YEAR IN REVIEW

Frontline 2002

IN a relationship oscillating between angry confrontation and sullen disengagement, India and Pakistan saw two distinct cycles in the year gone by. Tension and mutual recrimination followed the attack on India's Parliament premises in December 2001. As the new year dawned, both sides had mobilised forces on either side of their volatile border and were seemingly preparing for the decisive showdown of their fraught half-century old relationship.

Pakistan's military ruler opted for a show of conciliation. And as international mediators persisted in unprecedented numbers to travel through the region, Pervez Musharraf sent out a tough message to his country, ordaining that the teeming ranks of jehadi militants should submit themselves to the authority of the Pakistani state.

As both sides stepped back momentarily from the brink, India was consumed in its own upsurge of religious zealotry. A bid to infuse new momentum into the flagging campaign for a place of worship in Ayodhya led to a brutal arson attack on a train at Godhra. What followed was a month-long carnage of the minority religious community in Gujarat, which cast its shadow over the country for the rest of the year.

India's international image took a pounding. And when friction with the western neighbour began spiking upwards again around mid-year, the tone of the military regime in Pakistan was unrelenting.

Both sides maintained their confrontational postures as they went through critical electoral exercises. On the Indian side, elections in Jammu and Kashmir witnessed an authentic contest between rival formations with clearly demarcated political postures. In Pakistan, the military managed to conduct tightly controlled national elections, which threw up an indeterminate outcome and necessitated the stitching together of a coalition that would be amenable to strict military tutelage.

De-escalation on the border began shortly afterwards, though the mood on both sides remains sullen and reconciliation of any sort a distant prospect.

The forces of religious chauvinism in Gujarat sought to weave international tensions into their campaign for a fresh electoral mandate in the State. Communal adventurism was halted in its tracks, though briefly, by a principled intervention from the Election Commission of India. But victory could be delayed, not denied.

Early in the year, the Bharatiya Janata Party had suffered a devastating electoral setback in Uttar Pradesh. And as the months passed, its effort to restore harmony within the ranks by shuffling recalcitrant elements between the governmental and organisational wings only engendered greater discord.

The year-end brought solace for the beleaguered party. Fighting against an opponent that seemed hesitant and unsure about staking out a clearly differentiated ideological position, Hindutva won a sweeping victory in Gujarat. That could prove an event with portentous implications in the years to come.

The "global war on terror" came increasingly to be recognised as a gross misnomer. With Afghanistan, the first frontier in the war still in turmoil, the U.S. turned its attentions to Iraq, proclaiming with little regard for diplomatic niceties that its final intention was to remake the Arab world. Within the seething region that has been designated as the new frontier in the war, the U.S.' proxy kept up its siege of Palestinian society and considerably advanced its programme of settling and colonising territories occupied in war.

India suffered its worst drought in over two decades, leaving a large number of States facing the prospect of mass deprivation. With the fiscal apparatus under strain, economic managers found it difficult to make adequate provision for the national calamity, their attention often diverted by abuses of the stock market and the need to tinker with the system of taxation.

In the southern region, the neighbouring States of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu entered into a sequence of acrimonious exchanges over the waters of the Cauvery. Another serious irritant cropped up later in the year, with a forest brigand continuing to run circles around the law and order establishments in the two States.

A distinguished scientist and administrator, with a record of significant contributions to the instruments of war and peace, was elected President of the Republic, quickly bringing his own distinctive style to the ceremonial post.

In the world of sport, India suffered a year of momentary highs and prolonged lows. The Commonwealth Games brought unexpected glories while the Asian Games proved a more patchy performance. But the most glittering achievement on the global sporting arena was undoubtedly Brazil's glory in winning a fifth World Cup football title with all the flair and panache that has made them the world's favourite team.

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