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Blackwill condemns terrorism against India
Rajeev Sharma and Gaurav Choudhury
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 29
India today got “white hot” support in its war against terrorism from none other than the outgoing US Ambassador Robert D Blackwill who in his final speech covered India from alpha to omega and lavished praises on “Mother India”.

In his “personal musings” peppered with mythological analogies and diplomatic innuendoes, Mr Blackwill said “no respectable religion”, “no moral framework”, “no political cause” could justify acts of terrorism which India had been facing “nearly every day” “year after year after year”.

In a luncheon speech “What India means to me” sponsored by FICCI, Mr Blackwill predicted: “We will win the war on terrorism, and the USA and India will win it together — because we represent good, and terrorists are evil incarnate. God will make it so”.

Known for his strong views against terrorism, Mr Blackwill presaged that good would eventually conquer the evil, even though the perpetrators sought refuge under political and religious justifications.

“These terrorist outrages against my country and against yours will not continue indefinitely. We know this from the Ramayana, and many other holy books. Good does triumph over evil, although it sometimes takes more time than we would like.”

Ambassador Blackwill is viewed here as a staunch India supporter and his today’s speech conforms to that image. He said he had started reading regularly the Indian newspapers while he was preparing for his Senate confirmation hearing in early 2001 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He confessed that he was astonished to learn about human and material devastation caused by terrorism which America learnt on September 11, but India went through every day.

The diplomat maintained a daily count of lives lost in India due to terrorism. “India’s death toll from terrorism mounted as the snow fell and melted in Cambridge, and the New England winter turned to spring. And I became more and more angry. Innocent human beings murdered as a systemic instrument of twisted political purpose. Terror against India that rose and fell with the seasons, year after year after year.”

Mr Blackwill covered a vast expanse of Indianhood and Indianness talking about the harmonium music in the Golden Temple, balmy evenings in Chandigarh, his Shatabdi Express trip to the city of the Taj, the ancient Jain Dilwara temples at Mount Abu, Indian family values, arranged marriages and Indian music and dance.

He explained why the Vedas and the Upanishads meant so much to him and quoted from these ancient texts: “It is the ear of the ear, the mind of the mind, the speech of speech, the breath of breath, and the eye of the eye. When freed (from the senses) the wise, on departing from this world, become immortal”.