July 27, 1998

The postal strike ended because the Government refused to give in to blackmail. Good.

When the eight-day postal strike finally ended on July 16, India had more than one reason to celebrate. It was over without the Government capitulating before menacing trade unionism. There were only assurances that grievances would be redressed. To think only a year ago the United Front (UF) government had conducted farcical negotiations on the Fifth Pay Commission's recommendations. It had gifted away an additional Rs 5,000 crore a year to shrill, if shiftless, civil servants. An employee-employer relationship is a two-way street. Unfortunately, state employees have often ignored this basic principle and sought to bludgeon their way towards better emoluments. This is especially so when the incumbent regime is perceived as weak. It happened in the final months of Rajiv Gandhi's term in the late '80s and again in 1996-97, as two UF ministries lurched from crisis to crisis.

Now with the BJP-led coalition handicapped by internal strife and external threat, the Luddites are back in business. The current round began with college teachers refusing to attend classes. Just as the postal strike ended, hospitals and state-run dispensaries readied to become inactivity zones. The strike is the worker's weapon of last resort -- not the first available instrument for blackmail. Despite liberalisation, many essential services remain public sector monopolies. Thus a strike in these sectors severely inconveniences consumers. In fact, it derails the entire economy. Whatever the face-saver, the postal strike was effectively called off because Communications Minister Sushma Swaraj wore down the unions. Surrender is always the easiest option. Yet, once a government blinks, it only leads to demands that it shut its eyes permanently. In backing his junior colleague and desisting from populist solutions, the prime minister has revealed a nerve of steel. If he can make this the hallmark of his governance, India is safe.

Uncle Sam's Petulance

By denying Chidambaram a visa, the US has effectively politicised science

There is a certain churlishness in the American refusal to grant a visa to R. Chidambaram, chief of India's Atomic Energy Commission, and prevent him from attending an international crystallography seminar. To categorise a distinguished Indian scientist as a possible danger to US national security is an offensive gesture. It flies in the face of America's oft-proclaimed liberal traditions. After all, in directing India's recent nuclear tests, Chidambaram was performing a task considered vital for his country's security. The Indian act did not threaten the US, breach any bilateral agreement nor break any international law.

Ironically, there was a time in the '60s when expertise in atomic energy was something the US wanted to spread around the world. Its Atoms for Peace Programme helped train Indian scientists. Uncle Sam aided the construction of India's first nuclear power reactor at Tarapur. In 1969, Chidambaram himself was invited to witness an American underground nuclear test. It was an era when the US considered "peaceful nuclear explosions" kosher. Washington has not quite claimed -- as it did with regard to A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and the Agni missile -- that Chidambaram learnt how to make nuclear weapons from it. But it has turned hostile towards scientists working for India's defence. Ironically, some of them have family members who live in the US and work in sensitive research centres there. To seek to disrupt scientific traffic is as bizarre as to, for instance, want to control the Internet. Diplomatically, the visa denial goes against the very norms the US pressed for in the '70s, when India routinely denied Israeli and South African scientists access to conferences it was hosting. Coming as it does on the eve of the Strobe Talbott-Jaswant Singh talks, Washington's decision is unnecessarily provocative.

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