Indian Shuakat Aziz and Pakistani Manmohan Singh

In one of his recent articles, India’s famous journalist, Mr. M. J. Akbar has unveiled an open secret. Writing with reference to ‘A Prattler’s Tale: Bengal, Marxism and Governance’ a book by India’s renowned intellectual and economist, Dr. Ashok Mitra, he has revealed that Dr. Manmohan Singh is in fact India’s ‘Shuakat Aziz’; i.e., a Washington’s man; i.e., a man sponsored by the World Bank and IMF.

The details of this news as reported by Mr. Akbar are both interesting, sensational and awful. It was the year of 1991. Mr. Narasimha Rao was the Prime Minister of India. The country’s economy was in real crises and the foreign exchange reserves had reached such an ebb that there were available only 15 days funds for imports.

Right at that time Washington offered Narasimha Rao to hold ‘secret talks’. In these secret talks, a secret threat was delivered either to accept the US agenda or to embrace disaster. But what was Washington’s agenda? In simple words, it was Dr. Manmohan Singh. M. J. Akbar writes with reference to Dr. Mitra that the threat proved effective. The Indian leadership laid down their arms and Dr. Manmohan Singh arrived in India right from Washington as India’s new Finance Minister. Today this very ‘Shaukat Aziz’ is India’s Prime Minister. But we must bear in mind that he is the first ‘Shaukat Aziz’ of India; while in Pakistan, the arrival of ‘Manmohans’ had started just after the assassination of Liaqat Ali Khan. But what did Dr. Singh bring with him?

A bag full of economic reforms; as the west has coined the term ‘reform’ as a replacement for ‘sabotage’. Before the arrival of Manmohan Singh, the economic system of India was a closed system. Dr. Singh opened its gates to Europe and America. You must have read in stories and novels and seen in movies how in the olden days enemies besieged a walled city; how did the siege prolonged sometimes for years and how sometimes the conspiring forces within the fort one night opened the portals of the city and let the whole host of enemies enter and pillage their own land and people. The Indian ‘Aziz’ as well as all the Pakistani Manmohans have done the same thing.

After these revelations of Dr. Ashok Mitra, we have become still more confident in our opinion that the Kargil Operation was also an essentially American-European Project. Manmohan Singh had already opened the latch of the gate and now it was about time to throw it wide open. For this however, it was necessary to pressurize India and Kargil provided its opportunity. We, for the first time in our history, beleaguered two divisions of Indian army and in such a way that it could only surrender or die of cold and hunger.

In this scenario, the Indian Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Bajpai, directly requested the US President Clinton for help; and India was helped indeed. It will always be remembered in Indian history that the BJP, in spite of its avowed commitment to Indian nationalism, completely opened India for multinationals. Now Sri Manmohan Singh is the Prime Minister of India and is engaged in fast completion of the third phase of ‘the sabotage’ or reforms. In Pakistan the Musharruf-Shaukat team has sold all the country in the name of privatization. Now there only remains the bidding of agricultural lands for corporate farming. And as far as Kashmir is concerned any thing can be expected as Washington’s people are sitting on both sides.

The weak and poor nations of the third world enthusiastically send their brilliant children to Oxford and Howard and think that they would return with more intelligence, expertise and knowledge. However nobody understands that many a times they return as western agents, working on deputation of World Bank and IMF. These people tell their fellow countrymen that they are not so far cultured enough to wash their faces properly. ‘Take this hanki of reforms, wipe your flowing nose, drink our intellectual mineral water and keep running on the path of progress determined by us’. They suggest their fellow people, who in general are still ignorant of the game that is being played with their lives and aspirations.