MEA’s talk has scribes reaching for dictionary

MEA’s talk has scribes reaching for dictionary
August 2002

Times of India

On August 5,journalists covering the external affairs ministry noticed a record of sorts: Pakistan did not figure in the briefing. Ever since tensions escalated in early June, they had perfected the art of finding new questions to ask on Pakistan, an ability that is perhaps only surpassed by MEA spokesperson Nirupama Rao’s flair for finding inventive language to describe Pakistan’s perfidy.
Ranging from the well-known “support, sustenance, nurture and nourishment” for terrorism to “pipelines of
terrorism” to literary allusions, her daily briefings have seen a wide and varied linguistic journey.
”Pakistan lives in a looking glass world. If you have read your Alice in Wonderland, you know what that means,” she said (July 29), a reference to Pakistan’s tenuous grasp of reality that she had spoken of earlier.
Pakistan is also accused of “verbal calisthenics”, “verbal jugglery” and playing the “game
of diplomatic
bluff” in its attempt to renege on its commitment to end terrorism. Though the US views Pakistan as an ally in its war against terrorism, for India it is “running with the hares and hunting with the hounds”.
This has revealed Pakistan’s “Janus-faced attitude as one might say, a kind of double-faced, a duplicitous attitude” in dealing with terrorism, a kind of “flip-flop”, an “ambivalent attitude”. The issue gets murkier and resembles a swampy breeding ground because of “the entire reservoir of terrorism that exists on Pakistan’s territory”. Only the dismantling of the terror apparatus could see a “a permanent drying up of
the terror tap”. Such an area lends itself to disease. It has led to “a serious, complex web of terrorism that operates in our region, cells are set up in various parts, these cells hibernate to other parts, they metastasize like cancer”. But the malignancy to a large extent is under Pakistan’s control. It might even be described as a corporate operation. “Pakistan presides over this giant holding company of terrorism...It is the epicentre of terrorism in our region”. Defining all this is “Pakistan’s ...almost Pavlovian hostility towards India”.
Just a fortnight ago, Rao chose to dub a statement from Pakistan as a “terminological inexactitude” (read ‘lie’ in non-diplomatic language) inviting a retort from her Pakistani counterpart, Maj-Gen Rashid Qureshi, to the effect that she was guilty of a “terminological ineptitude”.
Times News Network
New Delhi: On August 5, journalists covering the external affairs ministry noticed a record of sorts: Pakistan did not figure in the briefing. Ever since tensions escalated in early June, they had perfected the art of finding new questions to ask on Pakistan, an ability that is perhaps only surpassed by MEA spokesperson Nirupama Rao’s flair for finding inventive language to describe Pakistan’s perfidy.
Ranging from the well-known “support, sustenance, nurture and nourishment” for terrorism to “pipelines of
terrorism” to literary allusions, her daily briefings have seen a wide and varied linguistic journey.
”Pakistan lives in a looking glass world. If you have read your Alice in Wonderland, you know what that means,” she said (July 29), a reference to Pakistan’s tenuous grasp of reality that she had spoken of earlier.
Pakistan is also accused of “verbal calisthenics”, “verbal jugglery” and playing the “game
of diplomatic
bluff” in its attempt to renege on its commitment to end terrorism. Though the US views Pakistan as an ally in its war against terrorism, for India it is “running with the hares and hunting with the hounds”.
This has revealed Pakistan’s “Janus-faced attitude as one might say, a kind of double-faced, a duplicitous attitude” in dealing with terrorism, a kind of “flip-flop”, an “ambivalent attitude”. The issue gets murkier and resembles a swampy breeding ground because of “the entire reservoir of terrorism that exists on Pakistan’s territory”. Only the dismantling of the terror apparatus could see a “a permanent drying up of
the terror tap”. Such an area lends itself to disease. It has led to “a serious, complex web of terrorism that operates in our region, cells are set up in various parts, these cells hibernate to other parts, they metastasize like cancer”. But the malignancy to a large extent is under Pakistan’s control. It might even be described as a corporate operation. “Pakistan presides over this giant holding company of terrorism...It is the epicentre of terrorism in our region”. Defining all this is “Pakistan’s ...almost Pavlovian hostility towards India”.
Just a fortnight ago, Rao chose to dub a statement from Pakistan as a “terminological inexactitude” (read ‘lie’ in non-diplomatic language) inviting a retort from her Pakistani counterpart, Maj-Gen Rashid Qureshi, to the effect that she was guilty of a “terminological ineptitude”.