HVK Archives: Gujral eats crow
Gujral eats crow - The Free Press Journal
Editorial
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30 July 1997
Title: Gujral eats crow
Author: Editorial
Publication: The Free Press Journal
Date: July 30, 1997
Never believe a statement fully until it is denied. That wisecrack has more
than a kernel of truth, especially in reference to Indian politicians. The
Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral - some in the ruling United Front. call
him Interview Kumar Gujral whereas the Leftists have nicknamed him Inder
Kesri Gujral - seems to be suffering from a very bad case of denialitis, a
peculiar disease which afflicts mostly Indian politicians. The unseemly
spat in the Lok Sabha on Monday between the Prime Minister on the one side
and the Opposition MPs on the other has further confirmed that Gujral is
suffering from a pretty serious case of denialitis, which for want of a
better word explains the all- too- frequent resort to lies by Indian
politicians in order to wriggle out of the mess created by their own
ill-considered statements. The spat was over the Prime Minister's
ill-advised statements on his recent two-day visit to Kashmir. Having made
an unconditional offer of negotiations to the Kashmir militants the Prime
Minister lacked both the courage of his convictions and the political
support necessary to defend his offer. So he did the next best thing that
comes easily to all politicians, nay, cowards. He denied having said what
in effect he had said. Because he found himself cornered by a host of MPs,
led by the redoubtable leader of the Opposition, Atal Behari Vajpayee, the
Prime Minister lost his cool. Instead of admitting the grave lapse of
offering 'unconditional' talks to the dastardly elements engaged in waging
a war against this country, he resorted to the convenient device of a
denial. He would have us believe that the entire media, including the
Government-controlled Doordarshan, had got him wrong. Indeed, he went on to
accuse the media of a pro-BJP bias. And, what is worse, implied that even
the news readers on Doordarshan were twisting his words at the bidding of
the Hindutva party. The Prime Minister clearly was rattled for he had been
caught yet again on the wrong foot. And in order to make light of his own
lapse he affected a show of anger. To deflect the focus away from his
ill-considered gesture towards Pakistan-inspired militants, he needlessly
dragged in the extraneous issue of the Ayodhya demolition. It was left to
another former Prime Minister, Chandra Shekhar, to counsel calm to Gujral.
After all, his show of anger could not wipe off the text of his impugned
statement on Kashmir which without exception had been prominently published
by newspapers across the land. When Gujral realised that other sections of
the House besides the BJP too were unhappy with his unconditional offer to
the Kashmir militants, he retreated, not however like an honourable man but
as a typical coward. Monday's exchanges between Gujral and the BJP MPs tore
off the facade of gentility that the one-time building-contractor has
sported ever since he embraced politics as his full-time vocation.
>From the Gujral - Vajpayee face-off in the Lok Sabha it will be wrong to
assume that there is no scope for negotiations in Kashmir. No there is. But
you can talk to only those who have not foreclosed all avenues for a
dialogue by swearing to fight for secession from India. Those waging
~jehad~ do not certainly deserve to sit across the table from the Indian
Prime Minister to talk the terms of this nation's surrender to them. That
is the crux of the objections to Gujral's earlier offer of "unconditional"
talks with the Kashmir militants. Happily, the Prime Minister was made to
realize his mistake which he accepted but rather ungraciously. The mayhem
in the Valley is not the handiwork of the 'misguided youth', as the Prime
Minister would like us to believe, but highly motivated infiltrators from
across the international border. Pakistan has been funding a low intensity
war against India in the belief that this country would one day tire of
fighting the foreign mercenaries and sign away Kashmir on the dotted line.
That alone explains why Pakistan has poured thousands of crores worth of
armaments and mercenaries into its anti-India operations in the Valley.
With people like Gujral elevating the weak-kneed policy of appeasement of
India's hostile neighbours to the status of a Doctrine, with a capital D as
if he had evolved a new formula for the emancipation of mankind, it should
be no surprise that there has been a sharp spurt in recent weeks in the
terrorist attacks in Punjab and elsewhere in the country. Time, therefore,
for the Prime Minister to go through a primer on the tortuous course of
Indo-Pak relations in the last five decades History is a hard task-master,
Mr Prime Minister.
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