Loneliness of Jaswant Singh

SO why is External Affairs minister Jaswant Singh feeling so lonely and left out these days, just when a rare, Indian foreign policy initiative — this time on Afghanistan — seems to be at last going somewhere?

It seems that at a joint press conference with Afghan Interior minister Younous Qanooni in the capital last week, just as journalists were focusing on quizzing the gentle Afghan, Jaswant Singh was constrained to point out not once but twice, that he was available for questions as well.

‘‘Don’t ask him only, you should be asking me too,’’ Singh publicly reprimanded a reporter who chose to address a question to Qanooni. Journalists covering the briefing were aghast, but put it down to the Foreign office version of a joke.

Minutes later, though, when yet another pesky reporter continued to pay attention to the Afghan leader, Singh’s baritone broke in again: He is a guest, you should not be bombarding a guest with so many questions, you should be asking me some as well. Nobody, including Qanooni, knew where to look.

Minister & MEA

THE reverberations of External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh’s off-the-record policy briefing last week at the IIC to retired diplomats, academics and journalists, are still being felt. That Singh made known his displeasure about a number of foreign policy initiatives, including the purchase of arms from Russia and the absence of policy on Central Asia, is now known. Moreover, he said, the US was the most importance factor in the country’s foreign policy and it was time that officers gave up their old, antagonistic mindsets and focused on ways and means to get closer to Washington.

But more was yet to come. His audience sat aghast as Singh launched into verbal broadsides against his own officers, accusing them of posing institutional difficulties, especially on key areas like the US and Pakistan. Often, he added, he was forced to consult the Americans and even ask them for information, since his own ministry took so long. Moreover, the MEA had never been able to develop any expertise on China. In fact, there had been no strategic vision in the MEA since 1947.

Both retired and MEA’s officers are said to be infuriated at what they perceive is a sense of disloyalty and lack of trust in them by their own minister.

Kabul bound

The plane that will leave for Kabul on Wednesday won’t just carry India’s special envoy Satinder Lambah and MEA’s joint secretary Arun Singh on board. Besides the usual medicines and blankets that governments love to send — this plane is also carrying doctors as well as India’s last man in Kabul, AS Toor, who flew out soon after Najibullah was killed in mid-1996 — the Air Force plane is carrying a large number of VHS cassettes and tapes of Hindi blockbusters, like Lagaan! With Afghanistan breaking out in a riot to watch Hindi films, the Foreign Office seems to have finally realised that the way to the Kabuliwallah’s heart is Aamir Khan, Amitabh Bachchan and Kareena Kapoor.

Meanwhile, journalists are ready to go to not a few lengths to get on board the special plane. But since it can only carry six more people and requests from newspapers/TV channels are flooding in like the Amu Darya in spate, it has been left to none less than Jaswant Singh to finalise the list of the media on board.

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