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C O M M E N T A R Y
Wreckers
Knives are out for P.Chidambaram in the government, and he has yet to deliver, says N.V.Subramanian.
12 January 2009: While the Manmohan Singh government-Opposition NDA unity has fortunately held in the face of Pakistani terrorism, it has simultaneously provoked rivalries in the ruling dispensation, or so it would appear from press reports. A.R.Antulay's shameful attempt to make a conspiracy of the killing of the Maharashtra ATS chief, Hemant Karkare, during the Bombay terror attacks, seems to have opened the gates for various sorts of Congress party-Manmohan Singh government rivalries to surface. One of them apparently is behind Union home minister P.Chidambaram's scuttled or aborted visit to the US to share evidence with the American administration of Pakistani state involvement in the Bombay attacks.
You could well question the rationale for Chidambaram's US visit, especially when the Bush administration has been very well briefed about Pakistan's role in the Bombay massacre. As one well-known foreign-policy commentator pointed out today, the US FBI has nearly everything that India had to give. Besides, America possesses awesome ELINT and very decent human intelligence capabilities in Pakistan. (The US makes and unmakes governments in Pakistan, for God's sake.) In short, there was little to be gained by Chidambaram's going to the US, and apparently, the Bush administration thought so too.
According to one paper, Chidambaram had to cancel his US visit because his host, the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, could not accommodate him in her schedule choked up with Gaza, troubles with Russia-Georgia, and of course the changeover to a new administration. The report in the paper was gossipy, but for that reason did not seem inaccurate, but it certainly tried to destroy Chidambaram's alibi for not going to the US, which was that the PM had asked him to resolve the truckers' agitation.
Since nothing was to be gained by Chidambaram's going, and apparently Rice saw that too, there's no real harm done by the cancelled trip. But the point is another. Who were the parties leaking against Chidambaram to make him look ridiculous? Since the report was Washington-datelined, one of the parties looks awfully like the Indian foreign office. Did it have a hand in scuttling the trip, in getting Rice to get too busy to meet Chidambaram? Who knows. The Americans wouldn't do such a thing, not anyhow to belittle Chidambaram.
One story from one paper could be ignored. But another newspaper reports that some Congress party heavyweights sniffed danger in Chidambaram expanding to several turfs simultaneously and thus ended his Washington plans. To repeat, Chidambaram's US visit was entirely unnecessary, so no matter it was cancelled. But what if the visit was critically necessary, but became a casualty of Congress party/ Union cabinet infighting? Can the Union cabinet and ruling party be - and, worse, appear to be - disunited faced with the most serious and sustained challenge to India's national security?
Together with Antulay, the cunning and scheming Digvijay Singh, and the loose canon, Sriprakash Jaiswal (the junior home minister, no less), have sought to politick with the Bombay terror attacks. Digvijay Singh supported Antulay's rubbish conspiracy theory. And Digvijay Singh and Jaiswal, suspiciously almost together, made the dubious claim that the Bombay terrorists had demanded release of some jailed comrades. The government had to come out with denials of the claims of Antulay, Digvijay Singh and Jaiswal.
By rights, Antulay should have been shown the door out of the Union cabinet, and Jaiswal similarly should have been dropped from government. Neither has happened. The so-called Congress high command (read Sonia Gandhi) does not realize that Antulay, Digvijay & Co are wrecking the Manmohan Singh government, especially now when complete unity from all political sections is direly needed. Who knows Digvijay's angst may be he wasn't made finance minister after Chidambaram moved to home, but his discontent can get the better of government.
But it is also time Chidambaram commences delivering. He never fail at a media opportunity to gloatingly explain his intent and purpose as home minister, and he repeatedly says police and intelligence were within a hair's breadth of preventing the New Year blasts in Assam. That's not good enough. His 2009 gift to the country would have been capture of the ULFA blaster beforehand. Chidambaram has a job to do at home which he hasn't done. Washington can wait.
N.V.Subramanian is Editor, NewsInsight.net. Har-Anand has published his new second novel, Courtesan of Storms.
Please visit N.V.Subramanian's blog http://courtesanofstorms.blog.com/
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