Journalism of Courage
It was July 1999 when US President Bill Clinton called up Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and told him about his conversation with Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif, and that he had extracted the commitment from Sharif about withdrawal from Kargil. Clinton kept the phone down, and told his aides about Vajpayee, “this guy is from Missouri big time. He wants to see those boys get off that mountain before he is going to believe any of this”. Missourians are known for their scepticism and Missouri is often called the “Show-Me State”.
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This was quintessential Vajpayee, as narrated by US deputy secretary of state Strobe Talbott in his book Engaging India, during one of his toughest military and diplomatic challenges as Prime Minister. Someone who believed in the maxim of “trust, but verify” in his diplomatic moves.
But Vajpayee was also someone who used the tools of statecraft to get to what he believed was India’s rightful place in the world.
Vajpayee, in his term, made sure that India achieved three of its diplomatic goals — made India a nuclear weapon state, translated that crisis into an opportunity and built a constructive engagement with the US and the western world, and engaged with Pakistan despite cross-border terrorism.
“Vajpayee single-handedly used his powers of persuasion to make the idea of the United States as an ally acceptable in India,” former national security advisor Shiv Shankar Menon, who served as ambassador to China and Pakistan in Vajpayee’s government, says in his book, Choices.
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Immediately after the Pokhran-II nuclear tests, the international opprobrium was expectedly severe. However, what worked was that there was a clear divide within the United Nations Security Council permanent members. While the US, China and UK were critical of India’s nuclear tests, Russia, France and even UK were not in favour of sanctions. This break in ranks of the major powers was skilfully exploited by India’s diplomatic leadership, especially Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh and NSA Brajesh Mishra, to take India out of the winter.
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Vajpayee’s statecraft on China was equally significant. It was only in 2003 during his visit to China that the Chinese agreed to acknowledge India’s sovereignty over Sikkim. During this visit, the Indian government also for the first time recognised the legitimacy that Tibet was Chinese territory in the form of official documents. And, then Vajpayee made a surprise offer to Premier Wen Jiabao to appoint special representatives for border talks and named NSA Mishra as the Indian interlocutor, and the two struck a deal on border talks. The template remains till today
Pakistan remained one of Vajpayee’s diplomatic challenges, from the Kargil conflict to Operation Parakram after the Parliament attack, but it was he who took the initiatives of talking to Pakistan despite cross-border terrorism. Vajpayee’s outreach to the US, China and Pakistan holds key lessons for New Delhi’s current establishment. His skilful use of crisis with the US, post-Pokhran, into an opportunity holds lessons for the Indian diplomatic establishment even as New Delhi navigates the uncertainties under the Trump administration.
