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The Thin Red Line

The biggest compliment to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's peace foray into Pakistan was paid, albeit unwittingly, by the Congress party, when it decided to oppose the imposition of President's rule in Bihar.

And with that, the politicisation of the peace initiative, an unwelcome development but nevertheless not wholly unexpected, has become a reality.

The Congress party's compulsions for taking the decision had little to do with the welfare of dalits who were being swatted like a bunch of tsetse flies, or with the fact that the imposition of President's rule was prompted by pressure from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, as it has subsequently claimed. The decision to oppose the move was a knee-jerk reaction to Vajpayee's tumultuous bus ride to Lahore and the subsequent indications that peace across the border, an elusive proposition to begin with, could well become a reality under the dispensation of two reasonable men heading hardline parties.

The Congress party's fear is understandable. Here was a government that was rocking to and fro, buffeted now by a recalcitrant ally in some remote part of the country, careening then from a rear-guard assault from within its own ranks, and which, in the one year that it has been in power, has had nothing of consequence to go the electorate with in case of snap polls.

Further, here was a government headed by a man who was fast losing his constituency within his own party, who was waging his biggest battle of political survival, ironically, within his own party. Such a man should ordinarily be emulating a lame duck, not undertaking hazardous bus journeys across the Line of Control.

But Vajpayee was a bigger fool, in the Congress's estimation. Not only does he cross the Wagah checkpost, blowing to the wind protocol that demanded that as the bigger, more powerful nation it ought to be his counterpart who should be riding to Dilli in that jazzed up bus, but the old coot goes and initials a declaration that included Kashmir -- a holy cow, when not a red rag, to our establishment -- in the bilateral talks between the two nations.

And the obvious public euphoria that both preceded and succeeded the peace initiative, was so reminiscent of May 1998 -- a dangerous portent -- that the Congress was left with no option but, in the national interest, bring down the ecstasy level a few notches, by jolting the BJP government into remembering that even if the main Opposition party was in no position to form an alternative government at the Centre it packed enough sting to make life uncomfortable for it.

Ergo, the Bihar resolution, after the Congress president had said that the Rabri Devi government in Patna had lost the moral right to rule after the Narayanpur massacre. So now, what will happen is that a "morally bankrupt" government will ride back to power because the Congress party could not stomach a bus ride.

But luckily for the nation, the impending defeat of the motion on President's rule in Bihar would not rob the central government of either its right to rule or even its moral authority, the latter a commodity that has suddenly become politically expendable thanks to the Congress party's own machinations.

Luckily, it should also not inhibit the prime minister who seems determined to chart a new course in the subcontinent's hither-to checkered history. A new course that promises to overturn the status quo in the nation's priorities, a status quo, let it be recorded, that was entirely of the Congress's making during its four decades and plus rule over the nation's destiny.

It is a political axiom that peace has a better chance of being realised under a hardline political party. In Vajpayee, the nation has a moderate in a jingoist party, which is not always the best of combinations. Thus, the fear that he could be skewered by internal political dissent is a very real prospect. However, Vajpayee has managed to place his resentful party in a Catch 22 situation.

It is well known that Vajpayee is not the Sangh Parivar's first choice as prime minister, nor would he even rank as its last choice for the top job. It is the home minister, who has suddenly become a thorn in the side of the man who he had himself coronated as prime minister. Much as the party would like to replace Vajpayee with Advani, a true-blue Sanghi if ever there was one, there are limitations. The allies who are propping up the government are there not out of any agreement with the BJP's core ideology, but out of empathy with Vajpayee's persona. So long as Vajpayee is of sound body and mind, the chances of a palace coup against him are as slim as Naomi Campbell.

In the meantime, Vajpayee has realised the importance of going down in history, not as a man who brought further death and destruction in the land of his birth, but as one who tried his best to halt the juggernaut. He also knows that in the next election, one year away or four, he will not be his party's prime ministerial candidate, and that there is no second chance for him at the top job.

The hawks within the Bharatiya Janata Party also know this. They know that in the existing circumstances, there is little for them to do but be seen, if not as active backers of the peace process, at least not be seen as derailers, not just yet. Their silence is also due to the fact that their government has done sweet little that would even remotely boost their chances at the hustings, and given the fractured polity nothing its government wants to do is going to get past the opposition. So, willynilly, peace with Pakistan would be its crowning glory.

So what would happen is that the party would claim Vajpayee's achievement on the Pakistan front as its own, even as it drops him like a hot potato. For the prime minister, who knows what lies in store, it would be a small price to pay for his tryst with history.

Saisuresh Sivaswamy