We are a Nation of Cowards

Dear Sir,

Reference the ‘ waffle-yet-again ‘ by the Delphic Oracle Bee Gee Vee in his ” Rebuilding trust with Pakistan ” – (TNIE – 20 May).

He, evidently, lives in a ‘Nehruvian Dreamworld’ – like Nehru telling in 1962 that the -Chinese will never attack India’ !! If there is a common thread in our ‘NAPUNSAK’ Prime Minister’s dealings with Pakistan – from Havana with Gen. ‘M’ thru ‘ SHARAM KI BAAT ‘ OOPS !! – Sharm al Sheikh – to Thimpu, with Gilani & Co – in a word – It was  ‘selling’ Indian security interests ‘DOWN THE DRAIN’ at a Discounted Price. No more. No Less. Bee Gee Vee’s breathless optimism – notwithstanding.

Thus on Thimpu, the respected and well known security analyst B.Raman, wrote in Indian Defence Review an Opinion entitled : ” Thimpu Talks: Downgrading Terrorism as Core Issue Once Again “.  He wrote: ” Both Prime Ministers recognized that dialogue is the only way forward. Action on terrorism should not be linked to the Composite Dialogue process and these should not be bracketed. Prime Minister Singh said that India was ready to discuss all issues with Pakistan, including all outstanding issues.” – From the joint statement issued by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistani Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani on July 16, 2009, at the end of their talks at Sharm-el-Sheikh in Egypt.

“The two Prime Ministers decided to ask their Foreign Ministers and Foreign Secretaries to first discuss the modalities of restoring trust and confidence in bilateral ties. That would pave the way for talks on all issues of mutual concern. We don’t have to be stuck with nomenclatures. This does the relationship no good. Dialogue is the only way forward to open channels of communications and restore trust and confidence…..They agreed to assess the current state of affairs and then to start afresh on the way forward. The focus is on charting a course forward so that the searchlight is on the future and not on the past.”— From the remarks made by Mrs.Nirupama Rao, India’s Foreign Secretary, at the end of the talks between the two Prime Ministers at Thimpu in Bhutan on April 29,2010.”

Leading from the foregoing joint statements, Raman wrote: ” From the above quotes relating to the meetings of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh with Pakistani Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani at Sharm-el-Sheikh in July last and at Thimpu on April 29,2010, it is evident that Dr.Manmohan Singh has once again conceded at Thimpu as he had done at Sharm-el-Sheikh Pakistan’s point of view that India’s dissatisfaction over the perceived lack of action by Pakistan against the “terror machine” in Pakistan as the Foreign Secretary put it should not be allowed to stand in the way of a resumption of the dialogue on other issues of importance “.

Continuing. ” Having succeeded in making Dr.Manmohan Singh de-link the terrorism issue from the dialogue issue, Pakistan is now trying to change the very nature of the approach on the terrorism issue by projecting it as a global issue and not just a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan. During his interaction with the Pakistani media at Islamabad after returning from Thimpu, Mr.Shah Mehmood Quereshi, the Pakistani Foreign Minister, has sought to downgrade the priority attached to the terrorism issue.” “The Hindu” of May 1,2010, has reported as follows: : “As for India’s concern about terrorism, his counter was that it was a global concern and would be best addressed collectively.”

Thus in one stroke, our ‘Gujranwala School of Foreign Policy Architect’, has erased the lives of hundreds of Indians killed by the Islamic theology of JIHAD – aided, abetted and sponsored by Pakistan. In the words of Raman:

” Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee, former Prime Minister, had made it clear during his meeting with Pervez Musharraf at Islamabad in January, 2004, that the terrorism issue was the core issue for India and that progress on other issues of interest to Pakistan would depend on the progress on the terrorism issue. At the Havana meeting in September, 2006, Musharraf succeeded in removing this linkage by making Dr.Manmohan Singh agree that the terrorism issue was of common concern to both India and Pakistan. It ceased to be a core issue of exclusive concern to India. At Sharm-el-Sheikh as well as at Thimpu, Mr.Gilani has succeeded in downgrading the primary importance of the terrorism issue and now Mr. Quereshi has proceeded a step further by projecting it as a global issue and not a bilateral issue. What, in fact, he has said is, let the bilateral dialogue focus on issues of concern to Pakistan and let the terrorism issue be dealt with multilaterally in appropriate fora “. And we have Bee Gee Vee ‘applauding’ Thimpu !! One doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry !! In any case, this reader of your paper sets greater faith in Raman’s analysis than the ‘stupidity’ of Bee Gee Vee !!

(http://www.indiandefencereview.com/2010/05/thimpu-talks-downgrading-terrorism-as-core-issue-once-again.html)

Another respected and well known strategic analyst, Dr. Subhash Kapila , wrote an excellent analysis on the subject entitled : ” INDIA’S PAKISTAN POLICY STRATEGICALLY DISASTROUS “. He wrote : ” India’s public opinion hostility to India’s political leadership and political class as a whole was starkly  visible on TV visuals of that time.  It vividly illustrated the Indian public’s pent-up hostility to Pakistan and an enraged resentment against India’s political leadership for their supine policies against Pakistan and not inflicting corresponding losses on Pakistan.The record of the Prime Minister from Havana to Thimphu via Sharm-al-Sheikh reflects that the Indian policy establishment is in a state of ‘severe disconnect’ from Indian public opinion on Pakistan.  They are also in a ‘state of denial’ that Pakistan continues with its implacable hostility towards India and that their posturing for peace is only a veneer to please the United States and in the bargain to continue receiving United States strategic support and military hardware “.

(http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/%5Cpapers38%5Cpaper3793.html)

There was of course COMIC RELIEF provided by Bee Gee Vee when he wrote about the ‘fire & brimstone’ rebuke to Jihadistan by the ‘Mummy’ of the U.S. State Depat. following the ‘fizzled Times Square Bomb Plot’.  Oh Yes! Zardari & Co were seen ‘shivering in their pants’ and extra blankets were purchased to overcome the ‘chill’ in Islambad summer !! And, at GHQ Rawilipindi, the epaulets of Kayani & his Corps Commanders ‘fell off their shoulders’. Such was the tone and tenor of ‘Mummy’s’ rebuke !!  Within 24 hours, Holbroke was issuing ‘clarifying’ statements – laced with the usual diplomatese ‘ifs & buts’. But Bee Gee Vee would have your readers believe otherwise !!

The fact of the matter is, and it appears that Bee Gee Vee is oblivious to a much repeated and quoted statement in strategic circles, seminars and think tanks – “Every Nation has an Army. The Pakistani Army has a Nation”. So, Gilani, Zardari, Quereshi count for nothing – they serve at the pleasure of the Kayanis. Period. And, if any further proof is needed, here is what, the respected Pakistani journalist, Ahmed Rashid, author of the best-seller – “Descent into chaos” – wrote in the Washington Post on 27 Apr 2010, an Opinion entitled : ” Afghan crunch time: Obama must  decide whether to talk to the Taliban ” : ” Pakistan’s military has virtually taken control of foreign policy and  strategic decision making from the civilian government. Thus Pakistan’s foreign policy reflects the military’s  obsession with India “.

If it was Baluchistan at ‘Sharam Ki Baat’, it was the Indus River Waters at Thimpu !! In an excellent Opinion in the Indian Express of 19 Mar 2010 and entitled : ” Alibi for
Tension “, well known startegic analyst K.Subrahmanyam wrote :

” Ever since General Ashfaq Kayani, Pakistan’s army chief, cited the water issue as the reason for Pakistan having to be India-centric in its defence preparedness in his February 10 press briefing, the discourse in Pakistan has become unusually charged. It is obvious from his reference to Kashmir and water issues that the Pakistan army under Kayani has gone back on the back-channel negotiations and the understanding reached between Pakistan and India during the Musharraf dispensation. Kayani utilised the press briefing to signal that the Pakistan army will not permit the government to settle Kashmir on the basis of making the Line of Control irrelevant. This message has obviously been absorbed by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani and Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi. The former has declared that the Musharraf proposals had no popular mandate, and the latter could not find any papers on it — though the former Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri publicly informed him that the papers were available in the president’s office. In the current political situation in Pakistan, President Asif Ali Zardari does not count for much. This was rubbed in by Kayani when he gave extensions to three lieutenant generals and promoted other major generals to three-star rank without the president’s approval. The decision to extend Kayani’s term as army chief will probably be taken by Kayani himself, and rubber-stamped by the president. So much for civilian control over the armed forces, which the US Congress has stipulated requires certification  by the secretary of state. It is a popular joke in Pakistan that a general is either sitting on the seat of power  or standing just behind it “.

Subrahmanyam further wrote: ” The baselessness of the accusations that India was withholding the water that is due to Pakistan is exposed by the reply of Pakistan’s minister for water and power, Raja Pervez Ashraf, in the National Assembly, that India was well within its rights under the Indus Water Treaty to build dams on the Jhelum and Chenab. In the case of the Indus river, India is using only a fraction of the water it is entitled to under the treaty. In spite of that, Hafiz Saeed, the Lashkar-e-Toiba chief, threatens war, and others write about nuclear confrontation. But there is not even an iota of data cited to show how India has withheld water. There have, no doubt, been reductions in the flow of water to Pakistan in the last few years. As the Indus water commissioner in Pakistan, Syed Jamaat Ali Shah, has explained, that was due to hydro-meteorological factors — a shortage of rainfall in the catchment areas”.

(http://www.indianexpress.com/story-print/592767/)

The truth, on the present Pakistan generated controversy on the Indus Water Treaty, as read from open source literature , reveals :

(a) – Nearly 95 per cent of Pakistan’s water is used for agriculture. The irrigation water is put into canals. It’s an inefficient system designed in the 1860s. The canal is not lined and is just a trench and therefore seepage occurs. Pakistan is losing up to 40 per cent of water due to seepage, evaporation and theft;

(b) – As against the storage entitlement of 3.6 MAF, India has built no storage so far. Of the 1.34 million acres permitted for irrigation, only 0.792 million acres is being irrigated;

 (c) – Out of a total hydroelectric potential of 18,653 MW, projects worth 2,324 MW have been commissioned and those for 659 MW are under construction.  India is fully entitled to build hydroelectric power plants under IWT;

(d) There has been disproportionate appropriation of water resources by Pakistan Punjab at the cost of the other three provinces. The charge of India holding up water has been raised presumably to divert the responsibility for not distributing waters to the four provinces of Pakistan equitably;

(e) – The real problem appears to be mismanagement of its water resources by Pakistan and changes in climate and weather patterns across the sub-continent coupled with the growing population in Pakistan.

And yet, the Indian Policy Establishment instead of telling the Pakis to ‘Shut up’, agress to talk on the IWT !!

( http://satyameva-jayate.org/2010/05/18/indus-water/ )

There is now no doubt in my mind that WE ARE A NATION OF COWARDS. Kshatriya Dharma, other than in the Armed Forces, is dead and buried. Our Prime Minister is a representative sample of this COWARDICE. And Bee Gee Vee – the ‘drum beater’ Man Friday !!

JAI HO !!

VANDE MATARAM

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