NEW DELHI, 20 May — The easiest thing to do in politics is to do nothing. The do-nothing school of politics has a very distinguished alumni and growing body of students, as well some very eminent intellectuals in its faculty and among its mentors. The dean-for-life of this institution is of course the venerable P.V. Narasimha Rao, who was so good at this art that even when he actually did something he made it seem as if he had done nothing.
Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee is under some heavy-duty pressure after the pathetic performance of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in this round of provincial elections to do nothing. You can always rearrange any set of facts to suit your preferred interpretation.
Example: If the BJP had improved its position in any of the states (that is, in effect, entered double digits from single digit status) their publicists would have brandished an even larger drum than the one purchased by the Congress party for Sonia Gandhi and argued that this “mandate from the nation” had made the coalition in Delhi safe for eternity.
Now that the BJP is wiping the floor (while Mamata Banerjee wipes her forehead), the same BJP spin doctors are arguing that the finest adhesive for a coalition is called adversity. Why should any partner of the ruling party create a crisis that will be seriously injurious to its health? True: why should it?
There are still some three years of power, privilege and summer jaunts to Europe and America to enjoy. I have always been curious about the motivation of this school. Why does anyone want power if they want to do nothing with power? A second school has begun to lobby the prime minister for admission into its portals. The Rashtriya Swamsewak Sangh (RSS), chief ideologues of a traditional BJP flank, wants the prime minister to do something: reverse.
On economic policy their view is simple: stop the world, we want to get off. On social policy their attitude is not very much more complicated either: stop the future, we want some of that old-fashioned bloodshed from the past.
Vajpayee has been what might be called a sporadic prime minister. Long stretches of calm are punctuated by bursts of creative energy. Long years in public life have made Vajpayee a careful man. He raises a storm and then sits back and waits for the dust to settle. He believes that in the time-space thus created public opinion will move a little forward, toward the direction he wants to travel. That is his style. As one sympathizer pointed out, even when Vajpayee had to get his knees operated, he did them one at a time, and a year in between.
What would be the consequences of the two options being offered to him? The hard-line option is built around two propositions. First, the BJP has no answers for the electorate in Uttar Pradesh (UP), the next segment of India to pass a verdict on the ruling party. Unlike the states that went to the polls, the BJP is a central presence in UP. It can shrug off losses where its presence is on the fringe; decimation in Uttar Pradesh would be a body blow.
Some party thinkers are even suggesting that general elections be merged with the UP polls so that the positive flavor message of keeping Vajpayee in Delhi mitigates the negative current of the BJP’s misrule and corruption in UP.
That will not work, since the people will wonder why Vajpayee is returning to electorate midway when they gave him a full term. But the hard-liners are convinced that they cannot ask for a vote in UP without reviving Ayodhya and sparking tension. A communal fire is the only light at the end of a fundamentalist tunnel. If Vajpayee accepts this advice, he will destroy much of what he has achieved since his improbable 13 day in office four years ago.
Every single element of his agenda will burn in that fire, his economic policy, his integrative social policy, and of course his Pakistan and foreign policy. The Vajpayee legacy will be that of a chaotic meteor, which promised good fortune but turned into an ill omen. Vajpayee himself would not survive such a shift in strategy, for the very good reason that he would be incapable of implementing it. A different leader would be required and would be found.
The second option is to do nothing. This is tempting; the path of least resistance always is. The problem for the prime minister is that this is not going to work either. From the last general elections to this moment, Indian politics was a one-side football match. The BJP kept scoring into an empty goal to loud applause from its supporters. The opposition has not managed to put together a team yet, but you can be sure of one thing: quite a few goalkeepers are manning the post, and will not allow the kind of free scoring in which every minister began to pose like Pele.
The last session of parliament saw the BJP under pressure but it was uncoordinated pressure, largely because Sonia Gandhi could not draw the line between a personal issue and a political cause. She did not, and could not, get support from other opposition parties for her demand that the house should not function as long as there was any attempt to conduct an inquiry against her.
The Congress, typically, placed her well-being over larger national issues. But that session was a match in the qualifying rounds; the real contest will begin in the next session of parliament. All the opposition parties are buoyant and revived by electoral success: the Congress survived its own mistakes to squeak past in Assam and took Kerala handsomely in the company of its partners. Jayalalitha humiliated the DMK, a partner of the BJP, in Tamil Nadu.
Paradoxically, the only result from which the BJP could have drawn an element of satisfaction was West Bengal, where the Left neatly outthought Mamata Banerjee.
An analogy from military warfare would be appropriate: Mamata charged early and vigorously; the Communists simply opened a passage and let her charge right through their ranks. She kept charging ahead until she reached nowhere land, while the Left rearranged its ranks, consolidated and quietly awaited her return to the battlefield. By this time her behavior had convinced the electorate that she was less of a general and more of general hysteria. The Marxists will be a replenished voice in the next session.
The prime minister cannot hope to meet his political challenge by doing nothing. He has to change the chemistry of the environment and revitalize the rationale of his government. A reshuffle always helps, but we cannot expect too much drama from the shuffle that Vajpayee has promised. There is a section that is pressing for a change in the Finance Ministry, but Vajpayee is unlikely to oblige the hard-liners who want “swadeshi” instead of liberalization.
This is going to be a Cabinet expansion, a distribution of rewards and bonuses, rather than a reshuffle of portfolios or a major induction of heavyweights who can contribute their individual credibility to the exercise of policy.
Vajpayee will have to do more to change the mood of the country. There is room for a dramatic thrust in one area: Kashmir, and of course in relations with Pakistan. The stage was set last year for a positive and even imaginative play when Vajpayee announced an unilateral cease-fire in the Valley. That opportunity was wasted in dithering provoked by clashing views at the top levels of the BJP. (In the process the government made Syed Ali Shah Geelani into a minor hero.) The stage is being re-set now. K.C. Pant has begun his dialogue with the deliberately deaf. But that deafness can be cured, because the medicine is in Islamabad.
Pakistan’s Gen. Pervez Musharraf continues to wait, with both ears alert, for an invitation to talks. The one significant positive change over last year is the unforeseen shift in Washington’s attitude to Delhi. The sharp rupture in Sino-American bonhomie is a principal reason for this, but Washington would not have turned on this arc if it also did not recognize India’s potential to play a balancing role in Asia. To that extent it is in Washington’s interest to encourage a solution to the India-Pakistan confrontation.
In the Sixties, Washington used to dream of unity in the south of the Himalayas against China; but that is neither possible nor even particularly wise. If Vajpayee has the will, the world will find a way. He has some 12 weeks in which to set the high table for talks, because the General Assembly of the United Nations provides a convenient and neutral environment for talks.
There are going to be no more Lahores, for which we should be grateful: practical steps toward a difficult peace, however small, are more useful than declarations of goodwill designed for good television. Vajpayee faced his first major crisis after the BJP was demolished in the assembly elections of 1999.
The Congress could have pulled down the government and walked toward a general election success. Instead it waited to improve its fortunes in Uttar Pradesh. (It is still waiting to do so.) Vajpayee turned the political mood around by his determined thrust toward liberalization at home, and peace with Pakistan. That was the end of the uncertain beginning for his government, and the beginning of a certain end for the Congress. Liberalization has come some way since then; the Pakistan initiative has floundered, not least because of Pakistan. But the generals who mangled the Lahore spirit are ready to do business. Business is a cold business, Mr. Vajpayee. Keep it cool, but do get some business done.
