But the BJP's problems are far from over. On the one hand, its allies like TDP and Trinamul Congress went unrepresented at the meeting while, on the other hand, the AIADMK representative refused to sign the statement issued after the meeting. The AIADMK supremo, Jayalalitha, refused to send a reply to the copy of the statement that was faxed to her. She found it insulting and unacceptable. The statement laid down that no alliance partner shall publicly voice its opposition or dissent to any policy or action of the government. Ms Jayalalitha said she could not accept such a clause wherein the right of her party to go to the people is dispensed with. Moreover, she said the BJP has not been consulting its allies when taking major decisions. The TDP also said it was not satisfied with the partial roll-back in prices; it has demanded a total roll-back. The very same day the Trinamul Congress leader Mamata Banerjee, addressing a rally in Burdwan in West Bengal, said they have decided to oppose the hike and organise dharnas at the residences of the prime minister and the finance minister. She also ruled out any future alliance with the BJP and added that "During the last elections, we had conceded several important seats to the BJP, but next time Trinamul Congress will field its own candidates."

The plain speaking indulged in by Ms Mamata Banerjee is an indication of the frustration that is gaining ground within the BJP-led coalition. Increasingly, the allies are finding it difficult to answer to the deeds and misdeeds of the BJP and its allied outfits. The allies are realising that the BJP is turning out to be a liability. At the meeting of the coordination committee itself, several allies raised the question of growing attacks against the Christian community. The BJP was under pressure from allies that the following sentence found place in the statement: "Since the BJP is the core of our alliance, it shall make every effort to ensure that the prestige and cohesiveness of the coalition are not diluted by organisations belonging to its ideological fraternity" (by implication the RSS-VHP-Bajrang Dal etc).

Whatever may be the contents of the statement, there is no denying the fact that the BJP does not intend to go back on its own agenda despite the National Agenda for Governance that it had adopted. Therefore confrontation with its alliance partners is bound to mount in the coming days.

The assumption of power by the BJP at the centre, the CPI(M) had warned, posed a serious threat to national unity. It has been repeatedly emphasising the BJP's antipathy to the two main pillars of the Indian unity -- secularism and federalism. Though people following the Hindu religious faith constitute the vast majority of Indians, the number of minorities residing in the country is not minuscule. The Muslim minority constitutes about 12 per cent of the total population and its concentration in India is next only to Indonesia. There are about 25 million Christians and 20 million Sikhs, apart from people belonging to other religious faiths. That is why the framers of the constitution came to the conclusion that secularism should be its cornerstone. Some time ago, the Supreme Court had laid down that secularism means separation of religion from politics. The second pillar, as stated earlier, is federalism. Different linguistic, cultural formations and nationalities reside in the country. Being a multi-national country, the identity of these constituents can be protected only within a federal structure.

DISCREDITED & ISOLATED

No government ever in the history of independent India had been so discredited and isolated within so short a span as that of the BJP. It is attempting to undo not only the secular foundations and federal character of the Indian Union but is knocking at all the other pillars also. No government in the past ever attempted to blatantly interfere in the affairs of the army as this government has done. The sacking of Admiral Bhagwat is a glaring instance of this interference. It is not sparing the bureaucracy either, offering plum postings to people nearer to it ideologically and punishing those who do not see eye to eye with it.

The isolation of the BJP from the people was amply demonstrated in the results of the November 1998 assembly elections. In Delhi and Rajasthan where it had governments, it lost badly. In Madhya Pradesh, where it had done pretty well in the Lok Sabha elections held just eight months back, it lost miserably. The verdict was very clear -- it was against the policies and conduct of the BJP.

The policies of liberalisation received a boost with the assumption of power by the BJP-led government. Despite the hype of Swadeshi, the first budget of the BJP government saw huge concessions being doled out to corporate houses and multinationals. It announced disinvestment of major public sector undertakings, including the Indian Airlines, and entry of foreign companies in the insurance sector. Recently the government has decided to allow companies to buy back their shares. This would permit domestic and foreign promoters with a minority shareholding to acquire a majority within a short span of time.

COMMUNAL PLANK NOT GIVEN UP

The past ten months of the BJP-led government at the centre have seen a systematic attempt to smuggle in the RSS-Hindutva agenda in all possible spheres. The most glaring of these was the effort to communalise Indian education. At the education ministers' conference, the BJP attempted to push through an agenda paper prepared by a person from the Vidya Bharati, a front organisation of the RSS. This met with a stiff opposition not only from the secular parties but even some of its own allies. Faced with such opposition the government was forced to withdraw the paper.

During these months the people also saw the BJP shamelessly defending its communal politics. That the BJP and its allied outfits have not given up their plans for the construction of a temple at Ayodhya is evident from the revelations about the pre-fabrication work going on at various places in UP and Rajasthan. Minorities were hounded out from Mumbai allegedly for being Bangladeshis. The Sena-BJP government in Maharashtra contemptuously rejected the findings of the Srikrishna Commission that indicted the Hindutva forces for the large-scale massacre of the minorities during the infamous Bombay riots in December 1992 and January 1993. Now it seems it is the turn of the Christians, another minority community. During the past few months, a systematic attack has been launched against the Christian community in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and other places, especially in the BJP-ruled states. Their places of worship, scriptures and other articles are being torched, priests and worshippers beaten, missionaries looted and nuns raped. A Christian missionary and his two young sons were burnt alive in Manoharpur in Orissa when they were sleeping inside their jeep.

There has been deterioration in centre-state relations during this period. It has appointed persons, some of whom have been leaders of the BJP and have long been associated with the RSS as Governors of some states. While such governors are sending doctored reports, the government does not hesitate to send central teams to the opposition-ruled states. It had sent such teams to Tamil Nadu, Bihar and West Bengal. The central government was transgressing its powers in doing so. The BJP is opposed to the concept of providing more powers to the states. Its philosophy of Hindutva and "one culture, one nation" does not permit it to devolve more powers to the states. This is disruptive of national unity.

SOVEREIGNTY AT STAKE

The BJP rule has also witnessed the rolling back of India's long standing foreign policy. The painstaking efforts of the United Front government to build good-neighbourly relations had yielded fruit, but this was sought to be undone by the BJP government. While it sought to adopt an aggressive posture vis-a-vis Pakistan, and named China as a security threat, undoing years of work done to improve the Sino-Indian relations. By conducting nuclear tests at Pokharan in May 1998 the BJP sought to arouse among the people a false sense of pride, rather jingoism. While on the one hand it seeks to surrender to imperialist pressures, on the other hand it has sought to negate the efforts at improving relations with China and Pakistan. It sought to utilise its new found status as a nuclear power to threaten Pakistan over the Kashmir issue while at the same time making out that it faced a security threat from China.

The government is also going back on the issue of signing the CTBT. While India under the UF regime had unequivocally stated that it would not sign the discriminatory CTBT, the BJP-led government is moving towards signing it. The Jaswant Singh-Strobe Talbott talks held in utmost secrecy are preparing the ground for India signing the treaty. Talbot has also offered to negotiate between India and Pakistan to sort out problems. This led the Pakistan prime minister, Nawaz Sharief, to remark sarcastically: "where was the need to go via Bhatinda, you could have come straight." He was invoking an old Punjabi saying. In the earlier days all major routes used to go via Bhatinda, whereas it is not so now.

In sum, the BJP's slogan of providing a stable government and an able prime minister has been torn to shreds.

OTHER PARTIES

What is the attitude of the Congress party. It is still the biggest party in the country but it is not responding to the people's expectations to take initiative in this situation and intervene. Some Congress leaders are even thinking that they can come to power on their own and do not require the support of others. The Congress has lost its mass base and in the last election it received only 25.8 percent of the votes cast; in UP, the largest state in the country, it got a mere 2 percent. They are yet to regain the confidence of the people in most parts of the country. The Congress party will have to draw lessons from its past and come before the people to defend national unity and the interests of the people.