(Harish Khare is a senior journalist, commentator and a research scholar)External Affairs Minister, Sushma Swaraj, is a smart politician. She was categorical in telling Parliament that the government had nothing whatsoever to do with the Ved Pratap Vaidik-Hafiz Saeed coffee klatch. She simply invoked the old-fashioned principle of "deniability."
Mr Vaidik is a professional busybody. He has had for decades this reputation of someone who enjoys the patronage of different official agencies. And, it is just possible that the ISI did help arrange the Hafiz Saeed encounter for a man who is known to be close to the new government and its various functionaries. Islamabad perhaps cannot be blamed for wanting to size up the new functionaries in New Delhi. Vaidik makes a perfect and expansive interlocutor.
Whether or not some sections of the Modi establishment winked at the Vaidik initiative is not all that crucial; what is rather relevant is the almost paranoid reaction in India.
Yes, the reaction in itself is entirely predictable. After all, the BJP and its various sympathizers, including those in the so-called strategic community, have been instigating an irrational, hysterical narrative towards Pakistan.
It was this mind-boggling negativity in the Indian discourse that prevented Prime Minister Manmohan Singh from exploring the potential for reconciliation and peace with Pakistan.
In fact, in the run-up to the last elections, the BJP managed to convince the middle classes that a "weak" Manmohan Singh government was neither capable nor interested in safeguarding our security against tough neighbors like Pakistan and China. Inversely, part of the Modi appeal was that he promised that he would not put up with any nonsense from across the border.
Having won an impressive mandate on the basis of this tough talk, the Modi
Sarkar will soon find that it has no option but to work towards some kind of entente with Pakistan (as also China.). A beginning was made with that invite to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to attend Mr. Modi's swearing-in ceremony on May 26. The Pakistani premier's participation did make pleasant optics.
Like all Prime Ministers before him, Modi too will be constrained to want to come to some kind of a working understanding with the rulers in Islamabad (and, indeed with all our neighbors). This is no sign of weakness; it is simple realpolitik and sturdy common sense.
However, the unadulterated malice and aggression on display in the Indian discourse on the Vaidik-Hafiz Saeed business only shows the how limited would be the new government's elbow-room.
Since November 26, 2008 we as a nation have locked ourselves into a rhetorical corner vis-a-vis Pakistan. In our nationalistic fervor we have complicated the government's task.
One very unpalatable individual --- dubbed as the master-mind behind the 26/11 massacre-has been elevated to the highest level of villainy. That man's few utterances or even a meeting with a visiting Indian is enough to sour up the mood or derail our diplomats' quiet work.
This is an unhelpful trap from which the new government must now try to extricate the country. It is short-sighted of the Congress benches to raise such a stink over the Vaidik meeting; rather, the Congress should help the Modi government escape the lockdown the extra-hawkish elements in our media have on a dialogue with Pakistan. A self-assertive and confident nation need not always be a loud and boorish nation.
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