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Why have we gotten so insular?

Some forty or so summers ago, on a dark and cloudy afternoon, Biju Patnaik piloted his Kalinga Airways plane into Jakarta and found Indonesian President Sukarno in the first flush of fatherhood. Mrs Sukarno had delivered a bonny little baby, and the family was searching a name for the newborn girl when Biju-da called on them.

The first president of the world's fifth largest nation, who in a decade's time would be overthrown in a bloody military coup and replaced by General Suharto, explained the problem on hand to the visitor from India. Patnaik cast his mind back to the dark clouds that had greeted his (and the baby's) arrival and suggested the Sanskrit equivalent of it.

Sukarno's "putri" was promptly christened "Megawati" and thus did a leader from the world's largest Hindu nation get to name the daughter of the leader of the world's largest Muslim nation.

Meanwhile: • If Pakistan did indeed mutilate the bodies of Indian soldiers captured and killed during the Kargil crisis, as India claims, why hasn't India proceeded any further to seek justice? • If Pakistan did indeed fire a missile at an Indian aircraft carrying journos to the site of the wreckage of the Atlantis shot down in the Kutch, where in Indian territory did it fall that it has not been seen/found yet? • Sonia Gandhi allowed a scamster to escape the Bofors dragnet, and Atal Bihari Vajpayee allowed a freedom fighter to get caught in the British dragnet. Is it even stevens in the battle for '99? • Kapil Sibal says G V L Narasimha Rao, a bachelor in agriculture who conducted Doordarshan's opinion polls, is not adequately qualified. Isn't he at least better qualified than most Congress politicians? • Since his back injury may limit his career, is there a case for Sachin Tendulkar to sue the BCCI for making him play double the amount of cricket agreed to upon at an ICC captains' meet in 1998?

Forty years is a long time in politics. On the upside, Indonesia is an Asian Tiger, albeit wounded, and Megawati Sukarnoputri is just a step away from being confirmed as its new president. On the downside, Orissa rides high on the plight of its Christian missionaries and Naveen Patnaik has no qualms in breaking electoral bread with its sponsors.

Forty years later, with Sukarno and Suharto gone, Indonesia is on the verge of losing East Timor, thanks to a UN-sponsored "white man's fraud against an Asian people". And, with the spirit of Bandung too gone, India, instead of speaking for Indonesia's territorial sovereignty, is just sitting back and watching and praying that the same thing doesn't happen to it in Kashmir.

Lament, my friend, at the passing away of a generation of politicians with the voice, vision and reach that went far beyond our borders. Lament at our State-sponsored, abnormal and paranoid fixation with all things Pakistani that has blinded us to the rest of the world, including the Third World which we used to head so long ago.

And weep softly at what we have reduced ourselves to in the comity of nations when you read in The Economist that, "For a country with a billion people and a nuclear bomb, India does not count for much... In terms of influence on world affairs, probably no other country is so far below its potential (as India)." (September 4, 1999)

East Timor -- in the Indonesia where the Bandung Conference in 1955 of 29 Asian and African countries opposed to colonialism sowed the seeds of the Non-Aligned Movement -- could have been a great showcase of India's diplomatic skills. And could have been a testcase of its own stand on Kashmir. Could have been.

When Indonesia won independence from The Netherlands in 1949, West Timor was in the hands of the Dutch; East Timor stayed with the Portuguese. The Dutch half became part of Indonesia within a year. The Portuguese half was annexed by Indonesia in 1976. Suharto's campaign of repression against those seeking East Timor's independence is said to have cost 200,000 lives.

'A casual glance at a map of the Indonesian archipelago is enough to show that Timor, east and west, cannot be a foreign pocket in the belly of a nation, on the specious ground that the pocket was once owned by Portugal,' writes Asiaweek founder T J S George, an acknowledged expert in south-east Asian affairs, in The New Indian Express, comparing it with Goa.

Yet, India watched without a murmur as the UN conducted a referendum in East Timor after the fall of Suharto, as the referendum produced a 78.5 per cent vote for independence, as a nation of 200 million was foisted with half-an-independent island of 800,000 people on its soil; and as the slaughter of innocents began.

What were our great statesmen doing in Delhi when Indonesia was protesting the leadership role that the UN had handed Australia, you might ask? What were the Kargil heroes of South Block doing when they had the chance to win over Indonesia, a key Islamic nation and a valuable asset in their future fight for Kashmir?

Zero, zilch, nada.

There were all the usual vehemant denials when there was some suggestion that perhaps the UN could hold a referendum in Kashmir a la East Timor. And then there was a foreign office plant one day that we might be part of the peacekeeping force in East Timor, and in keeping with the current fashion, there was a denial the next.

That's it. End of East Timor story.

And thank you, James Rubin, for clarifying Kashmir is not Timor, and therefore, there's no question of a referendum.

Admittedly, diplomacy is the last resort of politicians with an election round the corner, but why does our world revolve around Pakistan all the time? Why does our government and our most visible political party tell us that Pakistan is all that matters?

Why, for heaven's sake, does our world-view no longer go beyond the upper reaches of the Hindu Kush mountains?

Why, in the global village, have we gotten so insular?

Why is it essential, for example, for President K R Narayanan to publicly compliment the Indian cricket team when it beats the Pakistan team in the 1999 World Cup in the league stages of the tournament, when the larger goal of winning the tournament is still ahead of and beyond the ken of Azharuddin and his men?

Why is it essential for Home Minister L K Advani and army and police officers to see the hand of Pakistan's ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) in every crime, real and perceived, from Kashmir to Coimbatore?

The problem with "Punjabi" Delhi, and with South Block which lies within the national capital region, is that members of the Lahore Club -- politicians, bureaucrats, opinion-makers, journalists -- can at any time of the day or night be detected by travelling ticket inspectors carrying excess baggage from the Tragedy of Partition.

That "Pakistan-centric" view tends to get projected as the dominant view in public discourse, and is pushed willy-nilly across other parts of the country relentlessly. Unfortunately, the equally great damage that Partition caused lies at the other corner of India, but because of 1971, which removed Pakistan from Bangladesh, there is little focus on the east and the northeast.

Tragic but true. And also very convenient.

There is little doubt that focussing all our energies on Pakistan, and blurring the line between Muslims, which most Pakistanis are, and Islamists, which most Pakistanis aren't, meshes perfectly with the electoral scheme of things of the Hindu Undivided Family of 23. But should we cave in so easily and appear so myopic all the time?

Sure enough, as the tragedy in East Timor was getting out of hand, the Congress was latching on to the BJP's sugar scam involving, of course, Pakistan. And as the slug-fest continued, the BJP was accusing the Congress of getting its campaign facts from Pakistan.

The enduring tragedy of Pokhran II is that India and Pakistan will be spoken of in the same breath, but it's in our interest to demonstrate to the world that we can think of a world beyond Pakistan; that we are a qualitatively better, more mature and secular country with a greater commitment to democratic and freedom values.

Why are allowing ourselves to be equated with a poorer country with far less potential by a band of politicians who can't think beyond their noses? We're the 14th biggest economy in the world; they're 43rd. We're 20th in market capitalisation; they're 44th. Okay they've a better GDP per head, but our GDP is six times theirs; our rate of growth is higher by a full per cent; we've a full 15 per cent more literate people; our rupee fetches more dollars.

Okay, they're better at cricket, but so what? Okay, they produce good taxi drivers, but the Bangladeshis have already beaten them there.

In digging up a pitch so that the Pakistani team can't play, in asking Dilip Kumar to return the award Pakistan gave him, in giving M F Husain gaalis, in opposing ghazal concerts by Ghulam Ali, in barring Pakistani stars from acting in Bollywood, we think Bal Thackeray is showing off our, as in Hindu India's strength. Sorry, we're only playing into Pakistan's hands and showing off our weakness.

No one's saying Kargil and Kashmir are minor issues and that we should forget and forgive the treachery. No sir. The point is, they've to be dealt with at the proper fora, and as a larger, weathier, more democratic and talented nation, it is in our interests to keep the public fixation about Pakistan within reasonable limits.

By allowing politicians to make Pakistan our raison d'etre, we will be making the same mistake as Pakistan has made in making Kashmir its sole reason for existence.

In the late 1970s, T M A Pai okayed a power plant in the south of the country and sent up the file to Chaudhary Charan Singh. The Jat prime minister initialled his approval, but made a note on the margin: "Remember there is also Uttar Pradesh in India." Pai sent back the note with the retort: "Remember, there are also 21 other states in India."

Ditto and likewise Pakistan.

To the hate-mongers and frenzy-seekers who say, "Remember there is Pakistan", why we don't we stand up and say now and then, "Remember, there are also 170 other countries in the world"?

Krishna Prasad