While the entire nation watches in disgust the deal-making and horse- trading that mark the current turn in our politics, let us not overlook the rather profound questions that got us here. For, while today a life-saving vote may be traded in exchange for things of such lasting value for future generations as the renaming of an airport, a ministership for six months, a more winnable seat for the next election, or straight-forward cash, let it not confuse you into believing that this entire crisis is about either surviving in power for six more months, or ensuring an election a couple of months earlier. If that was the reason, the Government and its partners would have carried on till early next year, and the NDA would have simply waited for the anti-incumbency wave to gather force.
All the murkiness and trivialities apart, this crisis has been caused by three differing worldviews, of how India looks at the post-Cold War world, its own position and stature there, and what it needs to do to further its interests. It is the first time in our history that foreign and strategic policy has become such an issue. So far, these policies had more or less been run on the basis of a consensus, Nehruvian for most of the first 25 years after Independence, and then only moved further in the same direction by Indira Gandhi. There was no debate on India’s prominent role in the non-aligned movement which tilted distinctly towards the Soviet Union, the underdog in the Cold War. This larger formulation was not challenged politically even when India took positions on the pulverisation of Hungary, Czechoslovakia and then Afghanistan, over almost three decades. Barring the hiccup of the 1962 defeat when the Nehruvian foreign policy paradigm was questioned, there wasn’t much doubt even on our policy on our borders, neighbours, and nuclear weapons.
