Balancing Compulsions

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Political decision-makers are besieged by compulsions more than easy

choices. Dr Manmohan Singh in Delhi or Asif Ali Zardari across the
border compelled and driven more by domestic forces than by foreign
policy needs of the time. Both have weak political institutions at home
and a plethora of socio-economic problems made worse by the global
financial meltdown. Both have insurgency on their hands and religious
fanaticism to cope with.

Mr Zaradari’s problems are more difficult to tackle than Dr Singh’s.

Pakistan never was and still is not a democracy in true terms during the
last sixty years. India was and still is a secular democracy and a republic
with its states enjoying a good measure of autonomy. Pakistan is
dominated by its mullahs and its military, who sometimes act in
collusion. It also has another powerful force in its drug and arms-
smuggling mafias; and our own multi-billionaire Dawood Ibrahim lives
in Karachi and though once a much-wanted Indian criminal he cannot
be touched by India, because many Pakistani leaders have been obliged
by him.

Our democracy, since its inception, has failed to evolve into a two-party
system. It has only arrived at coalition governments both at the centre
and in the states. A phenomenal rise in regional parties, political
infighting and defection politics, and the legitimisation of criminal
elements in the parliament and the state legislatures have turned our
ballot-box beliefs into a caricature. Unaccounted money greases the
wheels of electoral politics and ultimately it is the bottom third of our
population that is below the poverty line that suffers.

Populism is another growing force in India that has brought into play
pseudo-political or bogus cultural gangsters posing as senas of various
brands. Very often, they are either fronts for political parties serving as
their dirty jobs departments. Sometimes they are mercenary armies on
auction for any political party willing to pay the price.

Then there is a corrupt bureaucracy and a police force with rogue

elements in India that we all have experience of but no ideas on
cleansing. We do have a system and so does our neighbour Pakistan.
Our systems are different and have evolved differently since 1947. Our
other neighbour, Bangladesh has now a system dangerously resembling
Pakistan’s. Our smaller neighbour Nepal has moved from being a
Hindu religious monarchy to being a democracy with a Maoist
government. Communist ideology, Islamic and Hindu fundamentalism,
regional chauvinism, tribal backwardness and exploitation, casteism
and communalism, and poverty are causes of increasing discontent in
India. They have made our future uncertain and we can no longer take
promises of development and progress for granted.

The recent terrorist attacks on Mumbai have caused public fury in

India compelling Dr Singh and his Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee
to adopt fierce postures. Mr Zardari has been, on the other hand, forced
to put on the traditional Pakistani mask of aggrieved incomprehension.
Mr Zardari is a fledgling politician surrounded far more wily diehards
and hawks. He is in the unenviable position of having to answer not only
India but also to placate international opinion including that of the
Americans.

The incoming American President Mr Obama would also face policy

compulsions in his relationships with Pakistan and India with the
crucial factor of Afghanistan in view. The United States cannot pull out
of Afghanistan but, on the contrary, may have to commit more troops
there. Obama cannot alienate Pakistan though he may, in the long run,
have to bet on India as a more powerful and democratic ally in the
South Asian region. George Bush’s policy was guided by American
corporate interests in already tapped oil-producing regions in the
Middle East as well as untapped ones with vast potential in Central
Asia. However, his top priority would be to try and quickly heal an
ailing economy rather than try and plug holes in the military and
foreign policies he has inherited.

The terrorist attack on Mumbai claimed among its immediate political

victims the Maharashtra State Home Minister R.R. Patil followed by
Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh himself. Such a dominoes effect was
inevitable. Politicians in Maharashtra never seem to realize that the city
contributes about forty per cent of our GDP and that it is one of the top
four megapolises of the world with a cosmopolitan ethnic and cultural
mix. Maharashtrians themselves seem to be moving out of the city to its
farther suburbs rather than into it. This is the main reason why the
ratio of Marathi speakers to other language speakers has been
increasingly tilting in favour of the non-Marathi population. Bal and
Uddhav Thackeray or Raj Thackeray and their followers already know
that Thane rather than Shivaji Park is where their ‘Marathi Manoos’
has moved. Their assorted backers in Central and North Mumbai are
middle-class and upper-caste white-collar workers, blue-collar workers,
small entrepreneurs, shop-keepers, and the original OBC of Mumbai
such as the Kolis and the Bhandaris. They can now raise their little
guerilla armies only out of the Dalits and the OBCs dwelling in the
shanty towns. With their dynastic policy of not letting leadership grow
out of their rank and file of followers, their political future grows
dimmer by the day.