'Willing To Walk MoreThan Half The Distance'

My dear fellow countrymen, joyous New Year greetings to all of you.

To our brave jawans, security forces, and policemen guarding our borders andvital installations; to our hard-working kisans (farmers) who haveensured our food security; to our workers and managers who, with their sweat andtoil, are making India an economic power; to our talented software professionalswho have burnished India's image abroad; to our children and youth, who are thefuture of our nation; indeed, to every Indian who in his or her own way iscontributing to nation-building, I wish happiness and prosperity in the NewYear.

I also send my felicitations to all Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) and Personsof Indian Origin (PIOs), who, despite the distance in space and time thatseparates them from us, have maintained unbreakable social, cultural, spiritual,and emotional ties with India.

We leave an eventful year behind us, a year of many trials and tribulations --amongst them the earthquake in Gujarat at the beginning of the year and theterrorist attack on our Parliament at the end of the year.

We faced all of them with courage and self-confidence. As we begin ourjourney in 2002, it is time for all of us together to resolve that we shall growfurther in fortitude; that our belief in ourselves shall be further steeled totake on even stiffer challenges that may confront us in the new year.

Today, let us pledge that our motherland shall emerge stronger -- in nationalsecurity, which is of supreme importance, and in development that betters thelife of those of our brethren who continue to be victims of poverty and neglect.

It is said that time's ways are inscrutable. This may be true in the life ofindividuals, not in a nation's life. True, we cannot predict what may happen toour individual destinies. But, in my mind, there is no uncertainty whatsoeverabout India's destiny.

India is marching towards a bright future. We have our share of problems. Butthese cannot hide the brightness on the horizon. It will be a future free ofpoverty and all other vestiges of underdevelopment.

Indeed, the level of poverty is coming down; and the day is not far whenevery region, every community, and every citizen in our country shall enjoy thefruits of India's prosperity and progress.

If we want, and if we act unitedly to get what we want, then this energizinggoal can be achieved within the span of a generation.

But the future I see is not only one of a prosperous India, free of fear andfree of want. In recent years, the world has come to look at India with renewedrespect, recognizing a strong and prosperous global power in the making.

I have no doubt that India in the foreseeable future will begin to play adecisive role in global affairs, not to advance any partisan agenda at theexpense of others but to protect and promote mankind's most cherished universalideals.

It is also a future when the fabled richness of India's culture, arts,intellectual exploration, and spiritual pursuit will begin to show its fullradiance, bringing much succour to the troubled spirit of the modern man.

Is this a dream? Yes. Is it an impossible dream? No, it is not.

Nations achieve greatness when their people learn to dream lofty dreams andto strive hard -- and make sacrifices, when necessary -- to realize thosedreams, without getting disheartened by the difficulties along the way andwithout ever letting their faith in their nation's destiny falter.

I am reminded here of the inspiring vision of Maharshi Aurobindo, which heset out in his historic radio broadcast for August 15, 1947.

"I have always held and said that India was arising, not to serve herown material interests only, to achieve expansion, greatness, power, andprosperity -- though these too she must not neglect, -- and certainly not likeothers to acquire domination of other peoples, but to live also for God and theworld as a helper and leader of the whole human race."

This, I believe, is the quintessence of India's work, now and in the future.Different leaders of modern India have presented the same vision in differentwords.

In the five-and-a-half decades since Independence, we have made definiteprogress in realizing a part of this vision, although there is a need tointrospect on why our achievement has not been greater, faster, and moreegalitarian.

But let us not get bogged down in the issues and debates of yesterday. Now wemust hasten our march forward, correcting the mistakes of the past but alwayskeeping our eyes fixed firmly on where we want India to be in the future.

It often happens that the road to the future is rendered difficult byroadblocks placed by the past. One such roadblock for us, indeed the biggest, isPakistan's consistent and continuing anti-India policy, beginning with itsrefusal to accept the constitutionally validated and democratically endorsedaccession of Jammu & Kashmir to India.

For a long time, the rulers in Islamabad relied on military confrontation, asexemplified by the wars they waged in 1948, 1965, and 1971, to settle this issuein their favour.

After failing abjectly in their endeavour, the anti-India forces in Pakistandecided to foment terrorism and religious extremism as the principal means toinstigate separatism in our country.

I must say that they are nursing a dangerous delusion. What they could notachieve through open military aggression, they never will achieve throughcross-border terrorism.

They failed miserably in their evil designs in Punjab. Terrorism bled Punjab;but, in the end, it fled Punjab. It could not dent Hindu-Sikh unity. Similarly,the terrorists and their mentors are doomed to fail in Jammu & Kashmir, too.

However, the very certainty of failure is driving them, in desperation, toembrace a more dangerous agenda. The terrorist attack on our Parliament onDecember 13 has shown beyond a shadow of doubt that the anti-India forces inPakistan are prepared to wreak any havoc on our soil.

It was an attack on our sovereignty, on our national self- respect, and itwas a challenge to our democratic system.

Although India has been a victim of cross-border terrorism for the pastnearly two decades and has lost tens of thousands of innocent men and women andsecurity forces, the outrage of December 13 has breached the limit of thenation's endurance.

That the terrorists who stormed the precincts of Parliament failed in theircore objective, thanks to the exemplary alertness and bravery of our securityforces, some of who laid down their lives in the call of their duty, cannotdiminish the diabolical nature of the conspiracy hatched by their mentors acrossthe border.

It is useful to presume that more such terrorist strikes can take place. Theonly way to defend ourselves against such attacks is by forcing Pakistan to stopcross-border terrorism. And this precisely is the objective we have setourselves in our current multi-pronged strategy.

The many political and diplomatic steps we have taken after December 13 are apart of this strategy. As I have said earlier, India does not want war. Indiahas never been an aggressor in her long history.

But we have a sovereign right to defend ourselves against cross-borderterrorism, which is a proxy war that is already thrust on us. Pakistan will besolely responsible for the consequences of encouraging terrorism against Indiaand, when expedient, turning a blind eye to terrorist groups with trans-nationallinkages operating from its soil.

Today, I also wish to share a thought with the people of Pakistan and,indeed, with all the right-thinking persons in its ruling establishment.

It is unfortunate that anti-India forces in Pakistan have been allowed toplay with fire, apparently with no thought given to what this fire can do toPakistan itself.

I have heard and read many perceptive Pakistanis express serious concern overtheir government's appeasement of terrorism fuelled by religious extremism.

They have voiced alarm over how Pakistan's social fabric and its institutionshave been grievously affected by its government's policy of creating andsystematically promoting the Taliban, ostensibly to gain 'strategic depth' inAfghanistan and a 'force multiplier' for its anti-India campaign in Jammu &Kashmir.

The fate of the first game plan has already been sealed. The fate of thesecond will be no different.

Taliban and Al Qaeda are not merely the names of organizations. They standfor an aberrant mental outlook and a highly regressive socio-political agenda,which rejects the ideals of pluralism, secularism, freedom, and democracy andhas no respect even for national boundaries.

For the pursuit of its goal to establish global hegemony, it considers theuse of terrorism domestically as well as its aggressive export to countries nearand far entirely legitimate.

Like you, I too often wonder: Why do some people choose the path ofterrorism? Why do they kill, and are ready to be killed? How are they able tocreate a religious frenzy in support of terrorism, when no religion sanctionsterrorism?

One can understand if some persons, dissatisfied with the prevailing state ofaffairs or angered by a sense of injustice or deprivation, want to establish adifferent social order that they consider is more just and would benefit morepeople.

There is nothing wrong with such striving. Indeed, humanity has progressedthrough the struggles of such idealists.

But where the path of the terrorist diverges sharply from that of theidealist and the revolutionary is in the choice of the means he employs. Becauseof his murderous ways, his intolerance, and his extremism, he expels himselffrom the pale of humanity and descends to barbarism. To allow such barbarians tosucceed even partially, even in a single corner of the world, is to invitedanger for the whole civilized humanity.

Which is why India stood firmly behind the international coalition's supportto the United States' war on terror in Afghanistan following the horrendousterrorist attacks of September 11 in New York and Washington.

The leadership of Pakistan took a commendable decision to join theinternational coalition against terrorism in Afghanistan, although it meant adrastic U-turn in their policy of support to the Taliban regime.

But what was their real intention? If it was the same as that of theinternational community - namely, to root out terrorism and extremism - then Iextend my hand of alliance to them.

I wish to tell them: 'Shed your anti-India mentality and take effective stepsto stop cross-border terrorism, and you will find India willing to walk morethan half the distance to work closely with Pakistan to resolve, throughdialogue, any issue, including the contentious issue of Jammu & Kashmir.'

In my musings from Kumarakom last year, I had affirmed:

'In our search for a lasting solution to the Kashmir problem, both in itsexternal and internal dimensions, we shall not traverse solely on the beatentrack of the past. Rather, we shall be bold and innovative designers of a futurearchitecture of peace and prosperity for the entire South Asian region.'

I continue to remain wedded to this commitment. My summit talks, and ouroft-extended 'ceasefire' in Jammu & Kashmir are a testimony to India'ssincere, bold, and innovative search for peace.

This search continued even after the betrayal in Kargil. Our efforts will befurther intensified, if Pakistan demonstrates its matching sincerity to havepeace with India.

Together, let us leave the past of futile hostilities behind us and embrace afuture free of tension and full of mutually beneficial possibilities. The commonenemy that both our countries face is poverty, illiteracy, disease, andunemployment. Terrorism and extremism cannot solve any of these problems. Theycan only further delay their solution.

Therefore, let us join hands to fight this enemy and, along with othercountries in South Asia, make our region a land of peace, plenty, and all-roundprogress. This is the challenge of the new year and of the new century. let usaccept it in a spirit of cooperation.

However, if the intention of Pakistan's leadership is to continue to promote,or condone, cross-border terrorism in Jammu & Kashmir as a matter of statepolicy, while maintaining that they are one with the world in rooting outterrorism in Afghanistan, then the international community will judge thisposition to be opportunistic. It will conclude that Pakistan, far from being apart of the solution, will remain a part of the problem itself.

It is for Pakistan to make the right choice. After what happened on December13, we have made certain legitimate demands of the government of Pakistan. Itssincerity to fight terrorism will be determined by its positive response tothese demands.

We also hope that our friends in the international community will bringrequisite pressure on Pakistan to give up its double standards on terrorism.

Dear fellow countrymen, the situation we are facing is unprecedented. I wouldlike you to be prepared for any eventuality. I would also like you to realizethat the battle against terrorism will necessarily be a long one. One shouldneither expect a quick and painless victory nor despair if more terroriststrikes take place.

Today, my heart goes out to our jawans, security forces and police personnelwho are doing their duty in difficult conditions, so that all of us can sleepsoundly and go about our normal lives.

But let us also recognize that, in some ways, every citizen is a soldier inthis war against terrorism. Like them, let us be disciplined and ever vigilant.

Like them, let us also be prepared to make sacrifices - sacrifice of ourleisure, sacrifice of our comforts, sacrifice of our riches, and, if necessary,sacrifice of our lives.

I am sure that all of us will work harder than before to keep our economy andour civic services fighting fit. I know that, as during the previous wars, ourcitizens will gladly bear hardships if the government has to take certaintemporary measures to support our effort.

Our people have shown the fist of unity at the time of every crisis in thepast. I am confident that you will do it again, and not allow any other issue tocome between us and our goal.

And that goal is India's victory - a decisive victory - in our supremely juststruggle. We shall triumph against terrorism - to defend India, to defendhumanity. Let this be every Indian's New Year resolve. May the Almighty give usstrength to redeem this resolve.