INDIA ABROAD, July 9, 1999 / Op-Ed.
Strategic clarity is lacking in approach to Kargil
By ARVIND N. DAS
Patriotism is indeed the last refuge of the scoundrel. There was this
interesting report in the newspapers the other day. An undertrial in
Rajasthan, who was accused of burning a woman to death, pleaded with the
court that he be released to fight on the Kargil front. He argued that
he was an Army gunner who was familiar with the treacherous Kargil
terrain and the Army desperately needed him to take on the enemy.
Rather than face the prospect of being sentenced to death by hanging, he
preferred death on the battlefront. Moved by such a forceful patriotic
plea and mindful, as the petition said, that the armed forces were being
deprived of the skills of this intrepid warrior on account of his
incarceration, the magistrate ordered that he be released from prison
and handed over to the Army for deployment on the battlefield.
It was only after everyone concerned had gone through suitable patriotic
motions that it was discovered that the petitioner was not a
superskilled gunner with specialized knowledge of the battle terrain. He
was only a driver in the Army who had been got rid of because of his
involvement in the heinous, albeit "civil," crime. The Army did not come
to claim him and, despite the gullible magistrate's orders, he continues
to be in jail, his ploy of patriotism having failed to secure him
freedom.
It is not just this particular case that illustrates the adage. It is
interesting to note that while the talk of war is loud and jingoistic
proclamations flow fast and free, there is much duplicity in the
practice of officially-sponsored patriotism. Note, for instance, that
even as concern is voiced for the poor jawans (soldiers) fighting on the
front, there is no obvious sign of austerity at home.
No party has been canceled, no extravagance curtailed. The Sensex has
been climbing up even as shells have been falling. And the bold and the
beautiful have merely found one more topic for polite conversation. The
same people who, only months ago, were all enthused about the famous bus
ride, about how "they" in Pakistan were "just like us," are today
demonizing a whole nation.
If every scoundrel is now playing patriot, it is only apt that the first
collection in aid of the jawans should have been made at Delhi's
infamous Tihar jail, home to many of the city's celebrities.
But why speak only of the duplicity of certified criminals? What of the
respectable members of society, indeed its many "leaders" who, too,
exhibit the characteristics of Janus? Public memory may be short, but it
is not so short as to have forgotten the proclamations of the Prime
Minister and all his men in the last few months. It was not so long ago,
after all, that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government
gratuitously tested nuclear weapons and its then Parliamentary Affairs
Minister invited Pakistan to choose "the time and place" to engage in
war.
Home Minister L.K. Advani, the wannabe Sardar Patel who should have
access to intelligence about moves across the border, threatened
Pakistan with "the bomb" during the few days that it took Islamabad to
set off its own nuclear tests. The irrepressible Pramod Mahajan used the
telling phrase "Ulta chor kotwal ko daantey" (The thief berates the
guard) to underscore international relations between China and India,
even as Defense Minister George Fernandes named China the "Number 1
Threat," a view that was echoed in the Prime Minister's abject
explanation letter to the United States President.
Today, when the danger of nuclear war actually looms large over the
subcontinent, Madan Lal Khurana is strangely silent and only the
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) mouthpiece, Panchjanya, is still
blowing the conch shell of atomic belligerence. And, as in the
Mahabharata, where Duryodhana, on behalf of the Kauravas, and Arjuna, on
behalf of the Pandavas, went to the slumbering Krishna to request him to
intercede, today Sartaj Aziz of Pakistan and Jaswant Singh of India rush
to China, and one wonders at the sudden silence of the Fernandes-Mahajan
duo, one that has never hesitated to shoot from the lip.
But, that is not all. The public also vividly recalls the effusive and
unrealistic proclamations that Atal Behari Vajpayee made as he got off
the famous bus to Lahore.
It is obvious today that the Pakistanis were preparing at that precise
time to unleash the Mujahideen mercenaries as well as their regular
troops to capture the Indian bunkers that had been abandoned during
winter.
It is also obvious that the Prime Minister, his Defense Minister and his
many advisors on national security -- who were freeloading on paid trips
to Japan and elsewhere -- ignored intelligence warnings and kept the
country unprepared to face the present situation.
Today, as the Prime Minister changes his posture from Neville
Chamberlain's "peace in our times" to Winston Churchill's "blood, sweat
and tears," the quick-change artistry does not carry conviction.
Even less convincing is the excuse that "the Pakistanis betrayed us."
The amazing naivete, which underlies this pathetic plaint, can only
indicate the utter incompetence in conducting affairs of state, the
wilful disregard of systems and procedures and the deliberate
destruction of institutions of conducting diplomacy and war.
Incidentally, this charge of having been betrayed is so familiar: Wasn't
this the precise pretext -- that the Indian state had been fooled,
tricked, taken for a ride, indeed betrayed -- that P. V. Narasimha Rao
used to shrug off responsibility when the BJP's affiliates destroyed the
Babri mosque in Ayodhya?
If Rao, at that time, could not be allowed to use this plea for having
failed the Indian State and the Indian people, there is no reason to let
the BJP-led government off the hook on account of its claimed innocence.
The fact is that it is the wrong policies of the regime that have
brought the country to the present sorry pass. Before India actually
tested a second lot of nuclear bombs in Pokharan, the world was aware of
its nuclear capabilities.
It was then that its diplomats could say, "We will not sign the CTBT
(Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty), not now, not ever," with conviction.
The unnecessary bravado in carrying out the blasts actually weakened
India's position.
The move led to tit-for-tat tests by Pakistan, imposition of sanctions
and the adoption of the holier-than-thou attitude by the sanctimonious
and hypocritical nuclear powers and developed countries, which enjoy the
security of the nuclear umbrella held up by others. Today, Indian
negotiators are filling ink in their pens to sign the CTBT.
Similarly, after years of reiterating -- through treaties like those
signed at Tashkent and Shimla -- that the Kashmir dispute is strictly a
bilateral matter, the inept diplomacy practiced by the BJP-led regime
has forced India into a situation where a deputy under secretary in the
U.S. State Department is gratefully received by the government of India
because Washington, at the moment, endorses New Delhi's stand.
The exultation over the ambiguous statements of the G-8 leaders and of
junior functionaries of the British and German governments indicates
clearly that the BJP-led regime has inexorably been pushed into a
situation where it has no option but to allow -- and indeed welcome --
international interference on the Kargil issue.
And that obviously is not the end of the internationalization. As the
chief of the Pakistani Army has said, Kargil is tactical; Kashmir is
strategic. For all the martial and jingoistic statements be-ing made on
the Indian side, one wonders if there is such strategic clarity in the
BJP-led regime.
(The writer is a commentator on political affairs)
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