[Assam] From ToI

Sun Jul 29 20:13:38 PDT 2007

That's what I meant when I said :
Only IIT graduates should be allowed to run the place!!
mm

Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2007 21:36:25 -0500To: assamrs at gmail.com; cmahanta at charter.netFrom: cmahanta at charter.netCC: assam at assamnet.orgSubject: Re: [Assam] From ToI

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 <cmahanta at charter.net> wrote:
** Tsk, tsk!cm_______________________________________________________________________________Blair's spin doctor spills beans on Indian waiters, PMs30 Jul 2007, 0038 hrs IST,Rashmee Roshan Lal,TNNDid you know there are more Indian waiters in Britain than there arecoal miners?" Tony Blair was asked in September 1994 by one of hishigh-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 tochange his moribund party and drag it out of 18 years in thepolitical wilderness. Hyman, who became one of Blair's favouriteadvisors, presumably asked his question to point to Blair thegeography of the change he must embrace.Thirteen years from the day Hyman asked the question, the past is adifferent country. As is Britain. Blair has departed Downing Streetafter 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 ofthe most prominent of these, former spin doctor Alastair Campbell,has published extracts from his diaries. The volume, titled The BlairYears, finally hit stands in India.And so we finally learn what PM Blair and his golden guys and girlsreally, really thought about India in the 10 years they colonised thePM's office and the British political landscape. Going by Campbell'sdiaries, the answer is very little, if at all. Despite all the recentrhetoric about a new special relationship between India and itsformer 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 forface-saving Western tokens and gestures signalling New Delhi'simportance and influence.In October 2001, says Campbell, Blair was on his way to Islamabad tofirm up plans with the West's new best friend, Pervez Musharraf, forinvading Afghanistan. New Delhi was not on the prime ministerialitinerary. "We had a real problem with the Indians over the plannedvisit to Pakistan," writes Blair's spin doctor, "Vajpayee was on thephone, totally adamant that if TB (Blair) went to Pakistan withoutalso visiting India, it would be a real disaster for him. He(Vajpayee) was normally so quiet and soft-spoken but there was bothpanic and a bit of anger in his voice".Later, Campbell describes the "two bugs" found in the British PM'sDelhi hotel room and notes, "we decided against making a fuss".Campbell fulminates at some length about the "valet, Sunil" he isassigned for the Delhi stopover, complaining that "he just would notleave me alone...I was beginning to wonder whether he had been putthere either by the (Indian) spooks or a paper".Soon in January 2002, and Campbell is once again recounting thelow-key theatricality of the UK-Indian relationship. Campbell'smemories of this passage to India appear to be dominated by Blair'sdecision to wear a Nehru jacket."Hopefully it would be seen as showing respect (to the Indians)", hewrites. And then he damns PM Vajpayee with faint praise, describinghow Blair "pushed hard but got very little change out of Vajpayee. Hewas holding out for a lot more from the Pakistanis. He was prettyshrewd and his total lack of embarrassment at long silences was areal strength".As a miniature portrait of Indo-British relations six years ago,Campbell's sketchy recollections of the stop-start bilateral rhythmoffer an unedifying picture. There is British suspicion and Indiansupplication; "mystical" Indian silences and wordy British lectures;there are unmemorable banquets in the Hyderabad palace, pryingnatives and clumsy Indian intelligence moves. All of this larded withstreaky bits of Indian tub-thumping and British mantras on SouthAsia's need for stability.In the end, of course, it is significant that Campbell mentions Indiabarely half-a-dozen times in this account of the 10-year period inwhich India's relations with its former master visibly andconclusively changed. The significance may lie more in what he doesnot say than what he does._______________________________________________assam mailing listassam at assamnet.orghttp://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org

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