On Kargil: ‘Atal Bihari Vajpayee inclined to accept Pakistan army took Sharif for a ride’

Atal Bihari Vajpayee with missile man Abdul Kalam. (Express Archive)

Atal Bihari Vajpayee was inclined to accept that it was not the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif, who was responsible for the Kargil infiltration and war in 1999, but that Sharif was been “taken for a ride” by the Pakistani army. Also, Vajpayee was aware of the limits of being a nuclear power and did not want to open another front against Pakistan as it would have led to “major problems”, according to Shakti Sinha, who was Vajpayee’s private secretary during his two stints as PM, working with him from 1996 to November 1999. Sinha is now director of Nehru Memorial Museum and Library.

Speaking to The Indian Express, Sinha said that Vajpayee was “deeply hurt” “by Kargil, by Pakistani Army”, and “was inclined to accept the fact that Sharif was taken for a ride by the Pakistani Army”. He said that Vajpayee was “very clear that now that India was a nuclear power”, even though Pakistan was the aggressor and entered Indian territory, “we will not extend the battlefield elsewhere”. Vajpayee decided that India must “engage the Pakistani army only where they entered Indian territory”, said Sinha.

The restraint India showed, Sinha said, paid off internationally, “because every major power afterwards respected India for this very responsible behaviour”.