Introduction: Advani must condemn hate crimes against Indians in the US
Dear Advaniji,
You have begun what is unquestionably the most profound and consequential interaction between our country and the United States of America since the two meetings between the then president, Bill Clinton, and the prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee — the first in New Delhi in March 2000, the next here in Washington in September last year.
To say that the Americans are treating your visit like that of a head of government in terms of access and scope because you are indisputably Atalji’s successor, is to be naive and simplistic. There are many people of the “Yes, Minister” variety in Washington’s power structure — America’s Sir Humphrey Applebys — who have tracked you for years, indeed, decades. They have reported to their bosses, be it Bill Clinton or his successor, the incumbent president, the clear-headedness of action and the clarity of vision for which you stand out among your peers.
More recently, you have had an unabashed admirer in New Delhi whose every word is taken at its face value in the present White House of George W. Bush. The ambassador, Robert Blackwill, as you very well know, was one of the “Vulcans” who initiated Bush into the ways of the world in foreign policy terms and sustained the external affairs part of the Republican campaign platform in year, 2000.
American ambassadors never become deans of diplomatic corps in any capital in the world — simply because unlike the Kuwaitis or the Saudis or the Senegalese, they seldom stay beyond two, three or, in some cases, four years as the head of a mission. Yet the clout they wield with host governments or with their peers in the diplomatic community must be seen to be believed!
Regrettably, I have seen ambassadors from other countries who are craven in the presence of an American envoy. To illustrate the other side of being an American ambassador, take the case of Pakistan. During General Zia-ul-Haq’s reign, the plenipotentiary of President Ronald Reagan had as much clout in Pakistan as the chief martial law administrator himself. Perhaps more...
In India, we were headed down the same road. During an earlier government led by another prime minister, our foreign secretary of that time bent over backwards to invite the incoming American ambassador for a meal at his Circular Road residence well before the envoy presented his credentials in Rashtrapati Bhavan. Blackwill’s admiration for you, however, has nothing to do with his status as US ambassador to India. As an intellectual and a thinker himself, Blackwill has some clear ideas about the destiny of India and the US — and about what the two countries could do together, how they could shape Asia’s future by working towards common objectives.
The right word is perhaps vision: Blackwill has a vision. If the grapevine in New Delhi is to be believed, you have been considerably impressed by the vision which the current tenant of Roosevelt House in Chanakyapuri has shared with you. And Blackwill, in turn, has let it be known in Washington that he reciprocates similar sentiments about you. He obviously admires the clarity with which you separate black from white and the courage of conviction with which you dispense with grey and get on with the job.
It may surprise you to know that in the run up to your visit, agencies here whose business it is to dig up what is relevant, went to the trouble of finding out what you wrote in the visitors’ book at the Ataturk mausoleum in Ankara, which you visited in June last year. You wrote: “As an Indian, I feel proud to have been given this opportunity of paying homage to one of the greatest men of modern times. In the heart of every Indian, Kemal Ataturk occupies a unique place. He was an embodiment of secularism, democracy and the rule of law, principles and values which bind Turkey and India together in ties of friendship and harmony. I offer my respectful salutations to the great soul.”
Some of your interlocutors here in Washington in the next two days have also found out that when you were discussing Ataturk with the Turkish prime minister, Bulent Ecevit told you that India and Turkey proudly share a fundamental process of decision-making in global affairs: both countries retain their independence.
Ecevit told you that in India, from Panditji to Atalji, total autonomy has been retained in decision-making. All this has been extremely interesting to some of the people you will be meeting in the next two or three days because they see you as being in the vanguard of a nationalist leadership which does what it feels is in the national interest.
That is what makes your visit to the US challenging — far more challenging than that of any other Indian visitor that I can remember. You will speak at the Council for Foreign Relations in New York on Friday about terrorism and about the lofty ideals which make the world a better place. You will probably do the same when you talk to intellectuals and members of Washington think tanks earlier. It is only appropriate that when you were planning your trip here you initially wanted to go to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to see the Los Alamos National Laboratory which was part of America’s World War II nuclear bomb effort.
You will be surprised, Advaniji, to discover in your next few days here that expectations from you are, indeed, very high. Both from the Americans and from your compatriots in the US. I recall a trip very similar to the one you have now undertaken to the US. Four years ago, Atalji was in the Gulf. He was then leader of the opposition — actually, prime minister-in-waiting. I covered that tour and was told that it was the only visit to have been made by a Bharatiya Janata Party leader to Islamic countries in that region, barring Atalji’s own visit to the United Arab Emirates when he was external affairs minister in the Morarji Desai government.
In Kuwait, Atalji told leaders he met that Hindu expatriates living in that sheikhdom must be allowed to cremate their dead, not just bury them. In Bahrain, Atalji went out to the streets and greeted those who were shouting slogans in praise of Ram Lalla. In Muscat, the Sultanate’s relatively more moderate Islamic rulers volunteered to tell Atalji about a second Hindu temple which they were building for the Indian community. I was told in all three countries by local leaders that it was refreshing to see an Indian leader come visiting and speak out his mind. They said Atalji was the first Indian leader to visit them and not seek to appease them.
Advaniji, if you spend the next couple of days in this country merely talking about the big things — the nuclear bomb, terrorism and other issues which the mandarins of South Block are so fond of — and not look at a broader, realistic picture, your visit will not realize its full potential. After all, it is the first ever visit to the US by an Indian home minister. And the first by you to the US in at least a decade.
There are, as you know, at least 20 Indians in American custody since September 11, who have not been charged with any offence and are, yet, in jail. The only thing that our diplomatic mission has done for them is to wish them away, preoccupied as our officials are, with issues which sound far more grand than the lives of 20 fellow citizens.
You must have read about a Malayalee executive in New York who took his wife out to a Broadway play to celebrate their wedding anniversary. Because he asked for reservations in a crowded theatre and seats which would be popular and full, he was pounced upon when he arrived at the theatre for the show, handcuffed and kept virtually the whole night in the lock-up. All because he had an accent which the clerk who took his reservation thought was a west Asian accent. Day after day incidents as disturbing as this keep pouring in. I am asked every time I go to a bar if I am a Hindu by customers who only want to make sure that I am not a Muslim. These are, however, minor irritants compared to the plight of the Sikhs in the US. Several of them have been killed, beaten up or maimed in hate attacks.
If you do not speak out against these hate crimes forcefully in your meetings here and not mince words in condemning what clearly are human rights violations by the American state, you will not live up to your reputation of always calling a spade a spade. By doing so, you will also uphold the ideals of Ataturk, whose principles you have tried to follow.
(K.P. Nayar, Washington)