Brezhnev in India

Romesh Thapar IT is Ironic that a handful of Afghan students were able to upset the calculations of the Soviet security system which was literally in command of the Capital during the Brezhnev visit. The grand motorcade from the airport to Rashtra- pati Bhavan was abandoned and there was a low-postured getaway. Small wonder that Indira Gandhi is thinking- of using helicopters. Of course, no one has calculated the cost of the inane preparations, including the fully paid, advertised build-up of Indo-Soviet relations in the newspapers, Reading the cliches of the so-called joint Protocols, one is tempted to ask what the visit was about. Certainly, it had nothing to do with explaining the Soviet position on Afghanistan, despite the brave attempts of the Indian side to show that it doesn't really accept the foreign interference in the region. As for China, there is little that the men from Moscow could possibly tell us. Beijing is an enigma for all. Maybe, we had a few things to say about South and South-East Asian sentiment on the Afghani and Persian Gulf situations, but not anything which we could not have communicated through the diplomatic post. If Pakistan became an issue, it must have been because of Morarji Desai's revelations about Brezhnev's 'advice'