Topic started by AP (@ cache8-2.ruh.isu.net.sa) on Sat Jun 29 09:26:40 .
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JUNE 17, 2002/VOL. 159 NO. 23, TIME Asia Published an Article about Prime Minister Mr.Vajpayee, "ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL?",
http://www.time.com/time/asia/magazine/article/0,13673,501020617-260747,00.html

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The full text is below, interested to know your opinion..
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As India and neighbor Pakistan put up their nukes, is an ailing and frail Vajpayee the right man to have his finger on the button?
By Alex Perry, New Delhi

He drank heavily in his prime and still enjoys a nightly whiskey or two at 74. India's leader takes painkillers for his knees (which were replaced due to arthritis) and has trouble with his bladder, liver and his one remaining kidney. A taste for fried food and fatty sweets plays havoc with his cholesterol. He takes a three-hour snooze every afternoon on doctor's orders and is given to interminable silences, indecipherable ramblings and, not infrequently, falling asleep in meetings.
Atal Behari Vajpayee, then, would be an unusual candidate to control a nuclear arsenal. But for four years the Indian Prime Minister's grandfatherly hands have held the subcontinent back from tumbling into war. Despite the fact that he heads the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a constituency stuffed with extremists, Vajpayee has ambitiously pursued peace with neighbor and rival Pakistan, even traveling to the Pakistani cultural capital of Lahore in 1999, vainly hoping to bury the bloody animus of the past and start an era of good feelings.

With 1 million soldiers facing each other at high alert on the India-Pakistan border, those days seem long ago. At the same dangerous time, Vajpayee's stewardship is looking less and less comforting. The frail bachelor seems shaky and lost, less an aging sage than an ordinary old man. He forgets names, even of longtime colleague and current Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh, and during several recent meetings he appeared confused and inattentive. After a meeting with a Western Foreign Minister, his appearance was described by one attending diplomat as "half dead." At a rare press conference last month in Srinagar, the Prime Minister tottered to the podium—Indian TV crews are asked to film him from the waist up to avoid showing his shuffling gait—to find he had trouble understanding questions, repeatedly relying on whispered prompts from Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani. Even then Vajpayee stumbled over his replies. "He is very alert when he is functional," says one BJP worker. "But there are very few hours like that." Adds one Western diplomat: "We have a lot of conversations about his health. Some of his mannerisms come down to his personal style. But some of it is definitely spacey stuff."

While no one questions that key decisions on national security and foreign policy are still made by Vajpayee, the focus is now turning to the two men behind the throne: Vajpayee's low-key National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra, and Vajpayee's hard-line BJP colleague of 50 years, 72-year-old Advani. The consensus among observers and diplomats is that the hawkish Advani is preparing to succeed Vajpayee at the next national elections due by late 2004. "There is no doubt he is the Prime Minister in waiting," remarks a diplomat.

In the meantime, Vajpayee has undergone a sudden conversion from peacemaker to warmonger—primarily in response to political pressures. This year's standoff on the border shows the dovish Prime Minister has accepted the argument that war—or the threat of it—works. In comments that set off alarm bells around the world, Vajpayee last month spoke twice of an impending "decisive battle" against India's "enemy." Although he has repeatedly said that he does not want war, the Prime Minister has sound strategic reasons for ratcheting up the rhetoric. Since Sept. 11, he has found the international community more sympathetic to the idea of India waging its own war on terror against jihadis in the contended state of Jammu and Kashmir, where many of them have been inserted by Pakistan. And it plays well for India to keep the pot boiling: New Delhi can claim a victim's solidarity with the U.S., avoid addressing the awkward issue of its heavy-handed rule in Muslim-dominated Kashmir—and just possibly get Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf to actually shut down the jihadi industry on his territory, ending what India calls a "proxy war."

Last week, Musharraf told visiting U.S Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage that he was going to put a permanent end to terrorist incursions into India. Vajpayee's government promised in turn some de-escalation measures, though a withdrawal of troops from the border has been ruled out. The big risk, however, is that no matter what Musharraf does, there are enough jihadis already in Kashmir to keep hammering India with suicide bombs and death squads. Four people were killed by terrorists Friday night in Kashmir, even as heavy shelling continued at the frontier and an unmanned Indian spy plane was shot down by the Pakistani air force. Any small spark can still push Vajpayee to deploy his soldiers in some punitive counterattack on Pakistan, which can lead to full-scale war.

Meanwhile, Vajpayee's colleagues carp that he's still not being hawkish enough. "Any Prime Minister that takes action against Pakistan will sweep the elections, but Vajpayee is reluctant and that will definitely damage the BJP," complains BJP hard-liner B.P. Singhal. "As the Prime Minister, for him, national interest is above party interest."

Tellingly, Vajpayee was forced to give up his moderate stance and attend to his party in response to a domestic disaster, not an international crisis. On Feb. 27, a group of Muslims firebombed a train in the western state of Gujarat murdering 58 Hindus. The reprisals against Muslims in Gujarat were fierce, unpoliced, and went on for weeks, killing some 2,000 according to human rights groups. (The official death toll, widely disbelieved, is half this.) On April 4, Vajpayee reacted with revulsion, urging Hindu rioters to rediscover "a sense of unity and brotherhood." Asked the published poet: "Burning alive men, women and children? Are we human or not? Or has a demon taken over us?" His office briefed newspapers on the likely candidates to replace Gujarat state leader Narendra Modi, a member of the BJP who was accused of complicity in the violence, or at least, ineptness in containing it. But scarcely a week later, on April 12, Vajpayee changed his tune. Nothing more was said about sacking Modi. And speaking to an audience in Goa, Vajpayee shocked the country by declaring: "These days militancy in the name of Islam leaves no room for tolerance. Wherever such Muslims live, they tend not to live in coexistence ... they want to spread their faith by resorting to terror and threats."

In the subcontinental context, that kind of statement is a license for the killings to continue. According to diplomatic sources, the burden of the crisis made Vajpayee unwell. Adds Vinod Mehta, editor-in-chief of the Indian weekly Outlook magazine, Advani and his supporters used the illness to gather the party's hard-line core and read him the riot act. "The party basically gave him no room to maneuver," says Mehta. "He knew he could have lost his job and he had neither the spirit nor the physical strength to fight back. So he just gave up his moderate stance and fell in line. Now he's just a party mascot, a puppet of the hard-liners."

With an enfeebled Vajpayee at the helm, the prospect of war with Pakistan becomes more real. "Advani would really like to finish this proxy war, and perhaps do a bit more," says one diplomat. India has none of the checks and balances designed during the cold war to prevent a nuclear launch in anger. (Although India's military is comfortingly professional, nonpolitical and obedient to civilian control. The country's nukes are controlled by government scientists, and deployment orders come from the Prime Minister's office alone.) For his part, Advani denies any undue influence, or even the tag of "hawk"—although, characteristically, he describes communal violence under the BJP as "minimal," even after the shame of Gujarat. But asked about the possibility of attacking across the Line of Control in Kashmir, Advani answers that in his view India is already facing an "undeclared war" from the militants. His list of conditions that Musharraf must meet before peace talks can begin is lengthy. "As long as this undeclared war, this training, arming, financing of jihadis, and this infiltration and terrorism and sabotage continues," he says, "then any dialogue will be meaningless." And he hints that the international community has given tacit approval for action. "One major change in the last 10 days has been that the U.S., Britain and other coalition members have said publicly and forcefully that Pakistan should stop cross-border terrorism," he says. "Our Prime Minister took really radical initiatives in the past. There's no question of that now"—in other words, of actively looking for peace. An Indian army source adds that unless India detects that promised shift in militant activity and capability in the next five weeks, the military expects an order to attack.

The body on the other end of the seesaw is Mishra, a 70-year-old career civil servant and diplomat, who functions as the equivalent of a White House chief of staff. The fact that Mishra has survived countless calls for his removal—he's accused of wielding influence beyond his position—is testament to his pivotal role, diplomats say. Mishra is considered to be the brains behind the peace overtures of the past. His influence with Vajpayee these days waxes when the two men get away from the capital and the rest of the BJP. At a regional security conference in the Kazakh capital of Almaty last week, the Prime Minister made a rare and unexpected conciliatory gesture when he proposed joint Indian-Pakistani patrols along the Line of Control to ensure an end to infiltration. All week Mishra was briefing India's national newspapers that the government had decided to tone down the rhetoric. And significantly, when Vajpayee returned to Delhi on Wednesday night, Mishra stayed behind for further talks. But, warns Outlook editor Mehta, Mishra is just an appointed government servant, however close he is to the boss. "Mishra's influence is directly proportional to Vajpayee's position. He has no party base. When Vajpayee goes down, Mishra goes with him."

Observers say that the BJP is hoping to use Vajpayee through the next general elections, but no further. The party currently rules in a coalition, with Vajpayee as the glue that holds it together. If it manages to win an absolute majority, it won't need him any longer. The Prime Minister has largely accepted this gradual decline. His great ambition on gaining office was to do for India-Pakistan relations what Nixon did for China and the U.S.: only a right-winger, went the argument, could take the country into a peace deal with the archenemy. And this Vajpayee wanted to do, to secure a place in the history books. Friends say this ambition is now dead. Much of the Prime Minister's energy is now devoted to the business of weight rather than weighty affairs of state. His staff coaxes the reluctant old man onto a treadmill for 10 minutes every day and encourages him to take short walks. His "family"—longtime companion Rajkumari Kaul, who suffered a heart attack in March, and her daughter Namita—ensures he is served only boiled vegetables and rice. But Vajpayee still insists on an evening drink or two. In the family cottage in the Himalayan foothills, says an aide, nothing can keep him away from deep-fried trout. "He promises to stick to his diet with doubled rigidity once he leaves," says an aide, "but the trout he must have." On a long flight abroad, Vajpayee compared his menu with other members of the government party. "He was terribly upset when he discovered he had been singled out for special treatment," says the aide, "and tried to browbeat the in-flight staff into serving him the general meal, which was spicier." Meanwhile, tension seems set to continue between India and Pakistan. But as Vajpayee's ability to steer a moderate course diminishes, he's spending the twilight of his political life where he wants to be—out to lunch.

Responses:

• From: BU (@ cache8-2.ruh.isu.net.sa) on: Sat Jun 29 09:28:50
  
  Vajpayee's stealthy habits
  
  
  By Balakrishnan Unny, Indian Ink http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/SGAZETTE/DATA/2002/6/27/Art_62949.XML
  
  THAT the Vajpayee government puts its forked tongue to regular use is by now an established fact. So we have, or are soon going to have, a Muslim as the country's president even as Narendra Modi, who should have not only been dismissed but also thrown in jail, continues to enjoy the undivided patronage of the powers that be in New Delhi. Or look at the case of Time magazine reporter Alexander Perry, a British national, and the government's decision to allow foreign firms invest in the print media here.
  
  Regardless of the conspiracy theories - more of that later - that are doing the rounds over the TIME article on an unhealthy prime minister and his stealthy habits, there is no gainsaying the fact that the government has unduly overreacted to a piece that is best suited for the back-page gossip columns. After all, Perry, who authored the article with the help of two other Indian reporters, has not written anything that is not already known not just to the party circuit in the nation's capital but to the whole country. It is, of course, common knowledge that Prime Minister Vajpayee had lost one kidney several years ago and that he has had replacement surgeries on both knees. His shuffle and belabored steps carrying an increasingly portly frame are there for all to see on television on a daily basis and so are his staccato speech and sleepy, half-closed eyes.
  
  What was not so common knowledge was that Vajpayee still goes through the motions of a 10-minute workout on the treadmill, that too after much coaxing and cajoling by his immediate family. But then again we perforce compare these exertions by our prime minister with the punishing regimen that world leaders like Putin (a black-belt judoka), Bush and Blair (both with washboard tummies) put themselves trough on a daily basis. Why, even our 'Enemy No. 1', President General Pervez Musharraf, we are told, can drive a golf ball farther than most of his playmates and that he is in "fighting fit" shape. Perhaps the only factor going in Vajpayee's favor is that he is older than all these leaders. But it is also a point that much of Vajpayee's ills had been acquired a long time ago and, therefore, cannot be put down to the age factor alone.
  
  Be that as it may, what has given the article undisputed - some would say undeserved - popularity is the government's, and the chief ruling party's, reaction to it. Not only has New Delhi lodged an official protest to the magazine, but has also hauled up poor Perry to the registration office for foreigners in India to answer totally unconnected questions like his possession of more than one passport.
  
  Quite unlike India, where a passport continues to be a privilege that is bestowed on a few by an overbearing bureaucracy, other countries, especially the more mature democracies of the West, are more liberal with the travel document. There are hundreds of foreigners - many journalists among them - in India who hold two or more passports because their respective countries have allowed them to do so. New Delhi has no right to question the holder for what his country has willingly given him. But, as one senior lawyer put it, "the Indian foreign office could be compliantly ignorant of the facts of international rules and laws."
  
  Thanks to an alert press, the officialdom has belatedly come to realize that it is hoist with its petard as far as the passports issue is concerned. But it is in no mood to leave Perry alone. He has been called to appear for a second time before officials and there are reports that the government is trying to dig up something - anything - that could be held against the journalist so as to issue deportation orders.
  
  TIME magazine has several editions and I doubt if the story had made it to other editions as well. It is only understandable that it highlights the story in its Asian editions even as it is given the go-by in, say, the Americas and South Pacific editions. After all, who in Argentina and Brazil or Australia and New Zealand would be interested to know how healthy or otherwise the Indian premier is? But now that the story has gone far beyond its intent, there is every chance the magazine may print it in these other editions as well, with perhaps a footnote about what the writer had had to go through under the guardians of India's democracy.
  
  Now for the conspiracy theories. There are at two going around at the moment, both having their own supporters and detractors. According to the first, less credible one, the government wanted to deflect the focus from the Indo-Pak standoff because of the conflicts within the ruling NDA. While the more hawkish sections wanted no more ground to be yielded to Pakistan, the peaceniks are said to be keen on immediate restoration of each other's ambassadors and more unilateral de-escalatory steps by New Delhi.
  
  While the troubleshooters were looking for the proper peg to hang their coats on, along came the juicy article on the prime minister's health. Orders were issued to give it the "full treatment" so that the media will have something to munch on. Well, it has not exactly turned the front pages into medical journals, but has at least generated plenty of interest to occupy top column space.
  
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  Then there is rumor that the whole thing was stage-managed by a section of the BJP which is opposed to the continuance of Vajpayee as premier. The 'plant' was said to have been engineered by two former senior journalists who are close to Advani.
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  According to this theory, once Vajpayee's health becomes a matter of international concern - what with a nuclear arsenal such the one India has, its premier's health is indeed a matter that the international community will be concerned about - there will be pressure on him to step down. The article clearly mentions that Advani is the man tipped to take over the reigns if and when Vajpayee 'retires.'
  
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  At least two publications - one an English newspaper and the other a Hindi daily, both known for their proximity to the Advani camp - had either reproduced as a whole or lifted large passages of the Perry article with a token comment at the end by way of criticism. Photocopies of the article are freely available at the BJP headquarters as if the party is overjoyed and celebrating the achievements of its most senior leader. With friends like these, who needs enemies, Mr Vajpayee?
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