Under the Strobe lights

Strobe Talbott, the redoubtable Russia hand in the Clinton administration who as his deputy secretary of state engaged in a 8216;8216;stra...

Strobe Talbott, the redoubtable Russia hand in the Clinton administration who as his deputy secretary of state engaged in a 8216;8216;strategic dialogue8217;8217; with then foreign minister Jaswant Singh, has just published a book on those conversations Engaging India, Diplomacy, Democracy and the Bomb, and it8217;s such a frank account that it could set a few standards for journalists Talbott is himself a former staffer of Time magazine dabbling with both foreign policy as well as the 400-word limit imposed by most newspapers.

The gripping tale gives us an insider8217;s view of how the Indo-US relationship unfolded over those years, encompassing key events in the Vajpayee era. It begins with how he heard of the May 11 nuclear tests through CNN, and when he called the CIA for confirmation, that department experienced the double mortification of learning through him! Talbott deals with the 8216;8216;casuistry8217;8217; of the Hindutva ideologues in the BJP and how the idea of India 8212; an experiment in democracy that is still unfolding after a couple of thousand years 8212; contrasts with America8217;s own 200-year-plus record. The chapters on Kargil are especially illuminating, as Clinton pressed Nawaz Sharif to first withdraw behind the LoC in Washington and simultaneously called Vajpayee to tell him in Delhi what he was doing. The latter, admits Talbott, was hardly impressed and wanted to first 8216;8216;see8217;8217; the goods before he could applaud their delivery. All through, the Clinton administration pushed New Delhi to adhere to non-proliferation benchmarks, such as a CTBT signature. But Kargil was hardly over when the IC-814 plane got hijacked from Kathmandu, widely believed to be masterminded by Musharraf in return for the humiliation of Kargil, says Talbott. The Clinton visit to India is clearly a high watermark.

Still, the book is also so much fun because Talbott includes his encounters with New Delhi8217;s elite among them the unsnobbish editor of Seminar magazine Malvika Singh. All in all, he admits, Jaswant Singh got much the better of him in the two-year dialogue. The book is a treat 8212; and worth a buy.

The Indo-Pak road to peace

A first India-Pakistan encounter in many years, with both sides smiling at each other civilly, is quite a landmark in the bilateral relationship, although it now remains to be seen how it pans out. A third meeting between the two foreign ministers on the margins of the SAARC foreign ministerial meet in the third week of July in Islamabad is on the cards. But before that, both New Delhi and Islamabad will have to decide what their respective positions are on travellers carrying documents across the Line of Control on buses seeking to re-invent old trade routes, such as those from Srinagar to Muzaffarabad and from Suchetgarh to Sialkot.

It now seems that a third bus, from Kargil to Skardu in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir, was also proposed by the Indian team during the recent FS-level talks. The Kargil-Skardu route is also an old trade route, an offshoot of the old Silk Route. All three roads, in fact, have often been talked about by J038;K Chief Minister Mufti Sayeed, as a Confidence Building Measure from one part of Kashmir to another. The three routes proposed by India, interestingly, will serve all three parts of J038;K 8212; the Ladakh sector, the Valley and the Jammu region.

What Lyngdoh forgot to note

While on Kashmir, former Chief Election Commissioner James Lyngdoh seems to have forgotten to include an interesting nugget in his new and very interesting book. Seems, during the Kashmir 2002 elections, Lyngdoh asked a good IAS friend of his, who happened to be Muslim, for names of Muslim IAS officers with large dollops of experience and impeccable credentials, who could be placed in key places during that very crucial election period. For fear that BJP ideologues as well as other politically correct administrators would cry foul 8216;8216;aren8217;t Hindu IAS officers as good?8217;8217; kind of line, the move was kept a dark secret. Lyngdoh knew there would be incredible international attention on the Kashmir elections and therefore they had to be seen to be free and fair. 8216;8216;Muslim8217;8217; officers, anathema to the idea of a secular democracy but relevant to the time, were plucked out of the jobs they were doing across the country and sent to Kashmir for that poll period.

In the event, the polls were a resounding success and a great feather in the cap of the BJP. Every nation worth its salt sent diplomats as observers 8212; including the European Union whose fetish with democracy and human rights is well-known 8212; and each posted glowing reports back home. The Kashmir elections were a real milestone in the India-Pakistan psychological war 8212; and J M Lyngdoh a major author.

An act of omission

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As a key ingredient of domestic policy, India8217;s foreign policy has always reflected the colour of the government of the time, while seeking to be both above board and bipartisan. If the BJP government came out of the 8216;8216;nuclear8217;8217; closet, also a manifestation of its 8216;8216;shakti8217;8217; principle, for example, Congress8217;s Foreign Minister K Natwar Singh is seeking to detoxify the MEA from that influence. And so the Nehruisms, in the shape of must-read 8216;8216;Selected Works8217;8217; of the great leader and bundgullahs are back, as is Sonia Gandhi on a list of people 8216;8216;who have achieved immortality in their lifetime8217;8217; 8212; including Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi and Mother Teresa.

So far, so good. But when governments decry the achievements of previous governments, then New Delhi must be in trouble. Former foreign minister and BJP spokesman Yashwant Sinha has already pointed out that the 8216;8216;joint statement8217;8217; released after the recent India-Pakistan Foreign Secretary talks has no mention of the Lahore Declaration, crafted so painstakingly between two democratically-elected governments. Only the week before, officials from both sides had put in place a set of nuclear CBMs fathered at the very visit. Even if rewriting history is a political prerogative, at least MEA bureaucrats should have pointed out that the omission would only, ultimately, hurt the Indian national interest.