The public spat between Indian external affairs minister SM Krishna and his Pakistani counterpart SM Qureshi receded into the background as the focus shifted to the clash between the ministry of external affairs (MEA) and the home ministry (HM).
Home secretary GK Pillai had apparently queered the pitch for talks by his remarks on the ISI’s direct involvement in the Mumbai terror attack of November 26, 2008, based on David Headley’s disclosures.
For a while, it seemed as if Qureshi would have the last laugh as two cabinet ministers were apparently at war over Pakistan, but this was never quite true. On one day we were told that home minister Chidambaram and Krishna had it out at a cabinet meeting. The next day we saw pictures of foreign secretary Nirupama Rao walking over to Pillai’s office for tea and snacks. It made for interesting headlines for a few days but there was really nothing at the heart of it.
For one, it was not as if that Chidambaram and Krishna differed on how to deal with Pakistan. They may have had individual variations on the same theme which are not necessarily antithetical. What did prime minister Manmohan Singh do? Did he tick off Krishna for the faux pas, as was reported? Or did he gag Pillai indirectly by creating the post of an official home ministry spokesman? Are cracks showing up in Singh’s UPA-2 government?
The speculation among people with the so-called ringside view is that this is indeed the beginning of the end of the UPA edifice, with ministers and bureaucrats talking at each other. What is more likely is that this is business as usual inside the government, where different voices are magnified in the media but are really nothing more than the proverbial storm in a tea cup. Of course, minor gales could turn destructive as well. Luckily, not this time.
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