Great game in South Asia

To slam Prime Minister Narendra Modi over an allegation made by former British foreign secretary Jack Straw in a BBC documentary on the 2002 Gujarat riots would be to endorse the words of a politician who lied about Saddam Hussein’s non-existent Weapons of Mass Destruction to legitimise the Iraq war, which led to the death of about 3 lakh Iraqi citizens. Then, to attack Straw for his comments on Modi would be to condone the terrible commissions and omissions of the Gujarat Government that led to the death of about 2,000 people (around 1,000, as per official figures), mostly Muslims, in the riots. This may not be a dilemma for the desi godi media, which lunges at all enemies of the ruling party and, similarly, it is no predicament for the videshi godi media desperate to bring down the Modi government to replace him with someone who would listen better to western powers.

Bilawal’s outburst at UN, Sharif’s offer of talks and Straw’s comments about 2002 could be termed as a bid to paint India and its PM as the villain of the piece.

So, the moral compasses of the desi and videshi godi media outlets tilt violently, favouring their benefactors and de-legitimising their patrons’ detractors incessantly. Of course, there is a huge qualitative chasm between the likes of Vivek Agnihotri and Joe Wright, even when both do ‘vulgar propaganda’. While Modi’s cheerleaders fail to accept and analyse the complicity of the Gujarat Police in the riots, there will never be a sense of proportion among Modi’s enemies who use the term ‘pogrom’ for the terrible massacre in Gujarat, but not for the genocide of 30 lakh people in East Pakistan in 1971 or for the 3 lakh Iraqis dead.

The lakhs who were killed in East Pakistan or Iraq do not seem to deserve inquiries, investigations or 20th or 50th anniversary special documentaries. Obviously, if it is a great sense of empathy for hapless victims that shapes foreign policy and drives the British diplomatic corps and their public-funded media, then there would have been similar exercises to not just unearth the perpetrators of the Bangladesh holocaust and destruction of Iraq, but also to interrogate the Churchillian administration for the 30 lakh people killed in the Bengal famine.

Clearly, Straw is trying to focus on the Hindu-Muslim faultline in India, which historically the British had sharpened, trying to latch on to it for their empire’s survival. It is difficult not to recall Pakistan foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s outburst at the United Nations Security Council briefing, just a month ago, when he called Modi the ‘butcher of Gujarat’. Straw’s comments to the BBC could be read as a sophisticated version of Bilawal’s outburst.

Belying Straw’s claims of ‘ethnic cleansing’ and Bilawal’s name-calling, the Muslim population of Gujarat grew by over 12 lakh between 2001 and 2011, unlike the Hindu population of East Pakistan, which was decimated forever. Bilawal’s grandfather ZA Bhutto — along with army generals Yahya Khan, Tikka Khan and AAK Niazi — ought to have been tried in an international court on the lines of the Nuremberg trials. But then, Pakistan’s Anglo-American allies not just allowed the butchers and their families to flourish, but they were also given political legitimacy and a happy home in western capitals.

Interestingly, just weeks after Bilawal called Modi names, Bilawal’s boss, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, pleaded for talks with India, going to the extent of admitting to the mistakes made in the wars between the two countries. Though he got the number of the wars wrong (Pakistan has launched four, and not three wars), he got the facts right. Pakistan has sunk further and further into the abyss of poverty after every war. But this has to be credited not to the Indian genius, but to Pakistan’s western handlers that have been using the country against India and to build bridges with China. Even the latest largesse of $450 million military aid to Pakistan could be a token of gratitude for helping ease the US-China impasse.

Altogether, Bilawal’s outburst, Sharif’s offer of talks and Straw’s comments could be categorised as an attempt to paint India and its Prime Minister as the villain of the piece. But this is not going to achieve the western strategic objective, if any, because a BBC documentary or the interview of a Pakistan prime minister can no longer influence Indian public opinion as they used to do. In fact, this will only help discredit the videshi godi media further for its inherent bias. Those who used to light lamps for Pakistan at the Attari border and, at the same time, support religious secessionism in Punjab and J&K, have got disgraced or, rather, exposed. With the Pakistani army insulting Modi with the Pathankot attack a week after his impromptu visit to Nawaz Sharif, there is no constituency left for talks in India.

There could also be a possibility of Straw’s statement lacking larger geopolitical motives or meanings, and that it could be meant only as a partisan move by Labour leaders to corner British PM Rishi Sunak. What better way to embarrass the first Indian-origin Hindu PM than to get him embroiled in a Hindu-Muslim conflict in India? If it were so, it has served its purpose by getting Sunak to make a weak, perfunctory defence of Modi in British Parliament.

But Straw’s statement has revealed the British High Commission’s precedent in 2002 and opened up possibilities for the Indian Government to launch ‘investigations’ on British soil. In 10 days, we would be commemorating 75 years of Mahatma Gandhi’s martyrdom. The possibility of Gandhi’s assassination being a false flag operation by the British intelligence cannot be discarded, particularly in view of Narayan Apte’s alleged links with the Royal Air Force. Of course, a BJP government may not want to inquire into the role of the British ally and acquitted conspiracy accused VD Savarkar in the assassination plot. But it can certainly ask its intelligence officers posted in London to reopen the Ravindra Mhatre case to look for British complicity in his murder. Our diplomats owe at least this much to the family of the brilliant diplomat cut down by Islamist secessionists hosted by the British establishment.