January 4, 1999

The year saw known and unknown heroes, as the tribe of villains and zeroes grew bigger, to fill in the dull moments. And surprises there were aplenty.

By Swapan Dasgupta

Every time there is a boisterous New Year's party, the resident bore can be overheard saying, "This year went by too fast." Of course it didn't but in the context of 1998, the observation isn't exactly trite. Things did happen faster, in fact too fast for comfort. Earlier the country waited a leisurely five years for the walk to the polling station and, maybe, a new government. A year was the ungenerous time given for political honeymoons. No longer.

This year began with a lame duck government. It ends with another. It began with the country holding its breath for that new great hope -- Atal Bihari Vajpayee. It ends with opinion polls pointing the finger of expectation at another new great hope -- Sonia Gandhi. It began with enormous expectations at the formation of India's first genuine non-Congress government. It concluded with the same sentiment being transferred back to the Congress. For the people of India, 1998 has been a rollercoaster ride with exhilarating ups and treacherous lows. And the stomach is still churning.

It happened all too fast. Vajpayee scraped through the election but didn't have to wait even a single day for political uncertainty to begin. The indefatigable Jayalalitha made sure that he didn't have the luxury of even celebrating his victory. Nor was she alone. The prime minister didn't have to wait one day for his first political casualty. Jaswant Singh's name was submitted to the President as a minister-in-waiting. In a midnight coup, he fell by the wayside. He became India's first non-ex-minister-in-waiting. Eight months later, he was back in business.

It was also a fast-moving year that was entirely dominated by politics. Within a month of Vajpayee taking over, there were the nuclear tests in Pokhran. Stung by their own audacity, the people celebrated and gloated at the headiness of gate-crashing into the world's most exclusive club. They were premature celebrations. Faced with the twin problems of international ostracism and internal confusion, the high of the N-tests were quickly followed by the low of their fallout. We began 1998 not knowing where the country was heading. We closed December in exactly the same place. Yet in less than 12 months we had travelled through almost the entire gamut of options. Without resolving our confusions.

This fantastic voyage was, however, not undertaken on the economic front. By January it was well realised that P. Chidambaram's "Dream Budget" was likely to land the country in a bad dream. The only question was: how bad? With his rollback budget, Yashwant Sinha made it look a nightmare and with the swadeshis taking on the videshis, economic decision-making began resembling a horror movie. The problem was not with macro-economic indicators but with the levels of confidence. We tried to swim against the South-east Asian tide but the rupee took a severe battering. We tried to provide consumers with choice but there were no takers for the glitzy new cars. We tried to reassure ourselves that at least agriculture was all right and came face to face with the onion crisis. We tried talking up the collapsing infrastructure, even invoking Amartya Sen, and fell to earth amid prolonged power cuts.

But for Sachin Tendulkar, it would indeed have been darkness. With a flurry of strokes that were unrivalled in both power and sheer artistry, India's cricketing genius spelt out the meaning of achievement. In a year when everything happened a trifle too fast, Tendulkar happened at exactly the pace we dreamt of. Sigmund Freud would have called him the balm for India's collective consciousness. After a dismal, rain-swept end to the feeble 50 years celebrations, we could still have the reassurance that we can do it.

In 1998 only Tendulkar did it. As did Jyotirmoyee Sikdar, Dingko Singh and the hockey team in Bangkok. For the rest of us, the pace was too heady. Here's to a more sedate and comprehensible 1999.

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