The Hindu : After the quarrel in New York

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Wednesday, Oct 01, 2003

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After the quarrel in New York

By Harish Khare

We ended up fielding our Prime Minister in a ritualistic spat, without sorting out the confusion at the heart of our policy.

THE QUESTION needed to be asked but we in the accompanying media delegation were too deferential to ask it. The question was finally left to a U.S.-based Indian journalist (from the so-called ethnic media) to ask Atal Bihari Vajpayee: why does the Indian Prime Minister not get any play in the American media while the Pakistani President is all over the place? The question was deftly deflected; but everyone present in the elegant ballroom of the New York Palace Hotel — the officials, the resident journalists and the accompanying media — was uncomfortably aware that the questioner had touched a raw nerve.

Mr. Vajpayee's seven-day stay in New York went entirely unnoticed in the American mainstream media; this of course was in sharp contrast to the copious reports and portentous headlines in the newspapers and television programmes back home, from the accompanying media contingent. The reader back home might get the impression the Prime Minister had taken New York by storm. Nothing of the kind happened.

The answer was provided, partly, in the embarrassment suffered by the suave spokesman of the Ministry of External Affairs who was conducting the Prime Minister's press conference on the last day in New York. He simply could not figure out the Prime Minister's pauses, an orator's pauses. Just when after a long pause he thought the Prime Minister had completed his answer and invited another journalist to ask the next question, Mr. Vajpayee would break in with one more sentence.

But there is something more to it than Mr. Vajpayee's inability to impress interlocutors in small gatherings. Perhaps the MEA spin-doctors know that Mr. Vajpayee is a politician who would not appeal to the American media and therefore the best strategy is to protect him when in New York. These handlers did a very good job of keeping the Prime Minister under wraps during his seven-day-long sojourn.

The only time Mr. Vajpayee seemed comfortable was when he was interacting with the Non-Resident Indian community. Perfectly at ease, speaking in fluent Hindi, reciting old poems; unnervous about being asked an awkward question by a less than deferential media person. Familiar faces, familiar lines, and familiar applause.

Apart from a number of bilateral meetings the Prime Minister had with various heads of Government — and some of these meetings were not entirely without substance — Mr. Vajpayee's entire New York stay was reduced to the by-now famous spat with the Pakistani President. This verbal scrimmage of course produced the desired effect back home, but it is difficult to say whether the international community was impressed with our capacity to return insult for insult. Nor can it be anybody's case that we have managed to overawe the General and his colonels.

Official India continues to rely on persuading the United States to appreciate its case and then to twist Pakistan's arm to make it dismantle its terror infrastructure. Official India had hoped that after September 11 there would be a greater understanding in the United States of Pakistan's official sponsorship of terror. It is obvious we have reached a dead end. After the Bush-Musharraf meeting, this is what the American President's National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, had to say: "But let's just be very clear. If you look at where Pakistan was prior to 9/11 and where Pakistan is now, you've had a complete shift in the orientation of Pakistan's foreign policy, of Pakistan's policy toward Afghanistan and the Taliban, and Pakistan's policies towards terrorism. And that has to be acknowledged. It does not mean that there isn't still more to do, but that has to be acknowledged."

If this over-reliance on the White House's understanding and appreciation has not paid off, it is partly because of our unwillingness to try to influence American domestic opinion. In fact, Mr. Vajpayee himself indirectly acknowledged this failure, and indeed ticked off the Indian-American community for its failure to project New Delhi's perspective on Kashmir. Mr. Vajpayee twice told the NRIs: if they were really as successful and as influential as they claimed to be, then why were they not able to advance India's case? But, then, Mr. Vajpayee himself failed to explore opportunities of explaining India's point of view during his stay in New York. By contrast, the Pakistani diplomats and leaders do a vigorous job of showcasing their anti-India grievances and resentments in the American media.

It is possible to argue the American media remains basically intractable and that in matters of foreign policy it takes its cue from the official Washington establishment; maybe. But we do live in this information age and leaders all over the world rely on creating global images for themselves in order to advance their various national interests. In any case, Indian democracy's success is a story that elevates an Indian Prime Minister and its other leaders a notch above the rest of the crowd. In fact, the four elements of a possible long-term strategy against terrorism that the Prime Minister detailed (in his speech before the Asia Society) make excellent talking points. There is really no reason why our rulers should be so diffident about making our case on Kashmir.

Nor did this diffidence prepare us for dealing with Pakistan's annual itch. We ended up fielding our Prime Minister in a ritualistic spat, without sorting out the confusion at the heart of our policy — the applause back home notwithstanding. The confusion was in fact alluded to in Mr. Vajpayee's formulation: "When the cross-border terrorism stops — or when we eradicate it — we can have a dialogue with Pakistan on the other issues between us." By now we know that the world community is not going to make Pakistan see reason on this; instead, the world community wants to know what India is going to do to "eradicate" the cross-border terrorism.

The only way out can be simultaneous pursuit of two policies. First, we find the instruments and doctrines to take care of the terrorists, indigenous or imported; secondly, we find policies and initiatives to induce the mischief-makers and grievance-mongers to give up their unhelpful pursuits. On the first count, the Vajpayee Government has a far from impressive record. It has failed to whip into shape our enormous, over-budgeted, over-indulged security set-up; the political leadership has failed to demand of the generals that they come up with tactical solutions to put an end to the unabated infiltration, just as it has conspicuously failed to re-invent the internal security management as an effective tool of countering the terrorist's advantages. Nor for that matter has the political dimension been addressed; for narrow ideological and electoral considerations, the ruling political establishment refuses to create conditions that would deny the terrorists potential recruits.

So instead of finding the requisite competence and inspiration to put the terrorists out of business, we wail and bemoan that Pakistan is bleeding us, exporting terror, and fomenting violence. We have failed so far to make terror as much a bleeding proposition for Pakistan as Pakistan has made it for us. A section of our political leadership finds considerable electoral dividends in this situation; the bigots and the fundamentalists are not too displeased with the bloody standoff.

The other way is to try to summon the imagination to end the alienation in Jammu and Kashmir that provides the elbow space — and mental comfort — to the Pakistani-trained terrorists.

From time to time Mr. Vajpayee gives the impression of understanding the importance of winning back the Kashmiris' affection. First, he took a bold decision to allow a free and fair election in Jammu and Kashmir, even if it meant a golden handshake for the Abdullahs and the National Conference; then, he held out the promise at Srinagar of a peace initiative. The Srinagar imitative was based on a premise that peace was possible with Pakistan, not on Islamabad's terms but on two ground realities: (a) the Indian State had the stamina and the wherewithal to absorb the "thousand cuts", without becoming a mirror-image of Pakistan and, (b) Indian democracy had the inclusive reach to make every ethnic segment feel important, equal and respected. The approach demands a capacity to stay the course; but the Prime Minister no longer has the space within his own Government to carry forward the logic of his Srinagar initiative. Given these constraints, it was inevitable that he should have allowed himself be pitchforked into an embarrassing spat in New York.

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