Maverick Fernandes takes over at CII meet in Delhi

Maverick Fernandes takes over at CII meet in Delhi
SAURABH SHUKLA

NEW DELHI, APRIL 27: True to style, George Fernandes on Wednesday let the Defence Minister take the back-seat and put the maverick socialist behind the wheel.

He was meant to speak on national security at the annual session of the Confederation of Indian Industry. Instead, he held forth on a range of subjects: from bashing MNCs and reforms to how in the name of environment, the judiciary and the government would send "jobless taxi drivers" into the waiting hands of the mafia.

Sample these:

* On nuclear weapons: Fernandes spoke in two voices. "If someone thinks that atomic weapons can secure a country, I would say he is insane (uska dimag theek naheen hain)." In the next breath, he said Pokharan II had made India more powerful, so much so that "even Clinton who was trying to make India sign the CTBT, did not mention it that way during his visit".

* On the banning of polluting vehicles: In Mumbai, about 10,000 taxi drivers will be stripped of their livelihood in the name of controlling pollution. There is a big mafia problem there. If this goes on, the judiciary, the government and the bureaucracy will be helping in the recruitment of these people in the mafia there.

* On reforms: "The liberalisation policy as brought in 1991 affected the job market seriously and thus there is a need to examine the problem. He urged industrialists to think about "smaller issues" like commercial utilisation of bamboo besides promoting khadi and gram udyog. This would provide employment opportunities and curb secessionism, he claimed.

* On Kashmir: "The money that should have been spent in Kashmir went for Italian tiles to construct swimming pools in South Delhi or big plush buildings in Kashmir. I don't know how long the awareness about security issues generated after Kargil will last."

* On insurgency: Taking a diametrically opposite stand to that of Home Minister Advani, Fernandes said that the situation in the North-East is more serious than the one in Kashmir. "After six months of negotiations, in last one year a thousand ULFA cadres had surrendered, and they didn't want the government to open Swiss Bank accounts for them or a trip around the world, but employment. If we wouldn't give them employment they will get it from Pakistan as terrorists."