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EDITORIAL
Bush Telegraph
Build Indo-US ties on mutual trade, not shared Sinophobia
 Hyperactive
at the best of times, Delhi's foreign policy buffs went berserk this past
week when President George Bush took Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh into
his office for an impromptu 40 minute meeting. For Singh, in Washington
to familiarise himself with the new American administration, this proved
an unexpected bonus. Already the government is patting itself on the back.
Voluble
retired generals and diplomats are preparing for a fresh round of seminars.
The BJP's ideologues are talking of conservative parties being natural
allies. All of these may be true. Yet to pretend they reflect the entirety
of Indo-American ties would be grossly unrealistic. Bush is no Sinophile.
Indeed, he has begun his term by talking tough with Beijing on the spy
plane issue. His gesture towards Singh has to be placed in this immediate
context. The Texan is needling China and will, in an ultimate reckoning,
seek to besiege it with regional pinpricks from Taiwan to Vietnam to India.
This is classic Republican brinkmanship, which
Bush's teammates-particularly Vice-President Dick Cheney, who was defence
secretary in an earlier regime and is said to be this one's Asia hand-are
pastmasters at. It will bring India collateral benefit, no more. If the
Indo-American intercourse has to graduate to a relationship more lasting
than the diplomatic equivalent of a one-night stand, the focus has to
move to the market. To have Bush's ear India has to give him a stake in
its economy. Valued at $12.79 billion in 1999, business with India accounted
for less than 1 per cent of the United States' trade turnover. In contrast,
bilateral China-US trade amounted to $94.9 billion in 1999. Without taking
away from Singh's "achievement", this country will be better
served the day President Bush seeks an immediate meeting with Finance
Minister Yashwant Sinha. For that India needs less China-oriented rhetoric
and more China-type reforms.
Bloodletting Democracy
Why armed revolutionaries want a mandate in Bihar
 Because
it is happening in Bihar, it is news: the panchayat election as bloodletting
democracy. And it is happening after 22 years. Being Bihar, it is a boisterous
celebration of guns, caste and revolution, and more than 50 candidates
have already lost their lives for the sake of grassroots democracy. Being
a Bihar election with 4,20,000 candidates on the stump, 50 may be a small
number. But what is really significant is that, reportedly,
over 200 armed revolutionaries, or thugs haunted by foreign ghosts of
Maoist Communist Centre and People's War Group, both known for their aversion
to parliamentary democracy, are contesting for legitimate grassroots power,
thereby posing a serious threat to mainstream parties. And grassroots
power in Bihar means the rural development booty. No wonder both the naxalite
and the feudal footsoldier have a new motto: the best
way to resist the temptation of power is to yield to it.
Still, 8,438 newly empowered panchayats will
be a defining experience for the badlands of Bihar, where politics has
always been raw and rough. It will not only unleash a new set of politicians
but reveal in stark colours, the new social and communal contours of power.
The size and sweep of this much belated exercise in democracy at its most
intimate level only show how badly Bihar has missed a truly "popular"
election all these years. Unfortunately, the elected in Bihar have a history
of turning the mandate into a licence for terror or the farce of social
justice. The prospect of the armed revolutionary with a "popular"
mandate ruling over the village makes this election a less than democratic
moment for Bihar, India's most stereotypical land without justice. Only
elections can be popular in Bihar, not power.
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