BJP defeat and its fallout

In a stunning electoral verdict, the Indian voter has thrown the BJP-led NDA out of power and brought the Congress party back at the helm of affairs after nine years in the wilderness. India's 14th general election has been a singular triumph for the silent majority, indeed a triumph of democracy. The less economically privileged and the minorities have spoken loudly and unambiguously, bringing about the biggest political upset of recent times in India.

This is the first Indian general election since 1977 that has upset every calculation and poll prediction. The irony is that even the victor has been caught unawares by the extent of her victory. The Indian experiment has amply proved (can we learn any lesson from it?) that a functioning democracy does not necessarily depend on a high level of economic development and the mass literacy of the electorate.

The poor and illiterate Indian voters refused to be bamboozled by high-sounding slogans and kept their eyes on issues that matter - their livelihood and daily life problems. The emphatic rebuke of rural India has been the primary cause of the National Democratic Alliance's (NDA) stunning defeat.

The Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) own strength has been reduced from 182 to about 140 seats in the new Lok Sabha. Even some of its stalwarts like federal minister Murli Manohar Joshi and foreign minister Yashwant Sinha have been defeated.

The debacle met by NDA's key allies in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal and the resentment of the Muslim minority against the BJP's divisive policies in Gujrat and Uttar Pradesh have played a key role in the electoral upset. As against this, the key Congress alliances in major states like Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Bihar and Maharashtra clicked well which put it clearly in the lead over the NDA.

The anti-incumbency factor has played a prominent role in the 2004 poll results. Chandrababu Naidu, for instance, has paid a heavy price for neglecting the rural masses. His "vision" of Andhra Pradesh endeared him to donors, multinationals and the media but distanced him from his voters. After nine years in office, Naidu has been emphatically voted out of power for neglecting basic issues like electricity, irrigation etc. in order to focus on World Bank-led economic reforms.

His woes were further compounded by four years of drought and mismanagement of relief measures. His Telugu Desam Party has been routed, winning only 49 seats in the 294-member assembly, while the Congress-led coalition has won a landslide victory, partly on the promise of free electricity to the farmers. As against 29 Lok Sabha seats won in the 1999 election, Naidu's party has won only five seats in the recent poll.

In the neighbouring state of Karnatka, another reformist chief minister, Congress's S.M. Krishna has been routed by an anti-incumbency wave. In fact, Karnatka is one of the few states where the BJP has emerged victorious.

What has stunned political pundits and analysts is the extent of the BJP defeat. While the Congress, increasing its strength from 112 in 1999 to about 150 seats in the new Lok Sabha, has emerged as the largest single party, the BJP's strength has been reduced from 182 to about 140 seats.

The "Left Front", dominated by the communists, has recorded its best ever performance in this election. The CPI(M) with 41 seats is perhaps the third largest party in the 14th Lok Sabha, after Congress and the BJP. The CPI has bagged 10 seats, raising the total communist strength to more than 50 seats.

The most obvious lesson of the recent poll is that it is unwise to be complacent in a functioning democracy and take the voter for granted. The "feel good" factors - runaway economic growth, low interest rates, an opposition in disarray - tempted Mr Vajpayee to an early poll, six months ahead of the scheduled time.

But the hype surrounding the "India Shining" campaign backfired in the rural areas where the teeming millions continue to live in poverty and whose resentment at the growing gap between the urban and rural areas was effectively exploited by an unaccustomed coming together of non-NDA political parties and groups. In short, the most important single cause of the BJP debacle was the emphatic rebuke from rural India.

Another trend that has clearly emerged from the 2004 election is that national issues were completely overshadowed by state and local issues and the latter played a decisive role in guiding the voters. These elections were won and lost on issues like good roads, clean drinking water, access to electricity and more jobs.

Since 1996, India has been ruled by coalition governments because no single party has been able to win the magic number 273 seats in the 545-member Lok Sabha. The just-concluded poll has given a hung parliament because no pre-election alliance or formation is in a position to form a government on its own. The Congress-led alliance, the largest group, has won about 220 seats and needs the support of plus 50 members to be eligible to form a new government.

When the parliament is hung, the role of the Indian president becomes crucial. It is to the credit of Indian democracy that Indian presidents, despite their past political leanings, become apolitical after being sworn in and have acted in an impartial and constitutional manner.

In a parliamentary system of government, as in India, the president, as head of state, has only two prerogatives: one is the appointment of the prime minister and the other is the dissolution of parliament. These prerogatives lie dormant when one party or formation emerges with a clear majority in the Lok Sabha, but they become critical, when it is hard to discover who enjoys the confidence of the House.

The task of the president has been made easy by Mr Vajpayee's decision to resign and not to stake his claim to form government. The leader of the Congress-led coalition, Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, is likely to be invited by the president to form a new government and seek a vote of confidence within a specified period. She will need the support of the Left, which she is likely to get, and the support of one or two other uncommitted parties to get the required majority in the Lok Sabha.

What lies in store for India and its neighbours? To begin with, there is going to be a period of political jockeying and potential instability. The first question is whether the Congress and its Communist allies, who have profound differences on economic reforms and policies, can evolve "a common minimum programme".

It will not be easy to harmonize the interests of big business (traditional Congress allies) with leftist thinking on economic policies. Even if that is done, will a completely untested leader in government and coalition politics be able to forge and lead a workable and cohesive coalition? Mrs Sonia Gandhi's track record as Congress president, when Congress stalwarts like Sharad Pawar were forced to leave the party, does not inspire much confidence in this respect. The odds are that India is in for a period of political instability.

It will be a mistake to write off the Vajpayee-led NDA alliance. The difference in the strength of NDA and Congress-led alliance is only of 28 seats. Vajpayee has shrewdly decided not to stake his claim to form a new government at this stage. But he will bide his time. Of course the communists will not support him. But the number of seats captured by the "others" is 137, of which only 60 seats belong to the Leftist Front. Mulayam Singh's BP has captured 38 seats. The other smaller groups can also switch their loyalties. Only the coming weeks will indicate if the Congress-led coalition will prove cohesive and workable.

Under the new dispensation, the India-Pakistan peace process is likely to suffer a setback. The scheduled talks between the foreign office officials of the two countries will, of course, take place. The August meeting between the foreign ministers of the two countries may also be held. Dialogue with Pakistan, Sonia Gandhi says, will go on.

As a matter of fact, the round of meetings and discussions may continue ad nauseam as neither India nor Pakistan would like to take the blame for turning its back on them. But it will be no less than a miracle if any meaningful progress or breakthrough is achieved by the interlocutors.

The reason is not far to seek. Keeping in view the hard realities of India's political scene, no non-BJP government, least of all a government led by Sonia Gandhi, can afford to initiate a meaningful dialogue with Pakistan to solve the Kashmir issue because even a small concession on this matter will be dubbed a sell-out. Only Vajpayee, with his unquestionable Hindu nationalist credentials, had the stature and the standing to quieten the chauvinists and hard-liners and push through the peace process with Pakistan to its logical conclusion.

The writer is a former ambassador.

Terror attack in Gwadar

Until recently, Gwadar was of little or no interest to most people. It was formerly an enclave of the Sultanate of Muscat on the Pakistani mainland and fit the description of a fishing village.

It was also the recruiting ground for the small Muscat army and its equally small police force. In 1958, it became part of Pakistan when the then prime minister, Malik Feroz Khan Noon, pulled off "a mini Louisiana purchase" for Pakistan.

However, the car bomb attack in Gwadar earlier this month that killed three Chinese technicians and injured 11 others has catapulted this quiet fishing village into the spotlight, especially in connection with the ongoing "war on terror". The Chinese technicians were part of a team that was helping Balochistan in opening up Gwadar to the rest of the world.

The blast is a setback to the development effort in and around Gwadar. It has also put the otherwise strong Pakistan-China ties under strain. The Chinese have quite rightly called for a probe into the tragedy.

It is hoped that this unfortunate incident will not impede the progress that is being made on the development front in Gwadar and that can transform the area into both a commercial port and a base for the Pakistan Navy at the very mouth of the Persian Gulf. At the same time, every effort should be made to discover the forces that targeted the Chinese. Was the attack carried out to intimidate the foreigners into pulling out from their contractual agreements, or is there more to it than meets the eye? Were external forces behind the attack or was it a local operation?

The Balochistan government with the assistance of the federal authorities should consider setting up a committee that through the examination of available evidence could get to the root of the problem. It is understood that 13 persons have been arrested and are being interrogated. The cooperation of the intelligence, the army and navy is necessary if the facts are to be known. Simply holding a judicial inquiry may not be enough.

While Balochistan is a sparsely populated province it comprises a fairly complex society that functions on the principles of its own tribal dynamics. Officers who have served in Balochistan and who have had enough field experience should be associated with this exercise. The establishment division in Islamabad can easily nominate officers of repute and competence to assist the government in discovering the truth behind the attack.

The authorities cannot afford to sit over the matter and action needs to be taken on an immediate basis. If there is an inordinate delay in discovering the full facts there may be other such incidents that would create confusion for the provincial administration and render it incapable of coming up with a strategy of counterattack against these lawless elements.

Balochistan is located strategically. It is next to Iran and dangerously close to areas of current world interest. It is not going to be easy to decipher who or perhaps even which country organized the car bombing. The Indians have never favoured Chinese involvement anywhere in the subcontinent even outside their own territorial borders. Right now, it is anybody's guess as to who is trying to create unrest in Balochistan. It could even be the Israelis through their all-pervading intelligence agency, the Mossad.

Moreover, the Balochistan police has never been much of a force. It has historically always found itself confined to the four walls of the city of Quetta where the law and order situation is far from commendable. Quetta has seen some of the worst outbreaks of sectarian killings in the past few months. The ability of the provincial law-enforcement agencies is not only seriously limited but lacks essential elements of planning to preempt adverse situations.

Local factors contributing to the attack also need to be considered. Development efforts in Gwadar have triggered something of a gold rush there causing land prices to soar. The property mafia in neighbouring Karachi has been active in cutting lucrative deals relating to Gwadar. Some subversive elements may be found here.

Land prospecting in and around Gwadar may well be igniting the passions of the local have-nots who feel they deserve a share in the rising property prices. Throughout Pakistan, the most significant business at least for the time being is that of the real estate sector. This is indeed also a chance for southern Balochistan's downtrodden population to join the ranks of the affluent.

A personal hunch is that this may well be the root cause of the violence. It is only natural that locals will not forgo what they consider their preemption rights. The British spent two centuries as colonizers in the subcontinent, and one of the principles that they religiously upheld in their administration of land was to recognize the preemption rights of the locals.

Baloch nationalists could well be fomenting trouble against the development effort. They want their price for the land in Gwadar as in the rest of the province because they are aware of what is going on the Arab free ports next door. They would like to ensure that they are not deprived of the riches that flow in. An equitable order for Gwadar and the rest of Balochistan in the conduct of the land transfer business is imperative and cannot be ignored.

Abu Ghraib prison: America's shame

Just as the Vietnam war was personified by a photo of a terrified, naked girl fleeing a blast of napalm, so George Bush's "liberation" of Iraq will inevitably be remembered by the horrifying photo of a hooded prisoner standing on a box with electric cables attached to his fingers.

Americans are reeling in disgust at the torture, abuse and humiliation of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison by US soldiers. Their revulsion is genuine: Americans are a decent, humane people who believe themselves well above such mediaeval abominations.

Outrage across the Islamic world at these crimes is at a fever pitch but, as usual, Muslims can do little but curse the US and shake their fists. Few of the angry Muslims have stopped to think that crimes worse than what occurred in Iraq occur routinely in their prisons.

Americans, however, should not be surprised over the fact that their soldiers and intelligence agents are using torture and sexual humiliations to break the will of Iraqis to resist US occupation. That is the nature of colonial warfare and the so-called "war of terror".

In August, 2003, this scribe warned about Iraq, "Protracted guerilla warfare eventually turns even the best-disciplined troops into brutes, and corrupts entire governments." Colonial troops in Kenya, Algeria, Angola, Mozambique, Palestine, Indochina, Kashmir, Aceh, and Chechnya all became infected with brutality and sadism.

Americans, in spite of their respect for law and human rights, are not immune to such corruption. During the 1900-1904 conquest of the Philippines, US forces killed 50,000-100,000 Muslim civilians.

Few recall that US forces in Vietnam routinely threw prisoners from helicopters, burned them alive with white phosphorus, or wiped out entire villages without a second thought. The communist enemy was even more merciless.

That was the nature of counter-insurgency warfare fought among a hostile civilian population by demoralized American soldiers who knew the war was lost.

During the invasion of Afghanistan, America ignored evidence that the US Special Forces troops had watched - or even participated - in the massacre of 3,000 Taliban prisoners in Afghanistan by communist Northern Alliance soldiers.Persistent reports of prisoners being tortured by US captors in Iraq, Afghanistan, Diego Garcia, Jordan, Egypt and Guantanamo were also ignored - until the Abu Ghraib outrage. Now, we learn of a ghastly new apparition: free-enterprise torturers known, in Pentagon Orwell-speak, as "civilian interrogation contractors".

When this writer stated last year on an American TV network that the US was routinely using torture against terrorism suspects, he was quickly cut off the air.

The US troops sent to Iraq come from the bottom of America's society. Many are from southern states and militant Christian sects steeped in racism against Arab "sand-niggers" and harbour a violent hatred of Islam.

There is a direct line between the crusading fever whipped up by the Bush administration and its fundamentalist Christian supporters, and the crimes inflicted on Arabs at Abu Ghraib prison.

The pictures of gloating US soldiers posing over piled-up, naked Iraqi prisoners recalls Soviet gulag guards who called prisoners, "logs".

They also conjure nightmare images of terrified Jewish prisoners herded by Nazi SS guards, and cowering Bosnian and Albanian Muslim captives about to be murdered by laughing Serb soldiers.

But don't believe the torture and abuse in Iraq was solely the work of a few sadistic hillbillies and miscreants, as the Pentagon is claiming. The Red Cross and other human rights groups have long complained of torture and the inhuman treatment of Iraqi prisoners by US occupation authorities.

The process of inflicting pain, humiliation, and degradation on captives - dehumanizing them - has been perfected by CIA psychologists and psychiatrists. These tortures, based on Israeli techniques to crush the Palestinians, and taught by Israeli advisors, were designed more to break Iraqi will than to elicit information. The sexual humiliations were designed to inflict maximum mental punishment on Muslims.

For US occupiers of Iraq, dreaded Abu Ghraib plays the same role it did under Saddam Hussein: terrifying the population into docility. The US now may hold more Iraqi prisoners - 15,000-20,000 - than did Saddam's prisons.

After the recent revelations from Abu Ghraib, the only people likely to still believe President Bush's claims to be fighting in Iraq for "freedom and democracy" will be brain-numbed American television viewers.-Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2004