The film Airlift is a success. I was bewildered by its attempts to suppress the truth. It seems the director, Raja Krishna Menon, has no idea as to how the Government of India works. There is a deliberate attempt to show the ministry of external affairs (MEA), ministry of civil aviation (MoCA), Air India and Indian embassies in Kuwait, Iraq and Jordan as incompetent and the government as not at all concerned about Indians in Kuwait and Iraq.
The film claims that the government was prodded into discharging its responsibilities by Katyal, the hero in the film. It is obvious that, in order to ensure box-office success, director Raja Menon was prepared to forego ethical norms, and engage in disinformation.
Right at the beginning, we are told Katyal is a creation of the director, based on Mathunny Mathews and H.S. Vedi, who were both based in Kuwait for many years. As joint secretary (Gulf), I have known them. As a matter of fact, the evacuation of 176,000 Indians from Kuwait is a study in teamwork: the government and the Indian community carried out the biggest evacuation by air in history.
On August 2, 1990, the day of the invasion, Katyal telephones MEA from Kuwait and gets through to joint secretary Kohli who explains that as he is not the joint secretary dealing with the Gulf he would ask his colleague who deals with Kuwait to call back. Strangely enough, Katyal continues to deal with Kohli till the end.
In reality, many Indians from Kuwait did get in touch with me. What is mysterious is how Katyal failed to get in touch with the correct official. Of course, there is a purpose: Kohli comes across as incompetent; he waits in the office of the minister for hours to meet him though no joint secretary has to wait for hours to see the minister.
The portrayal of the minister is an exercise in disinformation: the minister tells Kohli that his is a weak coalition government and, as such, he does not want to get involved. Kohli should deal directly with MoCA. Let us look at facts. I.K. Gujral as the minister of external affairs was deeply engaged from the start. He had two concerns, a peaceful resolution of the crisis with Iraq’s withdrawal from Kuwait and the safety of the Indian community.
The reasoning was that if Iraq withdraws, there will be no need for evacuation. India got in touch with some NAM countries and Gujral went to the US to meet secretary of state Baker and UN secretary-general de Cuellar.
It soon became clear that the US wanted a military solution and it was necessary to evacuate Indians. Gujral, accompanied by additional secretary I.P. Khosla, on their way back from US reached Amman in the second week of August. I joined them in Amman.
We proceeded to Baghdad and had a meeting with President Saddam Hussein who offered to facilitate the evacuation. Any suggestion that Government of India was forced into arranging the evacuation by pressure put on it by Katyal or anybody else in Kuwait is absurd. From Baghdad we flew to Kuwait. When we landed, we were told there was an angry crowd of 3,000-4,000 Indians waiting to see Gujral. We went to them and, within four minutes, Gujral made the crowd say Bharat Mata ki Jai.
Ambassador Kamal Bakshi in Baghdad fed hundreds. He was in constant touch with the community. Yet, in the film, Katyal goes to the Indian embassy in Iraq, and the ambassador is unable to attend to the issue.
It is good to encourage patriotism, but is it necessary to paint the government as disengaged when the evacuation was carried out successfully? It is strange that the director never thought of contacting MEA. I asked him about all this in a TV discussion and he had no answer; in another discussion, he told me he was all praise for MEA and Air India. Why did the film give a contrary impression, I asked him? He had no answer.
Right at the beginning, the director should have said that his film was a fictionalised account of the evacuation. Instead, he says, but for the character of Katyal, everything else is based on real events. The Censor Board should have consulted MEA before clearing the film. Raja Krishna Menon cannot take shelter behind patriotism or freedom of expression as he has deliberately misled the public about a matter of national importance. We all know why he did it.
