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The myths about Vajpayee

The Atal Bihari Vajpayee ministry reaches the six-month mark in a fortnight. And it has been vilified for almost each of those 180 days by an aggressively "secular" media. Three myths -- "false impressions" in Clinton-speak -- have dominated reports on the Vajpayee ministry.

Myth number one is that the Indian economy would sink into the abyss as a result of the post-Pokhran sanctions and an illiberal, swadeshi Budget.

Myth number two is that the Bharatiya Janata Party would go to any lengths to appease All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazagham chief J Jayalalitha.

Myth number three is that the prime minister is seriously ill.

Let us begin with the economy. No, Indian trade and industry aren't booming. But nor are the fundamentals of our economy as ravaged as those of some others. Nobody speaks of selling South Block but Nawaz Sharief has put his secretariat on the auction block!

An indication of the economy's health was the success of the Resurgent India Bonds issue. Critics sniggered at the very name and they laughed openly when the finance minister spoke of mopping up two billion US dollars. One influential foreign disbeliever, The Economist, declared it would take more than "a woolly patriotism" to tempt non-resident Indians.

Quite right. It takes an economy that is essentially sound if immigrants are to pour back money into a country they left behind. But that is precisely what India offers. The result is that the finance minister got not two billion, but over four billion.

It wasn't just people of Indian origin who wanted to invest in India. An American was turned away by the State Bank of India's New York branch; he is now suing to get permission to put his money in the Resurgent India scheme. Would anyone be equally interested in, say, south-east Asian bonds?

But it isn't just the "Asian Tigers" who are in the dumps. Elite private schools and colleges in Japan report cases of students dropping out to take up jobs. That is what used to happen in rural India -- parents forcing children to work instead of sending them to school.

No, India isn't suddenly better off than the world's second-largest economy. All I say is that the guardians of the Indian economy are doing a fairly good job of coping with tough times, better by far than most of their contemporaries.

The finance minister was flayed for not pursuing globalisation more fervently. Today, as shock waves from Russia rock markets from Australia to America, his decision seems prudent rather than myopic. Dalal Street may teeter a bit, but a seesaw is better than a slide in the stockbrokers' playground.

To be honest, the Indian markets sway as much because of internal uncertainty as from global factors, chiefly Jayalalitha's well-publicised musings over withdrawing support to the Vajpayee ministry. These rumours gained credibility as the BJP persisted in sending ambassadors to Poes Gardens whenever Jayalalitha threw a tantrum.

But there is a world of difference between the BJP's attitude today and its earlier posture. Nobody said so openly at the BJP's national conclave in Jaipur, but "life after Amma" is now considered a realistic possibility.

The prime minister was interviewed on Doordarshan before leaving for the Non-Aligned Movement summit. Quizzed about "pressure from Poes Gardens", he responded by mentioning the solution he engineered to end the Cauvery dispute. Since Jayalalitha is on record with her objections to the accord, this wasn't very tactful. But the prime minister is too good a diplomat not to know what he was saying. It was, to put it bluntly, a rebuff to Jayalalitha.

Several people have been doing the arithmetic on the possible combinations in the twelfth Lok Sabha. Even the most optimistic anti-BJP commentators are forced to admit that a non-BJP government shall be hard put to reach the magic number of 273. And the stability of such an entity is another matter altogether!

So much for the first and second myths! How about the third -- the prime minister's supposed brush with cancer?

I think the prime minister's schedule nails the lie. Cancer patients wouldn't cross India, flying from Itanagar in the east to Gandhinagar in the west as he did recently. And they would be too exhausted to endure a NAM summit coupled with working visits to Oman and Namibia.

"False allegations"? Myths? Next time, you read one of these three allegations or some variant on them, you can label them for what they are -- wishful thinking.

T V R Shenoy