[Assam] From ToI

Sun Jul 29 19:36:25 PDT 2007

Ram:

I wasn't even paying attention to that part of the story. It is a 
spook vs spook  intrigue that I don't pay much heed to.  But now that 
you bring that up, why do you think that the hotel room could NOT 
have been bugged, even though it was chosen by the Brits themselves? 
Its not like that they had the place cordoned off by the British 
security apparatus before Blair came a calling? And it wasn't like 
some third party who supposedly found  the bugs -- it said the Brits 
found them during their sweep.

At any event, what would be Campbell's motive to throw that in, while 
the entire book merited about ten references to an India with 
super-power  pretensions? A calculated resurrection of the 
benign-neglect doctrine :-)? Racism? Die-hard colonial condescension? 
Fear of an emerging India? What?

Be that as it may, what I found ironic and held my nose at was ABV's 
supplication ( I had to look that up -means   prayer to a higher 
power, a humble request for help from someone in authority ) for 
Blair not to pass India by on his Pakistan visit, the grovelling for 
equal notice, that much despised 'parity' problem that continues to 
haunt India :-), never mind all the bravado declaring it as past.

Not that I was surprised. I had a pretty good idea how much Britain 
or even the USA respects India. All one needs to do is look at the 
Indian press head-lines or NRI proclamations here in the USA or in 
Europe to know how much Indians need that notice of whom they suck-up 
to. What I was surprised by was  ToI's ability to print the piece, 
warts and all, obviously written by an 'anti-Indian' , probably an 
ex-pat , if not a 'pseudo-secularist' who hates ABV or the BJP :-).

c-da

At 6:40 PM -0600 7/29/07, Ram Sarangapani wrote:
>Hi C'da
>
>This news was reported also sometime ago (both in the British and 
>Indian press).
>The Indian Govt. asserts that there was no way they could have 
>planted bugs, as the hotel was chosen by the British Govt. And the 
>M16 or was it M15 had gone thru the suites with a tooth comb.
>
>Now, how did all that get past British Intel.
>
>The story seems too convenient as a story for Cambell.
>
>--Ram
>
>
>On 7/29/07, Chan Mahanta 
><<mailto:cmahanta at charter.net>cmahanta at charter.net> wrote:
>
>** Tsk, tsk!
>
>cm
>
>_______________________________________________________________________________
>
>
>
>Blair's spin doctor spills beans on Indian waiters, PMs
>30 Jul 2007, 0038 hrs IST,Rashmee Roshan Lal,TNN
>
>Did you know there are more Indian waiters in Britain than there are
>coal miners?" Tony Blair was asked in September 1994 by one of his
>high-flying researchers Peter Hyman.
>
>It was two months since Blair had become the youngest Labour Party
>leader since World War II. Hyman's question presumably reflected the
>profound changes in late 20th-century Britain. Blair was desperate to
>change his moribund party and drag it out of 18 years in the
>political wilderness. Hyman, who became one of Blair's favourite
>advisors, presumably asked his question to point to Blair the
>geography of the change he must embrace.
>
>Thirteen years from the day Hyman asked the question, the past is a
>different country. As is Britain. Blair has departed Downing Street
>after a decade as Labour's longest-serving PM. A new PM is in office.
>Blair's former aides have scattered like leaves in the wind. One of
>the most prominent of these, former spin doctor Alastair Campbell,
>has published extracts from his diaries. The volume, titled The Blair
>Years, finally hit stands in India.
>
>And so we finally learn what PM Blair and his golden guys and girls
>really, really thought about India in the 10 years they colonised the
>PM's office and the British political landscape. Going by Campbell's
>diaries, the answer is very little, if at all. Despite all the recent
>rhetoric about a new special relationship between India and its
>former imperial master, Campbell's diaries make clear that Blair's
>office, if not all of Blair's Britain, hardly thought about India,
>except by default.
>
>According to Campbell's account, Blair and Britain were forced,
>post-9/11 to acknowledge India's needs vis-a-vis Pakistan for
>face-saving Western tokens and gestures signalling New Delhi's
>importance and influence.
>
>In October 2001, says Campbell, Blair was on his way to Islamabad to
>firm up plans with the West's new best friend, Pervez Musharraf, for
>invading Afghanistan. New Delhi was not on the prime ministerial
>itinerary. "We had a real problem with the Indians over the planned
>visit to Pakistan," writes Blair's spin doctor, "Vajpayee was on the
>phone, totally adamant that if TB (Blair) went to Pakistan without
>also visiting India, it would be a real disaster for him. He
>(Vajpayee) was normally so quiet and soft-spoken but there was both
>panic and a bit of anger in his voice".
>
>Later, Campbell describes the "two bugs" found in the British PM's
>Delhi hotel room and notes, "we decided against making a fuss".
>Campbell fulminates at some length about the "valet, Sunil" he is
>assigned for the Delhi stopover, complaining that "he just would not
>leave me alone...I was beginning to wonder whether he had been put
>there either by the (Indian) spooks or a paper".
>
>Soon in January 2002, and Campbell is once again recounting the
>low-key theatricality of the UK-Indian relationship. Campbell's
>memories of this passage to India appear to be dominated by Blair's
>decision to wear a Nehru jacket.
>
>"Hopefully it would be seen as showing respect (to the Indians)", he
>writes. And then he damns PM Vajpayee with faint praise, describing
>how Blair "pushed hard but got very little change out of Vajpayee. He
>was holding out for a lot more from the Pakistanis. He was pretty
>shrewd and his total lack of embarrassment at long silences was a
>real strength".
>
>As a miniature portrait of Indo-British relations six years ago,
>Campbell's sketchy recollections of the stop-start bilateral rhythm
>offer an unedifying picture. There is British suspicion and Indian
>supplication; "mystical" Indian silences and wordy British lectures;
>there are unmemorable banquets in the Hyderabad palace, prying
>natives and clumsy Indian intelligence moves. All of this larded with
>streaky bits of Indian tub-thumping and British mantras on South
>Asia's need for stability.
>
>In the end, of course, it is significant that Campbell mentions India
>barely half-a-dozen times in this account of the 10-year period in
>which India's relations with its former master visibly and
>conclusively changed. The significance may lie more in what he does
>not say than what he does.
>
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