A case to hasten slowly

By Harish Khare

AS ANYWHERE else in the world, public opinion in this country too quickly jelled into an outright condemnation of those who planned and executed the horrendous terrorist attacks on Black Tuesday in New York and Washington. While a tiny section probably took pleasure that someone had succeeded in piercing Fortress America, the overwhelming majority was able to understand instantaneously the trauma the Americans must have felt on and after September 11. The political parties had no choice but to reflect this all- round sense of revulsion.

However, once the initial shock and anger subsided and it appeared that the United States would once again be relying on Pakistan to wage a war of retribution against Afghanistan, the parties began measuring their hitherto unequivocal support for the fight against terrorism.

If in the first few days there was an anticipated sense of confidence that the U.S. would now be prepared to be sympathetic to India's battle against terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir, the last few days have yielded a keen sense of disappointment that Washington has been so unwilling to acknowledge, leave alone do anything about, the use of terror as an instrument of state policy by Pakistan.

The political parties, on their part, were obliged to express this larger public perception of Washington's selective righteous indignation over terrorism. Nor could they overlook the widespread public scepticism over the U.S.' molly-coddling of terrorist activities, masquerading as a ``freedom struggle'' in Jammu and Kashmir. But what alarmed them was the rhetoric of ``crusade'' heard from Washington. Also, the sporadic violence against the Americans of South Asian descent dented support for the U.S. President, Mr. George W. Bush's cowboy approach.

More than anything else, what put the cat among the opposition pigeons was the reported remarks of the Foreign Minister, Mr. Jaswant Singh, that India was prepared to offer ``bases'' to the American forces. Though the Government moved swiftly to deny that the Foreign Minister made any categorical statement to that effect, most political parties are not prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt, given Mr. Jaswant Singh's image as a man who would be only too happy to pull the Americans' chestnuts out of the fire.

These reservations manifested themselves when the Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, called a meeting of the political parties on September 15. Two days earlier, the Prime Minister had taken care to brief Ms. Sonia Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition, who was accompanied by Dr. Manmohan Singh, Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha. The Congress leaders were uncomfortable with the unilateralism implicit in the American response, without any reference to the United Nations regime.

A few days later, the Congress Working Committee passed a resolution noting: the CWC ``will support a broad-based international coalition as envisaged in the Resolutions passed on 12th of September 2001 by the United Nations Security Council and the General Assembly. The Congress Working Committee is of the view that any such international strategy must be credible, just, effective, sustainable and defensible in the eyes of the International law and world public opinion.''

At the end of the September 15 consultation, as the Opposition leaders were trooping out, the Prime Minister made it a point to assert that the Government would be guided entirely by national interest. The Opposition doubts, however, remained unaddressed, given the Vajpayee regime's pro-Washington proclivities.

So acute were these doubts that even the Government's allies felt constrained to distance themselves just a little bit from Mr. Jaswant Singh's over-enthusiastic pro-Americanism. On September 18, the Prime Minister felt constrained to call a meeting of his Cabinet; but the allies remained unconvinced. The Samata Party, the key ally in the National Democratic Alliance, went out of its way to enter a caveat of its own.

The national mood changed when Gen. Pervez Musharraf made it clear that Pakistan's support to the U.S. against the Taliban was predicated on ``the Kashmiri cause''. The Samata Party's stand found an echo a few days later when the BJP president, Mr. Jana Krishnamurthi, also insisted on a truly ``global'' war against terrorism, which means that the international community would have to necessarily take note of the jehadi violence in Jammu and Kashmir. The BJP's traditional nationalist plank had to be protected.

Above all, what was also obvious was that the Vajpayee regime - like most regimes in the past - remained reluctant to use domestic public opinion in furthering its foreign policy objectives. Instead, there is an unnecessary anxiety to project before the world that the entire country is united behind the Government. Hence, there is no real movement forward towards cobbling a national consensus in the new war against terrorism.

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