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Journalism of Courage
Time was when annual invocations, of a most dubious nature, to the BJP routinely appeared on December 6, summed up in that one over-burdened word, Ayodhya8217;. Well, henceforth, the media obsession with the calendar will still be indulged, but the landmark date will be May 11, with muscular Pokharan8217; supplanting shameful Ayodhya8217;. On the very first of these occasions, let it be said that what so many viewed as a road to disaster has proved a road remarkably well travelled so far. Even among firm believers in the Indian imperative to go avowedly nuclear, there was anxiety on May 11. The tests were conducted by a party which, aside from no previous experience of governance, had a track record of bellicosity and recklessness. The defence minister8217;s wild statements on China and the home minister8217;s threat of hot pursuit of infiltrators brought unease even to those who held that openly-nuclear India and Pakistan would be better neighbours. They certainly appeared over-night to destroy a relationship with Beijingthat had been rebuilt brick by brick over a decade. There was Washington8217;s frank irritation not only at having its cosy hegemonistic security structure challenged by a poor upstart but at being made to look plain silly. As if that was not bad enough, there were fears of India becoming an economic basket case. All in all, it seemed that there was going to be hell to pay.
In retrospect, India got away remarkably lightly. This is the result of no accident but of admirable tenacity, a determination to learn from mistakes and on no count to compromise on fundamental aims and interests. Time is of the essence for perspective but already it is safe to say that the management of the nuclear blasts8217; fallout has been a phenomenal success. A passage from a column in Newsweek by Gerald Segal of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, London, is worth quoting: 8220;India8217;s test last May, and the subsequent Pakistani tests, were supposed to have put the region on a hair trigger for nuclear war and wrecked the struggle against non-proliferation. Nonsense. If anything, South Asia8230;is a more stable place than it has been for many years. The real loser is the West 8212; particularly the United States 8212; whose noisy diplomatic effort to treat Indians and Pakistanis as pariahs and primitives has failed.8221;
