Another ‘opinion poll’ goes BJP’s way

At least the world seems to have taken the calculated risk that the BJP-led NDA alliance is returning to power in a month’s time. The l...

At least the world seems to have taken the calculated risk that the BJP-led NDA alliance is returning to power in a month’s time. The latest vote of confidence is by China, which has agreed to hold the third round of border negotiations in late May in New Delhi. Hardly would the new government have been formed when China’s Special Representative Dai Bingguo & Co are likely to take up from where they left off with counterpart Brajesh Mishra in Beijing in February. Unless the Indian electorate pulls off some stunning upset, the Chinese—and most parts of the world—believe that Atal Behari Vajpayee will be Prime Minister of India for the fourth time.

The Sino-Indian border talks have been among the most interesting foreign policy initiatives by the BJP Government, with both sides informally promising themselves some kind of a win-win agreement by the time Chinese premier Wen Jiabao pays a visit to India in the autumn. The first two rounds, more in the nature of an exploratory discussion, are expected to yield some sort of a framework in the third. But mum’s the word so far.

Both Beijing and New Delhi have also promised that they are not going to speak to the press about this very delicate negotiation proposing to cauterise and heal the wound of the 1962 border war that continues to cast a long shadow on bilateral ties.

Hitler still manages to spring a surprise

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Nothing makes sense in this upside down world anymore. A Russian-cum-Belarus-sponsored resolution at the Geneva conference on human rights against racism and xenophobia expressed deep concern at the tendency of some states to glorify former members of the SS, the hated Nazi-era police, instituting monuments in their honour and allowing some of these people to take out marches. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, a former representative at the UN, argued that ‘‘such practice’’ insulted the memory of innumerable victims of the SS and led to the escalation of modern forms of racism. Worried about the rise of Neo-Nazism in his own country and the fact that neighbouring Baltic republic Latvia—which has just joined the European Union—was glorifying some of its citizens who had collaborated with the Nazis in World War II, Lavrov proposed the resolution. Among the 36 countries that supported it were India, China, Ukraine and Armenia.

Then came the vote, and horror of horrors, it was opposed by some of the leading members of the so-called ‘‘free world’’. Besides all three former Axis powers—Germany, which has done more in the post World War II world than most nations to revisit its Fascist past in order to learn from it, Italy and Japan—the US, Great Britain, Australia, Hungary and Croatia also voted against the resolution.

If you’re mystified about the last, historians point out that in the melting pot of the Balkans on the eve of World War II, the Croats were great supporters of the Nazis.

Vaiko and Lankan interest in TN election

The increasingly perceived wisdom in the south is that Jayalalithaa’s AIADMK is faring rather poorly this election and may lose a large percentage of its vote share to Karunanidhi’s DMK. Except that Karunanidhi must also watch out for MDMK’s Vaiko, whose fiery oratory is drawing huge crowds and even giving Karunanidhi’s son M K Stalin sleepless nights. Some say that Vaiko could even at some future date inherit the mantle of the party.

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The Vaiko phenomenon, especially since his release from jail a few months ago where he was incarcerated for indulging in pro-LTTE propaganda, is not only raising eyebrows in New Delhi but is making India’s southern neighbour Sri Lanka quite nervous. Vaiko’s unabashed pro-LTTE leanings are especially an embarrassment at a time when the new government in Colombo has made an issue of taking a tough stand on the LTTE. Fact is that LTTE supremo Prabhakaran’s father continues to live in Tamil Nadu, albeit in the shadows. There may be those across the Palk Straits sorry to see Amma go.

Foreign Service: at home with written word

India’s best and brightest have routinely joined the Foreign Service, so it should come as no surprise that some should do other things besides their work. Still, two new books in one week by different people is an achievement. Pavan K. Varma’s offerings get more interesting with age like good wine—his latest Penguin delight is an extended essay on the essential amorality of ‘‘Being Indian’’ which, coupled with an obsession with the hierarchical order, either manifests itself positively, with different kinds of people coexisting within the same space, or negatively, as people turn a blind eye to what others are doing.

Nirupama Menon Rao’s book of poems, Rain Rising, is more of a surprise, brave even, considering how few, even in the IFS, attempt this ultimate, creative genre. It’s an eclectic collection, from Kailash Mansarovar to St Petersburg to Kerala, a personalised tribute to her travels around the world, which after squaring the circle, often end at home.

Nirupama has been feted by the Sahitya Akademi earlier. But as Justice Leila Seth said at the release function, poetry is like a leaf falling down a grand canyon—with those of us above waiting to hear its echo.