| |
A look at Bush presidency
How Rice played a role in India-US N-deal
by S. Nihal Singh
Anyone who has held the two posts of National Security Adviser and Secretary of State of the most powerful country in the world has a lot to tell if he or she wishes to. Condoleezza Rice’s two terms in the George W. Bush administration were in tumultuous times. Nine Eleven – the unprecedented terrorist attacks on American mainland – happened. And to the Bill Clinton-initiated intervention in Afghanistan, President Bush decided to invade Iraq, with consequences the US and the world are living with.Rice’s account of her eight years near the pinnacle of power are, for the better part, disappointing because she has chosen to give a laundry list of how she staffed her departments and the frictions any large organisation is heir to in seeking the favour of the President who occupies a king-like position in the American scheme of things. But apart from her often revealing asides, the author chooses diplomatically to skate over events, rather than reveal the true nature of the internal crises the administration underwent in dealing with the hand dealt it and the calamities it invited upon itself. Nine Eleven was, of course, not of President Bush’s choosing. Nor was the sense of shock the country felt over the nature and scale of the attacks or the use of civilian aircraft to such devastating effect anything but extraordinary. Initially, the President became a “war President” not of his own volition. It was also understandable that the US felt compelled to demonstrate its power. But apart from looking after the mechanics of things and mediating between rival opinions and personalities, Rice’s role as National Security Adviser (NSA) was a rather subsidiary one. In fact, political Washington’s verdict on her term as NSA was that she chose to be passive, rather than active, given the friction between her and the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, and particularly between the latter and the then Secretary of State, Colin Powell. Her strength, of course, was her rapport with President Bush, the reason he offered her the job of Secretary of State in his second term. By all accounts, she was an assiduous holder of that office and her job meant that she was very much on the road and she counted the blessings of having a dedicated aircraft to herself. Despite the inordinate length of Rice’s account, she chooses to reveal little that is either new or illuminating. She does not add much to one’s knowledge of negotiations on the India-US nuclear deal, apart from suggesting that she revived the flagging talks when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had nearly given up on the deal. What lifts the narrative, which could have been pruned to half its length, are the author’s asides, which is her manner of pronouncing judgments on people and problems. In Rice’s view, the nuclear deal with India “…would unlock a wide range of positive areas of cooperation with a country that was an emerging power in the knowledge-based revolution in economic affairs. The Indians made clear, too, that they hoped to become a customer for US military hardware. That was an exciting prospect for the defence industry. And for us, even though we were not seeking to ‘balance’ China, cooperation with another emerging power in Asia, especially a democratic one, was a welcome development”. Rice declares, “China would stir up nationalist sentiment in the population through the state-controlled media, diminishing its own room for manoeuvre as it reacted to the very passions she created”. She is equally astute in highlighting the dilemmas of administrators in today’s age: “One problem in managing a crisis in today’s media environment is that you are forced to say something each day. If you are not careful, your rhetoric escalates little by little and you create demands that must then be met by the other side. Since the other side is doing the same thing, it’s easy to have the crisis spin out of control pretty quickly”. Rice is on the defensive in justifying the Bush administration’s stand on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since the President was justly perceived to be pro-Israeli. She does acknowledge differences between the White House and the State Department. There could have been no prospect of peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians in view of her revelation, “The President was disgusted with Yasir [Yasser] Arafat, whom he saw, accurately, as a terrorist and a crook”. And she terms the massive building of illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian land which pre-empts the formation of a viable Palestinian state, as “Israel’s controversial settlement activity”. Every US President is the captive of American Jewish lobbies and their clout on Capitol Hill. Rice, for her part, met with her own frustrations. She writes, “And whatever the problems, I reminded myself constantly that even if Israel’s leaders were sometimes a nightmare to deal with, this important ally of ours was the only democracy in the Middle East. Our relationship really was based on more than strategic interests; we were friends, and that mattered”. Rice is unconvincing in justifying the invasion of Iraq on Saddam Hussein’s alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction, suggesting that “…it was not unreasonable to suspect that he [Saddam] might supply extremists with a weapon that could be detonated in an American city. And in any case, it was a chance we were not willing to take…The fact is, we invaded Iraq because we believed we had run out of options.” Rice learned a few lessons about Afghanistan and Pakistan. She writes, “Landing in Islamabad again, I was reminded that Afghanistan’s fate was not its own to determine. Pakistan held more than a few keys to its neighbour’s stability. That was not a good thing…We did not yet know that (General Pervez) Musharraf was contemplating a new peace accord with tribal leaders in North Waziristan, cutting a deal to live and let live in exchange for stopping the passage of militants across the Afghan border. That policy would ultimately lead to a new safe haven for the Taliban and a downward spiral in Afghanistan, one we were unable to halt before the end of our term.” Rice’s account is not without pathos. As honoured guests in Buckingham Palace, she, together with two other blacks, Colin Powell and his wife Anna, had a drink in the sitting room. She reminisced, “What would our parents think? Then Alma and I drank a toast to her father and mine. Two little black girls from Birmingham had come a long way. Then, as Prince Charles escorted me to the elaborate dinner as the orchestra played ‘God Save the Queen’, I once again wished I could tell my parents about this incredible experience. And so I did a little prayer just before going to sleep.” The article is based on “No Higher Honor/A Memoir of my Years in Washington” by Condoleezza Rice, Simon & Shuster.
 |
| |
 |
Satnam’s samosas
by Rajbir Deswal
When you dig into your memory of college and university days later in life, certain names of your course-mates or teachers may fail you, but not the canteen contractor’s. Satnam is the one who I am referring to. Tea-stall may just be a euphemism for his makeshift vending-shanty that he had where he carried out his — again it may be a euphemism — business. Ours was then just a regional centre graduating into a university in Haryana and we did not have the luxury of having a full-fledged canteen on the campus. Satnam made only tea and samosas for us during the day, and wound up late in the evening, when science students were done with their experiments, in their respective labs. He had to maintain the supplies throughout the day owing to a couple of errand boys. His paraphernalia didn’t boast of or require a real effort in sizing up the following day since he could carry it on his bicycle easily. His samosas in particular had a taste of their own. Or may be, in those days we liked everything that was available unlike now, when we have options to choose from the ubiquitous menu-card. But Satnam had his own ‘designer-samosas’ which did not flaunt a brand, but only bud-tasting-biting experience savoured for long, even till the eighth period. Today’s samosas are like an apple-cart full of even resin, cheese, peas, cashew, ginger and a load of spices — and still not as tasteful as those of Satnam. Satnam’s samosas — spare me that watering of the mouth if you experience some — had organic (pahadi in this case) potatoes boiled up to an appropriate degree, meshed to the extent of retaining some toughness here and there, with just an extra hint of red-chili powder and a tang of anar-dana (pomegranate seed), deep-fried to a crispy brown coating—used to be the class-attending- serious-students’ envy and bunkers-and-bonkers’ delight. With the samosas, a glassful of tea was a must. Girls in those days had enough ostentations to substitute for blandishments, when they mostly sent back tea since it had a ‘lot of sugar,’ but the boys lapped up those ‘spared and shunned’ tea glasses, more for a vicarious pleasure and taste of sorts — for obvious reasons — than for their ‘unnatural’ preference for tea-gone-cold, travelling to and from the girls’ gaggle. Satnam never kept a record of his sales. He never rested his head on a ledger. He, in fact, wasn’t even bothered as to who paid and who did not. Even those who did not pay him did not do so on purpose, but for an oversight which was rectified at the nearest available moment in future. I know some students paying him even after having left the university years ago. Satnam’s memory of the alumni was elephantine. He would even remember the session along with the department where a particular boy or a girl had studied. He was a via-media, a go-between and a sort of ‘exchange’ for any information that needed to be passed on, or shared between two or more persons or groups. It’s not always that you recall with nostalgia your student days, spent mostly in the canteen, tapping tables, turning tables, riding tables, fighting with table-legs, playing carom, or indulging in a later-day invention of a game of a kind — making a match box land in a tea cup by triggering it with pressure of your index finger and thumb — but also that some people who may otherwise look unimportant in your life, keep reminding you of the basic instinct in human beings, of staying connected. I can still feel watering of the mouth while recalling the savoured taste of Satnam’s samosas as I can reminisce the man behind such unforgettable flavour — in full
measure.
|
| |
|
BRAVERY PERSONIFIED
Conferring the Ashok Chakra on Lt Navdeep Singh is the latest but not the last episode of gallantry in the long and chequered history of the Indian Armed Forces. His actions speak of military professionalism and placing duty, honour and selflessness above personal needs.
Maj Gen Raj Mehta (Retd)
Lt Navdeep Singh (right) and the Ashok Chakra awarded to him posthumously being received by his father, Hony Lt Joginder Singh from the President on Republic Day 2012 |
A
rookie Ordnance Corps officer on attachment to a fine Infantry battalion, 15 Maratha Light Infantry, Lt Navdeep Singh, lost his life in the high altitude, Gurais Valley in North Kashmir, in August 2011, while conducting a highly successful ambush. As many as 12 out of a group of 17 heavily armed Lashkar terrorists were neutralised by Navdeep and his Ghatak (Commando) Platoon, with two more being shot later. This stunning military success was the fallout of Navdeep's classic interpretation of soldiering - placing duty, honour, selflessness and sacrifice above personal needs. Intelligent and multi-skilled, the lad was in love -- with uniform, life and fiancée. And he sacrificed all three cheerfully — for the Idea of India.His legacy is that he was doing a job that soldiers do night after night…an ordinary, routine job… However, when opportunity knocked on his doorstep, he was ready. He did an ordinary job with extraordinary zeal, fortitude and "follow me" traits. Navdeep died but remains deathless because his legacy lives on - applicable across age, gender and occupation, both military and civilian.
A Midnight Call
Lt Gen Syed Ata Hasnain, the iconic commanding General in Kashmir remembers that it was 2.30 AM on that dark, fateful night of 19/20 August 2011, when he was woken up by a strident, insistent ring. Instantly alert, he intuitively sensed something amiss. Lt Navdeep Singh; the peppy rookie officer he had complimented for his professionalism at the Corps Battle School for new inductees, had attained martyrdom at Bagtor, in the Gurais Valley while ambushing a "track" of Lashkar intruders. The stark, poignant epitaph that honours the dead Spartans of the Battle of Thermopylae in Greece in 480 BC; "Here we lie; having fulfilled our orders" was now his. His "Ganpats" (affectionate term for Maratha soldiers) had lost Navdeep in execution of the Indian Army tradition of Service Before Self. Commissioned into the Ordnance Corps, young Navdeep died on the banks of the azure, Kishanganga (called Neelam in POK), flowing through the narrow picture-postcard Gurais Valley, which the Line of Control (LC) cuts across. He ensured, by his personal example, that 12 of 17 armed-to-the-teeth Lashkar terrorists were shot dead by him and his Commando platoon. In saving the life of his "buddy", Sepoy Vijay Gajare, he was fatally shot at five meters, just above his bullet-proof "patka"- a typically Indian improvisation of a full scale steel helmet that protects the forehead but leaves the head bare. Navdeep had no chance, dying even as he pulled his buddy to safety…he had shot his fourth terrorist before he succumbed.
Gurais Valley
Located on the erstwhile Silk Route, Gurais Valley at 9000 feet, is as much famous as the birthplace of Kashmiri civilization and the Sharda script, as it is for its pink trout, sapphires, friendly people as well as for the romantic, deathless story of Habba Khatoon; the ethereally beautiful Guraizi girl who loved and lost, pining for her beloved through her songs till her last breath. She lives on in Kashmir through dirges that speak of having loved and lost; The Scottish bard, Robert Burns captures her situation poignantly through his immortal poetry: "Had we na'er loved nor parted, we'd na'er had been so broken-hearted…" Post his death, I did deep research and wrote extensively on his sacrifice. Determined to honour this lad at his place of death, I crossed the daunting Razdan Pass at about 12,000 feet to enter Gurais Valley before it got snowed in for six months. At the base, the road has ancient Kanzalwan village; its houses huddled together for comfort, with a shawl wrap of fog; part real, part cooking-fire driven. At Bagtor, the dynamic CO, Col Girish Upadhya, his key officers and Navdeep's Ghataks were all there -- proud, erect, happy that a retired veteran had come to salute one of their bravest sons. Firm handshakes with hard, calloused hands; the recessed smiles of brave, silent men given to letting their work speak for them and bear-hugs surrogated for mundane verbal communication.
The Briefing
I was led to a stunning vantage point where the village Bagtor cluster lay below, with the azure, crystal-clear Kishanganga swiftly flowing past the huddled villages. Towering menacingly above, were 6000 feet of vertical mountains with the security fencing separating India and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir clearly visible. Thickly forested till 12,000 feet, the mountains became gaunt and without forest cover as the eye went up to the jagged tops. On my right could be seen the dense Durmat forest across the Kishanganga -- great place for terrorists to seek refuge or soldiers to lay deadly ambushes. The briefing followed, proving the point that Op Bagtor had nowhere been as near picture-perfect and ideal as one might think. With time against him, the CO had actually improvised a plan by literally thinking on his feet. Lesser leadership or lack of support from his senior officers would have been devastating. He decisively seized the fleeting operational challenge when it came - and had rushed his men into battle, but with caution. An oxymoron, but then soldiers invariably live with stark contrasts. To discover that, he drove me, with Navdeep's Ghataks following, to the Bagtor village cluster. Upadhya explained with clinical precision how the intruders were sighted that dark night, and how before that, he had been sounded on "kuchh hone wala hai". What the CO had really conveyed was that there was intelligence synergy and redundancy at work out there from those towering heights at 14,000 feet, through those increasingly thicker forests as one came down, right down to places of entry into the Paltan's areas of operational responsibility. Sitting far away at Davar near the Habba Khatoon massif, the Brigade Commander and staff were also up, having enabled and networked these leads, as were the alert Division Commander at Kupwara and the Corps Commander in far away Srinagar.
The Ambush
The real conductor of this tiered orchestra of military capability was, of course, the astute and alert Upadhya. He and Navdeep were in the Officers Mess, after an exhausting 12 hours of working out contingencies, when the call came. The intruders had been spotted! He and Navdeep, he recalled, literally raced in the CO's jeep to Bagtor, the four kilometer distance to his Tactical Headquarters seeming unending. It was, literally, a desperate, time-sensitive race to the swift… Share the excitement, my dear reader! Imagine you are on a bucking, snorting, racing jeep, its headlights barely piercing the gloom, the forested darkness astride the dirt track. Listen with excitement as the CO changes gears with one hand while he barks confident, crisp orders to young Thomas, the Adjutant, on his radio, “Relocate. Redeploy. Get the men running to reach the new ambush site before the terrorists do. I want all 17. Hear me?!!” “WILCO!” yells the Adjutant. Hastening slowly - this article is loaded with oxymorons - the men redeploy on the run with caution…the enemy is too close. In the co-drivers seat, Navdeep speaks quietly, issuing instructions to his men. Disembarking at Tactical Headquarters, races off. At the ambush site, his men quietly point to the ghostly, looming shadows emerging from the inky darkness. There is only time for whispered consultations and readjustments by the young officer to ensure that the ambush is correctly sited. Navdeep then whispers, "Fire only after I fire," as he cocks his AK with a soft, lethal click. The die is cast… That chilly night, I'm in black dungarees and carry Navdeep's AK - loaded. The CO and men are armed too. I lie down exactly where Navdeep had lain down, his buddy, Sepoy Vijay Gajare alongside me. The terrorist approach is played out with 17 Ganpats. With pride, I realise that when Navdeep finally opened fire, he actually waited to literally touch them, crowd them into a little rock-strewn slope from which it was death anyway by drowning or bullets or both. His buddy makes me half-get-up, as Navdeep did, to pull him in after he was hit. A Ganpat, who has taken position behind a boulder, simulating the terrorist who shot Navdeep, is just five meters away. This was the distance at which Navdeep was fired at while pulling in his buddy to safety as he fell dying. He had fired 81 out of the 90 rounds he was carrying. He died nobly.
Award of the Ashoka Chakra
On returning home on January 24, 2012, from a lecture-tour where I had delivered 15 talks to people across gender, age, social strata and occupation on the legacy of bravehearts like Lt Navdeep Singh, I spoke to Navdeep's father; Hony Lt Joginder Singh. "Indeed, sir, my son is getting the Ashoka Chakra. We await the honour on 26 January 2012…we are proud of what Navdeep did, sir, and of the Army where father and son served." The Ashok Chakra is India's highest military decoration awarded for the most conspicuous bravery or some daring or pre-eminent valour or self-sacrifice in peace. Fathers are trained by genetic engineering and social custom to be stoic, to hide their true feelings. Navdeep's brave Mother, sister and brother sat in the audience, crying their hearts out, as Navdeep's sterling citation was read out. The father, escorted to the President by CO 15 Maratha LI, Col Girish Upadhya, tried his best to hide his loss; his tears of pride …he almost succeeded.
Navdeep's immortal Legacy
The Indian Army was born in battle in 1947 and remains in battle in the defence of India - quite disregardful of the supreme indifference of its political masters. "Martyrs, my friend, have to choose between being forgotten, mocked or used. As for being understood: never", a cynical Albert Camus has written. This hurts because it is so true. Navdeep was a wet-behind-the-ears whipper-snapper; a rookie still in "Boot Camp" but, drilled, because of grave paucity of officers, by his famous paltan and his Ordnance lineage, into a potentially world class soldier. This, even before he was detailed on his mandatory, coming-of-age Young Officers’ Course. Navdeep brought to the table, in the prescient words of Lord Moran, cold courage as a moral and physical choice, an act of renunciation that he knew could result in his death. His men knew this as well, but were fired up, ignited by his grit and daring. Add to that, the other ingredients of transformational leadership; creative intelligence, physical fitness, junoon, grit and selflessness and you have his legacy. With an MBA and a Hotel Management degree behind him, he was Ivy League and could have gone into safe, well paying jobs, but obviously that wasn't the case. Like deathless 2/Lt Arun Khetarpal and Capt Vikram Batra, both PVC's (Posthumous) before him, he too scorned death, exchanging it for mission completion. I am dead certain Navdeep did not want to die. No motivated, gifted, loving, young person does. He had it all -- a potentially brilliant career, loving parents and siblings, peer respect, capability and capacity. He was in love, with a beautiful girl, with life, with Gurais, yet, he discarded it all -- for mission completion. Navdeep's deathless legacy is applicable pan India and across gender, age, social status and occupation. In the prescient words of Lt Gen Gautam Moorthy, Colonel Commandant of the Ordnance Corps, it is the ability to do the routine in an extraordinary manner, and as a matter of course, not as an exception. The India of our dreams does not need cynicism but self help as contained in this practical, yet demanding legacy. It could be India's "Mind Map" to excellence. The writer has commanded a Rashtriya Rifles Sector and an Infantry Division in the Valley
Ashok chakra  l
The Ashok Chakra is India’s highest peace time decoration for gallantry, and is awarded for the "most conspicuous bravery or some daring or pre-eminent act of valour or self-sacrifice other than in the face of the enemy.”l
Its wartime equivalent is the Param Vir Chakra, awarded for gallantry in the face of the enemy. Two other awards in the Ashok Chakra series are the Kirti Chakra and the Shaurya Chakra. l
The award was instituted in 1952 and has been conferred on about 60 persons, including armed forces, para-military and police personnel as well as civilians.
|
