I have always held that great leaders can see beyond the obvious. They have moral fortitude, courage and a vision. Either a leader has it or does not. These qualities are not genetic transferred. Even if they were genetic, Indira Gandhi could not have had them because her father did not have any of those qualities. Mr. Puri has written his take on Musharraf's confession to Der Spiegel. He claims that dividing Pakistan was a bad idea and that is still causing us headaches. I do not agree with it. We had two wars with Pakistan by then. Pakistani hatred for us is based on religion. That we divided them has probably made things worse. But despite of my disagreements, he makes some good points. He claims that it is time to bury the hatchet and make peace with the Pakistanis. I do not think that it will make any difference either. So why in Bholenath's name am I recommending this article? It is because he says:
a. Indira Gandhi gave up the advantage of holding 90,000 paki POW's without anything in return. She had Bhutto over a barrel and let him go. What a mistake that was!!
b. It seems Mr. Puri wrote an article in Illustrated Weekly of India back then saying all this. Thus the idea was there but no one in Indira Gandhi government listened.
c. He refers to Indira Gandhi as India's most disastrous PM, an assessment I am in complete agreement.
Another thing I find wrong with his assessment is that if Mushrraf's confessed to make the Pakistani decision makers look bad and use that along with a US support to become the Paki president is a little too far fetched. Too many things will have to go right for him. Nothing can be predicted in Politics, least of all a messed up system like Pakistan.
Method in Musharraf's Madness
by Rajinder Puri
Instead Indira Gandhi acting like a big power puppet could not even consolidate the Indian army's victory in Bangladesh to end the Kashmir dispute once and for all. With Pakistan on its knees and 90,000 of its soldiers held prisoners of war she signed the Simla Agreement that provided no tangible gain to India in order to help Bhutto retain power in Pakistan. This is not being written by hindsight. If one cares to search the archives of the now defunct Illustrated Weekly of India in which I wrote a weekly column during the months before the Bangladesh war one would note that all this had been expressed then. It is only the pathetic poodles of India's leading dynasty dominating the media and burueacracy who continue to sing paens of praise for arguably India's most disastrous Prime Minister.
The article can be read at:
http://cms.boloji.com/index.cfm?md=Content&sd=Articles&ArticleID=9684
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