Daily Pioneer, India
Oct 16 2005

Shekhawat’s tour-de-force

Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat is respected for many
qualities – canny politician, able administrator, mass leader,
legislative skills (having been MLA or MP almost uninterruptedly
since 1952).

But one thing that would not generally be attributed to him is the
ability to conduct international diplomacy. I was, therefore, struck
by his supreme confidence, linguistic agility and informal charm in
his interactions with politicians and bureaucrats alike during his
visit to three European countries earlier this month.

The Vice-President headed an official Indian delegation on a goodwill
mission to Romania, Belarus and Armenia between October 1 and 8,
perhaps the highest profile visit by an Indian leader since the
collapse of the Socialist Bloc and the Soviet Union in the early
1990s. I was privileged to have been among the four Rajya Sabha MPs
selected to accompany him. Unfortunately, I could not join him from
the start and missed the Romania leg. So, I flew to the Belarus
capital of Minsk and traveled with him for the rest of the journey.

What struck me about Mr Shekhawat’s style was its easy informality.
Far too often have I observed Indian leaders get frightfully pompous
and self-important when they interact with foreign dignitaries. For
example, while handing over the symbolic key to 60 Indian tractors
donated to Armenia, the Vice-President repeatedly emphasised the need
to ensure their ownership was not left made collective. “Unless
farmers have a sense of belonging to their land and farm implements,
they will never look after them.

These tractors will not be properly maintained and the purpose of
donating them would be lost,” he told the Armenian Agriculture
Minister who concurred with this view. On many such occasions,
including his meetings with the Presidents of Belarus and Armenia, Mr
Shekhawat departed from written texts to make incisive observations
about global realities and India’s perception of its role in the 21st
century world. I found it remarkable that a man who has only been
regarded as a regional leader from Rajasthan so far, has not stopped
learning while his sharp mind has internalised nuances of
international diplomacy. He was also not squeamish about talking in
Hindi as he could express himself best in his mother tongue. For some
reason, most Indian politicians insist on speaking in English with
dignitaries from non-English speaking nation even though those
leaders communicate in their national language.

The visit was also an eye-opener for me as so little is known about
Belarus and Armenia in India. The two countries are also real studies
in contrast that left me wondering how people as diverse as the two
ever coexisted as part of the same political union. Belarus, for
instance, is aggressively Russian in many ways, language and culture
included.

Besides, it is also firmly anti-West and fearful of the US
instigating an “Orange Revolution” on the lines of Georgia, Ukraine
and Kyrghyzstan. It’s President, George Lukashenko is regarded as a
tough, Soviet-era administrator, unsympathetic to the need for
political reform. On a visit to their Senate building, the upper
House Speaker bluntly told us that people in his country were opposed
to “disruptive” Opposition antics as a result of which they had
elected just one such candidate to the 64-member Senate! But Belarus
is prospering and its buoyant economy appears to be a guarantee
against the “disruptive” Opposition making any electoral headway in
the foreseeable future.

Armenia, on the other hand, is relatively poor and decidedly
non-Russian. I hardly spotted any signboard in the Russian script,
neither do major buildings in its picturesque capital city of Yerevan
sport a Soviet appearance unlike structures in Minsk. On a hill
overlooking Yerevan there used to be a gigantic statue of Stalin,
which has now been replaced with a huge stone structure representing
Mother Armenia.

Incidentally, Armenia is among the few countries in the world that
unambiguously supports the Indian position on Jammu and Kashmir.
Their logic is simple: Armenia is encircled by Muslim republics
Azerbaijan and Turkey, while Muslim-dominated regions of the Russian
Federation, like Ossetia, Ingushetia, Dagestan and Chechnya are also
among its neighbours. Armenians were subjected to one of the world’s
worst genocide by the Turks and Turkey retains its control over Mount
Ararat, worshipped by the Armenians as holy. It is on Mount Ararat
that Noah’s Arc is believed to have rested during the Biblical
floods.

Armenia has also been feuding with neighbour Azerbaijan for
legitimising its occupation of the Christian-majority region of
Nagorno-Karabakh, a claim the Azeris hotly dispute. Unwilling to
offend Islamic sentiment, India maintains an ambivalent position on
the Armenian occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is good enough for
Armenia.

India says it does not want to lose leverage with Islamic rebels in
the region and the proactive albeit outgoing Indian Ambassador to
Armenia paid a hush-hush visit to Chechnya last year to plead with
Chechen terrorist chief Basayev (architect of the Beslan massacre of
350 schoolchildren) to restrain militant Chechens from joining the
Pak-sponsored jehad in Kashmir. This piece of information came as a
shock to me since I had always believed India never supped with
global terrorist chieftains. Basayev has probably killed as many
innocents as Osama bin Laden, apart from running a viciously violent
terror campaign against friendly Russia.

A rather fascinating facet of Armenia is its quaint, orthodox version
of Christianity. Armenians are proud of being the world’s first
Christian community and their Church predates all others, including
the Russian Orthodox whose teachings they consider dangerously
liberal.

Yet, the Armenian variant of Christianity is remarkably tolerant in
its approach to other faiths. During a visit to their equivalent of
the Vatican where the Armenian Pope (currently Karegin II) resides,
we were taken on a guided tour of the original church beneath which
lay an ancient pagan fire temple. We were told that Jesus Christ
appeared before priest Gregory in a dream in 301 AD and asked for a
temple to be built at that particular spot. It was only during
renovations as recently as 1958 that ruins of the fire temple were
discovered deep under the church, explaining the choice of the site.

The church authorities decided not only to restore the fire temple
despite its pagan origins but also proudly proclaim this fact to
visitors. Like every other religious order, the Armenian Church is
facing a severe shortage of priests. His Holiness Karegin II lamented
the steady exodus of Armenians from India who once numbered thousands
but have been reduced to a bare 100 now, making it difficult to tend
to rituals in the centuries-old Armenian churches in Kolkata and
Chennai. Shortage of hands is not confined to the religious order:
The Armenian diaspora at 6 million is more the double the country’s 3
million inhabitants today.

I found the Armenians to be a cheerful and jovial people, their women
are undoubtedly among the most beautiful in the world. The
conviviality of their President Robert Kocherian was, thus, very much
in keeping with their national character.

The President entered the imposing meeting room of his official
residence for talks with Vice-President Shekhawat and stumped
everybody by instantly demanding to be introduced to Mr KL Kochhar,
media adviser to the Vice-President. He proceeded to explain that
Kocherian in Armenian meant son of Kocher and so he wanted to
ascertain if there was an Armenian connection to the Indian
delegation. Since our Mr Kochhar had little resemblance to any
European, President Kocherian ended up disappointed!

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress