Did Failure Of Agra Summit Set The Scene For Modi’s Rise?

Did Failure Of Agra Summit Set The Scene For Modi’s Rise?

                                                                                          Saeed Naqvi

 

The passing away of Gen. Pervez Musharraf was seen in different perspectives. Ironically, the failure of the Agra Summit made it possibly the most historic Indo-Pak event. The failure became the point of departure for the hard line Hindutva which put down deep roots in double quick time.

On the general approach to Pakistan the Indian team was split. The assumption that Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and External Affairs Minister, Jaswant Singh would successfully navigate a soft line towards Pakistan was stoutly challenged by the rest of the BJP leadership, briefed persistently by the bureaucracy particularly hard liners like Vivek Katju.

The cause of the tussle between the two approaches lay in the internal politics of the BJP. It was clear as daylight that Vajpayee was firmly for a soft platform which entailed an attitude to Pakistan which became something of a chant with him. “We can’t change our neighbours, we have to live with them.”

The exact opposite of this approach was hard Hindutva, underpinned by an abiding anti Pakistan nationalism. Suspicion of Muslims and Kashmiris was integral to this approach. During election time hard or soft Hindutva became more a matter of tactics. Since the Agra summit took place in July, a section of the BJP leadership set its sight on the key elections to the UP Assembly which were due in six months, towards the end of February. For the explicit purpose of the UP elections, the hardlinewalas exerted every muscle to prevail.

To discard Vajpayee’s more inclusive line, the Summit was embellished with some comical touches. For instance when Vajpayee was deep into the room meant for the Summit, L.K. Advani trailed him for some last minute amendments to the Prime Minister’s approach.

The failure of the Summit, went the theory, would help the party triumph on hard Hindutva. Narendra Modi was nowhere on the horizon. But the hardline which was to place victory in the party’s lap, received a boost by something akin to divine intervention.

Osama bin Laden’s gang flew into the Twin Tower bringing Islamic terror into high global profile. 9/11 was to determine world politics, making it the single focus in what at that stage was a unipolar world.

It was an amazing coincidence that in the first week of October, Modi arrived in Ahmedabad to relieve Keshubhai Patel as Chief Minister of Gujarat. Modi became Chief Minister without being a member of the House.

Another coincidence followed the previous one. Modi was anointed Chief Minister on October 7, exactly the day on which the Americans launched missile attacks on Afghanistan.

Just image the October of 2001. Islamophobia on an unprecedented scale. An atmosphere globally charged against Muslims, magnifies a mood that was conducive to a heavy saffronization of the air over Gujarat. It promoted the kind of politics which Modi was to embrace and amplify. Global Islamophobia seemed to justify the raw communalism that was pulsating below the surface.

A matter of extreme awkwardness for India entered the proceeding as America’s global war on terror incorporated Pakistan as a frontline state.

There could not have been a more embarrassing phase in Indo-US affairs. An incident demonstrates the extent of the embarrassment in Washington as well as New Delhi.

The US Ambassador to New Delhi Robert Blackwill had established a tradition of hosting round-table lunches with set themes. The theme at one such lunch was Pakistan’s role in the US led war on terror.

Pranab Mukherjee, then in the opposition, raised his hand in great anger. “You are well aware of Pakistan plaguing us with cross border terrorism. And suddenly you have embraced Pakistan as a frontline state in your global war on terror.”

Blackwill tried to make light of it. “Your quarrel with Pakistan is a regional affair. At this juncture, Pakistan is our partner in the global war against terror.” How peeved the Indian guests around table felt at the exchange will be etched on my mind for long.

The attack on Indian Parliament on December 13, led to Operation Parakram which brought Indian and Pakistani troops in an eye-ball to eye-ball confrontation. New Delhi made maximum anti Pak propaganda from the Parliament attack. And yet paradoxically the event cooled the general temperature. Having been victimized on such a horrendous scale, New Delhi felt relieved having been elevated to a frontline status in the global war on terror.

What irony. Two quarrelling neighbours find themselves in fierce competition fighting America’s war on global terror.

It would appear that the stars were in their proper constellation for the BJP to come up trumps in UP. To the general atmosphere conducive to hard Hindutva was the gathering of Karsevaks or volunteers in Ayodhya determined to embark on the construction of the Ram Temple to mark the BJP’s expected victory.

The UP election results were a shock. The BJP lost. The results were announced on February 24. Imagine the disappointment of the volunteers, thousands of them, as they dispersed from Ayodhya in deep despair. In this black mood some of them boarded the Sabarmati Express which, on its way to Ahmedabad, passed Godhra on the morning of February 27, where a compartment was set ablaze resulting in the death of 56 passengers who could have been karsevaks. By nightfall, Ahmedabad and a series of towns in Gujarat were in the grip of unprecedented anti Muslim carnage.

Protected by Rajiv Vohra of the Gandhi Peace Foundation and a skull cap wearing correspondent of The Economist, when I reached the office of the Godhra Collector, Jayanti Ravi, she virtually threw up her hands. The Godhra carnage file had been handed over to Vijay Vipul, Director General, Anti Terror Squad, even before Ravi could study the case.

True anti Muslim excesses yielded political success serially but that trend was set when Gujarat, indeed the world was under the shroud of global Islamophobia. But the world has changed radically. How long can anti Muslim politics be sustained under the radically altered world order?

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After Friendship Without Limits With Russia, Comes Turn Of Vietnam

After Friendship Without Limits With Russia, Comes Turn Of Vietnam

                                                                                     Saeed Naqvi

It is possible to speculate that Russia’s special military operations may not have been launched on 24 February 2022 had American/Western drumbeating to lure Russian into Ukraine for a proxy war not reached a crescendo, the clashing of multiple cymbals et al, throughout February.

The West began to froth in the mouth after Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin signed MOUs without number in Beijing on February 4 and announced in ringing tones: “this is a friendship without limits.” In the given circumstances, the one-two punch administered by the Sino-Russian duet straight on the West’s chin, rattled Washington and London in that order. The two capitals had barely recovered from the deep embarrassment of the Afghan debacle in August.

Deafening chant of “America in decline, America in decline” which began in 2008 after the fall of Lehman Brothers and peaked after the withdrawal from Afghanistan, caused the Washington neo-cons to see red. What choice did they have? To watch Western hegemony evaporate, yielding to a more equitable multi polar world?

Even though the Western media held onto the myth of Western unity on Ukraine, European politicians began to sustain two parallel lines – one for their domestic audience and another for Brussels and Washington.

Victor Orban of Hungary takes the championship for his wicked candour. “European Union” he said, “is a car with four tyres punctured.” Emanuel Macron of France was not quite as harsh. He invited all his diplomats and senior officials for a confidential meeting. He asked them to prepare themselves for a new world order.

“After 300 years, Western hegemony was ending.” What he thought of the US contribution during these three centuries is clear from what he told his officials. “During these centuries, France contributed culture, Britain industry and the US war.”

The “friendship without limits” between Beijing and Moscow had set the cat among the pigeons. This Sino-Russian cohesion had a magnetic effect on powers like Iran, Saudi Arabia and a host of countries some of which had traditionally been in the West’s gravitational zone. India was one such ever since Manmohan Singh’s new liberal economic policies brought it firmly in line with Washington.

The Ukraine war has introduced a certain ambiguity in Indian policy which has earned it kudos from Moscow. The Beijing-Moscow pair has attracted new adherents, whereas the Western camp is restive.

To add to Western anxieties comes a headline from Hanoi: “Vietnam sees a shared future with China.” Nothing sensationally disturbing about the headline but as you delve into exchanges between Xi Jinping and Nguyen Phu Trong, Secretary General of the Vietnamese Communist the language does not touch the hyperbole of the Sino-Russian friendship, but it is close. Take the Lunar New Year messages the two leaders exchanged.

Xi Jinping: “China and Vietnam are a community with a shared future.”

Trong: Ready to work with Comrade Xi…to carry out strategic communication on theories and practice of both country’s socialist development….and to make sure that the relations between the two parties and countries continuously develop and Reach new heights.”

Vietnam is a story of economic success comparable to China except that the scales are vastly different. It is a country of a 100 million compared to China’s 1.4 billion. But as an economy of 100 million population, it has in recent years shot past Singapore and Hong Kong in its economic efficiency.

The recent Sino-Vietnam embrace follows changes in dramatis personae not to the West’s liking. Two weeks ago Vietnam’s President Nguyen Xuan Phuc was forced to resign because in his pro business momentum, his close circle was implicated in high levels of corruption. For a decade the Communist Party General Secretary, Trong carried out his anti corruption campaign against Phuc who is identified with Western interests.

A matter of great anxiety in the West is the defeat of pro business elements. This makes the Communist Party of Vietnam as powerful as its opposite number in China.

How different Sino-Vietnam relation were in 1979 when I found myself in the presence of Xuan Thuy, the then Secretary General of the party. The occasion was the Sino-Vietnam war when I learnt some early lessons about the Western media, its professionalism and its biases. It was a different world, media wise.

The global TV networks were inaugurated during Operation Desert Storm in 1992. In 1979, newspapers had considerable credibility – until an event like the Sino-Vietnam war took place. The Western media did not write purple prose about Chinese victory. Which, in any case crucially eluded the Chinese making Dung Xiaoping look very silly. He had threatened to “teach Vietnam a lesson.” The Western media fell back on an act of omission: it took no notice of the Battle of Lang Son where the Vietnamese trounced the Chinese.

After Kissinger’s opening with China in 1971, Sino-US relations were in their warmest phase through the 70s. At this stage, it would be a strategic loss for the new US ally to be so roundly beaten by a Soviet ally. With this victory, Vietnam became a global champion – the only country to have defeated three permanent members of the Security Council in the battlefield – France, the US and China.

The ouster of the market oriented Phuc from Vietnam‘s power structure leaves a gap in the Western strategy of encircling China. Since the end of the Vietnam War, the China or the US debate has raged in Vietnamese party circles. After the horrors of the Vietnam War a rapprochement between Hanoi and Washington would have been unthinkable.

Likewise, a Sino-Vietnam entente cordiale would be remote after the 1979 war. When, Vice President K.R. Narayanan visited Vietnam in 1993, among the statesman and victor of three wars with great powers, Vo Nguyen Giap called on him. The inevitable question arose: Vietnam’s long term ally would be the US or China? Giap quipped, as a soldier I have learnt that logistics is crucial for both, war and peace. “China was next door and therefore a manageable long term friend.”

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