Sino-Indian differences, one would have thought till just a few moments ago, were being successfully managed, and the Chinese dragon was said to have been virtually dormant as far as India was concerned. That is, till the irrepressible George Fernandes, with all the responsibility of a minister of defence, targetted a battery of accusations against China and singled it out as India´s "potential threat number one".
Apparently, while we were talking peace, the Chinese have been busy militarily encircling us, from Pakistan all the way across the Himalayan rimland to Burma, and into the Bay of Bengal. The disputed border, which we thought had been becalmed, is menacingly alive with Chinese incursions and Tibet is bristling with nuclear missiles targeted at the cities of the Ganga plains. India is talking troop withdrawal, and the Chinese are building a helipad in Arunachal Pradesh! While we are shifting troops away from the east, China is elongating its airfields in Tibet so that they can handle more lethal jet fighters.
So, at least, says the new defence minister of India. Which makes one ask why has South Block been pulling the wool over the eyes of the people about the nefarious Chinese intentions. Good for George, to take the people of the country into confidence. "National security", he says, must become the "people´s concern". How else will the people be imbued with the spirit of self-sacrifice to safeguard our frontiers?
Fernandes´ gaffe-a-day had been a matter of ridicule. But now, it turns out there was a method in the adventurist outspokenness of the maverick minister. No sooner had the tremors subsided from the Indian blasts than Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee wrote to the United States´ president citing the Chinese nuclear threat as the rationale for the explosions. A riled China hit back, opening up the ´healed´ wounds of the 1962 war, charging India with occupying 90,000 sq kms of Chinese territory. Within weeks of the BJP taking over the government, the carefully nurtured framework of confidence building measures to manage the Sino-Indian relationship had come crashing down. India risked becoming China´s "number one threat".