The Hindu : Resorting to jingoism

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Dec 04, 2002

Opinion

Opinion - Editorials

Resorting to jingoism

THE DEPUTY PRIME Minister, L. K. Advani's jingoistic challenge to Pakistan — to face India in a fourth war if it dared — was unbecoming of his office and a disservice to the country inasmuch as its gravely provocative tenor would cause alarm all over the world. By now the lesson ought to have been well learnt that any talk of war between the two nuclear-armed neighbours induces such a rise in the anxiety levels of the global community that the merits of the arguments that India can make are ignored. The world outside cannot be expected to make the distinction between Mr. Advani the BJP leader rousing the faithful at an election rally and Mr. Advani the Cabinet Minister with the capacity to shape decisions on war and peace. This statement cannot be lightly brushed aside as one made in the course of an election campaign, that promises to be more fiery than what has become customary, especially since it made for the harsh edge of a set of anti-Pakistan utterances that other members of the Union Cabinet and senior officials have made over the past few days. There has been of late a renewal of the effort to persuade the international community to declare Pakistan a state-sponsor of terrorism that deserves to be crippled by economic sanctions. Of a piece too was the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee's dropping of the reason that it was Pakistan's foot-dragging on bilateral trade issues that was discouraging him from participating in the SAARC summit to be held in Islamabad. Now we have it on the Prime Minister's authority that the conditionality that will determine whether he makes the trip would be — not Pakistan's extension of most favoured nation status or any commercial matter — but rather Islamabad's effectiveness in halting cross-border infiltration.

While there is hardly a shade of political opinion in India that does not believe that Pakistan must do more to deal with terrorism emanating from its soil, the question is whether the Government has any objective in mind as it continues with its current escalatory campaign. Contrary to the Government's view that it was its resort to coercive diplomacy that led Pakistan to acknowledge the presence of terrorist forces on its soil and promise to deal with it, it could be argued that it was the strength of global sentiment against terrorism that caused such a result. While several of the major powers do acknowledge that Islamabad's performance in this respect has fallen short of its promises, there is very little likelihood of Pakistan being declared a state-sponsor of terrorism or of economic sanctions being imposed on that country. That being the case, there seems to be little point in making references (oblique or direct) to the military option now when the army is being withdrawn from the borders and when any reversal of this decision is bound to achieve nothing other than a heightening of tensions.

It would appear that New Delhi's continuing display of intense hostility to Pakistan is attributable, in great part, to the fact that the Government's faculty for innovative thinking has atrophied (the BJP's stakes in the Gujarat polls are of course by no means a negligible factor). On balance, it would appear that the dominant thinking in international circles prefers that India take the next step towards de-escalation, that is initiate a dialogue at some level. A Government that does not want to initiate a dialogue — even though the installation of a civilian Cabinet in Islamabad did present an opportunity of sorts — can think of no other way of tackling the pressure of international opinion than by going on the offensive. Although the military continues to wield the real power in Pakistan, New Delhi could still have explored the potential presented by the new dispensation there before deciding how to deal with it. That would have made more sense and presented a more reasonable approach than this reflexive resort to jingoism.

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