The Prithvi launched from the sacred pages of The Washington Post has hit the desired target. Few launches from the American media's shifting sands of coloured prejudice can boast of such perfection in target-spotting. The missile-struck edifice of the Gujral Doctrine, which aspires to herald a velvet arrangement of co-existence in the subcontinent, has not only revealed its nuclear core but let out the hidden energy of Pak-fed paranoia. After all, only the liberal watch dog of Washington can avoid another war in South Asia. Earlier, it was the Post's equally liberal rival in New York who restrained India from Pokharan II. So it is like this: the barbarians who extend their durability through a regulatory diet of enriched uranium have to be restrained by the willing executioner of the globo cop. The veracity of the Post report is rather insignificant in this civilisational context. It is not South Block's clarification that does matter; it is the liberal responsibility of the American media that defines the good and evil in this unipolar world. Truth, by the way, is not worth a bottom corner in page three. But the lie of the State (the Post word for newspages) contributes to the wisdom of the Church (the Post word for editorial pages): ``American strictures on India's nuclear affairs commonly are taken in New Delhi as evidence of a conspiracy to assert American hegemony and keep India from fulfilling its destiny. This is imaginary and far-fetched, and lends itself to shrillness''.

As the Cold War still rages in a section of Third World minds in India, the conspiracy part is rather true. Of imagination and far-fetchedness, such qualities need not be necessarily Indian. The Post story, actually an intelligence leak, is a poor attempt at creative writing. Far-fetched? Imagination recognises no boundaries. Realism sustained by facts is invariably a style adopted exclusively for domestic affairs. Perhaps that may explain why either the Post or the New York Times found the Rattan Sehgal affair, with its obvious US connection, not fit enough to be printed. Rogues in tropical remoteness can be featured only in the language of magical journalism. Funny, the liberal American media which is proud of parading its code of ethics, indulges in an art better practised by the Latin Americans.

A Saddamic interpretation of the superpower's global mandate? No; for you need not be an apologist of the Butcher of Baghdad to identify the US media pretence which echoes the pretence of the White House itself. It has assumed a new dimension since the end of the Cold War. The collapse of the Evil Empire has not only deprived the US of a beguiling enemy. But it has aggravated the lonely superpower's search for new enemies. The crescent worked for a while. China's Big Mac Maoism is too market-oriented to be antagonised. Havana is worth only a few cigars. So seek out new enemies, preferably the ones with a nuclear secret. The media follow the script. It is manifested in the Post's second story which claims that the US intelligence detected the missile movement and American officials promptly reported the matter to the Prime Minister who obviously doesn't know what his Army is upto! There has to be a story after Mobutu. Call it Prithvi or Pokharan. It doesn't matter, as long as India is prepared to ignore it. In matters imaginary, isn't Thomas Pynchon a better read?

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.