New Delhi, March 12
It was “India Shining” for the
Vajpayee government at the third India Today conclave here as Prime Minister
Atal Bihari Vajpayee and External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha today
brandished the steady emergence of “brand India’.
Significantly, Mr Sinha
strongly advocated the possessions of nuclear weapons saying that “in a world
where weapons of mass destruction are still to be eliminated, nuclear weapons
sadly remain the ultimate guarantor of a nation’s security”. Mr Sinha also made
a policy statement that it was the imposition of “an imperfect non-proliferation
order” which “compelled us to make the transition from nuclear abstinence to
that of a reluctant nuclear power.”
Prime Minister Vajpayee, in his keynote
address, hinted that it was not the globalisation of India but the
“Indianisation” of the globe. He exuded the confidence that India would become a
developed nation “in a holistic way” by 2020. “We are seeing increasingly that
India adjusts to globalisation and the globe is adjusting to a quiet ‘Indianisation’,”
he remarked.
In the course of his speech, the Prime Minister demonstrated a
blend of humility and political aggression when he categorically stated that
India’s achievements did not belong to the recent past and the previous
governments also had made contribution in this regard. At the same time, Mr
Vajpayee launched a scathing attack on the Opposition, without naming any party,
on his government’s “India Shining” campaign.
“It cannot be anybody’s claim
that India’s achievements belong only to the recent past. As an Indian, I am as
proud as anyone else of India’s achievements under previous governments. I have
never looked at them with jaundiced eyes and never been sparing in giving credit
where it was due. There are some who do not like to describe all this as “India
Shining”. They would at least have to admit that these facts testify to the
vigour and vitality of India’s international profile today,” Mr Vajpayee
said.
In fact, both Mr Vajpayee and Mr Sinha dwelt at length in their speeches
on terrorism and proliferation — the two defining security-related
pre-occupations of the 21st century — and talked tough vis a vis Pakistan
without naming the neighbouring country.
Mr Vajpayee said India and Pakistan
could not remain shackled by history in the changing and fast-moving world, Mr
Vajpayee said the two countries should look at “innovative ideas” to resolve
bilateral differences. “We hear a lot these days about the indiscriminate
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, feeding a black market of
non-state actors. We have always maintained that existing non-proliferation
regimes are all grossly unequal and would not serve the purpose of military de-nuclearisation.
They have restrained the responsible and rewarded the reckless,” the Prime
Minister said on the proliferation issue.
Mr Yashwant Sinha’s dig at Pakistan
in this context was bolder and more direct. He announced that India indeed had
sought to change the existing power equations in the global order, but through
peaceful means.
