Author: Swapan Dasgupta
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: March 31, 2008
India is not blessed with a book culture;
nor do Hindus (as the Arab traveller Alberuni complained a thousand years
ago) have an evolved sense of history. Given these inherent limitations, it
was audacious of a serving politician like LK Advani to try and break the
mould with his autobiography, My Country, My Life.
Of course, public figures who are still at
the crease cannot be expected to tell all. Mahatma Gandhi's The Story of My
Experiments with Truth and Jawaharlal Nehru's Autobiography, both written
and published well before their authors were anywhere near completing their
innings, combined reminiscences with political statements. This meant that
the stories of very interesting lives were tempered with measured candidness.
Gandhiji, for example, never spelt out the acrimonious debates in the Congress
over his rise to the top. Instead, in the final chapter on the India of the
early-1920s, he fell back on the assertion that "My life from this point
onward has been so public that there is hardly anything about it that people
do not know..."
Compared to the Mahatma's masterly evasion,
Advani has been remarkably forthcoming. He may have not told the entire story
of his political life but he has narrated enough for future historians to
pick up the threads. More important, Advani has given a very clear sense of
his feelings at the time. An autobiography is not a diary that records life
on a daily basis. It is made up of broad brush strokes that highlights features
considered important and relevant by the author at the time of written. As
someone who has interacted with him very closely since the Ram rathyatra of
1990, I can honestly say that Advani has faithfully narrated the course of
politics as he perceived it. There may have been omissions of detail but there
have been no distortions. Advani is one of those rare politicians who is naturally
transparent about his thoughts and feelings, and this transparency comes through
in the 900 pages of narrative. His shrewdness as a political strategist has
never been at the cost of his innate intellectual honesty.
Given the temperament of the author, it was
only natural that the autobiography was guaranteed to ruffle a few feathers.
The past fortnight has proved a bonanza for the media in terms of the controversies
the book has generated. Initially, I imagined that passions would be aroused
by what is arguably the most contentious period of his political career --
the Ram Janmabhoomi movement of the 1990s. Curiously, the Ayodhya years have
occasioned little interest -- something that validates Alberuni's observation.
Nor has there been too much fuss about Advani's
account of his controversial trip to Pakistan in the summer of 2005. Regardless
of the passions he aroused at the time, it is now generally accepted that
Advani was totally sincere in wanting to find a way for India and Pakistan
to bury the hatchet.
It is a different matter that he could have
considered the other implications of honing in on Mohammed Ali Jinnah as the
instrument of reconciliation. Yet, the fact that Advani has stuck to his guns
and not done an intellectual summersault has only increased my admiration
of him. Advani, as his autobiography bring out, has never been afraid of original
thinking. He is not afraid of swimming against the tide when convinced of
its necessity.
This is why the kerfuffle over the Kandahar
hijack that has dominated the media space for the past week needs dissection.
That Advani was unhappy at the way the Government responded to the hijack,
particularly the decision to exchange Maulana Masud Azhar and two other terrorists
for the innocent passengers, was known at the time of the incident. Whether
he was party to the decision to send the then External Affairs Minister Jaswant
Singh to Kandahar in the same aircraft as the terrorists or learnt about it
subsequently is an interesting piece of trivia. However, it is only an incidental
detail of a larger question that needs to be addressed: How should India have
reacted and how should it respond to a similar situation in future?
With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear
that the country now believes that the Government erred grievously in succumbing
to the terrorists.
However, at that time, this clarity wasn't
so apparent. Both the Congress (then in opposition) and the liberal media
were clear that the safety of the passengers was paramount. Despite the fact
the hijack took place immediately after the Kargil War and a General Election
victory, the Government lacked the nerve to prepare the country to face all
the consequences of standing up to terrorism unflinchingly. Under the circumstances,
capitulation became the only viable political option.
Yet, the context in which this decision was
taken to swap terrorists for passengers has been forgotten. What remains is
the shame and ignominy of Kandahar. It will haunt India and it will haunt
the BJP. The UPA Government has tacitly taken refuge behind the shield of
Kandahar to avoid carrying out the Supreme Court judgment on Afzal Guru.
Advani has taken an important step in distancing
himself from the shameful capitulation in Kandahar. That, unfortunately, isn't
enough. It is necessary for him to take advantage of the renewed interest
in the subject to propose a policy that will make it impossible for another
Kandahar to recur. In short, the BJP as a whole must admit that it erred in
1999 and assure the nation that no Government in future will repeat that mistake.
A counter-terrorism code which identifies a bottom line for dealing with a
hostage crisis is not only necessary but imperative if India is to profit
from a post-mortem of the Kandahar hijack.
Unless India learns from its own history,
it is condemned to repeat it.
