India's bin laden
October 1 in Srinagar was not as dramatic as September 11 in the US. But the attack on the J&K Assembly emphasises the reality that India continues to be a permanent victim of jehad, that the author of the blast is the bin Laden of Kandahar vintage.

Reclaiming The Faith
Despite Pakistan's extremist image, the country is home to a wide cross-section of people holding moderate views on religion. After the terrorist attacks on the US, it is this non-confrontationist lobby that is waging a coup against the militant and vocal religious extremists.

Ready To Strike
The US strategy to strike the Taliban includes making use of the Northern Alliance, favoured by Russia and Iran and distrusted by Pakistan. In its military pact with the front, the US should keep in mind the future power equations in Afghanistan.

THE NATION: CONGRESS

OBITUARY
POPULAR MAHARAJ
Madhavrao Scindia
1945-2001

	ELECTED KING: Scindia never lost any election since his debut in 1971

Madhavrao Scindia, who died in a tragic aircrash last week, stood out in many ways in the political party, the Congress, which he joined of his own volition in the last quarter-century of his life. He was 56, being born a couple of years before the Union Jack was to give way to the tricolour and the 500-odd Indian feudatories-including the 21-gun salute-holders like his Gwalior-were to pay obeisance to the new order. He took time, like all other privy-purse holders. After all, which prince would like to join a political congregation committed to destroying the dynastic order?

Although he entered public life in 1971 as a Jan Sangh MP for Guna, Scindia parted ways with his mother Vijayaraje Scindia during the Emergency. He never looked back at the old order comprising his mother, her fond beliefs and the old courtiers. From 1980, Scindia, or Bhaiya, as the only brother of three sisters was called by his intimates, was a central figure in the Congress. In 1984, when Atal Bihari Vajpayee lost out to Scindia by a margin of over 2,00,000 votes in Gwalior, one of Bhaiya's election workers commented that the "throne" was not "negotiable". He never lost an election.

The politician prince was always a paradox in the Congress-not quite rated as the person who could take control, yet regarded as one closest to the ruling Gandhi dynasty. He knew Congress President Sonia Gandhi more than anyone else in the party, having been a friend of Rajiv Gandhi since his days in Cambridge. In public functions, he wore the khadi dress with a tricolour scarf. In private, he preferred smart casuals and his cigar. In his several visits to the swankiest nightclubs of London and Paris, he was photographed in designer suits. At the back of these sartorial, and attitudinal, flip-flops, however, was an intention to capture the middle ground of the Congress which had been left bare by the death of Sanjay Gandhi in an aircrash in 1980 and the assassination of Rajiv in 1991.

That Scindia had a powerful eye for governance was evident in his tenures as minister in charge of railways and later civil aviation. As the minister for railways he started the Shatabdi trains which allowed the overnight traveller from Delhi or the short-distance traveller to reach his destination quickly. As the civil aviation minister, he started the "open sky" policy which has today led to competition in both international and domestic aviation. At the same time, he wasn't a reformer in the ideological sense. He liked being a competent manager in a command economy.

Was he the best person to lead the Congress now? That's a big question. He had Sonia on his side but never possessed a killer instinct. Even when he took on P.V. Narasimha Rao after the hawala case in 1996, he lacked the determination to take the battle to its logical end. And in 1991, he didn't even try seriously.

Scindia, despite being in the thick of politics, always retained a sense of regal aloofness. He was a patrician not a populist. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh knew Scindia from childhood, yet was often cut up enough with him to remember stories about his early years when he and the young Madhavrao-both started in the Jan Sangh- fought over the definition of Hinduism. "He (Scindia) spoke a different language from us," Digvijay said in an interview to India Today last year. Recently, he was entrusted the task of organising the party's campaign for the forthcoming assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh. His fatal trip to Kanpur was its end-game.

In Indian politics, differences between the perceptions of parties have begun dissolving. How much difference is there after all between the BJP and the Congress on crucial matters of governance? Not much. Scindia was a leader whose considerable charm often enabled him to bridge the divide between the Congress and the BJP. But it was purely at a social level. He could never claim his pre-eminence because he was always overshadowed in the two decades of his life in the Congress by the Gandhi family. Nevertheless, he liked being at the centre of decision-making in matters of importance. But never at the top. He was the King who, somehow, never had the will to be a ruler.

—Sumit Mitra

MetroScape

Looking Glass

Bangalore Gallery: Gallerie Zen

Delhi Handicrafts: Crafts Museum

With a dramatic fall in the viewership of Kaun Banega Crorepati, Star makes a last-ditch effort to prop up its ratings. INDIA TODAY's Himanshi Dhawan analyses the revival struggle of the pasha of programmes in
Survival Of The Fittest