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Praan Jaye Par Nobel Na Jaye

As usual, your favourite psycho was inundated with a surplus of hate mail -- this time, the impetus being my having lashed out at the chief halwai of the jalebi forces. A greater irony there ain't: Not only am I hammered for drawing a bead on The Angel PM, but I also have to bear the guilt of having added my two bits towards his electoral success. Life's about shouldering responsibilities, and that awareness won't permit me to stet this horror visited upon India. Therefore, you dorks, all that invective is like water off a duck's back. When, after hundreds of yatris are murdered, the PM is still ready to negotiate with their killers, there's *nothing* that can hold me back.

Funny thing; about 60 pc of the supportive letters were femail (thanks, girls!). I've realised that it's women who have the balls and the brains: Mrs G severed Pakistan. Vajpayee will sever Hindustan.

One reader of a national newspaper got it exactly right: "I would like to congratulate our PM Vajpayee for using peace to solve the Kashmir problem. But he needs to go further than he has gone... Rather than just talk to terrorist groups, Vajpayee must simply give away Kashmir to them. In fact he should openly announce that if any of our other neighbours like Nepal or Bhutan or China want some other parts of India, they simply have to ask for it. This approach will save a lot of lives. It will bring lasting peace... By giving away our land without fighting, Vajpayee will earn praise from President Clinton. Our PM also stands a good chance of getting the Nobel Peace prize. Who knows, they may even install his wax statue in the famous Madame Tussaud museum in London in his honour!" I'd be ROTFL if it wasn't so frightening.

However, no one's put it better than Mani Shankar Aiyar: "The problem with Vajpayee is that he mistakes theatre for statesmanship, and poetry for diplomacy. Every time he is put in charge, he aims for the headlines, not realizing that nation-building is hard, solid, boring work, not PR... So desperate was Vajpayee to stake his claim to the millennium Nobel Prize that, abandoning his opposition to Farooq's autonomy, Vajpayee jumped into the Hizb's azaadi, mouthing some poetry about the limits to the talks being set, not by the Constitution, but 'humanity.' The Pakis and their proxy army are left not knowing whether to laugh or cry... In criminal violation of the Nitish Sengupta committee recommendations, the army was not deployed to protect the Amarnath yatris; instead a totally uncoordinated CRPF-J&K police network was hastily put in place... The nation is unsafe in the hands of such a naive, whimsical, fickle publicist. We need to be rescued from his simple-minded tomfoolery."

Did you notice that an ordinary reader, a Congresswallah, and your sincere fundie, all have zeroed in on the Nobel Prize...? Another point: When Madame Tussaud's announced that it would add Bachchan's wax image to its exhibit, an email campaign -- originating from a certain office in New Delhi and with the blessings of the OFBJP -- urged netters to write the museum asking for Vajpayee's statue to be instated in its gallery...

Meanwhile, what's the body-count? 104 citizens, almost all Hindu, gunned down over 12 hours across J&K; 9 dead in the UP train blast; 6 Hindus in Rajouri; 2 soldiers in a landmine explosion in Doda district; 8 BSF men in Udhampur district; 12 in the car blast in Srinagar; a Special Police Officer dragged out of his home and killed in Poonch; a woman mercilessly beaten, tonsured, raped and then hacked to death in Poonch; an army porter killed when a barrage of mortar shells hit Chang-Devar in Uri sector, which "incident" followed the attack on forward posts in Kalsian area. And the Prime Minister's response? From the ToI: "Now, giving the example of the Kargil war and how the political parties came together to face the contingency, Mr Vajpayee in his Panchajanya article has clearly sought a political consensus to deal with the military dictatorship in Pakistan." Excuse the PM while others make up his compliant mind. And excuse me while I puke.

The kowtowing to terrorism began in 1989, when VP Singh released jailed terrorists to rescue his home minister's abducted daughter. Ghulam Nabi Azad had three militants released in exchange for his brother-in-law. Then there was the escorting to safety of Masood Azhar by a Cabinet minister. Then the ceasefire in J&K. And now we have the imminent release of five separatist militants, as demanded by Veerappan. My point is: VP, Azad, Karunanidhi and Krishna did not get elected on the nationalism ticket. Ergo, they did not swindle their voters. Vajpayee has.

Unlike Western governments, we never had a policy of non-submission to blackmailers. In 1978, the Red Brigade kidnapped Italy's former PM, Aldo Moro, and demanded the release of 15 terrorists. The Italian government refused to negotiate; Moro was shot dead 55 days later. However, the entire opposition supported the government. During Ayatollah Khomeini's reign, Iranian militants took scores of American diplomats as hostages, demanding that President Carter hand over the Shah of Iran. The US refused to negotiate; the Iranians freed the hostages. And, no need to mention the country that did Entebbe.

No sane government takes the risk of encouraging blackmail attempts by yielding to terrorists' demands. No government can prevent all kidnapping or hijacking. But, every country has the option of not compromising -- even if at the cost of the hostage/s. It ain't "humanity," true. But the "cruel" policy checks further such crimes and, in fact, protects the people. Mr KPS Gill writes: "When states seek to conciliate and appease those who thrive on terror and intimidation, this is inevitably interpreted as a sign of weakness, and the consequence can only be greater violence. Our commitment to, and striving for, peace must never be diluted. But they must be founded on the secure ground of reality, not on the make-believe that has enslaved the imaginings, and subdued the will, of those who currently command India's destiny." That is, the PM.

These are indeed surreal times. Take the Samjhauta Express, the train responsible for bringing in over-50,000 Pakis who never went back and whose whereabouts are unknown, raising the possibility that many of them are engaged in subversive activities. In January, Delhi police recovered Rs 8 lakh in fake currency smuggled through couriers travelling on the Express; 96 litres of acetic anhydride, a chemical used to produce heroin, was seized in related raids. In February, one Kamaluddin, nabbed while alighting from the train, admitted: "My main job has been to collect defence documents from spies who are based in India and then deliver these to the Pakistan military intelligence." In March, 3 Pakis were arrested while attempting to smuggle fake currency notes worth Rs 20 lakh by the Express. And the angered government's response is -- tan-tar-ra! -- the slashing of the free baggage allowance for travellers from Pakistan...

On Wednesday, three Indian prisoners repatriated by Pakistan divulged the Indian's plight in Paki jails. "Indian prisoners are treated like stray dogs and are denied proper food and medical facilities, because of which many have fallen ill and even died. At least five out of them had gone insane after being tortured by intelligence officials who wanted them to admit that they were Indian spies," said Manzoor Hussain, who spent 5 years in Rawalpindi Central Jail, in a cell housing 53 prisoners against the actual capacity of 15. In Lahore's Kot Lakhpat jail alone, Hussain came across 17 Indians, all diseased. In exchange for the 3, India repatriated 8 Pakistani prisoners, all physically fit. Ergo, the human barter rate for the Vajpayee government is: 1 Pakistani = .375 Indians. It explains ALL the decisions taken vis-à-vis Pakistan and its jehadis.

The Lashkar-e-Taiyba is churning out fidayeen by the day. Abu Hijrat, a surrendered Lashkar instructor, admitted: "As many as 800 mercenaries are getting a special three month training for joining the suicide squad at Umal basti in Muzzafarabad and Bagalpur. Of these, over 400 fidayeen are waiting along the LoC on the PoK side to infiltrate into J&K." During the past six months, a sizeable lot has already infiltrated into Kashmir, particularly in Rajouri and Poonch districts.

I turn to Mr KPS Gill: "Under the circumstances, to pin all hopes on a peace process based on dialogue with individual terrorist groups or their overground front organisations, or even with the government of Pakistan, is not only myopic, it is suicidal... With the fundamentalists, there can be no dialogue, for having heard the voice of their God, they have become deaf to human reason... There are, consequently, no soft options left for India. Those who seek to bleed this country, must themselves be made to bleed; their violence must be crushed with greater and overwhelming force; a single, unqualified message must be sent out across the world -- the Indian state will not allow terror and intimidation to succeed, whatever the costs.

"The ambivalence, the ambiguity and the vacillation of the Indian state have, over the past year, infinitely strengthened the terrorist cause in J&K, and have weakened and demoralised the Forces that continue, nevertheless, to stand as the bulwark of India's freedom and integrity against incessant and inhuman attacks... Those who are seeking solutions in parceling out J&K into communally constituted segments; those who believe that the cost of the conflict in Kashmir is too great a burden for the nation to bear; those who have, in just over a decade, been exhausted by the struggle -- all these should understand that the war in Kashmir is not about the defence of Kashmir alone, it is about the defence and survival of India itself, of democracy, and of the diverse and unique civilisation that has come into being in this sub-continent through a process that spans many millennia." Italics, mine.

Many readers asked me: if not Vajpayee, then who? Who?! I fail to understand this dilemma! If you notice, through it all, I've never even mentioned, let alone pushed, "the TINA factor," an electoral slogan coined by LK Advani. For I believe that NO one is indispensable. What do you mean by "There Is No Alternative"! There ALWAYS is. At this point in time, even Mulayam Singh is better than this halwai! Remember: Tu nahi, aur sahi, aur sahi, aur sahi...

Varsha Bhosle