PM signs condolence book at US embassy

Manmohan’s gesture echoes what George Bush Sr as US President did in May 1991, at the death of former PM Rajiv Gandhi, when he visited the Indian Embassy in Washington to sign the condolence book.

Even if there had been no such previous parallel, Manmohan would have likely made this gesture today, sources said. Firstly, previous Congress regimes, under Indira Gandhi and Rajiv, had had established relationships with the US when Reagan was President.

Secondly, the Prime Minister also wanted to send an unobtrusive signal today that the Government was not bound by any outside influence as far as its foreign policy was concerned.

External Affairs Minister K. Natwar Singh, who will represent India at the funeral on June 11 in Washington, also visited the US Embassy to sign the book. Considering the large number of VIPs likely to be in Washington at the same time, it is not known whether Natwar would have any formal bilateral meetings. But he is likely to take advantage of the situation to rub shoulders with a number of people.

Sources here said Manmohan’s special gesture was a remembrance of things past, of a time when Indira Gandhi and Reagan set the parameters of a new relationship. The PM clearly intended to prove that despite differences in the nuclear field, India was a reliable partner.

Indira’s successful visit to the US in 1982 (‘‘she charmed Washington,’’ according to former US diplomat and India hand Dennis Kux) was followed in 1985 by Rajiv.

Rajiv’s visit was marked by a pathbreaking US decision to transfer the supercomputer, the Cray XMP-24, to India, to help with weather forecasting.