Author: Swapan Das Gupta
Publication: The Free Press Journal
Date: September 25, 2006
URL: http://www.samachar.com/features/250906-features.html
The Prime Minister and his delegation met
a large number of disreputable politicians in Havana during the meeting of
the Non-Aligned Movement.
Many of these leaders don't know the difference
between diplomacy and speaking at a mahapanchayat. One leader the gentle Manmohan
Singh had to rub shoulders with, not least because he is the current favourite
of the CPI(M), was Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
At the UN General Assembly in New York last
Wednesday, Chavez referred to President Bush as the "devil" and
said: "Yesterday the devil came here and this place still smells."
It is to be hoped that this needless association with some of the world's
most notorious tyrants hasn't forced Prime Minister to change his demeanour.
Manmohan Singh is not naturally a rude person and we hope that he will abide
by the norms of decency and civilised conduct. The same cannot, however, be
said of the Prime Minister's Office.
The Prime Minister's agreement with the boastful
General Pervez Musharraf in Havana has attracted strong criticism. Apart from
the BJP which has reacted strongly-a natural position for the country's main
opposition party-the proposal for a joint Indo-Pakistan mechanism to monitor
terror has been sharply attacked by all those associated with India's security
and intelligence establishments.
Former high commissioners to Pakistan, a former
Foreign Secretary, former chiefs and functionaries of the IB and Research
and Analysis Wing (R&AW) have described the agreement with Pakistan as
needless and unwise. The right of these individuals to speak up for what they
believe is the national interest is undeniable. This is part and parcel of
our democratic traditions without which India will be that much poorer intellectually.
What is surprising is the intemperate and
uncouth response to criticism. In an email sent from his official address,
the Prime Minister's media adviser described attacks on the Prime Minister's
handling of diplomacy as "utter nonsense".
He accused his critics of being "close
to Brajesh Mishra (former National Security Adviser and Principal Secretary)
and Narendra Modi." With dripping sarcasm, he wished G. Parthasarathy,
a distinguished former High Commissioner to Pakistan who had also served with
the Indian army and fought in the Sialkot sector during the 1965 war, "good
luck in your new political career".
To what extent the loss of composure is the
outcome of the recent bad company in Havana is a matter of speculation. What
is however quite apparent is the fact that the Prime Minister's Office is
showing all signs of political nervousness over an agreement with Pakistan
that is bereft of common sense and logic and which, it is increasingly clear,
lacks popular acceptability at home.
The tell-tale signs of national dissatisfaction
are there for all to see. Unlike the announcement of Atal Behari Vajpayee's
bus trip to Lahore and even the Islamabad declaration of January 2004 which
were greeted with a large measure of popular endorsement, Manmohan Singh has
received few cerificates for his curious discovery of Pakistan being as much
a victim of terrorism as India.
Not even the professional advocates of India-
Pakistan sadbhavna have rushed to congratulate the Prime Minister for his
Havana initiative. It is not merely civil society which is sceptical. Apart
from the Left parties who are these days courting the Muslim vote with frenzy,
there has been a curious silence in the UPA.
The Opposition BJP, as was to be expected,
fired salvos on three consecutive days, accusing the Prime Minister of "capitulation"
to US pressure, compromising India's national security and in general being
silly. In the normal course these grave charges should have prompted replies
both at the political and official level. But the Congress has maintained
an uncharacteristic silence and neither the Foreign Secretary nor the Foreign
Secretary-designate has rushed to publicly defend the agreement.
The National Security Adviser who has been
quite loquacious about threats from the Al Qaeda and other terrorists located
in Pakistan has kept mum. Indeed, apart from the Prime Minister's revelation
on board the Air India flight back to India that the meeting with Musharraf
was not tense, the Government has said nothing. All we have is the Media Adviser's
outburst- compared by one distinguished R&AW functionary as Hitlerian
in tone.
What about Musharraf? I think the General
just can't believe his luck. When he departed from Pakistan for his grand
visit to Brussels, Havana and New York, he expected to face Indian anger over
the bomb blasts in Mumbai and Malegaon and Western anger over his deal with
the Taliban forces operating from the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. The West
kept to its part of the script and President Bush even threatened, if necessary,
to send in American forces into Pakistan to capture wanted terrorists like
Osama bin Laden.
What did India do? It meekly acquiesced in
the establishment of a joint complaints centre to fight terrorism-a mechanism
which even the Prime Minister knows has no chance of yielding results. Even
Musharraf was so utterly contemptuous of India's lack of a backbone that he
grandiosely proclaimed that he had been ready to have a joint Indo-Pakistan
investigation into the Mumbai blasts.
Since Pakistan has blamed India for fomenting
trouble in Baluchistan, why didn't India respond with an equally preposterous
demand for a joint Indo-Pakistan investigation in that troubled province?
Instead, India has been content to allow Musharraf to mock us relentlessly
and allow his High Commissioner in New Delhi to do the same.
Indeed, the High Commissioner Aziz Ahmed Khan
had absolutely no inhibitions about puncturing any hopes Manmohan Singh may
have had about using the Havana agreement to facilitate the extradition of
Dawood Ibrahim and Tiger Memon, not to mention sundry Kashmiri terrorists
based in Pakistan.
At Havana, India only succeeded in giving
legitimacy to Musharraf's outrageous suggestion that "freelance terrorists"
are behind all the bombings in India. Pakistan has for long conducted its
low-intensity war on India on the principle of high deniability. In other
words, Pakistan has been careful to not leave its official fingerprints on
the attacks in India.
At the same time, India's investigators have
time and again made it clear that almost all the terrorist outrages have been
planned and financed from Pakistan. The executors too have often been Pakistani
nationals although, of late, more and more locals are being used to undertake
the actual operations.
It is possible, even conceivable, that the
notorious ISI, and not the Pakistan Government, are behind the attacks. This
may be an important distinction to make in terms of our understanding of the
system in Pakistan. It has, for example, been shown that many of Pakistan's
elected rulers were kept in the dark about the activities of both the ISI
and the army. It has also been established that there are many in the ISI
and the army who pursue private agendas.
These are matters of concern but they are
issues that the Pakistan Government has to address. There has to be unceasing
pressure on Islamabad to control activities inside its own territory. That
is what the January 2004 agreement between Vajpayee and Musharraf was all
about. Indeed, the entire peace process was made conditional on Pakistan conducting
itself as a responsible neighbour. In July 2004, the UPA Government delinked
terrorism from the peace process.
At Havana, the Pakistan Government was issued
a good character certificate by a Prime Minister who presumed this is what
the Americans wanted. The whole approach betrays a slavish mentality. For
long, India has complained that the West pursues double standards when it
comes to India: it confronts its own terrorism with vigour but advises India
to constantly exercise restraint. Yet there is an important difference between
restraint and submission.
After Havana, India has no leg to stand on
in the war against Pakistani- inspired terror. Manmohan Singh has pronounced
Musharraf not guilty. If India thinks that its own citizens are expendable
cannon fodder, why should the rest of the world want to believe otherwise?
