THE PAKISTAN DRAMA, CHINA AND POKHRAN II

JuD-LeT (Jamaat-Ud-Dawa and Lashkar-e-Taiba) founder Hafeez-Al-Sayeed has been put under house arrest once again. The mastermind - evil genius is the apt word - behind the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack leading to the death of 166 innocent lives can lead a life of luxury and with the full security cover provided by the police apparently directed by the government of Pakistan. A lucky chap indeed! Even a common man like this writer had anticipated such a possibility just before the curtain was to go up at the UN General Assembly Annual Summit on the sidelines of a meeting scheduled to be held between the Indian Foreign Secretary Ms. Nirupama Rao and Pakistan Foreign Secretary Salman Basheer relating to Kashmir and other issues. This meeting will soon be followed by Indian Foreign Minister S.M.Krishna and his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mahmoud Qureshi as agreed upon by the Prime Minister of India ManMohan Singh and Pakistani PM Yusuf Raza Gilani at the talks they held at Sharm-Al-Sheikh in Egypt on the sidelines of NAM Summit.

Anticipating international pressure on the question of initiating stern action against Mumbai terror culprits and the criminal mind behind the gruesome massacre Hafeez-Al-Sayeed (he is a “philanthropist” too) Pakistani government decided to enact a drama by putting the criminal under house arrest and the fellow must have been intimated already by the rulers themselves. They are very adept masters at that. Our Home Minister P.Chidambaram is somewhat satisfied (though not fully) as he is almost certain that it is just an eye wash. Anyhow he can draw more satisfaction, if the Pakistani government takes positive measures to cross-examine Hafiz-Sayeed. As to the demand of proof from Indian government by Pakistani authorities, Chidambaram has retorted by pointing out that “the proof is in the Pakistani soil itself”. He was reportedly answering to the queries of media persons soon after flagging off Nizamuddin bound “Turonto Express” from Chennai yesterday. So far, so good!

Let’s move on to the reported Chinese incursions into India now. For the moment’s sake it is better to put aside the matter. Even the great and intimate friend of China, since 1977 while Morarji Desai was at the helm of affairs, Subramanian Swamy- he is also a Harvard educated gentleman- was entrusted with a trip to China to better the relations between the two neighbouring nations. Morarji Desai had great faith in Swamy and in Desai’s words “you are a man without rose-tinted glasses”. Swamy met Deng Hsiao Ping, the then greatest leader of Peoples’ Republic Of China, after Mao Tse Tung, with a different mind-set on economic reforms which reportedly led to a ‘quantum jump’ in the economic growth of China (his much quoted statement on economic reforms is worth mentioning here- be the cat black or white, the only thing is that it should catch rats) and had cordial talks about the border matters particularly Tibet and Kailas Manasarovar Yatra and pave safe passage to Indian pilgrims through the Chinese occupied territory. Subramanian Swamy holds the firm opinion that reported border incursions by some media persons are not worth discussing. And the government level talks still go on without reaching anywhere since early 70’s.

M.K.Bhadrakumar, the veteran and ebullient former foreign diplomat inspite of his obsession with looking through the prism of leftist ideology on matters of international importance holds the opinion similar to Swamy’s. While writing on certain matters relating to countries with leftist leanings, Bhadrakumar has a knack for hiding from certain inconvenient questions, so I feel (despite myself being a leftist).

Nowadays on a daily basis controversies relating to the 1998- Pokhran-2 thermo-nuclear explosions hog the lime-light. Nuclear scientists across the scientific spectrum have like two warring political groups of a party have got divided into two groups. Caught in between them is none other than our National Security Adviser, M.K.Narayanan. The can of worms was opened by former DRDO Scientist K.Santhanam and Ashok Parthasarathy, the then principal scientific adviser to the Prime Minister. It took eleven years for the controversy to reach the boiling point. Santhanam is reported to have told media persons yesterday that soon after the “reported” failure of the experiment he had prepared a 50 page letter to the authorities in which he had mentioned that if the experiment had be to be hailed as a success a 72 meter crater should have been formed at the site, instead no such crater was visible at the site. He had also demanded two more explosions needed to be conducted but ‘unfortunately’ it didn’t materialize as soon after the tests a unilateral moratorium was put in place. Regarding M.K.Narayanan’s assertion that the experiment was a great success and that he swore by it Santhanam is reported to have said to the media that Narayanan was not the National Security Adviser in 1998. Santhanam has demanded a commission to be formed to investigate and let it go deeper into it and file a confidential report to the concerned authorities.

Up till now we were waxing eloquent about the sad plight of fifty percent of our population suffering from malnourishment and now let us be more intellectual and discuss about more credible nuclear deterrent along with the problem of poverty and malnourishment.