HVK Archives: Canadian academicians are all praise for Vajpayee
Canadian academicians are all praise for Vajpayee - India Abroad
Ajit Jain
()
April 3, 1998
Title: Canadian academicians are all praise for Vajpayee
Author: Ajit Jain
Publication: India Abroad
Date: April 3, 1998
Canadian academics last week expressed concern about the long-
term stability of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government
in India while at the same time praising the leadership qualities
of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.
f Vajpayee cannot put together and insure some stability of
this government o on can, Arthur Rubinoff, professor of
political science at the University of Toronto, said during a one-
day colloquium on ndian Election: 1998 at the university.
Other sponsors of the colloquium included the University of
Waterloo and India Abroad. It was largely attended by academics,
students, and community leaders. It was chaired by N.K. Wagle,
director of the University of Toronto's Centre for South Asian
Studies.
ne thing that comes out of this election is the absolutely
essential role of Vajpayee, stated Milton Israel, professor of
modern Indian history at the University of Toronto. e's the
moderate face of the BJP=94. Other senior leaders of the BJP,
Israel said, are L.K. Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi, and hey,
too, are obviously powerful and influential, But, he said, t's
Vajpayee who's absolutely essential as here couldn have been
a coalition (government) like this without him.
Rubinoff, who was in India during the election and has
interviewed BJP leaders, said that without Vajpayee, the BJP
might have stuck to its Hindu card. Israel was concerned about
the larger implications of the dependence of the BJP n one
individual (Vajpayee). It's like the dependence of the Congress
Party on Sonia Gandhi, he said, and here's a danger in that.
Opinions expressed at the colloquium were mixed in regard to
Sonia Gandhi's leadership of the Congress Party.
The Congress Party, Rubinoff said, "deserves to be obliterated,
be decimated for causing the people to spend over Rs. 800 crores"
(Rs. 8 billion or about $202 million) for this nwanted
election. Ashok Kapoor, professor of political science at the
University of Waterloo, said a clear message that has come out of
this election is that the voters "don't trust the governance of
India in the hands of a single political party and the message is
to 'share power, build coalitions, stop thinking of a single
party dominance, and compromise." In answer to a question, Israel
said that "the BJP doesn't have the vote bank to come to poker
with the 'full body'... of its mandate particularly (on the
basis) of its Hindutva plank."
In fact, he said, if the BJP gives up a substantial portion of
its agenda many Congress adherents who had been offended by that
portion could lean toward the BJP. At the same time, he said,
there's no basis for people to move toward the Congress - 'There
just doesn't seem much to move to." The communal aspect of the
BJP's program, and whether caste politics was more dangerous than
so-called communal politics, was the topic of much debate. The
validity of the national agenda of the BJP and its coalition
partners was also called into question.
Deepak Obhrai, a member of Parliament and of Canada's Reform
Party, expressed concern about the new Indian government's
declared objective of restricting foreign investment in the
consumer goods sector.
"Many of us here," he said, "are saying to Canadian businessmen,
India is the greatest market. Get in there. Now all of a sudden
there's a question mark here."
Israel was not against restricting foreign investment in the
consumer goods sector nor was Nanda Choudhry, professor of
economics at the University of Toronto.
Choudhry, who was generally very critical of the BJP, said "I
think that for purely practical reasons the BJP will try to give
a sort of responsible government and in the process perhaps
Indian minorities will become less suspicious of the BJP and I
see nothing wrong in it."
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