CAPITAL VIEW- The Soviet Lobby

Romesh Thapar THE Soviet lobby has wrought haveo with the foreign policy of India, so carefully nurtured by Jawaharlal Nehru and Krishna Menon, and developed in the early years of Indira Gandhi by P N Haksar. We now have the dubious distinction of being the only non-aligned nation which has attempted a cynical geo-political rationalisation of the Soviet occupation of our traditional ally, Afghanistan, and also blessed with diplomatic recognition the puppet regime of the Vietnamese in Kampuchea, making clear to Asia that we intend to keep in step with the calculations of the Kremlin. The Soviet lobby has worked skilfully within the Foreign Office and outside, bringing all manner of influences to bear on Indira Gandhi who seldom sees policy-making separately from political manipulation. There is no doubt that, broadly, the country has swallowed the lobbying because it has been led to believe that Pakistan is being broken to size, that the Soviet Union will take care of this wretched incendiary. No analysis could be more empty of content.