BBC reality show sees US threatening India

LONDON: In a shocking conclusion to the BBC's unique reality drama, featuring former White House officials trying to head off nuclear war in the sub-continent, the US 'president' threatens India with military force unless it agrees to a stand-still ceasefire.The surprising decision by the BBC's fictional US president, played by former US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, Karl Inderfurth, was broadcast to British audiences on Wednesday night.The 90-minute documentary, The Situation Room, offers a fly-on-the-wall view of White House crisis-management, in the room where every major emergency since the Bay of Pigs has been discussed.The programme is given weight by its heavy-hitter cast of Washington political insiders, including President Bush Senior's former confidante Arnold Kantor; former National Security Council member Robert Oakley; former CIA head Milton Bearden; former Ambassador to India Tom Pickering; Clinton chief of staff John Podesta; Clinton press secretary Joe Lockhart.The programme is thought to be heading for Indian viewers via BBC World, but some India watchers said its extraordinary, even possibly unwarranted conclusion, may not go down well in Delhi.But in an early attempt to forestall both Indian and Pakistani objections, programme producer Susan O'Keeffe, who has worked in Jammu and Kashmir, insisted to this paper that she "believed in the integrity of the programme".She said "a lot of the people I spoke to were Indians" and insisted the BBC "had made a credible attempt at being calm and sensible about the whole thing".As first revealed in this paper, the BBC's self-confessed "plausible, hypothetical scenario" involves an Indo-Pak war in April 2004. After the Indian defence minister is assassinated, Indian troops march on Karachi and a desperate Pakistani president tells the White House he has no choice but to use nuclear weapons.With Podesta revealed to be the only reluctant member of a room full of hawkish Washington insiders, 'President' Inderfurth's men discuss the possible use of B-52 bombers and US ground forces against the Indian Army.The fictional US secretary of state shrugs as he admits the future will be 25 years of bad relations with India.But to balance its actions vis-a-vis India, the Situation Room embarks on a covert operation to take out Lashkar-e-Taiba, something 'President' Inderfurth is urged to offer to India as the price of ceasefire and withdrawal from Pakistan.The documentary is said by some to mark a political coup for the BBC, with its all-star cast and the creation of a new reality docu-drama genre.