‘This secret will perish along with me’

My visit took place in his first term. I did request him to visit India but in his first term that wasn’t possible. So Mrs Clinton came here. I think we were quite happy with the visit. And I believe she was also happy. After that...

• Will you tell me how intense was the pressure on you at that time? Kashmir erupting; crises in Babri Masjid, Charar-e-Sharief; pressure on human rights and proliferation.

The pressure on human rights is very interesting. We used to get a missive every day or every three days from Amnesty International. The answer to that was we had our own human rights commission. And after that Amnesty International just forgot about India.

• But the pressure from America? Don’t test, don’t test?

They have been saying it since Panditji’s time and what is new about it? We didn’t quite oblige, that’s also not new.

• But that is also something on which history has raised a question mark. Is it true that we came close to testing but did not under American pressure?

This is something I have answered several times — this secret will perish along with me. It will never come out of my mouth. Lots of books have been written — all off the mark. Some were written less off, some very much off...You take a decision, you don’t take it in the air. And those characteristics which led to that decision are very important in statecraft. You don’t go about bragging about them or publicising them. I am a believer in confidentiality in politics at a particular level.

• Because that’s a claim Strobe Talbott has just made, in fact, in an interview with me. That American satellites picked up evidence of an impending test. And then Clinton called.

What happened in 1998? There was a blackout?

• He said this time we could not pick it up.

Also Pakistan?

• But that you knew was going to happen.

Their blindness was at least impartial.

• It’s called bipartisan. But he (Talbott) clearly said Clinton called you and when you went to Washington, he came to see you and gave you evidence.

Nobody need give me evidence, I have the evidence myself...It doesn’t make one iota of difference to me whether what I am doing is known to somebody else or not. And I am not so naive as to think you can do these things with perfect confidentiality.

... contd.