by Harihar Swarup

A moderate among the hawks
RARELY a Foreign Affairs Minister has faced such a ticklish diplomatic assignment as Sartaj Aziz when he lands in Delhi in a bid to “defuse the Kargil situation” anytime now. Judging by his career graph, Aziz is, perhaps, most suited minister in Pakistan’s present dispensation to initiate the sensitive talks to defuse a volatile situation

Can the PM take a bus ride to Leh?
WELL that is the question asked by a former Army Major who is now active in politics. While his party was assailing the Government for the failure on the diplomatic front, retired Major Ved Prakash, AICC Secretary, commented: “The PM can travel . . . to Lahore but can he take a bus . . . to Leh?”

75 Years Ago

Plague and homoeopathy
PLAGUE in Punjab is becoming alarming. Approximately 25,000 people have died in May alone.

by Harihar Swarup
A moderate among the hawks

RARELY a Foreign Affairs Minister has faced such a ticklish diplomatic assignment as Sartaj Aziz when he lands in Delhi in a bid to “defuse the Kargil situation” anytime now. Judging by his career graph, Aziz is, perhaps, most suited minister in Pakistan’s present dispensation to initiate the sensitive talks to defuse a volatile situation; the atmosphere is so surcharged. He is known to be a moderate among the hawks in Islamabad’s ruling set-up. Unlike his predecessor, Gohar Ayub, he is not a rabble rouser nor is he pathologically anti-India. Imagine what the fate of the forthcoming talks would have been had Gohar, hawkish son of Pakistan’s first military ruler, the late Field Marshal Mohammed Ayub Khan, still occupied the Foreign Minister’s office.

Like many influential leaders of Pakistan, Aziz does not have a military background nor did he ever enjoy the backing of the army. His biggest asset is the confidence that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has reposed in him. He has been a close associate of Nawaz Sharif in the political sphere and, at one time, occupied the important position of Secretary-General of Pakistan’s Muslim League. Those were difficult times; the party was in opposition and Nawaz Sharif had to face the wrath of the Benazir Bhutto government.

Aziz is basically an economist, having specialised in agriculture and worked with FAO headquarters in Rome. His exposure to politics is comparatively less; it is lesser in the intricate field of diplomacy. As a Finance Minister he has come to be known as “economic wizard” and is regarded as the main architect of the Sharif government’s economic policies during his two terms as Finance Minister — from 1990 to 1993 and in February 1997 when Nawaz Sharif assumed power for the second time. Aziz started his political career as late as 1984 as Minister of State for Food and Agriculture in the government of military ruler, General Mohammed Zia-ul-Haq.

Harvard educated Aziz at one time became very unpopular in Pakistan because he was forced to take hard economic decisions. Heavy dozes of taxes, repeated devaluation of the Rupee, rising prices and freezing of foreign currency account last year evoked people’s antipathy towards him and he came to be known as “surcharge Aziz”.

He was candid enough to admit to a visiting Indian journalist that Pakistan has neither the resources nor the resilience to tide over the sanctions imposed by the USA and Japan. As a good economist, he has figures on his finger tips to back up his argument. He told the journalist that while India has $27 billion as foreign exchange reserves, Pakistan’s does not exceed $ one billion. Pakistan will be really economically ruined if the current conflict with India escalates and this may be one reason for Nawaz Sharif to rush his moderate Foreign Minister to Delhi to defuse the situation. As an economist Aziz is fully aware of the lurking danger ahead.

The sole purpose of his Delhi mission, he says, is to defuse the Kargil situation. He also sees the current tension with India along the line of control as a “localised problem” but maintains that Kashmir is the “unfinished agenda” of the partition of the sub-continent. Ironically, he reiterates that Pakistan is committed to peace in Kashmir and that there are no pre-conditions for his New Delhi trip aimed at ending the fierce military campaign.

He may have to do lot of explaining when he meets his Indian counterpart, Jaswant Singh and, possibly, Defence Minister George Fernandes. Why, after all, Pakistan indulged in such a misadventure, sending hordes of Pakistan militants, backed by army regulars across the LoC to occupy and fortify the icy heights of Kargil region. Pakistan might have thought that by such an adventure it could alter the present LoC and, at the same time, derive tremendous strategic advantage. Islamabad’s strategy appears to be failing.

Diplomatically too, Pakistan has never before been so isolated as in its present misadventure; its attempt to internationalise the Kashmir issue having misfired. The USA, France, UK, Russia and European Union have seen through Pakistan’s game and are convinced that the present situation has arisen because of Pakistani infiltration into Indian territory. China too has distanced itself from the ongoing conflict and called for restraint and solution of the problem between India and Pakistan through dialogue.

One does not know what will be the precise agenda when Aziz holds talks with Jaswant Singh, but parleys will be without any condition from either side. George Fernandes’s offer of safe passage to infiltrators has evoked sharp reaction from Defence experts and political parties. Later, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and the spokesman of the External Affairs Ministry sought to explain that “safe passage means movement backward from LoC”. Both ruled out stopping the military action till the intrusion ends.

Islamabad has already rejected the “safe passage” proposal which was like a trial balloon. A Pakistan foreign Office spokesman has described infiltrators as “Mujahideen” who are fighting in their own land and, therefore, there is no question of taking them back. The second logical question will be if the Pakistan army stops backing, training and arming them and also, at least, recalls regulars who have reportedly mingled with infiltrators. Aziz is bound to deny this and insist that military action should stop in Kargil first. Apparently, India cannot agree to such a proposition and talks may be bogged down.

One does not expect Aziz’s visit to yield much as there is no meeting point between India and Pakistan.

Can the PM take a bus ride to Leh?

WELL that is the question asked by a former Army Major who is now active in politics. While his party was assailing the Government for the failure on the diplomatic front, retired Major Ved Prakash, Secretary, AICC, commented: “The PM can travel on the bus to Lahore but can he take a bus from Srinagar to Leh?”

What could not be missed was the obvious jibe at the sharp change in the situation in the road running inside Indian territory alongside the Line of Control in the northern fringes of Jammu and Kashmir.

Having served in the Regiment of Artillery for nearly two decades, Major Ved Prakash should know that political comment notwithstanding, the shelling from across the borders would well make it difficult for anyone to travel by road from Srinagar to Leh, via Kargil.

As those connected with strategic affairs have indicated, the Pakistani-backed intruders were attempting to cut off Leh from Srinagar by bombarding the road beyond Kargil.

Apart from the fact that he served for some time in Tangdhar sector as an Army officer, as an AICC Joint Secretary in charge of J and K, Major Ved Prakash was one of those deputed by the then Congress President, Mr P V Narasimha Rao, to revive the political process in the State.

Who will go to Washington?
Two international high profile jobs in Washington in the World Bank and IMF, currently held by former Cabinet Secretary, Surendra Singh, and former Revenue Secretary, M.R. Sivaraman, are likely to fall vacant in July when the present incumbents finish their tenures. This naturally has caused many serving bureaucrats to join the rat race but at the same time many high profile names prefer to run away from these jobs as well.

While some would prefer the two jobs to go to Cabinet Secretary, Prabhat Kumar and Secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office, Mr N.K. Singh, both these gentlemen prefer to remain in India.

Another name doing the rounds is that of Finance Secretary, Vijay Kelkar. He too is not very keen to leave the native shores. Thus it remains to be seen if the present incumbents would be given extensions or India would prefer to opt out of the rat race and let the jobs for a while go to other nations.

There are wheels within wheels in the juggernaut. For example, the move to send Mr Kelkar to Washington was also aimed at getting Mr N.K. Singh back in the North Block as Finance Secretary, a job once held by his father, Mr T.P. Singh. Some say the recent reports about one of the three Secretaries in the Finance Ministry being under a cloud, also emanate as a side plot of the moves and counter moves regarding the jobs in Washington.

Foreign Service losing its charm
The lack of attraction among senior bureaucrats for this foreign posting is understandable — gone are the days when there was a beeline for being posted abroad. The opportunities for visiting abroad are far too many and they are not restricted to IAS alone, officers of other services also find enough reasons to prove that the world is a small place afterall.

The antipathy towards foreign postings seems to be also perculating down. In the latest list of appointees in the Civil Services examination, none of the first 47 candidates in the merit list have opted for the foreign service — this is a far cry from the days when the top 10 in the combined UPSC examination used to prefer the IFS. These days the candidates who do not make it to IAS prefer the Revenue Service or similar allied services to the IFS.

Pawar & the lectures
There seems to be some uncanny connection between Mr Sharad Pawar and the Vasant Vakhyan Mala lecture series of Pune. For every time he was invited to address the gathering of the denizens of this prestigious and over a century old yearly lecture series, there has been a major change in his political career.

Way back in 1978, when Mr Pawar delivered the guest lecture, a day later he pulled down the Vasant Dada Patil Ministry to enthrone himself as the Chief Minister of Maharashtra at a rather young age — he was in his late thirties then.

The second time around in 1986, the Maratha strongman was invited for the lecture and a week later Mr Pawar merged his Indian Congress (Socialist) — that was the full name of Congress (S) — back into the Indian National Congress, after a six-year exile.

This year too, there was another major shift in the political career. Just as Mr Pawar ended his lecture in Pune, he received a call informing him of the decision of the Congress to expel him and two other CWC members, Mr Tariq Anwar and Mr Purno A Sangma, from the party for six years.

Nachiketa’s release
Senior Indian Government officials did not expect an early release by Pakistan of Flt Lt Nachiketa. So it seems from the surprised reaction of the officials of both the Foreign office and the Defence Ministry.

While the MEA and the Indian armed forces representatives were holding their joint daily briefing here, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was simultaneously making this important announcement in Islamabad. Surprisingly, there was not a mention of the release of Flt Lt Nachiketa at the daily briefing and what was more intriguing was that not a word had in fact come to this effect from the Indian mission in Islamabad.

Interestingly, the Indian Air Force officials also came to know of Nachiketa’s release only through the flash sent out by a premier Indian news agency. Apparently the Indian Air Attache at the Islamabad mission had not bothered to call back and inform his seniors at Air Headquarters about this important development by which Pakistan had again caught the Indian officials napping.

While the IAF officials tried hard to verify the report and made efforts to plan out their moves to keep Nachiketa away from international exposure at Islamabad, the MEA officials had only one thing to say, “we are still verifying the reports”.

It seems the everyday demand by the Indian officials for the immediate release of Nachiketa was only another act. Had it been otherwise, the Indian officials coordinating with the International Committee of the Red Cross would have also known about his release and ensured that Pakistan like always did not hog the international limelight putting India to shade. It is time India learnt to manage the media better.

Clash of egos
While the Indian jawans were battling out Pakistan-backed infiltrators in Kargil, a clash of a different kind was taking place back in the Capital. The Government’s decision to induct the official spokesman of the External Affairs Ministry in the daily briefings for mediapersons on the Kargil developments saw foreign affairs taking precedence over the cold facts of the armed battle.

Though the joint briefing was meant for the convenience of the journalists, to avoid them the hassle of rushing from one venue to another, the impact of the action was quite different. With hordes of foreign presspersons attending the briefing all the questions pertained to the diplomatic front. As a result the scribes covering the action aspect felt short changed. The security personnel were also fuming at the government’s decision.

The first day of the joint briefing saw the Army being represented by Major General J.J. Singh and the Air Force by Air Vice Marshal S.K.Malik. The External Affairs spokesman, Mr Raminder Jassal, being of a Joint Secretary rank, the spokesmen of the Defence personnel were not very comfortable. The next day the level of the briefing was brought down with the security forces fielding junior officers who were equivalent in rank to the civilian officer. In the clash of the egos, the media personnel were the ultimate losers.

Bansi Lal’s obsession
Haryana Chief Minister Bansi Lal, is obsessed with power. Well, power generation to be precise. The Chief Minister has of late been personally supervising the progress of the various power projects in the state and his direction to the officers are that there should be a 24-hour power supply in the state. The result has been that the Haryana bureaucracy is working overtime to fulfil the Chief Minister’s wishes.

Power producers are being taken to task and any delay in commissioning the projects attracts penalty. A Delhi-based public sector company official, who is in charge of one such project in Haryana, says he has never seen such professionalism from a state government. Mr Bansi Lal’s activism has rubbed off on the once-lethargic PSU and they are delivering. This only gives weight to the addage “where there is a will there is a way”.

(Contributed by SB, TV Lakshminarayan, Prasad, Girja Shankar Kaura and PN Andley)

75 YEARS AGO
Plague and homoeopathy

PLAGUE in Punjab is becoming alarming. Approximately 25,000 people have died in May alone, and the Director, Punjab Health Services, in his statement upon plague expects far greater mortality in the current month.

To combat the danger it is suggested that everybody should take a dose of Buboninum 30 (preferably in tabloid form) once every second day during the epidemic.

This homoeopathic sterile morbid product of the virus of plague (quite harmless even to an infant or a pregnant woman) infuses into the system the substances which destroy plague germs and their poison and enable the users to enjoy perfect immunity even if they reside in a congested or infected locality.

It acts as a preventive drug and is also of great service to all those who do not like Anti-Plague Inoculation. The poor will be supplied by the writer hereof free of all charges and others at -10-0 a tube. The tube contains one month’s supply sufficient for an adult.