THERE was indeed a time when nobody really took the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) seriously — neither in India nor abroad. They had a rather low rating — somewhat like that of a lone ranger party that had been unable to overcome the ‘trauma’ of the 1947 partition events. They were, in fact, considered a bunch of political sulkers having covert affiliations with the Hindu-right consisting of the RSS/Hindu Mahasabha combine but lacking any sizable mass support.

Why was this so? Was it because in its early years when it started it had to content itself with just two or three seats in the Lok Sabha? Or was there more to it and something quite different altogether? Because those were the early heady years of Indian independence and the prevalent euphoria of the Indian National Congress proved long-lasting under Pandit Nehru who was ruling supreme which was hard to take-on, leave alone defeating it. So, in short, being in the business of opposition was quite an unrewarding business in the first thirty years of the Republic of India.

The people of the subcontinent are essentially mild of nature and fundamentally averse to taking extremist positions in most matters. Notwithstanding the rigours of partition the Indian political posturing remained focused on an idealistic secularism — despite the fact that most of the Muslim majority areas of the subcontinent had opted out and re-formed themselves into the Federation of Pakistan.

But in that critical independence year communal frenzy emanating out of what in India was considered a partitioned Indian independence that culminated in killing orgies on a very large-scale of the minority community by the majority community in vast areas is something that caused a longer-term gestation of political forces in India which were deeply inimical to the 1947 partition settlement and nursed pent-up feelings and sought a policy rationale for proving the Congress wrong in having accepted the principle of partition.

These were the Rashtriya Sevak Sangh (RSS) and the All-India Hindu Mahasabha. As a young schoolboy then growing up in Bombay I had personal experience of seeing them doing their early morning drills in khaki shorts and training in the art of learning the use of the bamboo-stick both for purposes of self-defence as well as offence. Bombay in those days used to be Bombay Presidency and not the Maharashtra state of today which has renamed the capital city as Mumbai. It was indeed then a truly cosmopolitan and liberal place by all accounts. There were occasional Hindu-Muslim riots in a few chronic sore-points but nothing like what overtook the subcontinent in 1946 and 1947.

After independence these two Hindu extremist parties sat down and said to themselves that since they had lost out to the Indian National Congress which had installed itself in power in New Delhi and the All-India Muslim League which was basking in the sun of the new country, Pakistan. They found it necessary to make themselves fashionable enough to be able to attract the Indian voters. They knew they could not pull it off in the Gandhi-Nehru era and whereas it was going to be a waiting game of sorts they also knew that they could not go on waiting indefinitely — for it is in the very nature of politics that results have to come in sooner than whatever supporters are prepared to wait for.

Consequently a new party had to be concocted which was neither Hindu in nomenclature nor distinctly secular by profession but which, on the quiet, could draw upon on the older pockets of extremist Hindu support without antagonising the apparently well-to-do and western educated elements of various communities whose only ‘real religion’ happens to be personal advancement.

That is how the BJP was really born. They had already killed Mahatma Gandhi and now all that they had to do was to wait for Nehru to die a natural death. In the aftermath of these two men they rallied the Hindu masses through the old networks of the RSS and the Mahasabha. It was indeed a long-haul process. In the post Nehru era, year after year they steadily increased their presence in the country as well as in the assemblies in the centre as well as in the provinces.

The crux is that very slowly over a longish period of time they managed to inch their way through the electoral process. Every time there was an election from the 1960s onwards they increased their seats, if so only marginally. There were other parties also around that were less jingoistic and more secular than even the Congress but these appeared and disappeared because they could really not compete with the Congress in the pursuit of the secular vote bank. But the BJP realized that its electoral competition was with the Congress over the mainstream Hindi-speaking vote in what is also known as India’s cow-belt.

Needless to say there always was an extreme Hindu lobby even inside the Congress which was not easily discernible to the naked eye. The first time this fact was really discovered was in the early 1990s when Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in southern India and his place was taken by the senior Congress politician Narasimha Rao who, as events revealed later, turned out to be a closet-Hindu fundo disguised in the Congress feathers coupled with the suaveness of the South Indian culture. Subsequent events leading up to the Ayodhya Babri mosque affair in 1994 during his prime ministership bear adequate evidence to that effect.

By the middle of the 1980s and ‘90s the Congress had taken heavy casualties in terms of having lost two prime ministers to acts of political assassination plus the large scale electoral erosion caused by persistent stories of rampant corruption in its rank and file. In this scenario the Hindu fanatics of India saw that their great chance had arrived and, therefore, threw in their fullest support to the BJP in terms of both men and financial underwriting.

This caused both the moderate elements as well as the not-so-moderate elements to switch their support to the BJP thus making it possible for the first time for the BJP to emerge as the single largest party in the Indian Lok Sabha and form not just one government (like the first Vajpayee-led government which could not sustain itself to its first test on the floor of the house) but two subsequent Vajpayee governments which have shown considerable resilience in keeping their majorities in the Lok Sabha notwithstanding the wobbly looks of a 26-party alliance. In doing so Vajpayee’s second government came out better off from the Kargil-crisis with Pakistan.

But having survived and even thrived for a while what are the prospects for the immediate, the present and the future that seem likely for the BJP government? Is it going to have a long life like the Congress which had a series of governments in very long succession? Or is it going to have a midlife crisis of fatal proportions? Vajpayee has indeed been the BJP’s greatest asset but the full worth of this asset has not really come good. And time is indeed running out fast for him and the BJP. The region is indeed engulfed with foreign interventions which are escalating everyday. The BJP and Vajpayee instead of providing leadership to India and possibly to the region have remained stuck like glue to the past which is of no solace to the economic downturn in South Asia.

The floodgates for the multinational corporations are being opened and each country seems in competition with the other in doing what they ought not to be doing. There is so much talk about the designs of the WTO and yet not one country in the Asian region has had the guts to stand up and resist what may well be a repeat enslavement mechanism this time in perpetuity. Even China appears to have lost its ideological purity and thrust in its struggle to convert itself into a full-dress bourgeois society.

Coming back to the BJP, its flip-flop has been fully exposed in its alternating stances between a secular posture and that of Hindu extremism. In the process, the Indian electorate is confused and the government’s policy making apparatus is even more given to contradictions which are apparently their version of pragmatism which in effect implies that there is no real policy direction.

There is still the hankering for the swadeshi movement while the economic onrush is for promoting the products of the major multinationals that are descending on India. The end-product is galloping confusion on the political as well as economic fronts and whereas the BJP and Vajpayee may be stewing in their own juice, they have neither served their own cause nor that of the region. The prolonged stand-off between the two armies on the Indo-Pakistan border is indeed a case in point. If there is some greater political or economic wisdom behind such a policy at least I for one am unable to perceive it.

PRESIDENT Pervez Musharraf has sought the approval of the people for his reforms through a referendum and won as expected.

He has done that at a time when the World Bank officials attending the Pakistan Development Forum meeting in Paris have said the reform programme has saved the country from a major financial crisis, but it is only the beginning.

Simultaneously, the head of the World Bank in Pakistan John Wall, who knows the country well, says the CBR, WAPDA and the KESC are the most corrupt organizations in Pakistan. That he could be saying that after almost three years of military rule with its omnibus authority and the watchful National Accountability Bureau and the National Reconstruction Bureau, apart from old institutions like the FIA and the intelligence agencies is disheartening, if not utterly demoralizing.

Meiko Nishimizu, vice-president of the World Bank, says that it is a herculean task to get the country out of the crisis of governance or misgovernance. Evidently the misgovernance is so widespread and deep-rooted that three years could pass without making decisive improvements in the large institutions dealing with the public and known for their corrupt practices. These are the institutions the international financial institutions have been trying to help with sizable loans.

Areas where there have been massive corruption are where massive public spending is involved. The Election Commission says the presidential referendum would cost over Rs 2 billion. The October general election in which many candidates would be in the run should cost far more. In fact, the totality of spending on such political exercises and how that is spent is far more important than the official spending. How much money was spent by the PTV and Radio Pakistan on free publicity for the President, by those who advertised in newspapers and other media for support to the President, by those who came up with large banners and high flying flags and by the transporters who had to provided free transport for the voters as well those who attended the President’s public meetings. All that need computing by competent professional accounts.

But the economic returns to the country in the form of higher GDP growth will far outweigh the cost of public spending, says information minister Nisar Memon. But the discordant notes of the World Bank officials make us wonder how much will be the additional benefit to the people unless the chronic problem of misgovernance is overcome.

Election expenses are a small part of the far larger public spending. During the election campaign and at other times when presidents and prime ministers visit various parts of the country to address public meetings, large development projects involving vast outlays are announced. And that has been done more often by the military rulers since the days of Ayub Khan.

Gen. Ziaul Haq indulged in that far more. He did not care to ascertain whether the requisite funds were available or not. It was the task of his finance minister Ghulam Ishaq Khan to verify from him the projects about which he was serious and affordable, and then release the funds for them only. So several of Gen Zia’s promises for large projects were in vain. And the people knew that too well.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was also fond of making large commitments for development projects as he felt the need for them, but could not find the funds for them. There were limits to which the Arab monarchies or the world’s financial institutions could help him. Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif too made such commitments but could not find the money. In fact, Nawaz Sharif was too fond of that and wanted mega projects in minimum time and directed the finance ministry and the public sector banks to provide the money.

Most of such projects, announced for public consumption, were not cleared by the Planning Commission or other expert groups. And quite often when foreign aid was available for such projects domestic funds were not forthcoming. So the aid funds for such projects to the extent of 10 to 11 billion dollars used to get stuck in the pipeline on which we had to pay a half per cent committal charges annually.

When Nawaz Sharif launched his Motorway Project costing a billion dollars the Planning Commission had disapproved that project. But he was determined to go ahead with that — a part of large network of motorways all over the country, including one from the Karachi airport to Peshawar in the form of a bullet train. Funds for the project had not been allocated in the budget. The minimum the prime minister could say was that provision for such spending would be made in the next budget. And when the National Assembly met it took no serious objection to such announcements without its approval.

Such announcements are more in line with monarchical pattern than a democratic order. And during military rule, there is no parliament to demand debate on such projects before final approval. As a result the country has been having large budget deficit, as high as 10 per cent at its peak in reality.

The experience of military and democratic governments shows that it is easy to waste public funds but difficult to recover them. The efforts of the National Accountability Bureau to get some of the top political players convicted and recover a part of the looted wealth, and its prolonged failure, are too glaring.

The solution to this problem is making the parliamentary institutions strong. Standing committees of Parliament should be set up immediately after it meets following the October election and their chairman should not be ministers. They should instead be from among the opposition and independent members. The ruling party chairmen have a record of smothering meetings of such committees. A law should also be enacted prescribing the minimum number of meetings they should have in a year. And the Press should have access to their reports.

Among these committees the most important is the Public Accounts Committee. Its meetings should also be open to the press, as the meeting of the Adhoc committee under H.U. Beg has produced excellent results. Officials, including ministers who misused public funds need not be protected from the view of the public, more so when they refuse to refund the misused funds.

All that should be preceded by regular and timely reports of the Auditor General which usually forms the basis of the PAC deliberations. Reports say the political reforms which Gen. Musharraf is bringing would give greater authority to the Auditor General. That should be done to make that office far more effective in checking misuse of public funds.

Mohammad Khan Junejo, the former PM, used to laugh at the performance of the A.G. and the PAC saying what was the use of talking about the embezzlements long after the culprits had retired or were dead. He wanted timely meetings of the PAC, and Auditor General’s reports well in time. That is what the country needs now. The prolonged inefficacy of the NAB, excepting in respect of a few politicians and some officials, demonstrate that amply. Instead of locking the paddock long after the horse had bolted and feeling utterly frustrated, and scoffed at by the public, timely intervention to prevent corruption and recover the embezzled money is very important and stay unfailing.

It is equally important for the Planning Commission or other experts to scrutinise all major projects before they are approved by the government or its organs so that country is not saddled with too many abandoned projects as they were later found to be useless or unrewarding. Prevention is better than failing cure.

At a time when a powerful National Security Council is being set up to check political abuses and maintain a balance of power the defence sector too should come under the purview of Parliament, as in other democratic countries. If open debate on military issues is not regarded feasible, at least the standing committee of the ministry of defence should be taken into confidence. It is not that there are no financial scandals in the military sphere. So the financial management in the military sector should be open to analysis by the standing committee instead of the National Assembly approving a one-line defence budget.

And the NAB or any organization that may follow that should be free to scrutinise financial lapses in the military and judicial spheres as a several ex-judges are demanding. We should not have too many sacred cows in the government at a time of increasing transparency in administrations around the world. When the military feels free to look into the political sphere and take over the country from time to time the public figures should also be free to look into the military administration and its large spending.

QUAID-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah — the undisputed leader of the Muslims of the subcontinent who single-handedly created Pakistan, could have, if he had so wished, given to the people of this country a constitution. But the Quaid was, above all, a democrat, a committed constitutionalist and for him the rule of law was an article of faith.

When asked what would be the constitution of Pakistan, his answer was that he had neither the power nor the intention of determining or dictating a constitution. He insisted that it was for the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan to deliberate the constitutional issues and finally adopt the constitution of Pakistan. He went on to state that the government in Pakistan would be representative and democratic. He called it a people’s government and declared that the constitution and the government would be what the people have decided.

The Quaid was equally clear about the role of the bureaucracy in the governance of the country. While addressing the Civil Officers of Balochistan at Sibbi on February 14, 1948, the Quaid stated: “Pakistan is now a sovereign state, absolute and unfettered, and the Government of Pakistan is in the hands of the people. Until we finally frame our constitution which, of course, can only be done by the Constituent Assembly, our present provisional constitution based on the fundamental principles of democracy, not bureaucracy or autocracy or dictatorship, must be worked. You officers should realize that these are the principles which should be borne in mind.”

Addressing the gazetted officers at Chittagong on March 25, 1948, the Quaid said: “You have to do your duty as servants, you are not concerned with this political or that political party; that is not your business. It is the business of politicians to fight out their battle under the present constitution or the future constitution that may be ultimately framed. You, therefore, have nothing to do with this party or that party. You are civil servants. Whichever gets the majority will form the government, and your duty is to serve that government for the time being as servants, not as politicians. You do not belong to the ruling class; you belong to the servants.”

In an informal talk to Civil Officers at Government House, Peshawar, on April 14, 1948, the Quaid-i-Azam said: “You should have no hand in supporting this political party or that political party, this political leader or that political leader — this is not your business. Whichever government is formed according to the constitution and whoever happens to be the prime minister or minister coming into power in the ordinary constitutional course, your duty is not only to serve that government loyally and faithfully but at the same time fearlessly...”

While on the subject of the constitution and the oath under the constitution the Quaid had this to say while addressing the officers of the Staff College at Quetta on June 14, 1948:

“One thing more. I am persuaded to say this because during my talks with one or two very high-ranking officers, I discovered that they did not know the implications of the oath taken by the troops of Pakistan. But it is an important form and I would like to take the opportunity of refreshing your memory by reading the prescribed oath to you: ‘I solemnly affirm, in the presence of Almighty God, that I owe allegiance to the Constitution and the Dominion of Pakistan and that I will, as in duty bound, honestly and faithfully serve in the Dominion of Pakistan forces and go within the terms of my enrolment wherever I may be ordered by air, land or sea and that I will observe and obey all commands of any officer set over me.’

“As I have said just now, the spirit is what really matters. I should like you to study the Constitution which is in force in Pakistan at present and understand its true constitutional and legal implications when you say that you will be faithful to the Constitution of the Dominion. I want you to remember and if you have time enough you should study the Government of India Act, as adapted for use in Pakistan, which is our present Constitution, that the executive authority flows from the Head of the Government of Pakistan, who is the Governor-General and, therefore, any command or orders that may come to you cannot come without the sanction of the Executive Head. This is the legal position.”

Is it too late to recall the Quaid? Has the Quaid become redundant in today’s Pakistan? If the Quaid goes, what remains? And this is the cry of an anguished heart.

The writer is a retired judge of the Supreme Court of Pakistan.

GREGORY Westin Wendt, a history writer, and I were talking about plagiarism. He said, “I don’t trust a writer who will steal another person’s work, because the next thing you know, he’ll steal my girl.”

“It’s probably so, but a woman wouldn’t steal your girl.”

“Yes, but her male researcher might. Don’t get me wrong, I can go either way on plagiarism. My last book, “Teddy Roosevelt and His Other Women,” sold 3,000 copies. It was a flop in every respect and I was in despair until a writer named Rose Abel Jackson wrote “Teddy Roosevelt and The Other Women He Had Known.” Hers was a smash hit, selling 400,000 copies. Out of curiosity, I bought a copy. The only thing she changed was the dedication. I dedicated my book to my daughter, Angel, and she changed the name of the dedication to her daughter, Agatha.

“There were no footnotes to acknowledge anybody else’s work. I thought about it for a while (for four minutes) and then I decided to sue.”

Gregory then described his visit to the publisher, who when he discovered Greg was an unsuccessful writer, made him wait three hours. This is what happened next:

The publisher finally let Gregory in. He said, “I’m sorry, we don’t buy works by writers who look like they have no talent.”

Gregory said, “This one is about Teddy Roosevelt and how he was a Rough Rider in the house as well as on his horse.”

The publisher replied, “We’ve done that. Rose Abel won the Pulitzer Prize for it and she is scheduled to be on Larry King’s show next week. Now get out of here.”

Greg told him, “I am going to read from her book and then mine.” Before the publisher could stop him, Gregory began to read, “‘Teddy went into the woodshed with his secretary, Candy. He described to her as they rolled in the hay, how he fell off his horse on San Juan Hill.”’

The publisher said, “So what? That’s beautiful writing.”

“I will read from my book”, Gregory told him. “‘Teddy went into the stable with his secretary, Candy. He described to her how he fell off his horse on San Juan Hill.’ Do they sound alike to you?”

“Hardly at all,” the publisher said. “Her book is full of similarities to mine. Every page of hers has four or five paragraphs exactly like mine. I don’t like to call another writer names, but she is a plagiarist.”

The publisher was furious. “No one ever calls one of our writers a plagiarist.” He paced up and down the office. “Every day an extortionist comes in here and threatens me.” Then he said, “How much do you want to remain silent?”

“I was thinking of maybe $150,000.”

The publisher replied, “That’s ridiculous. Whoever heard of a publisher settling for $150,000 over a few lousy words? I’ll give you a hundred thousand if you sign a confidentiality pact promising never to talk to anyone about this case forever.”

When George finished his story, I asked him, “You took the money?”

“Of course I did. Having someone steal your stuff pays much better than trying to sell your own book.”

“But if you signed a confidentiality agreement, why did you tell me the whole story?”

“I had to tell someone. And I know you won’t put it in the papers.”

— Dawn/Tribune Media Services

THE late Chinese prime minister Zhou Enlai had characterized the subcontinent in 1971 as a prime area of “turmoil under heaven”, and looking at the years since and down to the present times, there is little escape from the bleak realization that almost nothing has changed in our region.

In 1971, India and Pakistan had gone to war; today, our armies stand facing each other on the borders again, with renewed fear of conflict. Rail, road and air links remain suspended. We continue to be bound in distrust and hostility.

Zhou Enlai’s description of the subcontinental situation had come during the historic conversations he had with the then United States secretary of state Henry Kissinger when the latter had flown secretly to Beijing through Islamabad to pave the way for President Richard Nixon’s ground-breaking visit to China.

The Zhou-Kissinger conversations and the summary of the talks prepared by Dr Kissinger on his return to Washington are contained in records of that period recently released by the National Security Archive, an independent non-governmental research institute located at the Gelman Library at George Washington University.

Access to the record was kindly granted to this correspondent by the archive’s Dr William Burr, and while the Zhou-Kissinger conversations bear out what was already known about the respective positions of the US and China during the Bangladesh crisis, they should nevertheless provide interesting material for the researcher and the historian.

South Asia was among the major topics taken up by the two men, and Dr Kissinger was later to recall for President Nixon’s benefit that “Chou (this was how the name was then commonly spelled) described the South Asian subcontinent as a prime area of ‘turmoil under heaven’. This was because India had long ago under Nehru adopted an expansionist philosophy, not only committing aggression against Pakistan but against China as well”. According to Dr Kissinger, Premier Zhou made the following points:

“India was responsible for the present turmoil in East Pakistan. It was supporting Bangladesh and had allowed a Bangladesh ‘headquarters’ to be set up on Indian territory.

“In the light of Indian expansionist ambitions, India would use any military aid — such as that given by the USSR — for aggressive purposes. Chou acknowledged that we were not giving military assistance to India, but said that one had to keep the consequences of any aid in mind.

“China would stand by Pakistan in the present crisis. This position began to develop with a rather low-key remark at dinner the first night that China ‘could not but take some interest in the situation’ and ended with a request to me at the end to convey assurances of Chinese support to President Yayha Khan.

“I told Chou that we were trying very hard to discourage an Indo-Pak war.

“I assured Chou that we were bringing all the influence we could bear on India to try to prevent a war from developing .......”

When Zhou Enlai referred to the setting up of Bangladesh’s headquarters in India and indicated that this was subversion of the Pakistani government, Dr Kissinger asked: “The Prime Minister doesn’t think that we are cooperating with this, does he?”

PM Chou: I would not like to draw a conclusion on that at present, but simply want to point out the phenomenon — we cannot but pay attention to this. Perhaps our attention will be even greater than yours. The issue is before our eyes....

At another point, the Chinese premier tells Dr Kissinger: “You said you were pressing India not to provoke a disturbance, we also believe that you would like to improve your relations with Pakistan. I believe that you probably did say to India what you told us. We also support your opinion, that is advise India not to provoke such a disturbance, because President Yayha Khan is most concerned about the situation.

“For its part, Pakistan would never provoke a disturbance against India because in all military fields Pakistan is in a weaker position than India. There is still one special characteristic in this situation: the morale and fighting capacity of Pakistan is greater than India. We can bear witness to that because we had contacts in such a sense with India (a reference to the Sino-Indian conflict), and if India is going to go ahead and provoke a disturbance in the subcontinent, then India itself will be the victim.

“India, I believe, is one of the countries most heavily in debt, and it is also well known that the life of the Indian people is not easy — if such a disturbance is created, they will be the victims. Those who will suffer will also be the rulers of India....”

Yahya Khan and the military were to prove Zhou Enlai’s assessment to be overly optimistic. Our army was routed, East Pakistan was lost, and our rulers and people suffered most. China itself had begun to be worried at the course the military crackdown was taking in East Pakistan. If memory serves, at one point during the operation, a statement from Beijing had urged the Yahya regime to make a distinction between “miscreants” and the ordinary people of East Pakistan.