Another old friend passed away and one feels lonelier for that. GS Bhargava, 85, belonged to my generation and we could easily relate to each other. He had a distinguished career. Apart from working for some of India’s leading newspapers, he had been Principal Information Officer to the Government of India from June 1978 to April 1980 in the post-emergency era during the Janata Party regime. He was a highly-respected political commentator in his later years and at least among his fellow journalists he is remembered for his media column Blue Pencil.
He was an active member of the Editors Guild of India, but, I am afraid, not many dailies took note of his death on September 23, except The Hindu. Even The Hindu did not do full justice to Bhargava. He wrote several books, among them being Leaders of the Left (1950), A Study of Communist Movement in Andhra (1953), Battle of NEFA (1964), After Nehru—India’s New Image (1966), Political Corruption in India (1967), VV Giri: A Biography (1969), Pakistan In Crisis (1971), Pakistan’s Death Wish (1972) and I still have a copy of his book Their Finest Hour written in 1974, an autographed copy of which he affectionately sent me, which dealt with the Indian Army heroes of the 1971 war. How quickly do we forget our fellow journalists! Bhargava was most knowledgeable of the Communist parties and especially their violent activities in Telangana. In fact, he was an unacknowledged authority on the subject.
Meanwhile, may one ask the Government of India what news about China’s incursions into Indian space is reproduceable and where it intends to draw the line? Is its true as one Mumbai daily said in a front page headline that a proposed visit to China in October by President Pratibha Patil has been cancelled? Also that a high level meeting of officials which was to be held on September 24 to discuss the alleged Chinese border intrusions was also postponed?
A report said: “No reason was given for the postponement. But reliable sources said this followed differences between the External Affairs Ministry and the Prime Minister’s Office on the one hand and the Defence Ministry on the other on how to deal with China”. Has the reporter, Murali Krishnan committed a crime in quoting “reliable sources”? Will he be dragged to court and asked who are “reliable sources”?
According to Murali Krishnan, “at a closed door session recently held two RAW officials said these incursions should not be overlooked as China had bigger designs….” Should the media disclose who the two RAW officials are? What is our government coming to? This is not to say that the media should be free to quote unknown but “reliable sources”, on any subject and pretend to be all-wise. Unconsciously the media can put any government into a pit that would be hard to get out of. But that is part of the price one must pay for democracy. The government, in the end, is accountable to the people.
Facts cannot be hidden away from them. But let us come clean: the media is not—and cannot always be—in the right. Genuine mistakes are, alas, too often made. Stories are too often planted into receptive minds and one does not have to name such parties. But, by and large, the Indian media has acted responsibly, where security is concerned. In this connection, attention must be drawn to an article in The Hindu (September 21) by MK Bhadrakumar, a former diplomat who has identified three categories of Indian opinion makers, who are “raising the war hysteria over India’s relations with China”. They are, according to him, first, “old, familiar faces in the foreign and security policy circuit who push the case with great sophistication and aplomb, that a growing Chinese menace leaves India with no alternative but to calibrate its foreign policy and edge ever closer to the United States”. They are described as “intelligent people, suave and articulate, who held important positions in the government in various capacities in India and abroad”.
As Bhadrakumar saw them “their assertion that India should play the ‘Tibet card’ against China carries weight”. Second, are an “easily identifiable ebullient crowd of retired defence officers” who “present a one-dimensional case that the civilian leadership is under-estimating the Chinese threat”. Bhadrakumar’s argument is that “all militaries have corporate interests”. The third category, as Bhadrakumar sees it “are the ubiquitous right-wing Hindu nationalists, the self-appointed custodians of national security, for whom China is the hurdle to India’s emergence as a superpower”. Bhadrakumar thinks that they lack the intellectual where-withal to comprehend that the time for ‘super power-dom’ is gone with the wind in world politics. The trouble with diplomats like Bhadrakumar is that they automatically come to the conclusion that if he is a ‘right-wing Hindu’ he must necessarily be dim-witted. How can a right-wing Hindu have any intelligence such as the Bhadrakumar of the world possess? But let that go.
As he sees it, the three cliques “co-ordinate in their untiring campaign on China’s evil intentions”. If we are to believe Bhadrakumar “the objective reality is that China has not only nothing to gain by invading India, but has a great deal to lose” and that “in fact, the entire edifice of Chinese policies which focuses on the country’s economic transformation, will come tumbling down”. Also, he argues, should China attack India its “international standing as a responsible power and stake-holder in world stability will suffer a serious setback”. We would like to say ‘Amen’, but some doubts persist.
If China is so mindful of its international standing as a peaceable nation, why have there been so many Chinese incursions into Indian territory both at Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh? Is it a sad case of absent-mindedness? Were the border security chaps having some fun after having a couple of doses of whatever they drink too many? Bhadrakumar criticises the media in flowery language saying that “their repertoire of survival techniques includes various sorts of gimmickry to attract viewer-ship”. It is fashionable among some circles to damn the media without knowing the first thing about how it functions on a daily basis. Can one say that Mr Bhadrakumar belongs to that category of bureaucrats, well-meaning chaps, who were the advisers to V K Krishna Menon and Jawaharlal Nehru in 1962? Bhadrakumar sounds like one.
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