DR. S. AUSAF SAIED VASFI hits hard at the carelessness of mandarins of Ministry of External Affairs who were less than careful in posting Madhuri Gupta at Islamabad. He also criticises the attitude of media and TV channels for not giving proper coverage to the conspiracy.
The late Mr. Jawaharlal Nehru was, after Independence, asked by the Foreign Office Mandarins to address the probationers of the first batch of the Indian Foreign Services (IFS).
Like a stern teacher, he, at the very beginning, shot the question at the exceptionally educated audience: Which country is the most important one for India today?
The consensus of all would-be Indian envoys was around Russia and America. Some named Great Britain also as well as China.
Mr. Nehru, who himself was an ace-diplomat, refused to buy all this rubbish and said: No! It is Pakistan!!!
The Madhuri Gupta case appears to suggest as if our Ministry of External Affairs, particularly the body that deals with postings abroad, has forgotten the precious advice of the first Prime Minister of India.
PRACTICE
Espionage, the truth is, happens to be an essential part of statecraft. It helps in taking strategic decisions. The friendliest countries, all over the world, spy against each other. The United States of America and Israel are a case in point. So did Moscow with its allies in Eastern Europe, which for all practical purposes were under its suzerainty. So do the Arabs and other Muslim countries. Espionage is a necessary evil. No state can do without it and each and every state, by and large, knows each other’s spies, particularly in the diplomatic missions. It would, perhaps, not be an exaggeration to say that all diplomats with their various hues and colours are spies. They, in addition to promoting mutual ties and business, are sent to also keep a watch on what is being cooked in the secretariat of the host head of the government’s kitchen and in the kitchens of the Defence, Home and Finance over there. A generally accepted definition of the spy is: “The spy is a semi-criminal with an official backing.”
After 63 years of freedom, even today Islamabad happens to be the most important world capital for New Delhi. Without saying so in so many unpleasant words, India and Pakistan, sadly enough, happen to remain daggers drawn at each other at several international fora and theatres. How can any sensible person underestimate the importance of the enfente terribale, now armed with nukes as well?
QUESTION
Amidst several questions that are doing rounds in the national capital, one is: Who okayed Miss Madhuri’s request for posting in Islamabad? What are the reasons behind that crucial rather fatal faux pas. Besides professional competence, was there any other consideration also responsible for acceding to her anxious requests? Was this fact not kept in view that she had no parents, was unmarried and was attractive enough? Add to all this certain peculiar qualities that tend to make one what they call “security risk”?
Security risk is a relative term. The crew and pilot of a Spice Jet flight suspected security risk in a tall Russian Muslim woman Ms Albi Evonfle Onara, on May 5, who was going to Dhaka along with her husband Mr Asal Becor Artur, who was sporting a beard. The couple was visiting Bharat for the eighth time. Till May 5 nothing extraordinary had been noted in the Russian Muslim woman, particularly her tall persona, clad in a burqa. This, we are inclined to believe, is yet another case of bias against the practitioners of Islām. It looks as if the beard and burqa happen to be the surest signs of suspicion to some of our brethren in our country.
The suspecting staff landed the plane in emergency to find nothing lethal in the couple’s baggage or bodies. But those who selected Miss Madhuri Gupta for Islamabad are those who worked with her for years in Islamabad found no iota of security risk in the lady. It looks as if the security risk tag adorns a particular class in our heterogeneous country. Otherwise how would you explain the arrests of Indian Muslim youths for the terrorist attack on the Dargah at Ajmer or that on the Makkah Masjid at Hyderabad or that at Malegaon. Now, to the arresting authorities’ utter dismay and chagrin, the activists of Abhinav Bharat have confessed their involvement in attacks on the said places. How much time the purblind would take to free the innocent whose careers have sportingly been destroyed? Are the Central and the State governments listening?
To the discomfiture of the entire Indian nation, particularly the Saffron segment, to which patriotism and nationalism is be all and end all of life, Miss Gupta supplied sensitive information to the ISI of Pakistan. Since September 2007 she was allegedly passing state secrets. Mind it, she is the first woman public servant so compromised in Independent India. Officially, she was looking after the press and the events but privately she used all gadgets of communication to pass out the secrets.
To the humiliation of all of us, this unrepentant unhappy employee was reportedly in relationship with one of her handlers also. Unconfirmed reports say she had developed ties with the RAW chief stationed in Islamabad. May be he was unaware of the misdoings of his subordinate. Did she indulge in this business when she was posted in Malaysia, Iraq, and Kosovo too is the question that is being probed. Charged with violating the Official Secrets Act, the lady in question has jovial temperament. When the sleuths pounced upon her, she asked them: “Why have you taken too long in coming to me?” She has given the impression that what she did was in retaliation against her bosses who refused to recognise her talent. It looks as if it was her unrequited ambition that provoked her to cheat and betray her own country. It is, to us, nauseating indeed.
INDIFFERENCE
But it looks as if there are very few feeling members in our plural society who feel nauseated at passing state secrets to a foreign country. Look at the attitude of our social scientists, whistleblowers, opinion makers and particularly the print and electronic media. Their silence speaks of a calculated indifference.
Is it because of the accused belonging to a particular section of our plural society? Had the silence been as deafening in case the accused had been a Muslim? For a proper appreciation of our pain and protest, replace ‘Madhuri Gupta’ with say ‘Mumtaz Jahan’ and then repeat our question. When on earth this palpable bias, this palpable prejudice, this palpable double standard and this palpable double-talk and double-deal will go – and go at all or not?
Recall the enthusiasm of our TV channels with which they organise talk shows on subjects like triple divorce or polygamy or other provisions permitted by Islām. Experts are invited to give vent to their deep spleen in such motivated tamashas. Why NDTV 24X7, Zee News, Aaj Tak, Zoom, IBN-7, Sony and Times News, etc. etc. are silent? Is this silence the result of moral cowardice? This studied quietude on the alleged sale of Mother India to Pakistan pains us and in utter frustration we ask: “Can biased minds run large democracies.”