MIDNIGHT in Manoharpur, Orissa, on January 22 was like any other night. Till the screams from Timothy, Philip and their father Graham Stewart Staines as they were burnt alive in their station wagon woke up a nation. It patently failed, however, to jolt the bjp-led Union government out of its slumber. The crisis before the Vajpayee government is one of credibility. Of leadership. It seems increasingly to be led by the lunatic fringe, which nobody has the courage or political will to stop. Even as the obscurantism cartwheels dangerously out of control.
Some are piously penitent. The PM led them: My head hangs in shame. Madan Lal Khurana, in a damning indictment of what till the other day everybody thought was the lunatic fringe of the Sangh parivar, expressed his disgust at such acts committed in the name of Hindutva. The government ordered a judicial probe. That was all. The bjp's critics detect a definite shift - the mob having moved from the periphery, to the very heart of the party.
The leading lights of the bjp, including party president Kushabhau Thakre and home...
