strong arm tactics to rig the election had he so desired. The fact that Musharraf chose not to take this option offers us a window into his personal mind.

For one, his credibility had touched an all time low… the power brokers in Washington, who had long been conditioned to make generous gifts of money and material to Islamabad had begun to question openly the merits of their foreign policy towards Pakistan. After Sept 11, Musharraf toiled hard to maintain the impression that he was indispensable to the United States. In many ways, that was the only political capital he had. But of late, President Bush’s term was coming to an end and America’s confidence was beginning to waver. What Musharraf had never calculated was that the US would complain loudly over his decision to impose emergency. As the days passed, he looked less and less like America’s key ally in the war on terror and more and more like a tinpot dictator from somewhere in Africa. Perhaps, that is when President Musharraf, who has no friends left in his own country, lost nerve.

Accordingly, he promised the world that the emergency would be the “shortest ever in the history of Pakistan” and he had no choice but to live up to his promise. As such allegations that he had held a sham election were the last thing he wanted.

Perhaps one more reason that Musharraf decided to go through with a free and fair election was the fact that Benazir Bhutto was no longer in the way. Whether the President had something to do with her death remains open to speculation. Most certainly, Nawaz Sharif is still around, but Musharraf has trashed Sharif so many times before that he felt fairly confident of winning another one against him. But Benazir had charisma; she had caught the imagination of the people and most importantly, Benazir was a darling of the West! After the elections, a victorious Bhutto, who enjoyed a great rapport with the US and England, would have been hard to subdue. The same cannot be said of the less suave Sharif, who had been hiding in a hole in Jordan all this time.

There is always the sinister possibility that Musharraf does not intend to handover any serious powers to the elected leaders or plans to overthrow them, either in form or in practice sometime soon. As such, he saw no harm in letting the domestic political parties have their way for a while.

2. It is indeed remarkable that the Pakistan People’s Party did not sweep the elections. After Benazir Bhutto’s assassination and the paroxysm of grief across the country that followed, one might have expected that the PPP would have ridden a sympathy wave to an absolute majority. On the contrary, they are stranded far short of a simple majority and way behind the two thirds mark they needed in order to impeach Musharraf.

Why then did the PPP not win? Despite everything going against them, why did the Musharraf loving PML-Q ended up with 50 seats, only about 18 behind Nawaz Sharif’s PML(N). Perhaps we are asking the wrong questions. Perhaps we should note that there is a glaring discrepancy between the opinions of the Pakistani people and the perceptions of the world.

It is possible that the PPP gained nothing from looking like American stooges. Without the charisma of Bhutto to cover this up and carry the day, they were left exposed. Notwithstanding all that America has done for Pakistan, America and Bush are still the “Great Satan” to millions in the Islamic World. It is perhaps reassuring for New Delhi and for Washington to talk about the “peace loving common people” in Pakistan pining for democracy and self rule, but this is too far removed from reality. Democracy has never taken root in Pakistan; military officers, tribal chieftains and bigoted clerics still reign supreme. On the Muslim street, religion trumps all.

3. We wonder whether the political parties, back after a long interval, have the will to act on their promises. It is an ominous sign that PPP co-chair Zardari, who reached out to make a power sharing deal with Sharif last week, has already stated publicly that he will not expedite the possibility of ousting Musharraf. Both parties have achieved their immediate objective of becoming politically relevant once again. Now that they have a piece of the power pie, they may not want to rock the boat. Musharraf, if nothing else, will not give up without a fight. Both Zardari and Sharif might want to enjoy what they have rather than risk the ire of the all powerful military. Moreover, they need the military to protect them from the extremists. They know that they do not have the force of will to prevail against the fundamentalist forces that are out to get them: better to toe Musharraf’s line than risk being hanged from a flagpole by the Taliban.

The bottomline is that we can do little to bring sense into other nations. A stable, democratic Pakistan is not a real possibility; it is mere wishful thinking. India needs to remain vigilant on the western front and assert the integrity of our borders with China. At the same time, India should aggressively seek out other democracies and look for common interests. Unfortunately, there aren’t any to be found in our immediate neighbourhood.

End of an Era: Fidel Castro steps down

Evil genius is still genius. Last week, the ailing Fidel Castro finally told the world that he had done enough for his lifetime. Castro has outlived all his comrades and opponents in the Cold War alike: Khruschev, Kennedy and Reagan. As a young revolutionary, Castro inspired both awe and admiration in the United States in the spring of 1959; addressing the people with the air of a man who knew the solutions to all the problems of the world. Three years later, he would send a chill down America's spine. Incredibly, even as the world's most powerful nation scours the mountains of Afghanistan and digs its enemies out of foxholes in Iraq, they can only heave in fury as Castro decries them in their own backyard.


Sometime in 1959, the United States, enraged by Castro's ascension, worked overtime to overthrow him. They failed and then went into a jealous sulk that resulted in the longest trade embargo in history. As the Communist world collapsed around him, Castro held fast, as the sole proponent of an idea whose time had passed. last major Cold War personality fades into memory, we need to examine the World Order that is upon us today.

Click to read the New York Times photo essay: Three days with Fidel

1) The impact on Cuba: About a year ago, when the news that Castro’s health was failing had been broken to the world, the Cuban American community, particularly in and around Miami had celebrated with much hope and anticipation. Diplomatic agencies of the US government had also shown much enthusiasm. However, this time round, politicians and people shrugged off the news with a sense of the inevitable. President Bush spoke, somewhat philosophically, about the need for democracy in Cuba and there were some vague murmurs from the State Department about this being a “new beginning” for the island nation.

The US realizes, as does the rest of the world, that Castro, unlike many dictators before him, did not run a one-man regime. Although he donned the mantle of “Supreme Leader” with ease, there was always more to him than his overwhelming personality. Behind the scenes, Castro brought up hardboiled men of blood and iron to succeed him. Somewhat ironically, however, the man who fought against class privileges all his life will be succeeded by his own brother Raul. It seems unlikely that there will be a mad scramble for succession that has been the doom of so many autocracies and dictatorships before. At 75, Raul Castro is no young man himself: which means that the Inner Party elite has about five to six years to wage their battle of wills. Blood will flow, but it will be spilled indoors and wiped off the floor…

The Cuban dictators have also benefited from America’s new and more pressing concern over state sponsors of terrorism, such as Iran. As the US remains preoccupied with its larger battle with the Muslim World, the Communists can have a free run in Cuba… unless, of course, they get too cozy with Ahmedinajad. Meanwhile America will continue to sulk and maintain its trade embargo with Cuba, even as many Americans continue underhand trade relations with the country. In fact, in August 2005, Governor David Heineman (a Republican ... no less!) of Nebraska even led a trade delegation to Cuba and told journalists that the trade embargo was a matter of “federal policy” he could not bother to concern himself with. Add to this the growing clout of the Chinese over world events and their obvious sympathies for the Cuban regime and it seems likely that the communist party will rule the state for a very long time to come.

2) India, Cuba and the NAM: It would take a leap of imagination (or a diplomat!) to believe that either India or Cuba was “non aligned” during the Cold War; but nevertheless the two nations have a long diplomatic association that cannot be wished away. One of India’s biggest foreign policy blunders was Prime Minister Singh’s visit to Havana in Sep, 2006: it was a signal to the international community that India was still ready to parley with ghosts of the Cold War. India cannot become a superpower without choosing sides. India was never at the table as an independent entity when the United Nations came into being in the winter of 1945, which is why we are still pining for a permanent seat at the Security Council and the right to join the NPT as a nuclear weapons state. The tragedy of the last two centuries is that India never came close to realizing its own potential; but we know that our time is now! Unless we shake off the ghosts of the past, withdraw from unprofitable alliances (such as the NAM) and engage the great powers courageously, we will never be able to throw our weight around. To become a great power, we need to be seen in the association of other great powers; in the corridors of power and in the halls of influence; as generous friend and a terrible foe. Sitting around minions in the NAM is not suited to our purpose.

That said, Nehru’s contribution to world peace can hardly be underestimated. In the nervous fifties, countless new nations were formed in the wake of the breakup of the British Empire. Both the US and the USSR looked towards these nations as pawns in their power game. Imagine the suffering that came upon mankind when the great Cold War rivalries were played out in nations such as Korea and Vietnam. Imagine what could have happened if Nehru, along with some notable others, such as Sukarno, Nasser and Tito had not persuaded these new nations to adopt some semblance of neutrality in this conflict…. If every single one of those states had become a theatre of the US-USSR war, would there have been a world left?

3) Castro’s legacy and the new world order: In the half century after the Great War, Communism rose and fell around Castro. More significantly, we live in a larger world with many more power centres. Worst of all, the newfound weapon of terrorism is such that the enemy is both within and without.

Although Communism has been soundly discredited, democracy has not made much headway either. Notice that the list of democracies today is roughly the same as it was thirty years ago: the new democracies that were formed after the Cold War ended have either degenerated into quasi-dictatorships (like that of Putin in Russia) or been plunged into a chaos of ethnic rivalries and economic ruin (like Hungary or Estonia).

The United States is the undisputed winner in the Cold War. The war having been “cold”, its enemies have been vanquished only in will, but not in form. It is only too easy to see the shades of the Communist Party in the way Putin’s “United Russia” Party operates today. China has embraced Russia to create a diabolical military alliance, the SCO. It is an obvious rerun of Cold War sentiments.

The intellectual successor to Fidel Castro is Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Significantly, Chavez has united not only his oil rich nation behind him, but also been able to tap into overwhelming anti-US sentiment in South America. The anti-US hatred is not just a matter of ideology, it has a pronounced racist angle: a hatred of the “Gringo”, or white man. Chavez has been courting the Iranian president, a man who is the object of most Hitler metaphors these days. And this duo has received adulation from the Russian people and their President and plenty of moral and economic support from China. Perhaps Winston Churchill would refer to this as the “Gathering Storm”.

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Why Nandigram happened

So much of outrage has already been expressed over the killings in Nandigram that it is redundant to add to the volume of criticism that the CPI(M) has faced over this issue. I shall, therefore, try to find explanations. Political violence is not unknown in India. And yet, the Nandigram incident is one of a kind.

There is a strange myth that does the rounds in Kolkata; an idea that the mild mannered Buddhadeb Bhattacharya is a messenger of "change"; that this Clark Kent like figure is actually Superman. Quite literally, the urban middle class in Bengal says "Buddha is trying". This is a telling statement; a refrain that the urban intelligentsia has given up on democracy in the state, an acknowledgment of the fact that a whole new generation has arrived that treats the party as unalterable as the sky. The line is noticeably open ended, meaning that the promise of change is not supposed to be fulfilled, rather it is an unachievable goal one must work towards forever.

Building on this lie, the Chief Minister has dedicated himself to creating a new economy for Bengal. It goes without saying that this "new" economic edifice is to be laid out exactly as planned by the almighty state; as a kind of victory tower, celebrating their triumph over democracy. Somehow as the CPI(M) cadres spawn this new economic life in West Bengal, it reminds me of a spider whose eggs are beginning to hatch inside the body of its paralyzed prey.

When the trouble in Nandigram began, much of this same middle class (with the willing cooperation of the CPI(M)) chose to fix the blame on Mamata Banerjee. They argued that the Trinamul Congress should have played the role of a responsible party and abstained from creating tension over something that was manifestly in the larger interests of the state. Let us examine this proposition carefully: it does make sense in theory. And what could have been easier than to swallow the propaganda about Mamata being a "disruptive" figure and blame her for everything? Those who make this argument are unable to distinguish between the theory and practice of democracy. Has it ever happened, except in times of war, that the opposition party in any state or country has shown a willingness to work with the ruling government for public welfare, setting aside its own electoral ambitions? Then, why Mamata? In Gujarat, there is a well heeled "Narmada Bachao Aandolan" that has been working against the transformation of the Narmada Valley into an energy hub. A few years ago, Naveen Patnaik faced a similar situation in Orissa over the acquisition of peasants' land for industry. At that time, the opposition Congress organized a statewide agitation of farmers who sent thousands of postcards to the Chief Minister to register their protest. In Uttaranchal, there were obvious signs of discontent when villages had to be relocated for the construction of the Tehri Dam and politicians turned out to fish in troubled waters. More recently, Sheila Dikshit had to carry out a Court order on "sealing". The BJP blatantly exploited her predicament and swept to power in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) in April last year! What I am trying to say is that democratic governments often find themselves at odds with shortsighted populist agendas when they try to implement a vision for development... and sometimes they fall prey to it. But it never so happens that the ruling party, enraged by the situation, orders the police to massacre the opposition.

But the CPI(M) did just that. They sent in the state police, along with party cadres in uniform to quell the "revolt". The plan worked like clockwork. The first wave of the attack sent a clear message to the opposition: they were in it to win it and they meant to kill. The second part of the operation was a simple land offensive; and all those who had hitherto stood against them, gave up out of fear. The Chief Minister appeared to have lost his face mask for a moment as he extolled his comrades in arms and recounted their brave deeds. Perhaps, in his mind, he had achieved a triumph equal to that of Mao Zedong after the Long March.

The question is why the CPI(M) chose to react in this manner. Were they not feeling secure enough, with their two-thirds majority, their cadre-teachers and their trade union operatives?

In a democratic regime, the Opposition is an integral part of the governance. Dictatorship of the majority is antithetical to democracy. The CPI(M) does not understand this concept.

This is more subtle than a mere desire to crush political opponents. We know that Mayawati and Jayalalitha and so many others are capable of that. It is an idea that, as long as one party is in power, all the others are of no significance; that they simply do not exist. In my view, the violence in Nandigram happened not because the government did not want to listen to the opposition, but because they did not want to acknowledge the presence of the opposition. Their friends in China have a term for this: Hsiao-Mieh. Literally, that means "deprived of existence".

Height of Cowardice: Rioting by proxy

There is a reason why this post was so long in coming: the ongoing violence in Mumbai and other parts of Mahrashtra is so disgusting that it is hard to preserve a veneer of civility while discussing the political fallout of these events.

One could not have expected much better of Raj Thackeray; a desperate politician playing on the margins of state politics. Sometime ago, I wrote that one could almost "feel sorry" for the "plight" of Raj, who despite his obvious leadership qualities, was passed up by the Sena supremo in favour of a dynastic line of succession. One can go back and forth over whether this divisive message is what Raj always had on his mind or whether Balasaheb's intransigence pushed him into this corner. But that is an argument for another day.

For now, let me mention that there is one striking thing about the violence in Maharashtra. It is all too easy to dismiss these events as yet another instance of ugly regionalism that we are all too familiar with in India; a scramble for jobs, resources and amenities. It is also fair to say that regional identities cannot be wished away and it is not wholly surprising if Maharashtrians feel besieged in Mumbai, Nasik, Nagpur and Pune. Even so, people can be provoked to such acts of violence only in a time of scarcity. The fact that this violence is happening in Mumbai right now, which, by universal agreement is a time of plenty in the business capital of India, suggests that there is a darker political conspiracy at work.

Let us now look at the four major political parties in the state (and neither the MNS nor the Samajwadi Party figure in this list) one by one and deliberate on their public posturing in this time of crisis.


1) The Congress: No one has ever accused Vilasrao Deshmukh of personal courage, much less of a sense of responsibility towards the people of his state. He has usually had the luxury of leaving pressing matters of state to his much more articulate colleague from the NCP; Mr. R R Patil who runs the Home Ministry. However, on this occasion, the suave and subdued Congressman found himself facing an uproarious media gathering of cosmopolitan English language journalists along with their (even more enraged) Hindi counterparts. Ever since the crisis broke, Deshmukh has done little beyond issuing a feeble appeal to "maintain peace".

He might just as well have appealed to his own party workers. It is difficult to believe that the marginal MNS could have mustered all the men needed to create such mayhem in the cities of Maharshtra. For one, the police could easily have brought a handful of hooligans under control, had it been allowed to do so by the political establishment. There is no reason not to believe that the ruling Congress, which runs several civic bodies in direct alliance with the MNS, did not play a part in restraining the law enforcement agencies.

The Congress needs a gamble in Maharashtra. The state voted 25-23 in favour of the NDA even during the 2004 elections. The wounds of dissent in the Shiv Sena have healed and in fact, former Sena elements such as Narayan Rane who have joined the Congress have gone very public with their criticism of the Deshmukh administration. This has opened up a whole new front in the factional fighting. The level of mistrust between the Congress and its alliance partner NCP is appalling; as anti-incumbency builds up, the Congress is getting a sinking feeling that the NCP will turn out to be the senior partner the next time they come back to rule the state, whenever that is. Also, the BJP is beginning to gain an upper hand over the Sena. This means that while the Congress is on its way towards becoming the junior partner in the Democratic Front (DF) coalition, the BJP is looking to dictate terms to its alliance partner. There is a sense of doom as the deadly statistics keep stacking up in Vidarbha and the BJP openly courts them during its "Kisaan Yatra". The Congress has played the farmer suicide card in Andhra Pradesh before and is therefore is nervous about its impact on Maharashtra.

Raj Thackeray's sudden "crusade" has given them an opportunity to bring fresh issues into the political discourse in the state. The Congress party feels that Raj could make a dent in the Shiv Sena's Marathi votebank with this "anti-outsider bogey", which would work to the Congress' advantage. Of course, "mild mannered" Congress cadres would not take the physical risk of joining in the rioting. They would much rather have the administration look the other way on lawbreakers; quite literally, the Congress is rioting by proxy.

2) The BJP: The BJP lives and breathes and swears by North India: and so they had to condemn the violence from Day 1. But the criticism was somewhat muted. This is because the BJP was nervous about the possible actions of its mercurial ally in the state. What if Balasaheb, acting on impulse, made a provocative and thoughtless remark against North Indian "immigrants"? In fact, Uddhav almost got carried away and dropped such a bomb at a rally in Mumbai! In fact one could sense a feeling of "disappointment" in the press over the fact that they simply could not fix any blame on the BJP for the violence in the state. Were the Sena to say something incendiary, the media would have an excuse to dig its nails deep into the BJP's throat.

Fortunately, the Shiv Sena acted with a lot more self control than any of us has ever given them credit for. When a week passed and the Sena had made no major incendiary statements, the party decided to breathe easy and came out with a scathing indictment on how the Congress had mishandled the situation, deliberately kept the police in check and how Chief Minister Vilasrao Dehmukh has no control over the state party.

3) The Shiv Sena: This could well be a turning point for the Sena: the process of assimilation of the "Sainiks" into the ranks of level headed political cadres has finally begun. The Sena supremo has very high credibility among the "Marathi Manoos"; if Balasaheb says that North Indians are not a threat to Marathi culture; they will take him at his word. In fact, Bal Thackeray invoked the fact that Shivaji Maharaj had always seen the Hindus as a single entity and the iconic ruler had been done in by those of his own: an obvious reference to Raj's "betrayal". One of the reasons the violence in Mumbai has been capped is that the poorer parts of town, teeming with new Mumbaikars from UP and Bihar, are now being "protected" by the Shiv Sainiks. This might well end the misgivings of North Indians about the Sena and therefore pose an even greater threat to the Congress.

4) The NCP: They were caught unawares. Home Minister R R Patil tried to take a stand for the rule of law but was overruled by his Congress colleagues. In the sniping and snapping between the two allies the Congress has finally taken the upper hand. The NCP is a primarily rural outfit, governed by local clans and former feudal lords, while "immigration" is an urban phenomenon. As such, they have little to gain by taking sides over this issue. What this means, though, is that they have to stay out of headlines for the time being.

If only Raj Thackeray had not disrupted the means of existence for millions of poor hardworking people, one could feel sorry for him. Raj has as much a right to earn a living as the next person. Right now, he is living his fifteen minutes of fame, as leader of a political organization with instant name recognition across the country. In the long term however, he has to make a career. Although a Thackeray, he is still a politician and politicians have to learn to swallow their pride. Many of his former compatriots have washed their sins in the Congress Ganga and it is likely that Raj will do the same at some point. It is unlikely that this will happen in Balasaheb's lifetime, but in a decade or so, this will come to pass.

Betraying History: Losing the Indo-US nuclear deal

This week on Devil's advocate, an incredulous Ambassador Mulford told Karan Thapar that he did not quite understand the rationale behind India's rejection of the nuclear deal. In doing so, he perhaps echoed the views of millions of Indians who feel they have been let down by the political establishment. It's not that simple, though. The ruling class in both India and the United States is elected by the people and therefore one must fix the blame firmly on the respective electorates. For one, there are many worthies in Washington who see India's nuclear programme as a greater threat to international security than that of Iran. What is even more regrettable is that there are several more who cannot distinguish the largest democracy in the world and the intentions of its legitimate political representatives from those of a rogue regime in the Middle East. The Indians haven't done much better either: We are ruled by a family servant of the Nehru Gandhi household and held to ransom by a Left wing organization that has never done so much as to publicly recognize the legitimacy of our constitution and democratic state.

The arranged marriage between India and the United States is facing its first severe test. A key to the success of an arranged marriage is the ability to let bygones be bygones and keep looking ahead. The democratic process is such that it sometimes leads to disappointments. As long as we stick to democratic principles, things will work out in the long run. For instance, had Manmohan Singh bypassed Parliament and approved the nuclear deal, it would have sent out the wrong message to the United States and to the world. One should not give the impression that our legislative process is subject to subversion. In some ways, the time for the nuclear deal was not ripe: as long as the US sees the deal as a generous giveaway rather than part of a natural process of history, it is somewhat beneath India's honour to accept it.

It so happened that Dept. of state spokesman Sean McCormick told a press gathering that the deal would be off the table were India to test a nuclear weapon, a statement that set the Indian press on fire. This shows just how much attitudes in India and in the US are yet to evolve. A State Dept spokesman should have known that such a statement could have serious repercussions. On the flip side, the Indian media should know when to overlook a callous, offhand remark from a middle ranked US official.

There is however a sense of doom in both administrations, a sense that this was a precious "one time opportunity" that might not come across again. I beg to differ: the nuclear deal was initiated in circumstances that made a military alliance between India and America a geopolitical necessity. As such, it would be naive to say that the deal is "dead". The nuclear accord is only part of a larger idea whose time has not passed. It is bound to resurface, only, in the future, it might be called the "ICBM deal" instead of the "nuclear deal"! A larger military agreement between the two countries will become imperative in a decade or so.

But does the deal have an immediate future? Perhaps. It is unlikely that the Left parties will have so much power after the 2009 elections. And the US will also have a new President in January next year. The Oracle takes a look at each of the three American frontrunners for this job and looks at the future.

John McCain (R-AZ): The 71 year old Republican Senator from Arizona is the face of “best case scenario”. Although he hails from a slightly older generation of politicians and is, therefore, capable of the occasional regressive remark such as “The next President of the Unites States must be a Christian”, he brings a level of commitment and sincerity to the table that is unmatched among his contenders. Think of the last summer, when McCain’s campaign, flayed incessantly by conservative Republicans over his plan to institute a ‘guest worker program’; a path to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants in the United States, showed all the signs of sinking without a trace. And yet the old man persevered and declared proudly that he was the man who “liked to tackle the big issues”. McCain has criticized Rumsfeld’s handling of the Iraq war, has taken the moral high ground on the torture of detainees and supported President Bush’s plan for a surge in Iraq (a move that turned the war torn country around and left nay-saying Democrats with egg on their faces). You can trust John McCain to do the right thing. On the pressing issue of immigration, he showed a readiness to walk right across the aisle and shake hands with his most bitter opponent (Democrat Ted Kennedy of Massachussetts), just so they could have a workable plan; the so-called “Grand Bargain”. McCain, with his firm grasp of state policy, will be the first to realize just how crucial an alliance with India really is.

Hillary Clinton (D-NY): The only thing that really matters in diplomacy is common interests. Fortunately, integrity does not figure in the equation, which is why the Oracle sees little harm to India in a second coming of the Clintons. We all know that Hillary voted against the nuclear deal in the US Senate, even when as many as 85 of the 100 Senators voted in favour of the motion! But then, Hillary also voted for the Iraq war, for the Patriot Act and for declaring Iran’s Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization! The Oracle opines, therefore, that there is no reason to take any of Hillary’s opinions to heart… each and every one of her statements is just a brief stopover on the way to the next… the New York Senator evidently does not take the distinction between truth and lies very seriously. If at all she were to become President, it would be a relatively simple matter to get some prominent business magnates, who have an obvious vested interest in a wider India-US alliance, to bring her over to our side. Fairly enough, the US media often describes Hillary as a robot; all we have to do is hack into her system and program her the way we want.

Barrack Hussein Obama (D-IL): We have to be prepared for the worst. He is still a whisker short of Hillary and a mile behind her in experience. But all that flattery about “being the shining city on the hill” and the marching up and down and waving of flags has gone to the head of millions of lower and lower middle class Americans, who through their incessant complaining over the little bumps of everyday life, have finally convinced themselves that they are “oppressed” by the corporate powers that be. Perhaps they should ask themselves if they are as much the slaves of their “corporate masters” as they are slaves to their petty cravings and comforts. Such are the crowds that are cheering to the schoolboy rhetoric of Barrack Hussein Obama. Call me a bitter cynic but I have always believed that politics is the game of scoundrels and that the baby-faced blokes are the most rotten of all. Obama has nothing but hot air to offer the people and it is quite likely that his policy will revolve around clichés. One such cliché is the bogey of Nuclear non-proliferation and one can expect Obama to evoke it in full measure against India. It is for eventualities like these that India should be careful not to become “dependent” on the US for weaponry and should try to establish itself as an independent economic superpower. For all we know, Obama could renege on any policy promise any day and hand the world to China on a platter. Should anyone ask why he refuses to take a stand for an international axis of democracies, a few quotes from Lincoln to Roosevelt to Reagan, a quick mention of the immigrants’ dream, complete with the imagery of Ellis Island; will make his supporters choke with emotion and comfort them to sleep.

At the end of the day what really matters is the turn of geopolitical events. The alliance will come into being only if both countries have a common interest. It perhaps makes little sense to talk about "missing an opportunity". If the US does not need to offer something of this description again, then chances are that India wont want it either. But yes, for the moment, both democracies have betrayed history and the dictators get to live another day. It is near certain that they are living on borrowed time.

Which way the cookie crumbles?

It is worthwhile to remind ourselves that politics is not a game and that elections are not a form of entertainment. But there are times when the temptation may be too good for our better judgment. The trifurcation of the big prize state of Uttar Pradesh is one such compelling prospect. If the idea comes to fruition, as it probably will at some point in the future, much of the political future of India will depend on how the map of the state is redrawn. As such, which way the cookie crumbles will have to be settled by the mother of all political battles.

It must be remembered that this idea has been mooted purely on the pretext of providing “better governance” and not to cater to any significant regional identities. Though one cannot discount them completely, ideas such as that of a Bhojpuri speaking Purvanchal or that of Bundelkhand (the latter is even more ambitious, since it involves large parts of Madhya Pradesh as well, which makes the prospect all the more remote) have very limited appeal. The demographic boundaries being ill-defined, every party will want to demarcate the new states so as to split the bastions of its “main enemy” (yet another ambiguity!) into as many parts as possible.

Though the Congress has all but vanished from Uttar Pradesh and the BJP is struggling to retain/regain a foothold in the state, it must be remembered that the power to partition the state ultimately lies with the Central Government and therefore it is likely that one of these two parties will have the final word on this issue. It is almost certain that some smaller states will be formed after the Lok Sabha elections in 2009 and the BSP expects to have a lot of leverage in the next government that comes to power in New Delhi. No wonder then that Mayawati wants the sluggish bureaucracy to start work on the States Reorganization Commission right away.

Even so, it is not immediately clear how the BSP stands to gain from any trifurcation scenario. At the moment, the party’s support is based on a broad social coalition and not on pocketboroughs. In fact, if Uttar Pradesh were a country, Mayawati would probably be its only true “national” leader. Two possible reasons can be offered for the BSP supremo’s support towards the idea of the division of the state. For one, as I have noted before, by maintaining a powerful presence in three states instead of one, she can enlarge her national profile “for free”. Secondly, the BSP might regard the division of Uttar Pradesh as inevitable and so it would much rather have it worked out on its terms rather than on those of others. By being the first to take a firm public stand on the issue, the BSP gets a chance to define the three regions in a concrete manner. In course of time, it is quite likely that her definitions will become “natural” boundaries. This would, for instance, explain Maya’s insistence on including areas such as Ambedkar Nagar and Sultanpur in the Eastern region . In a new Purvanchal state, Laloo Yadav would enter the equation in areas bordering Bihar, which would undercut Mulayam’s Muslim support and most certainly split the Yadav vote. The BJP, which is powerful in and around Gorakhpur, Varanasi and Allahabad would gain from this. This area could well become bipolar between the BJP and the BSP.

Most of the confusion is about how the remaining two regions should be defined. The most recognizable of these regions is Bundelkhand. Should the demarcation happen under a BJP government at the Centre, it is almost certain that the new state will have large swathes of territory from Madhya Pradesh, where the BJP has a formidable organization. What Maya ideally wants is to have Bundelkhand carved out exclusively from Uttar Pradesh and therefore built around her stronghold of Akbarpur district. However, in that case, the new state would be too small to qualify as a “third” of the whole of UP. The trick here would be to include “just enough” of the neighbouring Muslim dominated Doab region to strike a dagger through the Samajwadi Party’s heart, a delight both the Congress and Maya would share in eagerly. If the deals are struck under a Congress led government, the Congress would want to throw in Raebareilly and Amethi into this region (instead of in Purvanchal), just so they can keep their hopes alive. The result would be a state tailor made in Mayawati’s favour; the Congress and SP would still have little bundles of hope (and they could sew up an alliance; in politics it is important to love and hate at the same time) and the BJP would have nothing.

In the remainder of the state, the BJP would have a considerable chance of recovery. This part would then comprise the Ruhelkhand region including Lucknow as well as Awadh, the original epicentre of the Ayodhya movement. The party has a firm grasp over Meerut and would look to improvise in Gautam Nagar (Noida) and Ghaziabad regions, which border the capital. The Samajwadi Party, though damaged by the loss of some of the Doab, will have a free run in the Muslim areas near the Nepal border as well as in the extreme west. They will have to seek the cooperation of Ajit Singh though, who will most certainly ask for more than his due. In fact, he might revive his pet idea of Harit Pradesh, which at that point, will have become almost ridiculous.

It is difficult to say, as yet, whether the creation of these smaller states will help to end the many ambiguities in the picture that emerges from Uttar Pradesh in election after election. For the moment, the people of the state have earned themselves a break from political uncertainty at the state level, but UP, which sends 83 MP's to the Lok Sabha will have to decide on who rules India as well. In many ways, a Brahmin-Dalit alliance has the potential to reduce the bitter caste rivalries in society, which can only be good in the long run. UP is also the playground for national politics and number one on the terrorists' hit list (since Gujarat is off bounds for them). One thing we can be sure of is that the spectacular show in Uttar Pradesh will evolve through several more sensational twists before it comes to rest.

Scared ... Really?

Just what did National Security Advisor M K Narayanan tell Lal Krishna Advani that he managed to prevail against the latter's desire to embark upon yet another Yatra? If something can be interposed between Advani and his yatra, it must be serious indeed. Although the BJP consoled itself with an impressive rally in Jabalpur today, it was difficult for party spokesperson Prakash Javadekar to conceal his embarrassment from the media. The BJP was faced with the threat of suicide bombers... and the party balked. The rally in Rampur, scheduled for February 11, was canceled and it became obvious that the party was nervous about Advani going into a state with such a large Muslim population. A day earlier, I wrote that terrorism does not succeed if people refuse to be terrified ... this is definitely strike one for terrorists.

Of course, Advani's personal security is of paramount importance. And moreover, the yatra would have caused the BJP's rank and file to get distracted from the main task at hand: that of retaining power in the Hindi heartland states that are due for elections at the end of the year. Advani has been on such yatras before in the recent past and they have been shown to have little effect on the ground. Instead, what should work better is the BJP's 17 "Sankalp Sandesh Vahaans" that have been asked to crisscross Uttar Pradesh over the next one and a half years for door to door canvassing. There was a time when the BJP relied on its organization ("Ek booth, dus youth") to deliver electoral victories by bringing its supporters out to vote. In the recent past, most spectacularly in 2004, the very urban middle class the BJP pampered with infrastructure and telecommunications refused to turn up at the voting booths on election day. Perhaps, Advani realized that a hastily planned and shabbily executed yatra would do little to increase the BJP's support base and expose him to grave personal risk... simply put, the yatra was just not worth the effort.

Even so, this sets a dangerous precedent. The only thing that still separates the BJP from the Congress (apart from the rhetoric over Hindu nationalism and dynasty politics) is that the Congress goes to the people only on the eve of elections, whereas the BJP runs mass contact programmes with great regularity. Over the years, Advani's yatras have contributed immensely to this culture within the party. I would hate to see this trait disappear, at which point the "Chaal, Chehra and Charitra" of the BJP would be no different from its main enemy.

The politics of despair

You could almost feel sorry for Raj Thackeray. Critics and loyalists alike of the Shiv Sena would agree that Raj was the leader best suited to inherit the mantle of Bal Thackeray. Yet, the aging and ailing Balasaheb, like the blind king Dhritarashtra, turned to his son Uddhav to lead the Sena after him. For a while it seemed that Manohar Joshi had managed to broker a peace between the two warring scions. Though Raj did not inherit the Sena crown, he had inherited the indomitable spirit of his famous uncle; and he would not play second fiddle to anyone for long. And so it came to pass that Raj found himself without a family, without a party and without political ground to stand on.

To bring himself back into contention, Raj tried many a gambit. He spent some time sulking, surrounded by a small group of rabble rousers, decrying Uddhav's leadership but stoutly refusing to criticize Balasaheb. Perhaps he thought he could "intimidate" the Sena into giving him the leadership role he desired, particularly when it had been rocked by the desertion of prominent faces like Sanjay Nirupam and Narayan Rane (and also that of Bhaskar Jadhav, right before the Maharasthra Assembly elections in 2004; a desertion that was less publicized but cost the party heavily in its strongholds in Konkan region) But in a party run by a man who greets dissenters with a defiant "Jao, chale jao!", this was never going to happen. Raj pursued this line further, choosing to seek "blessings" of Atal Behari Vajpayee, this in the backdrop of the Shiv Sena's decline in Mumbai and Konkan and its increased dependence on the BJP's groundswell of support in Vidarbha and Marathwada regions. The BJP played along, if only to keep the Sena on tenterhooks, but they were never going to jump ship altogether. Raj decided to make a new beginning with his Maharashtra Navnirman Sena and when he addressed a massive rally at Shivaji Park, there was no reason not to believe that he would make his mark.

But fortune continued to evade Raj Thackeray: the Shiv Sena stopped bleeding, they managed to mend fences with the BJP and began to look ahead. As such, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation election, where the ruling Shiv Sena-BJP combine faced a 10-yr burden of incumbency, was his last opportunity to register on the electoral scene. This time, his cousin Uddhav stepped up to the plate and delivered. The Shiv Sena replaced several sitting corporators and even denied a ticket to outgoing mayor Datta Dalvi. The BJP-Sena combine won the corporation third time running and Raj was down in the dumps.

It is in the backdrop of these events that we should see Raj's last desperate gambit. He has picked up where cousin Uddhav had left off during his short-lived "Mee Mumbaikar" misadventure. The remarks on Chhat Puja and the call for North Indian "immigrants" to learn what he called "local customs" were dumb and disgusting. They sound particularly archaic in this era of globalization. Politically, they are a blunder as well; since North Indians are flooding into Mumbai and it would be madness not to back the "winning horse". But his party the MNS realizes that it has nothing to lose by playing to exclusive agendas. Isn't it amazing that the violence in Mumbai is due to friction between two bit players: Samajwadi Party and MNS? It goes to show that in order to create general mayhem, you don't have to have too many people on your side.

Raj might have become the whipping boy in state politics, chided by everyone. But, one must point a finger at the spineless government of Vilasrao Deshmukh, which refuses to take a stand for the rule of law. This is typical Congress indecisiveness; and sometimes it can prove to be fatal, as in the instance of Tarun Gogoi's incapacity to control ULFA malcontents during the massacre of Biharis in Assam in recent memory.

In the meanwhile, what is to become of "Aamchi Mumbai, mast Mumbai"? It is in Mumbai that every man gets to make a living and no one goes to sleep hungry. Perhaps that is why the city never sleeps. Mumbai has stood up to natural calamities, terrorist attacks and political upheaval. After the terrible events of July 7, 2006, the city was back on its feet the very next day, spreading hope the world over, the message that terrorism does not succeed if the people are not terrified. As such, Raj Thackeray and his band of followers can do little to break this fortress of fortitude. In the words of the late Pramod Mahajan, himself a symbol of life, "It is the attitude of the Mumbaikar... no matter what happens, he looks forward to the next day".

Arrogant or Fearless?

One might argue that the year 2007 belonged to two people: Narendrabhai Modi and Mayawati. In some respects the latter managed to overturn the paradigm in Indian politics that the people of Uttar Pradesh must throw up a hung assembly. Ever since Mayawati seemingly achieved the impossible, she has been followed everywhere by a thousand eyes; even her rallies in Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat received considerable media attention, while political analysts across the country spent hours poring over details of the BSP's voteshare in different constituencies; considering various arithmetical possibilities. And Mayawati has been more than happy to keep everyone guessing. The Oracle examines the ambitions and abilities of this prolific politician.

1) So does Mayawati have complete control over UP? For the time being, yes. The people of Uttar Pradesh, who for sometime now, had been exasperated with constant political upheaval in Lucknow, finally have a government that will stay firmly in saddle for five years. This plank of stability, in itself, confers upon Mayawati, an enormous credibility that might serve her well as far as the next Assembly election in the state. The people of Uttar Pradesh will not want to buy into a ``three party system'' again. Given that national politics is played out with such intensity in this key state, unless the Samajwadi Party manages to shed its wholly regional profile, it will end up on the losing side. At the moment it is difficult for the SP to mend fences with the Congress, while a BJP-SP alliance is far too implausible.

2) Will Mayawati's style let her down? Not necessarily.... Sometime in the 1990's Laloo Yadav summoned the high and mighty of Patna's bureaucracy to the the veterinary college grounds and humiliated them in full public view... and he went on to script an incredible success story spanning one and a half decades. Similarly, Mayawati's "arrogance", which translates into her callous handling of public officials, will not put off ordinary people, who see these corrupt stool pigeons as tyrants anyway. But political vendetta is in a different league altogether and Maya would do well to approach her opponents with caution. Jayalalitha had walked down a similar path some years ago and she has lived to regret it. As such, her ways of letting the police lose on Samajwadi and BJP supporters and leaders does not work to her advantage.

3) So, is BSP the next BJP? In other words, can the BSP with its strong lower caste appeal, along with its strange new message of a Brahmin-Dalit alliance, stage a rerun of the BJP's rise to nationwide eminence roughly two decades ago? Most certainly, not! The plot behind the BJP's march to power had been categorically laid out by the formidable organization of the RSS, which was built over four decades. In doing so, the RSS produced a clutch of powerful leaders each of them capable of disciplined political strategy. This is roughly the opposite of the BSP, in which all the power is concentrated at the top, in the person of the "Supreme Leader", who systematically scours her party ranks for potentially promising people and crushes their spirit.

4) What about breaking up Uttar Pradesh into smaller states? On her 52nd birthday, a beaming Mayawati told reporters that she had "always" favoured the creation of smaller states and that UP was still "too big" even after the creation of Uttarakhand. To my knowledge, this is the first time a ruling party wants a state to be divided: one of Chandrababu's many undoings was his vociferous opposition to the creation of a separate Telangana, while Laloo Yadav famously said that Jharkhand would be created over "his dead body". And yet, Mayawati wants the great prize state of Uttar Pradesh carved up and divided. This is yet another example of just how much confidence the BSP has accumulated over the past one year. While Mayawati's party is strong in every part of the state, the Samajwadi has been pushed into Muslim pockets and the BJP has been boxed into urban areas. Or perhaps, Mayawati feels that she can increase her national profile by ruling as many as three states instead of one! More states mean more elections and as her mentor Kanshi Ram used to say : "We like elections. We want more elections; We fight the first election to lose, the second to play king maker and the third to win". However, it is extremely unlikely that these smaller states, if created, will remain in the BSP's kitty in the long run. It is entirely possible that the BJP and the Congress, which are presently confounded by the enormity of the task of rebuilding themselves in this vast state, will find themselves on surer ground and the politics of these smaller states could turn bipolar. A much more sorry scenario, however, is that scumbags like Ajit Singh and Sonelal Patel will get a shot in the arm .

5) Can Mayawati become Prime Minister in 2009? Despite the media frenzy surrounding her, Mayawati remains, for the most part, a regional leader. And she definitely does not have a national party backing her, something Narendra Modi will have access to, should he set his sights beyond Ahmedabad. The United Front experiment is an idea whose time has passed and its ghost, the UNPA can at best be a support network for erstwhile Chief Ministers recovering from the trauma of losing the limelight, a shoulder to cry on. On the other hand, the Congress has sworn never to support any other party at the Centre again and it is therefore unlikely that they would offer Mayawati the PM's chair just to keep the NDA out. The same goes for the BJP led NDA. In fact, the electorate in 2009 will want to have a stable government at the Centre and therefore people coalition hoppers like Mayawati might not get all the votes they think they will.

The truth of Mayawati lies somewhere between Jayalalitha and Narendra Modi, between the desire to create a personality cult and a determination to nurture a social movement. Her power may well have reached a plateau already and much like Sharad Pawar, it may be downhill once she is past this point.

Riding the airwaves

The sabre rattling exercises in the BJP have peaked recently. With four victories in 2007, the spotlight has been firmly placed on the party and Lal Krishna Advani is leaving no stone unturned to make sure that it firmly stays there. Sometimes, in politics, it is more important to look good than to feel good. Therefore, the BJP swept its countless troubles under the rug and struck a strident self-congratulatory tone at the National Executive. This week, the Oracle looks back and looks ahead on the party.

1) Reservation for women: This was calculated to be a headline catcher and duly served its purpose. Though the measure does not, by itself, bring any more votes to the party, it does give the BJP a look and feel as a party that is "ahead of others". This in turn, will appeal to a section of urban youth, who might otherwise look down on the BJP as a conservative right wing organization. Also, it annuls any possible gains the Congress might have made by appointing a female President and restores the party's female friendly image that had served them so well back in 2003.

2) The Ascension of Modi: Stung to the quick by the outcome of the Gujarat Election, news channels were gushing on Dec 23, forecasting a rerun of the bitter turf war that had rent the BJP in 2004-2005. Much had been made of how Rajnath Singh, who had dropped Narendra Modi from the National Executive earlier in 2007, would begin a series of plots and subplots to undermine the Gujarat Chief Minister. As they had suspected, Modi was drawn closer into the orbit of national leaders, but this was achieved without there being any blood on the floor. Rajnath Singh heaped praise on Modi and held him up as an example to BJP Chief Ministers from other states. Once again, the best man won.

This national executive was the first step towards giving Modi a national profile. The star of Gujarat has an appeal that combines a commitment towards development with a reckless bravado which is precisely what a young confident India is looking for. However, he does need to put the gory times of 2002 behind him in order to have Prime Ministerial appeal and more importantly, sew up a favourable arithmetic of alliances. In holding up Gujarat as the centrepiece of "the India that can be", Narendra Modi has already walked a long way down that path. The Oracle foresees little friction between Modi and Rajnath; the latter seeks to step into Advani's shoes as master strategist, while the former sees himself as the leader of this great of this great nation.

3) The message to the states: Understandably, the BJP is wary of anti-incumbency in the clump of Hindi heartland states that go to elections at the far end of the year. Major losses, coming on the eve of the Parliamentary polls, would take the initiative away from the party. For the moment, the party has good reasons not to despair. Although the incumbency boot will be on their foot, one must remember that, in 2003, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh were wrested from the Congress through spectacular election management and a superb organizational effort. The victory in Chhattisgarh had become certain only after the Jogi administration distinguished itself in the dirty tricks department by planting a camera in Judeo's bedroom. As yet, the Congress has not been set its own house in order in either of the two large states; much less project leaders with charisma who can carry the people with them. A Jan 23 demonstration in Indore planned by the Congress turned out to be a damp squib. Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan are states in which time moves slowly; in the former, the BJP's majority is much too large to be wiped out in a single election, while in the latter, the Congress is yet to start playing a role as an opposition party. Meanwhile, Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit has already signed away the Congress rights to the capital and even fixed the blame on her old foe Ram Babu Sharma; all this even before the election has taken place. One is tempted to argue that the Congress will put its weak organization to a stiffer test should it succeed in delaying the Karnataka election till December. Add to this the fact that Kannadigas have a tendency to vote by their conscience, making separate judgements at the local, state and national level.

4) Pushing the Congress and Left into one box: The BJP is making much capital of the fact that the UPA government has nothing to show for three and a half years of governance. In the aftermath of 2004, it seemed for a while that the Congress led UPA was successfully playing incumbent and "victim" at the same time, showing itself as a coalition with honest motives that was being hindered by the "villainous" Left. A few hard fought victories against the Left would have cemented this image and served as a plank for demanding a more decisive mandate in 2009; along the lines of the BJP's campaign ten years before that: "Hamari sarkar ek vote se giri thi, aapkaa ek ek vote keemti hai". Instead the UPA frittered away this opportunity and chose to surrender to the Left in complete ignominy. In hindsight, though the BJP has wounded the people of India by not supporting the nuclear agreement with the US, Advani's calculated move to deny the Manmohan Singh government the credit for this prestigious and hugely popular deal has proved correct. The BJP's muted opposition was lost in the din as the anti-US freaks in the Left ran around like "headless chickens" and tore the deal to pieces. Three years later the BJP has pushed the Congress and Left into one box and the general aversion to the CPI(M) across the country is, in fact, rubbing off on the Central Government.

5) The enhancement of NDA: It may be said that the NDA has already weathered the test of will and managed to hold on to its core constituents. Jayalalitha is waiting in the wings and the BJP is playing along, waiting for the best moment. Not surprisingly, Advani's message was to "expand the NDA and thwart the UPA". K Chandrasekhar Rao, by adopting a series of half measures, has fallen between two stools and the credibility of his Telengana Rashtriya Samiti has nosedived. The BJP has found a whiff of opportunity and it remains to be seen whether the strident pro-Telengana approach will translate into votes.

The undoing of the BJP, in the past, has been the penchant for drawing the wrong allies, like BSP, Chautala's INLD and Deve Gowda's JDS (as well as several other smaller errors, like Sonelal Patel's Apna Dal). The good thing is that they have already made all the mistakes they could have. A disciplined approach to the 2009 elections, without too many perilous ideas, should get them back to New Delhi.