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Raj Chengappa

21 UP
Orwellian Mockery

It is unusual for India to use a UN summit as a forum to indulge in a
slanging match with its neighbours. The unstated policy was to loftily
ignore any such insults maintaining that bilateral meetings were the best places to air them. So Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's acidic speech at the summit in which he twitted Pakistan's chief executive officer Pervez Musharraf for his double talk is a controversial departure. Much quoted was Vajpayee's remark that, "Many statesmanlike speeches have been delivered from this high tribune---unfortunately some of them are an Orwellian mockery. Those who have stifled democracy at home speak of freedom from this forum."

Vajpayee is right about the irony of Musharraf making such a remark. But was it right for the prime minister to join issue with his Pakistan counterpart at a UN summit meant essentially to look at the challenges ahead for humanity? The Ministry of External Affairs trots out the usual justification about how "enough is enough" and "we won't tolerate any more rubbish from Pakistan". But such stridency against a smaller neighbour is misplaced especially when India is making a bid for a permanent seat in the all-powerful UN Security Council.

If Vajpayee was playing up to his domestic audience or to the burgeoning NRI population---which seems to be his primary aim on this US trip---he could have used some other platform rather than the UN. World opinion is already turning against Pakistan's aggressive posture over the Kashmir issue and there was no real need for Vajpayee to stir the pot. Anger in such places sends the wrong message to what the rest of the globe regards in any case as the "world's most dangerous region".

That those who live in glass houses should not throw stones at others is a biblical axiom relevant even to this day. Vajpayee could have been hoisted on his petard for some of the things he said at the summit. For instance, on the nuclear issue he said, "Our policy is based on responsibility and restraint and we continue to press for universal verifiable disarmament with undiminished commitment." After the 1998 nuclear tests, Vajpayee talking of a nuclear free world sounds as hollow as Musharraf pleading for democracy.

Vajpayee and Musharraf were not the only leaders for whom words, not deeds, seemed important at what was billed as the historic summit to herald the new millennium. Most of the 147 heads of states who attended---the largest gathering of world leaders in history---were guilty of such rhetoric. Other examples:

US President Bill Clinton, making his last address to the UN as the world's most powerful man, talked extensively of the challenges and responsibilities that lay ahead for the world body stating, "All these things come with a price tag and all nations including the US must pay for it." What he didn't mention is that the US is among the biggest defaulters in paying up its dues to the UN.

Russian President Vladimir Putin did come up with some pragmatic suggestions on nuclear risk reduction but then went on to talk about human rights and democracy saying, "These days we are a new country and at the same time an ancient one. We returned to the scene as a democratic state and we have the intention to become strong in that capacity and earn more prestige." His military campaign at Chechnya is too recent in memory for such commitments to carry conviction.

At the end of the three days, the heads of government signed a millennium declaration to 'free mankind from the scourge of war, extreme poverty and threat of environmental disaster'. The date fixed for the UN---this "indispensable common house of the entire human family" as Secretary General Kofi Annan called it---to meet its target was an arbitrary 2015. We'll see.

(Raj Chengappa is Deputy Editor, INDIA TODAY and author of Weapons of Peace: The Secret Story of India's Quest to be a Nuclear Power.) He is based in Delhi. Write to Raj Chengappa.)

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