NEW DELHI, MARCH 22: It took the President to give the President a reality check tonight. At the end of a long and full day, K R Narayanan unleashed a battery of verbal missiles that ranged from an outright rejection of the ``alarmist'' theory that Kashmir was a nuclear flashpoint, to India's ``right'' to be a member of an expanded Security Council.Rashtrapati Bhawan, in fact, was the venue where the circle of Clinton's journey for the day began - with a ceremonial reception at the forecourt - and ended.If Prime Minister Vajpayee had used far more temperate language during the day to reject an earlier Bill Clinton thesis that South Asia was the ``most dangerous place in the world,'' Narayanan at his banquet speech on Tuesday night in honour of his counterpart, was far more blunt.``We are open to dialogue and to peaceful settlement of differences,'' the President said, adding, ``But should they have the divine right of aggression and of indiscriminate and well-organised terrorism across the international borders or the agreed Line of Control sanctified by solemn treaties and commitments?''Much more was to come. Departing from the usually colourless speeches usually made in honour of visiting dignitaries, the President was rapier sharp in his comments about the ``inevitability'' of the emerging unipolar world.``As an African statesman has observed to us, the fact that the world is a global village does not mean that it will be run by one village headman. In this age of democracy it will be headed by a panchayat. For the UN is a global panchayat.'' Narayanan said.In the intervening hours, Vajpayee, in somewhat more temperate language, had driven home the point that ``after visiting this part of the world, the President will come to the conclusion that the situation is not so bad as it is made out to be. There are differences.But there is no threat of any war.'' All this in answer to a question by an American reporter on rising nuclear tensions in the region.President Narayanan was far more direct. ``If India's integrity and independence is threatened, it becomes the duty of the Indian state - its duty to the one-billion people who inhabit our vast land - to defend them with all the resources and strength at its disposal.
