April 19, 2004
 

Politics

In response to Shekhar Gupta's column in the Indian Express, I dashed off this email to him. Let's see if it draws a response.

Hi Mr Gupta

While I agree it is entirely plausible that political developments in India have been to a certain extent governed by their economic implications, I dont quite share your view that things will become better between India & Pakistan with contribution from this cricket tour.

To me, the bonhomie in the stands, off the field and at a political level, seen in this series is far from reality. The success of the tour is a brilliantly stage managed PR campaign by Musharraf & co. India played into his hands by accepting the tour, going ahead with it while conveying its security fears and now at the end of it all, we have the cricketers saying security was not a problem and that Pakistan was as safe a place as any other to play cricket in.

Now Musharraf, armed with India's verdict on Pakistan being safe, will feel extremely pleased and promptly announce himself as President and Army chief for life, in the national interest. He'll also look the other way when the snow melts and infiltration starts in J & K. The timing of the infiltration, and the obvious response from the Indian army, will coincide with his threat to not be party to the talks if Kashmir wasn't discussed in July. He'll make it appear as though its India's fault all the way. Meanwhile he'll continue to look the other way in Afghanistan even as Osama and al-Zawahiri continue their activities. To placate the US, once in a while he'll ensure some small fry local al-Qaeda/Taliban commander is captured. He'll then roll his fingers on his chair and say 'Musharraf khush hua!'

Ever wondered what the actual White House Presidential Daily Briefing just prior to the Sep 11, 2001 attacks looked like?

Labels: al-qaeda, jammu and kashmir

Rambled @ 10:49 AM

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