As the summit talks began to flounder, Pakistani spokesman Maj Gen Rashid Qureshi tolda TV channel that an "invisible hand" was derailing the talks. Come, come,general! If we were to believe in conspiracy theories, we would have talked about secrethands, not just one hand. It takes two hands to clap, remember?
We would have pointed out how L.K. Advani and Abdul Sattar warmly embraced each otherwhile A.B. Vajpayee and Pervez Musharraf only shook hands.
We would have recalled that Advani represents the Sangh parivar while Sattar representsPakistani hardliners like Gen Aziz and former isi boss Gen Hamid Gul.
We would have noted that both the Sangh and the isi have been impeding friendshipbetween India and Pakistan.
We would have marked how Sushma Swaraj, favourite of both rss boss K. Sudarshan andAdvani, briefed the press as an unauthorised spokesperson.
We would have speculated that her mentor Advani could have been the only insider tobrief her and authorise her to address the press.
We would have remembered that both the isi and rss, bitterly opposed to each other,simultaneously sidle up to China.
We would have noted that it was Sattar who gave the note to Musharraf to harden hisstand because of the provocation offered by the Sushma Swaraj briefing.
We would have recalled that in the final stages Advani scuttled the draft declarationokayed earlier.
We would have noted that all this action occurred on Sunday.
We would have noted that simultaneously on Sunday, China's foreign spokespersonZhang Qiyue spoke in Beijing. She said that her government favoured Russia, China andIndia making a strategic triangle to contain America. She said all three shared commonconcerns. We would have recalled that earlier China had thrown cold water on thisproposal. We would have understood that this could be a veiled warning to Pakistan.
We would have noticed that after the Agra summit failed, Jiang Zemin forgot all aboutthis proposal as he talked with President Putin in Moscow. We would have concluded that ifChina's Plan A (to scuttle an India-Pakistan alliance) failed, China had laid thefoundation for Plan B (to prevent an America-saarc alliance).
We would have thought all this if we had believed in conspiracy theories. But unlikeGen Qureshi, we don't believe in them—or do we?
Things seemed very jolly,
Till someone said, "So solly!"
Then all of a sudden, by golly,
The summit became a folly!
