A Road Map Of Indian Politics

Jams in south Delhi mean only one thing: a VIP movement. Armed police appear at every manicured roundabout, men with walkie-talkies run around waving their arms, and all traffic halts to allow an Indian dignitary unimpeded passage.

Eventually the VIP sails past in a convoy of plump, cream Ambassador cars with flashing red lights, surrounded by Maruti Gypsies full of uniformed men, also waving their arms about.

So its back to normal for now. But, mysteriously, several weeks ago, the men from Delhi municipal council began resurfacing some of these broad boulevards, already the capitals best and thus the most splendid driving surfaces in all India.

 

Cynics thought it another example of Indias elite pampering itself, paving the roads which link the gladed Lutyens bungalows of Indias top politicians while the rest of motoring India bumps along breaking its axles.

But no, Delhi, it appeared, was delving deep into centuries of political instinct honed under generations of Turkish and Afghan marauders, Moguls and pith-helmeted Britons. Delhi sniffed a political crisis: that south Delhis sun-dappled avenues were about to be plied more furiously than ever by fleets of VIP heavy Ambassadors, their protective Gypsies and, in pursuit, harried convoys of taxis, rickshaws and mini-vans carrying Indias finest scribes and lensmen, plus a few baffled foreign hacks.

If Delhi couldnt directly offer Indias government a smooth ride, the 3,000 year old city apparently decided it would at least provide its politicians with one.

And lo, barely days after the tar had set, Sitaram Kesri, the octogenarian leader of the 111-year-old Congress Party, decided to pull the plug on the 10-month-old United Front coalition government, to the surprise of everyone, including most of his own party. A political crisis. And in Delhi there is only one way to report on that: jump in the car and take to the boulevards.

A political crisis in Delhi means interminable talks. And that means dozens of trips by politicians to each others bungalows. With the recent emergence of powerful regional politicians, it now means additional trips to Delhis state guest-houses, battle cells of these new barons, which also sit amid south Delhis neem and eucalyptus trees.

Altogether, it amounts to a lot of driving around, particularly given that the United Front comprised 13 separate political parties and that Congress was split into camps, each with its own bungalow headquarters.

With the politicians busy driving around meeting each other, the car becomes a reporters primary tool. The best political intelligence is gained by stalking the boulevards in search of a big clutch of Ambassadors parked outside someones residence or a state bhavan.

Calculating what is happening grows easier with practice. Outside the United Front headquarters, beneath the neem trees at 7 Akbar Road, the presence of 50 Ambassadors and a white Mercedes ambulance would mean HD Deve Gowda was there the former prime minister, still using the trappings of power. It would indicate a full steering committee meeting in progress, and interminable waiting for the journalist.

If there is no ambulance, just 20 Ambassadors, and only eight elite black cat commandos nursing machine-guns, rather that 12 or 16, it would be just a core group meeting of the Front. No decisions, no point waiting. More than 100 Congress Party MPs in the garden of the canny Sharad Pawars bungalow would spell an incipient Congress rebellion: shin up the garden wall, ears pricked.

Such reporting also requires being conversant with the A to Z of Indian VIP security, especially for passing cars with tinted windows. For example, a pilot car, two escort vehicles and six black cats is Z-plus, meaning a state chief minister, or maybe just a redoubtable old Congress grandee behind the Ambassadors pleated backseat curtains. A couple of khaki-clad policemen with carbines: merely Z, probably just a minister.

Its all a draining endeavour. Happily though, there are long periods of down time which, during the recent crisis, were mostly passed on the back lawns of the Fronts white, colonnaded bungalow, waiting for the steering committee to decide something. Time to watch the parakeets, or a far-off plume of circling vultures.

Late into many a sun-drenched April afternoon and as many dusky nights, lolled Indias top reporters on white plastic garden chairs. They sipped Pepsi ferried by streams of bearers, swapped rumours and reminisced about the old days, when the great rural leaders would invite you into their bungalow for a slap-up tea, and afterwards take you to the lawns at the back to show off the pride of their pet cows.

The meeting would then break, to the sound of 100 flicking cellphones and the crunch of broken plant pots beneath the swarm of sharp-elbowed TV crews, like nails to a magnet around anyone in a pristine white cotton khadi, hallmark garb of Indian politicians since Mahatma Gandhi. Poor Pawar was left contemplating the shattered terracotta remnants of a once delightful pot plant garden on one occasion, and all for nothing. No Congress rebellion.

And so it went for three weeks until the United Front managed to reconstitute itself under the urbane I K Gujral and it was back to our offices. Much of the thanks goes to Chandrababu Naidu, the Fronts convener and the man it delegated to burrow for a consensus within the disparate party over its new leader. He is the only politician in Delhi with a Mercedes, a legacy of his predecessor, the late and legendary Telegu moviestar, N T Rama Rao.

Naidu spent days shuttling between Delhis bhavans and bungalows, talking to everyone in sight. Whether the Front chose him because he had the fastest car is unclear. But if he, too, drove around in a lumbering Ambassador, we would all probably all still be there, watching fledgling parakeets learn to fly in the garden of 7 Akbar Road.

No one knows how long the new government will last. One good omen: Delhi council last week impounded all its smoke-spluttering asphalt machines on environmental grounds. But I, for one, will be calling the newsdesk at the first scent of fresh tar.