Surprise is what George Fernandes is all about. The maverick socialist, with several causes to uphold, was expected to remain outside the Bharatiya Janata party-led coalition ministry when Atal Behari Vajpayee was busy forming a government out of the chaos created by a fractured mandate. Suddenly, Fernandes decided to give government another try.
Vajpayee was hard put to find a "suitable berth" for the man who, as industry minister in the first Janata government (in which they were cabinet colleagues), threw Coca Cola out of India in 1978. And could have been a trifle worried too. But while the two stormy ladies, Jayalalitha of Tamil Nadu and Mamata Banerjee of Bengal stayed out of the government, George Fernandes became India´s defence minister. And within a week, he had created a major controversy.
On a tour of the northeast states of India immediately after taking charge, Fernandes told the BBC that China was a much greater threat to India than Pakistan. Many, like India´s leading columnist Inder Malhotra, supported Fernandes for "calling a spade a spade". Others, for whom Pakistan is cause for paranoia, were critical. And this included leaders of the bjp, with whom Fernandes´ Samata party is allied.
But Fernandes was far from finished.
Within a few days, he was back at China-bashing, this time alleging that the Chinese had illegally constructed a helipad in Indian territory, in the frontier state of Arunachal Pradesh. This time, Beijing´s response was furious. Vajpayee buckled under pressure, called Fernandes over and asked him "not to provoke the Chinese". Pakistan´s response was interesting. Gohar Ayub Khan, the foreign minister said that whatever Fernandes might have said, India was in no position to take on China and that all her military efforts were, in reality, focused on Pakistan. Whatever the truth of the matter, Fernandes has managed to trigger off a fresh debate on "threat identification" in India´s defence establishment.