Navy

(By A foreign researcher)

The dominant issues in India over the past four months have been a war which never should have occurred, a reassertion of nuclear status which, in the context of the war, raises some alarming questions, and an election which should have provided a national forum to debate the many serious problems facing the nation but will, in all probability, end up perpetuating the political anarchy that exists today.

THE BATTLE OF KARGIL

Ever since India’s independence in 1947 and the resulting partition of present day India and Pakistan, the geographic boundaries of the two countries have been hotly disputed and frequently fought over. Following several battles over the boundary line, a "Line of Control" was established. This demarcation, which neither side recognizes as a political boundary, runs through the most inhospitable mountain area imaginable and separates the conflicting claims of the two countries. India and Pakistan have been fighting an on-going confrontation on the Saichen glacier for years. In early 1999 this confrontation extended itself southward along the LOC. Exactly how this happened bears some examination.

Winter in the mountainous area of Kargil, Drass, Batalik, and the Mashkoh Valley is six months long. The mountains, many in the range of 16-18,000 feet high, are rocky, steep, and snow covered for much of the year. In May of this year it became apparent that “insurgents” had established a line of positions along the LOC in Indian territory. The presence of the invaders was, according to many, first reported to the army by local farmers. The obvious questions were who are the invaders and how many of them are there? India accused Pakistan of invading its territory, an accusation immediately denied by Pakistan. If there were forces there, they must be local insurgents, freedom fighters, certainly not under Pakistani control said Pakistan.

To say that there is no trust and little love between India and Pakistan is only to state the obvious. Very shortly before the discovery of the invaders in Kargil, Prime Ministers A.B. Vajpayee and Nawaz Sharif made an elaborate show of attempting to improve relations between the two nations by starting a bus route between Delhi and Lahore and by inviting the Pakistani Cricket Team to tour India for a series of matches for the first time in years. The Kargil action negated whatever positive results these initiatives had produced.

Initially, the Indian army reported that there were very few enemy involved in the action and that they were confined to a small area. The country was assured that the invaders would be quickly surrounded and driven out. This did not happen. It turned out that, despite Pakistan’s protestations, the invaders were, for the most part, Pakistan troops and that there were many hundred involved. Further, they were dug into well fortified and well supplied positions. The battle escalated steadily from the commitment of boarder troops to the use of the air force to a fully mobilized army operation. The battle soon became very costly both in terms of men and materials. Dislodging an entrenched enemy from commanding positions in hostile and open terrain is about as tough as it gets for an army. Artillery bombardment was constant but not overly effective. Air strikes were on-going when weather permitted but difficult because of the terrain. The issue was finally resolved the old fashioned way, by ground troops fighting their way up exposed mountain slopes. Eventually all of the territory on India’s side of the LOC was regained and the invaders expelled.

Operation Vijay (which means victory) was completed and the country embarked upon a period of euphoria at having crushed their archenemies one more time. Politicians clambered to squeeze benefit from the victory. It was not long, however, before the real cost of the conflict began to sink in. Body bags do not sell any better in India than they do in the USA and financial minds began to ask how much this adventure had cost and how it was going to be financed.

The most pertinent questions dealt with how could a sizable force occupy, fortify, and supply a significant area of Indian territory without being detected? The search for answers has led to some disturbing observations about the operational capability of the government, the army, and the intelligence community. There can not be much doubt that Kargil was the result of a major intelligence failure. Was this failure in the ability to collect intelligence, the ability to assimilate and act upon it, or both?

It is my understanding that the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) is the group that is charged with external intelligence gathering. Reports would certainly indicate that RAW missed a significant amount of soft intelligence if it did not know, as has been reported, that last summer Pakistan had purchased 40,000 pairs of snowboots, down-filled parkas, and snow goggles in Switzerland. Somehow, according to these reports, they seem also to have missed the fact that Pakistan spent much of the summer improving roads and bridges leading to the Kargil area and building supply camps. Admittedly, intelligence of this type often comes in small bits and pieces but RAW is the agency responsible for collecting and assembling those bits and pieces and building information from them. If these reported activities are correct, and they would seem the type of activities that would have been both necessary and difficult to totally conceal, then RAW either missed the early warning messages or the information was not acted upon.

There are other reports that there may well have been a lot of intelligence available and that it was not acted upon. This then leads to the inevitable questions about who knew what and when did they know it. It has been reported in the press that as long ago as August of 1998 Defense Minister Fernandes had received reports that Pakistan was refocusing its attention from the Kashmir valley to Kargil. According to these reports, there was considerable information available to the Defense Minister, the Home Minister, the National Security Advisor, and even the Prime Minister. Examples of the intelligence reported to these men by the Intelligence Bureau, RAW and Military Intelligence, if true, are damning.

As reported, the definitive inputs were:

In September 1998 the IB warned the Home Ministry of impending trouble in Kargil.

In October 1998 the IB reported that 300 militants were being trained in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir near the LOC.

In December 1998 the IB reported that Pakistani remotely controlled aircraft had been invading Indian space on numerous occasions (this was reported in newspapers).

In February 1999 both RAW and IB reported to the National Security Council that troop buildups were occurring along the LOC.

In March 1999 reports of increased threat perceptions were transmitted to the Army Chief of Staff.

If, in fact, all of this information was presented as reported, a major failure occurred somewhere. Where and why are the pertinent questions. Could it have been the concept of nuclear deterrence and the Indian perception of the impact of nuclear deterrence on conventional conflict? If so, this is really frightening since it implies a willingness to use nuclear weapons. Could it have been that Mr. Vajpayee was focused on his peace initiatives and figured he could negotiate the matter with Mr. Sharif at Lahore? If so, it implies extreme naivete. Could it have been that the signals were simply disregarded or misinterpreted? If so, this implies total incompetence.

Assuming Pakistan made all of the preparations noted above, it then had to physically move troops into position. In an area that one must presume is as sensitive as the LOC, one must also imagine that some type of ongoing surveillance would be in place, winter or not. Reports indicate that neither military intelligence nor RAW had any equipment modern enough to accomplish the task. To compound the problem, even after it was reported that there were enemy in the area and two patrols sent to investigate failed to return, it still took more than a week to develop any useful pictures and for area commanders to received an indication of how many enemy were involved and where they were.

The battle joined, a number of questions have been raised about the combat readiness of the Indian army. One item reported in a national weekly seems indicative of the problem. The report stated that 80% of the army casualties were the result of Pakistani artillery fire that the Indian army was unable to suppress because it had no weapon locating radar. This equipment is available and the US had cleared the sale of WLR equipment to India in 1997. The proposal sat unanswered in the Defense Ministry for one year and then a reportedly inferior European system was purchased without the involvement of the military. It is also reported that when the hostilities began India had already signed an agreement with Russia for high resolution satellite photos but, because the money had not been paid, no photos had been delivered. (This raises an interesting question in my mind as to whether any photos had yet been taken by the Russians and, if they had, what they knew and whom they shared that with). In addition to the lack of weapon locating radar and high resolution satellite surveillance, deficiencies of battlefield radar, night vision devices, surveillance aircraft, and modern communication equipment were also noted.

The final question in my mind concerns the state of the Indian army itself. Operational command was changed several times in the short period of the conflict and it seemed to me that many senior officers, at least as far as it was reported in the press (which is in itself another problem) seemed overly focused on personality issues and guarding their domains. It also strikes me that in an area as sensitive as the LOC a battle ready army might have run various scenarios and prepared contingency battle plans and equipment requirements. It might also have had anticipated logistical support in place or at least staged. If these preparations had been planned but not implemented by the government bureaucracy, then the government should stand accused of the worst order of negligence.

Admonitions of the Election Commission not withstanding, Kargil has been politicized by both parties in the upcoming elections. It seems very likely that no definitive answers to where the failure occurred will be forthcoming at least until after the elections and possibly not even then. The failure is real and the questions are legitimate.

It is said that wars are fought by old men with young men’s lives. By all accounts the Indian soldiers fought bravely and several hundred gave their lives for their country. It strikes me as shameful that the government has seized the opportunity to lionize Mr. Vajpayee as a hero and chief protector of the nation. Instead, the nation should have called upon the government to explain its failure to prevent such a war from occurring and, failing prevention, explain why its army was so ill prepared and ill equipped.

THE BOMB

The Kargil conflict raised many concerns around the world about the nuclear postures of both India and Pakistan. To much of the world an artillery duel in a remote mountain area is not an issue of major interest. It can become an issue of major interest, however, when one takes cognizance of the fact that both of the parties involved have nuclear weapons and that their willingness or non-willingness to use them is much in question.

To begin with, let me examine the nuclear landscape around the sub-continent. Nuclear capable submarines from the US and the UK regularly patrol the Indian Ocean. China, France and Russia also possess nuclear capable submarines and these also presumably spend some time here. China is reported to have the capability of reaching the US with its Dong Feng 4 missile and is also reported to have developed and deployed tactical nuclear weapons. The Chinese have reportedly supplied Pakistan with long range missiles and Pakistan has requested operational nuclear warheads citing the “Indian nuclear threat”.

All of this has caused many factions in India to advocate vastly increasing India’s nuclear capabilities. Naval advocates are pushing for a sea based nuclear defense force. India has an on-going program to build a nuclear submarine but the project is six years behind schedule and has already incurred a 300% cost over run. Deterrent advocates say that China has the ability to launch a devastating nuclear attack against India without fear of retaliation without the long range Agni 4 or an operational nuclear submarine. They argue that China could take out military targets without inviting strategic intervention and thus open the path for a Pakistani armored thrust toward Delhi. They argue that “even a limited tactical nuclear attack can have military consequences greater than the three wars fought with Pakistan to date”. They argue that because the US, the UK, Russia, and France all have submarine nuclear capability, India remains vulnerable to nuclear blackmail. The nuclear advocates argue that a “triad” of land, sea, and air based weapons is necessary to protect the nation.

This is the theater of the absurd. First, at the present rate of progress, India’s nuclear submarine is years away. Even if they had the capability of sea launched missiles, of what value would they be? Why would China even consider “taking out military targets in India” to open a path for Pakistani armor? If such an attack did occur, the least of India’s problems would be Pakistani armor. What, prey tell, is “a limited tactical nuclear attack”? In what manner would the US, UK, France, or Russia wish to use nuclear blackmail against India?

Against this backdrop, the government of AB Vajpayee has recently issued a statement of nuclear doctrine. The doctrine, issued by a caretaker government preparing for elections, was described as “a draft document designed to generate debate”. One would have to look a long time to find anyone who believes this. This document is but another “in-your-face” demonstration of the willingness of the Vajpayee government to use any means at its disposal to gain political advantage. The first was the Pokhran II test. That generated popular enthusiasm for awhile and resulted in universal condemnation of India in the world. It also resulted in economic sanctions and pushed Pakistan into testing its own nuclear weapon. Net result, India threw away a significant conventional force advantage over Pakistan, hindered needed investment, and started an expensive arms race. Following the euphoria of the Kargil victory, Vajpayee’s government sought to gain political mileage as “defender of the country”. When this started wearing a little thin, the government destroyed whatever good will it had gained around the world in the Kargil conflict and announced it had the capability to make a neutron bomb and authorized (I believe it had to be authorized at high levels) the shooting down of a Pakistani reconnaissance plane. The latest action was the reassertion of Indian nuclear capability by the issuance of an Indian Nuclear Doctrine.

The announcement of the nuclear doctrine, not surprisingly, has been greeted with a lot of consternation in the developed world. The major points enunciated in the doctrine are:

To pursue minimum credible nuclear deterrence.

Not to be the first to initiate a nuclear strike but, should deterrence fail, to respond with punitive retaliation.

No use or threat of use against non-nuclear states or states not aligned with nuclear powers.

To maintain sufficient, survivable and operationally prepared nuclear forces.

To have a robust command and control system in which the nuclear trigger is with the Prime Minister or his designated successor.

This is not exactly a brand new statement of policy. Nor is it particularly definitive. It is a broad set of principles that invites all sorts of operational interpretation.

Before discussing some of the glaring problems with India’s nuclear direction, let’s think for just a moment about a couple nuclear realities. Suppose some regional conflict were to spark a nuclear exchange. What would happen? It does not take any great stretch of imagination to suppose that a belligerent would not waste its limited nuclear capabilities to obliterate central Bihar, the Rajathstan desert, Bellary, or Goa. Even a small device, say one the size of the bomb that made much of Hiroshima disappear, exploded in or over Bombay, New Delhi, or Calcutta would cause catastrophic loss of life and damage to the economic survivability of the country. The initial blast would probably incinerate a million or more people instantly. They may well be the lucky ones. The shock wave and thermal effect from the blast would level a huge area and cause devastating fires killing more millions of people. The really unlucky people would be the ones who survived the initial blast, the collapsing buildings and the fires. These people, maybe a million more, would die a very slow and painful death from radiation poisoning. More would die years later from various forms of radiation caused cancer. In addition to purely nuclear related deaths, even more people would die of disease because surviving medical facilities would be overwhelmed and sanitation and clean water would not be available.

As long as a nuclear exchange remains possible, there is nothing India can do to defend against it. If Pakistan were to launch a missile at Bombay or New Delhi, its flight time would be 8-10 minutes. Early warning is out. That amount of time would not allow anyone to get to any sort of shelter even if such existed. One politician spoke recently about “ringing Delhi with anti-ballistic missiles. This technology is well beyond India’s reach and, in all probability, also beyond such countries as the US and Europe. Even if the technology did exist, it can be overwhelmed by multiple missiles or warheads and some will get through.

This being said, let’s think about India’s “draft” Nuclear Doctrine again. This document, in a nutshell, says that India won’t be the first to use a nuclear weapon but should anyone be so boorish as to nuke India, it will retaliate massively. Who, one must ask, is likely to nuke India? I can’t see the US, the UK, France or Russia doing that. Ruling out the west then leaves Asia, which means China and Pakistan. China, as one writer has pointed out, announced a no first use policy many years ago except within its borders. The message is clearly, “don’t think about invading us”. So unless India has plans to invade China, China would seem an unlikely candidate for a nuclear exchange. Pakistan might present another problem. It has not announced any no first use policy. Why should it? Their major concern ought to be India’s conventional superiority and the nuke is one way to even out that disparity. The more India emphasizes the “high readiness – massive retaliation” part of the doctrine, the more trigger happy Pakistan is likely to become.

Deterrence is, after all is said and done, a game of bluff. Who will blink first? If you tell the other guy he can shoot first, it seems that you give away a lot of the game. This, however, is not the real problem. Back in the cold war days, neither the US nor Russia had a NFU doctrine. They had something infinitely more frightening. That was the Doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). Never has an acronym been more appropriate. This simply said that I recognize you can deliver more warheads than I can stop and can destroy me but I have the same capability and it is capable of surviving a first strike so you also will be destroyed. Think about it. This doctrine said that if anyone pushed the nuclear button, much of the population of the earth would cease to exist.

The concept of no first use is absurd. What if you know your enemy is preparing a strike? Are you going to wait for him to launch? To be functional a deterrent threat must be rigidly controlled. The release of nuclear weapons must be based upon very accurate, very timely and very reliable intelligence and assessment. Any error or delay in knowing and understanding what a potential enemy’s intentions were as well as what he is actually doing would result in either an “accidental” release or a delayed release. As has been discussed in relationship to the Kargil situation, India’s intelligence gathering and assessment is, at best, suspect. And then, of course, there is the question of command and control. It is more than a little frightening to me when someone says that ultimate release authority rests with the PM or “his designated successor”. Who might this be? The likes of George Fernandes?

The problem for India is not whether it has a nuclear doctrine or whether it will or will not use its weapons first. The problem is how can India and its neighbors assure that a nuclear weapon is never used? By anyone.

I heard and saw enough talk about actually using nuclear weapons during the Kargil conflict to scare the hell out of me. I cite as one example a letter to the editor in India Today. This letter referred to a column in the previous issue by Tavleen Singh and stated, “Knowing your columnist Tavleen Singh’s pseudo-secular antecedents, I am not surprised by her opposition to the RSS’ proposal to nuke Pakistan (“Nuke Nuts in the RSS” July 12). Pakistan is a country founded on hatred. During the Kargil crisis it threatened to use nuclear weapons. Keyboard queens like Singh inflict their pompous analyses on the readers without caring for the safety of the nation.” (The RSS, for readers who may not be familiar with India’s political relationships, is said to have enormous influence with the BJP.) Interestingly, the writer of the letter was in Dubai, presumably outside of the primary fallout area. (Speaking of fallout, has anyone thought about which way the prevailing winds blow from Pakistan and where much of the deadly fallout might end up?)

I have seen enough self-serving politically motivated action during this election campaign to convince me that the possibility certainly exists that there is sufficient lack of strategic thought in the governments of both Pakistan and India to make the use of a nuclear device entirely possible. Neither country has evidenced the maturity of governance and the disciplined control that might, just might, keep a nuclear disaster from happening either intentionally or by accident. This capability is tenuous even in the most sophisticated governments.

Why, really, does India require a nuclear arsenal? Maintaining a nuclear arsenal has not helped any of the superpowers. It didn’t help Russia in Afghanistan, it didn’t help the US in Vietnam, and the last time I checked, Fidel Castro is still alive and well 50 miles off the US coastline. Nuclear weapons are not going to help the US deal with Saddam Husein or North Korea.

The operational aspects of a nuclear India are daunting enough but what about the potential cost of building and maintaining a broader nuclear capability? At least a couple analysts have estimated the cost to be Rs 10,000 to 15,000 crore per year ($2.3 to $3.4 billion). It is hard to even contemplate the effect of expenditures of this magnitude on a country that stands 138 out of 175 countries in the scale of human development, a country with one billion people, many of whom it can’t feed now, a country in which one third of its people live in poverty and a country in which half of the world’s illiterate live.

Nuclearization is only going to lead India into a hopelessly expensive arms race (it is already doing so) and it will not change anything in the strategic balance of the region. No one can take back Pokhran. It happened. But the country can stop deploying nuclear weapons. Argentina and Brazil gave up nuclear capability. It is unlikely that this will happen here, no matter how noble, but deployment can be stopped and the threat of suicide held to its current level.

THE BOMBAST

For the third time in three years, India is going to the polls in a general election. Before examining the election itself, it may be useful to look at the major contestants starting with the political parties and examine what they are and how they are similar and dissimilar.

There are nearly 200 political parties contesting the current election. In 1952, there were 56 parties in the entire country. By 1989, the number of parties exceeded 100. In 1996, there were more than 200 parties. In the 1998 Lok Sabha election in the State of Uttar Pradesh there were 61 parties contesting, more parties than there were in all of India in 1952. These numbers are not something that the Indian political system really should be proud of. The proliferation of parties is probably to a large extent a reflection of the fact that the major, or at least regional, parties have not been perceived by the electorate as taking interest in their local, regional, caste, personal or religious concerns. Many parties are off shoots of older parties. Sometimes the division has been occasioned by ideological differences but more often the division has occurred because of personality, caste, or personal greed. It has been said that “Every man is a party, entirely of himself”. No less a person than John Kenneth Galbraith described India as “a functioning anarchy”. Many political parties have been formed by persons with real or imagined grievances solely for personal aggrandizement. The unfortunate result is that political ideology goes by the wayside and partners and parties are formed purely for political convenience. Aside from inefficient governance, this then leads to a tyranny of the minority, the situation wherein a group who has polled a very small percentage of the votes can bully the major parties because the major parties require the few seats represented by a small party to hang on to their majority. This was the situation in the 1998 elections when the top five parties received 60% of the votes cast and were often held ransom by parties which had not collected 2% of the vote. It is a highly evolved system of institutional political blackmail. The loser is India. This situation makes it nearly impossible to act upon national interests while dealing with local and personal issues.

Even the major parties, however, have very convoluted antecedents. For instance, the Congress Party existed as the Indian National Congress (INC) in 1969. That year it split into the INC and the Congress (O). In 1978, the INC spawned the Congress(I) and a year later the Congress(U). The TMC split from Congress(I) in 1996 and the Trinamul Congress in 1998. Congress(I) and Congress(T) became, once again, INC in 1999 just before Sharad Pawar broke away to form the NCP. Got the picture? The genealogy of the BJP is not quite as complex, descending basically from the Janata (meaning people’s or public) Party in 1977. The list of parties which have Janata in their name, however, is impressive. In 1977 when the BJP split off, the Janata party was left to spawn some 20 other parties in the next 20 years.

In this election there are the two main contenders, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) which is the BJP and 24 affiliates and the Congress Party with five affiliates. In India, the election process more or less begins with the various parties producing their “Election Manifestos”. These documents purport to state the principles upon which the party proposes to campaign (very much like the “Party Platforms” in the US). There was probably a time when the manifestos meant something, at least as far as they were a barometer of the general philosophical leanings of a party. The large and ideologically disparate coalitions we see in this election have made the manifestos useless for anything but starting arguments. The election manifesto of the NDA, which attempts to reconcile the objectives and motives of the BJP and 24 hangers on is a study in ambiguity. The Congress manifesto is 80 pages long and, from some reports, has simply lifted whole sections from previous manifestos. The manifesto, like much of the party, appears to be a re-cycling of old thoughts and even older people attached to them.

Some of the major issues raised in the NDA manifesto are:

Barring persons of foreign origin from holding high office

Fixed terms for the Lok Sabha

Special treatment for domestic industry

A new infotech policy

60% of Plan (budgetary spending plan) funds for agriculture and rural development

Congress, on the other hand, proposes:

A Cabinet committee to keep tabs on inflation

Doubling of credit flow to small farmers

A defense reforms panel

A national competitiveness panel

Review of labor laws

The two major contenders seem to have a number of common issues in their manifestos such as:

A law limiting government borrowing

A one third reservation for women in legislatures

A hike in educational expenditures to 6% of GDP (from 2-3%)

Annual foreign investment of $10 billion (it is currently $3 billion)

As with most political statements, most of these utterances will end up meaning very little. The NDA, for instance talks about relegating poverty to history like slavery and colonialism. This means that more programs will be created, none of which have helped the poor in the past but have probably funneled a lot of money to deserving politicians and friends. They talk about creating a hunger free India in five years. Let’s ask in five years what the next new program will be. Congress talks about stability not being an end in itself. Their record in bringing down non-Congress governments speaks for itself. They talk about reserving one third of all legislative seats for women but this does not seem to be a pressing priority since no timetable is specified.

On a more practical level, with the NDA one gets a more clearly defined leader but he will have to deal with a multitude of alliance partners who will, no doubt, exact hefty tribute for their support. With the NDA one gets a government that has demonstrated that it will move toward more nuclear muscle and more expenditure on defense but that will invite international apprehension over the security of the region and could negatively effect investment. With the NDA, one gets a government that is more pro-industry and pro-privatization but one which has a strong swadeshi streak that may inhibit its potential. With the NDA one gets a commitment to lower taxes and interest rates but this will continue to push up the deficit because there is no enthusiasm to cut government spending. In short, the NDA will present an experienced and more pro-business government but the country will pay a price in economic and social development.

Congress, on the other hand, presents a government in which there is some middle level experience but the party itself is hugely divided and lacks any real leadership. Congress is decidedly less hawkish than the NDA on nuclear arms but this makes it very hard to assess where India will go on issues like the CTBT. Congress talks about further liberalization but it has too strong a history of lower class support and seems to believe that, among its strongholds, socialism still wins elections. With Congress, welfare programs will proliferate and the growing middle class will become increasingly dissatisfied. In short, Congress sees itself as the party of the poor and the development of the business infrastructure and the middle class will suffer for it.

What are voters left to choose from when they cast their ballots beginning on 5 September? On the one hand they have Mr. AB Vajpayee who the campaign materials would have one believe is the architect of victory in Kargil, the man who bested the hated Nawaz Sharif, the man who brought us the bomb, the creator of national pride, the man who single handedly has kept inflation in check and has returned India to prosperity. The reality might be something a little different. Is this not the same man who, during his 13 months in office, presided over a criminal outbreak of dropsy in the capital, saw churches burned and missionaries murdered, sacked a navy chief, kept George Fernandes as Defense Minister and was played with by a criminal Chief Minister (possible redundancy in terms) from Chennai? Had not his government and its agencies been asleep, he wouldn’t have had the Kargil issue to politicize.

While Kargil and the Nuclear Doctrine have served to obscure the true performance of his government in office, it seems to me that the NDA is an exercise in instability and ineffective government waiting to begin. The NDA, after all, will have George Fernandes, RK Hegde, Mamata Banerjee, Ram Vilas Paswan, Sharad Yadev and others just waiting to see what kind of turmoil they can cause. These are demonstrably unstable leaders prone to personal and collective adventurism and recklessness. How can one look at this potential and not be seriously concerned.

On the other hand, we have Ms. Sonia Gandhi and the Congress Party. Congress certainly has a history of governance in India and the Gandhi name is known by all. Congress, unlike the NDA, is not bent on “changing the face of India”. Given the disastrous results of the Vajpayee government, one would think that Congress should be well positioned to take control. Watching the campaign, however, it occurs to me that Congress has few peers in the ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Rather than build on her image as the current incarnation of the Gandhi dynasty, Sonia Gandhi has demonstrated that she and the people who surround her are politically inept bunglers.

Ms. Gandhi and the Congress party would like perpetuate the Gandhi dynasty to “continue its historical contribution to the country”. One needs to examine the real legacy of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty.

Fifty years ago, Jawaharal Nehru spoke of India’s “tryst with destiny”. In implementing this destiny, however, Mr. Nehru and his successors have avoided putting into place the tools to fulfill that destiny such as universal education, clean water, electricity, and a growing economy.

Nehru created an expensive state and failed to create the basic tools of development and successive inheritors of the dynasty have continued in that tradition. Indira Gandhi decided that democracy was getting in the way of India’s development so she unilaterally did away with democracy. Even with near dictatorial powers she was unable to improve literacy or provide basic human services to the mass of India’s citizens. Rajiv Gandhi received the largest electoral mandate in the history of India and presumably could have initiated any program he wished to. But even here, history is glaringly lacking in examples of real progress. There was no investment in education or infrastructure. There was no reform of the bureaucracy.

The NDA’s weakness in this campaign is probably the stability issue. Poll after poll shows that Indian voters want a stable government after the last three years of instability. Where is Congress’s attack on that issue? Congress’s weakness is leadership. Playing directly into the NDA’s hands, Ms. Gandhi literally snuck into Bellary, the place she chose to contest, a district that has never returned anything but a Congress verdict, to file her nomination petition. What was she afraid of? Worse, she couldn’t even carry off the subterfuge effectively because the NDA was right behind her with their own chosen stalker.

The campaign rhetoric has been juvenile and pointless. It has been a personal contest between Ms. Gandhi and Mr. Vajpayee. The NDA continues to harp on Ms. Gandhi’s Italian birth and Congress to ineffectively try to hang responsibility for the Kargil invasion on Mr. Vajpayee. Congress is hugely fractured over the issue of projecting a non-Indian as PM. This has caused significant infighting within the party and has resulted in the break away of Sharad Pawar and associates and the formation of his National Congress Party (NCP) in Maharashtra.

Lower down in the panoply of those standing for election is another problem. That is the very questionable quality and motivation of many of the candidates. In India, political parties “appoint” candidates. The process is referred to as giving out “tickets” to contest from one constituency or another (it need not be one in which the candidate resides). This reduces the internal politics of politics to its basest level. To quote an interesting editorial by Tavleen Singh on unqualified candidates, “When political parties are questioned on why they hand out tickets to inappropriate candidates, they usually say that well know people (referring to ‘former beauty queens and semi-literate socialites’) find it easier to win. Great. So do dacoits (armed robbers or thugs), killers, bootleggers, and thieves. Why should we object to Phoolan Devi (known as the Bandit Queen) being given a ticket if she can win her seat? Why should slum lords and sundry gangsters from Mumbai not be sitting in Lok Sabha since they too can usually win? It is time for our political leaders to start facing the fact that the only reason they need to resort to the wrong kind of candidates is because at the organizational level there has been a frightening collapse in most of our parties”.

So what do we have today? Two people addressing none of the real issues and all the potential in the world to continue in the tradition of non-performance.

If the polls are to be believed, and they are not because they, like much else, are for sale, the NDA should achieve a majority of 280 to 300 seats. I think that Congress had the opportunity several months ago to win the election but it has bungled so badly that the NDA will probably win, not because it has a more valuable message for the voters but because it has proven to be a more adept snake oil salesman. If the NDA does win, Mr. Vajpayee’s first concern should not be about the inevitable squabbles with his allies but rather with his own party members. How long will it take before the RSS surfaces and the Ram Temple and Article 370 again emerge as issues?

An 18 member coalition did not work in the last Lok Sabha and there is little reason to believe a 24 member coalition will work any better in this one. In this election the only winners will be those who are elected and can begin/continue/expand their programs of personal aggrandizement. Five hundred and forty three MPs will either move into or remain in huge and expensive government housing. Many Ministers and Secretaries will be appointed after political horsetrading of world class stench. All will zip around Delhi in their Ambassador cars with silly little red lights on them so that everyone will be advised that they are important people, at least in their own minds. Half of the Delhi police force will remain detailed to disrupt traffic and provide unimpeded transit to these self important people as they move about town doing anything but truly serving their constituents. The losers will, once again, be the people of India. In another year or so, however, they will have another opportunity to repeat the same charade with the same result unless somewhere, somehow, the people decide that enough is enough and require a much higher order of accountability and vision from their leaders.

While discussing the upcoming elections with a friend of mine, he said that elections in India were interesting but irrelevant. Sadly, I think he’s right.