Spokesblunderer

These columns were compelled,shortly after the terrorist attacks in Mumbai last year,to call out the electronic media in particular and people of influence in general who were helping to create a near-hysterical sense of crisis through repeated,fact-free,speculation about Pakistan or of Indias changed attitude to that country. Now,after an attack similar in conception if not in horror,there are very real concerns that such irresponsibility will once again take root,hobbling the Indian governmental response to the attack on Sri Lankas cricketers in Lahore,creating a climate of fear and testosterone a climate that government will have to take crucial,unaffordable time and resources away from the real reaction to calm.

Given that many in government would be very happy to avoid having to do that,it wouldnt be surprising if the groans were loud and sustained when they heard Congress spokesman Manish Tewari relieve himself of his measured opinion on the subject of Pakistan. Tewari,not hitherto known for his magisterial grasp of foreign affairs,informed a startled public that Pakistan,a nuclear-armed state,was not only a failed state but fast becoming the Somalia of South Asia. Somalia,as the current issue of Foreign Policy points out,is a warlord-riven,pirate-ridden husk of a state where the sole functioning international airport has a runway truncated by the wreck of a shot-down commercial airliner,and where new arrivals are greeted with a small immigration form that asks for name,address and calibre of weapon.

To compare our struggling neighbour with this tragic basket case of a country is something that should only be done with the greatest of care: something which it is near-certain Tewari did not take. Bad enough for an individual with a platform to speak irresponsibly,and we must once again urge those who do have such platforms to at least try to be sensible and well-researched; but when that individuals a party spokesman,when his uninformed sound-bite will be attributed to the ruling party in the worlds largest democracy in the next days headline,its much worse. It is to be hoped that official party spokespeople recall that,if given a choice between sounding inane and sounding insane,theyve really no choice at all.