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A case for Jaswant Singh

Despite the post itself having lost its lustre over the last 10 years, the prime ministership of India still remains, to borrow a leading journalist's fateful words, the 'top job in the country'.

Else, what explains the clamour on the part of assorted politicians, not just from the Opposition whose job it is to covet a shiftover to the Treasury benches, from even among the ruling coalition itself, to jostle for prime position from where it takes just a leap to occupy 7 Racecourse Road, as and when the incumbent makes way.

That the leading claimant, the one no one can overlook, remains Home Minister L K Advani, is a given. While the Sangh Parivar would like none other than him in the prime minister's chair, things are not quite so simple when you run a coalition government, especially one where the main party is way behind in the sweepstakes.

Advani, of course, lacks acceptability, despite the eulogy showered on him by the BJP's own journal. He maybe like to believe that he is Iron Man v2, but what India needs at this juncture, at a time of fractured mandate, is not iron but sponge. Sponge that soaks up and yet retains its intrinsic shape and size.

Applying that yardstick, Advani may have to reconcile himself to a further stint as his party's vote-catching mascot, the cheerleader, not the leader. That's not as bad as it sounds; in fact, his fate could be worse. Like Sonia Gandhi he may find himself having neither any cheer, nor be a leader.

The interesting part about the subterranean battle being waged for succeeding Vajpayee, is the allies own course of action. It is very clear that most of the parties/leaders who are part of the National Democratic Alliance today consider themselves aligned with Vajpayee, not with the BJP, a party that still represents to them the urbane face of the trishul brigade.

And, the allies represent a factor that cannot be wished away easily. For it was more the pressure exerted by them that convinced the BJP leadership of pulling Advani from the frontline and replacing him with the more acceptable Vajpayee.

While most of the NDA partners must be feeling a bit restive over the manouevrings within the BJP, at least has gone ahead and announced her vision of life after Vajpayee. The feisty Mamta Banerjee's call for a grand alliance with the Congress to dislodge the Marxists in Calcutta is not as simple an exercise as it sounds.

What she has left unsaid is that she is not loath to joining hands with the party she had rejected years ago, if it served her political interests. Which, are not just regional in nature. After all, there is little for a Union minister to do back home, even though there are oddities like Naveen Patnaik who prefer to the placid lake to the ocean's tempests.

Which in effect that any change the BJP leadership will contemplate will be factored by the allies.

Which in effect means that Advani as a serious contender is out of the reckoning, unless the home minister were to take on some serious PR exercise -- not the kind of gloss that BJP Today or whoever sought to place on him -- and recast his image, not quite as the iron man.

Among all those queueing up behind Vajpayee in the hope that they will catch Dame Luck's evanescent smile, my personal favourite remains Jaswant Singh.

And not just because he is suave, sophisticated, articulate, English-speaking, represents everything that is anathema to the BJP core group etc etc, even though they too are characteristics that matter.

What I really like about him, aside from those listed above, is that he has single-handedly managed to rescue this government from a diplomatic volcano.

Without exaggerating, look at the facts: two years ago, post-Pokhran II, India was banished from the comity of nations. No country was willing to acknowledge any ties with us, barring our foul weather friend Russia but then Moscow's utility in a unipolar world was symbolic, if nothing else. Yes, let's admit it, the nuclear tests did nothing to enhance our sense of security, nor did it win us encomiums. It isolated us, sans the splendour that inspires poets.

From that point, brick by painful brick, Jaswant Singh single-handedly worked his way into the innards of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and got the American glitterati to descend on New Delhi for five full days, sing paeans to a country they had mocked at just 21 months earlier. The course correction may take time in coming, but Jaswant Singh has ensured an alteration in perception.

And that is no mean achievement. One can say that Jaswant, a minister in a parliamentary democracy, was merely obeying the brief given by his boss, the prime minister and hence if any credit were to accrue it should be laid at the PMO's doors. One can also say that the American recognition of India as a growing power had less to do with Jaswant Singh and more to do with the nation's economic prospects which have popped up the dollar sign in the prospector's eyes.

Both are right, but only to a certain extent.

If what Jaswant Singh was doing was merely running in the direction that his boss pointed, in this case Washington, then similar results would have been wrought by any other minister in his place, say, for instance, George Fernandes. Yet, the mind baulks at the prospect of Fernandes, or Naveen Patnaik, being assigned the task that Jaswant Singh was. This is not to cast stones at either the defence minister, or the Orissa chief minister, but to merely point out that certain tasks are best left to certain individuals.

And the economic prospects that lured the Yankees to India were extant two years ago as well. If ever India was a basket case in recent memory, it was just before P V Narasimha Rao took over as prime minister. India held promise two years back, as it does today. As one is fond of saying, India has not changed to bring the sultans here; it is the sultans who have changed.

And the man who managed this huge turnaround, in the face of impossible odds, is the external affairs minister.

Apart from this achievement, it is also a fact that the BJP's allies are far more comfortable in the presence of such a man than they would be in, say M M Joshi's or Advani's.

I rest my case.

Saisuresh Sivaswamy