Category: On National Affairs

By H K Dua

A formidable journalist, India has lost its most outstanding chronicler

As a young man of 17, Inder Malhotra was there somewhere in the multitudes of people who went up Raisina Hill to watch the birth of free India at the stroke of midnight of August 14-15, 1947.

From then, the careers of both India as a free nation and Inder as an aspiring journalist ran parallel to each other — until Saturday, when he breathed his last.

Over nearly 70 years, Inder watched and reported on the shaping of a new India, and analysed and commented on the nation’s travails of Partition, its ups and downs, its hopes and moments of despair as faithfully as he could — first as a young reporter in UPI, precursor to the UNI, and later, in The Statesman and the Times of India.

When I joined the profession, Inder Malhotra was a big name as the political correspondent of The Statesman, a job to reckon with in those days of the early 1960s. He went on to become its Resident Editor before migrating to the Times of India to work with two other giants of the newspaper world, Sham Lal and Girilal Jain. Later, he branched off as a syndicated columnist, a Nehru Fellow and a writer. All along, he continued to report India for the most respected British newspaper, The Guardian. He also wrote a substantive political biography of Indira Gandhi.

During his last few years, he regularly wrote an immensely popular column called ‘Rear View’ in The Indian Express, where he was Contributing Editor — a gripping narrative of some of the most significant events of the history of contemporary India, curated from the pages of his reporter’s notebook. He looked back and forth like any good chronicler ought to, commenting on how Indira was facing succession battles, the making of the Constitution, the course India had chosen in the 1971 War, the Emergency and its aftermath, the era of coalitions and instability, the rise of dynasties, and much else that goes with a big emerging nation’s career.

He also recorded the plus points and shortcomings of leaders, their ego clashes, and how these had an impact on decisions. Politics, ambitions, at times behind-the-scenes intrigues, did not escape his sharp eye.

He closely followed the war with China in 1962, the 1965 and 1971 wars with Pakistan, and the negotiations with Pakistan on Kashmir with a rare objectivity that can be emulated even now.

By 1965, he had become a formidable journalist. I was just two years into the profession, when UNI told me to cover infiltration in Kashmir. I found myself on the same flight as Inder Malhotra. For a while, I did get a kick that I was on the same assignment as Inder. But later, some trepidation sneaked in that Inder, with his immense contacts, would do a much better job. Luckily, he was too senior to stay away from Delhi for too long.

I spent three weeks more in the Valley, and went on to cover the Hajipir Pass battle. On my return, I found him very appreciative of my efforts, which was encouraging.

Besides being an outstanding political correspondent, he has been perhaps the best defence correspondent since Independence. His commentaries on India’s defeat in the 1962 China war were unsparing. Despite being a Nehruvite — who wasn’t those days? — he was critical of the policy and the flawed decision-making at high levels.

Unlike these days, Inder never mixed comments with news reporting. He never got too close to a political leader. He chose to be a detached observer. He never disclosed his sources.

It is not just Prime Minister Narendra Modi who can call President Obama ‘Barack’, Inder would not hesitate to call his interlocutors by their first names, sometimes surprising his colleagues at press conferences.

During the last two or three years of his life, he was in and out of hospital, fighting a battle against the odds. However, he did manage to write his columns whenever he was able to physically, drawing from his tremendous memory and lifelong habit of keeping notes. At the end of the day, he would still like to write a column or two more. The spirit was willing but the flesh was weak. However, there comes a time when even the spirit gives in.

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(Mr H K Dua is Adviser in Observer Research Foundation (ORF). He is a former Editor-in-Chief of the Indian Express.)

The Longest August

The Unflinching Rivalry Between India and Pakistan

By Dilip Hiro

Published by Nation Books, New York, Price: Rs 799/- Pages 503

By H K Dua* :  Almost 69 years after the Partition of the sub-continent tensions between India and Pakistan continue to dominate headlines in newspapers and on TV channels. Good news rarely comes from both India and Pakistan, but when it comes it does not last for too long. Occasional half a step forward is succeeded by two-step backwards.

Mutual distrust is so deeply ingrained in the psychology of the two nations which have even fought three and a half wars that any move for a rapprochement is superseded by renewed bouts of blame game by the two adversaries.

Not that there are no well-meaning people on both sides of the divide who want to see peace and amity on the sub-continent, but something or the other always happens to set the clock back when lingering historic bitterness thwart attempts at peace.

For India, the core issue of terrorism that is being used by Pakistan as an instrument of its India policy, for Pakistan the issue remains Kashmir. The geopolitical situation, Pakistan’s acquisitions of nuclear weapons, and continuing dominance of the men in khaki in the country have been major hurdles for peace. The failure of leadership in both countries to come out with a durable solution and sell it to their people is in essence the theme of Dilip Hiro’s book The Longest August – The Unflinching Rivalry Between India and Pakistan that was launched recently on Delhi.

Dilip Hiro who has written 34 books specialises on writing about conflict situations in West Asia, South Asia and Central Asia. The Longest August is about India and Pakistan, the bloody division of the sub-continent with India and Pakistan, the unprecedented wave of communal rioting, and perhaps the largest migration of the population in the world history.

The writer is conscious of how Indian leaders tried to build institutions despite travails of the Partition in 1947 and how Pakistani leaders frittered away every chance to build their country which often lapsed into long spells of military raj.

However, the author doesn’t analyse in detail how Indian leaders succeeded in building a democratic order, which is respected by the rest of the world, and after much trial and error and an economy ready to take major strides in the 21 century, without sacrificing its democratic dispensation. He is well-equipped but has not gone into detail why Pakistan in its obsession for grabbing Kashmir has failed to take care of what makes a nation. He ought to have taken pains to analyse the contrasting picture.

Dilip iro chronicles how a Hiro chronicles how on crucial occasions Pakistan’s military rulers like Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan, Zia-ul Haq and Pervez Musharraf failed to take interest in the real task of meeting essential requirements of their country. The writer should have analysed in greater details why these men in uniform did everything possible not to let institutions of democracy – Parliament, an independent judiciary, an accountable executive, political parties and a free press – grow. The Generals concentrated on Kashmir, wars with India, acquiring arms from the US on the one side and communist China on the other — all for remaining in power. They forgot about the people.

The Generals can never realise that jackboots and terrorisms can’t be a strong base for building a nation.

Dilip Hiro has taken considerable pains – how Pakistan’s rulers – Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, other politicians and the Generals, went about acquiring Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and missiles that cannot be ignored by the rest of the world. He has studied most of the literature available in public domain on how Pakistan’s rulers made use of the United States’ indulgence towards Islamabad and a caring China adopting Pakistan as its all-weather friend.

What has helped Pakistan survive was its geography and the geo-politics surrounding it. The country has allowed itself to become a front-line state of, first the United States, and later of Communist China, and has managed to adjust its relations with both adroitly.

Successive regimes in Washington were peeved with India for not playing their games against the Soviet Union. Pakistan was a ready catch soon after its birth for receiving money and military hardware, insecure as it always has felt in view of India’s size and strength. The India-China war in 1962 made the Chinese realise the value of having a willing Pakistan in tow to meet its desire to have a foothold in South Asia in the north-west of India and also to acquire access to the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf by acquiring interests in the Gwadar port.

In geo-political terms, Pakistan is more sure of Chinese support than of the United States whose relations with Washington are primarily meant to acquire more tanks, aircraft and other wherewithal wanted by the Generals sitting merrily on a pile of nuclear weapons.

Dilip Hiro is a good student of geo-politics; but needs to go into greater detail of how Sino-Pakistan relationship become deep over the years and has become a major complicating factor in South Asia, Central Asia and the Persian Gulf. May be, the Chinese sources are difficult to tap for more information by the writer.

The acquisition and development of nuclear weapons and missiles have led Pakistan to launch a proxy war against India in Jammu and Kashmir. The audacity ofiro is a good student of geo-politics; but needs

terrorists attack on Indian Parliament in December 2002, terrorist strikes in Bombay on 26 Nov, 2008 and the Kaluchuk and recent Pathankot attacks are a part of Pakistan terrorist groups and jihadi outfits have been actively supported by Pakistan establishment. They invariably get away after launching attacks on targets in India. The author was worried how close these attacks could twice lead to India’s mobilisation of troops its along with its border with Pakistan.

The writer has not examined the question what can happen if Pakistan’s impressive nuclear weaponary falls into the hands of terrorist groups or the so-called non-State actors. They could use these for blackmailing India and the rest of the world. Terrorism and nuclear weapons are a most dangerous mix for Pakistan to sit on.

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 *H K Dua is Advisor to ORF, a New Delhi think tank. Earlier, he has been a Member of Parliament. an Editor of the industan Times, the Indian Exxpress, the Tribune and an Editorial A Hindustan Times, Indian Express, Tribune and an Editorial Advisor of the Times of India. He has also been Media Advisor to Prime Minister and an Ambassador.