The UPA government is following a policy foreign to both national security and realpolitik. The exodus of the Hindi-speaking people from Assam, following a macabre killing of seventy innocent daily wage earners by the outlawed ULFA terrorists has once again highlighted the failure of the centre in ensuring safety and protection to the people. Equally dismaying is the Nepal Maoist reiteration, on the eve of their joining the interim government, that they will review all pacts with India, including the 1950 Treaty of Friendship, which according to Maoists have become ?unequal? and ?obsolete?. Under this outrageous thesis the Maoists have been demanding almost half of Himachal Pradesh and Uttaranchal as belonging to Nepal. A new front of border tension is thus in the offing. We have already the spectre of China claiming the entire Arunachal Pradesh, which the UPA has not till date clearly rebuffed.
ULFA has been talking of sovereignty, just as the NSCN leader Issac Muivah, who speaks of independent state of Nagalim, consisting of areas inhabited by the Nagas. Muivah had a secret meeting last week in the capital with Congress supremo Sonia Gandhi and he is enjoying VVIP security and hospitality under the UPA regime. The centre is in negotiation with all these desperados, and its weak-kneed policies have given fresh hope and lease of life to all these anti-India outfits operating from foreign soil. Simultaneously, the UPA leadership is in talks with Pakistan and Kashmiri secessionists, on a wholly unacceptable paradigm of vacating territory and conceding demands detrimental to national integrity in the hope of buying peace.
Few weeks ago, in these columns we had cautioned the nation about the dangers of offering ceasefire to extremists like ULFA at a time when the security forces had established a clear headway. The uncalled for retreat was offered as a bait to the treacherous ULFA barbarians to create an atmosphere for the beleaguered Congress to enter into an unholy clandestine understanding at the time of state assembly elections in June 2006 in Assam. This helped Congress retain power in the state, alas, at what heavy price to the nation. The Congress did the same in Andhra, in 2004, by joining hands with the Naxalites to defeat the Telugu Desam Party in the general elections; the disastrous consequences are there in the open before us today.
Two months ago, the Nepal Maoist Prachanda was hosted and feasted in Delhi under the banner of a leadership summit, again with the knowledge and consent of the UPA government. Its cynical negotiation with Pakistan, its equally mischievous dilly-dallying on Afzal hanging, with an eye on Muslim votes for the upcoming state assembly polls are proving elixir for the hardened terrorists and divisive elements inside the country. Under the NDA, and with the help of the Bhutanese government, ULFA was almost eliminated and was forced to seek shelter in Bangladesh. The friendship treaty with Myanmar had made it difficult for ULFA to operate from that country.
A day before ULFA killings, Union Home Secretary after a review of security situation in Assam for the February National Games, said in Guwahati that the situation was normal. This shows how uninformed if not down right foolish, the Home Ministry assessment was. There is no professionalism in dealing with internal security under the UPA.
The pattern of the ULFA threat now establishes one thing, they are acting under the guidance of the Bangladesh-based ISI operatives. For, they are targeting Indians not foreign Bangladeshi illegal immigrants as aliens. For them, Hindi-speaking Indians are the aliens! And the Bangladeshi Muslims are their compatriots. They gain by the fleeing of labourers from Assam. Secondly, by projecting the Hindi-speaking people as immigrants, ULFA is trying to dilute the simmering anti-Bangladeshi campaign in Assam to spot and deport illegal aliens under the Foreigners Act. The ULFA killings have been condemned by the Assamese everywhere. It needs no extra intelligence to identify the instigators behind this insidious game plan. It is gratifying that it did not provoke a backlash in Bihar and elsewhere.
Further this has diverted the national attention from the Islamabad-sponsored Islamic terrorism in the rest of the country, for ULFA terrorists are allegedly Hindu. And in Nagaland we have the Christian version of terror and secession. The carnage in Assam is also a convenient cover-up for the UPA to negotiate its devious peace plan with Pakistan.
The point is the country'sterritorial integrity is in deep danger, under the UPA vote-bank machinations. It is a government which has only its narrow sectarian priorities and mean short-term calculations for a domestic policy. Under Manmohan Singh our national boundaries are not safe. The UPA is trying to leave India with a legacy of social and religious divide, made dangerous by a highly vulnerable security environment.
