July 12, 1999
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Chatline
to Pakistan The issue is not Track Il diplomacy, the issue is credible emissaries
This example, however, leads to the pre-requisite for Track II diplomats: credibility. In 1964 Abdullah's political importance, his influence over contentious Kashmir was beyond doubt. Likewise, Pakistan's recent use of a former foreign secretary as emissary would seem in order. Unfortunately, India's case seems to have been left to amateur busybodies. In times of war, it is imperative to deploy messengers of established expertise and professional integrity. The Indian Government has to guard against well-connected carpetbaggers masquerading as special envoys. While the chosen representative must necessarily have the ear of the political leadership, that cannot be the only criterion. Vajpayee should not reduce himself to the level of some of his predecessors, who bypassed the Foreign Service with the Friendship Service by giving a series of diplomatic assignments to cronies. When the job in question is that of high commissioner to Mozambique, Indians may smirk; when it comes to the interlocutor with Pakistan, they will brook no error. Calcutta vs Bengal When an internationalist city goes berserk over a puny website
More disturbing is the emergence of a xenophobic ginger group in Bengali society. A big city, be it Boston or Bangalore, takes on an identity of its own. Geography does not convey property rights. Calcutta is as much -- or as little -- a Bengali city as Mumbai is a Maharashtrian one. Its assimilative traditions are Calcutta's biggest strength, never its handicap. As the initial growth of the Shiv Sena in Mumbai made clear, parochialism is often born of factors as mundane as unemployment. For 20 years, the Left Front has presided over the conversion of West Bengal's industrial edifice into a gigantic rust belt. The result is a jobless generation whose frustrations are stoked by addled novelists with a penchant for conspiracy theories about a non-Bengali takeover. If such paranoia gains momentum Calcutta may indeed acquire the trappings of a more "Bengali city". Somehow, its soul will be the poorer. |
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In the midst of a full-blown
cross-border drama, trust India to busy itself with the sideshow: the exchange of
unofficial envoys between Delhi and Islamabad. The point to ponder is not the
judiciousness of such "Track II diplomacy" but its efficacy. Parallel channels
of communication are an accepted part of modern diplomacy. So in resorting to such means,
Atal Bihari Vajpayee's government has committed no grave error. India's stand on Kargil is
clear: it wants the Pakistanis to withdraw from the loc. It will take a combination of
military muscle and tactful negotiation to achieve this. It is fair enough to argue that
private visits may achieve more than the arrival of foreign ministers amid a media circus.
Despite the Congress' protests, it would be wise to recall that just before his death
Jawaharlal Nehru sent Sheikh Abdullah on a peace mission to Pakistan. In all these years
it has been nobody's case that Nehru subverted the Foreign Ministry or acted against
national interests. 
It is positively amusing to see Calcutta's
one-time internationalist intellectuals atrophy into champions of chauvinism. The furore
over a website that disparages Bengalis in general and Chief Minister Jyoti Basu in
particular symbolises this bankruptcy. The very forum that demanded -- successfully -- the
arrest of the Marwari youth who is said to have created the website is in the forefront of
an agitation that advocates everything from Bengali nomenclature to a blanket imposition
of the language. There are two points that need to be addressed. One is legal: the case
against India first "cyber-undertrial" is weak. Unlike, say, a newspaper, the
Internet is an open-ended, interactive and organic being. As such, the originator of a
website may have no control over its evolution. This is the indicted man's precise
defence. This is also the reason why technology-savvy countries like the US and Singapore
have given up the idea of policing the Net. If an ossified Marxist establishment believes
otherwise, it may as well bay at the moon. 
