NO aspect of American society struck me more vividly during my stay there than the friendliness and warmth of the American people. Americans are also a very proud people. You tell an American that he lives in a beautiful country, he answers: “that is true. There is none like it in the world”. You praise the freedom they enjoy, and he answers: “freedom is a precious gift but very few people are worthy to enjoy it”.

If there is one country in the world where one can hope to appreciate the true value of the sovereignty of the people, and judge both its dangers and its advantages, that country is America. “The people reign over the American political world as God rules over the universe”.

For two hundred years the principle of the sovereignty of the people has prevailed unchallenged in America. Throughout this period it has been not only the most prosperous but also the most stable of all countries in the world. While all the nations of the world have been ravaged by war or torn by civil strife, the American people alone have remained pacific. Almost the whole of Europe has been convulsed by revolutions; America has not even suffered from major riots. Where else can one find greater cause for hope or more valuable lessons?

More than two hundred years ago, fifty Americans worked through the sweltering heat of a Philadelphia summer to forge one of the most enduring political compromises in the world, which has stood the test of time and is the envy of the civilized world. America has the world’s best universities. Americans have won more Nobel prizes in the sciences than any other people. America has the best medical care in the world. Those who want to leave America and live in another country number in the hundreds. Those who want to leave their home countries and live in America, number in the millions.

Two hundred years ago, the United States was militarily weak and economically poor, but to millions of people in other countries, America was the hope of the world because of the timeless values America stood for. From the beginning, America has been more than a place. It represents the values and ideals of a humane civilization. Two hundred years ago, America caught the imagination of the world because of the ideals which it stood for. Today its image is tainted by military adventurism and conflicts abroad, poor quality secondary education, rampant crime and violence, growing racial divisions and pervasive poverty. Today the United States has the richest economy in the world. Economic power, however, is not the same thing as strength of national character. America is rich in goods, but poor in spirit. America seems to be experiencing what Arnold Toynbee called “the dark night of the soul”. To be both strong and rich is not enough. You must also be an example for others to follow.

Andre Malraux once observed that the United State was the only nation in the world to have become a world power without intending or trying to do so. Today we live in a world in which the United States is the only superpower. Today America no longer faces the threat of aggression by a powerful foe. No nation has the power to threaten America without risking a devastating response.

America’s greatest enemy today is the enemy within. A century and a half ago, Alexis de Tocqueville warned that universal obsession with materialism, the lack of enduring social bonds, and the shallowness of religious and philosophical thought in America had given rise to a “new despotism” — of mediocrity, of selfishness, of directionlessness.

America has daunting problems at home and because of these its people are far less than they could be or should be. The richest country in the world has the highest per capita health-care cost in the world and yet 38 million people are unable to get adequate medical care because they cannot afford it. The richest country in the world, with one-twentieth of the world’s people, spends almost as much on illegal drugs as the rest of the world combined does. The richest country in the world has the highest crime rate in the world.

During the Gulf war almost 20 times as many Americans were murdered in the United States as were killed on the battlefield. In the richest country in the world, a permanent underclass has developed that is rapidly making its great cities unsafe and unlivable.

Woodrow Wilson sought to make the world safe for democracy. Today America is punishing its enemies with its particular brand of democracy and rewarding its authoritarian friends with silence on democratization. “For a nation that honours democracy and freedom”, The New York Times wrote in a recent editorial, “the United States has a nasty habit of embracing foreign dictators when they seem to serve US interest. It is one of the least appealing trait of US foreign policy. Like his predecessors, President G. W. Bush is falling for the illusion that tyrants make good allies... When Washington preaches democracy while tolerating the tyranny of allies, America looks double-faced”.

Not very long ago, how wonderful was the position of the New World where man had no enemies but himself and to be happy and to be free it was enough to will it to be so. Today American troops are scattered around the world from the plains of Northern Europe to the mountains of Afghanistan and the Philippines in search of a phantom enemy, bombing and killing innocent Afghan men, women and children.

Though it disavows imperial ambitions it is increasingly perceived in the world today as peremptory, domineering and imperial. US action in Afghanistan has been transformed from a limited police operation into indefinite military occupation with geo-strategic aims. Under this plan, the United States would acquire a permanent military presence in Afghanistan and turn it into a base for projecting its power to Central Asia, South Asia, the Middle East and the Persian Gulf.

In the past, some envied America, some others liked it and yet others hated it, but almost all respected it. And all knew that without the United States peace and freedom in the world would not have survived. Today President Bush appears to believe in a kind of unilateral civilization. The United Nations is at best a tool of convenience and treaties are not considered sacrosanct or binding.

The war on terror is used to topple weak regimes. Today Washington’s main message to the world seems to be: take dictation. No wonder, very few respect America these days. The poor and the weak are scared to death and fear the world’s only super power. In the eyes of millions of Muslims throughout the world, America is the greatest to them and their religion since the 13th century.

Since September 11, 2001, Americans seem to have forgotten America as an idea, as a source of hope and as a beacon of liberty. They have stopped talking about who they are but who they are going to invade, oust or sanction next. These days nobody would think of appealing to the United States for support for upholding a human rights case — may be to Canada, to Norway or to Sweden, but not to the United States.

What many friends of America find hard to understand is how America, the upholder of the rights of man and the beacon of liberty, could be transformed so quickly into a semi-police state. The Bush administration’s post-September 11 assault on civil liberties, its refusal to release the names and locations of detainees, and its insistence on secret hearings, conjures up Kafkaesque scenarios. The US constitution guarantees that those suspected of crimes must be informed of the charges against them, be enabled to confront their accusers, to consult a lawyer, and have a speedy and open trial. But all that means very little in America today because the government can revoke all these rights merely by labelling someone a ‘combatant’. Jefferson once said: “the tyranny of legislature (in the United States) is the most formidable dread at present and will be for many years. That of the executive will come in its turn, but it will be at a remote period”. Is Jefferson’s grim forecast coming true? “One of the great lessons of history”, British historian Paul Johnson wrote, “is that no civilization can be taken for granted. Its permanency can never be assured. There is always a dark age waiting for you round the corner if you play your cards badly and you make sufficient mistakes”. Today America has lost the high moral ground it once occupied. It stands alone in the comity of nations, forsaken by most of its erstwhile friends and allies. America was its true self only when it was engaged in a great enterprise. That is no longer the case. Without a great cause to inspire and galvanize it, America has ceased to be a great nation and the dream of the founding fathers has gone sour. This is certainly not America’s finest hour.

In his Iron Curtain speech in 1947, Winston Churchill said, “the United States stands at this time at the pinnacle of world power. It is a solemn moment for the American democracy. For with primacy in power is also joined an awe-inspiring accountability for future”. Those words are as true today as when Churchill spoke them 55 years ago.

I was in Washington on September 11 and was shocked to see, on television, the terrible human tragedy in which thousands of innocent men and women lost their lives. Nobody can justify or condone a crime of such unparalleled magnitude. We understand America’s anger and share its grief and pain but on September 20, as we listened to President George W. Bush’s wartime rhetoric and Wild West allegories, we held our breath.

When he finished, the spontaneous reaction of all those present was that President Bush had virtually declared war on the entire Islamic world. America must not let its need for revenge blur its vision and colour judgment, for the rage of a wounded giant can be dangerous, its direction unpredictable.

“My greatest complaint”, Tocqueville wrote almost two hundred years ago, “against democratic government, as organized in the United States, is not, as many Europeans make out, its weakness, but rather its irresistible strength. What I find most repulsive in America is not the extreme freedom reigning there but the shortage of guarantees against tyranny”. An “American war” against yet another Muslim country will not be in America’s national interest and will almost certainly produce unforeseen consequences.

PRIME Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee does not speak much these days. After the BJP session in Goa, he has considered it politic to withdraw from centrestage. His statements from America might have given a different impression. He had to be in New York — and speak — because of the September 11 anniversary and the opening of the UN General Assembly. Actually, he has not changed at all.

Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani now presides even over the all-party meetings. It is not health that restrains Vajpayee. It is probably the realization that the liberals who once respected him have become disillusioned, and that he had little respect among the extremists.

Had Vajpayee been younger he might have tried to win back that opinion. He might have fought against the elements that have pushed him aside. The hardliners have nearly taken over the BJP. This must be irking him. Maybe he still feels like asserting himself sometimes. Just to show that the fire within him has not died out yet.

Not long ago, he ticked off Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi for speaking against Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Lyngdoh. The CEC’s fault was that he had said that the conditions in Gujarat were not favourable for an early election. Modi wanted to cash in on the polarization he had brought about in the wake of the carnage. Obvioulsy, Vajpayee doesn’t count much. The state BJP chief asserted, after Vajpayee’s admonition, that the party would never say “sorry” to the CEC.

I wondered if Vajpayee was guiding the cabinet meetings. The ministers I talked to confirmed that he went over the agenda. But they added that it was obvious where the power lay. Cabinet ministers look towards Advani whenever any item is taken up. “Vajpayee rules but does not govern” is the comment of one minister. How soon Vajpayee steps down to make way for Advani is whispered about in the BJP corridors. One top party leader says: “George Fernandes should know because he is the one who proposed the elevation of Advani.” It is taken for granted that Advani will be the prime minister long before the general elections. BJP President Venkaiah Naidu has scoffed at this impression at a press meet. But Vajpayee looks like stepping out slowly as his slow gait suggests.

Once I asked former West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu whether the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) would agree to Advani’s name when Vajpayee stepped down. Basu’s reply was that power provided glue to the NDA; its members would do anything to stay in power. But it may not be that easy. Vajpayee has acquired an image that is acceptable to many political parties. Advani has begun following in his first steps. His performance in London before the Muslim gathering was impressive. He is trying to soften his hardliner image. But he has a long way to go. Vajpayee has disappointed people but not alienated them. The BJP still wants someone like him to happen to it.

Vajpayee spoke the other day about the need for consensus among political parties or the Lakshman Rekha, the limit beyond which none should go. Was he trying to retrieve lost ground or was it mere rhetoric? Vajpayee may be sincerely seeking the opposition’s support in dealing with the country’s numerous problems in economic, political and social fields. But it is futile.

In an atmosphere where confrontation, not conciliation, is the order of the day, consensus, even if sincerely proposed, is not feasible. In a multi-party system, there is an inherent compulsion to be one up on the opponent. Numbers count in a democratic system. The reason why consensus will always elude the country is the opportunistic politics that every party has played. The race for power has corrupted the system. Ends have come to justify the means.

The BJP is the biggest culprit. It has used all types of methods to increase its strength in the Lok Sabha, from five or six to 181, within 10 to 15 years. While doing so, it has thought little of the “nation first,” which Vajpayee said should be its prime consideration.

After quitting the Janata Party in 1979, the then Jana Sangh changed its name to the BJP and revived its old communal agenda. It has been relentlessly playing the Hindutva card since. In the process, the party has adopted the hated two-nation theory, the basis of partition, to polarize the country. And it has met with success of sorts.

Can it give up this agenda?

The BJP has injected communalism into politics, others the caste system and regional chauvinism. All parties have, more or less, played havoc with norms and values. No political party has ever paused to think that the tactics it is using to increase its support might pollute society itself. And this is what has happened.

The question that arises is: At what stage do political parties call a truce? The outfit which has lagged behind is bound to use the tactics the other one has employed to improve its strength. How do you draw the line if you yourself have not stopped at anything? The BJP must introspect on the point. Democracy does not mean a free play of ideas that fundamentalists and casteists disseminate. Political parties have to think how to put a stop to it if the content of democracy is to be saved.

A consensus means an agreement in opinion. But when the eyes of parties are fixed on power, how do you bring about a consensus? How do parties in the opposition put faith in its exhortations for a consensus? The objective of rulers is to keep the opposition out at any cost while the opposition wants to come in by hook or by crook. Unless there is a code of ethics, the situation will deteriorate further. And there has to be a sense of accommodation. It existed in the past. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru included Shyama Prasad Mukharjee, the Hindu Mahasabha leader, in the first post-independent cabinet.

During the rule of four and a half years at the centre the BJP got many opportunities to prove that it was honest in its endeavour for a consensus. Gujarat is the recent one. It should have asked Chief Minister Narendra Modi to quit on day one. When the prime minister says “there can be no place for such violence in a civilized society,” how can the architect of violence have a place in civilized society?

The Vajpayee government has no consultations with the opposition, much less any understanding. There are forums available for the two to interact. The government does not use them. The prime minister has never called a meeting of the National Integration Council, which includes eminent people from different walks of life, to discuss the country’s problems, rising above party lines. Maybe, the council has to be reconstituted. More than four years have elapsed since Vajpayee’s takeover. Still there is no sign of National Integration Council.

The real problem is that the BJP is pushing its parochial agenda when it has only onethird of the Lok Sabha’s strength and still less in the Rajya Sabha. The party has to have a verdict from the nation before it takes the country to the Hindutva way as it is trying to do.

If the BJP stops its endeavour to polarize the country, the opposition may come round to support certain government steps. It will not be a consensus but limited cooperation. This may still be better than the present situation where the hostility between the ruling combination and the opposition is not allowing even parliament to function.