Sonia to Vajpayee: Anyone but Alexander (Rediff)

Last month, Congress President Sonia Gandhi requested a meeting with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who -- as he has always done with the lady -- promptly obliged. Her message was urgent: the Congress would support any candidate as the eleventh President of India but Dr P C Alexander, the governor of Maharashtra.

Were, as a face-saver, the party to be given the vice-presidential slot, Sonia would ensure Congress backing for Bharatiya Janata Party MP Dr L M Singhvi or former Rajasthan chief minister Bhairon Singh Shekhawat. Why, even Vice-President Krishna Kant was preferable to Dr Alexander, the mild-mannered administrator who had served Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi for decades, and even named his first child four decades ago after Jawaharlal Nehru.

In 1995, in (a very different) Times of India, this correspondent had said Sonia wanted to become prime minister of India, and that P V Narasimha Rao's refusal to stand down after two years in office (which Sonia had hoped he would do as a gesture of loyalty to the new Empress of the Congress party) would result in open war with her. At that time, my analysis had been disbelieved. Sonia was considered just a simple Indian wife, tending to the 'family' trusts and ensuring that the legacy of the Nehrus was preserved. It took the dismissal of Sitaram Kesri as Congress president to show how wrong these individuals were.

The next year, Sonia encouraged J Jayalalithaa to break away from the BJP by promising to support an alternative government led by a non-Congress leader but containing Congress ministers. As soon as the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam supremo withdrew support to the BJP, Sonia became unavailable on the telephone to the very individuals she had been importuning for weeks to bring down the Vajpayee regime. Most of them realized her game plan only when television channels showed a smiling Sonia claiming -- erroneously as it turned out -- she had the 272 MPs needed to form a government. For two years she lay low, but by mid-2001, she was back to planning a second attempt at toppling the Vajpayee regime, this time with the help of that 1978 veteran, Kamal Nath

Prime Minister Vajpayee, it is understood, rejected Sonia's offer and made it clear that Dr Alexander was being considered as a Presidential candidate. The Maharashtra governor has an excellent track record besides a reputation for avoiding politicking. His two sons are both professionals, not businessmen or politicians. While the elder works for the Asian Development Bank in Manila, the younger son lives in India.

Vajpayee need not have been surprised by Sonia's plea. In January, she had assembled a war council comprising party leaders Arjun Singh, K Natwar Singh and Ambika Soni to veto Dr Alexander's candidature. Natwar Singh visited Rashtrapati Bhavan several times, requesting President K R Narayanan to contest a second term, telling him that Dr Alexander was out of grace with Sonia.

Thus far, it is learnt the President has refused to sully his dignity by agreeing to a contest with Dr Alexander, should the latter be the National Democratic Alliance nominee. Except for India's first President Rajendra Prasad, no other President has been granted a second term at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

President Narayanan is in poor health, a muscular ailment preventing him from discharging his duties. Moreover, the President's dislike of the BJP and affinity to Sonia is no secret, a factor that may have weighed with that party in rejecting pleas that he be given a second term.

Despite three meetings with Narayanan to persuade him to contest, Natwar Singh has thus far drawn a blank. The Communist parties are also trying to convince Narayanan to contest a second term, while former prime minister I K Gujral and some Andhra Pradesh leaders are working on Vice-President Krishna Kant's behalf. One powerful media house is rooting for Dr Singhvi, former Indian high commissioner to Great Britain.

The NDA has the advantage in electoral arithmetic. Together with the Telugu Desam Party, the AIADMK, the Nationalist Congress Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party, the NDA has a 126,000 vote margin over the Congress, Samajwadi Party, Rashtriya Janata Dal, the Left, and other political entities. The NDA and its friends have around 66,000 votes more than the 50% of the 545,000 votes in the Electoral College that elects the President of India

Since Narayanan is unlikely to get a second term and considering the Maharashtra governor's decades-long association with the Nehru family, Kerala Chief Minister A K Antony and his associate Oomen Chandy tried to mobilize support for Dr Alexander with Sonia. Like President Narayanan, Dr Alexander hails from Kerala. While Sonia kept mum, Arjun Singh ticked off the duo, telling them that the chances of Sonia becoming prime minister would decline sharply if a Christian were to become the next President of India.

http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/may/18prez.htm

Preserve the values of our Indic civilisation (Rediff)

Years ago, when it was still fashionable to knock India, V S Naipaul wrote sneeringly of the way Indians relieved themselves "everywhere". The assumption was that the people of this land fancied the open air as their latrine, when the reality was that this was the only available option. No doubt Sir Vidia would have, given the same [lack of] choice, held on and on and on rather than taken the easy way out.
It is not just a shortage of toilets, but of jobs, that is the residue of the decades of Nehruvian policies that this country has been battered with. Many are forced to beg because -- again -- there is no alternative.
But how does one describe those with options who nonetheless resort to beggary as the first and only line of action? In other words, how does one describe the policy of the A B Vajpayee government, which sent a delegation to Canberra and Wellington to beg Australia and New Zealand to restore order in Fiji, and another to New York to implore Kofi Annan to save the hapless Indian soldiers being held prisoner in Sierra Leone?
India is fortunate in its fighting forces. Despite being fobbed off with poor weaponry and execrable generalship during Kargil, our boys won back the territory that had been lost through the negligence of two commanders slated for promotion: Lieutenant General Krishan Pal and Major General V S Budhwar. Had the 21 hostages in Sierra Leone been from the US, the region would have been sizzling with warships and military aircraft. Instead, there are the usual set-piece reports about how well the hostages are feeling and how wonderful the conditions of their captivity are.
We heard the same litany during Kandahar, when Jaswant Singh told us of the five-star luxury that was being enjoyed by the hostages of the Pakistani irregulars who had hijacked the Kathmandu flight. After the capitulation, none of our "free" media outlets has bothered to conduct detailed interviews with the former captives, to give the Indian people a coherent account of the facts. Such publicity would upset the cozy relationships between the media outlets and those responsible for Kandahar.
And what of Sri Lanka, where the BJP-led government urged the Sri Lankan Army to surrender Jaffna? Fortunately for that island nation, this advice was spurned and the LTTE has been unable to march into the town in triumph, despite the best efforts of the Vajpayee government.
Reports are that the US is behind the Israeli help to Colombo. This writer has often criticised Washington, but -- as in 1990 when he supported Operation Desert Storm and called for Indian troops to fight alongside the Americans -- in this operation the only statement that can be made is: Three Cheers for America! The pity is that it is the vacuum created by New Delhi's abdication of responsibility in its neighbourhood that has resulted in Washington having to step in. Slowly the US is acknowledging the mutuality of interests that tie the two "giants of democracy" together, and this time around Washington would have welcomed an active Indian role. But given the pro-LTTE stance of the Vajpayee government, this was not forthcoming.
New Delhi was too scared of the US to actively help Velupillai Prabhakaran, so it did nothing, confining its efforts to diplomatic calls for a Sri Lankan surrender of Jaffna. Chandrika Kumaratunga has certainly been repaid for her India-friendly policy, a lesson that must not be lost on Sheikh Hasina Wajed and Girija Prasad Koirala.
Just whom is the puffed-up cockerel trying to fool? Cringing fear of the NATO powers, as well as of Japan and China, has prevented the Vajpayee government from pushing through the tests needed to fully operationalise Agni and Prithvi. When this cowardice became too evident to conceal, a single Prithvi test was permitted, reportedly after strong objections from Jaswant Singh.
Empirical evidence confirms that a major power such as India cannot be seriously affected by sanctions were it to develop its defences at the desired speed. Sadly, the Vajpayee government -- after the initial flash of bravado demonstrated at Pokhran -- is even more pusillanimous than the Narasimha Rao and Inder Gujral governments in sanctioning the tests needed to ensure a credible minimum deterrent. It is small wonder that US and other television networks have been making fun of India's puny arsenal, claiming that Pakistan's (foreign-backed) programme is much bigger.
Lack of an effective response from India only encourages such transfer of technology to Islamabad by forces too foolish to understand the dangers to their own security were Pakistan to become a nuclear weapons power. The best answer to such threats is to go ahead with the testing of DRDO [Defence Research and Development Organisation] missiles. For that, Vajpayee's remote control in the external affairs ministry (who is himself remote-controlled by "My friend Strobe") will need to lose the hold he has on the prime minister.
On the other hand, the government has been kowtowing to Ram Vilas Paswan openly and to Sharad Yadav and Parkash Singh Badal secretly. Small wonder that the finance ministry took fright at the plunge in share prices caused by a diligent income-tax officer finding out that most of the financial entities "headquartered" in Mauritius were using that route to speculate in the Indian stock market.
Thanks to the Port Louis loophole, capital gains tax can be avoided in the sale of equity shares in India by FIIs registered in Mauritius. As a result, rampant speculation is going on that is causing hundreds of thousands of small investors to lose their savings. Either Yashwant Sinha should create a level playing field by abolishing capital gains tax on all share transactions, or he should refuse to get blackmailed by a few operators in Dalal Street into blocking the enquiries of the income-tax department into the Mauritius scam.
In fact, it is not only Mauritius that is a haven for crooks wanting to cheat the Indian exchequer of revenue. London is a favourite address for entities wishing to avoid taxation in India. For example, in the past two years, Air-India has shelled out Rs 9 billion to a "nameplate" company that has no functional office or any aircraft, but which has been given the contract to ferry pilgrims on Haj. Naturally, no newspaper will write about this allegedly UK-based outfit. To do so would be against the rules, and may result in suspension of writing privileges for the journo who exposed the facts. Together with the [unreported] details about Sonia Gandhi's educational career and family financial history, these will go unwritten. The Boston-based son and Delhi-based son-in-law (who is the major shareholder in a hotel chain that is setting up 16 hotels across India, despite his middle-class origins) can rest easy. Details of the ownership matrix of the US $1.2 billion chain are unlikely to be made public.
What a wonderful country, where the leader of the Opposition and the prime minister shadowbox in public, but enjoy a cozy working relationship in private. Atal Bihari Vajpayee cannot be blamed for ensuring that Sonia Gandhi remains head of the Congress party, for it is this "leader" that -- in the view of L K Advani and others -- has consolidated the NDA. The blame has to be laid entirely on the members of the Congress Working Committee, the gang that begged Sonia to take over and today lacks the courage to throw her out, even though almost all of them despise her in private and many even voice contempt for the Orbassano school dropout openly. So long as the goodies keep coming in from her captive chief ministers, Sonia Maino will not surrender the AICC's presidency.
An unfortunate byproduct of the Sonia phase has been the development of an anti-Christian feeling in some sections of other communities. That Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka are practising Catholics is of no concern to the rest of us. It is their right to follow the religion of their choice. But her shrill attacks on Hindu organisations and the silence on pro-Pakistan outfits have created a "Jinnah" image for Rajiv Gandhi's widow. As a result, the ISI has been able to find eager recruits from among Hindu organisations to spark an orgy of Christian-bashing that is designed to distance the West from India.
The ISI is aware that interaction with the US-EU will help speed up Indian economic growth. By funding Hindu fanatics to burn churches and kill priests, the Lahore mafia is seeking to deter the inevitable co-operation between the West and India, which after all is home of the Mother Civilisation from which the Germanic, Gallic, Russic and Iberic versons developed.
There is a widespread belief that ISI agents invariably belong to the Muslim community. But information from relevant agencies indicates that many are Hindus, in fact those belonging to fanatic organisations that seek to introduce a Taliban-style society in India. Some of them may not realise where their funding is coming from, though others knowingly collect funds from ISI paymasters such as the D-company.
The rest of us need to realise that only a moderate social ethos can liberate India from poverty, and that any fanatic is evil, no matter which house of worship he or she frequents. Only by holding on to the core values of the Indic Mother Civilisation can we protect our land from going the way of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

http://www.rediff.com/news/2000/jun/22monu.htm

Clinton's two real loves (Rediff)

Small wonder that Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Kishanchand Advani have upgraded Sonia Gandhi's security cover to equal that given to the President of the Republic. But for the distaste in which most Indian voters hold the middle-school graduate from Orbassano, the BJP-led government would have fallen in weeks. Its twin leaders have both demonstrated their unwillingness to give a coherent administration to this opportunity-rich country. Indeed, if any progress is being made, it is despite the Advani-Atal government.

Sonia and her large family love chocolate, and the Rajya Sabha election has given them yet another chance to feast. Most of the selected candidates will have been chosen for their ability to lavish mithai on the charming family that is estimated to be costing the country's taxpayers Rs 3.6 million per day in security, infrastructure and related costs.

Of course, such sweet-filled considerations for selection have operated in every election since Sonia Maino took over the Congress party. And it is thus that upstanding citizens who have made weighty contributions to public life such as Mani Kumar Subba were selected as Congress candidates. Small wonder that even Kapil Sibal (who knows a bit of law and of Mr Subba) felt that Subba would be a candidate who would enhance the prestige and image of Mahatma Gandhi's party. Chacha Advani, who has voluminous data on this favourite of 10 Janpath, is as usual following his Three Monkeys policy of seeing, hearing and speaking no evil.

Were Lal to indulge in bedtime reading, he may perhaps look through information on the ONGC, for example. For more than two decades this organisation has concentrated on not discovering oil. Enquiries with staff would show the whys and hows of the sabotage of the country's petroleum capabilities by individuals responding to pressure from external interests.

Every once in a way -- by mistake -- the ONGC discovers a rich field. This is promptly sold to overseas interests who -- surprise, surprise -- ensure that production gets stifled. The juniormost engineers in ONGC are aware of the location of the proven fields that have thus been gifted to companies seemingly unable to extract oil.

Were the home minister to call into account just a few officials of the ONGC and the petroleum ministry, he may reduce India's import bill by billions of dollars. What he does do is issue bold statements on 'wars to the finish' against extremists and crooks, the most recent being in Andhra Pradesh, the home of some offshore finds that have been given away by the ONGC.

In this trait, he is following in the footsteps of his leader Atalji who kept repeating that he would not compromise with the terrorism at Kandahar till almost the hour when Jassu and his three passengers from Indian prisons were airborne.

Instead of backing the Kalyan Singhs and the Keshubhai Patels, were Advani to spend his diminishing energy on rooting out specific instances of anti-national sabotage such as:

1. the scuttling of oil discoveries by ONGC;

2. the denial of equipment to Indian troops facing Pakistan;

3. the causes behind the rotting of millions of tonnes of foodgrain;

4. the use of Kathmandu as a hawala channel and as the point of entry for counterfeit Indian currency (Attari is chicken feed, but then Nepal is a Hindu kingdom that can by definition do no wrong, which is why it is soon to be rewarded by the reopening of air traffic with India;

and

5. the throttling of the nuclear and missile programmes by a team of politicians and their henchmen, he may do some service to India rather than to just the two Holy Families at 10 Janpath and 5 Race Course Road.

Unlike Murli Manohar Joshi, who imprudently sought to take action on the Nehru trusts, our media-friendly home minister has been singularly inactive in probing -- much less booking -- political families that are auctioning Indian interests.

Poor Jassu. Even the Israelis treat him with contempt. Tel Aviv gave exactly four hours notice to the Indian foreign minister when it called off his visit to that capital. The explanation given by Jassu's admirers in the Indian media was that all the key personalities in Israel had rushed off to Washington, when the fact is that they were all very much at home.

Thanks to Jassu's forging spirit, even leaving aside Clinton favourite Pervez Musharraf, now Chandrika Kumaratunga has invited Knut Vollebaek of Norway to intervene in its internal dispute with the Tigers. The same Vollebaek had made some very dismissive comments on India while in New Delhi, for which he was duly lionised in Sacher-Masoch's spiritual home.

Today this sneering critic of India has insinuated himself and his masters into Sri Lankan domestic issues, to silence from New Delhi. At one time there were the glimmerings of a Delhi Doctrine; South Asian problems should be left to South Asians themselves to settle. Now, thanks to Vajpayee diplomacy, the region is experiencing significant alien intervention.

Had the forgetful Vajpayee remembered Indian interests, he would have dropped plans for an address to the joint session of Parliament by that declared enemy of India, William Jefferson Clinton. He would have factored in the fact that this anti-Indian president has thus far refused to give the privilege of a state visit to the head of the world's largest democracy.

Kocheril Raman Narayanan being made of different metal from Jassu and Atal, has refused to make a visit to the US unless he is treated with the dignity not only he as an individual deserves, but his country. And yet the Vajpayee regime is falling over itself to grovel before a chief executive who has insulted India's President by declining to offer him the same courtesies as he has to literally dozens of others. Clinton should be given the courtesies of the same 'working visit' he has offered our own President, rather than the ceremonial of a state visit.

Just as Pakistan's generals have, Clinton knows the one action designed to generate fawning accommodation from India's leaders is to hurt the country's interests hard and insult openly and personally. With every barb thrown from the White House, the welcome mat has got further dusted and extended in Delhi.

So what if Clinton is breaking several US laws by coddling up to a dictator busy trying to hang the last democratically elected head of government in Pakistan? He has always been a man who follows his instincts, no matter where it leads him.

The untold story about the Pakistan stopover is that many other powers besides China -- whose intervention was promptly disclosed -- secretly interceded on behalf of Musharraf, including a country from the ASEAN region and two from the Gulf. Should their own regimes get felled in the way that Sharif's was, perhaps the gentlemen who made the calls on Musharraf's behalf will remember this stab in the back of democratic values as they themselves get carted off to execution.

It is strange that countries that claim to promote Muslim interests forget the 130 million Muslims of India in their eagerness to help Pakistan's crazies destroy the world's biggest functional anarchy. However, the fact is that no such advice was needed: from the start, it was clear that Clinton would not let down Musharraf, especially after being briefed by favourite poodles of the Pakistan army not to allow those hateful Indians to dictate just where the US president should or should not go.

To be fair to Clinton, it is not that he hates every large Asian country. China, for example, is close to his heart, which is why he and Al Gore have done so much to promote the interests of that glorious People's Democracy and its vibrant leadership, so steeped in democratic traditions and methods.

When US law prevented Clinton from selling AWACS technology to Beijing, Clinton got Israel to transfer know-how. After legal advisors pointed to the risks of gifting midair refuelling technology to Communist China, Billy Boy made sure that Tony Blair acted as the deliveryman. Once Al Gore occupies the White House, it should not be long before the Motherland gets reunified with the return of Taiwan to its bosom.

The hearts of Gore and Clinton may fibrillate at the mere mention of India, but they beat in unison with Pakistan and China, both of whom are collaborating so readily in efforts to reduce the trade in narcotics and to stem proliferation of nuclear weapons.

The message is clear: if India wants to be loved, it should adopt (in its external relations) the methods that Pakistan and China have used to become the favourites of the Clinton administration. This advice is especially relevant were Al Gore to make his way into the Oval Office.

http://www.rediff.com/news/2000/mar/18clint1.htm

What counts, India or ties to a family? (Rediff)

During the last weeks of Sitaram Kesri's stewardship of the Congress party, there was a trickle of individuals heading for the exit. The same phenomenon is today visible in the Sonia Congress, with Meira Kumar being the most prominent of those deciding to quit a party dominated by an ill-educated lady and her children, sisters and mother. Yes, there are pressures on the Mainos, but there are compensations as well. Each week representatives of the Congress chief ministers come to Delhi to meet Ahmed Patel and to deliver "sweets."

However, Sonia and her brood are not the only ones enjoying a plentiful supply of Swiss chocolates. A check of passports will reveal several sons, wives, daughters and relatives of the well-connected ratcheting up frequent flyer miles on visits to Europe and the United States. Home Minister L K Advani has much of the details.

As Advani can find out if only he asked, both the UK as well as desi citizens have extensive networking in Washington, and regularly give several assurances of good conduct on behalf of their friends in India, among whom is that peerless follower of the Eduard Shevardnadze school of diplomacy, Jaswant Singh Rathore.

For years one fact has been well known about Jassu. It is that each evening, he becomes a high-spirited joy to his friends, the very heart of any get-together. Indeed, talk has it that the ISI planned the Indian Airlines hijack in the evening because it knew that Uncle Atal would entrust the resolution of the problem to kindred soul Jassu, who in the evenings is in a particularly generous mood and thus can be expected to take a lenient view of the ISI's pranks.

Which also explains why this evening-transformed soul was so generous towards both Pakistan and the Taleban, and why he insisted on accompanying such rambustious fellows as Masood Azhar to Kandahar. Small wonder that Uncle Atal sees him as the next prime minister of India.

Will India's home minister ask for the dossier on the three businesspersons who contact the prime minister of India so often? Will he check on the phone calls made from and to 5 Race Course Road from London and Geneva? Will he find out just why these favourites of both him as well as the prime minister visit Washington so often, and whom they meet while there? Or will he act as though he were responsible not to the people of India but towards a clutch of influentials?

There is hope, although a fading one, that the real L K Advani will speak out, will act, as his colleague George Fernandes has at last begun to do. Surely, the Indian people have a right to know the identity of the minister who ordered that the hijacked IA aircraft be allowed to leave Amritsar without attempting to keep it on Indian soil. Surely, we have a right to know the identity of the diplomat in a key western capital who advised that a surrender be effected and that three terrorists be released, and who recommended that such a view be accepted.

Should these facts be hidden now, they will come out later after the Vajpayee government goes. There are too many records of the verbal and other messages for the details to get buried.

True, looking at India's kept press, it would be logical for wrongdoers to assume that their errors can forever be kept hidden. Just as they howled in chorus during the time when Bill Clinton imposed sanctions on India, echoing the US chorus that these measures would "melt down" the Indian economy, today the Washington establishment has succeeded in making its numerous friends in the Indian media come out with lengthy reports on why it would in fact be desirable for Billy Boy to visits Islamabad as well.

The truth is that if Bill Clinton makes a stopover in Pakistan, he should be treated as unwelcome in India. You can either be a friend of democracy or a supporter of dictatorship. It is not possible to be both. Those who chorus about the "inevitability" of talking to Musharraf do a disservice to the people of Pakistan, who are still largely untainted by the fundamentalism unleashed by the narcotics mafia. Only by publicly snubbing Musharraf can such democratic forces get strengthened in Pakistan, and only if they do, can there be peace between the two cousins.

It is astonishing to read Brajesh Mishra's picked members of the National Security Council write about how a stable Pakistan (of course, under the current gang of thugs) is "essential to Indian interests". In the first place, a stable Pakistan is just not possible unless the current dispensation gets radically altered. In the second place, only a stable moderate Pakistan is in India's interests. If that country remains in the grip of the crazies, it would be better for Indian interests for it to fragment into a medley of states, including Seraikistan.

Given current trends, such a process is likely to pick up speed within five years. In such a process, New Delhi needs to be on the side of the disadvantaged in Pakistan, namely the women, minorities, Seraikis, Shias, Sindhis, Mohajhirs, Pashtuns and Baluchis. The peoples of Pakistan need help to resist the oppression of the narcotics mafia. They do not deserve to be ignored or to face the spectacle of the world coddling dictators just as Hitler and Mussolini were indulged during the 1930s.

There is also need to pay attention to Afghanistan. A proud race has been subjugated by Sunni Punjabis. The ISI now controls Afghanistan, making slaves of the once-proud Pashtuns. If the Taleban cannot escape from its present fate of being a servant of the Sunni Punjabis, then it deserves defeat at the hands of its foes.

Time is running out for Vajpayee. It may also be running out for the BJP unless its leaders realise that duty to the nation is more important than blind faith in a "supreme leader", now matter how charming and bountiful. Why is it that only George Fernandes has to battle against efforts at scuttling the nuclear and missile deterrent? Why does Advani allow Jaswant Singh to mortgage Indian security by demanding that India sign the CTBT under the humiliating conditions offered by Clinton?

The nation was fooled on Kargil. It opened its eyes at Kandahar. It will not forgive a third betrayal by the tired old men who rule over its destinies. This will come when Clinton insinuates himself and his country into the Kashmir cauldron in a month, thanks to the surprising welcome this enemy of Indian interests is being given by a Vajpayee government that talked of "zero tolerance" to the same terrorism to which it succumbed at Kandahar.

http://www.rediff.com/news/2000/feb/17monu.htm

Brajesh and Jassu repeat their Kargil triumph! (Rediff)

Ever since Kargil, this columnist has been critical of the activities of Brajesh Mishra and Jaswant Singh, two amateurs who have been given control over both national security and foreign policy by the BJP's absolute leader, Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Several scrollers reacted angrily to such views, convinced that they represented a "hidden" Congress agenda. After the surrender of three terrorists in Kandahar, hopefully at least a few of such critics will realise the truth of the charge against the national security advisor and the external affairs minister, that they have acted in a manner that weakens India's response to terror and have made the country behave in a servile manner when confronted with overseas threats.

There will be more instances to demonstrate the harm being done to Indian interests by Vajpayee's loving indulgence to this deadly duo.

It is not that either can truly be blamed. Jaswant Singh Rathore had zero foreign policy experience when given this sensitive portfolio in 1998, if one excludes periodic contacts with backpackers roaming across Rajasthan. Newspaper columns and bookshops can be scoured uselessly for decades without coming across traces of Jassu's views on foreign policy during his initial decades in public life. And yet, it is to such a man that the external affairs portfolio was given.

As for Brajesh Mishra, if he has had any exposure to security issues, it is only by going through the security checks at airports all over the world, in the course of his travels.

It is to such neophytes that the very keys of the country's safety were handed over. Atal's health and habits being what they are, in effect this pair runs his administration. Both have taken care to exclude any other individual from the matrix. Today, whether it is nuclear policy or trade, it is Jassu's team and not the armed forces or the commerce ministry that formulates and conducts policy, thanks to Jassu's control over half the prime minister's mind.

The owner of the other half, Brajesh Mishra, has fashioned a system in which ministers are reduced to ciphers, with departmental secretaries directly reporting to him and taking decisions on the basis of such consultations. That such decisions are often delayed -- and flawed when they are made -- does not seem to worry dear Brajesh or his nominal boss, who gives sound bites that he will not compromise with terrorists the very day in which Jassu takes off for Kandahar with his newfound pals, the three ISI operatives released by benevolent Uncle Vajpayee.

It is only in India that the perpetrator of an offence is himself the judge. Uncle says that there will be an enquiry into the "entire" hijack episode. Who will conduct the interview? Brajesh and Jassu. Whom will they investigate? Brajesh and Jassu. Certainly a unique definition of accountability.

The doctors at Sloan-Kettering have not yet released their findings about Uncle, but the prognosis cannot be excellent, judging by the sprouting of efforts to ensure that Jaswant Singh Rathore gets anointed as the successor to Uncle Vajpayee, a transfer that will have the same consequences for the Union of India that the nomination of Mikhail Gorbachev had or the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Uncle's men hope that the external affairs minister will edge out the ever-faithful, ever-silent Lal Kishen Advani from the BJP's prime ministerial sweepstakes, when the time comes.

If Vajpayee is Rama, Advani is Lakshman, always content to follow in the footsteps of his all-powerful elder. During the hijack crisis, if those close to Uncle are to be believed, the home minister maintained a glum silence, even in Cabinet. He allowed the steering wheel to pass from his hands to those of Brajesh and Jaswant. Rather than these two, it was the Union home minister who should have acted as the pointperson for the government on the hijacking. Instead, he was reduced to the status of a bystander.

By his silence, by his dittoing of all that Vajpayee's two favourites do, the Union home minister may make the mistake of becoming unelectable thanks to a total identification with the Vajpayee court. Any boy of twelve can raise his hands on every cue, if that is all that is needed. The many who respect Advani expect him to do a little more, to use his own mind rather than rely solely on the two power-of-attorney holders of Atal. They expect him to balance the reckless disregard of national interests seen most lately in the hijack episode with his own track record of advocacy of rational policies. If he does not do this much, Advani does not deserve even the office he now holds.

Apart from the geriatric reaction time of the "Crisis Management Group" to the hijack, and the babu-like attitude of the National Security Guard, which were went aloft only after the ISI agents had taken off towards Lahore, there is a significant point which -- naturally -- has been missed by a media well cared-for by Jassu and Brajesh. This is the entire approach of the Vajpayee government to the hijacking. From the time when the tired old men who run this government got (what was left of) their wits about them, the CMG's approach has been that India is a state with near-zero ability to protect its interests, except for plaintive appeals to more powerful countries. Such a stance has made India look like the Maldives.

Just as (then US assistant secretary of state) Robin Raphel signed the death warrant for the five Al-Faran hostages some years ago by publicly exonerating Pakistan of any role in the affairs, the Vajpayee team ensured success for the ISI by praising the two countries that organisation controls, Pakistan and Afghanistan. On the other hand, had New Delhi declared the culpability of both from day one, and warned of "serious consequences" to both were the hostages to be harmed, pressure would have mounted on the hijackers from their Pakistani masters. Instead, by doling out good-conduct certificates to Kabul and Islamabad, the Vajpayee team gave the ISI confidence that its perfidy could be hidden, thus shoring up its resolve.

Instead of this suicidal credulity, New Delhi should have put the focus -- and the onus for safety --squarely on Musharraf and his Taleban slaves. It should have put its forces on the western borders on alert and begun exercises. The Line of Control ought to have been activated through artillery barrages against ISI camps in PoK. Without such a holistic strategy, Indian efforts were doomed after the aircraft was allowed to take off from Amritsar and the UAE authorities made it depart from the al-Minhad air base. After that, the hijackers were on home soil, and only a policy that targetted their masters would have been effective. Not only was this not done, Jassu actually lauded the ISI's team.

Kargil has come back to haunt India, just as predicted. Then, the Pakistanis were given the bonus of India voluntarily refusing action except along the 143 kilometre stretch of territory across which the infiltration took place. This time, by tactically treating the hijacking as the work of isolated thugs rather than as part of the strategy of a sovereign state, the Vajpayee team refused to take those steps that were needed to make Pakistan realise that this time, India would make it pay.

The very "avoiding of broader tensions" that the pro-ISI Clinton administration praised the Vajpayee team for became the coffin of Rupin Katyal and the Advani policy towards foreign militancy in Kashmir. How long before Atal realises the harm that his two power-of-attorney holders are doing to the BJP, the party that has laid itself at his feet? How long before he realises that Bill Clinton will praise him only when he sells out Indian interests, and not when he defends them?

Of course, Clinton has been seeing a lot to praise recently. Now the ISI's favourite American is slavering at the mouth, waiting for India to deliver the promise made by Jassu in an article for a US journal, that India would sign the CTBT as a "gesture of goodwill" towards an administration that is implacably hostile to its interests. Poor Vajpayee does not realise that a signature on CTBT in these conditions would further damage not just Indian interests but those of the BJP.

How long can Atal depend on the Sonia factor to see him through? True, the AICC president is the best ally the BJP can have, forcing millions of Indian voters who otherwise would have supported Congress to go the saffron way. True, her incompetence has made it possible for Vajpayee to escape 90 per cent of the odium for Kargil and 70 per cent of that for Kathmandu. However, should the Congress fare disastrously in the February state election, it is likely that even Congresspersons may realise just how big a liability Sonia Maino is, and dump her.

Should that happen, the clock will begin ticking for Vajpayee, as his coalition partners are furious at the way in which the PMO is riding herd over them. Brajesh believes that he is in a Nehru Family regime, where ministers are mere clerks. This makes him bypass them and deal directly with officials, creating tensions that could soon explode, exactly as the AIADMK did just a year ago.

In his Lakshman avatar, Advani is no check at all to such misdirected policies. As for Kushabhau Thakre, his is the case of a good man lost in big-city alleys. The BJP president is evidently one with the rest of his flock in being too terrified to speak out against the boss, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, even to the extent of requesting the master to please find better power-of-attorney holders than Jassu and Brajesh.

The joke in Washington is that the Indian foreign minister is available on the phone to any janitor in the state department who does time pass by calling him. As for Brajesh, Clinton's contempt for his minion got manifested in a recent White House visit, when he was made to wait for 40 minutes before being allowed to see a sub-Cabinet official. Naturally, the ever-faithful Brajesh pocketed the snub meekly.

In 1999, the BJP lost vote share despite Sonia, despite the propaganda victory at Kargil. A year more of Jassu and Brajesh, and they will sink to current UP levels nationwide. The two paralysed faithfuls, Advani and Thakre, better start praying that someone will wake Atal up before this. They, clearly, are unable to.

http://www.rediff.com/news/2000/jan/21monu.htm

To Become Global, Act Global (Rediff)

At long last, Atal appears to be realising that his hand-picked foreign minister's unvarying advocacy of the Washington line may not be in India's best interests. Rather late, but better by far than never. Vajpayee has publicly acknowledged that Bill Clinton is fixated on Islamabad, even when the men in uniform illegally throw out a democratic government. These comments were made on the very day that Jaswant Singh had traveled halfway around the world to get a few hours time with a junior US official, Strobe Talbott, whose close collaboration with the CIA in matters relating to the Soviet Union was no secret to his journalistic colleagues.

After numerous rounds of talks, Washington has -- if anything -- further hardened its stand on India. At every opportunity, as for example to the Turkish parliament, Clinton attacks New Delhi as a threat to peace. Why not petition the Americans to give Jassu the job he is most suited for, that of replacing Dick Celeste as the US ambassador in India? His dear friend Brajesh can move on to Washington and together, the two can complete the job that so many in the past -- ranging from Laxmi Kant Jha to Amar Nath Verma -- tried to do, making India a full foreign policy colony of the US, just as the UK, Australia and Japan are.

Jassu loves going to places where he can meet state department officials, which is why it is surprising that he has found so little time for the Gulf region, a destination swarming with official US visitors. In economic policy the Nehru family stunted India and set it back by 50 years. However, in foreign policy even Rajiv Gandhi devoted considerable attention to this region so crucial for India as both an employer of labour as well as a source for hydrocarbons.

After the Rajiv defeat in 1989, New Delhi has neglected the Gulf. In exchange, India is slowly being forgotten in a region where not long ago the rupee was acceptable tender. Indeed, till the 1960s it was the preferred medium of exchange in countries such as Kuwait. Today, if there is any coherent strategy for fusing India's technological prowess with Gulf capital, Jaswant Singh has kept it a secret. Small wonder that even in nations such as Syria, where a moderate social ethos prevails, even Indian films are slowly becoming rarer. The world's largest democracy figures less in the external calculus of Damascus than even Yemen.

A pity. With the speeding up of the Arab Free Trade Zone, it would be beneficial for Indian companies to locate plants in Syria that could market goods throughout the Gulf region. Today, the US and the EU have virtually monopolised the Arab market. This can change in a decade, if the Government of India were to help companies to get reasonable terms from the Syrians. Not difficult, considering the huge reserves of goodwill present in the country for India, another country seen as pursuing a foreign policy that is 'independent' of the Sole superpower. Clearly, Damascus has not heard of Jassu yet!

This has been said before, but it bears repeating: the talent pool available in the Indian Foreign Service is among the world's best. However, the critical spark is missing, and this is political leadership. Like them or hate them, the Nehru-Krishna Menon team had a clear foreign policy and followed it. Today, 'strategy' is in preparing the menus for state banquets, and in worrying about what dress to wear in the forty-seventh meeting with 'my dear friend Strobe.'

That Talbott and Jassu are 'dear' friends has been revealed to all his minions -- and repeatedly so -- by the Indian foreign minister himself. Just how dear this friendship is becoming to Indian interests is becoming more apparent by the day, as Washington once again pressurises India to help its enemies (the Pakistan army) to gain the strength needed to wreak further harm on local interests.

It would be interesting to compile the 'confidence building measures' that India agreed to under Clinton's pressure, despite a total absence of reciprocity from the Pakistan side. It would not be difficult to calculate the harm done to Indian interests by these one-sided gestures, as for example the spurt in terrorist infiltration after New Delhi thinned frontier posts in the Jammu region in 1993, again as a CBM. And yet, even today there is a pathetic belief that Bill Clinton will end his love for the Pakistani generals, a feeling clearly shared by the most likely candidate to succeed him, George Bush Jr, who believes in the 'stability' of the grave and has welcomed the murder of a democratic government in Pakistan.

Those friends of India in the US who are rushing to fund his campaign need to educate the Texas governor about US history, and how he is insulting the faith of his great republic by conniving at the butchery of democracy in one of the world's most populous countries.

Fortunately, in yet another show of independence from Jassu's 'Follow Clinton' line, Prime Minister Vajpayee has correctly refused to join Washington in singing hosannas for Pervez Musharraf, whose links to the Afghan drug cartels are presumably known even to the CIA. He has insisted on the restoration of democracy in Pakistan, ignoring the chorus of voices who urge a 'business as usual' policy. Hopefully, he will move further along the track of encouraging democracy in Pakistan, aware that only a fully federal, moderate and narcotics-cleansed Pakistan can accept a policy of peace with India.

New Delhi needs to give active support to forces in Pakistan fighting against the military jackboot that has for so long treated Pakistanis not in uniform with contempt. Women, Shias, Mohajirs, Ahmediyas, Hindus, Christians, Balochis, Pashtuns, Seraikis and Sindhis are second-class citizens in that state, and only when they win equality will a climate get formed against the drain of resources towards terrorism and its partner in Pakistan, militarism.

Either the CIA is sleeping on the job, or Bill Clinton does not read its reports. Otherwise, he would have realised that it is the Pakistan army that is protecting Osama bin Laden, for fear that the canary will sing about the opium trade once he falls into US custody. Expect the fugitive onetime ally of the generals to wind up either shot 'accidentally' or suffering a heart attack. He knows too much about the heroin industry and its linkages to the Pakistan elite to be kept alive.

However, seeing the pro-uniformed stand of the US, the generals need not get worried about a change in the US policy of pretending that Pakistan has no control over its servants, the Taliban, whose heroin-related activities bring in so much lucre to the generals. They can, it is clear, rely on Dictator Lover George W Bush to protect their operations as surely as they have on Bill Clinton and Al Gore.

Perhaps in this second innings, Atal Bihari Vajpayee will break free of his hand-picked advisors and set the course for a rational and principled foreign policy that promotes both Indian values and interests. This means a degree of activism in critical regions, even though Jassu's friends may not appreciate this. For example, New Delhi can help Kuwait and Iraq negotiate an end to the issue of the remaining PoWs, that is bedevilling ties between two Arab states and forcing Kuwait to oppose the lifting of sanctions against Iraq.

India can also act as a link between Syria and Israel, as the two adversaries circle one another in an attempt to fashion a peace. New Delhi has diplomatic -- and friendly -- ties with both Tel Aviv and Damascus. Prime Minister Vajpayee can nominate a special envoy who can visit Damascus, Tel Aviv and other capitals and help in the search for peace.

In the past, India saw its responsibilities globally. For example, New Delhi backed the ANC and the PLO at a time when few countries did. It is another matter that Yasser Arafat dumped India and adopted Clinton's anti-India line on Kashmir as soon as the Americans took him on board. Do the right thing, not for gain, but because it is right, says the Gita, which has yet to be included in school curricula in India, because Jawaharlal Nehru (or Lady Mountbatten, it doesn't matter whom) thought it a 'Hindu' rather than an Indian text. In fact, the Gita and the Mahabharata belong to all Indians, of whatever faith.

Only the local 'Hindu' Taliban will oppose M F Husain, for example, drawing on his -- I repeat the word 'his' -- ancient heritage in painting, just as the 'liberal' Taliban oppose the teaching of the Gita and the Mahabharata in Indian schools, preferring the European classics so dear to the Nehrus.

Why this inferiority complex, Atal, that makes us preen when the Indian foreign minister eagerly goes halfway around the world to get lectured by a junior US official? That prevents us from injecting ourselves in regional diplomacy? India is an ally of the democracies, even though the subliminal racists among them may not quite see it that way. The closer the linkages between New Delhi and the Gulf states, the stronger the gravitational pull of moderation rather than the extremism financed by Saudi Arabia, given trained foot soldiers by Pakistan and implemented in Afghanistan.

Contrary to what the 'Hindu' Taliban believes, by and large the Muslim-majority states are free of extremism. Even in the Sheikdoms, it is only in Saudi Arabia that the women are in chains. In both Kuwait and the UAE, Arab women are getting education and equal opportunity. In Kuwait the Emir has come out in favour of universal suffrage, even though fanatics are seeking to prevent ratification of the Royal decree.

Across the border, in Riyadh, Arab women are mobilising in favour of equal treatment. Universal education and employment for women will be the best antidote against Pakistan-style fanaticism, which says that Muslims should live separately from the rest of the community to 'maintain their purity'.

In this process, India can export teachers and even turnkey educational institutions. It is unfortunate that modern education in India has been shackled by restrictions that prevent the development of world-class facilities that are self-financing. If educationists are permitted to open medical, engineering and technical colleges that finance themselves by stiff fees changed to international students (fees that are much lower than the US or Australia), then billions of dollars can be earned each year. Sadly, policy has thus far worked in the reverse direction, stopping such enrollment or limiting it to unviable levels. HRD Minister MM Joshi needs to change such a mindset.

If India is an eagle, the head reaches into the CIS states that were formerly part of the USSR, and one wing touches the Gulf, with the other spanning the ASEAN states. A leg abuts into the south of Africa, while the other touches Australia. The core is, of course, the SAARC region, with Myanmar and Afghanistan as future members of this group. The only recalcitrant is Pakistan, with its Lahore fanatics now hiding behind a Mohajir mask.

Should that country not make peace with India, it is likely to splinter, as the non-fanatic provinces decide that it is better to break away rather than be sacrificed on the altar of a war mandated by the narcotics mafia, which needs to cloak itself in religious hues to escape public attention and odium. After that, the broken-away provinces can -- as did Bangladesh -- establish ties with India.

Prem Shankar Jha is a genius but even he can be sometimes wrong, as he was on the impact of US sanctions and now when he writes of the 'catastrophe' facing India if Pakistan 'fails'. Pakistan has already failed. It would be better for both its tortured people as well as the region if this fact were accepted, and bridges built 1970 and 1986-style with those within that territory that are working to create zones of freedom and moderation from the ruins of fanaticism. Atal Bihari Vajpayee appears slowly to be moving away from the Jaswant Singhs in accepting this reality, and for this he deserves praise. Now, Atal, give us an Indian foreign minister! 

http://www.rediff.com/news/1999/nov/24monu.htm

Nationalism 'Sonia-Vajpayee-Atal-Maino' style (Rediff)

Tax records in Spain and Italy document the sudden increase in the wealth of three families, the Valdemoros, the Vincis and the Mainos. Sadly, both Walter Vinci and Jose Valdemoro decided that they needed new wives more in sync with their rise in status, and freed themselves from dear Nadia and Annouschka, sisters of Sonia Maino, the Hope of India's Millions.

Today, all three reside happily in the cramped 12,000 square feet living quarters provided for them by the Government of India. In view of the family's services in bringing to India oil pipelines, fertiliser factories and other goodies via dear, dear Maria and Ottavio, Sonia and her relatives enjoy cars, telephones and other services paid for by the affluent country that they have made their own. Uncle Atal has wisely decided not to inform the Indian taxpayers just how much is being spent on the Mainos by the taxpayer. After all, a clamour may go up that the money spent is insufficient!

How lucky that Uncle Atal -- so dear a friend of Uncle Gopi and Uncle Shri back home in London -- is around. He has ensured that Gopi Arora, who knows more about Bofors than any other living being, has not been disturbed by chargesheets or enquiries. And unless Arora is made to turn approver, by tempting him with the prospect of a year as a State guest, there is zero chance that actual convictions will ensue in the Bofors case.

After spreading canards that President Narayanan was ''shielding'' the guilty in the gun deal by ''refusing'' sanction to prosecute, it transpires that it is Uncle Atal who is shielding Gopi Arora from confessing. Who cares that these flawed and inadequate chargesheets will not hold water in court?

However, just as a Swedish radio station broke the veil on Bofors, who knows what other accidents may not take place to disrupt the plans to ensure that the guilty of Bofors escape? Armaments deals are a source of several political, bureaucratic and (now) service fortunes, and none of these worthies would like to see a precedent get set of accountability. As General Malik's purchase-filled sojourn in South Africa demonstrates, deals of the Bofors genre are getting done every week at a defence headquarters cleared of those who ask inconvenient questions.

The example of Admiral Bhagwat is there to scare away any officer from making enquiries into the quality of the equipment ordered from dubious foreign and domestic sources. So long as George Fernandes does not make the process of selection transparent and professional, a few bigwigs will be able to rig the orders, just as they have been doing for decades. As an admirer of George -- who follows his convictions with courage even if most of them are wrong! -- this columnist is disappointed at the defence minister's reluctance to make the changes in the functioning of his ministry that are essential for the future. Hopefully this 'Don't rock the boat' attitude will get replaced by traditional Fernandes activism.

A dear friend of many VVIPs in Delhi -- Mian Nawaz Sharief -- is now in ''protective custody'' in Pakistan. There is no need for worthies on this side of the border to worry that details of the many sweetheart deals entered into between Mian Saheb and his friends in India will get exposed by the Pakistan army.

Bill Clinton will ensure that the generals in Pakistan obey his order to avoid embarrassing friends of his in both Islamabad and New Delhi with revelations of the sugar and other deals. There have been rumours swirling around that Mian Saheb financed at least two political leaders in India during the 1998 election, calculating that they would return to power.

As with other Sharief hypotheses, neither of the two got Cabinet posts after the election, thanks to the 1998 arithmetic differing from 1996. If Pervez Musharraf were to reveal details of such transactions, he would be doing a service to the subcontinent. However, as the general is as tightly controlled by Washington as he himself controls the Taliban, such transparency is unlikely.

Uncle Atal's handpicked foreign policy team -- closet Nehruvians to a man -- are feeling queasy at the collapse of the pretence that their skills have led to the United States accepting India's position, while in fact what has happened is that they have made New Delhi a US satellite in matters of foreign policy. After all the compromises, Washington continues to strain at the leash in its eagerness to shower Pakistan with armaments. New Delhi is being told for the four hundredth time -- to chop off its arm so as to strengthen Pakistan to make fresh attacks.

It is American arms and assistance that emboldened Islamabad to be so intransigent against the world's largest democracy, a fact that the Clinton administration does not want to acknowledge, met as they are by fawning Indian interlocuters eager to genuflect. Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh -- for example -- is in a tizzy of delight at being favoured with talks by Strobe Talbott, a junior official. Would Hubert Vedrine of France, Robin Cook of Britain or Joscka Fisher of Germany tolerate a series of meetings with anyone other than their US counterpart, Madeleine Albright, herself?

It takes a slave's mind and vision to actually feel honoured that a junior officer is deigning to meet with the external affairs minister of the world's largest democracy, or that Karl Inderfurth (who has the status of a joint secretary) spent time with India's Principal Secretary to the PM-cum-National Security Advisor Brajesh Mishra, who went scurrying off to the US just after the poll.

Every now and then there are howls from Secular Fundamentalists about the ''vice-like grip'' of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh over the Vajpayee government. The unrestrained ability of the Brajesh-Jaswant duo to replace a Union of Soviet Socialist Republic-satellite foreign policy with a US-satellite one indicates that the RSS has less influence over Vajpayee than even his domestic staff.

Under this team, India has effectively conceded Pakistan occupied Kashmir to Pakistan (sans any concession in return), secretly slowed down its missile and nuclear weapons programme, instituted a policy of confining a riposte to Pakistani adventurism to the Line of Control rather than meeting it all along the border with that rogue state, and concentrating 90 per cent of the ministry of external affairs's attention on ways of coddling the most anti-Indian US president since Richard Nixon, a man moreover who is a lame duck in his own country, unable to get his way on major issues.

It is nauseating to watch the Vajpayee team beg Clinton to visit India, often on television, as Jaswant Singh so frequently does, talking of the ''president's visit'' without any qualifying words indicating that he means the head of another country, not his own. For the pleasure of watching Bubba gorge himself on tandoori cooking, it would be interesting to note the concessions that the Mishra-Jaswant duo have agreed to, especially on security-related issues.

Clinton's fondness for the jehadis has once again become clear from his support to Chechen insurgents in Russia. Washington wants the territory to become free, East Timor style, to encourage friends such as the Musharrafs. This is why it is so anxious to halt the Russian army from finishing off the illegal Chechen state.

In India, Bill Clinton has ensured that his diplomats in Delhi routinely encourage agents of Islamabad such as the Hurriyat Conference in their task of vivisecting India. The Hurriyat few are always given a sympathetic hearing by the Clinton team, whether in Srinagar, Delhi or Washington.

Today, the cacophony of voices in the White House demanding more pressure on India to destroy itself to satiate the bloodlust of the generals is becoming deafening, and is getting reflected in the fact that Pakistan continues to get World Bank and International Monetary Fund loans while Indian requests are being blocked. Clinton's attempt at derailing the Indian economy and sabotaging its defenses are being met by further begging by New Delhi for Bubba to visit India and kick it around some more.

Some nationalism!

http://www.rediff.com/news/1999/nov/01monu.htm

Below 150, Sonia finis. Below 200, Vajpayee falls again (Rediff)

Below 150, Sonia finis. Below 200, Vajpayee falls again 

India is the land of the Sorcars -- those masters of magic -- and it is therefore no surprise that there is usually a huge gap between the two. Take the case of two BJP ministers, Jaswant Singh and Yashwant Sinha. While one is widely perceived to be a success, the other mediocre. Under Singh, who has apparently been content to follow the Prime Minister's Office's directions on foreign policy, India has substantially diluted its stand on Kashmir and the nuclear issue, in exchange for words of praise from the US and the EU.

Both Jaswant and the real master of the MEA, Brajesh Mishra, preen at every certificate issued by Washington, London and other capitals, in the manner of schoolboys getting a pat on the head from the schoolmaster. No cost-benefit has been done of the substantive impact of such "gains" on the 970 million citizens of India, the only gauge that counts.

Yes, there has been much patting on the head. However, the prohibition on World Bank and other multilateral loans to India remains in effect, even while Pakistan is busy negotiating fresh tranches of assistance on very soft terms. Both the US and its primary satellite, the UK, have complimented Nawaz Sharief essentially for bowing to the inevitable. The Great Jihadi had no option but to clutch at the face-saver provided by his army. Thanks to the Washington summit, both India and the US have lost.

The jihadi forces in Pakistan now believe that a victorious army was made to reverse course under pressure. Had it been conclusively demonstrated that Musharraf's men had been whipped, the affection for them in the populace may have declined, thus making it easier to cut the defence budget to levels that can save Pakistan from economic collapse. More people would have realised the futility of fighting a neighbour that -- despite its politicians -- is getting more powerful by the day. Instead, the illusion that the druggie-kookies can take on the professional and multicultural Indian forces is still alive, courtesy Clinton.

The US too has lost by its obsessive desire to insinuate itself into any conflict. More people in Pakistan now believe in the "stab in the back" theory that holds that Kashmir would have been Pakistan's by now but for the Jehadi prime minister knuckling under pressure and pulling back forces who were (according to this view, one heavily propagated in Pakistan's Urdu press) scattering the racially-inferior Indians. This lends further impetus to the already existing tendency in kook circles in Pakistan to target the US as an enemy as horrible as India, and to the purchase of tickets to New York and Chicago to bomb and kill in retaliation for the Clinton-Sharief agreement.

Indeed, a parallel can be drawn with 1917 Germany, where too the armistice (that the German army's comprehensive defeat made inevitable) was passed off by the kooks there as a fraud perpetrated on a winning army by mainly-Jewish politicians. This canard spawned the most evil individual to have been born in the 19th century, Adolf Hitler. Today, the Kargil lie created through Bubba's impulsive intervention will create individuals who in time will pose significant security challenges to the US.

Poor Bubba. It must have been on Madeleine Albright's advice that he accepted the Jehadi's plea to be received on July 4. Albright's appointment is clearly one of the decisions taken by Clinton in those historic moments when Monica Lewinsky was inside the White House. There can be no other explanation for the appointment of an individual so intellectually challenged to a post that is so critical to the future of US interests. The only prominent individual who makes Albright look normal in comparison is Sonia Gandhi, who needs notes even to know when to wave and how to walk.

The venerable president of the Congress should not be faulted for wanting to be prime minister, as ambition is not a crime. Should her party get 200-plus seats, it will be almost a formality that Sonia will get sworn in as the next European from the Nehru family to rule India after Jawahar, Indu and Rajiv. If these three could not destroy India, neither can the bahu who believes a wedding certificate can substitute for any proof of competence or capability.

In case the charms of Sonia-Rahul-Priyanka do not work, and the Congress tally falls significantly below 150, the worst-affected will be the BJP. A weakened Congress will be instantly more attractive to the converts from secularism now within the BJP fold. Within a year of a new Vajpayee government getting sworn in, these elements can be expected to make common cause with Congress leaders, egging them on to dump Sonia and thus fulfil the precondition for a Grand Alliance of the "secular" brigade.

The moves by George Fernandes and Ramakrishna Hegde -- dear friends of many present Congress leaders -- give an indication of this alignment. Unless the BJP crosses 200 seats, its life in government is likely to be as short as the tenure of the 1998 Vajpayee regime. Thus, it is crucial for the BJP not only that it do better than in the previous election, but that Sonia does not collapse as a vote-getter. The best insurance for the longevity of a new Vajpayee regime will be the continuance of Sonia Gandhi as the dictator of the Congress.

But we are digressing from our comparison of Jaswant and Yashwant. The ground reality is that the first has been a disaster, while the second has been an outstanding success.

Despite an unfortunate habit of trying to raise tax rates (as distinct from taxes), and continuously being a prophet of doom rather than of boom, the Union finance minister has done a remarkable job in managing the economy. It is no accident that in the Prime Minister's Office, foreign policy is monopolised by Brajesh Mishra, who leaves economic issues to be tackled by N K Singh.

Had the principal secretary been involved in economic policy, there is little doubt that India would have gone the way of Brazil under Delfim Netto, when each policy was hailed by Washington but led to disaster for the Brazilian people. Finally, the army dictators had to remove the finance minister to stop further riots and economic collapse.

Brajesh Mishra's appointment as his deputy has been the root of most of Vajpayee's political problems, including the break with Jayalalitha that led to his Lok Sabha defeat five months ago.

Unlike the case of the Samata or the Akali ministers, who got away with whatever they wanted, Mishra torpedoed most of the decisions of the AIADMK crew, even as he leaned on Vazhapaddi Ramamurthy or even Ananth Kumar in the case of any decision not previously cleared by Pramod Mahajan.

Mishra made a clear North-South distinction, interfering not at all with the north-based regional parties, but acting the overlord in the case of the southern ones, even the Lok Shakti, where Ramakrishna Hegde has had to struggle hard to have his way in a manner not a problem for the Samata-Akali lot.

If I K Gujral looked only to those born in Pakistan to fill vacancies, Vajpayee seems reluctant to cross the Vindhyas. This is going to create tensions should there be a second round. This time, ministers unfortunate enough to have southern bases are unlikely to accept the hectoring of the principal secretary, who is meek as a lamp before the Samata and the Akali crew.

This writer believes the US is a friend because it is a fellow democracy, and that in time relations between New Delhi and Washington will become very close. However, this does not mean that all the prescriptions of US bureaucrats on Indian foreign, security and economic issues are correct. The "loyalty test" that US bureaucrats inflict on their South Asian intermediaries is to uncritically accept all their nostrums, upon pain of being called a Cold War relic and anti-American to boot.

Like millions of Americans, this writer believes that Clinton is often wrong, especially on policy towards South Asia. This does not dilute the writer's belief that, after India, the US is the best country in the world. Or that India needs to adopt much more of the feisty, transparent style of US legislatures, as well as the ruthless manner in which security interests get defended by Washington.

Looking at the way even big parties get dominated by a single individual or clique, it is to India's advantage that the next Lok Sabha too be a melange of parties. That will prevent a Sonia or a Brajesh autocracy, and hopefully in the process further extend the range of freedoms enjoyed by a people colonised for most of the dying millennium.

http://www.rediff.com/news/1999/aug/07monu.htm 

The soldiers have won the war; will the politicians lose the peace? (Rediff)

A friend in the airline business once revealed that for each airline, the worst service was on the sectors to and from India. The reason? Indians never complain. They accept standards far below that acceptable to citizens of other countries that pay the same fares. Watching the ecstatic reactions about Kargil, one is reminded of this observation.

First, the brilliant diplomacy that saw the entire 'international community' on India's side. In unipolarspeak, 'international community' is shorthand for the United States and its most loyal satellite, the United Kingdom, with the other European Union countries forming the second tier. It is precisely in such a restricted context that Indian spokespersons have these days been using this word.

Thanks partly to inattention by a prime minister's office obsessed with Washington and Brussels, hardly any expressions of support came India's way from Africa, Latin America and Asia. Despite the consequences to themselves if other countries in the region were to adopt the Pakistan policy of disregarding settled borders, our SAARC neighbours were embarrassingly silent. Despite all this, they say, the entire world has supported India.

After Pokhran II as well, lack of timely and effective diplomacy led to the isolation of India in almost all international fora. That did not cost us much, just as the pro forma expressions of support from Washington and Brussels for the Line of Control did not result in a single extra intruder getting evicted. The fact is that it was the Indian army and air force that did the job. Had Tiger Hill and Tololing not fallen, Nawaz Jihadi would not have scurried to Washington for a face-saving bailout, which he got, thanks to an obliging New Delhi. Even after leaving the shores of the country which is the home of much of the wealth of the Jihadi elite, Sharief tried to open fresh fronts in Kargil. Only after all this was repulsed did the white flag go up.

Had New Delhi declined to follow the Brajesh Mishra line of appealing to the United States and the European Union to restrain Pakistan, and instead confined itself to giving information about the Pakistani intrusions, the real heroes of Kargil -- the armed forces of the republic -- would have walked away with the credit, instead of the political plagiarism that saw Bill Clinton claim credit for a withdrawal forced on Islamabad by military disaster. Thanks to this, Washington has now been emboldened to resume its agenda of trying to shore up (a doomed) Pakistan at the cost not of itself but of India.

It is always New Delhi that should make the concessions, turn not just the other but both cheeks. Let it not be forgotten that Jihad-lover Robin Raphel is a close friend of Madeleine Albright, and her advisor on Kashmir. Raphel has never hidden her desire to be the first American viceroy in a Kashmir separate from India.

Thanks to the diplomacy that editorial writers are raving about, New Delhi has effectively given up all its claims to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, in exchange for zilch. In negotiations, the final compromise is arrived at only after bargaining. By effectively giving up its claim to a third of Kashmir, the Vajpayee government has severely eroded India's bargaining position. Today, the same 'international community' that the de facto prime minister is so obsequious to makes no demands on Pakistan over the territory it kept in 1948 thanks to Edwina Mountbatten's (well concealed) charms.

There is no demand that the people there should be given democracy, or that the Punjabi-speaking settlers (including Sharief Jihadi's family) who dominate Pakistan-occupied Kashmir should be sent back and the state revert to the Kashmiri-speaking people. It is only India and the territory that -- despite Nehru -- it controls that faces demands for 'accommodation' with a fanatic state ruled by throwbacks from the Dark Ages.

After having effectively revoked India's rights in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, Brajesh Mishra has conceded American meditation in Kashmir. A rape is a rape, even if the assaulter keeps repeating that there is no assault. In the same way, just saying that intervention is not mediation does not dilute the fact that the United States has become the apex of an India-Pakistan triangle on Kashmir, with New Delhi entreating Clinton to see that Sharief kept the agreement he had with Washington.

Talking first to one and then the other, and then reconciling the differences, is very much mediation, just as much as allowing the intrusion to take place is a lapse that should have seen the resignations of the national security advisor and the army chief. However, both are likely to get promoted, just as Research & Analysis Wing chief Arvind Dave got a governorship for failing to detect the Pakistan gameplan.

Fortunately for Vajpayee, he has Sonia Gandhi as the Opposition leader, and she, poor thing, is at sea with anything a little more complicated than the eating of pasta. Cooking it is, of course, a bit beyond her.

If Jaswant Singh wanted to rescue India from the full effects of the Mishra disaster, he should have politely told Albright at Singapore that Kashmir is a matter between India and Pakistan, Thank you, and why not move on to other matters, such as the narcotics trade?

After the experience of 1948, 1965 and 1971, It would be criminal to adopt a soft political posture towards the terror machine that calls itself the Pakistan army. In Kargil, the troops that went across the Line of Control were almost entirely from the northern areas of Kashmir that have been illegally annexed by Islamabad. However, they were commanded only by Punjabi officers, as the rest of the Pakistani population are considered second-class citizens.

In the case of the Taliban Afghans, the position is even worse. These once-proud Pasthuns are slaves of the Punjabis, and follow orders blindly. This was the fate that was in store for the people of Kashmir that Lady Mountbatten allowed Nehru to retain in 1948.

Sadly, India never speaks about the atrocities committed by Islamabad on what are in fact its own citizens across the border of that vivisected state. It should demand the withdrawal of all Punjabi-speaking migrants from PoK and the granting of democratic rights there, including the freedom to escape from the slavery imposed on them by the Lahore Mafia.

If Pakistan is sincere in its support for self-determination for Kashmiris, it should first grant that right to the Kashmiri-speaking populations it controls (and by this does not mean the Hurriyat Conference and other Taliban-like slaves of Lahore). Thanks to repeated American commands for 'restraint', New Delhi has been extremely loathe to highlight the abuses in PoK and indeed in Pakistan itself. Such silence needs to end.

The school that favours bleeding the world's largest democracy to attempt to save a rogue state from the consequences of its own actions favour substantial Indian concessions to 'help create a stable and prosperous Pakistan, which is in India's interest'. The fact is Pakistan is beyond cure, and it will do no good to international stability for India to fall a victim to the same curse by tolerating ISI-inspired bleeding. Rather, a firm response needs to get fashioned to Pakistan's other war against India, the covert operations front. The response to this too has to be massive.

It was then prime minister Morarji Desai and then external affairs minister Vajpayee who gutted external operations, especially in Pakistan. With the weakening of both India's will and ability to launch covert operations in Pakistan, there has been a consequent increase in Islamabad's backing for terrorism in India. This little-league correspondent has himself been the recipient of threats, as have many others who have refused to follow the fashionable line of forgiving the Lahore transgressions.

India must provide substantial moral and material support to the forces in Pakistan who are seeking to end their subjugation to the Lahore Mafia. There is need for another movement for the restoration of democracy in Pakistan, so that the Sindhis, Mohajirs, minorities, Seraikis, Baluchis and Pashtuns are given rights and representation on par with the Lahore ruling class. Only a democratised Pakistan freed of the mafia will live in peace with its giant eastern neighbour. Help needs to be funnelled to enable this vision to get actualised, just as the passing of the Zia era was.

In Afghanistan as well, as the forces fighting against the slaves of Lahore need to be given help to resist. A rupee spent in Afghanistan means at least five rupees saved in fighting the Taliban slaves as they come over to India after winning control of Afghanistan for their brutal masters. Pakistan has to be sucked into a quagmire in Afghanistan, just as the Russians were in the 1980s.

That -- and Oxygen to the democratic movement at home -- will divert them from their vicious war against the world's largest democracy. Any reticence on New Delhi's part to respond vigorously to the Pakistan-sponsored insurgency will lead to an expansion. Only hitting at the roots can snuff out the disease. India needs to borrow American responses, not adopt American advice that is based on a Cold War perception of the subcontinent.

India's soldiers have once again won the war. Now, once again, will the politicians lose the peace?

http://www.rediff.com/news/1999/jul/31monu.htm

No business as usual, please (Rediff)

If India has retained control of the Kashmir valley, the credit for that should go to Pakistan. In 1992-93, eager to bring the insurgency to a swift and victorious conclusion that would establish the valley as another breeding ground for the drugs-terror industry, Islamabad began pushing in large numbers of Punjabis and Afghans across the border. Historically, Kashmiris have always had unpleasant associations with these two groups, and it was not long before a reaction set in. In effect, many valley Sunnis who had till then supported Pakistan decided that the Indian kafirs were preferable to Afghans and Punjabis who once again grabbed the best houses and women. Soon, many Sunnis took up arms to fight these intruders, and the tide turned against Pakistan.

All Ajit Kumar, as defence secretary, was interested in was fighting the brass at the service headquarters, not the Pakistani threat. No doubt Brajesh Mishra, a great friend of Ajit Kumar and his charming wife, will ensure a fresh promotion for this officer, who has done much to hurt armed forces morale and preparedness. Just as the Vajpayee government is extra solicitous of the welfare of officers connected to 10, Janpath, so too are officers sabotaging the Indian first agenda.

An example is the effort to ensure that multinational companies can set up shop in the country over the objections of their Indian joint venture partners. In the Gulf, citizens of the GCC countries are given preference in employment, and it is mandatory to have local partners for most enterprises. In India, local business is discriminated against by a government that has, over five decades, ensured erratic water and power supply, poor transport and communications links, and miserable financial and other infrastructure.

The move to bypass Indian joint venture partners totally is part of the Sonia Agenda that the Vajpayee government is so religiously following. Both Brajesh Mishra and Ajit Kumar have been involved in this reversal of policy. For Brajesh, the step will earn him brownie points when he succeeds in getting what he has been angling for, exchanging US envoy Naresh Chandra's job with his own. As Indian ambassador to the US, Brajesh will be able to live closer to his two US-settled children.

Thanks to his efforts at building bridges to 10, Janpath, there is every reason to expect that he will not be disturbed should Sonia Gandhi take over as prime minister after the poll. Truly, planning on a methodical and long-range basis. One that the comments in his old confidential assessments fail to forecast.

While supporters of the Sonia ideology in the Vajpayee government may taste success in their efforts at wiping out much of the Indian corporate sector, their success in denying the armed forces the weapons needed to beat back Pakistan's religious fanatics may soon be over. Night vision goggles, snowshoes, assault rifles, light bullet-proof vests and helmets, laser designators, naphta flares for aircraft and much else that is needed in mountain war was denied to the troops. However, thanks to the public reaction to the Pakistani incursions in Kargil, no longer will it be possible to cripple the armed forces. Clearances will need to be issued, and essential equipment procured without waiting for the thousands of 'scientists' in the state defence labs to reinvent the wheel.

Had the DRDO concentrated on a few core items, it would have had a better record. Instead, it has spread its embrace so wide that the results are dismal. The DRDO needs to focus just on missiles and ultra-sophisticated items, and let private research labs take care of the rest. However, that would mean the retrenchment of hundreds of 'scientists', hence the unwillingness to prioritise defence research and applications.

Whenever bureaucrats wanted to stall the purchase of an essential item, they would get an obliging DRDO official to say that it can be done in-house. Needless to say, such promises are never intended to be kept, and are not. DRDO delays have played havoc with troop preparedness.

Kargil means this is no longer possible, and that the DRDO-will-do-it excuse will no longer wash. Again, thanks are due to Pakistan, just as it is the savage treatment of the captured soldiers that has put steel into the morale of India's airmen and soldiers, who are determined to eliminate such vermin from Indian soil. Clearly, Pakistan needs no RAW help to destroy the country. It is doing an excellent job.

In less than a decade, Pakistan can be expected to become a country of unbearable internal strife, till the Sindhis, Shias, Baluchis, Pathans, Quadianis and Seraikis are given the same right as the Sunni Punjabi ruling class. Only after this shift takes place can India relax her guard and permit such measures as open borders. So long as the present ruling regional-communal elite controls Islamabad, no amount of talks will change their fanatic determination to destroy India piece by piece, beginning with Kashmir.

Which is why it is disconcerting to hear the persistent wail of the Mishra government (poor Atal has little to do with it, thanks to his kidney and prostate problems, as friends of his know only too well) that India will resume talks with Pakistan on all issues including Kashmir just as soon as our troops remove the current infiltrators from Kargil.

No. Brajesh, it can NOT be business as usual.

Such a policy will only encourage fresh aggression by Islamabad, just as the follies of 1948, 1965, 1972 and 1998 have. New Delhi has to make clear that there will be no security dialogue with Pakistan until that country stops its narco-terror operations in India. At the same time, the WTO should be approached to ensure that the arbitrary and illegal restrictions on Indian goods in the Pakistan market get lifted.

Indeed, a veritable trade war needs to be waged against Islamabad. Steps should be taken to bring down the international prices of rice and cotton, so as to deny foreign exchange to that terrorist state. The cost of this will be far cheaper than the insurgency that a financially invigorated Pakistan can unleash. Indian goods should be allowed to flood across the borders without hindrance, if necessary with their origins concealed. Entities in Iran, the Gulf or the Maldives should be located for such trade. Only a ruthless policy designed to harm the interests of the Pakistan ruling class can divert them from their criminal actions. Not feeble bleats that all will revert to normal once the intruders are thrown out.

It is strange that the Vajpayee government has allowed itself to be hijacked by the ideological twins of Sonia Gandhi, so that there is today no difference between the two. This is what comes of not appointing genuinely competent individuals to man PMO posts.

Even today, despite his health, Vajpayee can make amends by replacing those responsible for the Kargil fiasco with others such as T R Satish Chandran or even former Karnataka chief secretary Sankaranarayanan

This columnist is an admirer of Vajpayee, who has done much to ensure that the BJP reconfigures itself to meet the needs of a modern country. Under Atal, the party has shed much of its Taliban image, and has given the minorities a security that they did not enjoy under the Congress. Had his kidney disease not come in the way, there is little doubt that the prime minister would have been able to prevent certain bureaucrats from hijacking and smothering his agenda. Vajpayee needs to go beyond personal likes and appoint a good team at the PMO, which is the fulcrum of the administration. Unless he does so, more disasters are inevitable.

An example of how some elements in the BJP ape the Taliban is provided by the Maharashtra Hindutva fanatics who want to stop women working after 8 pm. If they themselves keep off the streets, women will be safe in Maharashtra, a state with a glorious tradition of chivalry and valour.

Or to take another example, the effort to see that the AIR and DD newsreaders were 'properly covered, including the arms'. Why not hide them under a huge wicker basket? In this way, there is no doubt that no male would be enticed (at the sight of a talking basket), save the odd pervert who gets turned on by wicker, and who can be identified by hundreds of thousands of Saudi-style Moral Police, who peep through windows (curtains would, of course, be banned) to see whether anyone is getting frenetic when the news is on the air.

Such Taliban-style thinking by the spiritual cousins of the Lahore fanatics on India will truly lead to this country becoming a basket case. It was a breath of fresh air to see a photo of young Ms Advani -- in jeans. Only a tolerant society deserves to be known as a Sanatanist one.

Rather than become a clone of the Sonia set, the Vajpayee team needs to ensure that credible deterrents are put in place against Pakistani adventurism. The cost to Islamabad should be severe, else we will continue to firefight while the pyromaniacs roam free. The Indian navy should as part of this strategy intercept North Korean vessels on the high seas to ensure that they are not carrying missile parts to Pakistan. A Vishnu Bhagwat, and not an Ajit Kumar strategy, needs to be followed against the drugs-terror mafia before they convert India into another Pakistan.

The Sonia ideology champions within the Mishra government say that Nawaz Sharief is distinct from troublemakers, and that the poor fellow needs to be given help. Perhaps Sharief's legendary hospitality to Indians in transit to London or the Gulf has something to do with this wail. There was speculation that the chief of Pakistan's army, Pervez Musharraf, is a Sharief man, which was why this mediocrity replaced Jehangir Karamat. The fact is that Karamat was given marching orders because he tired to clear up his troops from contact with narcotics cartels. The obedient Nawaz meekly agreed to this, as he did to Kargil

Talks with such a group are doomed to disappointment. What is needed is to reciprocate evil with good. Specifically, the giving of moral and material support to the oppressed people in Pakistan. They should get the wherewithal to fight the domination of the Lahore mafia, and to campaign to make Pakistan a genuinely federal state. In the same way, the Taliban should be punished for acting as the servants of the Lahore mafia by helping genuine Pashtun patriots in Afghanistan and Pakistan to win the right of self-determination, together with Seraikis, Baluchis and Sindhis. The proud Pashtuns, in particular, have been cruelly colonised by the Lahore mafia, which is using them as human fodder in their adventures against India.

In 1948, 1965, 1972 and 1998 Pakistan was given the benefit of the doubt. It was assumed to be a civilised country, a rational one. This it will be only after the innocent people of that unhappy land are given human rights and freedoms. It is time for a jihad to liberate them from slavery to the narco-terror mafia. Should Vajpayee continue to follow a Sonia policy towards Pakistan, he will betray the voters who saw a difference between him and the Dynasty. It is time that the Mishra government gave way to a Vajpayee administration.

http://www.rediff.com/news/1999/jul/20monu.htm