Calling Jaswant Singh names on Israel

If this, indeed, is what Jaswant Singh said, how does it place the External Affairs Minister in the ranks of communalists? As a reporter in those days on the South Block beat, I know first hand that the " Muslim vote" was something Rajiv Gandhi never understood but was most concerned about.

It was this naive understanding of issues on Rajiv’s part which led himto blunders like Shah Bano and the banning of Salman Rushdie. Indeed, he was advised that if he embarked on his election campaign from Ayodhya promising Ram Rajya, he would take the wind out of the "communalists’" sail. If he allowed the òf40óshilanyas on disputed land and then bluffed the minorities that it had been done elsewhere, Muslims would be mighty pleased. He bought this one too hook, line and sinker. Ask Narain Dutt Tewari for the details.

The great issues that were agitating the Muslims were, according to theCongress, Shah Bano, Salman Rushdie, Babri Masjid and relations with Israel.

Some of us argued that this was a completely bogus list which only demonstrated how totally out of touch the Congress leadership (particularlyits Muslim figureheads) was with the minorities. What the Muslims needed was education, entrepreneurial help and a general sense of belonging in the mainstream.

A series of articles I wrote urging normal relations with Israel caught Rajiv’s attention. He asked me, as an independent journalist, to prepare a note on how the minorities would respond to full diplomatic relations with Israel.

My argument was straightforward. Camp David was behind us: Egypt, the most important country in the Arab world, had accepted the reality of Israel. King Hussain of Jordan was in constant touch with Israeli leaders as was King Hassan of Morocco. In fact, every time I visited Rabat the person I never failed to see was Andre Azoulay, the king’s principal advisor, a practising Jew to boot. The supervising deity for Riyadh and Jerusalem was the same – Americans. Why did we have to be more loyal than the King?

In fact, keeping a legitimate foreign policy option hostage to the fear of minorities walking out on the ruling party if that option were ever exercised would only irritate the majority community.

Moreover, casting the Arab-Israeli dispute as a Jewish-Muslim issue was a total misreading of what was essentially a territorial conflict. The more radical voices among the Palestinians were people like George Habash, obviously a Christian. A Palestinian totally opposed to Yasser Arafat’s conciliatory line happens to be one of the great intellectuals of our times, Edward Said, a Christian.

Of course, there are fundamentalist voices in Israel and the Arab world comfortable with the notion of a Jewish-Muslim conflict in the Middle East. But these marginal (sometimes powerful) groups clash head on with the fundamental reality that the holocaust happened in Europe and not in the Muslim world. The amnesia that is sought to be induced by the western media on this score is one of the less savoury aspects of contemporary journalism.

P.V. Narasimha Rao ultimately decided to exchange Ambassadors because the logic began to sink in that relations with Israel were not a core issue with Indian Muslims. And when the New Delhi-Tel Aviv axis was firmly established, what happened? Not a whimper from the Muslims!

Even so, it is my belief that Narasimha Rao would not have taken the plunge on Israel (the so-called Muslim leaders would have stayed his hand) had the global situation not changed radically. The liberalisation of the Indian economy and relations with Israel were, in the ultimate analysis, dictated by the collapse of the Soviet Union.

As for a touch of communalism in foreign affairs, it might be instructive to remember the Bosnian brutality, rape camps, extermination of Muslims in mass graves. And what was the response of the secular Congress establishment? It sustained the myth that New Delhi’s relations with Belgrade were sacrosanct because the two were premier capitals when non-alignment was invented by Nehru and Tito. But what did Tito’s Yugoslavia have to do with Milosevic’s Belgrade? Narasimha Rao’s foreign office, in private conversations, was more worried about a Muslim state in Europe than Europe itself. Everything possible was done to block the arrival in New Delhi of the Bosnian foreign minister who ultimately died in an air crash.

The ONGC, which knows a few things about oil, made several trips to Baku, capital of Azerbaijan. After all, Azerbaijan was the hub of all the major oil companies in quest of the new El Dorado. Baku also had ancient civilisational links with India. On the outskirts of the city is the ancient Fire temple with sanskrit òf40óshlokas inscribed on the walls.

But the Congress establishment could not be persuaded to open a diplomatic mission in Baku. Why? Because Azerbaijan, a Muslim country, had a conflict with Armenia, a Christian country. So the great, secular, Congress establishment chose not to open a mission in either country. The issue, thus yoked together like a pair of bullocks, was handed down to subsequent establishments to sort out.

What took the cake was the invitation issued to Vladimir Zhirinovsky in 1995 after he spewed venom against Muslims and Jews alike. Since there was no straightforward way of extending hospitality to this rank fascist, he was invited as a guest of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations. Some cultural relations, devised exclusively by the Congress!

To revert to Israel for a moment. President Ezer Weizman visited New Delhi in 1997. When will our President reciprocate? The Israelis are waiting.