China rises to new heights as Xi decimates his rivals and keeps people under extensive surveillance

Faster than expected, China's dominant duo became a trio with Xi Jinping promoting himself to the rank of Mao Zedong and Deng Hsiaoping. Mao kept China in "continuous revolution" complete with upheavals, violence and famine. Deng transformed the nation with the modernising touch of capitalism which he camouflaged as "socialism with Chinese characteristics". He let people get rich, but adhered strictly to one-party political dictatorship. Xi, more Maoist than Dengist, has taken internal control of citizens to unprecedented heights with ultramodern surveillance systems. He also raised China's economic, military and strategic power high enough to challenge the US. He strides the world today as its strongest leader.

But he has always faced -- and continues to face -- intra-party opposition. The Central Committee (about 250 members), the Politburo (25 members) and the all-important Standing Committee of the Politburo (7 members) are as faction-ridden as the Congress Party in India -- without the advantage of a Sonia Gandhi before whom enemies pretend to be friends. India's own Communists are divided not only into CPM and CPI but into the reactionary Karat faction and the expedient Yechuri faction within the CPM. The difference is that the Indian Communists are too weak to survive disunity while the Chinese comrades are so strong that winners take all.

It was to check party infighting that Deng Hsiaoping introduced the system of an elected Paramount Leader with a fixed 5-year term extendable by one more term but no further. The time limitation worked well, but infighting continued. Jiang Zemin who succeeded Deng retired after 10 years, but he tried to install a chosen successor so that he could continue to influence policy. Factionalism ensured that he did not succeed. Jiang's successor, Hu Jintao, also tried to see that an ally succeeded him. He too failed.

Hu's successor, Xi Jinping, is different. The 19th Party Congress just concluded was astir with speculation that he would break the Deng system and make himself Paramount Leader for life. This amounted to acknowledging the shrewdness with which Xi had strengthened himself during his first five years. But if that strength allows him to nominate his own preferred successor, why would he want to earn the opprobrium of breaking the principle the revered Deng had established?

He is now the "core" leader, heading all committees that matter, including the military. He has carried on an anti-corruption campaign which, in effect, decimated his opponents and potential rivals. According to an official account, 1537 party members were punished, 3453 corrupt fugitives were repatriated and 48 out of 100 most-wanted economic fugitives in Interpol lists were captured during Xi's first five years. The unofficial -- and believable -- estimate is that about one million party workers were "punished". Among them were 60,000 high level officials, 176 vice-minister level leaders and nearly 5000 military officers. This does not mean that the Politburo and its Standing Committee are rid of elements that belong to Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao factions. But Xi Jinping has another five years to tackle them.

Xi has hastened to do what his predecessors did not. He has got the party constitution amended to include his "ideology" next to Mao's and Deng's. A task force formulated Thoughts on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, reminiscent of Chinese communism's textbook, Thoughts of Chairman Mao.

The emphasis his freshly minted ideology has put on the New Era is important because the bedrock of Xi's "Thoughts" is the building of a super China that dominates the world. He is well on his way to achieving it, displaying diplomatic finesse (the first Chinese leader to appear at the economic conclave in Davos; he spoke there like a wise world statesman), economic initiative (the $ 900 billion Belt & Road scheme comprising ports, pipelines, railways, bridges and manufacturing centres aimed at creating "a new era of globalisation") and above all military aggressiveness (virtually all of South China Sea has been acquired and militarised with airstrips and naval centres, the world watching helplessly).

The international situation favours Xi and China. The unpredictable Donald Trump has led the US into divisiveness at home and eccentricities abroad. The European Union is lost in its own existential problems. Japan is struggling to stay outside China's shadow. True, Xi's policy of repression attracts criticism, and rightly because it is despotic; electronic devices identify citizens critical of government and impose restrictions that amount to virtual imprisonment. But repression is a pillar of his power. And before power, criticism has no chance.

Mass appeal is easy for filmstars, but respect is tough. Amitabh Bachchan earned it, after many setbacks

Filmstars seldom celebrate their birthdays. Perhaps they do not want to know that they are getting older by the year. Amitab Bachchan's birthday (11 October 1942) was an exception. Television interviews apart, a serious newspaper or two subjected his persona to intellectual analysis. This exceptionality was warranted because, at 75, Bachchan has remained relevant through significant activity.

There are greater artistes who have disappeared from public view because of age -- Dilip Kumar, 94 and Kamini Kaushal, 90. There are others like Lata Mangeshkar, Waheeda Rehman, Vyjayantimala and Gulzar, all in their 80s, who are in reasonably good health but not active in any field. Sophia Loren and Brigitte Bardot, both 82, Julie Andrews 81 and Dustin Hoffman, 80 are out of action and out of sight.

Bachchan's own contemporaries have withdrawn from the scene. Dharmendra, seven years older, was his co-star in a blockbuster of the time. Today he looks very much 'retired'. His wife Hema Malini, six years younger than Bachchan, keeps busy but her product endorsements are as unconvincing as her politics. Jeetendra is the same age as Bachchan but has disappeared into business. The only big name that remains meaningfully active is singer K.J.Yesudas, 77. His is a different league, though, devotion to famous Hindu temples being his signature appeal these days.

Clearly Bachchan is in a class by himself. What makes him different is that he attracts respect, not just fan following. The likes of Raj Kapur and Dev Anand attracted love, not respect. Even NTR and MGR and Jayalalitha attracted respect primarily on account of the political power they wielded. Rajanikant got it right when he said that filmic popularity was not enough to succeed in politics. MGR was in the centre of the Dravida movement when it had the power to move minds. Jayalalitha, though a Mysore Brahmin, identified herself with that movement and benefited from its pulling power. Today the movement itself has lost traction and people like Rajani and Kamal Hassan have not developed an alternative. That leaves them willing to wound, but unable to strike.

In Kerala, Mammooty and Mohanlal have remained "superstars" for long. Their films succeed and they do extracurricular activities aimed at winning a place for themselves beyond the filmic universe. But they appear too self-centred to earn respect.

There was only one actor in all of India who commanded respect going beyond even Bachchan's level. That was Raj Kumar of Karnataka. He didn't do anything special to achieve it. It was his humility, his simple way of life, his sense of values that made him admired, respected and almost worshipped across Karnataka. But he was confined to one language and one state, so his worth remained unknown to the rest of the world.

Bachchan had the universe at his feet with Hindi and English. It was the way he deported himself that earned him respect. Perhaps he was also a good learner. He must have learned valuable lessons when he started a corporation and it collapsed ignominiously. His attempt to get into politics not only failed; it cost him the family friendship he had with Rajiv and Sonia Gandhi. His son got nowhere in filmdom and had to find his fulfilment in kabaddi. From all this Bachchan emerged as a mature and rounded personality capable of that rare human quality, empathy.

Of course it's his movies that made Bachchan -- the early 'angry young man' films and the post-prime character roles such as in Piku. But it's his off-film work that brought him respect -- his Crorepati TV show and his advertising shorts. The quiz show brought out the best in him. The way he related to the participants and the way he made them relate to the world made that show a memorable one. When he endorsed products, he exuded confidence and made the viewers believe him. He had a way of identifying himself with the product, be it Gujarat tourism or Lux innerwear.

The fee for an endorsement was Rs 2 crore a day, and he had ten campaigns going at a time. The fee for Kaun Benega Crorepati was Rs 1.5 crore per day. Forget the films (7 to 10 crore per role), the money here is inconveniently big. So there's a problem. It's a pity that filmstars have not woken up to the beauty of giving. Our IT pioneers did that from the start. Warren Buffet uttered distilled wisdom when he said that if you die rich, you are a fool.

Think.

They want a new assassin identified in the Gandhi case; they want BJP painted as a peace dove in Kerala

These are unusual days no doubt. But how unusual can unusualness get? Can the murder of Mahatma Gandhi be enacted again to show that he was not killed by the man who killed him? Can a propaganda war, however elaborate, really convince anyone that mass killings of migrant workers are taking place in Kerala? Controversies of this kind are politically loaded. Hence the heat -- and the danger.

The Gandhi assassination twist is typical of the politics that motivate it all, one Hindutva wing at loggerheads with another Hindutva wing. Pankaj Phadnis, a self-confessed devotee of V.D.Savarkar, is exploring judicial routes to prove that Gandhi was killed not by the three bullets Godse had fired but by a fourth one that could only have come from a second assassin. Who? Force 136, a British subversive unit, says Phadnis. He seems keen to demolish the prevailing notion that RSS influence was at work in the Gandhi killing.

Ironically, he was challenged by the Hindu Mahasabha. Here are the astonishing words of the Sabha's national vice president Ashok Sharma: "Both BJP and RSS owe their existence to the ideology conceived by the Hindu Mahasabha and they know that it is only this outfit that can expose the mask these two organisations wear today". They are trying to deny Godse the credit for the assassination, he said, "because they know that the Mahasabha will be marginalised without Godse". Credit for assassination -- that is what ideological faithfulness is all about.

The propaganda war against Kerala is ideological faithfulness gone berserk. This flows from BJP chief Amit Shah getting angry with Kerala and seeing its annexation as a matter of personal prestige. He got angry for two reasons. First, the party's local leaders not only proved ineffective, but got involved in kick-back scandals. Secondly, the public in Kerala -- aided and abetted by the state's incorrigible media -- started making fun of him, something no one else has dared.

In his anger, Shahji ordered daily protests before the CPM office in Delhi, as though the CPM office in Delhi was Kerala. Worse, he brought in stars like Yogi Adityanath to campaign in Kerala. (That journey to Malabar must have been the Yogi's first trip abroad). Of all things, the Yogi picked on Kerala's hospitals and said they should learn from UP hospitals. Obviously the man has a sense of humour.

According to the Amit Shah propaganda machine, Kerala's Communists are killing innocent BJP peaceniks all the time. Again two mistakes here. One, he assumed that the aforesaid incorrigible media is a docile tail-wagger like Delhi's channel media whereas the fact is that the Communists cannot kill even a Communist without the Kerala media pouncing on them. Two, statistics show that 26 Sangh Parivar activists and 21 CPM activists were killed since 2005. But it's still a victory for the Sanghis because, earlier, it was Communists killing Communists in factional rivalries. The Sanghis fought their way into it and succeeded in proving that they were as good killers as the Communists.

Where the Shah machine went wrong was in overdoing the propaganda bit. The over-doing reached a climax last week when voice clips circulated among migrant workers saying that the state government had started killing Hindi-speakers in large numbers. Many migrants left the state in a hurry. This in a state where the Government had started literary and health programmes for migrant labour. Special textbooks such as Hamari Malayalam aimed at making them familiar with the local language. An insurance scheme was also launched for them. Locals who know all this saw the exaggerations of BJP propaganda as crude and as an affront to Kerala people as a whole. The party lost more than it gained.

As the BJP counts its losses, the Congress in Karnataka is giggling over a faux pas committed by B.S. Yeddyurappa and union minister Ananth Kumar; unaware that the recorder was on, they exchanged secrets about internal bribery in the BJP. The voices have been tested and certified as genuine and now the leaders are trying to figure out how to escape from the mess.

These are less than achche din for the BJP. No longer a spotless white dove, it is now seen as much prone to promoting family as the Congress was. Its tendency to be overly belligerant, antagonistic and quarrelsome is going against it. And the overall scene is grim with falling growth figures and rising joblessness. As the poet asked: Comforter, where, where is your comforting?

It's easy to condemn racist supremacists in America; but remember communal supremacists are no different

The mass murder of people at a music concert in Las Vegas last week and the racial savagery that rocked Charlottesville earlier must not be dismissed as far-away things that do not concern us. They are part of the ideological terrorism that has gripped large parts of the world, including India. The name of the game is hatred. Multicultural nations are the principal theatres of this war because that is where one group wants other groups reduced to nothingness. In America and Europe the war is ethnic. In India it is communal.

The Las Vegas killer was a well-to-do loner who had amassed a small mountain of firearms over an extended period-- typical of those in affluent societies who, in their loneliness, start hating things around them. He must have felt tremendous power as he collected those weapons and when he killed some 60 country music listeners.

Group hatred is more sinister. The rioting in Charlottesville a few weeks earlier was a mob affair, hundreds of white people ideologically fired up to put down non-white races in a bid "to take our country back". The names of the groups that unleashed the violence told their own tale: No to Marxism in America, Unite the Right, Patriot Prayer, Vanguard America. They all came together to hold a White Lives Matter rally in Charlottesville.

It was a throwback to the days of the American civil war, literally. That was a war about perpetuating slavery. Abraham Lincoln got elected in 1860 on a plank of stopping the expansion of slavery. Seeing that as an unacceptable agenda, seven slave-rich states in the south declared secession from the United States. Four more joined them later. They formed a Confederate Government. The United States declared it illegal. The two waged a war that lasted four years. It ended when Confederate General Robert Lee surrendered to the US forces.

With that everything seemed settled. But the subsequent assassination of Lincoln showed that the seeds of white-black hatred were embedded in people's minds. Southern states continued to make life hell for blacks. The civil rights movement gathered pace in the 20th century. Then Martin Luther King, its leading light, was also assassinated. But blacks won legal rights progressively across the United States.

Why has the Confederate philosophy come alive again? Two years ago a white supremacist opened fire in a black church in South Carolina, killing nine people. He wore a flag of the old Confederate Army. Which in turn made liberal whites start a campaign against old Confederate symbols. A grand statue of Gen. Robert Lee stood in the centre of a park in Charlottesville. Moves to demolish it brought enraged white supremacists to the streets, battle-ready. The city exploded with violence.

It is important to note that early moves against Confederate memorials had passed off unnoticed. Only after Donald Trump's rise as President did the supremacists take to the streets spitting venom. In his freewheeling comments, Trump made one point that sounded historically sensible. He said that the idea of removing Confederate symbols was foolish. He was right because the Confederate Army, the Civil War and slavery are all parts of the history of the United States. There is no use pretending that they did not happen. Trying to erase them is like saying that the Taj Mahal in Agra is not a tourist attraction because it is a Muslim musoleum and does not reflect Indian culture.

However, Trump did not stop with decrying the symbol removers. He made various comments that backed the ultra-right white supremacists prominent among whom was the Grand Wizard of the old Ku Klux Klam, the organisation that made the lynching of Negroes a part of contemporary history in the US.

There is no doubt that dark forces have come out into the open because they see Donald Trump's election to the presidency as a sign of approval for their viewpoint. They see him as a supporter in the cause of turning America into an "all-white ethnostate". Their programme includes what they call the "White Baby Challenge", a movement to increase Caucasian fertility as an antidote to the "ghetto culture" of the blacks.Sounds familiar?

Stop for a moment before dismissing these as contemptible concepts of a contemptible racist civilisation in America. The sentiments behind their actions are alive in our country as well. And they have come to the fore in aggressive self-assertion in the wake of an extremist ideology scoring an election victory. The bell tolls not just for America.

BJP's image dims with economic disruption; Rahul's image glows with US tour. This is Sonia's chance to score big

The Congress Party published full-page advertisements in New York to announce a Rahul Gandhi meeting there. It made history by including, alongside the pictures of Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira, Rajiv and Sonia Gandhi, those of Lal Bahadur Shastri and P.V.Narasimha Rao. Shastri was never recognised during the Sonia years while Narasimha Rao was actively ostracised. To give the non-person that was Rao all these years a place now in the galaxy suggests something of an internal revolution.

Is there one? Is the Congress finally acknowledging the need to re-invent itself if it is to have an address in Narendra Modi's India? Rahul Gandhi's American tour was itself a pointer to the party's willingness to do new things. It was essentially a tour of intellectual America by a man considered uniquely un-intellectual. Apparently he made efforts to catch up. Early photographs showed him in Silicon Valley flanked by IT wizard Sam Pitroda, author-diplomat Shashi Tharoor and savvy Mumbaikar Milind Deora, all practitioners of the Kalam art of igniting minds.

Whether it was their influence, or the bracing holiday weather of California, or the compulsions imposed by Modi's relentless march, Rahul Gandhi rose to unexpected heights, impressing university crowds that are usually hard to impress. The key tactic was to compliment the enemy where necessary and to acknowledge mistakes on his own side. He praised Modi's communication skills and also his Make In India programme. The focus of this policy, he said thoughtfully, should be on small and medium businesses which do not get access to finance and the legal system. If this was done, Make In India would be a powerful idea, said Rahul. Frank, balanced, informed.

He was just as frank when he said that the Congress Party had developed "a certain amount of arrogance" at one time, that some concepts of UPA-2 had use-by date ten years old. The only off-colour remark was that dynasty "is the way India runs". That's not the way India runs right now. And it's fatuous to compare private industrial dynasties with contrived political dynasties. That slip-up apart, Rahul's American tour was a success. This was proved when Smriti Irani was scared into calling him "a failed dynast".

However, Rahul's success in the US is unlikely to help him or the Congress. The big problem that makes rejuvenation hard for the Congress is the internal fight between the old generation and the young. This is a unique Indian problem. In civilised democracies presidents and prime ministers serve their term, then leave it to others. Obama is still young and active, but he is not manoeuvring to become President again.

In our country, Mulayam Singh and Mayawati still imagine that the nation needs them. Lalu Prasad, discredited and legally debarred from public office, is convinced that Bihar and India itself will be the poorer without his services. Oommen Chandy, caught in a maze of scandals that brought humiliation to his party, insists on serving the people. Political leaders never see what others see.

In the Congress, Rahul Gandhi brought in some new faces. Some of them were miserable failures, like Arun Yadav in Madhya Pradesh. But some did well, like K.C.Venugopal who replaced Digvijay Singh as the in-charge in Karnataka. (Digvijay Singh and before him Gulab Nabi Azad had contributed mightily to the devaluation of the Congress in Karnataka because they became patron saints of the state's corrupt Congressmen).

Rahul will be unable to move forward unless he takes a good chunk of the veterans with him. Veterans who still have clout must be in, like Kamal Nath in Madhya Pradesh. Those with poor track record must be sidelined, like Ashok Gehlot in Rajasthan. State-wise, personalised adjustments, patiently canvassed and carefully implemented, can give the Congress a new look, essential for a new future.

Rahul Gandhi cannot bring this about. Sonia Gandhi can because the old guard is beholden to her. She can make them accept a restructuring by telling them that without the infusion of some new blood and new thinking, the Congress will sink. This is perhaps the only chance she will get. The gap between words and deeds under the BJP Government's dispensation, the many policy breakdowns of recent years and the economic dislocation that has become too serious for the Government to hide have created a situation where the BJP is no longer the unstoppable force it seemed at first. By uniting the old guard and the younger leaders who have proved themselves, Sonia Gandhi can make history in 2019. This is her moment.