[Assam] From ToI

Mon Jul 30 07:11:50 PDT 2007

Ram:

>  And countries like India are really not that enamoured with the UK anymore.

*** I realize that is what you would like to believe. But does that explain :

  "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".

You can assert it was a pack of lies or spinning by Campbell and 
attribute it to  "still drunk with the Raj.".

But would that be a credible explanation?

c-da

At 9:36 PM -0600 7/29/07, Ram Sarangapani wrote:
>C'da,
>
>  >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 )
>
>That is basically Cambell's take on what ABV's thought process was. 
>I am really surprised - people like Cambell are still drunk with the 
>Raj. The British are not in control anymore. And countries like 
>India are really not that enamoured with the UK anymore.
>
>Whether we like it or not, companies from all over the world are 
>making a beeline for India's market. You name a large company, and 
>it has a presence in India.
>As far as today's India is concerned, Britain does not matter. Its 
>only thought of as a backdrop to its history.
>
>--Ram
>
>
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>
>
>On 7/29/07, Chan Mahanta 
><<mailto:cmahanta at charter.net>cmahanta at charter.net> wrote:
>
>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 
><<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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