-Yashwant Deva

     Having served in Afghanistan in the best of times and the worst of times as Charles Dickens starts his masterpiece The Tale of Two Cities, my colleagues pestered me with lot of questions about geography, history, geopolitics, strategy, people, communications; and the inevitable what should Bush do in consequence to nine eleven attacks. I considered the options, as perhaps the French would have done with apt expressions that they coined to describe them. Should it be coup d'etat from within, coup de main from without or coup de maitre a masterly one outsmarting Ossama, the smart alec? During my time in Afghanistan and later too the favourite was coup d'etat. There were as many as eight successful and a dozen unsuccessful ones from the oust of Zahir Shah, the king to return of Zahir Shah, the commoner. I had been to all the strategically important areas of Afghanistan, bordering Uzbekistan and Tazhakistan in the North, Iran in the West, and Pushtun belt of Pakistan in the South and East. I had also visited most of their Army formations and acquired a fair degree of knowledge of history too, particularly the machinations of the British and abject failure of their policies in their quest to extend the imperialist borders from the Indus to the Oxus.

     On the Black Friday of nine eleven, I happened to read Sudhamahi Regunathan's piece "Violent Images Make us Insensitive" in the regular column of Speaking Tree in the Times of India. A story is told about Chanakya, the master strategist. Touring the countryside in disguise to know what the masses thought of the king and him, he halted in a small village. An old woman offered him a meal. Chanakya was ravenous. He readily accepted the invitation The woman served him a modest meal of steaming rice, dal and vegetables. Chanakya delved into the portion at the centre of plate. No sooner had he done that he pulled out his fingers in pain for the rice was very hot. "Oh dear," exclaimed the old woman, "You are indeed like our stupid minister. Chanakya." Chanakya was indeed shocked. On asking the old woman for an explanation, he heard her saying, "Never strike at the centre. Chanakya plans his attacks on the capital city. He loses. and goes back. He should begin at the periphery and slowly make towards the centre." Even without finishing the meal, Chanakya strode the horse towards the palace, having learnt the mantra for success.

     The beginning is always small and the endeavour ought to commence at the periphery. It would unfailingly lead to the centre one day. I wrote a piece of this advice to Bush, "Mr. President! Heed the homily, Help Northern Alliance in the North, contain and block exfilteration to the Free Tribal Area in the South and East; coddle Iran and include Iran in the Coalition Against Terror if possible otherwise make a covert deal; land Air Cav and Air Mobile Forces in the South West and work towards Kabul. Beware of your erstwhile friends - Musharraf and ISI in particular. And pray during Ramzan."

     The key to UK-US "would-have-been-success" lay in stopping exfilteration on Pak-Afghan border. With all their might and coalition partners, they abjectly failed to patrol it. Ossama, Al Qaida, Talibaan and their cohorts have given a kick in the butt and cocking a snook, shifted intact from one haven to another. That is the sum total of achievement.

     And now to repeat their track record a 500-odd helliborne observer force would descend on the subcontinent. They would oversee movement along a border with decidedly more forbidding terrain, which defies human endurance and a history that is a grim reminder of invaders and raiders to India who followed these very oft-treaded trails. They would distinguish a phiran-clad weapon-carrying terrorist from a similarly clad hookah carrying charwaha.

     It appears that they have thought over and decided to appropriate the homily of working from periphery to the centre, but the irony is that the exercise is directed at us. The British still have the nostalgia about the Raj, the difference is a mere cosmetic one in shift of strategy from traders to observers and the locale from sea-lanes to mountain passes.

     I hope our partners in fighting terrorism do not take us to be so naïve that we will fall for their ill-conceived trickery.