SO, WAS VAJPAYEE BEING ‘ANTI-NATIONAL’?
It was summer of 2003. An anecdotal story goes like this. Then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee invited two unlikely fellow travellers late CPM general secretary Harkishan Singh Surjeet and CPI boss AB Bardhan - to his Race Course Road office for a quiet tete-e-tete. To cut a long story short, Vajpayee wanted the comrades’ help in countering American pressure on him to dispatch 20,000 Indian soldiers to Mesopotamia to join the US war against Iraq, a suggestion that was repelling to Vajpayee for many reasons, including the dangerous consequences of Rajiv Gandhi packing off IPKF to fight LTTE in Sri Lanka and the sorry sight of coffins arriving back from Jaffna.
The Communists, who dominated the public and intellectual space those days was the best bet for Vajpayee. The PM requested them to help generate maximum public opinion against India joining the war against Saddam Hussein. Vajpayee had also discussed the issue with other Opposition leaders, including Congress president Sonia Gandhi. The RSS too was on board with Vajpayee. His strategy worked. Soon there was mayhem in the media and uproar in and outside Parliament against New Delhi taking side in the conflict and jeopardising its geopolitical interests in the region. Vajpayee also managed a Lok Sabha resolution deploring the military action by the US-led coalition.
Not just the Americans, his own colleagues (three senior ministers) in the Cabinet Committee on Security and some top media guns were also cajoling Vajpayee to toe the American line. To overcome the CCS, an astute Vajpayee took the issue directly to the Cabinet, where he had majority support and predictably his line was endorsed. In short, he succeeded in building public opinion and political consensus and convinced Bush administration that his hands are tied.
If Vajpayee was at the helm today, how would have he handled Pakistan and Kashmir issue? During his premiership, Vajpayee did not allow vigilantes and hotheads to dictate policies – domestic or foreign. Those days every Indian was a nationalist. No one was required to wear a badge of “nationalism” on her or his sleeves and wars were not fought in television studios. Vajpayee took several steps to improve ties with Islamabad; he authorised talks with even separatists including the Hurriyat while initiating full-scale diplomatic peace process to find a permanent solution to the Kashmir tangle. Signing of the Lahore Declaration, espousing the cause of dialogue and trade relations and inauguration of the historic Delhi-Lahore bus service were among them.
Even after a series of provocations — the Kargil war, hijack of Kathmandu-New Delhi IC814 to Afghanistan and the attack on Indian Parliament – Vajpayee did not abandon the peace process. He held talks with Pervez Musharraf in Agra (the summit though collapsed due also to internal sabotage). He met him again in early 2004 at the SAARC summit in Islamabad. In today’s pseudo nationalistic ecosystem, Vajpayee would have been instantly dubbed as “anti-national”. Last week, Sudheendra Kulkarni, public intellectual and former media adviser to Advani, succinctly summed up the prevailing farcical situation. In a tweet, he asked: “Those who claim monopoly over patriotism must answer: Were Vajpayeeji and Advaniji, who met Hurriyat leaders, also anti-nationals?”
It would be instructive for the “nationalists” and the military brass to know that Vajpayee scuttled attempts to politically radicalise the Army. In his book Kargil: From Surprise to Victory, former Army chief VP Malik has revealed how Vajpayee insulated the military from nationalistic politics. He thwarted attempts by Vishwa Hindu Parishad activists who had arrived at the army headquarters to tie “rakhis” to the soldiers for the successful Kargil operation. Vajpayee also ensured that NDA election posters featuring military chiefs were withdrawn. In today’s contrived nationalism matrix, ultra-right trolls would have mauled him in the social media for his “unpatriotic” acts.
PM Narendra Modi also had started as a peacenik. He had invited his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif, among others, to his swearingin ceremony and in December 2015, Modi made surprise late night stopover in Pakistan to wish Sharif happy birthday as he turned 66. Again, the PM had an unscheduled meet with Sharif in Paris on the sidelines of climate talk. In March 2016, Modi government allowed a 5-member Pakistani team, comprising ISI sleuths, to visit IAF base in Pathankot to probe the audacious attack on it by Pak-based Jaish-e-Mohammed two months before. It was a strange case of the victim allowing the perpetrator to investigate his own role in the crime. Yet, the seemingly anti-national act was condoned by the trolls for obvious reasons.
Kashmir is on the boil and disaffection among the people, especially the youth, is growing at a dangerous pace. The Army chief’s decision to commend an officer accused of tying a Kashmiri to a jeep and using him as a human shield, an act that triggered widespread outrage from civil society, has only amplified the polemics. First time in history, J&K saw BJP in the saddle of power giving rise to hopes that the PDP-BJP coalition government will be able to soothe the frayed psyche of the people and start the dialogue process with all the stakeholders. On the contrary, government reneged on its promises of initiating confidence building measures even as the State is hurtling towards a major crisis. There is growing concern in the civil society that the “buffer” between the moderates and mobsters built over years of quiet diplomacy is disappearing and that the Pakistani handlers are succeeding in its anti-India propaganda.
It is time BJP delinked its political interests from national interest and the Centre ensured that its Kashmir policy is not subservient to Sangh ideology. Nationalistic rhetoric can never solve terror and foreign policy issues. To quote home minister Rajnath Singh, “Vajpayee used to say, neighbours cannot be changed and all out efforts should be made to improve ties with them.” It’s a pithy, time-tested comment and food for thought for the jingoists.
FORMER Army chief VP Malik has revealed how Vajpayee insulated the military from nationalistic politics. He thwarted attempts by VHP activists who had arrived at the army headquarters to tie “rakhis” to the soldiers for the successful Kargil operation. Vajpayee also ensured that NDA election posters featuring military chiefs were withdrawn. In today’s contrived nationalism matrix, ultra-right trolls would have mauled him in the social media for his “unpatriotic” acts.
The author is an independent journalist