THE HINDU Editorial Vocabulary - March 19, 2018 - Topic 1

Dangerous spiral: on India-Pak diplomatic row

Regardless of the provocation or the sequence of events, there is an urgent need for India and Pakistan to address allegations of harassment of each other’s diplomats and interference in High Commission work. While surveillance of diplomats by intelligence agencies in New Delhi and Islamabad is not new, matters have escalated in the past month, and the treatment of diplomatic officials by both sides has dropped to new lows. 

The spark for this round of ‘tit-for-tat’ actions appears to be an incident in February, when alleged ISI agents roughed up Pakistani construction workers headed for the Indian mission’s new building site in Islamabad. While Pakistan’s foreign office claimed they did not have security clearance to enter the diplomatic zone, India saw it as an attempt to stop the work, adding that power and water connections were tampered with. Then, the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi claimed that Indian security personnel warned repairmen and electricians against entering its premises. Both missions said personnel were being targeted on the road, with cars stopped and drivers intimidated. Other instances on both sides include obscene phone calls, stoppage of milk and newspaper delivery to diplomats, and even 3 a.m. doorbell rings.

The timing is clearly more than just coincidence, and the incidents mark a deliberate policy by India and Pakistan to give their intelligence agencies a carte blanche to target the other side. It is unfortunate that things have come to such a pass, weeks after the two countries agreed to humanitarian measures for prisoners, with Pakistan Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif accepting External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj’s proposals on the issue. The allegations of harassment are more serious than just shadow-boxing, and must be checked in order to avoid a further slippage in ties. They constitute technical violations of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (1961) and the subsequent Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (1963), which clearly state that a diplomatic agent’s person, premises and property are inviolable and must be respected and protected by the “receiving state”. The fear is that as a next step in this spiral, India and Pakistan may even take stronger measures, including sending back diplomats or scaling down their missions. India had declared Islamabad a non-family post in the wake of the terror attack on an army school in Peshawar; Pakistan may now follow suit by withdrawing its families from Delhi. At a time when bilateral dialogue has been stalled for years, and ceasefire violations are becoming the norm on the Line of Control, any escalation will impact the few lines of communication that remain. Cooler counsel must prevail.

Vocabulary

Provocation: action or speech that makes someone annoyed or angry, especially deliberately.

Example: You should remain calm and not respond to provocation

Synonyms: goading, prodding, egging on, incitement, pressure, annoyance

Sequence: a particular order in which related events, movements, or things follow each other.

Example: The content of the program should follow a logical sequence

Synonyms: succession, order, course, series, chain, train, string

Escalate: increase rapidly.

Example: The price of tickets escalated

Synonyms: increase rapidly, soar, rocket, shoot up, mount, spiral

Antonyms: de-escalate, step down, weaken

Harassment: aggressive pressure or intimidation.

Example: They face daily harassment by the police

Synonyms: persecution, intimidation, pressure, force, coercion, hassle

Roughed: work or shape something in a rough, preliminary fashion.

Example: Flat surfaces of wood are roughed down

Synonyms: bumpy, approximative, rough, pugnacious

Antonyms: undulate, untoothed, even-textured, easy, nonaggressive

Clearance: clear space allowed for a thing to move past or under another.

Always give cyclists plenty of clearance

Synonyms: space, room, room to spare, margin, leeway

Tamper: interfere with something in order to cause damage or make unauthorized alterations.

Example: Someone tampered with the brakes on my car

Synonyms: interfere with, monkey around with, meddle with, tinker with

Intimidate: frighten or overawe someone, especially in order to make them do what one wants.

Example: He tries to intimidate his rivals

Synonyms: frighten, menace, terrify, scare, terrorize, cow, dragoon

Coincidence: a remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances without apparent causal connection.

Example: It's no coincidence that this new burst of innovation has occurred in the free nations

Synonyms: accident, chance, serendipity, fortuity, providence

Antonyms: disagreement, disproportion, dissimilarity, incongruity

Deliberate: done consciously and intentionally.

Example: A deliberate attempt to provoke conflict

Synonyms: intentional, calculated, conscious, intended, planned

Antonyms: unintended, hurried

Allegation: a claim or assertion that someone has done something illegal or wrong, typically one made without proof.

Example: He made allegations of corruption against the administration

Synonyms: claim, assertion, charge, accusation, declaration, statement

Protect: keep safe from harm or injury.

Example: He tried to protect Kelly from the attack

Synonyms: keep safe, keep from harm, save, safeguard, preserve

Withdraw: remove or take away something from a particular place or position.

Example: Slowly Ruth withdrew her hand from his

Synonyms: remove, extract, pull out, take out, take back, take away

Antonyms: bank, deposit

Violation: the action of violating someone or something.

Example: The aircraft were in violation of UN resolutions

Synonyms: ravishment, violation, misdemeanor, irreverence

Ceasefire: a temporary suspension of fighting, typically one during which peace talks take place; a truce.

Example: War with people who break their ceasefire agreements is the default position.

Prevail: prove more powerful than opposing forces; be victorious.

Example: It is hard for logic to prevail over emotion

Synonyms: win, win out/through, triumph, be victorious, carry the day

Antonyms: be defeated, come short, fail, fall short