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EDITORIAL
Divesting
Diversion
India
wants action, Shourie wants commission
One
of the virtues of governing systems such as India's, political scientists
tell you, is the continuity they facilitate. It is downright exasperating
then to find Arun Shourie disinclined to build on the mini-legacy Arun
Jaitley has left him in the Department of Disinvestment and, instead,
attempt to reinvent the wheel. When he took office, Jaitley was disparaged
as the Government's "marketing officer" by a leftist critic.
In the months he had the portfolio, Jaitley accomplished two things. First,
he was a voluble spokesman for privatisation to the point where the debate
is far gone from the realms of "why" to those of "how and
at what pace". Second, in selling Modern Foods he effected the first
actual sale of a PSU. In theory, Shourie is even better placed to run
the department. Aside from a ferocious commitment to private enterprise,
his reputation as an ideologue should make it easier for him to negotiate
the in-house minefield that is the Swadeshi Jagran Manch.
 Yet
consider what Shourie has done. He has succumbed to the usual bureaucratic
pressure and announced his willingness to set up a second disinvestment
commission. The point is the recommendations of the first disinvestment
commission are still unimplemented. Shourie has before him comprehensive
reports recommending the modalities for sale of government equity in 58
PSUs; only one of these, that on Modern Foods, has been put to use. Rather
than polemicise the selling of politically loaded corporations such as,
say, Oil India, Shourie would be better advised to quietly get rid of
innocuous companies like Hindustan Vegetable Oils or the Cycle Corporation
of India. A second commission should be the last item on the agenda. In
any case, the whole idea of setting up a nodal department of disinvestment
was that it would be both policy framer and actor and so obviate the need
for any future commissions. So why this diversion?
Get
the Principle Straight
India's
support to democratic Fijians-not ethnic Indians
This
past week, Mahendra Choudhry, Fiji's overthrown prime minister, arrived
in Delhi to a rapturous welcome. A man who can trace his roots to Haryana,
he is at once a symbol of Fiji's endangered democracy as of the genius
of the Indian diaspora. A facet to the diaspora is its abiding links-cultural
if not political-with the home country. As such, there have been suggestions
that Delhi should somehow help Fiji's beleaguered Indians take on a Melanesian
consensus that denies them their due share of the power cake. The red
carpet in Delhi is, correctly, interpreted as a signal to Choudhry and
Fijians of his persuasion that India is right behind them. The point,
however, is that India's support should be a matter of principle, rather
than be guided by ethnic compulsions. To argue that the Indian community
must be lent a hand solely on the basis of racial or religious bonds is
a logic fraught with danger.
 India
is seeking to use the Commonwealth to isolate Fiji. The club of former
British dominions similarly ostracised Pakistan after Nawaz Sharif was
ousted late in 1999. In reality, of course, sooner or later India may
have to chat with General Pervez Musharraf. The problem with Fiji is similar.
In the end, the coup in Suva is a domestic affair, the internal matter
of a sovereign nation. Short of gunboat diplomacy-and nobody in his right
mind would recommend that - Atal Bihari Vajpayee's Government has few
weapons that can influence events in faraway Fiji. It can work towards
accentuating an economic embargo and hope it hurts the new rulers of Fiji
into ending their neo-apartheid. For the moment, however, Choudhry will
have to do with generous doses of moral support-and not because he's an
ethnic Indian but because he's a democratic Fijian.
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