Jaswant Singh Speaks.....

The News, February 2, 2006
Jaswant flays ‘patronising’ attitude of US
By Ammara Durrani

KARACHI: Lashing out at the Bush administration for its "patronising" attitude towards the world, and South Asia, visiting Indian leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Jaswant Singh, said here on Thursday, "Until yesterday, it was Iraq, today it is Iran, and with Nato forces in Afghanistan, tomorrow it could be that... I don’t want to go any further, but it is very worrisome."

In a candid conversation with The News, he conceded in so many words that the Vajpayee government may have erred by cutting off people-to-people contacts with Pakistan following the December 2001 terrorist attacks on the Indian parliament. "If we spent time in identifying what were the mistakes then we are engaging in a kind of negativism or masochism of self-injury inflicting on ourselves the painful memories," he said.

Dressed in a khaki safari suit and dusty brown loafers, Singh appeared exhausted following two days of road travelling that began on Monday from the Khokhrapar-Munabao border, as part of a pilgrimage to Hindu and Muslim holy shrines in Balochistan and Sindh.

But he did not mince words with reference to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s statement last week on the need for India to make some "difficult choices" vis-a-vis its relations with America.

"Perhaps, it’s best if the United States of America stops telling all of us here in South Asia what to do and what not to do," he said. "It’s self-evident that we have to take a decision, but...at least I don’t take a decision because somebody told me I have to take a decision," he said, adding: "I find it a bit patronising."

He expressed grave concerns about US policy on Iran, saying he had a "problem" with the manner with which the United States was "projecting" the situation in that country. Criticising US President George W Bush’s State of the Union address delivered on Tuesday, Singh said the American president’s policy enunciation to go, in his country’s national interest, wherever America thought there was a problem, was "troubling" and might eventually become "a security issue".

In contrast, Singh seemed visibly overwhelmed with the welcome he had received during his tour of Sindh and Balochistan. "Superlatives like ‘epic’, ‘historic’, ‘memorable’ … they don’t even touch the fringes that all of us, collectively, have experienced (here)," he said.

Singh was reluctant, however, to answer questions about the Indian government’s recent remarks on the Balochistan crisis, or New Delhi’s policy of engagement with the Kashmiri leaders.

The 67-year-old veteran politician was evasive when asked whether he thought in retrospect the Vajpayee government’s 2001 decision to cut off all people-to-people contacts with Pakistan had been a good one.

"The need," he said, "is to apply a balm, not keep scratching the surface of every little itch that has taken place on the skin." Currently on a week-long visit to various parts of the two provinces along with an 86-member delegation comprising Indian MPs, pilgrims, journalists, etc, Singh expressed confidence in the peace-loving citizens of India and Pakistan who, he said, were "miles ahead of their respective governments in their yearning for peace."