Border Encounters

JUST when you8217;re beginning to wonder if it8217;s yet another predictable quickie on India-Pakistan, the twin-set relationship that has...

JUST when you8217;re beginning to wonder if it8217;s yet another predictable quickie on India-Pakistan, the twin-set relationship that has held the world in thrall since they conducted tat-for-tit nuclear tests in mid-1998, the action really begins to speed up at Diplomatic Divide. And whatever else you may think of the blunt and somewhat hawkish G Parthasarathy, who quit the Army to make for himself a very successful career in the Foreign Service in Moscow during the 1971 war between India-Pakistan, information adviser to Rajiv Gandhi, ambassador in Australia and the raison d8217;etre of this book, consul-general in Karachi from 1981-85 and high commissioner to Pakistan from 1997-99, the gentleman knows that a good read comes when you shoot straight from the hip.

And so you have Partha telling us how his young counsellor Ruchi Ghanshyam in the Indian mission in Islamabad in December 1999 was woken up in the wee hours of the morning by her counterpart in the Taliban mission, asking her what was to be done with the hijacked IC-814 aircraft that was at the exact same time winging its way to Kandahar. Of course, as Partha points out, how the Taliban chap knew where the plane was going before anyone else did, remains a mystery.

Then there was the time that a woman diplomat in the Pakistan high commissioner had her car windscreen smashed in Delhi, in retaliation for ISI hooligans refusing to stop making lewd remarks at Ms Ghanshyam8230; Or the time when Jugnu Mohsin, well-known journalist and wife of Najam Sethi, the editor of Pakistan8217;s best weekly paper Friday Times, told the author that Indian troops would only get out of Kashmir when their body bags began to go home.

With lip-smacking stuff like that, Dr Khan8217;s very elegant essay on his tenure as high commissioner to India from 1984-88 can only have the effect of a gentle rain after a thundershower. To be sure, Khan was thrown into the hurly-burly of events as soon as he arrived, beginning from Operation Bluestar in June 1984 to the spring of 1988, when Zia-ul Haq dismissed his puppet prime minister Junejo and 8216;8216;resumed all powers.8217;8217; In between, there are glimpses of the story behind 8216;Operation Brasstacks,8217; when India and Pakistan nearly went to war because New Delhi 8216;8216;misunderstood8217;8217; the movements of the Pakistan army.

Mostly though, Khan, who8217;s written this essay entirely from memory it shows cannot but wax eloquent about all the wonderful people he met in India there are many. Even his analyses about Kashmir and life after the Shimla agreement and terrorism, have a gentlemanly air about them. Perhaps that8217;s because Dr Khan was both an officer he returned from Delhi to become Foreign Secretary and remains a gentleman. If that sounds like an anachronism in these rough and ready times, then so be it.

In contrast, Partha8217;s quite clear about his likes PM Vajpayee8217;s family and dislikes ex-External Affairs minister Jaswant Singh, but his logic in dealing with Pakistan is quite clear: India must promote people-to-people relations but hold extra-firm on policy issues like terrorism and Kashmir. Even when his hardline policy on dealing with the IC-814 hijackers is junked by New Delhi, Partha knows he8217;s right. Pakistan is a black-and-white world, he believes, with few shades of grey.

Here, then, is an initial offering from Roli Books, on encounters across the border. It8217;s not a masterpiece, but at least it has no pretensions of being one.