HVK Archives: A discordant note (letter)
A discordant note (letter) - The Indian Express
G. V. Ashtekar
()
7 May 1997
Title : A discordant note (letter)
Author : G. V. Ashtekar
Publication : The Indian Express
Date : May 7, 1997
Sir, While people are busy discovering more and more virtues in our new Prime
Minister, Mr I. K. Gujral, I wish to sound a different note. First of all, his
was a choice' by the process of elimination and he lacks a popular base or
charisma though he is well educated and soft-spoken.
Past experience, however, shows that such choices have often proved to be quite
different from what they were expected to be. Mr Yashwantrao Chavan became Chief
Minister of Maharashtra in the tussle between Morarji Desai and Bhausaheb Hiray.
Both of these stalwarts accepted Chavan because they thought that, being the
juniormost, he could be easily manipulated.
The same logic landed Mrs Indira Gandhi the prime ministership. Both these
leaders entrenched themselves firmly in the saddle for long tenures, proved to be
strong, and the latter went to the extent of dividing the Congress itself!
That Mr Gujral was formerly an accredited member of the Communist party gives me
the creeps. It is difficult for communists to change their convictions which are
firmly rooted in the logic formed by them when they accepted it. Besides, a poor
country like ours cannot afford to have a PM who argues that, in view of its size,
we must be altruistic to our neighbours. Actually, our poverty is proportionate to
our size and we should not be handing out largesse to hostile neighbours,
providing visa-free entry to demographic aggressors.
In the matter of Kashmir, Mr Gujral must not weigh the problem in terms of money
alone. Giving more funds will make the extortionate terrorists bolder and waste
resources created by honestly toiling Indians. Instead, he should make strong
efforts to stop ISI activities in the country; to punish the guilty and not reward
them with talks across the table; to ensure that our embassies work efficiently
and are not used as sinecures for retired politicians.
Mr Gujral has been busy finalising the nuclear reactors deal with Russia. Did we
really need them? Had our scientific community cleared them as being state of the
art reactors, or are they improved versions of Chernobyl? What is the true
assessment of our agreement with Bangladesh regarding the sharing of Ganga waters?
Why was this finalised in a hurry?
If Mr Gujral lasts as PM he may lead us down a disastrous path and we may lose, to
our dear neighbours, what little we have. The UF is unable to find a better
alternative; the Congress is engrossed in washing its dirty linen in public; only
the BJP remains in splendid isolation. No one will be surprised if it ends this
so-called coalition era at the next hustings.
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