Straight-talking Sushma Swaraj tears into Pakistan
Will talk to Pakistan about Dawood: Sushma Swaraj
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NEW DELHI: "Woh dossier ki baat karte hain, hamare paas zinda aadmi hain jo ki sarhad paar kar ke aaya hai, ham unko zinda aadmi dikhayenge ( they are bluffing that they have got dossiers (of alleged Indian involvement in Baluch insurgency), whereas we have captured a terrorist (Naveed) who had crossed over from Pakistan and we will produce him before them," declared a confident external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj as she mocked Pakistan NSA Sartaz Aziz's threat to expose India's alleged role.
Swaraj, who had a torrid time fending off Congress' demands for her resignation because of allegedly favouring controversial cricket entrepreneur Lalit Modi, showed little sign of pressure as she proceeded to call Pakistan's bluff and lay out a strong case as to why India was determined not to let Aziz broach any topic other than terrorism if he met his Indian counterpart A K Doval at all.
Addressing a press conference at Islamabad, Aziz showed off plastic folders claiming that they were dossiers on Indian agencies allegedly meddling in Pakistan. "I will thrust them into Indian hands at New York in September if I don't get to meet Doval now," Pakistan's NSA said. He tried to sound as if he meant business.
Just about three hours later, Sushma cockily brushed aside the threat. "Dossiers yun lahraye nahin jaate. Who lifafe mein band kar ke diye jaate hain (dossiers are serious stuff not meant to be brandished in public, they are passed on in sealed envelops)," was her powerful rejoinder, which virtually sounded like an admonition to Aziz for enagaging in cheap theatrics.
Speaking in Hindi, Swaraj also vividly detailed the sequence of events and went over the phraseology used in the Ufa statement to forcefully declare that Nawaz Sharif government was running away from what it agreed at Russia only last month because it was under pressure from the military establishment. "I will urge Aziz Saheb to defy the pressure from those who don't wish the talks to happen," she said. Asked who were the saboteurs, she stopped just short of naming Pakistan's deep state comprising the military and ISI. "Everybody knows who calls the shots there," she said.
It was an exquisite performance which showed that details of complex diplomacy- "composite dialogue" and "resumed dialogue" versus mere "talks"- could be broken down into intelligible plainspeak and that too from a public platform. To many BJP-watchers, her performance was reminiscent of the way late Pramod Mahajan and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, then a BJP officer-bearer, explained and defended the stand of the Vajpayee government and BJP on Pokharan-II nuclear tests and Kargil war respectively.
She was blunt and firm as she cited correspondence and dates to establish that Pakistan was wary of talks so long as these were exclusively focused on terrorism. She mentioned the spiraling ceasefire violations as well as the terror attacks at Gurdaspur and Udhampur as evidence of Pakistan's plan to wreck the talks with a forthrightness which career diplomats will flinch from using but which has been considered essential for putting the point across to the larger audience.
Yet, the minister, veteran of so many polemical duels on the floor of Parliament , was careful that she did not come off as hawk or venture away from the nuanced lines crafted and seasoned by the ministry mandarins. Asked whether Pakistan's cussedness means that normalization of ties is an unattainable goal, she struck a note of optimism. "The path to peace is always paved by bumps and obstacles," she said, emphasizing that talks and not war can achieve a solution. She also said there are no full stops, only comas and semi colons in diplomacy, keeping the door ajar for a fresh effort.
Swaraj, who had a torrid time fending off Congress' demands for her resignation because of allegedly favouring controversial cricket entrepreneur Lalit Modi, showed little sign of pressure as she proceeded to call Pakistan's bluff and lay out a strong case as to why India was determined not to let Aziz broach any topic other than terrorism if he met his Indian counterpart A K Doval at all.
Addressing a press conference at Islamabad, Aziz showed off plastic folders claiming that they were dossiers on Indian agencies allegedly meddling in Pakistan. "I will thrust them into Indian hands at New York in September if I don't get to meet Doval now," Pakistan's NSA said. He tried to sound as if he meant business.
Just about three hours later, Sushma cockily brushed aside the threat. "Dossiers yun lahraye nahin jaate. Who lifafe mein band kar ke diye jaate hain (dossiers are serious stuff not meant to be brandished in public, they are passed on in sealed envelops)," was her powerful rejoinder, which virtually sounded like an admonition to Aziz for enagaging in cheap theatrics.
Speaking in Hindi, Swaraj also vividly detailed the sequence of events and went over the phraseology used in the Ufa statement to forcefully declare that Nawaz Sharif government was running away from what it agreed at Russia only last month because it was under pressure from the military establishment. "I will urge Aziz Saheb to defy the pressure from those who don't wish the talks to happen," she said. Asked who were the saboteurs, she stopped just short of naming Pakistan's deep state comprising the military and ISI. "Everybody knows who calls the shots there," she said.
It was an exquisite performance which showed that details of complex diplomacy- "composite dialogue" and "resumed dialogue" versus mere "talks"- could be broken down into intelligible plainspeak and that too from a public platform. To many BJP-watchers, her performance was reminiscent of the way late Pramod Mahajan and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, then a BJP officer-bearer, explained and defended the stand of the Vajpayee government and BJP on Pokharan-II nuclear tests and Kargil war respectively.
She was blunt and firm as she cited correspondence and dates to establish that Pakistan was wary of talks so long as these were exclusively focused on terrorism. She mentioned the spiraling ceasefire violations as well as the terror attacks at Gurdaspur and Udhampur as evidence of Pakistan's plan to wreck the talks with a forthrightness which career diplomats will flinch from using but which has been considered essential for putting the point across to the larger audience.
Yet, the minister, veteran of so many polemical duels on the floor of Parliament , was careful that she did not come off as hawk or venture away from the nuanced lines crafted and seasoned by the ministry mandarins. Asked whether Pakistan's cussedness means that normalization of ties is an unattainable goal, she struck a note of optimism. "The path to peace is always paved by bumps and obstacles," she said, emphasizing that talks and not war can achieve a solution. She also said there are no full stops, only comas and semi colons in diplomacy, keeping the door ajar for a fresh effort.
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