SUNDAY SOLILOQUIES

A visionary & politician in khaki

N J NANPORIA

President Musharraf is no more enigmatic than the next man. Yet those on the Indian side who interact with him do not seem to have assessed him at his proper worth. Perhaps this is explained in part by a personality that is a strange mix of politician and visionary complicated somewhat by a dash of the military man. Consider for example his recent article in the Pakistani newspaper Dawn in which he has spelled out his new doctrine modestly called Enlightened Moderation. In it he analyses with clinical objectivity how, in a progressively dangerous world, the international Muslim community has been victimised as much by misconception, prejudice and political injustice as by its own militancy and extremism. He emphasises the latter by directing the main thrust of his appeal for moderation and introspection at his fellow Muslims.

Yet he understands how Islam as a religion has been cynically exploited by interested parties for their political ends. Deprivation and provocation allied to lack of education and disunity have set off a circle of violence and counter-violence. To this there is, as the General sees it, no solution other than the “path of socio-economic uplift”. Enlightened self-help with links to an understanding of one’s limitations is at the heart of the Musharraf formula. And the restrained passion with which it has been presented is reinforced by an earthy realism as, for example, when he said that the “doctrine of fairness is not always available”. Nevertheless he has called on the non-Muslim world to play its part by resolving all political disputes with justice.

The irrepressible politician

No Muslim leader of any stature anywhere has spoken in these terms and there is in this initiative something of an echo of his memorable speech of January 12, 2002 which L K Advani, among others, welcomed as “path-breaking”. It has been embedded in the US Congressional record as a “historic speech” and, in particular, has been recognised as a presentation “in terms far different from those of the western secular leaders”.

True, the General cannot forget that he has a political role to play and the politician in him can’t keep mum and surrender the stage to the visionary. So there is a reference to Kashmir “freedom fighters” in his Dawn article, and quite obviously when he speaks of his expectations from the “world at large” it is a convenient euphemism for Bush’s America. Little can be gained by making too much of this. There is in New Delhi a minority view that we have in Musharraf the only chance in the foreseeable future to get the Kashmir issue out of the way if in fact we are interested in doing so. Ping-pong “diplomacy” in which scoring points against the General or saying yes to no and no to yes will not get us anywhere.
In the latest embarrassing contretemps authored by Natwar Singh a significant, indeed even encouraging signal from the Pakistani leader, was his phone call to Atal Behari Vajpayee. Alone, in his own person, apart from the BJP party and the Sangh, Vajpayee is seen, as also by many others, as a living symbol of Enlightened Moderation. Have a here, between the two men, a personal bond well above politics and diplomacy? And will the new dispensation in New Delhi have the good sense to take this into account?

The sham of India shining
Of course it was rather silly of the BJP to assume that a slogan like India Shining that smacks of across-the-counter salesmanship would win it any electoral dividends. But the reaction to it, particularly after the party’s electoral debacle, has been sillier still. Poverty in our country is not something that can’t be seen.It is visible, obtrusive, demanding and conspicuous. Yet, someone has only to make a proposal or support a policy relating to development to evoke the question what about the poor? Much as though the poor had gone, unnoticed or as though the questioner himself had suddenly discovered that the poor are still with us.

India shining never meant and was never intended to mean that the poor were no longer poor. It only signalled, perhaps a little too optimistically, that the faintest suggestion of a shine had been achieved and that there was the promise, however distant, of the shine becoming shinier.

“Pro-poor” is a cliche that should be immediately jettisoned. Governance is all about improvement which includes the poor. Some short term measures are painful but are beneficial in the long term. Some measures are ostensibly pro-poor but are damaging to the nation and therefore for the poor also. “Pro-poor” is a cheap linguistic device to garner votes. And those who tried to puncture the BJP by mocking the India Shining slogan have been too clever by half. One is reminded of a BBC documentary on the Taj Hotel which deplored five star luxury when there were so many of the poor. That deserved an award for banality.

American oddities
It is understood or should be that the media, even in America, is bound to make mistakes and planted stories are not unknown. So the breast-beating confessionals by some parts of the US media for unknowingly misleading its readers on the Bush-Iraq affair is both irritating and unconvincing. It is one way of obliquely seeming to confirm a commitment to the highest standards of accuracy and professional integrity. In turn, in the event of grievous error, it makes possible a melodramatic display of mea culpa that is self-flattering.

One of the oddest things is that this media is a strange combination of falling-into-line servility and very bold and intelligent criticism. Any suggestion of the nation in peril or in travail and the majority are instantly prepared to start saluting and conform. America is a country in which nearly everything, including patriotism, is standardised. At one extreme there is the Fox TV coverage of events. At the other there is a very commendable attempt to understand and criticise, though yet within the framework of distinctly American “values”. This perhaps explains why, despite blatant spin doctoring by the Bush administration, the media was, again seemingly so willingly misled.

Americans are much too conscious of being American and this obliges them to surrender to the enormous pressures in US society in favour of an uncritical conformity. A much higher proportion of the American people than is apparent remain undeceived, yet prefer to remain silent.

Note the following by General Anthony Zinni: “In the lead up to the Iraqi war and its later conduct I saw, at a minimum, true dereliction, negligence and irresponsibility, at worst, lying, incompetence and corruption.” That is the genuine American voice, heard also during the Vietnam affair. How is it that the media didn’t see what Zinni so clearly saw?

The farce over the tainted

When a coalition is formed everyone knows that it is a coalition. There should be a prep-supposition that the PM cannot behave like the head of a single party government. Compromise is called for Indiscipline is tolerated. Bypassing objections becomes a fine art. Distasteful quid pro quo arrangements are negotiated. Criticising these things is the easiest things to do and unfortunately, it is invariably done by the Opposition while inconsistently conceding that the targeted government is a coalition with all the warts of being in that unhappy situation.

Coalition partners — it can hardly be argued otherwise — have the right to nominate their own ministers just as the PM has the right to assign portfolios. How far these rights are pushed depends on the power equations in force. To expect anything better than that is to ignore the reality of what coalitions are in this country. It is a game with an eye on the main chance. So all the fuss about “tainted” ministers is a niggling, pretentious display of a simulated concern for an immaculate democracy which belongs, as far as India is concerned, to a never never land.

Charges and accusations, unusually loosely made, are a stock in trade of politicking. Politicians, in the main, are seldom morally and intellectually well qualified and a “tainted” one is not always distinguishable from an untainted specimen.

Besides this there is the point that a tainted one could be unexpectedly talented. Between a tainted competent and an untainted blunderer which should we prefer?