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archive: The right line

The right line

M. V. Kamath
Mid-Day
July 8, 1999


    Title: The right line
    Author: M. V. Kamath
    Publication: Mid-Day
    Date: July 8, 1999 
    
    Has anybody been listening to the sound of laughter emanating from the
    Saamna office?  The Shiv Sena men are laughing their heads off and, I
    am afraid, with good reason.  Some months ago these men were roundly
    castigated by our liberal media for digging up the cricket pitch at
    Wankhede Stadium to prevent play between India and Pakistan.  Strong
    language was used.  I defended the Shiv Sena's action.  Not being a
    liberal - certainly not of the drawing-room, media kind - I thought
    that the Sena did absolutely the right thing.
    
    Now see who's talking.  Kapil Dev, the darling of our cricket crowd,
    after a visit to the Kargil sector, says India should cut off all
    sporting ties with Pakistan.  He told MID-DAY, "We shouldn't even
    think of having ties."  Oh, really?  For good measure, he added: "How
    can you have a situation where, on one side you have soldiers fighting
    their hearts out for your country and on the other our cricketers
    playing against Pakistan'?"
    
    Interestingly, Kapil happens to be on the board of directors of Sahara
    India and India's next scheduled clash with Pakistan is in the fourth
    edition of the Sahara Cup in Toronto in September.
    
    It is not Kapil Dev alone who is demanding that we- stop playing
    cricket with Pakistan.  The Indian Express reports that Kapil's call
    and his demand for scrapping the Sahara Cup has evoked widespread
    support from a cross-section of the sporting community in the
    country.  The president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India
    (BCCI), Raj Singh Dungarpur, under whose terms Indo-Pak Test cricket
    relations resumed after a gap of almost 10 years, has described
    Kapil's call as "very rational".
    
    G S Ramchand, a former India cricket skipper, says that "with the
    situation so grim, we shouldn't even think of having any sporting
    exchanges with Pakistan".  Michael Ferreira, former world billiards
    champion, has said "it would be sacrilegious to the soldiers who are
    dying for our country if we have sporting ties with such an
    irresponsible nation".
    
    But we still have our so-called liberals in the media whose wisdom
    they expect others to honour.  Take, for example, the sanctimonious
    Times of India whose editorial writers seem to be living in another
    day and age.  It says that Kapil's call for India to boycott all
    future cricket matches with Pakistan pending the resolution of the
    Kargil conflict, "if implemented, could create a dangerous precedent".
    
    here should be a limit to this sickening show of sanctimonious
    humbug.  I stood by the Sena when its men dug up the cricket pitch.  I
    stand by it today.  I am not an admirer or supporter of the Sena, I
    never was and I never will be, but on this issue I am cent per cent
    with it.
    
    To have any sporting contact with a nation whose soldiers mutilate
    their prisoners of war before returning their bodies, is so despicable
    that I can't imagine any of my media colleagues writing such an
    editorial.
    
    While I am at it, let me say a word or two about the Congresswallahs. 
    Mani Shankar Aiyar should note that the soldiers fighting on the
    Kargil front are not "our boys" but our "men".  If he does not know
    the difference between 'boys' and 'men', he should not write his
    pathetic articles that insult our soldiers.  They are not playing
    games on the hilltops to make money, as our cricketers do on the
    fields of England.  They are fighting a deadly war at grave risk to
    their lives.  Then there is that exquisite joker Natwar Singh whom the
    Free Press Journal in righteous anger asked to "shut up".
    
    As for Sonia Gandhi, the less said the better.  The other day she
    recalled how Jawaharlal Nehru called sessions of both Houses of
    Parliament in 1962 to discuss the Chinese invasion.  She forgets two
    things.  One, unlike at pre-sent, the Lok Sabha was functioning at
    that time.  Two, Nehru and his yes-man V K Krishna Menon had
    thoroughly messed up our foreign policy; Nehru was desperately looking
    for support.
    
    In contrast, the Lok Sabha today stands dissolved.  And this is
    because Gandhi stabbed the government in the back.  In the
    circumstances, what we have is not a caretaker government but a proper
    government, and let this sink into the minds of our Congressmen.  Out
    of courtesy, the Bharatiya Janata Party leaders called for an
    all-party meeting which Gandhi chose not to attend on the grounds that
    the notice was too short.  Would she have attended if the Rajya Sabha
    had been called, as she and her henchmen have been demanding?
    
    The whole world is applauding Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee,
    except the mean-minded Gandhi and her desperate party.  She should
    listen to what Romesh Diwan, professor of economics at the Rensselaer
    Polytechnique Institute, New York, has to say.  He was quoted in The
    Statesman of July 1: "India is fortunate that Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee
    is its prime minister at this juncture.  One can't compliment him
    enough on his wisdom; his insights, instincts and understanding has
    put India on the path of greater strength..."
    
    There should be a, limit to the utter nonsense spawned by our liberals
    and our Congressmen and women.  Our men (not boys) are fighting in
    Kargil.  Respect them.
    
    Just thinking of what might have happened were a Jyoti Basu or a Sonia
    Gandhi the prime minister at this point sends a shiver down my spine. 
    Thank god for Vajpayee.
    
    (M V Kamath, veteran journalist, takes on all corners)
    



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