Author: Editorial
Publication: Organiser
Date: January 21, 2007
URL: http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=167&page=5
The UPA government is following a policy foreign
to both national security and realpolitik. The exodus of the Hindi-speaking
people from Assam, following a macabre killing of seventy innocent daily wage
earners by the outlawed ULFA terrorists has once again highlighted the failure
of the centre in ensuring safety and protection to the people. Equally dismaying
is the Nepal Maoist reiteration, on the eve of their joining the interim government,
that they will review all pacts with India, including the 1950 Treaty of Friendship,
which according to Maoists have become "unequal" and "obsolete".
Under this outrageous thesis the Maoists have been demanding almost half of
Himachal Pradesh and Uttaranchal as belonging to Nepal. A new front of border
tension is thus in the offing. We have already the spectre of China claiming
the entire Arunachal Pradesh, which the UPA has not till date clearly rebuffed.
ULFA has been talking of sovereignty, just
as the NSCN leader Issac Muivah, who speaks of independent state of Nagalim,
consisting of areas inhabited by the Nagas. Muivah had a secret meeting last
week in the capital with Congress supremo Sonia Gandhi and he is enjoying
VVIP security and hospitality under the UPA regime. The centre is in negotiation
with all these desperados, and its weak-kneed policies have given fresh hope
and lease of life to all these anti-India outfits operating from foreign soil.
Simultaneously, the UPA leadership is in talks with Pakistan and Kashmiri
secessionists, on a wholly unacceptable paradigm of vacating territory and
conceding demands detrimental to national integrity in the hope of buying
peace.
Few weeks ago, in these columns we had cautioned
the nation about the dangers of offering ceasefire to extremists like ULFA
at a time when the security forces had established a clear headway. The uncalled
for retreat was offered as a bait to the treacherous ULFA barbarians to create
an atmosphere for the beleaguered Congress to enter into an unholy clandestine
understanding at the time of state assembly elections in June 2006 in Assam.
This helped Congress retain power in the state, alas, at what heavy price
to the nation. The Congress did the same in Andhra, in 2004, by joining hands
with the Naxalites to defeat the Telugu Desam Party in the general elections;
the disastrous consequences are there in the open before us today.
Two months ago, the Nepal Maoist Prachanda
was hosted and feasted in Delhi under the banner of a leadership summit, again
with the knowledge and consent of the UPA government. Its cynical negotiation
with Pakistan, its equally mischievous dilly-dallying on Afzal hanging, with
an eye on Muslim votes for the upcoming state assembly polls are proving elixir
for the hardened terrorists and divisive elements inside the country. Under
the NDA, and with the help of the Bhutanese government, ULFA was almost eliminated
and was forced to seek shelter in Bangladesh. The friendship treaty with Myanmar
had made it difficult for ULFA to operate from that country.
A day before ULFA killings, Union Home Secretary
after a review of security situation in Assam for the February National Games,
said in Guwahati that the situation was normal. This shows how uninformed
if not down right foolish, the Home Ministry assessment was. There is no professionalism
in dealing with internal security under the UPA.
The pattern of the ULFA threat now establishes
one thing, they are acting under the guidance of the Bangladesh-based ISI
operatives. For, they are targeting Indians not foreign Bangladeshi illegal
immigrants as aliens. For them, Hindi-speaking Indians are the aliens! And
the Bangladeshi Muslims are their compatriots. They gain by the fleeing of
labourers from Assam. Secondly, by projecting the Hindi-speaking people as
immigrants, ULFA is trying to dilute the simmering anti-Bangladeshi campaign
in Assam to spot and deport illegal aliens under the Foreigners Act. The ULFA
killings have been condemned by the Assamese everywhere. It needs no extra
intelligence to identify the instigators behind this insidious game plan.
It is gratifying that it did not provoke a backlash in Bihar and elsewhere.
Further this has diverted the national attention
from the Islamabad-sponsored Islamic terrorism in the rest of the country,
for ULFA terrorists are allegedly Hindu. And in Nagaland we have the Christian
version of terror and secession. The carnage in Assam is also a convenient
cover-up for the UPA to negotiate its devious peace plan with Pakistan.
The point is the country's territorial integrity
is in deep danger, under the UPA vote-bank machinations. It is a government
which has only its narrow sectarian priorities and mean short-term calculations
for a domestic policy. Under Manmohan Singh our national boundaries are not
safe. The UPA is trying to leave India with a legacy of social and religious
divide, made dangerous by a highly vulnerable security environment.
