Author: Editorial
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: February 4, 2002
New Delhi's cops, the good people
who man the city's law enforcement machinery, had better take a last deep
breath. Busy days lie ahead. It's time to go on an FIR-filing spree, and
they had better be prompt and meticulous with the paper work, and ingenious
in working around a few tricky details. Like the fact that Zulfikar Ali
Bhutto has been dead for more than two decades. For he is the first among
a galaxy of Pakistani leaders against whom an FIR ought to be imminent.
After all, wasn't he the man who promised our dear departed leader, Indira
Gandhi, that he'd go back home from Shimla and forthwith build a domestic
consensus on converting the newly designated Line of Control into an international
border? Think about it, think about all those tens of thousands of lives
lost since 1972 because of sustained ambiguity. And having begun at this
arbitrarily chosen date, it would only be logical to move on to Zia-ul
Haq for deposing the signatory to the Shimla pact and burying all hope
of rationalising the Indo-Pak border.
Space constraints permit mention
of just a few more of that country's living legends who must be called
to order. Nawaz Sharif will certainly have to be summoned out of his quiet
exile to explain why action must not be initiated against him for betraying
the Indian delegation in Lahore, in February 1999. President Pervez Musharraf
too must be nudged away from his choc-a-bloc schedule of interviews with
western mediapersons enamoured of his Armani suits and bold, new vision
for a non-theocratic Pakistan. He must conduct a whole orchestra of lawyers
as they begin addressing some very serious charges: why Musharraf should
not be declared guilty for his role in Kargil. Why he must be absolved
of any responsibility for inciting terrorism with his strange, and immensely
innovative, definitions of the word freedom-fighter. Why he must not have
to compensate all of us hopelessly optimistic folks in the subcontinent
for so cynically smothering our dreams at Agra. Sigh, the list goes on
and on. Let us just file FIRs against the whole lot of them, let them file
even more ridiculous ones against Indian leaders. It could be that this
hectic activity could then inspire all concerned to navigate back to the
negotiating table, pat each other's backs for shredding these flights of
very tired imaginations, and get down to the original task: that list of
20 criminals wanted by India.
Okay, we admit we are kidding -
but only just. Teddy Roosevelt once said that countries convey their ideals
to their people through the way they go about their foreign policy. Pakistan
- by floating silly stories about Home Minister Advani's role in a Jinnah
assassination case, by denying the problem of Islamist anger and diverting
blame for the Daniel Pearl kidnapping to New Delhi, by virtually charging
India with bioterrorism for seeking to route ''infected'' wheat through
Pakistani soil - is not making a very worthy presentation to its own people.
To its neighbours, the case is even poorer.
