An Old Chinese Proverb

There is an old and delightfully ironic aphorism: some people are born great; others have greatness thrust upon them. Indian politicians could provide living proof that the reverse is also true. Not only are they born insignificant, not only are their concerns insignificant, but they can be relied upon to make sure that greatness is not thrust upon them even by accident. This became undeniably clear when, after his long talk with Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Dr Manmohan Singh delivered a virtual ultimatum to the UPA on the Indo-US nuclear treaty last week. That finally forced its smaller allies to declare where they stood.

To no one's surprise, like eight-year-olds at a kiddie birthday party, they wanted to have their cake and eat it too. One by one, Sharad Pawar of the NCP, Laloo Yadav of the RJD and Ram Vilas Paswan of the Lok Janashakti Party (LJP) declared their support for the treaty but also said they did not want early elections. M. Karunanidhi of the DMK went a step further and offered to show them how to eat the cake and keep it too: all they had to do was attend a meeting he was convening in Chennai.

Not one of this motley bunch has had the courage to declare that he will support Dr Singh even if that means parting company with the Left and facing an election. They will not do it because they are busy baking yet another cake. Having all but destroyed the UPA, all of them wish to stay on the good side of the Left.

But must the Congress simply stand like a punching bag and take the blows it's receiving? Surely, it knows that doing nothing between now and next April is not going to win it any more votes than it is likely to receive today. Its partners are asking it to wait in order to give inflation a chance to abate. But they have to be cretins not to know that a decline in inflation does not mean a decline in prices. These continue to rise, only more slowly. The hurt, therefore, continues but the needle does not probe quite so deep.

Instead of waiting like sheep to be slaughtered, why does the Congress party not take the offensive and do its duty to the nation? After losing 12 state assembly elections, it has to know that the anti-incumbency factor is working again this year, just like in 2003 and 2004. So what does it have to lose by launching a blitzkrieg of initiatives in the months that remain? The BJP will, of course, scream and the Left will find its third front project endangered and look for excuses to withdraw its support. But why does the Congress not trust the people to recognise that it is risking unpopularity for their children's sake and bestow their trust upon it?

Once it sheds its torpor, there is no dearth of things the government can do. The most important is simply to complete the two vitally important initiatives that it now seems resigned to leaving incomplete. In March 2007, we were nine-tenths of the way to a framework agreement with Pakistan on Kashmir. The Pakistan foreign minister's remark that he is coming to India for 'a grand reconciliation' suggests that the new regime is keen to pick up the reins that President Pervez Musharraf was forced to drop. This is no longer a partisan issue in Islamabad. Pakistan desperately needs a friendly neighbour behind it as it faces a NATO that is beefing up its forces in Afghanistan in order to deepen its incursions into Pakistan's tribal agencies. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and every corps commander in Pakistan knows that the country cannot become a party to these attacks without jeopardising its future. There could hardly be a better time, therefore, to grasp the hand of friendship that Pakistan's foreign minister seems keen on extending.

As for the Indo-US nuclear treaty, it must surely have crossed the minds of our rulers that a serious move towards peace with Pakistan will gain them many more Muslim (not to mention Hindu) votes than they could possibly lose by acknowledging (in the words of the Hyde Act) a 'congruence of objectives' with the US.

Such a congruence may not be a bad idea for other reasons. China's openly hostile diatribe against India after the uprising in Lhasa should have convinced even Prakash Karat that, let alone friendship, even peace can no longer be taken for granted with our northern neighbour. The brutal truth is that in the past three millennia, imperial dynasties in China have known no other way to deal with their minorities than to 'Sinify' them. Despite 60 years of effort and the expenditure of close to a trillion dollars on the development of 'Greater Tibet', Beijing has failed with the Tibetans and is holding India responsible. It will only be a matter of time before it concludes that it will never succeed in Sinifying Tibet, so long as India keeps the Tibetan cultural identity alive by sheltering the Dalai Lama. The conflict of interests is potentially a mortal one.