'This BJP Government has done no good for India'

Seventy-two-year-old Professor SUN PEIJUN, general secretary of the Chinese Association for South Asian Studies, has specialised in the political economy of India for half a century. He offered me, in pithy English, his sharp, up-to-date assessment of the political situation in India:

"SOME Chinese scholars felt the nuclear tests would increase the BJP's political strength. It has not happened.

"Direct foreign investment, which was $3.2 billion last year, came down this year to $2.2 billion and the indications are that it will come down. The recession will continue and the Government will have no way to solve it.

N. RAM

"The BJP-led Government has not been strengthened after the nuclear tests. I think this Government will not last long - it will fall later this year or early next year. The political crisis will deepen in India.

"The Government has not taken economic issues as the foremost issue. Political parties seem to have given up on economic issues, on how to revive the economy.

"India-China relations will be improved only if the present Government went - or changed its policies completely. Personally, I don't think the BJP Government is good for India, economically, politically, diplomatically. It has done no good.

"I expect Indian political forces to make an attempt to form an alternative government. But it will be very difficult. The Left parties and the Congress are not ready to unite. There are deep contradictions, especially between the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Congress. There is no common programme.

"It is very difficult historically for the Congress and the CPI(M) to come together. There has been no common point between them over the past thirty years. Can the Congress go a little left? Then the situation might change."

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