Tushar Charan
It may not be wrong to assume that Gen (retd) V.K. Singh, minister of state for external affairs in the Narendra Modi-led NDA government, felt ‘disgusted’ as an afterthought following his appearance at the Pakistan Nation Day function in Delhi on March 23. It had provided some spice to the sensation-hungry crop of the electronic media. You don’t expect a former Indian army chief to attend the National Day of an ‘enemy’ that has been slaughtering both innocent civilians and men in uniform for close to three decades as part of its policy to ‘bleed India with a thousand cuts’!
Was the good general ‘disgusted’ at having to attend the National Day function as a representative of the government of India? Though his current boss, Narendra Modi, is known to dislike advice from others, he could have been persuaded not to send the General to an event where the partners in the slaughter of Indians, the so-called Hurriyat Conference leaders of Kashmir, were also being feted. But, no! He was ‘disgusted’ at the media making a mountain out of a molehill-his brief presence at the Pakistani chancery in Delhi.
It may be easy to fault the media for highlighting his fleeting presence at the function but he would have been more convincing in expressing his anger if he or his government had provided the answer to a very simple question that does have a connect with his March 23 evening walk to the blue-domed Pakistani high commission. What is the present government’s policy towards Pakistan?
Since the day Modi ascended to the throne in May last year, he has been alternating between two diametrically opposite postures on Pakistan. One day he invites and warmly receives the Pakistani leader, next he cancels a scheduled high-level bilateral meeting out of a fit of anger, then he softens with Tweets on a terrorist tragedy in a Peshawar school, only to be followed by angry outbursts against the western neighbour not only by him but also by some of the ‘senior’ ministers in his cabinet. The Union Home minister Rajnath Singh had, in fact, hit out at Pakistan while touring Punjab, barely a few hours before the Pakistan National Day function.
If Gen Singh is really disgusted, he better ask his boss to be less fickle in dealing with a neighbour who India finds almost impossible to placate. It will not wash to say that as a disciplined ‘solider’ all his life, Gen Singh will think it blasphemous to question his ‘boss’. The former army chief is now part of the rough and tumble of politics where more rules are broken than followed, at least in India.
Modi may be adamant and may not lend his ears to any sane advice, but surely he should be able to understand the implications, or symbolism, of sending a recently retired army chief to attend the National Day of Pakistan. Given the state of relations between the two countries, Pakistan would not have been able to make too much noise if Modi had agreed to send some other minister than Singh to the National Day function.
The appearance of Gen Singh at the function could have led many to believe– not without any reason– that Modi was again wearing towards a ‘soft’ position on Pakistan as a follow-up to his decision to send the foreign secretary, S. Jaishankar, to Islamabad during the course of a ‘Saarc Yatra’.
If, on the other hand, Singh had a personal reason to be unhappy attending a Pakistani function in the company of the pro-Pakistan Hurriyat leaders, he should have put his foot down before stepping out of his bungalow. During his last months in his previous office (Chief of Army Staff), Singh had built a reputation of being ‘tough’ ready to do battle with his employers (the government) by dragging them to the court-an unprecedented act.
The issue that had peeved him then, the uncorrected discrepancy in his date of birth, did not appear to many to be one that needed the highest ranking general of Indian army adopting a ‘confrontationist’ approach. Why could he not show the same kind of gumption this time around?
By becoming part of active politics, a dirty business, the former COAS has to be ready to face many uncomfortable moments in public, including questioning of his acts without having to chant ‘disgust’ on Tweeter.
Going back a little, it remains somewhat hazy why did a former army chief who had 1.3 million men in uniform under his command agree to accept a comparatively lesser job of a minister of state in the government. Many former services chiefs were able to get coveted civilian posts, mostly as Governors or envoys in foreign countries, but no one had ever accepted the post of a MoS.
The absurdity of this equation becomes more pronounced when among his ministerial colleagues, Gen Singh finds a former Lieutenant Colonel, Harshvardhan Rathore, who added lustre to his name by winning an Olympic medal.
In the protocol conscious army, a four-star general is way ahead of an un-starred Colonel. Gen Singh should have refused to join the ministry if he was not to be made a cabinet minister, a befitting reward from the party (BJP) he had joined after flirting with Anna Hazare’s India Against Corruption (IAC) movement. His stock in the BJP was high because he was seen as a true ‘nationalist’ who did not mince words in denouncing the various perfidious acts of Pakistan.
So, will it be right to suggest that Gen (Retd) V K Singh accepted a ‘lesser’ job because the alternative would have been to cool his heels as a virtual non-entity in the BJP? Maybe, that would have been unfair for a retired General. His army training may not encourage him to question the decisions of his ‘boss’. But having accepted the job of MoS in the external affairs ministry, he could do the country a favour by expounding on the exact nature of the Pakistan policy that his government wants to pursue.
While he attempts that, he might perhaps also tell us what exactly is the contribution of his ‘immediate superior’ in the ministry, Sushma Swaraj, in foreign policy formulations. We have heard she does fly abroad now and then in keeping with fondness of her party colleagues to be frequent flyers to foreign climes. But why does she not go out to more important destinations for serious bilateral negotiations. With such opaqueness in assigning tasks at the top in the foreign ministry, does it matter whether a ‘junior’ minister is ‘disgusted’ or not?
(Syndicate Features)
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