Let off envoy with a “mild” rebuke

Admiration for India was deep in Iraq

Gulf War was costly for India

New Delhi: Unlike many other Arab countries, the former Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein, who cherished good relations with India, played down the Babri Masjid incident in 1992 and let off India’s envoy to Baghdad with a “mild” rebuke, a new book has revealed.

“We expected that there would be large scale demonstrations against us as had happened all over the Gulf. We began to make preparations, thinking that there might even be some violence. We also issued advisories to all Indians to be careful...,” Ranjit Singh Kalha, who was Ambassador to Iraq during the tumultuous years from 1992 to 1994, says.

“However, much to our surprise, nothing actually happened. There were no demonstrations. It seemed nothing had happened,” Kalha says in his new book — ‘The Ultimate Prize’ — which narrates the sordid events in Iraq and the quest by the West to control Iraq’s massive oil wealth.

“At last, on 12th December, a good six days after the event (destruction of the Babri Mosque), I was summoned to the Foreign Office,” for a meeting with a “fairly junior level” Iraqi diplomat, who was “mild.” During the meeting, it was also hinted that this was so as a result of “instructions from the very top,” meaning Saddam.

“Saddam had always been good to India,” Kalha says, adding that Baghdad then went on to issue a “mild” statement on December 14, criticising the pulling down of the mosque and “requested” that it be rebuilt.

“We heard no more after that on the subject,” he says, while hailing the general warmth and feelings of goodwill that the Iraqis had for India.

Iraq “invariably supported” India’s position on Kashmir, he writes, adding that at the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) meetings, Baghdad played a “constructive role.”

“Admiration for India was deep and profound,” he says, noting that what impressed the Iraqis was what India stood for: its ancient civilisation, its technical prowess and its emerging economic strength.

The First Gulf War proved very costly for India. “Not only did India lose a secure source of supply of oil, but had to evacuate nearly 80,000 people by road from Iraq and Kuwait within a short period of three months,” he writes. — PTI