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EDITORIAL
Centre
of Confusion
Hopping
from one Kashmiri interlocutor to another didn't work. And won't
 Despite
the conflicting signals that frequently emanate from the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen--even
if it be concluded that too much is being read into the alleged differences
between its Islamabad and Srinagar wings--it would not do for the Atal
Bihari Vajpayee Government to sit back and pretend it did all it could
to talk peace. While a sharp escalation in military retaliation is obviously
called for, given the viciousness with which terrorists have struck in
recent days, the Government has to ask itself a few basic questions before
even suggesting it is ready for negotiations. One, will it repeat the
mistake of talking to only one group? Two, what will be the modalities
of the talks? A year ago the Home Ministry placed its trust in Farooq
Abdullah, hoping a financially equipped chief minister and a re-energised
security apparatus would bring calm to India's most troubled state. Only
a few months later, it threw Farooq into a tizzy by quietly releasing
leaders of the All Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC). Even before the semiotics
of the act could be analysed, there came the Hizb olive branch.
In essence,
the Centre's logic has been that it will talk to the most hardline group
that may be amenable to sitting across the table. True, more extreme elements
are often the best guarantors of peace. Yet what is disconcerting is that
at no stage did the Government's tracks with Farooq's National Conference,
the Hurriyat and the Hizb raise visions of convergence. To seek to create
a broad axis here, if for no purpose but to throw the militant polity
into an almighty confusion, could have been an idea worth exploring. It
may not have worked but the lack of effort is a lesson for the future.
Hopping from partner to partner is no recipe for building a happy family.
It is also an analogy worth considering in the context of the Centre's
intercourse with Jammu and Kashmir.
Sleeping
on the Job
Meet
the Congress-the 25th member of the NDA
 It
is difficult to take a long, hard look at the Congress without a touch
of pathos. The party has been out of office at the Centre for four years
now, its parliamentary performance and efficacy slipping each day. Far
from being worried, its leaders are happy confining themselves to petty
games and minor turf battles. Two weeks ago, the formidable electoral
energies of Congressmen were focused on deciding the office-bearers of
the Congress Parliamentary Party. The redoubtable Arjun Singh-once so
formidable a practitioner of power as to be regarded a potential prime
minister-is now busy trying to ensure he becomes the next leader of the
opposition in the Rajya Sabha. The concomitant intriguing is what is supposed
to have sent the hapless Pranab Mukherjee to West Bengal as the local
unit's president, never mind if shutting the door on Mamata Banerjee hardly
helps the party.
It is nobody's
argument that the Congress go back to reinventing the Gandhian charkha
and create a whole new cadre base. The imperatives of today's politics
hinge more on symbolism and signals; the substance-and the army of power-sniffing
hangers-on-usually follows. It is here where the Congress is failing.
Other than the odd intervention in the debate on Jammu and Kashmir, it
has singularly failed to put the Government on the defensive. It has a
president who every underling privately acknowledges is not up to the
job but whom nobody can think of talking turkey to. In a time of blackmail
specialists masquerading as political parties, India needs the Congress.
Warts and all, it is still a national party with a centripetal vision.
Even so, India needs the Congress as a vibrant, trenchant opposition party-not
as the 25th member of the National Democratic Alliance.
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The
stock markets are humming, and it's feel-good time once again, writes
INDIA TODAY Associate Editor V. Shankar Aiyar in 
