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Journalism of Courage
As India and Pakistan enter the final week in the run-up to the SAARC summit in Islamabad, little gestures that help to significantly improve at least the bilateral atmosphere if not the substance, seem to be the order of the day. Such as the courtesy call by Pakistan8217;s High Commissioner Aziz Khan on Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee over the weekend 8212; Principal Secretary Brajesh Mishra was also present 8212; just the day before he left for Islamabad.
Khan seemed to be highly gratified at the meeting and is now expected to brief President Pervez Musharraf at home. With India8217;s high commissioner to Pakistan, Shiv Shanker Menon, also in town 8212; he met the spectrum of the leadership, beginning with Vajpayee and Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani 8212;the front channels in the India-Pakistan story look truly alive and well.
They are believed to have now relented, believing if the ceasefire8217;s holding on the LoC, in Siachen as well as on the international boundary, it couldn8217;t hurt to have members of the Pakistani armed forces within mobile phone range.
Omar crosses the divide
With the frost beginning to melt between India and Pakistan, can the Kashmiris 8212; the 8216;8216;third party8217;8217; in the conflict 8212; be far behind? Ask Omar Abdullah, the young and spirited MP from Srinagar and a former minister of state in the MEA, brimming with ideas on how to keep the interaction going between Kashmiris on both sides of the LoC.
Taking a leaf out of Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed8217;s book 8212; he recently requested the prime minister for permission to take a group of Kashmiri legislators to Pakistan 8212; Abdullah is said to be working on a two-pronged effort. The first to take a group of young parliamentarians on a journey to Pakistan, the other to take a group of National Conference MPs across the border. As an MP himself, Abdullah knows that under SAARC rules MPs in the region don8217;t need visas.
Tentative dates for the junior Abdullah8217;s journeys, already being dubbed 8216;8216;life after SAARC8217;8217;, are in the end of January. By then all sides in the conflict are expected to get a better sense of what8217;s going on.
Why the Americans failed
General Ashok Mehta followed the US invasion of Iraq from his drawing-room in Noida, a suburb of Delhi, applying American military strategy to his own experience in the 1971 battle for Bangladesh. Writing for the Malayalam magazine Mangalam on a daily basis during the Iraq war 8212; of the five million Indian expatriate population in the Gulf, at least one million are said to be Malayali 8212; Mehta accumulated quite a fan following.
Over the past few months, his wife Aditi Phadnis helped him chop, change, rewrite, re-edit, proofread and compile the articles into a book called War Despatches: Operation Iraqi Freedom. It was released in the capital this past week by Finance Minister Jaswant Singh.
Mehta8217;s book recounts a wonderful little incident about the surrender in the 1971 war. The Pakistani GOC of the 16th Infantry division, Nasir Hussain Shah, fighting at Bogra in then East Pakistan, told him the reason the Indian army won the war was because, 8216;8216;Aapko khuda ka khauf tha You had the moral authority of God behind you.8217;8217;
Mehta said the words came back to him when the Americans, having won the war by deposing Saddam Hussein, failed to win the peace in Iraq.
