ELECTIONS '98
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It's been a dark Diwali

As one drove through the darkened and strangely silent streets of Delhi on Diwali, one was put in mind of the festival eight years ago when students protesting V P Singh's precipitate implementation of the Mandal Commission report declared a Black Diwali. The difference is that then it was a student's protest; this time round, it has been an expression of the people's mood.

There is little to celebrate. After years of Manmohanomics, when the nation got used to moderate price rises and accelerated growth, the last two years have been a grim reminder that neither inflation nor recession belongs to the dim past. The recent skyrocketing of prices has hit the consumer hard. With the price of onions double the price of apples, the joke doing the rounds is that it is better to be rich than poor because delicacies for the well-off are cheaper than necessities for the deprived.

The recession, which during former finance minister P Chidambaram's day was something of an academic speculation, has now begun to bite. Industries are closing; trade is in the doldrums; unemployment, especially among educated youth, is rising spectacularly; the stock market is a thousand points below its peak. Exports have not been able to take advantage of the slide in south-east and east Asia.

The rupee is at its lowest ever, propped up by interest rates that keep the exchange rate afloat but take their toll in investment decisions being postponed because of the cost of credit. Business confidence has never been lower. If Indian investors are wary of their own future, it is difficult to see Foreign Direct Investment rushing in where angels fear to tread.

Brave talk of kick-starting the economy has been replaced by whistling in the dark about the resilience of the economy to beat sanctions. The ideological thrust has gone out of policy-making. The saffron version of swadeshi has proved so hollow that the Swadeshi Jagran Manch is the loudest in condemning the policies of its most well-known member, Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha.

Yet, the damage has been done as far as the foreign investor is concerned. Wary about when the wolf will shed its sheep's clothing, the foreign investor applauds the finance minister in the hope that he will persist in his abandonment of principle but is unsure that Sinha's new line is for real. So, he holds back his moolah and sticks to empty assurances.

The government boasts of the number of FDI "approvals" being sought and cleared, but it is clear to all, except the finance ministry, that that these clearances are being secured with the intention of encashing them only after the present interregnum ends.

That the government itself regards the present dispensation as an interregnum has been amusingly demonstrated by the Bharatiya Janata Party's decision to keep itself in the running for the Delhi state assembly election by replacing -- just 45 days before the polls -- its chief minister, Sahib Singh Verma. Verma held the post for nearly three years.

In one fell blow, the BJP has vindicated what its opponents have been saying -- that the Sahib Singh government was a disaster and had to go. The BJP has been hoping that their replacement, the charismatic Sushma Swaraj (election slogan: Ab ki bari Atal Bihari/ Agli bari Sushma hamari!), will prove so attractive to the electorate that they will forget Sahib Singh's misdeeds and look to a new destiny under a new chief minister.

Swaraj herself seems to have no such illusions. She has retained her seat in Parliament. She has not announced whether she will contest the assembly election and, if she does, whether she will relinquish her seat in the Lok Sabha.

She has also made it clear that she is an extremely reluctant debutante, not wanting to waste her breath on Delhi state's desert air when her sights are fixed on Race Course Road, the prime minister's official residence.

Delhi, of course, is a small state, not more really than a largish metropolitan area. But it is the capital and, therefore, no more immune from being part of national politics than Washington, DC can be treated as just another town in the US of A. The ethos in Delhi state bears an uncanny resemblance to Delhi as the nation's capital. The uncertainty and instability, and, above all, the internecine bickering which voters associate with the state government, are all to be found in abundance in the state of the nation. Every morning brings its fresh disclosure of one or the other of the BJP's allies threatening to walk out on the alliance if its particular demand is not met.

The latest is the disaster that has overtaken Punjab's paddy farmer. Having gathered his harvest and brought it to market, unseasonal rains -- which have had their share in depressing the mood this Diwali -- have ruined an estimated 20 per cent of market arrivals. The compensation demanded by Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal is way above anything the central government could possibly spare.

As it is, devastating floods in Assam, West Bengal, Bihar and UP, and, now, Andhra Pradesh, have bankrupted the Centre's calamity fund just at the time the fiscal deficit has risen so far above the Plimsoll mark as to threaten to drown the government's pretensions to fiscal rectitude.

No, not a nice Diwali to be prime minister. Atal Bihari Vajpayee soldiers on, looking sadder by the minute. The fire being stoked within the Sangh Parivar could not have lit many diyas this Diwali. But the hard core of the BJP and its backers are asking why they should be in governance if everything they hold dear is being put on the backburner.

Drift is the consequence of discord. And dissension is rearing its head. Diwali marks the beginning of winter. For the BJP, this threatens to be a "winter of their discontent". It is uncertain that Holi, which marks the coming of summer, will see them still in office. So, let me wish readers a very happy Diwali -- 1999!

Mani Shankar Aiyar