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Chinese checkers

Rajesh Ramachandran in New Delhi

Two days after Defence Minister George Fernandes identified China as India's potential enemy number one, the central government has, through its non-denial, tacitly acknowledged his viewpoint.

Observers in the capital point out that at no time since the 1962 war has any government in India taken such a categorical view on China, with everyone preferring to talk about the threat to the country from across its north-western borders. The defence establishment, however, has always pointed out that the potential threat to the country is from China, but successive Indian governments have chosen to overlook -- or at least not talk about -- this threat.

"It can be the defence minister's personal view. But no government in the past had taken such a stand. Whatever be the potential threat and the strategic perception, the government cannot make explicit statements," defence analyst Mohan Guruswamy, who is part of the Bharatiya Janata Party think-tank, told Rediff On The NeT.

Observers feel the BJP-led government is using Fernandes to test the waters, and also to justify its decision to go in for further weaponisation -- which, incidentally, is the only part of the BJP's original agenda that has not been shelved.

BJP analysts also insist that a little bit of sabre-rattling is not going to harm any future attempt to normalise India's relations with China.

While Fernandes's statement is said to be one part of the government's evolving security blueprint, the other and more substantive part is the Defence Research and Development Organisation's leak on further upgradations to the Agni missile -- work on which had stopped, incidentally, following American opposition to the same. Since 1994, when the last of the three tests on Agni were conducted, the intermediate range ballistic missile has been ready for production and induction.

Its resurrection at this point is touted not as a counter to Pakistan's Ghauri missile, but a deterrent against China's own bristling arsenal.

"We should not be clubbed along with Pakistan, as we have a larger role to play in the subcontinent. The news on Agni would be read as a retaliation for Ghauri, which it is not. It is an ongoing project and in course of time the missile had to be inducted," explained a defence ministry official.

He insisted that the BJP government has not done anything out of the ordinary in the 40-odd days it has been in office, to jump to the conclusion that the country's foreign policy towards China has undergone a 180-degree turn.

But with Fernandes willing to shoot from the hip, that may just change, it is believed.

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