Jaswant leads Hum Hindustani team

NEW DELHI, July 24: The apocryphal story goes that when Jaswant Singh first went to talk to America on behalf of India last month, the of...

NEW DELHI, July 24: The apocryphal story goes that when Jaswant Singh first went to talk to America on behalf of India last month, the officials on Capitol Hill ran for cover of the Oxford English Dictionary.

Half-way across that world 8212; in Philippines this week 8212; Singh plans to plead for a new idiom that is redolent with the innocence and partnership of a pre-nuclear dawn: Chodo kal ki baaten/Kal ki baat purani/Naye daur se likhenge/Apni nayi kahani8230;8216;. And then the crucial line in the 1960s film song adapted to more modern times: Hum Hindustani! We8217;re partners of Asean!8217;

It8217;s the theme song of the Indian team here, all set to take a leaf out of the anti-Marcos people8217;s revolution that swept this country just about a decade ago: When the opponent thrusts a bayonet at you, put a flower into it.

Dressed in one of the batik shirts specially ordered for the 19-odd foreign ministers attending The Big Party at the end of the Asean Regional Forum ARF meeting and the post-ministerial conferenceon July 28, Singh will lead the Hum Hindustani8217; chorus in his deep baritone. It was his idea. The remixed lyrics are authored by joint secretaries in the ministry of external affairs, otherwise feverishly engaged in the pursuit of economic and disarmament diplomacy.

In South-East Asia, it8217;s that time of the year again. Time for the annual summit of the nine Asean nations, followed by interactions with their full dialogue partners of which India is one and the all-important ARF conference, responsible for discussing security-related issues in the region.

In the Asean high chair is the Philippines, battling to sustain a 1 per cent growth rate, an enormous self-confidence building measure in a region that shows little sign of recovering from its year-long 8220;financial flu8221;.

Indonesia continues to be battered by negative rates of 12-14 per cent,