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Go Rabri, go with your dignity still intact

Ever the master of sophistry, Laloo Prasad Yadav used his final hours before being sent to prison to accuse the CBI of "harassing a poor woman". While the RJD president is free to see the chargesheet against Rabri Devi, his wife and successor as Bihar's chief minister, as a derivative of misogyny, for the rest of the world it is plain swindle. The CBI special court in Patna has granted Rabri bail but the legal case against her -- abetting her husband's misuse of public office and unlawful accumulation of wealth -- is still valid. In a replay of the drama before Laloo's resignation in 1997, the Yadav couple's kept intellectuals have emphasised there is no constitutional need for Rabri to bow out. Comparisons are also being drawn with BJP ministers arraigned in the Babri Masjid demolition case. There are two important differences. First, Laloo -- and by association Rabri -- is being tried for crimes committed while he was chief minister. So neither he nor his wife has the moral authority to hold the very office till exonerated. Two, the charges are specific and not diffused within a larger ambit of collateral wrongdoing.

With RJD MLAs virtually captive performers in the Yadav couple's socially-correct circus, it is for the Congress -- the other big partner in Patna's ruling alliance -- to persuade Rabri to quit. If the party fails to discharge its duty, it may as well recall P.V. Narasimha Rao as Congress president and forgive him his history of chargesheets. With the RJD-led coalition's majority in the Assembly unquestioned, Laloo's party has to find itself a new chief minister. It may so far have functioned as the outhouse of a family estate but a dose of organisational pluralism will do the RJD no harm. When he retained power after a decade of what can only charitably be termed inchoate raj, Laloo's theoreticians stressed democracy, warts and all, represented the only solution to Bihar's chaos. It is time for the RJD to internalise that lesson. 

Summer Holiday

NAM has bridged the gap between diplomacy and necromancy

Two categories of Indians would have been exultant at the idea of the 13th ministerial conference of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in Cartagena, Colombia. First, those who accompanied External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh for a holiday to the venue, a Caribbean beach resort best known for the annual Miss Colombia beauty pageant. The second section -- retired foreign secretaries, professors of international relations and sundry pundits -- will flood newspapers in the coming days with ponderous articles on the relevance or otherwise of NAM. How pointless this debate is was made clear by Jaswant's junior minister, Ajit Panja, just days ago when he disparaged NAM as a dinosaur. Of the three NAM summits in the 1990s, one took place in Cartagena itself. The other two were hosted by Jakarta (Indonesia) and Durban (South Africa). Not one of these countries is guilty of the doctrinaire policies that NAM's unrepentant Indian champions commend.

Unipolarity -- and, more important, an American economic prosperity of dazzling proportions -- has converted non-alignment to something between a caricature and a jamboree. Collectively its members make the suitable noises; privately each plays favourite nephew to Uncle Sam. At the Durban meeting, India suffered the ignominy of Nelson Mandela lecturing it on Kashmir. In another age, India's support for the African National Congress' struggle against apartheid would have made new South Africa its client state. Today, Pretoria has jettisoned history and is happily pursuing its business agenda. Modern-day diplomacy is far removed from the shibboleths and ideological combat that were the staple of NAM's founders in 1961. If only it were as easy to convince extant Laski-ites.

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