Cover Story: Political Fallout: Sniper Fire

India Today issue dated June 14, 1999
June 14, 1999

POLITICAL FALLOUT
Sniper Fire

For the political parties, the Kargil war is an electoral battle by other means.

By Javed M Ansari and Saba N Bhaumik

Deflatable: The Congress mocked Vajpayee's bus diplomacy but soon gauged that it does not pay to do so while its soldiers are dying. Confronted with a crisis of any magnitude, the political class instinctively smells opportunity. So it was with the war in Kargil. Last Tuesday, as the Congress Working Committee (CWC) met hurriedly to discuss the battle in the mountains, some over-zealous party supporters carted an inflatable replica of Atal Bihari Vajpayee's famous bus to Lahore through the streets of Delhi.

To drive home the abrupt end of this latest bout of bhai-bhai diplomacy, the bus was shown having turned turtle. This imaginative agitprop won instant brownie points among the party faithful and even made it to some front pages. The public reaction, however, wasn't as forthcoming. With TV channels beaming sombre pictures of soldiers returning home in coffins, the Congress leadership quickly gauged the grim implications of being seen indulging in one-upmanship games at a time of national crisis. Within a few hours of the CWC meeting, the overturned bus lay in a deflated heap.

Me Too: Sonia and Vajpayee are battling to be more prime ministerial than the other. The deflation was overdue. When the first news of the audacious Pakistani move to redraw the Line of Control trickled in, the Congress reacted with characteristic oppositional aggression, perhaps to make up for the criticism that the AICC session on May 25 was too concerned with Sonia Gandhi to even take note of the border war. On May 28, a Congress delegation called on President K.R. Narayanan demanding an extraordinary Rajya Sabha session. More to the point, the party's head of the external affairs department, K. Natwar Singh, made it his mission to target Defence Minister George Fernandes and, by association, the BJP-led caretaker government for a vicious bout of tongue-lashing. "Inko chullu bhar paani mein doob marna chahiye (They should drown themselves)," he said in a rare burst of colloquialism. Fernandes drew the Congress' ire not merely on account of his role in the dismissal of Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat as naval chief but because of his role in persuading Mulayam Singh Yadav to oppose Sonia's candidature after the fall of the Vajpayee regime. Even as the Congress formally committed itself to supporting the government's attempts to repel the invaders, the CWC hit out at the "coordinationless, cohesiveless, careless caretaker government." In various parts of the country, Youth Congress activists burnt effigies of Vajpayee and Fernandes.

Governing the Congress' initial stridency was the sign of confusion in the BJP. Rattled by the all-round belief of a monumental intelligence failure and the accusation that Vajpayee was literally taken for a ride by the Pakistanis in Lahore, the BJP didn't react with its customary jingoism. Apart from General Secretary Narendra Modi's boast that the invaders wouldn't be fed biryani -- a reference to the 1993 siege of Hazratbal in Srinagar -- the BJP's response to the Kargil conflict was distinctly tepid, verging on confusion.

The confusion was understandable. Having attached great faith in the Lahore bus journey establishing the government's "friendship with firmness" policy, the party was disoriented by the disappearance of one electoral plank and the erosion of another -- national security. So profound was the disorientation that even the government's sharp response in ordering airstrikes against the invaders wasn't seized upon politically.

Instead, the BJP has expended much of its time either defending the self goals by its ally Fernandes or trying to rediscover its pre-Lahore bellicosity with the aid of a controversial briefing on the Kargil situation by army officers. Home Minister L.K. Advani helped the party recover its composure somewhat by devoting his campaign speeches in Goa to reiterating his hardline position and attacking the Congress for its alleged ambivalence in this hour of crisis. But even then, the party is treading very cautiously, unsure of how the entire Kargil episode will unfold. Says General Secretary M. Venkiah Naidu: "The Kargil crisis will definitely have a political fallout. People will be watching every move by politicians and will punish those who blatantly try to take advantage of the situation."

Maybe it is the realisation that no one has emerged unscathed from the conflict in the mountains that has forced all the parties to get their act together and appear more responsible. Sonia called on Vajpayee without any fanfare and neither side was willing to give details. Last Friday, Congress spokesman Kapil Sibal changed the tone of the party by urging the government to mount a diplomatic offensive to expose Pakistani designs on Indian territory. Sibal even sidestepped the issue of Fernandes, "Let bygones be bygones." On his part, the defence minister withdrew his controversial suggestion of according "safe passage" to the invaders. And BJP Vice-President K.L. Sharma made it clear that his party would not use Kargil as an election issue.

That, of course, is certain to be an assurance that will not be kept. Even as both sides have detected the growing outrage at the deaths of Indian soldiers, they are hoping that the fury will be directed at Pakistan rather than the politicians. Vajpayee, in particular, is taking exceptional care to be measured, circumspect and very prime ministerial in his approach. While maintaining his tough rhetoric, he hasn't disowned his earlier bus diplomacy altogether. His belief is that sooner, rather than later, either good sense or sustained international pressure will force Pakistan to distance itself from an adventurist course in Kashmir. When that happens -- and Vajpayee hopes it will happen before September -- he hopes to play the peace card yet again. This time amid the backdrop of a nuclear India that takes no nonsense yet values peace.

The government may not have come out with flying colours from the Kargil conflict but Vajpayee's reputation remains intact. This could yield returns if the BJP succeeds in transforming the election into a presidential contest. Sonia knows this. For her, hope lies in conducting herself with dignity and responsibility. And letting the Vajpayee government make a complete hash of the war.

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