Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral did not mince words when he reacted to discourse of the British Queen in Pakistan that India and Pakistan should settle their 'historic dispute". He virtually asked tahe British to shut up and mind their business. And he did more. He branded Britain as "a declining power with very little signifcance in world affairs", he said tghe British have "no business to play a role in the Kashmir issue" as they were "responsible for the partition of the country".
The old lady from Buckingham Palace cannot utter a word about what the British government should do in Ireland to sove the fractricidal warfare going on between here subjects. She cannot advise her own countrymen to do this or that. In fact, she could not prevent her own royal family from being the target of public ire. Yet, she is lecctu;ring to India and Pakistan to settle their differences on Kashmir.
Elizabeth II, the Queen of England, is now in India after she had visited Pakistan. She will go to Amritsar and then to Jallianwala Bagh where her grandparents' armymen massacred hundreds of unarmed and innocent people about 70 years ago. The peaceful asssembly at Jallianwala Bagh had no escape routes to run away from the British soliders' bullets. The idea was not to disperse the assembly; but kill the people; that was efficiently accomplished by General O'Dwyer. A self-respecting Sikh, Udham Singh, later avengaed this crime by killing O'Dwyer in England.
Now the Queen of England would visit the spot where her imperial armyk gunned down unarmed people. She will have no remorse - no regret. She seems just a courious visitor, maybe incidentally she will place a wreath and pray for the soulds of the masacred to rest in peace. Understandalbly, there were demands that before Elizabeth II goes to Jallianwala Bagh, she shyld apologise for the massacre. The British Queen would not. Last week, the British High Commissioner to India David Gore-Booth called the suggestion that the Queen of England should apologise for the massacre "preposterous". What emboldens the Queen of Britain to behave so nonchalantly?
In any other country she would not be allowed to visit a place like Jallianwala Bagh without an apology. Here she can and does, because she has a supportive establishment. We have ministers who would openly invite the British back to India under the guise of soliciting foreign investment. This segment of India is the product of Macaulay.
This is the Englishs Queen's supportive audience here. It is Macaulay who gave the British Regime in India the strategy to produce Indians "who will be Indians in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect". After the British left, it is the products of Macaulay who constituted the Indian establishment . They continue to do what Macaulay who constituted the Indian establishment. The continue to do what Macaulay advised the British to do to make the Indians loyal to the British, and disloyal to anything Indian. Our new rulers replace the British and became the "brown sahibs". The Viceregal Palace became Rashtrapathi Bhavan instead of a hospital as Gandhiji wanted. Instead of occupying smaller and simpler accommodation, the Gandhian Congressmen moved into larger bungalows. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehur had a pronounced weakness for advisers who were articulate in English. In fact, Pandit Nehru once told Kenneth Galbaraith, the US
diplomat, that Pand it Nehru would be regarded as the last 'English' Prime Minister of India. Now, the Macaulayan Constituency is all over - in politics, bureaucracy, business and Press and that is why Elizabeths of the British Royalty could thinkl of going to Jallianwala Bagh - ridiculing the suggestions for an apology.
These childern of Macaulay have already started saying Elizabeth II is 'The Queen'. An articulate writer says, "For Indians who are not inhibited by political correctness, there is only one Queen - The Queen; she may no longer be our Queen, but there are few Indians who can truthfully say that she is not the Queen." The Indians whom the writer talks about are the children of Macaulay in India. The English newspapers invariably call her "Queen Elizabeth" without qualifying her as the head of England, as if she is our own Queen. We have retrenched our Maharajas and Maharanis - the Gwalior, Jaipur, Baroda or Thiruvananthapuram Maharaja or Maharani are no more Rajas or Ranis - but Elizabeth is "The Queen" for us.
That is why the British Queen dares to go to Jallianwala Bagh brushing aside the suggestion for an apology. An Indian External Affairs Ministry spokesman rightly asked the British, "If the Germans and Japanese can apologise for their war crimes why not the British? Are the British as superior race? "Yes this is what till the time of Winston Churchill the Englishmen used to claim; only after the Americans, whom the traditional British would not accept as equals, had forged ahead did the British begin to settle for common world citizenship. But they are not willing to climb down from begining our former rulers, thanks mainly to the legacy of Macaulay that still rules the establishment of India.
That is why Gujarl's Cairo speech is important. But the External Affairs Ministry has already said the remarks attributed to the Prime Minister are unfounded, since no official briefing of what the Prime Minister are unfounded, since no official briefing of what the Prime Minister said in Cairo was given out. The Indian Prime Minister cannot tell a formal meeting of Egyptian intellectuals things which he does not mean. But Mr Gujaral has a record of saying the correct things first - and then retract them. He had already retracted once on the British Queen's visit to Jallianwala Bagh. He said she would not visit Jallianwala Bagh but later acquiesced.
Now that, Mr Gujral, you have told her what she and the British deserve to listen, please do not retract. You, undoubtedly, deserve to be congratulated for your Cairo speech; but since you retract after saying the correct thing, one cannot congratulate you till the time for retraction passes. The time for retraction of what Gujaral has so boldly said in Cairo has not lapsed.
If Gujral stands by his Cairo remarks, he should ask the British Queen only one question - "Madam, why don't you advise Tony Blair to settle the Ireland issue".
