Will Singh undo Yekaterinburg bungle at Sharm el sheik?
Manmohan Singh conceded his silly blunder, "Let me say that what I had said to Zardari Sahib, I had not intended to say that in the presence of all the media. I simply forgot that the media were present there."
PRIME MINISTER Manmohan Singh may not have accomplished much for India during the latest junket to the Italian mountain town of L'Aquila. It was not supposed to achieve anything! The July 8-10 meeting at was actually the summit of world's most powerful and industrialized nations, G8, who meet annually. Leaders of five emerging economies, comprising China, South Africa, Brazil, India and Mexico, dubbed G5, had been specially invited for this G8 summit. For, its focus was on global economic crisis and climate change.
Though the obliging Indian media projected it as 'taking part in discussions of G8+G5 summit', it was only a sort of pleasure trip for the Indian delegation with bilateral, sideline meets. Of course, the PM’s Air India One carried a hoard of honourable members of the ‘free’ fourth estate ready to hype up ‘breakthroughs’ of the establishment.
It is a consolation that the PM did not plunge the country’s stock one notch lower, succumbing to the advice of Indian Foreign Service babus and strategic thinkers living in a time warp of the cold war era. In fact, Singh did repair some of the damage he had done last month during a similar jaunt to Yekaterinburg in Russia.
At the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, the PM had portrayed India as big bully of the region spoiling for war. His somewhat faces-drawn meeting with Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari was followed by some insensitive remarks to the media sycophants back home, attracted widespread disgust in diplomatic circles. The US and EU nations had worked hard to bring the belligerent nuke-powered enemies to restart their Composite Dialogue Process (CDP).
Meeting Zardari for the first time after the chill brought about by last year’s terror attack on Mumbai, Singh said, wearing a straight face: “I am happy to meet you but my mandate is limited to telling you that the territory of Pakistan must not be allowed to be used for terrorism against India,” as if he was just a messenger of a super PM. A few days after the meeting, Zardari canceled his trip to Sharm el sheik in Egypt. He was to meet Singh there again on the sidelines of the NAM summit in mid-July.
The facilitators of the meet at Yekaterinburg were quite aware of India’s miserable record of collecting and providing acceptable evidence supporting their allegations. For, a honest and transparent probe would have pointed fingers at some ‘respectable’ Indians. Pakistan could win diplomatic points by not canceling CDP completely, but agreeing for a meeting with Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, who will head the Pakistani delegation to NAM and Singh.
It appears that Singh had realised that he had botched up a good opportunity to erase the image of India as bullying big brother of South Asia. (See “Did Singh portray India as big bully at Yekaterinburg?”) On board the Air Force One flying back from L'Aquila, he told a correspondent: “Let me say that what I had said to Zardari Sahib, I had not intended to say that in the presence of all the media. I simply forgot that the media were present there. It was not my intention in any way to hurt Zardari Sahib's feelings.” The correspondent had the guts to query him about his 'unusual' behaviour in Yekaterinburg and wanted to know whether such messages work on Pakistani leaders and whether it was business as usual in Pakistan. The PM replied: “Well, there are difficulties but I have not given up. . . We are ready to walk more than half the distance to stabilise the two neighbours’ relations.”
It is worth noting that it was in the Havana summit in September 2006 that Gen Pervez Musharraf, the then President of Pakistan, had played a crucial role when he had secured Singh’s agreement “to continue the joint search for a mutually acceptable options for a peaceful negotiated settlement of all issues between India and Pakistan, including the issue of Jammu and Kashmir in a sincere and purposeful manner.”
Although a Prime Minister forgetting the 'presence of the all the media' (not just the sycophants from home) while negotiating peace with a nuclear-armed rival is hard to condone, it does seem that the Singh-Gilani meeting at Sharm el sheik will not be plagued by undiplomatic behaviour.
It is a consolation that the PM did not plunge the country’s stock one notch lower, succumbing to the advice of Indian Foreign Service babus and strategic thinkers living in a time warp of the cold war era. In fact, Singh did repair some of the damage he had done last month during a similar jaunt to Yekaterinburg in Russia.
At the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, the PM had portrayed India as big bully of the region spoiling for war. His somewhat faces-drawn meeting with Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari was followed by some insensitive remarks to the media sycophants back home, attracted widespread disgust in diplomatic circles. The US and EU nations had worked hard to bring the belligerent nuke-powered enemies to restart their Composite Dialogue Process (CDP).
Meeting Zardari for the first time after the chill brought about by last year’s terror attack on Mumbai, Singh said, wearing a straight face: “I am happy to meet you but my mandate is limited to telling you that the territory of Pakistan must not be allowed to be used for terrorism against India,” as if he was just a messenger of a super PM. A few days after the meeting, Zardari canceled his trip to Sharm el sheik in Egypt. He was to meet Singh there again on the sidelines of the NAM summit in mid-July.
The facilitators of the meet at Yekaterinburg were quite aware of India’s miserable record of collecting and providing acceptable evidence supporting their allegations. For, a honest and transparent probe would have pointed fingers at some ‘respectable’ Indians. Pakistan could win diplomatic points by not canceling CDP completely, but agreeing for a meeting with Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, who will head the Pakistani delegation to NAM and Singh.
It appears that Singh had realised that he had botched up a good opportunity to erase the image of India as bullying big brother of South Asia. (See “Did Singh portray India as big bully at Yekaterinburg?”) On board the Air Force One flying back from L'Aquila, he told a correspondent: “Let me say that what I had said to Zardari Sahib, I had not intended to say that in the presence of all the media. I simply forgot that the media were present there. It was not my intention in any way to hurt Zardari Sahib's feelings.” The correspondent had the guts to query him about his 'unusual' behaviour in Yekaterinburg and wanted to know whether such messages work on Pakistani leaders and whether it was business as usual in Pakistan. The PM replied: “Well, there are difficulties but I have not given up. . . We are ready to walk more than half the distance to stabilise the two neighbours’ relations.”
It is worth noting that it was in the Havana summit in September 2006 that Gen Pervez Musharraf, the then President of Pakistan, had played a crucial role when he had secured Singh’s agreement “to continue the joint search for a mutually acceptable options for a peaceful negotiated settlement of all issues between India and Pakistan, including the issue of Jammu and Kashmir in a sincere and purposeful manner.”
Although a Prime Minister forgetting the 'presence of the all the media' (not just the sycophants from home) while negotiating peace with a nuclear-armed rival is hard to condone, it does seem that the Singh-Gilani meeting at Sharm el sheik will not be plagued by undiplomatic behaviour.
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i would have to agree with that. amazing level of idiocy
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