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By:

Kiran D. Tare

21 August 2024 at 11:23:13 am

Empress of Elegant Evasions

Nirupama Menon Rao’s diplomacy of denial collides with the ugly reality of Pakistan’s history of sponsored terror against India. There is a particular kind of Indian diplomat – one who is retired, refined, erudite and reliably detached from consequence - who resurfaces from time to time with the same prescription to mend bridges with Pakistan. This prescription advocates restraint, dialogue and a fresh process to ensure that nothing fundamental changes. Nirupama Menon Rao has now offered the...

Empress of Elegant Evasions

Nirupama Menon Rao’s diplomacy of denial collides with the ugly reality of Pakistan’s history of sponsored terror against India. There is a particular kind of Indian diplomat – one who is retired, refined, erudite and reliably detached from consequence - who resurfaces from time to time with the same prescription to mend bridges with Pakistan. This prescription advocates restraint, dialogue and a fresh process to ensure that nothing fundamental changes. Nirupama Menon Rao has now offered the latest, and perhaps most jarring, iteration of that tradition. In a series of posts on the micro-blogging site X, Rao lamented that India and Pakistan were trapped in a “single script” of territory, terror and recrimination. Her solution was to move towards “parallel tracks” of engagement, including energy cooperation, diaspora welfare, maritime stability, and, astonishingly, a “women’s caucus.” A question that immediately forces itself to the surface, and refuses to be buried under diplomatic phrasing is how, exactly, does one propose a “caucus” with Pakistan in the aftermath of a horrific massacre like Pahalgam last year, where 25 Hindu women watched their male relatives being gunned down by Pakistan-sponsored terrorists for failing to recite the kalma? What can a “women’s caucus” say to the women who watched their husbands being shot in the head? What does “parallel engagement” mean to those whose lives were shattered in minutes by terrorists trained, armed and enabled across the border? Does a veteran diplomat of the stature of Rao genuinely believe that Pakistan’s behaviour is a product of insufficient dialogue? That what decades of back-channel negotiations, summits and confidence-building measures failed to achieve can now be unlocked by thematic ‘tracks’ and symbolic caucuses? The introduction of gender into this argument is not merely naïve but is grotesquely misplaced. Terror in Kashmir has never been gender-neutral in its cruelty. Women have not been insulated from violence; they have been made to live with its consequences in their most intimate form. To suggest that a shared womanhood can bridge a divide rooted in the deliberate use of terror as state policy is evasion. History offers little support for Rao’s premise. Benazir Bhutto, lionised globally as a liberal icon, had presided over the early escalation of militancy in Kashmir and lent legitimacy to forces that would go on to destabilise the region for decades. If Rao’s proposal strains credulity in India, its reception in Pakistan is far more revealing. Within hours, Hina Rabbani Khar applauded it, praising its “strategic clarity” and expressing nostalgia for an earlier phase of engagement. Nostalgia for what, precisely? For a time when dialogue flourished while terror infrastructure remained intact? Khar’s endorsement is not incidental. It tells us exactly who benefits from such thinking. Pakistan has long preferred an India that is willing to talk endlessly but reluctant to impose costs. Every attempt to compartmentalise engagement with Pakistan has collapsed under the weight of events. From Agra to Mumbai to Pathankot to Pahalgam, the pattern is unbroken. Why, then, does Rao persist in believing that a new vocabulary can succeed where old frameworks failed? There is also a deeper question of instinct. During the years when Rao and her contemporaries shaped India’s diplomatic posture, the bias towards engagement was almost reflexive. Even in the shadow of mass-casualty attacks, the system leaned towards reopening channels, exploring cooperation, and treating scepticism as a failure of imagination. That unchastened instinct is on display once more. Critics increasingly locate this mindset within a broader ecosystem of globally networked think tanks and policy circles - institutions such as the International Crisis Group, often associated with transnational funding networks including those backed by George Soros. Rao’s suggestion of parallel tracks is not just tone-deaf but morally unserious. What, then, is Rao really arguing for? That India should continue to absorb violence while searching for new formats of engagement? That accountability must wait until the atmospherics improve? Her absurd suggestions are the logical endpoints of her position. And they demand an answer. For decades, under previous Congress-ruled governments, India has experimented with the kind of diplomacy Rao now repackages - process-driven, and perpetually hopeful. The results are written in the names of its dead who were massacred without pity by Pakistan-sponsored terrorists – from Kashmir to Mumbai. To persist with that approach, in the face of repeated evidence, is gross denial and a regrettable tribute to the memory of innocent civilians who lost their lives in Pakistan-instigated terror attacks.

Unrest within Mahayuti

Updated: Jan 21, 2025

Mahayuti

Mumbai: The state administration on Sunday stalled the appointments of guardian ministers in Raigad and Nashik districts. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had cleared the appointments before he left for Davos in Switzerland to attend the World Economic Forum on Saturday. They are believed to have been stalled on behest of Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, who heads the state in absence of the Chief Minister.


NCP’s Aditi Tatkare and BJP’s Girish Mahajan were entrusted with responsibilities of guardian minister for the Raigad and Nashik districts respectively, where Shiv Sena’s Bharat Gogawale and Dada Bhuse had staked claims. Gogawale is a first-time minister while, Bhuse had been the guardian minister of the district during previous government under Eknath Shinde.


Shiv Sena, NCP and BJP all the three constituents of Mahayuti have strong roots in both the districts. However, the Shiv Sena and the NCP had been particularly on loggerheads there. The Shiv Sena, which had been demanding the guardian minister’s post in Nashik district has managed to win only two assembly seats in the district where the NCP has Six and the BJP has Five MLAs. On the contrary, in Raigad the NCP has won only one seat while the Shiv Sena and the BJP both have Three MLAs each in the district.


Sunil Tatkare, MP from Raigad Lok Sabha constituency and the stat unit president of the NCP and father of Aditi Tatkare, had been the guardian minister of Raigad between 2004 and 2014. Gogawale had always been his political opponent before Tatkare joined the Mahayuti government under Ajit Pawar’s leadership in 2023. Gogawale claimed that all the Six Shiv Sena-BJP MLAs in the district had opined in his favour to be the guardian minister of the district and after the decision to appoint Aditi Tatkare was announced, his supporters resorted to violent protests. They burnt tyres in bid to stall traffic on highway in the district. Reacting to the developments, Tatkare said that the issue should be pondered over after CM Fadnavis returns from Davos on Saturday and settled amicably.


In Nashik Girish Mahajan had been the guardian minister of the district between 2014 and 2019 when Fadnavis was the Chief Minister.


The post of guardian minister doesn’t have any constitutional mandate and is considered to be a political appointment. Guardian ministers head the district planning and development councils (DPDC) that control the funds for development works being carried out in the particular district. This control wields much of political power to the minister in that district whereby spreading the party in the district becomes much easier. This is the reason why the grass root politicians seem to be very sensitive to such appointments.


While Gogawale and Bhuse are unhappy about not being appointed as guardian ministers, some others like NCP’s Hasan Mushrif and BJP’s Pankaja Munde are unhappy about not being appointed as guardian district in their home districts of Kolhapur and Beed respectively. DCM Shinde is learnt to have gone to his ancestral village Dare in Satara district after the decision and BJP’s firefighters Chandrashekhar Bawankule and Girish Mahajan are expected to meet him there to try finding a way out of the issue.

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