Mistaking David Cameron for Kaiser Wilhelm?
By Jawed Naqvi
Monday, 02 Aug, 2010
Why is everyone so excessively miffed with David Cameron? He came to India and said a few terse things about Pakistan and the ISI. Some Pakistanis too would agree with his views on the spy agency, not to mention countries in the neighbourhood that have nightmares over its real and imagined activities. The British prime minister didn’t say anything new, did he? He essentially repeated what we could in any case glean from the Wikileaks revelations, or even earlier, from Zia ul Haq’s havoc, which he wreaked on his countrymen to the West’s boundless appreciation.
Some critics felt Mr Cameron was undiplomatic in chiding Pakistan from Indian soil, while a former British foreign secretary described him as a loudmouth. But then everyone knows he was on a mission to sell warplanes to India. If flattery and appeasement of the nouveau riche elite in India fetches him a politically and economically useful 700 million pounds military deal, so be it. That’s why he first went to Bangalore where a pact was initialled before he arrived in Delhi. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had arranged a grand reception at the splendorous presidential palace, the former vice-regal lodge, from where Cameron’s forbears had ruled India.
The most evident reason for Mr Cameron to make his overhyped pronouncements from Delhi lies in the fact that he is a Conservative politician in the image of Margaret Thatcher. When Napoleon called England a nation of shopkeepers he could not have imagined how accurately the description would fit the former Iron Lady who, it was common knowledge, never visited any country without an order form in her handbag. Mrs Thatcher of course had another feather in her cap which Mr Cameron can only dream of. Her image makeover came from near the remote South Pole where she converted the Malvinas islands into the Falklands with military force.
There seems far less hope for her ideological protégé to expect similar generosity in an even more inhospitable region – Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East where Britain has its irons in the fire. The best he can hope for is to cut his losses at home, discard the Liberal allies in the not too distant future and find the votes to elect a Conservative government by being or becoming assiduously rightwing.
Therefore, Mr Cameron cannot and should not be faulted for being merely what he is – an exceedingly ambitious Conservative politician. And though he is seeking to cast himself in the mould of Mrs Thatcher he neither has a Ronald Regan to boost his morale nor the ruse of a Cold War to mask the ambitions of his party’s militarist worldview. The trouble lies elsewhere, and it really lies with the obsequious Indians and fawning Pakistanis who act hurt when they are rapped on the knuckles by those they seek to play sherpas to.
What Mr Cameron said about the ISI made for banner headlines in most Indian dailies. Why? The question is particularly valid since Indian officials, including the home secretary, the foreign minister and the national security adviser had known and spoken publicly of the ISI’s entanglement in Afghanistan. What is the net worth of Mr Cameron’s inculpation of the ISI in Afghanistan when India already knew better? And in spite of this knowledge about the ISI, Dr Manmohan Singh was willing to talk to Pakistan. The Indian leader obviously knows more than anyone else that the only way to tame the ISI in Afghanistan or in Kashmir would be to take Pakistan on a journey of trust-building.
But there are powerful lobbies in India that can virtually dictate the lead story to a newspaper and who don’t want any progress in talks with Islamabad.
How else could the Times of India, leading the Aman Yatra for peace with Pakistan, report after the Cameron-Singh press conference that Dr Singh had blamed the Pakistan foreign minister for the talks’ “failure” in Islamabad? Failure? The Indian prime minister had clearly said that the Pakistan minister’s handling of a press conference had distracted from important achievements the two foreign ministers had made in their discussions.
Similarly, when Indian and Pakistani national security advisers met in Delhi and warmly hugged each other in September 2008 in an unprecedented public display of camaraderie, they had been hit by the Kabul embassy blast in July and a subsequent attack on the Marriott in Islamabad. Did they not know their brief? M.K. Narayanan, the Indian NSA, told Mr Mahmud Ali Durrani that he was on the same page with him on terrorism. What did they mean? Did India not know about the ISI’s role in Afghanistan when it was reaching out to Pakistan before Mumbai set back the rapprochement by months.
In any case how does Mr Cameron help the matter? What can he do for India? As far as he is concerned India remains a pawn that is aspiring to be a player in the international chess game which his forbears started in 18th century in the southern half of the subcontinent. Were it not for the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle signed in 1748 between France and Spain, British mercenary Robert Clive would be a prisoner in French-ruled Madras. The treaty saw France regaining a key outpost in America. In fact, Britain had exchanged Louisbourg so that France withdrew from the Netherlands. Madras, captured by French Admiral La Bourdonnais in 1746 was returned to Britain likewise. Is a similar treaty going to be signed to work out some international arrangement, say between the Shanghai Group and Nato with similar profit-driven international linkages?
Would it not be more prudent for India to resolve its disputes with Pakistan, among other reasons, to gain an important advantage in Afghanistan – and thus also avoid the embarrassment of remaining a cheerleader for the United States and Britain, that too in its own neighbourhood? To get there, however, it will need to overcome the embarrassment of an obsequious middle class with its “non-resident” pseudo nationalist mentality. It would require the press to stop acting silly.
It really was the limit to see a perfectly agreeable anchor of NDTV asking Mr Cameron to repeat the lines on the ISI. Then the anchor did something even more embarrassing. He virtually asked the British prime minister to agree with his view that the British prime minister had come to Delhi first before planning a trip to Beijing because he cared more for India! A literally frightened Mr Cameron quickly brushed aside the query. I had thought the days were over when one elderly gentleman would invariably humiliate his Indian reporters with his fawning queries at news conferences.
On one occasion, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl was bombarded with the most bizarre line of inquiry. “Welcome to Delhi sir,” said the accredited correspondent of goodness knows which newspaper. Then came the punch line. “Sir between India and Pakistan, would you support us or Pakistan? Also, sir on the question of Kashmir, are you with India? And finally, sir, now that you have East Germany with you, can you help us improve our Olympic standards?” Kohl’s pithy reply was subtle and, I fear, it may have missed his quarry: “I think you are mistaking me for Kaiser Wilhelm,” the German Chancellor said before moving on to the next correspondent.
Well, nor does Mr Cameron claim to be Kaiser Wilhelm. The difference though between Kohl and him was that in a manner of speaking the British leader was more encouraging of his hosts. He was impressed for example with India’s Commonwealth Games effort, which he declared, contrary to what many Indians believe was the case, a success. As Manmohan Singh received the words with obvious relief, his mind must have strayed to the Section 144 imposed in the localities surrounding the sports venue. The criminal procedure code was given the offensive clause by the British in the aftermath of the 1857 uprising to prevent a meeting anywhere of more than four Indians. Four or more Indians were perceived to be plotting something sinister. The same colonial law will help secure the Commonwealth sports contest in October. Mr Cameron could not have missed the symbolism of the great Indian democracy governed with quaint British laws. Looking at the hapless state of Afghanistan, however, we can’t help feeling that things could have been far worse for India and Pakistan. Both should count their blessings.
jawednaqvi@gmail.com
