Had Ved Pratap Vaidik been sensible, more down-to-earth and not over-brimming with delusions about his importance, he would have never agreed to the fateful interview with 26/11 mastermind Hafiz Saeed
Named for the 14th century monk and scholar William of Ockham, the principle of Occam’s Razor holds that if there are many and competing explanations for a phenomenon, the simplest is probably the most likely. Using Occam’s Razor to assess the circumstances in which the well-known journalist and busybody Ved Pratap Vaidik met Hafiz Saeed, terrorist mastermind and chief of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa’ah, what conclusions can one arrive atIJ
The conspiracy theories relating to Mr Vaidik’s “misadventure” — to quote Union Minister for Finance Arun Jaitley — have been many. The Congress has alleged he is an ‘RSS man’ (Rahul Gandhi’s words) and was sent to Pakistan as a back-channel interlocutor, reaching out to Saeed on behalf of the Prime Minister’s Office. The Government has denied this. Why a back-channel conversation would even be attempted with Saeed defies logic.
Besides, the entire operation — if indeed it had Government sanction — was extremely amateurish and relied enormously on a big mouth. Those who manage national security in the PMO, particularly National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, are hard-nosed people. They are hardly amateurs.
Separately, arguments have been raised about the Track II conference that was the reason for Mr Vaidik’s visit to Pakistan. The Indian team to the Track II conference was led by Mr Mani Shankar Aiyar of the Congress and included his party colleague, Mr Salman Khurshid. Mr NN Jha — a member of the BJP till he was appointed Governor by the previous NDA Government — and a few media-persons and analysts travelled with them. Mr Vaidik stayed back after the Track II conference and was the only one to meet Saeed.
Several questions arise from this. Was the root of the problem in the Track II initiative itselfIJ Was it somehow not kosherIJ Should one distinguish the Track II meeting from Mr Vaidik’s conversation with SaeedIJ Should a journalist, writer or public intellectual meet a terrorist at allIJ If so, in what circumstances and to what endIJ Each of these questions is important but they are all separate. It would be best not to confuse them, and tackle them one by one.
First, Track II conversations are a reality in international relations. The idea that engagement between two countries or regions should be limited to diplomats and governments, and that business and civil society, academics and media-persons, analysts and strategic thinkers have no role is ridiculous. Often ideas are seeded, loud thinking is resorted to and plans are tested at such meetings. Inevitably, feedback and inputs are provided to Track I — to the Government and the Foreign Office.
The efficacy of a Track II initiative depends on the composition of those who form part of it. In this the selection of the participants by the principal organisers is crucial. If the members of the two (or more) delegations are armchair folk, who represent no serious political or social constituency in their home country, and speak vacuously and for themselves, then the Track II mission devolves into farce. If the Track II team is carefully chosen and reflects a range of serious opinion in the country it comes from, it can serve a purpose.
Given the traditional Congress-left bias in the Indian intelligentsia and intellectual infrastructure, BJP-friendly analysts have been infrequent members of the Track II fraternity. In the past few weeks, after the victory of May 16, retired officials, public intellectuals and media-persons with an empathy or insider knowledge of the BJP have been flooded with invitations. Their interlocutors seek an informed assessment — or what they hope is an informed assessment — of the possible policies and motivations of the Narendra Modi Government.
This context is important to understanding how Mr Vaidik made it to Pakistan. He is an experienced journalist and has at various times been associated with the lohia movement, with the Congress, with Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav and with Baba Ramdev. His most recent political association saw him at the periphery of Mr Modi’s election campaign.
It is possible he oversold his access to and influence upon the PMO and the NDA Government. Perhaps he did not and Mr Aiyar, who invited him, simply overestimated Mr Vaidik’s clout. Whatever the truth, the point is if the BJP had won 82 seats in the lok Sabha election and not 282, and if the Modi project had failed, then Mr Vaidik may not have been invited, his self-confessed fame and popularity, erudition and scholarship notwithstanding.
This leads us to the final issue: Should journalists and writers meet terrorists if given the opportunityIJ The answer is they should, if they have a legitimate purpose. If the political editor of The Pioneer or The Times of India is asked if he wants to meet Saeed, as a professional journalist, he would have to say yes. His sense of curiosity and of news would take him to Saeed’s hideout.
True, in any interview, Saeed would seek to score PR points and not answer serious questions. Even so, in describing how he got to Saeed — blindfoldedIJ In an un-numbered car with blackened windowsIJ — in painting a picture of the man he met and the room he was in, in hinting at who took him there, the journalist could reveal a story his readers would find fascinating. A good report would be possible even without giving the terrorist the oxygen of publicity he desired.
In the case of the reporter from The Pioneer or The Times of India, Saeed and his handlers would have been attracted by not the individual journalist but the media platform he worked for. Why then was Mr Vaidik chosenIJ He was chosen because in the perception of those who facilitated the meeting he, Mr Vaidik, was close to the Modi Government and to the BJP. This may or may not have been true, but it is why the invitation was sent out. The invitation was not a recognition of Mr Vaidik’s decades of learning and vast reservoirs of intellect.
In short, Mr Vaidik was invited because of the feeling that he knew the Indian Prime Minister. He was invited because the Inter-Services Intelligence — which runs Saeed — sought to flatter, use and manipulate a self-important man to become part of a project to somehow legitimise the laskhar-e-Tayyeba super-boss as a stakeholder in the India-Pakistan equation.
A less vain and more down-to-earth person would have realised what was happening and turned down the invitation. Unfortunately, Mr Vaidik fell for it.
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