Remember Jallianwallah Bagh !!!

This is the year 5107 in the Hindu calendar, for Kali Yuga began in 3102 BCE.

Spring always brings cheer. It is hard to be gloomy when there is a profusion of flowers and buds all around, and the light, unnamed green of young leaves. We Tamizhs start the new year with such a wonderful atmosphere. So do Vishu approaches Kerala (kani konna) and I have no idea what Punjabis do for Baisakhi, which falls on roughly the same day, but I always remember Jallianwallah Bagh.

Remember Jallianwallah Bagh!

One Baisakhi day, 86 years ago it was: April 13, 1919 -- a day that will live in infamy. At that walled garden with only a single exit, in Amritsar, in the Punjab, ten thousand people gathered, mostly to celebrate the arrival of Spring; women, children and old people included. At the end of the day, 1,579 lay dead or wounded, fired at, without warning, on orders from a British general, one General Dyer. 1,600 bullets, 1,579 casualties. What a precision !!! Good Job, isn't it?

This was the pivotal moment in the Freedom Struggle, this barbaric act!!! Clearly, Indian lives meant nothing to the British.

I AM ALL FOR FORGIVENESS, BUT LET US NOT FORGET, SHALL WE?

For it was the Sikhs of India's Punjab who bore the brunt of the struggle for freedom, fighting and dying in their hundreds and thousands to defend the motherland against aliens, as they had done for centuries against persians. From the famous like Udham Singh and Bhagat Singh, to the unknown like Kartar Singh Sarabha, it is Sikhs whom the nation owes the greatest debt of gratitude.

Udham Singh, who was at Jallianwallah Bagh that afternoon, a teenager who helped save some of the many wounded. He stalked O'Dwyer, the British governor of the Punjab at the time, and slew him thirteen years later. Executed by the British.

Kartar Singh Sarabha, student at the University of California, Berkeley, member of San Francisco's revolutionary Gadar Party. Tried for sedition in the Lahore Conspiracy case, convicted and executed at the age of 19.

Bhagat Singh: the most famous, the most dashing, the most heart-breaking of our revolutionaries -- rakta-sakshi, blood-witness. Hanged for bomb-throwing, at the age of 23, along with co-conspirators Rajguru and Sukhdev. Epitome of one's glory. It is sweet and proper to die for one's country, isn't it?

Let us not forget them and this day, shall we?

- Murali.

Time is running out for India.

Western diplomats sense a drift under the UPA, whose national aims and goals are missing or hazy in the foreign-policy realm. “Under the NDA, there was a definite sense of direction,” said a Western diplomat. “With the US especially, there was rapid and concerted cultivation of friendship.”

The best thing under the NDA, according to diplomats, was follow-ups. The chain of relationship-building went systematically higher up, first the foreign secretary, followed by the foreign minister, sometimes the NSA, Brajesh Mishra, intervening with a visit, then L.K.Advani going, as the number two person in government, capped by the prime minister, then A.B.Vajpayee. “There was great cabinet synergy,” said a diplomat. “There was team work.”

Under the UPA, it is each to his/ her own, but it is worst between prime minister Manmohan Singh and Natwar Singh. Natwar Singh does not keep the PM in the picture about foreign policy, keeps all the flowing knowledge to himself, and operates the foreign office like a fiefdom.

At least when J.N.Dixit was NSA, the prime minister had a handle or a fix on the more sensitive areas of foreign affairs, relationship-building with the US, China, and other powers, nuclear policy, calibrating ties with Pakistan, handling the neighbourhood, and so on. Till Dixit was alive, Natwar Singh resented his authority, and Dixit’s too-eager successor, M.K.Narayanan, is a policeman who does not understand foreign affairs or strategic issues.

As diplomats who are concerned about India say, the Cold War is over, and every great and middle power is on its own. Every country is pursuing relations that best suit their interests, but India among the major emerging powers is hopelessly floundering. In a fractured internal polity, a disunited government or a cabinet at war can survive, and there is no threat to the UPA, but India is in a terrible mess internationally. The PM has to seize control of the government, it is the desperate hour, and stamp his authority on defence, foreign policy, nuclear and economic issues. He should exercise his right and privilege to sack those in the cabinet who undermine his authority.

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