The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh (33 page)

Religious extremists in both countries were opposed to this process of normalization. A key objective of the terror attacks that followed, both in Kashmir and in different parts of India, was to ignite communal passions and prevent a meeting of minds between India and Pakistan on Kashmir.

On 29 October 2005, Delhi was rocked by a series of bomb attacks. Crowded markets in Sarojini Nagar and Paharganj were made targets. Dr Singh was in Agartala during the day and was scheduled to spend the night in Kolkata, returning the next day to Delhi. Through that day he had been preoccupied with the revelations from the Volcker Committee report on the oil-for-food scam reported in
The
Hindu.

On the flight to Agartala, Dr Singh read
The
Hindu
report in full and called me into his cabin to discuss the fallout. During lunch he watched a media briefing by Congress spokesperson Ambika Soni on TV. Ambika carefully defended only the Congress party and said that Natwar would speak for himself. Dr Singh viewed this as the party abandoning Natwar. Foreseeing the inevitable, on the flight back from Agartala, he asked me for names of potential foreign ministers. We shortlisted Pranab Mukherjee, Karan Singh and S.M. Krishna for the job. Even as I was putting forward the pros and cons of various names, the SPG chief Bharat Wanchoo came into the cabin with the news of bomb blasts in Delhi.

On hearing the news, Dr Singh decided that we would fly directly to Delhi, with only a technical halt at Kolkata airport. That night he made an extempore statement on television linking the blasts to a deliberate attempt to spread disaffection among communities during the forthcoming festival season. After every such terror attack the priority was to prevent communal conflict. He wanted to ensure that what had happened in Godhra in 2002 would never happen again.

On this score, the government succeeded. However, such terror attacks did manage to stall and delay the process of normalization of India-Pakistan relations. Each time the process was disrupted, Dr Singh would try and pick up the threads and move forward after a decent interval. In March 2006, a year after his initial efforts with Musharraf and after the impact of the Delhi blasts had been politically absorbed, and when many had assumed the Kashmir agenda was off the PM’s table, Dr Singh tried again.

Addressing a huge public rally in Amritsar, Dr Singh spoke in Punjabi. It was intended that his speech, telecast live from Amritsar, should be heard loud and clear in Lahore. While Dr Singh was addressing the rally, I was in Delhi ensuring that all national TV channels were relaying the speech live and reporting the key messages. Delivering his boldest speech to date on the issue of Kashmir and India-Pakistan relations, and that too in Punjabi and at a mass rally, Dr Singh said that both sides should begin a dialogue with people in their respective ‘areas of control to improve the quality of governance so as to give the people on both sides a greater chance of leading a life of dignity and self-respect’. He then went on to add:

I have often said that borders cannot be redrawn but we can work towards making them irrelevant—towards making them just lines on a map. People on both sides of the LoC should be able to move more freely and trade with one another. I also envisage a situation where the two parts of Jammu and Kashmir can, with the active encouragement of the governments of India and Pakistan, work out cooperative, consultative mechanisms so as to maximize the gains of cooperation in solving problems of social and economic development of the region.

 

This was the clearest exposition of the Manmohan-Musharraf formula ever made by Dr Singh himself. The statement was heard around the world. By the time the two leaders met again, in Havana in September 2006, on the sidelines of the summit of the Non-Aligned Movement, the bilateral engagement process had survived more terror attacks, the most recent one being in Mumbai in July 2006.

 

 

Arriving in Havana on the afternoon of 14 September 2006, both Pulok and I stepped out of the hotel in search of Cuban cigars. After walking through several narrow lanes we discovered the Havana black market for Cohibas. The price a foreigner has to pay for a cigar in a government shop in Havana was no different from what duty-free shops in Europe charge. But in the back alleys of Havana one could get the genuine stuff for a tenth of that price. We could have asked the Indian ambassador to get us a box of cigars but we chose to be adventurous. Laden with our loot of low-cost Cohibas we went to El Floridita, Ernest Hemingway’s favourite bar, for mojitos. After imbibing several rounds with Indian journalists who had accompanied the PM to Cuba, Pulok and I returned to our hotel.

As I entered the lobby, an SPG officer informed me that the PM wanted to see me. I rushed to my room, brushed my teeth, dabbed some cologne and went to his suite. He was seated there with Narayanan and Shivshankar Menon.

Dr Singh showed me a draft joint statement that he and Musharraf would issue the next day after their meeting. Shivshankar had drafted the statement along with his counterparts in the Pakistan foreign office and had brought it from Islamabad to the PM for his approval. I read through the text. The draft proposed a bilateral ‘anti-terrorism institutional mechanism to identify and implement counter-terrorism initiatives and investigations’.

‘What do you think will be the reaction at home to this idea?’ Dr Singh asked me. It seemed to me that the three had already discussed this at length and there was a difference of opinion between Narayanan and Shivshankar. Narayanan looked serious and glum, always a bad sign. Shivshankar, smooth and seasoned diplomat that he was, revealed no emotion. Clearly this was his draft and Narayanan had reservations about it. I knew I had been summoned to take sides and tilt the balance in the direction the PM wanted.

The BJP would criticize it, I told him, but the Congress party and the Left would back him. He needed their support to be able to move forward on other fronts. Senior Congress leaders remained divided on Dr Singh’s policy towards Pakistan, but he seemed to still have Sonia’s support. There was, however, no doubt that the Left Front fully backed his peace initiatives. Earning occasional praise from the Left was politically useful, especially since they were so critical of his policy towards the US. I assured Dr Singh that we would be able to manage the political fallout. He seemed satisfied with my intervention. He turned to Menon and instructed him to go ahead and finalize the joint statement with his Pakistani counterparts. Narayanan was by now looking very unhappy.

As we all walked out of the room Narayanan grabbed my hand firmly and said, ‘You have stabbed me in the back!’

‘Not true,’ I said calmly and with a smile, not wanting to appear intimidated. ‘I disagreed with you in your presence. You can of course accuse me of stabbing you in the front.’ The mojito was still working.

 

 

Dr Singh met Musharraf at a villa that had been made available by the Cubans for this summit meeting. Musharraf, like so many other heads of government, usually appeared more relaxed and socially at ease than Dr Singh. In Havana, however, both seemed at ease and struck up a conversation between themselves while members of both delegations stood and watched. Suddenly, as if it was preplanned, the two walked together into an adjacent room and the SPG closed the door. Pakistan’s foreign minister Khurshid Kasuri and Narayanan looked at each other in bewilderment. It was obvious that they had been kept out. While Narayanan remained standing where he was, Kasuri walked briskly to the door of the adjacent room. The SPG guard told him that he had been instructed not to let anyone in.

The two delegations then sat down for tea and biscuits. Indian and Pakistani officials get along famously in such settings. There are always many subjects to talk about. Cricket, Bollywood, the latest fancy restaurant in Lahore or Delhi that serves the best kebabs or biryani, the welfare of common friends and their children. For almost an hour Dr Singh and Musharraf were closeted in that room, while the two delegations socialized. Narayanan’s discomfiture was palpable but Kasuri, who knew who the boss was, had regained his poise and now seemed utterly indifferent.

The idea of a joint terror mechanism came in for considerable criticism, especially from the BJP. I had to devote considerable time to ensuring that the media backed the PM, especially because several retired diplomats and members of India’s intelligence and security agencies issued a statement criticizing the PM. Quiet conversations with a few editors and hinting to them that this was the beginning of a more substantial movement forward with Pakistan helped.

The joint statement had gone further than any until then in setting out the agenda for bilateral talks and agreements. Importantly, it called for an ‘early solution of the Siachen issue’ and for an agreement between ‘experts’ ‘on coordinates for a joint survey of Sir Creek and adjoining area, without prejudice to each other’s position on the issue’. It said, ‘The Survey should commence in November 2006. The experts should start discussions on the maritime boundary.’ Sir Creek is a disputed strip of water in the Rann of Kutch.

The two sides also agreed to ‘facilitate implementation of agreements and understandings already reached’ on confidence-building measures relating to the LoC between India and Pakistan in Jammu and Kashmir, ‘including bus services, crossing points and truck service’.

 

 

On 20 December, Dr Singh went back to Amritsar to address yet another public meeting. He spoke again in Punjabi and explained at length how he had been trying to improve relations with Pakistan because the ‘destinies of the two nations are linked’. He did not want India to be weighed down by the past but think of its future and move forward. He then made bold to talk of ‘his’ vision, a rare personalization of policy by the reticent Dr Singh.

I too have a vision regarding India and Pakistan. I earnestly hope that the relations between our two countries become so friendly and that we generate such an atmosphere of trust between each other that the two nations would be able to agree on a Treaty of Peace, Security and Friendship . . . I am sure that we can overcome all hurdles in our path and realize such a Treaty. This will become the instrument for realizing our collective destiny and the basis for enduring peace and prosperity in the region.

 

After Indira Gandhi met Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in Shimla in 1972, this was the first time an Indian prime minister had taken the step of offering a treaty of peace, friendship and security to Pakistan. Events, however, overtook the two leaders. Musharraf found himself embroiled in domestic political trouble. His problems with Pakistan’s judiciary threw that country into turmoil by the first quarter of 2007. Musharraf’s regime became weaker, making Dr Singh cautious. By mid-2007, the bilateral process he had initiated came to a grinding halt as Musharraf’s political stock went down.