Inside Track

Ramesh felt it would be inadvisable for the Congress while the troops were fighting to strike a discordant note. If the party wanted to make an issue of fixing responsibility for the intrusions it would be difficult to separate the government from the Army. Natwar Singh and Kapil Sibal, however, wanted a confrontationist approach and felt that Ramesh wasbeing soft on the BJP.

Does this mean that Ramesh who has ably defended the Congress position on many a TV talk show is being eased out? If so, is the BJP which has a dearth of articulate and intelligent spokespersons particularly on economic matters after Mohan Guruswamy8217;s departure planning to utilise his services?

Down-scaling RAW

RAW officers are shell-shocked that an outsider, A.S. Dulat, who comes from the Intelligence Bureau IB, has been appointed to succeed Arvind Dave as head of RAW. They claim that guidelines stipulate that the chief of the agency for external intelligence should be from the RAW service. Some blame retiring chief Arvind Dave, for down-playing the abilities of his immediate juniors in service with an eye on getting another extension for himself since Dave assumed that the government was unlikely to replace him before the elections.

There is, however, more to Dulat8217;s appointment than Dave8217;s lukewarm appraisals of his potential successors. As External AffairsMinister in Morarji Desai8217;s government, Vajpayee was party to the decision to downsize RAW posts abroad. Indira Gandhi restored the RAW slots in our embassies and today RAW officers are posted in some 80 world capitals. Minister of External Affairs Jaswant Singh, as head of the Parliamentary Estimates Committee in 1989, was annoyed to find RAW officials stonewalling his queries and resisting his attempts to bring about some accountability in the secret service.

Given this background, it is likely that an outsider has been brought in with the express purpose of down-scaling the organisation8217;s foreign operations. Particularly as the PM has been unhappy with the quality of its intelligence gathering. Whether on the Kargil intrusions or the longevity of Nawaz Sharif8217;s regime, RAW8217;s assessments were way off the mark!

Tragic toll

The final toll in the Kargil conflict is around 400 Indian soldiers dead and about 600 injured. But if the Congress hopes to exploit the large number of casualties forelectoral mileage, their attempts could backfire, since the figures are bound to be compared with conflicts in the past. Under Rajiv Gandhi, in the IPKF operations of 1987-88 in Sri Lanka, around 1,150 died and 3,000 were wounded and that was an undeclared war in another country without any national objective. Approximate figures of casualties and injuries of the armed forces in previous wars 8212; the figures have been rounded off since the exact number is classified information 8212; and insurgency operations are as follows: 1962: 3,250 dead, 550 injured. 1965: 3,200 dead, 900 injured. 1971: 3,800 dead 10,000 injured. In Nagaland, there have been 575 deaths in insurgency operations, in Manipur 200 and in Assam 130. Around 2,000 Indian soldiers have lost their lives in other parts of the country fighting militancy over the last 50 years.

Cops and clout

The sudden replacement of Nikhil Kumar with T.R. Kakkar in the Home Ministry is surprising considering Kakkar8217;s uninspiring career. It seems thatKakkar8217;s case was championed by L.K. Advani8217;s Officer on Special Duty, Deepak Chopra and a senior BJP journalist whose wife is in the police force.

Within a week of Kakkar joining his new post he has, however, been unceremoniously relieved of his powerful portfolios of internal security and police and given the lighter charge of freedom fighters and foreigners in India. It seems the other special secretary in the Home Ministry M.B. Kaushal felt that he was entitled to the Kumar8217;s former portfolios as he was far more senior and besides he had influential backers from UP.

A-I8217;s poor grade

On the Air-India flight from London to Delhi on July 3, first-class passengers with valid tickets were downgraded to business class so as to accommodate such VIP passengers as former MPs Sushma Swaraj, Rajendra Modi and E. Ahmed and sarod player Amjad Ali Khan who had per force to be upgraded.

Going out of their way to pander to big shots is no doubt part of the drill for the government-run airline, but if thenear bankrupt A-I hopes to be commercially viable, it should surely not lavish such hospitality at the expense of passengers paying the full fare who are unlikely to travel again by the airline.