There has been of late around the government of Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee the atmosphere of a sinking ship. This heightened last week when the prime minister took time out from his supposedly busy schedule to trot off to the controversial Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) to sing praises of the woman who once chucked him into jail. In tones of bewildering sycophancy he said, "The new IGNCA centre is an embodiment of late Indira Gandhi's passion and dedication for art and culture. Her contribution to the promotion of art and culture was immense and priceless." Listening to these words, would it be wrong to ask if the biggest rat (I use the word metaphorically) in the ship is also planning to desert? Is Vajpayee on the verge of joining the Congress party under the leadership of Sonia Gandhi?

How else to explain his words of needless praise? Or perhaps, it was his own disinterest in culture that prevented him from noticing that during the many years of Indira's leadership, "immense and priceless" monuments were allowed to fall to rack and ruin. Old palaces, historical forts and other reminders of our art and culture, which fell into the hands of the government at Independence, were treated with such disdain that priceless (such a nice word) paintings had electric wiring knocked into them and fine durbar halls were turned into rubbish dumps. In one fortress I recently visited, there were signs of target practice by the Border Security Force which had been allowed for several years to use the heritage monument as barracks.

The only culture that Indira had time for was the kind that could be used for her own political aggrandisement and the IGNCA is among the finest examples of this. Far from promoting India's culture, it has been used, since it was set up 16 years ago, to promote the interests of Indira's daughter-in-law, Sonia. She made this clear at the event Vajpayee graced by admitting that the IGNCA was there to realise the "dream of Indira Gandhi as well as Rajiv Gandhi".

In her own words, "If IGNCA is run in the real sense of autonomy, professionalism and impartiality, it will certainly realise the dream of Indira Gandhi as well as Rajiv Gandhi." They were politicians with political and not cultural dreams, so we have a right to ask why taxpayers' money should be used to realise their dreams. But there are many, many questions that need to be asked about the IGNCA and Sonia's problem was that her estranged sister-in-law and our erstwhile minister of culture Maneka Gandhi was beginning to ask them openly. In the 80 days that Maneka spent as culture minister she uncovered so many tales of corruption and misuse of public money that it was clear that a CBI investigation was needed. Sonia, at this point, appeared to have rushed to the prime minister and complained and Shri Vajpayee, who seems in complete awe of Indira's senior daughter-in-law, instantly took culture away from Maneka.

Rumour has it that when she was being given the order of the boot, the prime minister virtually told her that she was taking her job too seriously. She was indeed and appears not to have noticed that in asking so many questions she was making it very difficult for Vajpayee's own friends and relatives to milk the cash cow that the IGNCA is. You can read the details of the scams elsewhere in this magazine but let me just give you a small taste to whet your interest. In the days when the IGNCA was Sonia's private fiefdom, crores of rupees were spent on publishing non-existent books, buying flats for professors that went instead to politicians and cronies, buying art of dubious merit as an extension of cronyism, paying lakhs of rupees as rent for offices that did no work and even-believe it or not-microfilming 1.2 lakh Russian documents that nobody understood. Not till nosey Maneka arrived did anyone discover that the documents related not to Indian history but to 14th century Russian military history. Some sly professor had used taxpayers' money for his personal research.

No political party in India has banged on about Indian culture more than the BJP, so you would have thought that a BJP prime minister would instantly order the IGNCA to change its bad habits. You would think that taxpayers' money would finally start going to genuine promotion of Indian culture. This, alas, was not to be. Vajpayee's friends appear to have quickly discovered the merits of leaving the IGNCA as it was. All that changed was that the money started going to a new bunch of "culture" cronies all of whom naturally needed cars, drivers, apartments and peons-of the IGNCA's 300 employees, 272 are believed to be drivers and peons.

Is it then any surprise that Vajpayee should be so full of praise for Indira's approach to art and culture? Any surprise that Maneka should get the chop and Sonia words of praise? Any surprise that we should ask if he is joining the Congress party?