Videsh Bhavan blues

Once again, the MEA is embarking on the whole, exhaustive exercise of asking each desk in the ministry to hand in its requirements for a brand new ‘Videsh Bhavan’ that has been waiting to be built for a long, long time. (Even the squatters on the plot opposite the National Museum in the Capital have been evicted.) The building is being billed as a major, modern marvel, on the lines of similar such ‘‘intelligent’’ buildings worldwide, which are said to not want for much except the quality of people who work within. Relief overwhelms this writer, except for one thing. It seems that the MEA had actually undertaken this exercise about two years ago, even calling for a competition which shortlisted architects and much else. In fact, a lot of the work was completed. But nobody knows why the project was scrapped and started from scratch again.

From Oz to Angkor

So what if PM Vajpayee is away in Indonesia-Australia-Thailand for ten whole days, and so what if this trip coincides with the Budget session at home. The visit to Oz, besides the Commonwealth summit, also includes a bilateral at Canberra. When Vajpayee stands on the steps of Australia’s Parliament or its equivalent, and he is welcomed as the leader of a great nation, his hosts must have to eat the insults they so liberally handed out when New Delhi went nuclear in mid-1998. If only for this reason, the trip has to be worth it. But there’s more travel in March. The PM is also visiting the old Hindu kingdom of Cambodia as well as Singapore. Certainly, Angkor Vat is on the cards.

General overkill

General Musharraf certainly revels in summit overkill, whether in Agra or Washington. After the Indian face-to-face with Vajpayee irrevocably fell apart, Musharraf reverted to some plain name-calling, even ordering the demotion of a Pakistani journalist who dared question his version of events. After the Washington talks, more recently, military spokesman Rashid Qureshi was spurred to question the ‘‘patriotism’’ of the Pakistani journalists covering the trip. (The reporters did the only thing pesky reporters are wont to do, they boycotted Musharraf’s briefing.) But we must leave it to Washington Post columnist Jim Hoagland to provide us with another version of why Agra failed. ‘‘I told Vajpayee at Agra,’’ Hoagland quotes Musharraf as telling him, ‘‘that we have been humiliated and so have you. Maybe I should have talked to the main decider’’ in the Indian government.’’ We don’t know if Musharraf also told Hoagland who these ‘‘hardliners’’ were.

Trading places

Far from being a monolithic entity, the US government is as much a chaotic, melting pot, representing different interests, lobbies and beliefs. The State Department is either generous or cussed, depending on which side of the line — of control — you’re speaking from. So when Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Christina Rocca suggested a couple of months ago that the Commonwealth summit next month invite General Musharraf as a special guest (Pakistan is currently expelled from membership), New Delhi went into a little bit of a blue funk. Predictably, Washington wanted to show appreciation for Musharraf’s help in the Afghan war, but equally, New Delhi was having none of it. So, for a brief while, the gossip in government compared young Rocca to a latter-day ‘‘Robin Raphel, rather than the more easygoing Rick Inderfurth.’’ But just like the much-maligned Raphel seems to have had a change of heart — she now believes that the only solution for Kashmir is to convert the LoC into the international boundary — the State Department now seems to be following the White House/Pentagon’s take on India. The hard-boiled Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld must be credited with the tough talk and simultaneous crackdown on terrorism (read Pakistan).

Powell, meanwhile, as the data from the investigation of Omar Sheikh flows in, is also said to have seen the light. Far from the general belief, then, that US pressure on India has increased, Washington is actually quite comfortable with New Delhi’s determination that cross-border infiltration must first come down before talks with Pakistan can begin.

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