Editorials

India Today, June 14, 1999
June 14, 1999

Oh Shut Up George

A defence minister gone berserk with his tongue.

Edits Even for his habitual supporters, Defence Minister George Fernandes has crossed a Rubicon of sorts with a flurry of irresponsible utterances on the war in Kargil. First, he confounded the most hardnosed Islamabad watcher by insisting that the recent invasion was an autonomous operation of the Pakistan Army. Having absolved Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif as well as the infamous Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of all blame, Fernandes then spoke of a "safe passage" to the infiltrators. In between his breathtaking pronouncements, he led a team of generals to a meeting of the BJP's National Executive, making a mockery of the apolitical identity of India's armed forces. His respect for propriety apart, the defence minister's grasp of realpolitik and military strategy is under scrutiny. His analysis of Pakistan's power structure is questionable. Sharif is arguably the most powerful civilian ruler of his country since M.A. Jinnah, having only a few months ago replaced the army chief with a personal favourite. Surely he must know what his military brass is doing. The distinction between the army and the ISI is equally specious.

Nor is any talk of compromise with and unhindered withdrawal of the mujahideen tenable. It will only serve to confuse and frustrate those who are putting their lives at stake in Kargil's treacherous terrain. The Indian soldier is not a robotic entity, to be switched on and off as per a politician's whimsy. It was precisely such confused signals that impaired the Indian Army in Sri Lanka a decade ago. Fernandes is walking down the same route that led Rajiv Gandhi to disaster. Only the truly cretinous would demand a defence minister be sacked in the midst of war. Even so, Fernandes has to muzzle himself and stop lumbering from one controversy to the next. There is a fine divide between defence and foreign affairs; he has made it a habit to breach it. Like the Pakistanis, Fernandes has got to learn the virtues of a line of control.

Postpone Your Politics

Can't the Congress stop its one-upmanship games till Kargil has been saved?

Edits Late in the life of the 12th Lok Sabha, somebody remarked that the Congress had 140-odd MPs and 500 aspiring ministers. What was once India's natural party of governance is today a zoological delight: it is the world's largest collection of know-alls. Nothing sums up this sentiment better than the Congress' reaction to Kargil. Having paid the mandatory tribute to the Indian Army, Congress leaders have resorted to scoring cheap political points. They have expended their energies in gloating over the "tattered remains" of the Lahore Declaration and lampooning Atal Bihari Vajpayee's "bus diplomacy". One particularly imaginative partyman has gone to the extent of comparing Vajpayee's diplomacy to Neville Chamberlain's trip to Munich in 1938. Amazingly, till the other day he was likening the BJP leadership to Hitler.

Of course, it is K. Natwar Singh who's taken the biscuit. The one-time diplomat and foreign minister obviously thinks his office as chairman of the Congress' external affairs cell entitles him to play the expert commentator on anything and everything. So he has accused the government of lacking "coherence, direction and an integrated approach", charged it with having "let down the jawans", predicted that the crisis would go to the United Nations in September, asked why the National Security Council has not met. The coup de grace came when he justified his words and deeds by pointing out how a no-confidence motion was moved against Winston Churchill during World War II. Since the Congress has demanded a Rajya Sabha session -- to analyse a war even while it is taking place -- presumably Natwar and his colleagues want to move a no-confidence motion against a caretaker government. If only the Congress could desist from playing ducks and drakes till the enemy has been vanquished.

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