Fifth Column: Isn't Atal Right?

India Today
September 14, 1998

FIFTH COLUMN
Isn't Atal Right?

Heed his warning on Islamic extremism in South Asia.

Tavleen Singh

There are weeks when despite our overwhelming political and economic problems we need to thank God for his small blessings. This past week has been one such. With Pakistan turning Islamic fundamentalist overnight, with old ally Russia disintegrating before our eyes and with it becoming evident that Osama bin Laden is training terrorists for active duty in Kashmir, we need to be grateful the Congress is not in power.

Think, just think how the Congress would have reacted if it had been ruling. To Pakistan becoming the newest member of the Saudi-Afghan school of Islamic thought, a Congress government would have simply looked the other way. In the name of secularism, it would have been considered wrong to say anything that might offend those among our own Muslims who believe the Saudis and Afghans are on the true path.

To Russia being, in (acting) Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin's words, "on the verge of economic and political breakdown", a Congress government might even have offered some kind of financial help. We must never forget it was the goodness of a Congress government's heart that caused P.V. Narasimha Rao to agree to pay back in 1993 our debt to Russia at a special rupee-rouble rate. It cost us a staggering $10 billion. Had we paid at the then rouble-dollar exchange rate, our debt would have come down to a few hundred million dollars. Who says we are a poor country?

We had no reason to accept Russia's terms on that repayment scheme except, of course, the Congress' old affection for that country. The same affection had Rajiv Gandhi flying off to Moscow in the middle of the Gulf War under the mistaken notion that he could persuade Mikhail Gorbachev to prevent the ground attack on Iraq.

As for bin Laden and his penchant for training Islamic terrorists who slip across our borders, that would have been almost as tricky as making a comment on Pakistan turning Islamic fundamentalist. What would our Muslims say? Having thought it through, the Congress' resident foreign-policy geniuses -- like K. Natwar Singh and Mani Shankar Aiyar -- would have probably ended up condemning the Americans for their attack. On the Osama schools for Islamic terrorism, there would have been a discreet silence.

So, having been deeply critical of Atal Bihari Vajpayee's inability to govern us in non-Congress fashion, I praise him this week for not following Congress foreign policy. He has been forthright in his support of America bombing Afghanistan. He has even pointed out -- more mildly than he should have -- that this should help America understand what we go through when trainees from Afghanistan pour across our borders, doubtless with Pakistani assistance, to kill innocent Hindus in Chamba and Jammu.

I am particularly appreciative of the frankness of Vajpayee's comments on Pakistan turning Islamic fundamentalist. He is reported to have said the "growth of religious extremism in any country is a matter of concern for its neighbours" and added that it was clearly a step backward rather than forward. Quite right. Not to mention that we have had our full share of problems with Pakistan even before it officially turned Islamic fundamentalist.

The prime minister has, of course, been attacked by the more "secular" journalists. One especially "secular" paper has even sneered in an editorial that "his own ideological and political origins place the Indian prime minister in the Hindu rashtra camp". To hint that a BJP Government in Delhi is the same thing as Nawaz Sharif turning Pakistan into an Islamic fundamentalist state is not just outrageous but ludicrous.

Unfortunately, far too many well-meaning Indians fail to see it this way because political comment in India has for long years been dominated by the Congress viewpoint. It has even succeeded in convincing us that we are a secular country only because secularism was a gift to us from Jawaharlal Nehru. This is an insult to the people of India.

Exactly the same thing has happened over the years to our foreign policy. We cannot change it, we have been told, because it was gifted to us by Nehru. That was in the 1950s. Would Nehru not have changed it himself had he still been around? The question itself would have been considered blasphemy had it been asked in Panchmarhi's salubrious surroundings, where the leading geniuses of the Congress met to deliberate with their new "charismatic leader".

Vajpayee's Government should have no such qualms. From all accounts Jaswant Singh has done an exceptionally good job in persuading the Americans that we are not as bad as they thought. He now needs to convince them that it is absurd to equate India with Pakistan. It is this balancing act that has given a country which V.S. Naipaul has described as "a criminal enterprise" all kinds of illusions about itself.

We also need to be more blunt about the ugly kind of Islamisation which is spreading across the region and about the fact that it is bound to affect India. Already it is possible to meet ordinary Hindu villagers in Himachal Pradesh -- as I have done -- who are becoming suspicious of all Muslims because of the massacre in Chamba. We cannot afford to pull our punches any more. We need to say, as loudly and clearly as the Americans did after the bombings in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam, that we do not approve of what is happening in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Pussyfooting in the name of secularism may still be in the Congress' interest. It is not in India's -- and when it comes to foreign policy, only India's interests matter.

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