Manmohan Singh’s abject surrender
It was the hysterical campaign by the electronic media that led the
Prime Minister to change course on the India-Pakistan dialogue after the
LoC hostilities
“We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its
periodical fits of morality.” Macaulay’s words aptly describe the fits
of chauvinism that seize Indians. But this time it has exacted a toll of
consequence, the result of a pathetic surrender by a man of vision.
On January 6, a Pakistani soldier was killed and another critically
injured, across the Line of Control in Kashmir. Two days later, two
Indian soldiers were killed across the LoC; one was beheaded, the
other’s body was mutilated. On January 9, “a senior intelligence
official” told DNA, “we believe that this was a local action
purely in retaliation of (sic) what the raid out troops carried out in
the Uri Sector.” The next day came Praveen Swami’s revealing exposé in this paper, followed by disclosures of beheadings by Indian troops in the past.
The 12 days
By its very nature, that crime is a product of local rage. It should
have been settled at the level of brigadiers. As Foreign Minister Salman
Khurshid said on January 16: “It’s something that is within the domain
of the armed forces of both sides … If it is contained at their own
level, then it doesn’t create a larger political issue at the higher
level.” The Directors-General of Military Operations were not asked to
contain the crisis when they met on January 9. Each said his piece. On
January 18, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said, “We want [a] good
relationship with Pakistan but not at the cost of our national honour
and our national interest.”
Whatever happened during those 12 days to prompt this astounding
assertion by a level-headed PM? On January 9, Pakistan Foreign Minister
Hina Rabbani Khar made a fair proposal. Both countries should
investigate the incidents and assist each other, if necessary. This
implied parity in sin and parity is anathema to us. Her suggestion of a
probe by U.N. observers was a non-starter. But unilateral probes by each
side, followed by a joint discussion, would have eased the tension. In
Paris, as late as January 12, Salman Khurshid told The Hindu “We
think this will pass.” But New Delhi had other ideas. The IAF Chief Air
Chief Marshal N.A.K. Browne said the same day “we may have to look at
some other options for compliance.” Two days later, Army Chief General
Bikram Singh declared that India “reserves the right to retaliate at the
time and place of its choice” and “I expect all my commanders to be
aggressive and offensive to any situation” — bad advice in a tense
situation. Such threats are proper only if the killing was deliberate
and was ordered at a governmental level. This was the gloss India chose
to put on a local incident to which both sides surely contributed.
The decision to up the ante was taken on January 14 at a hurriedly
called meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security. The BJP made the
most of it. Sushma Swaraj asked for 10 heads against one. Yashwant Sinha
said “you cannot have peace with Pakistan.”
The Prime Minister fell in line on January 15. “After this barbaric act,
there cannot be business as usual [with Pakistan].” The same day, the
visa-on-arrival facility was put on hold and Pakistan’s hockey stars
were sent home.
The BJP was not appeased. To Ms Swaraj, the PM’s remarks were an “echo
of the tough measures we have demanded.” Arun Jaitley said on January
15: “The fact that it has taken so long for the PM to react makes me
wonder if today’s reaction is out of conviction or out of compulsion. I
hope this marks the burial of the Sharm-el-Shaikh line” — that the peace
process should not be held hostage to the issue of terrorism.
Having drawn blood, the BJP will move for the final kill of the peace
process. From 2004, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani kept attacking
Dr. Singh for every conciliatory move while asking Pakistan privately
not to settle with the UPA. The BJP had better offers. India now offered
surrender terms: end the “brazen denial” and “bring the perpetrators to
book.” This renders retreat very difficult, though its signs have
appeared. The BJP will surely call it a surrender.
Ms Khar’s offer of talks, on January 16, would, as Mr. Khurshid had
envisaged, raise the dialogue to the political level in view of the
impasse in the DGMO talks — “discuss all concerns related to LoC with a
view to reinforcing respect for the ceasefire.” The offer was not
accepted.
It is sad that the Prime Minister should have allowed himself to be
blown off course in these last few months. He had a noble vision. The
four-point formula on Kashmir he had crafted with Pervez Musharraf
satisfied the interests of all sides — no secession, no permanence to
the LoC and self-rule to Kashmiris without any violation of territorial
integrity. All this has been foiled; not least by his own hesitations
and failure to talk to the people and explain his vision. He abandoned a
course that might have brought peace to this sub-continent by a
settlement of Kashmir. Now it is a tragic legacy of failure, caused
wantonly by self-inflicted wounds that this man of vision will bequeath
in 2014.
No leader should permit incidents to deflect him from his course. At
2.45 a.m. on October 12, 1984, a bomb went off which wrecked most of
Brighton’s Grand Hotel where Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was
staying for the Conservative Party Conference. Dozens, including a
Minister, were injured. An MP and four others were killed. The IRA
warned her, “Today we were unlucky, but remember we only have to be
lucky once.” She did not stop the MI5 from continuing the talks with the
IRA.
However, it was not to the BJP that the Prime Minister surrendered. He
did so to the clamour whipped up by the electronic media. The BJP wrode
piggy-back on that clamour. The resume of events from January 6 to 18
should be read in the light of the venom poured by television news
anchors night after night. This raises in an acute form the issue of
media influence on diplomacy. A former British Foreign Secretary,
Douglas Hurd, noted: “Like it or not, television images are what force
foreign policymakers to give one of the current 25 crises in the world
greater priority.” William Pfaff, a thoughtful commentator, agrees:
“Foreign policy now is made chiefly in terms of its reception by
television and the press.” But “the only useful debates are those that
start out with a clear agreement on what the argument is about” — the
precise issues — “and in which the opponent’s arguments and persons are
paid respect.” This is altogether absent in “the debates” on our
channels.
Ignorant anchors
The anchors themselves enter the fray, ridicule those with whom they
disagree, show deference to retirees from the IB, RAW and the army, and
treat Pakistanis with scant courtesy. They themselves are none too
competent. An anchor of a leading channel said in Ladakh, “behind me
lies the McMahon Line.” Another goes to the university in Srinagar and
polls students on camera. When almost all said they were for azadi, he replied: “That is a subjective view”. His ignorance of the feelings there exposed.
Eric Louw remarks in his book The Media and Political Press that
“most journalists are ill-equipped to read foreign contexts and so can
be easily led by both overseas spin-doctors and domestic foreign policy
bureaucrats and experts” — and TRPs.
Public opinion can veto policy, fanned by TV it can ruin it. Lippmann
remarked, mass opinion “has shown itself to be a dangerous master of
decisions when the stakes are life and death.” He lamented that “the
work of reporters has become confused with the work of preachers,
revivalists, prophets and agitators … jingoism became a criterion for
[the] presentation of news.” He touched the core of the problem when he
wrote “in an exact sense the present crisis of western democracy is a
crisis of journalism”.
The task of the leader is to educate people about the facts of political
life. He cannot shirk his duty. Abba Eban struck a fair balance. “It is
unrealistic to expect political leaders to ignore public opinion. But a
statesman who keeps his ear permanently glued to the ground will have
neither elegance of posture nor flexibility of moment.”
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