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past folly: Atal Bihari Vajpayee with the U.S. Senate leadership at Capitol Hill in Washington (U.S.A) on November 8, 2001
of the BBC was herself in occupation of the terrace of Amman’s
Intercontinental Hotel watching her Arab staff count their worry
beads, waiting for the American flag to be fluttering over all of
Iraq.
Were this to happen, Tyagi would helicopter into Baghdad’s
Green Zone and offer his credentials to Bremer or his Iraqi
nominee.
Just imagine, New Delhi was all but ready to open its embassy
with the American occupiers of a country which had given
unstinted support to India always, particularly against Pakistani
machinations at the UN.
This being the state of affairs, who could blame the US for being
so confident of India’s enthusiastic willingness to partner them
and take charge of Kurdish Iraq. It had very nearly happened, had
Vajpayee not decided to show spine - just in the nick of time.
He kept his head while those around him were losing theirs.
On April 9, American marines brought down Saddam Hussain’s
statue and exactly the media which is lined up behind Hillary
Clinton attributed the statue’s fall to popular rage.
Vajpayee kept his counsel. On April 18, he turned up in
Srinagar. Remember, the armies of India and Pakistan were in an
eye-ball to eye-ball confrontation after the December 13, 2001
terror attack on Indian Parliament.
The fall of Saddam’s statue had registered differently with
Vajpayee - this scale of Western triumphalism was a source
of anxiety for him. An “awesome” power has arisen. In the
new situation, regional quarrels had to be composed, he said.
Dramatically, he extended his hand of peace to Pakistan.This
was the beginning of the process which led to India and Pakistan
signing an agreement in Islamabad on January 4, 2004 that
forbids the use of a country’s territory for cross-border terrorism.
The word was not kept by Pakistan, but that is another story.
The “Shining India” campaign mounted by the BJP recoiled on
it during the May 2004 elections. But for India-Pakistan relations,
it was an unfortunate turn. When Vajpayee became the External
Affairs Minister in the 1977 Janata government, he had made up
his mind on Pakistan: “We cannot change our neighbours.”
Among his first foreign visits was to Pakistan in February 1978.
The bus journey to Lahore in February 1999, and the January
2004 visit which resulted in the agreement against cross-border
terrorism, were audacious. But there were reverses.
He was able to cushion the reverses because of his cross-party
stature nationally and his standing with the RSS. But he persisted
because he had grasped the triangle in which the country had
trapped itself since 1947 - Srinagar-New Delhi, India-Pakistan,
Hindu-Muslim are one complex of issues. Unless a holistic view
is taken of this triangle to outline suitable policy, eternal social
strife would remain the nation’s lot.
Vajpayee had the vision to pull India back from the brink on
Iraq. Just imagine, what would have been our fate had ships
carrying Indian troops actually set sail.
The troop build-up against Pakistan after the Parliament attack
was also a calculated move. The sole superpower was in place to
pull the protagonists back from the brink. It is just as well that
neither Russia and China (nor the US) paid much credence to the
“surgical strikes”. In the absence of an overarching superpower,
real “surgical strikes” may cause the situation to spiral out of
control.
(Author is a senior commentator on political and diplomatic
affairs. Views expressed in the article are completely personal)
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November 16-30, 2016 The Dayafter
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