The Rediff Special /Chitra Subramaniam

The issue at hand required that India join hands with all, even criminals, because it was confronted with the mother of all criminals -- Pakistan

To make matter worse, Mr Voyager refused to sit next to the Loin, rendering the Kashmir problem an excruciating one for the protocol-ridden diplomacy. At the UNHRC, countries are given two places at the desk and two behind. The ambassador found a way out. The early-rising Mr Voyager would come for the morning sessions. The late-rising Loin would come for the afternoon sessions beginning at 3 pm. That way everybody would be happy. And seated.

Even Mrs Ainowitall was up to date with all these intricacies of the Kashmir problem. For her dinner, she had not invited the BJP leader because he didn't eat meat and the ambassador from Togo didn't eat vegetables. The problem was solved. To secure Togo's vote, Mr Voyager stayed back in his hotel room that evening eating dal and rice sent by a Geneva-based arms dealer who, by this time, had also been roped into the act because of his self-proclaimed connections with Iran, Sweden and South Africa, three geographically diverse but critical countries. This was serious business, India stressed.

He may be an arm dealer who had robbed the nation of millions and India's Central Bureau of Investigation had called him a criminal in Swiss courts, but this was not the time for petty haggling. The issue at hand required that India join hands with all, even criminals, because it was confronted with the mother of all criminals -- Pakistan. Journalists who raised the issue were not invited to official dinners and drinking sessions.

The Loin and New Delhi had no time to lose. The Loin ordered that it be ensured immediately that portable telephones carried by the now 83 members of the Indian team were working. Then he ordered that each of them be given a digital dairy so that they could look up and call any number in a jiffy. The arms dealer obliged.

And as the save Kashmir delegation haggled over who got to eat what and who went to Gstaad with the Loin, Pakistan devoted all its time and energy to clinching votes. It unleashed 'Operation Laptop' which comprised sending pretty young things to sit on the laps of potential voters with a view to securing their vote. The ambassador from Togo had been struck by a laptop. Suddenly, beautiful laptops sprung out of the woodwork. Pakistan had struck once again.

India hit back. Its answer to the laptops was the 'wailing brigade' who could double up as the 'raped brigade'. They took their roles very seriously. Some of them rolled on the floor reconstituting a rape, while others slammed their foreheads with their fists simulating the death of a son, father or brother. It was all very subtle.

The women recounted, through heavily mascaraed eyes, the ignominy of being raped by a 'tarrorist' till someone pointed out to one of them that being raped by a non-terrorist was equally harrowing. These women had a special propensity to wail in front of Western diplomats who, caught between a laptop and a wail, preferred a beer. Pakistan spoke about Indian terrorism and self-determination; India pitched for secularism and humanism.

India finally unleashed its secret weapon -- the secular humanist. The secular humanist's role was to give the white man a bad conscience by moralising about Bosnia, Afghanistan, Burundi, Chile, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc. The secular humanist's job was to confuse. The secular humanist stood for nothing and everything and could argue for and against everything. The secular humanist was neither a communist nor a capitalist but the uneasy part was that he -- it was always a he -- looked like you and me and, before you knew it, could convince you that the Kashmiri question is a Pakistani creation.

Excerpted from India Is For Sale, by Chitra Subramaniam, UBS, 1997, Rs 250, with the publisher's permission. Readers who wish to buy a copy of the book may direct their inquiries to Mr H S Sethi, UBS, Apeejay Chambers, Wallace Street, Fort, Bombay 400 001.

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