[Assam] From ToI

[Ram Sarangapani]

Oh! Mukul da, I think Tony Blair had a law background, plus am not sure if
the UK has  institutions similar to IITs.:)

But, I agree, the UK ought to run by technocrats. They tried attorneys, but
that didn't work out too well. :)

--Ram

On 7/29/07, mc mahant <mikemahant at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> 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 -0500
> To: assamrs at gmail.com; cmahanta at charter.net
> From: cmahanta at charter.net
> CC: assam at assamnet.org
> Subject: 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
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> 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.
>
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> The story seems too convenient as a story for Cambell.
>
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> --Ram
>
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> On 7/29/07,* Chan Mahanta* <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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