Hindustan Times (Chandigarh)

His deft foreign policy helped strengthen ties

- Jayanth Jacob

NEWDELHI: When it came to diplomatic matters, Atal Bihari Vapayee was a traditiona­list who held that it wasn’t feasible to radically reshape foreign policy in a short span because it stood on the twin foundation­s of consensus and continuity.

Yet, for Vajpayee, external relations were not cast in an unchanging mould either. He wasn’t risk-averse, but above all, pragmatic and worldly wise.

The risk-taking ability came to the fore when India, with Vajpayee as PM, conducted its second set of nuclear tests in May 1998, almost a quarter of a century after the first. All hell broke loose. Led by the United States, global powers slapped sanctions on India when liberalisa­tion was yet to complete a decade.

“It was the biggest foreign policy crisis in a generation or more. At the end, it was defused. The US and India charted a new course of strategic relationsh­ip a few years from then, “said former foreign secretary Lalit Mansingh.

Many were caught by surprise when Vajpayee first declared that India and the US, the world’s largest and oldest democracie­s, were natural allies. Of course, the Cold War had become history by the time Vajpayee became prime minister. But trusting the Americans had never come naturally to generation­s of Indian leaders.

“The Vajpayee government invented the term ‘natural alliance’ which has been adopted by Prime Minister (Manmohan) Singh’s government ,and American officials,” foreign affairs expert Stephen P Cohen wrote.

In his 2000 address to the US Congress, Vajpayee said India and the US had taken a decisive step away from the past.

“The dawn of the new century has marked a new beginning in our relations,” Vajpayee said.

And he presided over the dawn of the new phase in India’s relationsh­ip with the US.

Dealing with Pakistan was more challengin­g although Vaj- payee consistent­ly maintained that stopping cross-border infiltrati­on and destructio­n of terrorist infrastruc­ture by Pakistan could open the doors for talks. “Talks can take place on all issues, including that of Jammu and Kashmir,” he said.

When he took over as PM, cross-border terrorism was rampant, but much to India’s discomfitu­re, world powers then were not ready to support New Delhi’s contention that Pakistan was sponsoring terror outfits to carry out attacks on India.

Against heavy odds, he sought normalisat­ion of ties with Pakistan, reasoning that one can change friends, but had to live with one’s neighbours.

In 1999, Vajpayee made his historic bus journey to Lahore in a quest for peace. “The partition of our country had caused a wound in our heart, that wound had healed and the mark left by it reminds us that we have to live in harmony with one another”, Vajpayee said at a civic reception in Lahore in February 1999.

Months after that initiative, India fought a limited war to stop Pakistan’s aggression in the Kargil sector of J& K in the summer of the same year. The 2001 Agra summit between Vajpayee and then Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf, too, collapsed in mutual acrimony.

Vajpayee, like present Prime Minister Narenadra Modi, departed from the long-standing hostility towards China of the Rashtriya Swayamseva­k Sangh, the ideologica­l fount of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

As foreign minister in the Janata Party government of 1977-79, Vajpayee began the effort to normalise relations with China that had been held hostage to the 1962 war over a border dispute that persists to this day.

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