‘Topi Ke Neeche Kya Hai’

SATYA P KESHAVA

Obviously, one of your readers is terribly incensed at A Ghosh’s letter ‘Jinnah Cap on Gujral’s Head’ (India Post, April 18). The author of the letter ‘What’s Under the Cap’ (India Post, May 9), probably does not understand that the allusion to the Jinnah cap has been made more in a figurative sense than literal. Also he tries to draw favorable inferences from Gujral’s personal lifestyle which has no bearing on his effectiveness in his job.

Ghosh’s letter, its second half, throws ample light on the direction in which the new Prime Minister will steer India’s foreign policy towards its neighbors, notably Pakistan. Regardless of what he has written or how many offices he has filled, he appears to be a clone of the first Prime Minister of India, Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru. The unilateral visa concessions given to Pakistan without receiving anything in return suspiciously smacks of Panchsheel, which resulted in the 1962 disaster, and would have resulted in another in 1965, had Nehru been around. The visa concession was expected to create goodwill. How does one explain the continuing terrorist acts in Jammu and Kashmir, as described in the article "Pakistani Agency’s New Strategy for Sabotage" in the same issue of India Post?

There are many reasons why Gujral’s flattery of its neighbors will not work, just as Nehru’s did not vis-ŕ-vis China and Pakistan. First, the wide mandate that Nawaz Sharif got in the Pakistan election has more to do with economic problems facing Pakistan, it does not in the slightest measure make any ideological concessions. Nothing short of territorial adjustment is likely to appease Pakistani public opinion. Second, Nawaz Sharif, or for that matter, any civilian authority in Pakistan, has not much control over the international terrorists fighting in Kashmir under the banner of Islam, just as the Europeans had no control over Iranian terrorists conducting a jihad on Bosnian soil. Third, the military remains, as always, the real ruler of Pakistan, no matter who is elected. It is said the notorious ISI of Pakistan acts independent of the civil administration. The so-called Gujral Doctrine is now irrelevant because Russia itself is a second rate military and economic power dependent on the West for its day to day existence, and a close alliance as existed in the Cold War days is hardly possible.

At least one glaring failure of Gujral’s foreign policy is on record. In his 1990 stint as the Foreign Minister in the VP Singh Cabinet, Gujral poured a large volume of economic aid into Afghanistan in the form of materials and services. For this the Muslim Afghans showed little gratitude. As soon as Najibullah was overthrown, the Indian expatriates were expelled to the last person under the threat of murder, loot and rape. We also received a large body of Afghan ‘refugees’ to boot, living at present comfortably in India, many assisted by Indian Government doles. Gujral is touted as being the brain behind the Indo-Bangladesh accord of 1972. The fact is that for all the Indian blood shed in the Bangla war, India gained virtually nothing. The Hindu population has been largely squeezed out and those remaining are constantly subjected to the usual Islamic treatment of torture, rape and destruction of their temples; the Buddhists are also in the process of being so treated. In addition, India got over 20 million unwanted Bangla Muslim infiltrators. And for all their problems the Bangladeshis are all too eager to blame India. Some Bangla intellectuals have even extended the ‘Lebensraum’ style claim on Assam, as was recently reported.

Apart from foreign policy, Gujral must carefully listen to his Congress peers, lest the rug is pulled from underneath his chair too. Many of the Congress leaders are under indictment for mega scandals and they are looking expectantly at Gujral. In this scenario, Gujral’s record of a clean past is almost certain to fall a victim to compromises for survival. Whether his supposed prowess in foreign policy brings any results in economic terms is still to be seen. If it does, it will indeed be a breakthrough.

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