Where Vajpayee's visit was a non-event

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON, NOV. 13. Patriotic instincts might persuade you to believe that things might have turned out quite differently were it not for the New York air crash. After all, BBC News 24 and Sky TV were all set to telecast his appearance with the British Prime Minister, Mr.Tony Blair, at Downing Street `live' when they were forced to change their plans and ``fade out the Prime Minister.''

Still, nobody had expected that Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee would disappear so completely behind the `purdah' of an insular British media as he did. Barring The Daily Telegraph thanks presumably to the enthusiasm of an Indian contributor - none of London's broadsheets reported Mr. Vajpayee's visit as a story, worthy of a separate headline. Not The Times not The Guardian not The Independent. In The Times its foreign editor used it as a peg to explore the British Government's position on Kashmir and insisted that ``Kashmir must be tackled''. In The Guardian ``India's nationalist premier'' wagged the tail of a long report on Mr. Blair's speech at another event and The Independent dismissed it with a photograph of Mr. Vajpayee and Mr. Blair at a press conference, and a passing reference in a story on reactions to the air crash. ``Mr. Blair was informed about the crash as he finished a working lunch at Downing Street with Atal Behari Vajpayee, the Prime Minister of India, during which they discussed the war on terrorism.''

So was the New York crash the only reason for the near absence of media interest in Mr. Vajpayee's visit despite some very energetic diplomatic build-up? A senior Indian journalist accompanying the Prime Minister and very much a part of the BJP- baggage might have put his finger on the pulse when he asked the PM's Principal Secretary, Mr. Brajesh Mishra why was Mr. Vajpayee visiting Britain anyway? What was the purpose for the layoff in London after Moscow, Washington and New York? Mr. Mishra of course retorted that the Prime Minister had ``not... invited himself'' but was here at Mr. Blair's invitation. And the purpose of the visit he weakly explained was to take a measure of the developments since the two leaders met in Delhi a month ago ``Oh really?'' gasped someone in the audience. Mr. Mishra's press conference was the most curious part of the day's business. He was briefing Indian journalists when they were struggling to meet their news deadlines and could have done without a diversion. The briefing turned into a farce after it became known that the Prime Minister himself would be speaking to the media later in the evening, and Mr. Mishra pleaded with journalists to save their questions for the boss. The London-based Indian journalists, whom India House had been cultivating for just this occasion, were kept out of the PM's briefing provoking accusations that the MEA was practising media `apartheid.'

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : International
Previous : Violent shadow over Kabul
Next     : A lot more needs to be done: U.K.