This becomes more than apparent with Vajpayee's obstinate refusal to convene a special session of the Rajya Sabha to discuss the Pakistani intrusion in Kargil. Such unprecedented obduracy was seen despite the reported suggestion by the president of India that a special session be called. Not only Vajpayee refused to accept this advise, he went further refusing to convene a session when political parties, who together constitute a majority of the Rajya Sabha, demanded a session. Such outright anti-democratic attitude was dictated by the fear that a Rajya Sabha session would have completely and thoroughly exposed the serious bunglings committed by the Vajpayee government.

Justifying the refusal to call a session, Vajpayee and the RSS said such a session would divert the country's attention! The Indian armed forces were heroically battling Pakistani intrusion. All political parties had expressed unstinted and unequivocal support to the army's efforts vacate our land of Pakistani intrusion. What then could have caused in diversion? The only diversion that could have occurred would have been one that would draw the attention of the people away from Saffron jingoism. This Vajpayee could least afford to allow in view of the impending elections.

It is indeed strange that in the world's largest democracy the ruling party refuses to convene the only house of the parliament that exists at the moment to discuss an important issue. Given the fact that Vajpayee was a caretaker prime minister, it was his bounden duty to take the parliament into confidence. Though Indian democracy has much deeper and stronger roots than in Pakistan, it is indeed ironic that during the Kargil episode the Pakistani parliament was in session while Vajpayee refused to convene the Rajya Sabha. Vajpayee's lie has also been nailed by the fact that even after the Pak intruders have left our territory, no session of Rajya Sabha has been called or is being contemplated.

It needs to be recalled that during the second world war, in the British parliament, there was moved in fact a no confidence motion against Winston Churchill. The debate that followed resulted in several replacements, which contributed to strengthening of the British war effort.

What brings out in stark relief Vajpayee's duplicity is his own position as the leader of the BJP's earlier incarnate, the Jan Sangh, in 1962. Speaking in the Rajya Sabha during the Sino-Indian conflict in 1962, Vajpayee assailed the then prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, stating: "We need not hesitate to accept that we erred in matters of national security and by doing so, we have committed a great crime; by neglecting the protection of our borders, we have committed a great sin and we today should be prepared to seek repentance" (Rajya Sabha proceedings, November 9, 1962). Vajpayee further stated: "We have had so many days, yet why were we not prepared? An explanation needs to be given today." He proceeded to raise questions in a similar vein castigating the government for serious lapses. We would ask Vajpayee to answer the very same questions that he had then raised, in today's context, regarding the Indian preparedness to face the Pakistani intrusion in Kargil.

It is precisely what Vajpayee is seeking to avoid -- a demonstration of Vajpayee's extreme duplicity.

PATRIOTISM VS JINGOISM

While leaving no stone unturned in criticising the opposition whenever it raises any question regarding the Kargil operation, Vajpayee and his Saffron Brigade have unleashed a war of propaganda to seek political mileage from the Kargil crisis. The Saffron Brigade decided to observe June 23 as "Kashmir Day," the day when the Jan Sangh founder Shyama Prasad Mukherjee died in 1953. Instead of us commenting on the diabolic intentions behind such a move, let us quote from the lead editorial in The Times of India of June 25:

"For over a month now, we have had politicians lecture us on the need to avoid politicising the Kargil conflict. The ruling BJP-led coalition has been particularly vocal on this point. Evidently, this is only so much posturing. It is unlikely otherwise that the party would have brought out a series of half-page advertisements seeking to derive political mileage from soldiers martyred in Kashmir. The advertisements are as distasteful as they are untruthful. The BJP cites the founder of Jana Sangh, the late Shyama Prasad Mookerjee, as the "first" to have "laid down his life" for Kashmir. Mookerjee, who was detained by the Sheikh Abdullah government in the course of an agitation in the state, died of a heart attack in 1953. Leaving aside the propriety of calling someone who died on natural causes a "martyr," the BJP has forgotten that much before, for almost a year in 1947-48, our forces had fought a bitter war to defend Kashmir from Pakistani attack. That conflict claimed the lives of 1103 soldiers and left over 3,000 wounded. Another 1,000 went missing in action. The first ever Param Vir Chakra, the country's highest military honour, was awarded to Lt Col D R Rai, who commanded the 1st Sikh regiment in that confrontation. The BJP has not even got the names of the Kargil heroes right. Squadron Leader Ajay Ahuja, who was killed after capture, is listed erroneously as "Rajiv Ahuja." This is worse than playing politics with national security. This is insensitivity in the extreme towards our armed forces and martyrs."

It needs to be recollected that during the period of the accession of the former princely state into the Union of India, it was the Maharaja of Kashmir, Hari Singh, who resisted integration with India and sought an independent status. Maharaja Hari Singh was admirably supported by the then Hindu Mahasabha. It was, in fact, the Muslim masses led by Sheikh Abdullah who had argued for accession to India under conditions of protecting the Kashmiri identity and autonomy. Those who stood against Kashmir's integration with India included the ancestors of today's BJP. This fact of history -- the Hindu King refusing to be part of India while the Muslim masses and their leader seeking to be part of India -- is a telling reflection on Vajpayee and his Saffron politics.

BOASTFUL CLAIMS

Loath to recollect such facts, the Saffron Brigade unleashed the second series of advertisements in the newspaper claiming the driving out of Pakistani infiltrators in Kargil as the greatest victory in all the wars fought so far with Pakistan. There seems to be no end to their Machiavellian designs to distort history. During the 1971 war, not only was Bangladesh liberated, but India had captured 93,000 Pakistani prisoners of war. This was a war when the US seventh fleet moved into the Bay of Bengal in aid of Pakistan and to prevent the liberation of Bangladesh. It was only when the Soviet nuclear submarines surfaced in the Bay of Bengal that the USA backed away. It was the strength of India's victory that brought about the Shimla Agreement and its integral commitments that the Kashmir dispute is a bilateral matter to be resolved between India and Pakistan. For the last 27 years, this held good till Vajpayee, in his anxiety to reap petty political benefits, chose to allow the USA the role of a third party mediator (more on this later).

The Saffron jingoism did not stop at such advertisements. The RSS mouthpiece, Panchajanya while whipping communal poison stated in an editorial, "Rise Atal Behari, for destiny may have ordained that you should write the last chapter of this long sequence. Why else did we make the bomb, why else did we test our missiles?". Such open and blatant advocacy of using the nuclear bomb brings home the danger of having such lunatics controlling Indian state power. Even The Times of India otherwise not too hostile to India's nuclear status had to editorially comment that: "The Panchajanya editorial is a stab in the back far worse than what the Pakistanis have done in Kargil" (June 23, 1999).

It is such unfiltered jingoism ostensibly being anti-Pakistan which is being utilised by the RSS and the Saffron Brigade to whip up anti-Muslim feelings in order to communally polarise society seeking to derive electoral advantage. A classic illustration of such methodology is the recent riots that rocked Ahmadabad. Using the Kargil crisis, the RSS activists began burning effigies of Nawaz Sharief in predominantly Muslim dominated localities. This soon converted into Muslim bashing leading to the riots. One need not go far to see why Ahmadabad was chosen as the initial venue for such an exercise. With Shankar Singh Waghela joining the Congress, the Saffron fortress in Gujarat became very vulnerable. This became more evident with Ms Gandhi's successful rally. Hence, engineering riots was the RSS's only recipe to retain its base. Such is the inhumanity of the politics of jingoism which thrives on spilling the blood of innocent people for electoral advances.

THE GREAT BETRAYAL?

Vajpayee spares no effort in posturing as a martyr betrayed by Pakistan for the trust he reposed in them by undertaking the by now infamous bus ride to Lahore. The Saffron Brigade had been projecting the bus ride as one of its greatest achievements. But, by now, it is amply clear, as seen above, that Pakistan was preparing for this infiltration in Kargil, at the same time that they were receiving Vajpayee. So blinded was Vajpayee in his own euphoria that he had naively thought that one bus ride was enough to remove hostilities of half a century.

A veteran Indian politician had once commented that it does no credit to an Indian prime minister to bemoan that he was betrayed.

It is clear that Vajpayee and his government displayed extreme naivete following the Pokhran nuclear tests. Initially, Vajpayee was full of bluster at India's nuclear status. When Pakistan responded with tests at Chagai, Vajpayee assured the country that since nuclear parity was achieved, there would no more be hostilities with Pakistan. How naive can a prime minister get?

MISPLACED TRUST

Pokhran-II resulted in bestowing on Pakistan the status of nuclear parity. In one stroke, India allowed the erasing of our superiority in conventional weapons vis-a-vis Pakistan.

Having given Pakistan such an advantage which it did not possess earlier, the Vajpayee government failed miserably to assess and anticipate the Pakistani response. Clearly given nuclear parity, Pakistan was preparing for a low intensity advanced guerrilla activities. That this was being planned soon after May, 1998, has now become more than evident. Vajpayee basking in his new found glory of bus diplomacy allowed himself and India to be taken for a ride.

The discontinuity of Vajpayee's assessments regarding the Pakistan is glaringly evident from the letter he wrote secretly to US President Bill Clinton justifying Pokhran-II on May 11, 1998: "We have an overt nuclear weapons state on our borders, a state which committed armed aggression against India in 1962. Although our relations with that country have improved in the last decade or so, an atmosphere of distrust persists mainly due to the unresolved border problem. To add to that distrust that country has materially helped another neighbour of ours to become a covert nuclear weapons state. At the hands of this bitter neighbour we have suffered three aggressions in the last 50 years." If this was the assessment of Pakistan, then the country needs to know why were we lulled into complacency in a span of few weeks. By now, it is clear that following the Lahore bus ride, Vajpayee lowered his vigil and sent signals of complacency to the armed forces. The result was a heavy price we had to pay.

It is, therefore, not the case of Vajpayee being betrayed by Nawaz Sharief. But it is a case of Vajpayee betraying India's national security preparedness.

FOREIGN POLICY VICTORY?

The Saffron Brigade spares no effort at shouting from the roof tops that India, for the first time, has achieved a tremendous foreign policy victory under Vajpayee. The Saffron Brigade claims that international opinion supports India on the Kashmir dispute as opposed to Pakistan.

There cannot be a greater lie. The Kargil intrusion was a clear violation by Pakistan of the accepted Line of Control (LoC). No country in the world can openly support any intrusion violating in their country's territorial sovereignty. To that extent, international opinion supported India's contention that Pakistan has violated the LoC. This cannot be a source of great satisfaction and termed as a diplomatic victory. For the simple reason that international opinion was against Pakistan's violation of LoC, it was and is not against Pakistan's position on Kashmir. International support to India against Pakistan's violation of LoC cannot be construed as international support to India on the Kashmir dispute. It would, once again, be a case of extreme naivete to do so.

Vajpayee, caught napping when the Pakistani troops entrenched themselves on our side of the LoC, began appealing to the United States of America to help resolve the problems. After repeated appeals Vajpayee sent, yet again, a secret letter to president Clinton at the G-8 Summit. Despite demands by all opposition political parties, to make public the contents of this letter, Vajpayee was not do it. By doing so, Vajpayee would expose that he has provided the opportunity to the Americans to intervene in the Kashmir issue -- an opportunity that was denied to them for nearly three decades.

Following Vajpayee's letter, Nawaz Sharief was summoned to Washington by president Clinton. A joint statement followed in which Clinton gave an assurance that he will take "personal interest" in the resolution on the Kashmir issue. Vajpayee, the country was informed by USA, was consulted before the statement was issued. USA has now committed to Pakistan officially that it shall help resolve the Kashmir issue. Vajpayee, therefore, has objectively sabotaged willfully the essence of the Shimla Agreement that Kashmir dispute can only be resolved bilaterally between India and Pakistan.

Far from being a foreign policy success story, India's stand under Vajpayee has only assisted Pakistan in internationalising the Kashmir issue. This information, in fact, has been the stated objective of Pakistan while sending infiltrators into Indian territory. This, as noted earlier, was given to the Indian parliament by the defence minister in August, 1998. The Vajpayee government, therefore, has not only allowed Pakistan to succeed in internationalising the Kashmir issue but has also allowed the USA a role in its resolution.

This portends grave dangers to India. The Vajpayee government has all through its tenure emerged as the stoutest defender of American interests, economically and politically, in this region. It is, by now, a universal fact that US imperialism is everywhere breaking up countries the latest example being Yugoslavia. The USA all along considered Kashmir as a disputed territory and sought to give it the status of an independent country. There is no reason to believe that it has rescinded from such a position. The Vajpayee government has, therefore, made India more vulnerable on the Kashmir issue.

COMMIT NO MORE MISTAKES

Vajpayee and the RSS seeking to derive political mileage from the Kargil episode are going overboard. Despite the Pakistani withdrawal, last few weeks have seen constant attacks by the militants on our military installations killing scores of our officers and jawans. It will be the gravest of mistakes to lower our guard, once again.

Kargil was a pre-determined agenda for Pakistan is, by now, obvious. Apart from seeking to internationalise the Kashmir dispute, the fundamentalist forces in Pakistan are only too eager to continue such low intensity conflict to derive political benefits.

Finally, we need to address a point that whenever any questions are raised about the Vajpayee government's handling of the Kargil crisis, we are dubbed as anti-national or Pakistani agents. This has been their tactics to silence all critical discourse on the subject. We wish to assert that the questions are being raised by those who think it is their patriotic duty to ascertain the lapses so as to ensure the security of our borders in future. They do not need certificates of patriotism, from any one least of all from the assassins of Mahatma Gandhi.

Capt. Anuj Nayyar was killed in action in Kargil. His mother has been quoted as saying: "Please tell the government from all mothers that we do not want the martyr status (for our sons killed in Kargil) and publicity. We want those who are responsible for bringing the infiltrators into the country to be punished". (Tribune editorial, 12 June, 1999)

This is the mother of one of India's patriots who died defending his motherland.