'I Still Have Much Work To Do'

Talking to the Arab media for the first time, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee granted a wide-ranginginterview - conducted at his residence - to Asharq Alawsat  on August 27,  coveringissues ranging from the dispute with Pakistan to the whereabouts of the Al Qaeda terrorists.

Mr Prime Minister, permit me to begin by thanking you for granting your first ever interview with theArab media to Asharq Alawsat. This gives our readers in the Arab world and in the broader Muslim world,an opportunity to hear your views directly.

India is fully aware of the importance of its Muslim community and the contribution it has made to thedebate within Islam. Ever since Independence, India has established and developed numerous ties with Muslimstates. Today, our bilateral relations with all Muslim countries could be described as rich and strong. It isonly with our neighbour Pakistan that we have some problems. But that is a bilateral issue that need notaffect India’s relations with the broader Muslim world. 

Let me recall that India has always maintained a strong and principled position on the issue of Palestine.We have called for justice for the Palestinians, and were among the first to support the creation of anindependent and free state of Palestine. Of course, you might say that more can be done, and I agree. This iswhy our government attaches special importance to developing richer and deeper ties with all Muslim countries.

When you were first sworn in as Prime Minister of India in 1996, you promised radical change that wouldput the country on a new course. Since then, you have become the only leader after Pandit Nehru to serve asIndia’s Prime Minister for three consecutive terms. Looking back over the past years, would you say thatyour government has succeeded in reshaping India’s domestic and foreign policies?

A: In a country like India, there cannot be any radical shaping of policies in a short time. This isespecially true about India’s foreign policy, which has, right from the time of our Independence in 1947,stood on the strong foundation of consensus and continuity. This does not mean that our foreign policy is castin an unchanging mould. It is a dynamic policy which has always responded to the changing needs of regionaland global developments. 

In the last four-and-a-half years that our government has been in office, we have tried to add some newdimensions to our foreign policy — such as the "Look East Policy" that seeks to strengthenIndia’s ties with countries in Southeast and East Asia; a "New Silk Route Initiative" to expandour relations with countries in Central Asia, and, of course, our efforts to constantly deepen our ties withfriendly countries around the world, including those in the Arab world. 

On the domestic front, the reshaping of policies has been more pronounced, economic reforms haveaccelerated over the past four-and-a-half years. Our economy is steadily strengthening. It is successfullygearing itself up to face the challenges of globalisation, as we enter the second generation of our reformprocess. Indeed, in some sectors, such as information technology, telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, autocomponents etc., India’s prowess has come to be recognised globally.

Even our farm sector has a strong global focus today. Besides making India self-sufficient, our farmershave succeeded in exporting foodgrains and other agricultural products to more than 25 countries around theworld.

Your government has fixed the provision by 2005 of what you have termed "basic needs" —water, primary healthcare, primary education, and a network of roads linking villages to towns as itsobjective in the current term. Are you on course of fulfilling that promise?

We have started many ambitious new development initiatives in the past few years. Perhaps the biggest ofthem is in the area of connectivity — both digital and physical. In a short span of two to three years,India’s communication landscape has completely changed. We are today adding more than 1,000 telephone linesevery minute. Some 13 million new telephone lines will be added this year. Of these, 7.5 million will bemobile telephones. This is expected to take India’s tele-density from 4.38 to 5.61, the highest ever realincrease since Independence. Along with the expansion of telecommunication and Internet services, theirtariffs have dramatically come down.

In physical connectivity, we have two big projects under way. One of them is the National HighwayDevelopment Programme, under which we are building a network of world-class highways linking all majorcommercial and population centres of the country with each other. The other is the National Rural RoadProject, which seeks to connect the unconnected villages by 2007. 

We have also started new initiatives in the social sector. Under a scheme initiated in November 2000, weaim to ensure quality elementary education for all children in the 6-14 years age group by 2010. Our nationalagenda for governance seeks to provide safe drinking water to all rural habitations in the country by 2002. Wewill soon launch a National Rural Water Conservation Project to augment our water resources and make ouragriculture "drought-proof." Besides reorganising and upgrading existing health care infrastructure,we are also seeking to extend the reach of health care facilities by using tele-medicine, satellites.

All these are difficult tasks in a country of over three million square kilometres and over one billioninhabitants. All I can say is that we are working hard to fulfill our promises.

Before gaining central power, the Bharatiya Janata Party was regarded by many, inside and outside India,as a Hindu fundamentalist movement committed to imposing a narrow agenda (Hindutva) and undermining India’spluralist and secularist system. By and large, that has not happened. Is this because the BJP never gained astraight majority? Is it because of your moderating presence? Or is it because the exercise of power haspersuaded the BJP that India is too complex and diverse to fit into any ideological frame?

I would like to clear some misconceptions that some people abroad, including in the Arab world, have. TheBJP has never been — and never will be — a Hindu fundamentalist movement. We have never had the narrowagenda of undermining India’s pluralistic and secular system.

We believe in secularism, by which we mean Sarva Dharma Sambhava or equal respect for all faiths. In thissense, India has been secular as long as it has existed; it has always been an innate part of its culture. TheBJP is a national party and a nationalist party. It cannot subscribe to any narrow ideology based ondiscrimination that is repugnant to traditional national culture. We are wedded to the goal of prosperity andwelfare for all our citizens irrespective of their caste, creed, language and region.

In your address to the United Nations during the Millennium Summit, you warned of the dangers of whatyou termed "unbridled market economics." In the light of the current financial crises, those wordssound almost prophetic. You also criticised the global system for "erasing social objectives by profitmotive." Does this mean that India may be having second thoughts about opening its economy? Would thismean a slowdown in privatisation and a less welcoming attitude towards foreign investment?

There is no question of India having second thoughts about opening its economy to goods, services andinvestment from all over the world. The second phase of our economic reform programme is now underimplementation. Privatisation of our state-owned enterprises has been progressing well despite sluggish worldmarkets. The government has progressively responded with policy adjustments tailored to the needs andexpectations of foreign investors, and is working with private industry to remove obstacles on the ground toproject implementation.

As the world’s largest democracy, with a well-entrenched rule of law, an independent judiciary, a freepress, a highly skilled work force, and a trained managerial cadre, India has some natural attractions forforeign investors.

At the same time, a developing country like India has to place the highest emphasis on poverty alleviation,equitable development and balanced growth. We believe that the pace of globalisation should be tempered by thedevelopment needs of the world’s poorer nations. We should ensure that the income disparities of today donot become the digital divide of tomorrow.

My words, which you have quoted, reflect this concern that economic liberalisation should not become an endin itself; it should be geared to the equitable development of the country. This is not incompatible withencouragement of privatisation and foreign investment.

India is now recognised as a nuclear power. Your government has announced a moratorium on undergroundtests. Is this moratorium indefinite? Should we understand that other tests, especially through simulation,would continue?

Yes. India has announced a unilateral moratorium on further underground test explosions until the CTBTenters into force. This effectively means abiding by the provisions of the treaty even though we have not yetacceded to it.

In 1998, India promised to adhere to the CTBT within a year. That did not happen. Under what conditionswill India be prepared to join efforts to prohibit the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons, andhelp prevent the spread of nuclear technology to other states?

India did not set for itself a fixed time limit for adherence to the CTBT. What I stated at the UnitedNations’ General Assembly in 1998, and also in our Parliament, was that India will not stand in the way ofentry into force of the CTBT. We remain committed to the endeavour of evolving a national consensus in supportof India’s accession to the CTBT.

We are also committed to joining the efforts towards a non-discriminatory treaty banning future productionof fissile material for the purpose of nuclear weapons or explosive devices. India has never helped theproliferation of weapons of mass destruction nor will it do so in the future. We also have in place strict andeffective export controls on dual-use technologies.

You have said India would never use nuclear weapons first, nor would she employ such weapons againstnon-nuclear states. Neither of India’s two nuclear-power neighbours, China and Pakistan, has offered such aguarantee. Would it be realistic for India to use nuclear weapons after it has been attacked with the same? Oris the entire nuclear project nothing but a costly matter of prestige and big power pretensions?

The imperatives of its complex security environment compelled India to develop nuclear weapons. But weregard our nuclear weapons as a credible deterrent and not as instruments of aggression. India continues tostress the need for a cooperative thrust to reduce the salience of nuclear weapons by subscribing to suchmeasures as no first-use, and a move away from hair-trigger deployment... We are also committed not to usenuclear weapons against non-nuclear states. India is not engaged in any arms race with anyone.

Many Pakistanis believe that the Indian elite never forgave the creation of Pakistan, and that Indiaharbours the secret dream of dismantling Pakistan. In what the Pakistanis see as the first stage of along-term Indian plan, East Pakistan was turned into Bangladesh in 1971. How can you assure the Pakistanisthat India does not harbour such secret ambitions?

I do not know how many more times and in how many different ways we have to keep reassuring Pakistan aboutthis misapprehension. During my visit to Lahore in February 1999, I visited the Minar-e-Pakistan (Pakistan’smonument of independence), and assured the people of Pakistan of my country’s deep desire for lasting peaceand friendship. I also mentioned there that a stable, secure and prosperous Pakistan is in India’s interest.

When I spoke to the people of Pakistan at the civic reception in Lahore, I had stated that though thepartition of our country had caused a wound in our heart, that wound had healed and the mark left by itreminds us that we have to live in harmony with one another. Today, I can do no more than repeat what I statedon Pakistani soil in February 1999.

India was not responsible for the events of 1971 (which led to the emergence of Bangladesh as anindependent state). We shared the sufferings of the people of East Pakistan (as Bangladesh was known before1971) when refugees began to pour into our country in large numbers. Pakistan’s President himself hasrecently expressed regret for the suffering caused to the people of East Pakistan. To insinuate thatBangladesh was created as part of a long-term Indian plan, is to denigrate the heroic struggle of the peopleof Bangladesh for self-determination.

You have already mentioned your famous bus trip to Lahore in February 1999 that raised hopes of lastingpeace in the subcontinent. Was the Kargil incident enough to kill all those hopes? Didn’t your governmentoverreact to that provocation?

A: In Lahore, I extended the hand of friendship to Pakistan despite its continued sponsorship ofcross-border terrorism. Pakistan’s incursions in Kargil were not just an invasion of our territory. It was abetrayal of the trust that I sought to build in Lahore. To decisively repulse the aggression in Kargil was notoverreaction but a necessary act of protection of our national integrity.

In spite of the perfidy at Kargil, I took yet another peace initiative by inviting President (Pervez)Musharraf to Agra last year. Not only was the opportunity not grasped by Pakistan; we have been subjectedsince then to the most violent acts of terrorism sponsored by Pakistan, including an assault on the nationalParliament in Delhi and on the state Parliament of Jammu and Kashmir in Srinagar.

Hundreds of innocent civilians, including women and children, have been brutally murdered by theterrorists. It is for Pakistan now to re-establish trust and confidence by first stopping its sponsorship ofcross-border terrorism and dismantling the infrastructure that supports terrorism directed against India. Onlythen can India resume a dialogue with Pakistan.

During the standoff on the Line of Control in Kashmir last spring, there were moments when a nuclearexchange between India and Pakistan appeared possible. Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf has saidthat a nuclear exchange was "very close indeed." Is this also your sentiment?

I have already expressed clearly our perspectives on nuclear weapons. We do not believe that a nuclear warshould be fought, and we do not believe that a nuclear war can be won. We believe that it is highlyirresponsible even to contemplate the use of nuclear weapons as an instrument of war.

Recently, you have refused even to shake hands with President Musharraf. Under what circumstances wouldyou be prepared to meet and negotiate with him? Do you think that the planned elections in Pakistan in Octobercould produce a government with which India could resume normal relations?

A: I have not refused to shake hands with General Musharraf. It was I who invited him to Agra last year. Weare prepared to deal with whichever government is in power in Pakistan. The question for us is not who isrunning Pakistan but what policies they adopt towards India.

If Pakistan continues to sponsor terrorism against India, we cannot engage in dialogue with it at the sametime. The only condition we make is: end cross-border terrorism and we can resume dialogue on all issuesbetween us, including Jammu and Kashmir.

India routinely accuses Pakistan of aiding and abetting terrorists who have waged a violent campaign inKashmir and beyond. But the fundamentalists who are fighting India have also been recruited and trained inother countries, including Britain, Afghanistan and Yemen, to cite just three examples. These groups also havetraining camps in India itself, notably in Meerut, Saharanpur, Moradabad, and Aligarh. Some of the groups thattarget India are also trying to seize power in Pakistan. Is there any possibility that India and Pakistanmight join forces against what is, in effect, a common enemy?

I have no idea where you have got this information. We do know that in addition to Pakistanis, there arealso terrorists of other nationalities indulging in violence in Jammu and Kashmir and also other parts ofIndia. But these elements have been recruited by Pakistani agencies, trained in Pakistani camps, and theyenter India from Pakistani territory. That is why we are categorical about Pakistan’s role in sponsoring,aiding, training and funding terrorism in India.

No group in India, and no training camp in Indian territory has ever posed the slightest threat to thesecurity of Pakistan in any way. The battle against terrorism can be successfully fought only when civilisednations unite to fight it together. Pakistan can make a unique and useful contribution to this battle.

From our point of view, Pakistan’s sincere efforts to join hands with India in fighting the menace ofterrorism would certainly be a welcome development, It would be in everybody’s interest for Pakistan to comeforward and join us in our fight against terrorism. But the evidence, so far, is not encouraging.

Though infiltration of terrorists into India from Pakistan has declined in recent weeks, there remains inPakistan a huge infrastructure supporting and sustaining terrorism, including communication centres, terroristtraining camps, launching pads for infiltration, and funding for terrorist groups.