Pardoner8217;s tale

In the rarest of rare cases and with respect to the rarest of rare birds, the national interest should and must take precedence over the right to free speech. Such a case and bird has now presented itself. George Fernandes has excelled himself in his new-found role of secular pardoner. The most charitable view of the situation is that he is in a confusional state. He no longer knows whether he is defence minister of India or Pakistan. The alternative is that he has taken irresponsibility to hitherto unscaled heights. This time, his actions do not only have remote international implications. The BJP will also be feeling the heat. The party, which has focused on ISI activities in India and whose government even produced a White Paper on the subject, will find it difficult to explain why it is suddenly the good cop. Fernandes appears to have been consistently cavalier about the Kargil issue. Even after he was informed about the infiltration, his political compulsions took precedence over the national interest.And he actually attended the jubilee celebration of his 1974 railway strike when he should have been dealing with the situation. It ill befits a minister to attend such events anyway. To attend when his ministry had become the most important of all compounded the offence.

Fernandes seems to be a victim of his past, a contrarious political activist trapped in a minister8217;s chair. His stock in trade is still the sensational issue. The truth is merely incidental. Last year, he targeted China as India8217;s quot;enemy number onequot; on the basis of intelligence which had been with the security services for some time. No professional analyst could support this startling conclusion, but Fernandes is at his most comfortable swimming against the current. The Chinese, naturally, were indifferent to the issue, though they registered their protest. The fulminations of South Asian ex-trade union paranoia did not interest them. They had bigger fish to fry in the Spratlys and Taiwan. The issue died a natural death without havingcaused any damage. It just caused acute embarrassment to the government. But was Fernandes himself embarrassed? Of course not. He went on to orchestrate the sacking of the first Navy chief in India8217;s military history. And now, the spin he has put on the Kargil situation shows that he is entirely unbowed.

As former Army chief General Shankar Roychowdhury has pointed out, it is impossible for Nawaz Sharif not to have known of the operation in Kashmir, a major military project which must have taken months of logistical work. It is bound to have required the assistance of the ISI and the backing of the government. Or is Minister George suggesting that Pakistan is ripe for martial law again? Going by his track record, it can be safely assumed that he has no facts to back his case. Or facts that would satisfy only an X-Files fan. In the case of the great Chinese threat, he only had information about a listening post in Myanmar and some activity on the Northeast frontier. Both facts were known previously to theintelligence community. This time, he should be called to account, for he is doing damage to India8217;s diplomatic relations once too often. This time, he must put up or shut up.