A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within - Ariel Durant.
In political jargon, useful idiot is a term for people perceived as propagandists for a cause whose goals they are not fully aware of, and who are used cynically by the leaders of the cause.
“Pakistan is an enemy country” belongs in the “Sky is blue” folder. That country’s formation was a heinous crime committed on India by so called well-wishers. People who stopped a complete partition (we lost land and still ended up with the second largest Muslim population) or forced Nehru by sidelining Sardar Patel are revered and almost worshipped. They were well meaning people but they knew less than nothing about statecraft. Nations are born with spilt blood and not with hope and goodwill. The saga of useful Indian idiots in not a new one. Aman ki asha is the new name for Satyagraha.
Our great nation has had to suffer some of the worst and myopic leaders. Nehru’s well-meaning approach to leadership led to Hindi – Chini bhai bhai. Indira’ myopia surrendered the great advantages of the 1972 war to that clever bastard Bhutto but at least she split Pakistan in two thereby making our eastern border somewhat safe. She was way more of a man than the guy who followed her. Morarji Desai was another well-meaning idiot. In a very good article, Mallika Nawal writes that RAW could have caused irreparable damage to Pakistan nuclear program but for Desai:
By analyzing the hair samples of the scientists (collected from the barber shop near the plant), RAW discovered they had indeed developed the capability to enrich uranium to weapons-grade quality. And thus, unbeknownst to Pakistan, RAW managed to infiltrate the Kahuta plant in 1977.
In fact, in early 1978, the entire blueprint of the Kahuta nuclear plant was offered to India for a measly sum of $10,000 by one of RAW’s Pakistani agents. However, as dictated by protocol, RAW needed the PM’s approval. Unfortunately, Indira Gandhi (the woman who founded RAW) was no longer the PM. The Janata Party was in power, and Morarji Desai, as Prime Minister, now held the reins of RAW. Desai, who had a strong aversion to RAW, rejected the agency’s request.
And in a further and final act of betrayal, he inadvertently informed General Zia ul-Haq, who had usurped power in Pakistan by deposing Bhutto in July 1977, that India was well-aware of Kahuta and Pakistan’s nuclear programme. As it emerged from later reports, the military dictator went about eliminating every single one of our agents and assets, thus forever leaving us in the dark about Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme.
No wonder then, that Morarji Desai is the only Indian recipient of Pakistan’s highest civilian award, the Nishaan-e-Pakistan. You can’t blame General Zia for ingratitude!
In another excellent treatise (in New Indian Express) it is written:
Political masters have historically compromised Indian intelligence. In 1978, during a brief phone conversation with Pakistan ruler General Zia-ul-Haq, Indian prime minister Morarji Desai inadvertently mentioned that India was aware of Pakistan’s nuclear programme. The ruthless General immediately ordered RAW assets in Pakistan to be found and neutralised. Subsequently, Indian agents were eliminated as their helpless handlers watched. Yadav says whatever intelligence network was left in Pakistan after Zia’s bloody cleanup was further destroyed by I K Gujral when he was PM in 1997-98. “Gujral had a serious allergy to RAW and the first thing he did was to suspend all offensive ops within Pakistan. Even the IB was asked to go slow on Pakistani agents operating in India. In approximately 11 months, he systematically erased the organisation’s footprints in Pakistan to promote his peace doctrine,” Yadav reveals.
Interestingly, only few months after Gujral’s decision to suspend RAW’s Pak operation, the agency prevented a Pak-sponsored attack on his convoy in Jalandhar. A top secret A-category input from the RAW station in London had warned about five militants travelling to India to attack the prime minister’s convoy. Surveillance was mounted after their flight touched down at Delhi. A team of Indian intelligence agents apprehended the terrorists after they picked up their weapons from a pre-decided location in Punjab. Meanwhile, unhindered by any political influence, ISI continued to exploit the vacuum created by Indian politicians.
Atalji was another peacenik with great love for Pakistan but at least he kept his eyes open and did not hold back during Kargil (of course Operation Parakram and the Kandahar hijacking totally reversed all the good he did). Of course during the Manmohan Singh decade, Pakistanis were kept happy. Despite of all the cajoling, the pakis kept attacking and in true Christian way, we kept turning the other cheek.
There we have it. A long line of well-meaning Indian leaders who inadvertently helped our enemies. The term useful idiot is an apt one for all of them. But that is not the end of it. There exists a cottage industry of such idiots in the media, academia and social work who somehow think that peace (at any cost) with Pakistan is the cure for all ills of our great nation. The damage this section of the society has wrought on the nation and continue to do so is for all to see.
But what is really flabbergasting is that the so called right wing has inadvertently playing into the hands of those who want to bring shame to the nation. Mr. Madhav Nalapat has written a good one on the topic (url below). Throwing ink at someone like Sudheendra Kulkarni is one thing but to inflict violence upon the innocent or the non-capital crime committing guilty does nothing to improve our image in today’s global village. You should read the gleeful comments being made in Pakistani newspapers in the aftermath or the recent beef related violence or the Kalburgi murder (NO MATTER WHAT THE PROVOCATION – WE ARE NOT MUSLIMS!!).
We finally have a PM who is trying his best to put the nation on the right path but he is facing opposition at every stage. Congress with 42 MPs managed to successfully sabotage the progress oriented bills. The useful idiots are working hard in ensuring that (all kinds of problems are propping up in front of the PM just before the elections. Have you wondered why?
All things said, we should thank our stars that Pakistanis are arrogant and stupid. If they were anything like the Chinese or Russians, they would have destroyed us long time ago. Of course if they had managed to destroy us, then there would be lots and lots of Indian claimants for the Nishan-e-Pakistan or Sitara-e-Pakistan.
Various articles mentioned above can be read at: