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KASHMIR is an extraordinary Indian story of repeated blunders and unending naivete “Talibanisation of Pakistan” by Mr Hari Jaisingh, June 18. Talibanised Pakistan had targeted Kargil since the autumn of 1998 and taken advantage of Mr Vajpayee’s bus diplomacy. Clearly, the intruders wanted to occupy strategic positions on the Indian side of the LoC from where they had tormented traffic on the busy Srinagar-Leh road.

Not only was India caught napping it was also slow to grasp the encroachments’ magnitude, and continued to trumpet the results of the Lahore initiative. But bus diplomacy allowed Pakistan to take it for a ride. The Kargil episode is a re-run of what happened in 1962. We learnt a lesson from the Chinese episode to keep ourselves prepared. The present scenario is to the contrary.

We should keep our options available, not only to counter the Pakistani designs but adopt it as a part of the dissuasive strategy that would sufficiently hurt them. The long-term strategy of Pakistan emerges from its apparent short-term objective. Mr Vajpayee’s bus diplomacy is to be judged more by world opinion on the Kargil conflict than by Pakistan’s perfidious action.

Just because America and other developed countries have ignored Pakistan on the ongoing Kargil issue, it should not make us think that we have scored a political coup or have got western support on the Kargil turmoil. Pakistan continues to occupy large tracts of Indian territory and is trying to open many more fronts. America has not been able to influence Pakistan to retreat. On the other hand when Pakistan should have been declared a terrorist state for its violation of the Geneva Convention, the USA has decided to lift the sanctions which will keep Pakistan free from an economic imbroglio.

America is trying to put India on a wrong track by having counselling to declare ceasefire, and solve the warlike situation through dialogue. The Congress spokesman has also declared so to solve the matter through talks.

INDIA’S PAST MISTAKES: Since its very birth Pakistan has been Talibanised. The question arises: why did our leaders stop the victorious advancing forces and did not allow them to free the whole of J&K in 1948? Again, why did our political leaders return the territories captured by our brave jawans after great sacrifices in 1965?

On what ground do we blame the USA for not punishing Pakistan? Is it the duty of America to protect us from Pakistan? In fact, we are thankful to America for telling Pakistan to vacate its aggression beyond the LoC.

PLEA FOR PEACE: The writer has rightly brought out that we basically tend to be carried away by the other side’s cunning moves. “We tend to be emotional and allow ad hoc responses to blur rational thinking. Pakistani leaders, in contrast, are both pragmatic and focused.... Pakistan’s Kargil operation is yet example of how its leaders camouflage its real intention....”

Anyway, we both should avoid war. Now it is in the hands of Mr Nawaz Sharif and Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff to ask their soldiers to lay down their arms in Kargil-Dras and surrender before the Indian troops.

“Need for a pragmatic review” was a frank comment on our long-term relations with Pakistan.

Pakistan has been truly playing the assigned role ever since it was created, and the similarity of its actions during the past 51 years is a clear proof of the ulterior motives of its creators. The frequent bilateral talks are just to hoodwink the world. The clear purpose is to keep a sure foothold via Pakistan in South-East Asia for strategic and economic purposes. Once this aspect is well understood, the way of dealing with Pakistan can be well planned to achieve the ultimate goal of peaceful co-existence.

Unless such a status of mutual understanding is evolved, Pakistan will always be kept under economic subjugation to remain subservient to its creators.

The Defence Minister of the caretaker government should be before a full-sized mirror to see his self, listen to his own taped statements (mis-statements) to realise the adverse effects of his frequent and irrelevant overtures, and also review his way of thinking about the vital interests of the country’s security in these moments of crisis.

The President of India being the Supreme Commander of the armed forces is at present the sole authority to issue all relevant statements. The need of the hour is a complete moratorium on statements by all others.

Paid holidays

The editorial “Paid holidays” (June 8), highlighting Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot’s telling statement that every sixth government employee in the state was getting salary without attending office and thus about Rs 1,000 crore of government money was virtually going down the drain every year, makes gloomy reading. What a shocking revelation, indeed!

The observation that such a brazen loot was going apace unnoticed almost in every state in the country seems indisputable. In Himachal Pradesh, for example, Parkinson’s Law has, over the years, been operating literally with a vengeance, playing havoc with the state’s administrative set-up — which, as a consequence, has grown too heavy, especially at the top, to be justifiable viz-a-viz the obtaining workload.

The saddest part of the story is that nobody who is anybody in the state seems bothered about the matter, the sickening scarcity of financial resources increasingly afflicting the hapless state notwithstanding.

As for the Fifth Pay Commission, the gods ruling the roost in the country seem to have committed an unpardonable sin by not implementing the commission’s recommendations in toto. To my mind, things in the country are not likely to take a turn for the better unless the people at large learn to ruthlessly punish the guilty gods at the time of periodic electoral battles. In the ultimate analysis, it is the common people who have to bear the brunt of “paid holidays” and other costly blunders such as overstaffing, etc.

TARA CHAND
Ambota (Una)

	M A I L B A G	Friday, June 25, 1999
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