IC 814 lays bare an uncomfortable truth

THE problem with a web series that looks like real life is that it brings back too many memories. The problem with IC 814: Kandahar Hijack is that it makes India look weak. Infirm. Enervated. Incapacitated. The problem is that the Narendra Modi government wants to bury those dark days and nights that broke between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve of 1999, when the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government released three terrorists in exchange for the safety of more than 300 passengers — and replace them with the fuzzy warmth and feel-good that comes with allying yourself to a strong leader who leads a strong state.

The problem is that history takes no such prisoners. It was what it was. Here are some vignettes from that time.

Indian negotiators looked and felt weak in Kandahar because they had little or no leverage.

The Vajpayee government was blindsided with the families of passengers on the aircraft who threatened all kinds of harm if the government didn’t do a deal. Omar Sheikh, the Britain-educated-and-accented terrorist — one of the three released by the Indian government — when asked by Anand Arni, an Indian intelligence official on the ground in Kandahar, what it meant to be free, let loose a string of expletives in reply. Pakistan’s ISI, which was in control, changed the ground rules even during the negotiation — on December 29, the agreement was to release only Masood Azhar, but by the 30th morning the hijackers were demanding that three terrorists be released. It was what it was.

The problem, sometimes, is that people look at the past in the context of the present. They are embarrassed by the fact that then External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh flew to Kandahar in the same aircraft with the three terrorists sitting a few seats behind him, loudly abusing him. He shouldn’t have gone, many say, why did he demean his position by going?

But go back into the archives of The Tribune and look at where India was in 1999. The nuclear tests had taken place a year prior and India was still in the international doghouse — the Clinton visit was still to come in the following summer. Hardly a few months before, the Kargil conflict with Pakistan had ended. That week when the hijacked plane flew from Kathmandu to Kandahar, via Amritsar, Jaswant Singh tried to call several of his counterparts in the US, UK and elsewhere for help — but no one took his call. It was also New Year’s Eve. When a troubled man from a Third World country calls you when you would be rather celebrating, all you can think of is, why can’t he take care of his own problems?

That is what constitutes real weakness. When no one wants to take your call, even when you’re desperate.

According to then RAW chief AS Dulat, Jaswant Singh was “a lonely man” that week in Delhi. He realised that if a senior person didn’t personally go to oversee the exchange, something might happen at the last minute that could endanger the lives of the passengers.

The truth is that Indian negotiators looked and felt weak in Kandahar because they had little or no leverage. The plane was in hostile territory. The ISI was the master puppeteer. It held all the cards.

The Netflix series forces all those Indians watching to come to terms with this uncomfortable truth. That we are not the state we believe we are. That we were weak, and maybe, perhaps, still are. The web series has touched a chord with all of us because when the lights are out and we are confronted just with ourselves, we know what’s true and what’s not. We know that we are not as strong as we think we are.

Some may say that 25 years is a long time and that India has moved on — they point to the hard line PM Modi has taken with regard to talks with Pakistan. Others point to the never-before surgical strikes in 2016, when the Indian armed forces crossed the LoC and successfully carried out operations against terrorists being backed by the Pakistan army.

And yet, we know, the weakness remains, within and without. In Ladakh, where the Chinese have not allowed your soldiers to patrol large parts of territory they could patrol until 2020 — notwithstanding the swipe PM Modi took against the Chinese in Singapore earlier this week. In the Jammu region, where 18 armed forces personnel have been killed by terrorists. In Sindhudurg, where a statue of Shivaji collapsed within months because the contractor used material of a bad quality. In Punjab, where the drug problem is far worse than you can imagine it to be. In Manipur, where Meitei radicals are using drones against fellow Manipuris.

So much better to admit that you cannot stand up to the Chinese. At least there’s honesty in that admission. They are five times larger than you, in any case. So much better to confront the issue and ask yourself, Why, pray, can’t you stand up to the Chinese?

Why is China’s economy five times larger than India’s, even though Mao’s Long March ended in Beijing about the same time (in 1949) that India became independent? The answer is not always that China is a dictatorship and India is — a self-congratulatory pat included — a democracy.

There’s worse. The Shivaji statue contractor has finally been arrested, but it reminds us of the old Modi slogan, Na khaaonga, na khaane doonga — I will never be corrupted, and I won’t let anyone be corrupt either. Certainly the PM is not responsible for all the bad deeds in the country, not even when his party is in coalition in Maharashtra, the scene of the crime.

Perhaps it’s much better to admit, all around, that you’re not as strong as you’ve pretended to be. Not in Ladakh, or in Sindhudurg. Or in Kandahar.