It is amazing how ideas that have been tried and found to be disastrous keep bouncing back again and again.
Take the case of composite dialogue for confidence building with Pakistan. Every three years or so both the countries go through this charade, only for some disaster to happen and backtrack. The usual talk about India and Pakistan being culturally one, the need for more cooperation bla bla bla ......... are parroted. Policy makers just dont realize that India and Pakistan have drifted so far away over these past six decades that it is better for both the countries to be closed systems with respect to each other till such time there is a sea change in the political system of both the countries. There is far too much of postering, distrust and meddling in each others affairs for any co operation to ever work.
Using bits and pieces players in one day cricket is another failed idea. England has been following this ridiculous strategy since the 80's. These bits and pieces players are those who can bat a bit and bowl a bit, but cant walk into even a first class team purely on the basis of being a batsman or bowler. The Mark Elhams, Yousuf Pathans, Ravo Boparas, Dmitri Mascaranhes, Albie Morkels dont win you great many matches. It is one of the reasons why England is languishing at the bottom of the table. If you look at the three teams that have done well over the past couple of decades West Indies (till 1990), Australia (Post 1995) and India, you will see that they have relied on pure batsmen and pure bowlers to get things done. And they have become world beaters. The great WI team had superb batsmen in Greenidge, Haynes, Richards, Lloyd, Gomes, Dujon (though a wicket keeper, he first got into the team as a batsman) and four fabulous bowlers in Roberts, Holding, Croft, Garner and later Marshall. Ditto for Australia Taylor, Marsh, Waughs, and the bowlers Mgarth, Warne, Gillespie. India had during this period a superb batting line up in Sachin, Ganguly, Dravid, Lakshman, Yuvraj, Sehwag and a decent bowling line up in Zaheer, Kumble and Harbhajan. Now you see why England or South Africa never one a World Cup.
On the political front, the Third Front concept of Non BJP , Non Congress parties coming together before every election is another such idea doomed to be a disaster. It didnt work in 1989, didnt work in 1996 and it is not going to work this time too. The only thing holding these parties together is their antipathy to the Congress and BJP. They have no common policies. The Left has vehemently opposed Biju Janata Dal in Orissa, TDP in Andhra all these years. Deve Gowda is hated by everyone and no one can stand the arrogance of Mayawati or Jayalalitha. It is not even the antipathy to Congress and BJP, but the naked Prime Ministerial ambition of some of its leaders that forces them to join the third front. I had once been a sympathizer of CPI(M) while in College. At least there was some good in its leaders like EMS, KR Gowri (before she left CPI(M) and even E K Nayanar. Most of them were personally not corrupt and even the local leaders genuinely cared for the under privileged. But all that has changed. Today CPI(M) has lost its identity under, first Harkishen Singh Surjit and the later Prakash Karat-Sitaram Yechury team. They have become ideologically barren, intellectually dishonest, power hungry and money/land obsessed. What a fall!
