Mani and Hafiz: Truth or Bare?

I understand that when a politician is on a private visit to a country, he does not speak on behalf of the country. Mani Shankar Aiyar, by virtue of being a former diplomat based in Pakistan, is knowledgeable about the country. It seems that he has lost touch with it, and even his home country.

Sitting on a panel discussion in a studio in Islamabad, he was confronted by Jamaat-ud-Dawah chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed through a phone link:

"Giving India MFN-status is not correct in any manner because there are already big problems that haven't been resolved, including the Kashmir issue. At this moment, the dams being made by India will create a crisis in Pakistan."

This is the man considered the mastermind behind the Mumbai 2008 attacks. His position would not be much different.

It is Aiyar's comment that is typically on a limb:

"There are some persons like Hafiz Saeed in our country who do not want things to move forward but thankfully the ordinary people want our ties to improve. We can improve our relations irrespective of what his (Saeed's) opinion is. We want him to be caught and taken to a terrorism court."

By getting into this same-same maze, he is in effect implying that the Hafiz prototypes in India are against any ties with Pakistan.

We do have a consolidated saffron terror in place, but it is essentially and rather tragically targetting people within the country.

It is pertinent that a couple of days prior to this studio peace, a piece of news which has much to do with Hafiz Saeed went largely unnoticed. The amicus curiae, advocate Raju Ramachandran, told the Supreme Court that Ajmal Kasab was not part of a larger conspiracy for waging war against the nation.

As reported:

'Maintaining that the prosecution has failed to prove the case against him beyond doubts, he told he bench that his right against self-incrimination as well as his right to get himself adequately represented by a counsel to defend himself in the case have been violated during the trial.'

Kasab said he was brainwashed like a "robot".   

What would Mr. Aiyer's position be? Does he believe that brainwashing takes place only in the area of terror? This is where we need to look at the scenario holistically.

Saeed's opinion is not an isolated one and neither is it restricted in both countries to fringe elements.

There are two crucial segments.

1. The overtly nationalist middle class that believes that an enemy gives credence to identity.

2. Those who take what appears to be a cynical view that

a) the terror industry is over-rated
b) peace through confidence building measures does not do away with insecurity. These placebos cannot and are not meant to address diplomatic issues.

Almost all politicians have spoken about such initiatives and gestures. Does anything tangible come out of it?

In the Islamabad studio, it was Hafiz Saeed who spoke honestly. Mani Shankar Aiyar is being hailed for his brave move in confronting him, when he was just aiming aimless darts.

Perhaps he might like to see the large queues outside the High Commissions in India and Pakistan to understand how difficult such 'private' visits are for those he is claiming to speak on behalf of.

Sonia’s Boys Will Be Boys

Almost everyday, someone in this country is using khadi to wipe some part of their houses, some part of their person. I am quite certain they are not thinking about how they are insulting the Mahatma.


But it can happen:

Congress disapproved Union Minister Jairam Ramesh's controversial act of wiping his shoe with a garland of spun cotton given by party members while welcoming him at a public function in Rajasthan.

"In the life of a nation there are certain symbols and one should be more careful and sensitive about them," AICC General Secretary Janardhan Dwivedi said reacting to the development.

The cotton garlands were offered to Ramesh by Congress office-bearers Rameshwar Dudi and Rampyari Vishnoi at a function on Monday. When the minister was sitting on a chair at the dais, he took off the garlands and put them on a table. After some time, he took a garland and cleaned his shoe.

Reacting sharply, the state BJP criticised his act and demanded an apology saying, "The garland is a symbol of Gandhi's spinning wheel. It (the act) is an insult to Gandhi's khadi."

A few points:

• The BJP’s Gandhigiri we know about, so it is just adding to the political cacophony.

• The only insult is that the garland was offered to him as a gesture and he ought to have respected it, whether it was a garland of marigolds or of sandalwood. There is no special symbolism about khadi. It can and does clean shoes.

• People should be more concerned that this ‘humble’ fabric is sold at exorbitant rates by designer labels. In the life of a nation there is the common man, too.

• Having said this, I wonder what prompted Jairam Ramesh to become his own shoeshine boy on a public platform. Was he in fact being Gandhian and telling the party membes that you must clean your own dirt?

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Omar Abdullah declares:

“A young man was shot dead in Sopore yesterday for no apparent fault of his. Where the hell are all the irate voices??? Bloody hypocrites.”

For how many years has there been insurgency in Kashmir? How many people have been killed, by both the armed forces as well as the militants? Why this sudden looking for “irate voices”? Does the chief minister of J&K think that civilian deaths do not matter if militants kill them?


I understand that he believes that the issue of such killings by the authorities are taken up by human rights organisations, and they are silent. No, they are not. There are records of such killings. But, it must be remembered that a terrorist is not running a government or representing the country or in charge of its security. That is the big difference. People expect the security forces to not kill civilians. His comment makes one wonder whether:

• He believes that all those killed by the army are at fault.

• The fact that there are irate voices against establishment-ordered killings means that it happens and there ought to be equal vehemence in opposing it.

This is not about scoring points about decibel levels.


As for being bloody hyprocrites, how about the fact that the Centre-appointed interlocutor in Kashmir, Dileep Padgaongkar, had gone on one of Ghulam Nabi Fai’s junket conferences, and our home minister says that as this was before he became the interlocutor, it is fine? If there is criticism of Fai, then why not have a uniform response?


Mr. Fai’s links have been made much of, so where are the irate voices about the interlocutor’s role? Where is the “bloody hypocrites” declamation?

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Mani Shanker Aiyer has called the Congress a circus. Why?

"Those who have got their work done visit 10, Janpath (Congress President Sonia Gandhi's residence), while those with some hope of getting their work done visit 23, Willingdon Crescent (the residence of the Congress Chief's Political Secretary Ahmed Patel). Those who have lost all the hope and are dejected come to 24, Akbar Road (Congress' headquarters)".

I don’t think he has visited a circus in a long time. What he is describing is different phases of love. They can be encapsulated in a few phrases from a few songs, light and dark:

1. Porgee phaslee re phaslee
2. Mujhko thodi lift kara de
3. Koi hota jisko hum apna, hum apna keh lete yaaron…

Unless, of course, Mr. Aiyer meant the circus in the film Mera Naam Joker. In which case, it would be apt to address him:

kehta hai jokar saara zamaana

aadhi haqeeqat aadha fasaana

chashmaa uthaao, phir dekho yaaro

duniya nayi hai, chehra puraana

Bhool gaye kya apne din?