Editorial: Playing politics with security

By M H Ahssan

National Security Adviser MK Narayanan ruffled many feathers, particularly external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee's, with his sensational disclosure in a television interview last week that Pakistan has got back to India at least twice with specific queries on the charges listed in the 26/11 dossier. "...as far as we are concerned, we believe Pakistan is making an attempt to arrive at the truth,'' he was quoted as saying.

Although Mukherjee snubbed him with a contradiction the very next day, discreet inquiries have revealed that there is some substance to what Narayanan said. Diplomatic circles confirm that back channels between India and Pakistan are alive and there has been some activity ever since the dossier was handed over to Islamabad.

What Narayanan was not supposed to do is reveal the secret, let the cat out of the bag, so to say.

According to diplomats based in New Delhi, American and European Track Two interlocutors have been working hard to get Pakistan and India to arrive at an understanding that would reconcile their divergent positions on terror and the Mumbai attacks. In other words, they are trying for a compromise in which Pakistan takes action that satisfies India and India allows Pakistan to save face.

At the same time, the diplomats say that Pakistan and the rest of the world are reconciled to the possibility that there will be no movement till May-June because the UPA government wants to keep up the anti-Pakistan rhetoric till the Lok Sabha election. They wryly concede that they may have to let the propaganda war continue as it is so long as it doesn't escalate into a nuclear war.

The perception of the diplomatic community is a stinging critique of the way domestic politics here works and its impact on our Pakistan policy. While Pakistan probably understands the compulsions only too well because it, too, treats relations with India as a domestic issue, the West finds it ludicrous that an aspiring global power like India should play petty electoral politics with a critical bilateral matter that could disturb the nuclear balance in South Asia.

The NDA government turned the Indo-Pak standoff in 2002 after the December 13 Parliament attack into a joke. The UPA government is going down the same road. Somehow, anything related to Pakistan seems to addle the most astute political and foreign policy brains on this side of the border.

Equally surprising is Narayanan's foot-in-the-mouth affliction. After nearly getting the sack in the post-26/11 rumblings, the NSA was ordered to keep a low profile and stay away from the media. But how long can you keep a thirsty man away from water? The dam burst when TV cameras started rolling and Narayanan spilled the beans.

Mukherjee had to go to the highest court of appeal in the Congress, 10 Janpath, for permission to snub the NSA and save a major election plank. But the game is up. Diplomats have seen through the ruse. And so will voters on polling day. Politicians need to learn that you can't fool all the people all the time.

TAILPIECE
Minister for women and child development Renuka Chowdhry seems to have a knack for rubbing the PMO the wrong way. She first annoyed the powers-that-be with her insistence that biscuits replace freshly cooked food in the government's midday meal scheme. Although the PMO and the Planning Commission were both against her proposal, she kept trying to push it and ended up irritating even the mild-mannered prime minister.

Now she wants to nominate a man who has had a run-in with the Directorate for Revenue Intelligence as a member of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights. The PMO has rejected her proposal four times already, but the minister has sent it back every time. Talk about persistence. Since Chowdhry refuses to take the hint, the PMO has decided to wear her out by sitting on the file.