Successful people
Have separate shoes
Some for celebrations
Others for grief
–Govinda Mathur, Bache huye shabda
President Hamid Karzai has more faith in his American guards than in his own people. General Musharraf refuses to speak to an "uncivilised" parliament but courts even lowly Pentagon officials enthusiastically. King Gyanendra has chosen, since 4 October 2002, to walk the treacherous bylanes of state power all alone, but he can do nothing about what the US government considers international terrorists. President Chandrika Kumaratunga has very little confidence in the peacemaking abilities of Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremasinghe, but cannot deny him his moment in the sun due to the pressure of the Washington Consensus. For Begum Khalida Zia of Bangladesh, the motives of anyone opposed to her quixotic politics are suspect, but even she trembles at the Western charge that her country is harbouring Al Qaeda fugitives.
In Uttar Pradesh, Mayawati and Mulayam Singh will lob cheap innuendo at each other but will not do anything to oppose American presence in the region. The Lalooland of Bihar does not even make a claim to political civility — its de facto chief minister graces a political rally to celebrate the power of the stick, presumably because it is useful in electoral politics. But in his rally, Laloo at least showed the courage to stand against American imperialism, even though his actions have very little significance.
Things are not much better in Maharashtra or Gujarat where since Saffronites are in control of public life, everyone is disturbingly quiet about the crusade against Muslims in West Asia. A little to the southeast, there is no love lost between the competing claimants of Annadurai's political legacy in Madras. Chandrababu Naidu's courtesy towards the leadership of the Congress is largely a reflection of the political reality in his state. His Telugu Desam cannot run the Andhra administration by antagonising Sonia Gandhi's sympathisers in the Hyderabad secretariat — but the keeper of Telugu pride needs them only to check the powerful challenge of the Bharatiya Janata Party. But all of them are keeping mum about the new hegemon in the region —United States of America.