Commentary/Rajeev Srinivasan

The Brits are willing to apologise, and our PM says, 'Please don't'!

I don't know if it's just me, but I have the distinct feeling that life is getting more Kafkaesque. I have noticed that every time I turn around, there is yet another event that causes me to do a double-take: ironies that are sometimes delicious, sometimes wry -- things I wish I didn't have to see. Sometimes it's definitely poetic justice, and I smile; other times, I have to throw up my hands in despair for this great nation of ours.

Delicious Irony Number 1: The China-Pakistan border fence. Newspaper reports suggest China is fencing off and securing its entire border with Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Apparently, the Chinese have to worry about Islamic fundamentalism being exported from Pakistan to the restive Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang. Sweet irony, indeed.

The Chinese built the Karakoram highway connecting Urumqui in Xinjiang through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir to Islamabad, with the intent of 'containing' and encircling India and encouraging secessionists in Kashmir, by supplying Pakistan with arms of all sorts. The M-11 nuclear-capable missiles that Pakistan has acquired have travelled down this very highway. He who lives by the sword...

The Uighur Muslims have become increasingly radicalised. The Economist reports, "China's response has been typically ruthless. Military analysts think that 1 million troops are stationed in Xinjiang... Uighur organisations abroad say more than 1,000 executions have taken place since the rebellion escalated last year and over 10,000 people have been arrested." By the way, China executed, in 1996, three times as many people as the rest of the world combined! Quite a few were Tibetans and Uighurs. Well, I guess it is another form of birth control.

The Xinjiang region is a Han Chinese colony. A Turkic central Asian state, it was taken over by the Chinese in 1949, and then has been the target of Han resettlement and thus demographic warfare. Han Chinese, reports the reliable Economist, have gone from 5 per cent to 38 per cent of the population since 1949. Any lessons there for hard-line Indian nationalists regarding Kashmir?

I wonder where the bleeding-heart 'idealists' are -- why aren't they sympathising with their brethren in Xinjiang? Why isn't Pakistan making a fuss about the oppression of Muslims on their border -- are Uighur Muslims somehow lesser than Kashmiri Muslims? Where is the world media, with its great concern for the underdog? What's good for the goose, etc.

So why isn't there an electrified fence, with shoot-on-sight orders to the troops, on the Line of Control in Kashmir?

Delicious Irony Number 2: American nuclear activities. A while ago, somebody named Gaurav Kampani, who apparently works for the National Resources Defense Council in the US, waxed eloquent on these very pages about why India must cap its nuclear weapons program. All 'decent' nations have signed the CTBT, implied this fellow, so India must too. Imagine my pleasant surprise when I saw the selfsame NRDC had disclosed that the US, in violation of its commitments under the CTBT, continues to build nuclear weapons.

Furthermore, the recently declassified documents said, if I am not mistaken, that the US had never had any intention of stopping nuclear testing. The fig-leaf of 'sub-critical' explosions and computer simulations was used to justify this stance. But this could have been predicted by looking at the US's general strategic perspective, which is very simple -- it wants to be the only, and paramount, big power on earth. I admire Americans for having such a clear and well-articulated vision.

The February 1996 document, referred to as the Stockpile Stewardship and Management Program, has only been released in part -- and it is damning. It intends to "ensure the preservation of the core intellectual competence of the US in nuclear weapons..." Eerily reminiscent of George Kennan, former US foreign secretary: "The US has 8 per cent of the world's population and enjoys 33 per cent of the world's resources. US foreign policy is intended to keep it that way." Any questions?

The NRDC, bless them, said in their comments: "The SSMP is a bloated, but entirely predictable and largely self-defined response of the nuclear weapons establishment that has been told to adapt to the imposition of a 'no nuclear explosions' constraint with virtually all other basic underpinnings of US nuclear weapons policy left unchanged." Italics mine. In other words, CTBT is immaterial, as far as the US is concerned.

The American message is the oldest of all -- might is right. It is perfectly okay to dissimulate, to prevaricate, equivocate, just plain lie, in the pursuit of protecting national interests. One of these days India's class of wide-eyed, babe-in-the-woods 'intellectuals' will wake up to this fact. Or so I hope. But given my not-so-delicious ironies, that day is very far off. Why exactly they are so purblind, I shall never know. As they say, you can lead a horse to water, but...

Not-so-delicious Irony Number 1: Inder Gujral and the British Queen. It has only been a couple of weeks since I complained on these pages that nobody had asked the British to apologise for Jallianwala Bagh (and my outspoken friend Varsha Bhosle had suggested the same). I am delighted to note I was wrong. It turns out that a group of NRIs had in fact asked for it -- they demanded the British Queen visit Jallianwala Bagh and apologise.

For good measure, they wanted the Kohinoor diamond back too. It is alleged that Maharaja Dalip Singh, the eight-year-old son of Maharaja Ranjit Singh of Punjab, had been tricked by the British into signing the jewel over to them: it now forms part of the British crown jewels. When he grew up, apparently Dalip Singh waged an unsuccessful campaign (he was living in Britain then) to get the jewel back.

So far, so good. There is precedent for a British apology: in November 1995, when the same queen visited New Zealand, an official statement said the British government proffers "profound regret and apologises unreservedly for the loss of lives because of hostilities arising from this invasion, and the devastation of property and social life which resulted therefrom." The reference was to the Maoris, who had been brutalised by British settlers a century ago.

Fairly satisfactory sort of verbiage, one would think. At Jallianwala Bagh, 1,650 bullets were fired, 379 people were killed; a total of 1,600 dead and wounded. Hardly any of the bullets were useless. Yet, being reasonable, many Indians would have been content with merely a statement to be read out by the Queen when she visited Jallianwala Bagh. Although the New Zealand apology was accompanied by a $100,000,000 restitution and the return of 39,000 acres of land.

But we did not reckon with the formidable Prime Minister Gujral. He made one of the more mystifying pronouncements a politician has made in recent times. In an interview with The Observer, London, he allegedly said a) the Queen should not visit Amritsar at all, b) there was no need to return the Kohinoor ("India's wealth does not depend on the Kohinoor") and c) (I believe) there was no need for the British to apologise for anything.

We have had some decidedly odd statements coming out of Delhi. But this takes the cake. Let me see, the Brits are willing to apologise, and an Indian says, "No, please don't." Does it imply, like, that we deserved Jallianwala Bagh? Tells me just how out of touch I am with the latest trends in diplomacy. Silly me, I used to think it was part of the job description of a prime minister to pursue his country's interests! That bulldog Winston Churchill (obnoxious as his colonialism was) comes to mind.

Not-so-delicious Irony Number 2: Kerala and bandhs. Pursuant to a petition by a businessman's association, the Kerala high court recently ruled that bandhs (enforced shutdown of everyday economic activity for a political purpose) were not legal. The logic, as I understand it, is that the alleged free speech protection for the strikers was not so great as to outweigh the economic losses and inconvenience to the public caused by the forced cessation of activity.

In a state like Kerala, where there have been 11 politically-motivated state-wide strikes in the last year, one would imagine the general public would be ecstatic, although I am sure certain lumpen elements would deplore the loss of steady employment as 'enforcers'. I understand the public was delighted.

But then the Kerala government turned around and did something extraordinary: it appealed its own high court's decision to the Supreme Court! I am appalled. We are talking about the utter and ultimate perversion of the satyagraha and other Gandhian ideals here. Typical caving in to vested interests -- in this case, the powerful trade unions the Marxists cultivate.

Bandhs cause significant loss of revenue to the state and to the public; they are a law-and-order nightmare as 'enforcers' frequently assault those who do not voluntarily shut down shop for the sake of the inquilab; buses are burned, trains damaged, public buildings attacked. Yet the Kerala government would rather side with these anti-social elements! Personally, I submit those damaging public property should be summarily executed.

Not-so-delicious Irony Number 3: The spectacle of the Congress. The Congress party has clearly fallen on hard times. At its recent confabulation in Calcutta, president Sitaram Kesri begged Sonia Gandhi to take over the party. And in the most self-abasing terms, suggesting that he was merely a seat-warmer, that she was the natural leader of the party.

This reminds me of two incidents: one, D K Barooah during the Emergency coming up with the inimitable slogan 'India is Indira and Indira is India' -- serious sycophancy in action; two, in the Ramayana where Bharata rules the kingdom as a regent, with the absent Rama's sandals on the throne. I wonder if Sonia Gandhi has any shoes to spare.

Sic transit gloria mundi, or roughly, how the mighty have fallen! There used to be Congress presidents of the calibre of Subhas Chandra Bose, Jawaharlal Nehru, Annie Besant -- people of obvious merit even if one didn't necessarily agree with their views. I find it hard to imagine Subhas Chandra Bose asking some foreigner of no credentials whatsoever to lead the nation.

What, after all, are Sonia Gandhi's credentials? None that are immediately visible to the naked eye, I am afraid. She merely happens to be married into the Nehru dynasty. For Congressmen to believe this is reason enough to elevate her to demigod status shows a) desperation, b) contempt for the intelligence of the masses. I hope the masses aren't really that dumb.

The irony here is that Mahatma Gandhi was of the opinion that after freedom, the Congress should disband itself. Apparently, 50 years on, it has.

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