Bastion of Free Speech

After having achieved the main purpose of going eyeball to eyeball, which was to get Colin Powell scurrying over here in the wake of President Bush's special envoy, Tony Blair, certain persons in this government must be pleased as punch. In their worldview the United States of America is the global godfather, and in such a world kissing the godfather's ring and supping with his consigliere is quite an achievement. Well good luck to them and God bless India! In the fifty odd years of independence and a proudly non-aligned foreign policy - even in the days when we were a .303 Lee Enfield power and with the Chinese dagger at our jugular - never were we so abjectly craven and beholden to a foreign power. And that too not for any major financial or political gain, such as what General Musharaff extracted from the Americans, and with some delicious irony, for extricating his country from the grip of mad mullahs and the medieval theocracy they were threatening to impose. That is indeed smart. We have not been so fortunate. Now that we are a nuclear power, instead of the prestige that we were promised by our leaders we are being told that being stroked like a pet poodle by the godfather is prestige enough!

The last time we had such a standoff with our old friend the enemy, it was back in 1990, when that nuclear scientist wannabee VP Singh was the Prime Minister. At that time both India and Pakistan were undeclared nuclear powers and so not any less threatening to each other's well being. Around August that year two squadrons of Jaguar fighters were relocated at forward bases. It is said that Mirage 2000 fighters had to be moved into Jaguar hangars because the main hangar at the Mirage base in Gwalior had collapsed due to poor construction quality. We must have the only air force in the world to lose fighter aircraft to building hits!

Whatever be the reason, some Jaguar deep penetration strike aircraft (DPSA) were not at their accustomed places when US reconnaissance satellites were overhead. Promptly, suspiciously too promptly one could say, the Americans concluded that a pre-emptive strike on Pakistan's nuclear installations was imminent and advised them of it. Any intelligence analyst worth his salt would have taken one look at just the library photos, without bothering to even look up psycho-profiles, of VP Singh, who was also his own Defence Minister, and IK Gujral the then Foreign Minister, and concluded that both were totally incapable of ever using brawn or for that matter even brain to settle political disputes. When the Americans with their space age NTM's (national technical means) pass the word that Indians are up to something sinister, the Pakistanis will naturally believe, and believing the worst about Indians only comes too naturally to them. And so the Pakistanis mobilized some of their strike units and we naturally mobilized some of ours in a tit-for-tat response, and lo and behold we were "eyeball to eyeball."

Then the inevitable happened. The US peacemaking circus led by the CIA's deputy director Robert Gates and the NSC's top South Asia hand, Richard Haas, came into town and got the two countries to "stand down." This is still considered by the Americans to be among the major achievements of US diplomacy! The problem is that very few here believe there was ever a crisis and it did seem to many that the Americans had invented a crisis and defused it all by themselves. This reminds me of a memorable scene from one of Satyajit Ray's less memorable films, "Kaapurush Mahapurush", where a godman, very much like those who quite regularly con our political masters in New Delhi, cons his clients into believing that he actually commands the sun to rise each morning by quite dramatically looking eastward as dawn is creeping and sonorously intoning "uth beta uth!" And but naturally the sun obliges. US diplomacy quite often has this quality and South Blockheads would do well to learn to look at an American gift horse in the mouth.

Now I am not quite ready to suggest that another such "crisis" was conjured up. But we must wait for sometime to really learn what happened? On the face of it this "crisis" looks like a textbook case in the diplomacy of compellence. At another time it used to be called gunboat diplomacy. But there is a difference. Compellence till now was enforced on lesser powers by greater powers by threatening the use of force or by actually applying force. The USA compelled the USSR to withdraw its nuclear missiles in Cuba in 1962 by a show of arms and matching grim determination. Britain compelled Argentina to relinquish its claim over the Falklands by taking the islands back after a brilliant military campaign. Here we are apparently compelling Pakistan to be a better neighbor by hollering to the world that things might go out of hand and result in a nuclear war. If this is not to get the attention of the globocop what is? It definitely seems to have paid off some, but for how long will the Pakistani leopard be able to hide its spots?

The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis was considered by the Kennedy administration as a great diplomatic triumph. Even today it is a textbook case in the study of Crisis Management. Harvard University's Graham Allison, who also served in the Clinton Administration as Assistant Secretary for Defense in charge of International Security, rode to fame by writing "The Essence of Decision" which is a detailed analysis of decision-making processes in the higher realms of government and relies extensively on material made available on this particular event. Most analysts believe that JFK came out with flying colors and that the handling of the crisis was eloquent proof of the high standards of teamwork and high quality of decision-making that went with it. But as seasoned a diplomat as Dean Acheson, and a Democrat like Kennedy, thought very poorly of how the crisis was handled and attributed its successful resolution to "plain dumb good luck!" Well our crisis has not been resolved quite as neatly as the Cuban Missile Crisis where the Americans succeeded in getting everything they wanted except the removal of Fidel Castro. Musharaff has used it to do things to benefit his country. What is in it for us is still hard to see?

A former Director General of Military Operations, and hence someone who should know, estimates the cost of the present mobilization to be around Rs.8000 crores by the time the last of the bills come in and the wear and tear to material and machinery is toted up. That's about what the bailout to US-64 is going to cost the government. Now is that a lot or what? The question that begs to be answered is whether all this was worth it?

Musharaff has so far locked up 1430 suspected terrorists, but whether that consists mainly of gun toting mujahideen fighters or just mostly benign khansamas, chaiwallahs, bishtis and the like with a few big names thrown in is yet to be determined. But our RAW resources in Pakistan will be able to do that soon and we must be ready to put the old face back on Musharaff if so needed. Meanwhile we can justifiably ask: Where is Dawood? Where is Tiger Memon? Where is Chota Shakeel? They are not political activists some of who may even deserve some showing of support. These are plain murderers, thieves and gangsters who no civilized country could shelter. And it must not be forgotten that our friend Maulana Azhar Masood was freed from an Indian jail where he was as an undertrial charged with various offences under the IPC, which could have fetched the most severe punishment. Just because Lord Jaswant Singh of Kandahar personally escorted him to freedom does not endow him with a halo.

A word about General S. Padmanabhan's press conference might be appropriate here. I have known him for many years having first met him when he was the Commander of the 16 Corps headquartered at Srinagar. He is a man who uses his words as precisely as he uses force. It is specific to the time and requirement. In this instance too he said exactly what was needed and it wasn't a word more or less. Several newspapers, including some that ought to have known better, have run editorials that rail against him for his tenor, language and content. Modern generals are not given to bombast and boasting. They are far too professional and pack far too much punch to be given to strutting around like bantam roosters. Padmanabhan did not speak out of turn. He said what was required of him and his press conference cannot be anything but a carefully planned and orchestrated event with the concurrence of the highest level of government. It was reassuring to see a fresh and earnest face amidst the daily parade of tired, shifty-eyed and well hung-over faces of our political gerontocrats. But generals too, like Victorian children, must be seen and not heard, except when called upon to do so. And when they are I'd rather hear them speak like Paddy did.

I cannot see very many gains for us after the inevitable stand-down. Pakistan would have gained. It is back on the road to respectability once again deemed as a modernizing and progressive nation. We will have to see how things shape up there and it is too soon to comment on Musharaff's political longevity. It is also likely that once both armies stand-down the Pakistanis will revert back to their usual form. What do we do then? Have another mobilization so that we can cry wolf again?

It will soon be seen that we would have gained very little by contrast. Our management of the insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir is hardly likely to improve. Farooq Abdullah and Ashok Jaitly do not hold out much hope of ever traveling ahead on the learning curve. Sardar Advani and the Home Ministry will be as they are. Vajpayee and Brijesh Mishra will be as they are. The reasons for Kashmiri militancy are hardly likely to be addressed. So things will continue to fester.

Now that we have had our crisis where do we go from here? Quite clearly the American Secretary of State will give us assurances of continued and even improving Pakistani good behavior. That will give them just the opening to get their foot into our affairs. It wont be long before President Bush starts to call upon us to relent on Kashmir. That's what's worrisome. During his campaign he gave us a glimpse of his shallow understanding of the region. Lyndon Johnson used to say about another US President, Gerald Ford, that he "could not chew gum and cross the street at the same time." Well Bush just showed us that he cannot munch pretzels and watch a football game on television at the same time. Think about it! Was it worth it?

Copyright(c) Mohan Guruswamy, 2002. All rights reserved.