In my 2014 homage to Atal Bihari Vajpayee, I started with this ---
Humble Homage to Bharat Ratna Vajpayee
Isey mitane ki sazish karne walo se kahedo
Chingari ka khel kahatarnak hota hae ……..
(Those who are trying to ruin it, must be told that to play with spark (fire) is dangerous.)
(Vajpayee’s illustrious verse addressed to Pakistan)
In 2018-19, the Modi regime gave two occasions to Pakistan to ponder about Vajpayee's warning. --- Surgical strike and Balakot !
Am I really being obsessed about the Pakistani angle ?
In 2018 as soon as the news flashed from Islamabad Shah Mehmood Qureshi will be the new Foreign Minister under Imran Khan, journalists and Indo-Pak watchers in Delhi did not miss the point to recall that on the 'historic and ill-fated' day of November 26, 2008 - the day Mumbai was under siege of 10 Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists, the then Pak Foreign Minister was in India "addressing a joint press conference" with his Indian counterpart Pranab Mukherjee.
In fact, the MEA website still has the record of the statement wherein - to the much embarrassment of the UPA regime - Late Mukherjee had stated:
"In our review today we noted the substantial achievements already have been made in the Fifth Round. To list some of them, the opening of cross LoC trade, the agreement in principle to open the Wagah-Attari route for all permissible items of trade, the opening of Kokhrapar-Munabao rail link for trade in cargo, discussion on modalities of the Kargil-Skardu link".
For his part, Qureshi had said: "In Pakistan today you have a democratic government. And I expect the largest democracy in the world to be supportive to a democratic dispensation in Pakistan.
The political environment of Pakistan today is very positive towards India".
It is altogether a different matter that hours after the media interaction, Lashqar militants including Ajmal Kasab attacked India's commercial capital and killed 166 people, including foreign citizens.
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Celebrated for his pan-India acceptability and a leader with an unblemished image, Atal Behari Vajpayee would be always credited with giving a moderate veneer to BJP's hardline pro-Hindutva image.
His acceptability across the political spectrum and among the minorities always came in good stead for the BJP, he had co-founded with L K Advani, whom critics and opponents often call 'communal and reactionary'.
The founding president of BJP, when it was launched in 1980 after split from the united Janata Party of Seventies, Vajpayee was a perfect foil to his longtime compatriot L K Advani. While Advani has been a forceful speaker with cold logic and argument, Vajpayee, a genius orator was a poetic and persuasive with his characteristic humourous style.
"One big difference between Vajpayee and me was his sense of humour. It always gave me complex....Unke samne mein ek rukha-sukha admi raha (Contrast to his humour, I was always dry)," BJP patriarch L K Advani told me only on December 16 (2014 -- Parliament premises as he walked .... from Lok Sabha to his chamber)
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| Team Vajpayee ! |
A reference to Indo-Pak ties is relevant here especially in the terms of Track-2 diplomacy. How much Pakistanis want it is any body's guess because Pakistani population do not decide these things. Nor their intellectuals.
And Pakistani army always have a vested interest.
Nevertheless, in February 2012, this track – 2 ‘friendship making’ endeavour was again at display when at the end of her five-day trip to Pakistan, the then Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar had candidly said that she was “pleasantly shocked” to see the love that common Pakistanis have for Indians.
I trust her, but what the Congress leaders never said openly that across the border we do not have a country with its army (like India, that is Bharat has). There is an army which owns the country -- and that's the whole trouble.
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| Meira Kumar |
A headline hunter later, Vajpayee often used to say, "I cannot quit politics because nothing is more intoxicating in life than to see your name in morning newspapers".
A person with a graceful taste for things apolitical like poetry and cinema, Vajpayee would be also be remembered for his description of P V Narasimha Rao as a 'karma-yogi' in Parliament while taking a dig at Rao's now famous oneliner: "Not to take decision is also a decision".
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| Friends and Foes |
There is yet another facet for why I would always applaud Vajpayee. His selection of Jaswant Singh as India's chief negotiator with Talbott and later to be foreign minister was truly exemplary.
Jaswant Singh should be given credit, of course besides Vajpayee himself, for taking a “journey” with the American leadership “guided by a sense of power and pride that India is not subservient to anyone and we (US and India) speak as equals”.
(This is something the Team Modi keeps talking these days.)
In the words of Strobe Talbott himself, “Jaswant was as hardheaded and tenacious an advocate for his government’s position as I had ever encountered”.
In his revealing page-turner ‘Engaging India’ where Talbott takes readers to the ‘backstage’ of a most suspenseful diplomatic drama, he has very high opinion of Jaswant Singh and describes him as “pragmatic and recalculating”.
He even distinguished Jaswant and L K Advani saying, “to me differences between him and BJP hardliners like Advani were real, not tactical. Jaswant represented a more sophisticated, less militant, but no less firmly held view of Hindutva”.
Lastly, but never the least -- I cannot forget March 1999. I was less than a year-old journo in Delhi. And I could get photographed with the illustrious Vajpyee. What a moment that was.
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| March 1999, Bharat Ratna Vajpayee and some of us |
My parents loved that snap. One pro-RSS cousin admitted candidly -- he is "jealous". And friends in PTI headquarters whispered --- "yeh naya murga hae "... They meant blueeyed boy !
One economic reporter remarked - "Deewar ke lamba race ka ghora".
And few weeks later - the then boss at 4 Parliament Street obliged me with his one-liner -- "ND is the man for all seasons".
No --- the saddest part of my journalism is -- I did not go much ahead in the organisation. Many senior friends like R C Rajamani later said - "You are a fool to waste such an opportunity". He had quit PTI long before.
The news agency's foremost Jealousy industry started working, and they did pretty well.
Remembering Vajpayee's verses yet again --
Mein bhi rota Aas Paas Jab Koi nahi hota hae (In this deceptive world, only dreams are your own; I do shed tears at times when I am alone, in isolation)".
ends
Unfortunately though the Balakot failed to earn the .
ReplyDeleteModi regime enough Browne points in its foreign affairs within Bharat as it should have been. Opposition was bound to doubt or criticize the strikes as reckless effort. The army and IAF together should have coordinated the the mission and taken enough proofs of the destruction caused. Pakistan knew what really happened that's why there wasn't much denial from across the border. Did anyone question the American marines killing Osama bin Laden ? The body of the terrorist was never shown to the world. The world came to know only after the body was given sea burial. All this while the US president' Barack Obama watched the operation in his White House living room. India too has it's own satellites in orbit to carry out such missions I suppose. - Karm Patil, Maharashtra