Duplicate snub

UNDER pressure from the RSS, the Vajpayee government appointed Bhishma Kumar Agnihotri as an additional Indian ambassador to the USA with the same perks and privileges as his counterpart Lalit Mansingh, who is from the IFS. The government even acceded to the NRI ambassador’s request for an assistant from Delhi to help him run his New York office.

But a major snag in the unusual arrangement surfaced recently with the US government refusing to recognise Agnihotri’s diplomatic status since he is no longer an Indian citizen. And despite his love for bharat mata Agnihotri is unwilling to relinquish his American citizenship for the sake of his job. Even his Indian deputy, a senior IFS officer, is being denied diplomatic status by the Americans as long as he is officially attached to Agnihotri’s office.

2 much of Singhal

‘Vajpayee aankhen kholo, Jai Sri Ram bolo’ is the warning poster outside several VHP offices in Gujarat. But the image of the somnolent prime minister does not hold true anymore. Crises tend to bring out the best in the 76-year-old PM who was reinvigorated earlier during the Kargil intrusions and the 1999 general election.

Under the strain of Ayodhya, Gujarat and its inevitable fallout on the NDA, Vajpayee’s face is beginning to bloom once again and he looks healthier. The silver tongued orator was back in his old form in Parliament peppering his speeches with good-natured humour. The PM even took a dig at himself and his government as well, noting that if the VHP lumpen ransacking the Orissa assembly had indeed raised slogans of ‘Vajpayee zindabad’ he would rather be dead than praised by such people.

Vajpayee’s forgetfulness of names is at times a mischievous put-on. Recently when he wanted to speak to VHP president Ashok Singhal, who is double trouble for the NDA, Vajpayee was heard querying, ‘‘Where is the double?’’

Artful dodgers

THE Sotheby’s sale of ‘‘Important Indian Paintings from the Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck Collection,’’ in New York on Friday demonstrates yet again the ease with which ancient Indian paintings are sold abroad with not a whimper from the Indian government. This Sotheby’s catalogue includes many 18th century paintings that were exhibited in India long after the Antiquities Act was in place.

For instance, painting numbers 50, 51 and 53 were in the collection of Maharaja Manvindra Shah of Tehri-Garwhal which were displayed in the National Museum in 1963 at an exhibition of Kangra Paintings of the Gita Govinda curated by M S Randhawa. Paintings numbered 54, 55 and 56 were exhibited in 1966 in the Kangra paintings of the Bihari Sat Sai exhibition at the National Museum in New Delhi.

Last year, the fabulous Al Sabah collection of Mughal jewellry was exhibited in the leading museums of London and New York and nobody from the Indian government questioned just how priceless Mughal jewellry had ended up in the Kuwait National Museum in recent years. Or does the government’s commitment to enforce the Antiquities Act not apply when powerful vested interests are involved?

Cussed Modi

THE central government repeatedly requested Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi to rectify his blatantly discriminatory order by which the Hindu Godhra victims got Rs two lakh from the state government and the largely Muslim riot victims received only Rs one lakh.

The issue has caused the central government much embarrassment and could even be raised at the International Human Rights Commission.

But, the stubborn Modi was unwilling to double the amount sanctioned for the riot victims.

With Modi intransigent, the only way the anomaly could be removed was by persuading the families of the Godhra train victims to accept Rs one lakh instead of two. Since these families are in any case to be heavily compensated by the VHP, they were willing to comply just so that Modi could reinforce his anti-Muslim bias.

Three-in-one speak

WHILE the BJP, VHP and RSS leaders still keep up the pretence that the three outfits are separate entities, the hardliners in the BJP make no bones about their true identity. M.A. Kharbela Swain, a BJP MP describes himself proudly as one of the party’s many ‘‘three-in-ones.’’ He is affiliated to the BJP, VHP and RSS.

Swain says that Hindutva is the only distinguishing point between the Congress and the BJP and it is time the party returns to its real moorings. As he sees it, the recent violence in Gujarat was a necessary lesson to the minority community that Hindus, if slapped, will retaliate. He acknowledges that the Gujarat communal uprising has totally turned the political tide in the state in the BJP’s favour.

More than the Opposition or the NDA allies, it’s the BJP hardliners riding a new high on the Hindutva bandwagon which may be instrumental in bringing down the Vajpayee government. While a section of the party lives in the illusion that the party could secure a majority on its own in the forthcoming election, a more realistic view is that it will be closer to its 1984 performance, when the BJP won just two seats!

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