On December 24, 1999, IC-814 was en route from Kathmandu to New Delhi when armed gunmen aboard Airbus A300 hijacked the aircraft with 176 passengers on board, and flew it to Amritsar, Lahore, Dubai and then on to Taliban-held Kandahar.
It took another seven days for one of the biggest crises faced by the Atal Behari Vajpayee government to be resolved. But the blot on the Vajpayee government’s befuddled handling of the crisis remains to this day, stemming as it did from a series of avoidable missteps.
One, the Vajpayee government seemed at sixes and sevens when the plane sat on the tarmac in Amritsar for hours, with no communication from the Prime Minister’s Office, before it was mystifyingly allowed to leave Indian airspace and fly to Lahore. If that wasn’t enough of a strategic blunder, Delhi then openly signalled to Dubai mediators that it was willing to trade three Pakistani terrorists held in Indian jails for the safety of the passengers.
Most interestingly, in what many see as the internal rivalries that could foreshadow the incoming Modi sarkar, deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani was out of the loop. He had no idea his Cabinet colleague and then foreign minister Jaswant Singh would be escorting Maulana Masood Azhar, Ahmed Omar Saeed Shaikh and Mushtaq Zargar to Kandahar — the dreaded terror trio who went on to perpetrate 9/11, the Mumbai terror attacks and the decapitation in Karachi of Mumbai-based journalist for the Wall Street Journal, Daniel Pearl.
By the time you read this, India could have its 11th non-Gandhi Prime Minister in Narendra Modi, the Gujarat chief minister who has become bigger than his party’s clutch of wannabe shadow Prime Ministers, and who looks all set to leave his imprint on a BJP-led government that could take office as early as May 24. As the eyes of the nation focus on who will be part of Team Modi, the man — or woman — he picks for his foreign minister could have huge implications on India’s place in the comity of nations. Regional power? Or new Asian superpower?
Crises like Kandahar and, to a lesser extent, the attack on India’s Parliament, as well as Kargil tested the only other BJP government the country has had until now. Despite the mixed success of the Lahore and Agra summits, it was found wanting.
Given Mr Modi’s inexperience in dealing with matters of strategic interest and the challenges posed by our neigh-bourhood, his pointperson in the ministry of external affairs will, therefore, be critical. Not only must he pick a man who can ensure that in the first few weeks of the fledgling Modi administration no crisis erupts, but equally, that the posturing and chest-thumping of the election campaign where Pakistan was routinely attacked, remains just that — electoral rhetoric that will not be carried forward into government-backed cross-border raids or any other mad schemes thought up by ex-generals with a point to prove.
The limitations of prime ministerial office, and the almost collegial manner in which Mr Modi summoned his quartet of advisers to Gandhinagar this week, signals he may not turn into trigger-happy Quick Gun Murugan just yet.
Under the right advice, Mr Modi, whose popularity stems from his track record of transforming his home state of Gujarat, and the promise he holds out of replicating the Gujarat model into far-reaching domestic reforms that will promote sustainable growth and bring in a higher standard of living for the aspirational poor and lower middle class, could shed his warlike electoral avatar, and even meet a “pro-business with India” leader like Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif halfway.
Except, given the manner in which the BJP as an Opposition party made it difficult for the Manmohan Singh government to move forward on peace with Pakistan, no one’s holding their breath.
The fact is India, a status quo power, gains little from stirring the pot and pushing to resolve as intractable a problem as Kashmir. It would be better for Mr Modi — and India — to put Pakistan and China on hold until he finds his international feet. Be it Sushma Swaraj, Ravi Shankar Prasad or Arun Jaitley, who are being looked at for the post of finance minister, whoever makes it to South Block (to be reinvented as the ministry of foreign affairs and trade), will be Mr Modi’s key interface with the world.
Mr Sharif, stymied as Pakistan Premier because of a long-running battle with his own hand-picked Army Chief over the fate of former President Pervez Musharraf, and his avowed pro-India tilt, has long believed that a hawk like Mr Modi, with his big business leanings and despite his “Pakistan sponsors terror” line may be worth befriending. Within weeks of taking over, Mr Modi, astride the lumbering elephant that is new India, will get a chance to interact with the full complement of international leaders. It will start with the Brics Summit in Brazil in July where he will meet Russia’s muscle-flexing President Vladimir Putin, and the Chinese President Xi Jinping for the first time. Both leaders want to visit India.
A bilateral visit to Japan, India’s key ally in East Asia, is also on the cards, while Mr Sharif is hoping for a face to face meeting to break the ice on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in September. Whether Mr Modi continues with the tradition started by his own party and inducts a national security adviser, be it Satish Chan-dra, Kanwal Sibal or Hardeep Puri, is the other question. No NSA, and that includes former diplomat-turned-politico Brajesh Mishra who all but ran Vajpayee’s PMO, has had an easy time dealing with ministers who jealously guard their turf.
An insider detailed how much more uncomfortable the construct became when the NSA was tasked with persuading West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee — who saw him as a babu — to drop her objections to the Teesta water treaty with Dhaka. Tamil heavyweight J. Jayalalithaa remained equally intransigent on India backing the Raja-pakse government in Colombo. Either way, pre-poll pronouncements that tend to be sympathetic to chief ministers’ position on matters of foreign policy that impact in the domestic context will be overshadowed by the challenges posed by a strained relationship with Washington and a new government in Afghanistan where Pakistan is determined to make Kabul the new Kashmir.
India, man or mouse under Mr Modi?
