“Advani Is Not Fit...To Serve The Interests Of The Country”

Arun Shourie has defended your book in an article and attacked the BJP leadership in much harsher words than you have ever used....

I greatly appreciate my friend Arun Shourie’s integrity, both intellectual and otherwise. Naturally, everyone will use the language they opt to use and we have to accept that the “harsher words” are his style. But the substance of what he has said is really not that different from what I have been saying. What has happened as a consequence really of my being as they say “expelled”, I find very insulting. Because I must tell you, my dear Saba, that as gentlemen cadets in the academy, if you were found unsuitable to continue your training, you were withdrawn from training. You were not expelled. I don’t want to dwell on it too long because every time I do, I find it wounding. Am I a criminal that you expel me? I wish they had a greater sense of the nuances of language and the courtesy that is the foundation of interpersonal relationship in a political party.

Do you agree with the suggestion that the RSS should take over the BJP?

They are not a political party. If they take over, then they should disband the RSS.

You mentioned to me on the phone that you were particularly hurt with Advani’s failure to defend you....

Do you know the function of leadership? To me, it’s a matter of great sadness that Advaniji has singularly failed in his function as a leader to lead. A leader will have to lead by example. Not through diktats, not through vague and unspecified insinuations and fears. And in the army, the leader takes the flak. If you transfer responsibility, and if you do not stand up for those who are colleagues, then you are not a leader. There are numerous examples of how Advaniji, on the occasions that trouble him and where he is likely to come under fire, either keeps quiet or immediately transfers responsibility to somebody else. This is not the trait of a leader.

Would you please give me an example?

It is 1998. I am to be sworn in the following morning. I ask Mr Advani, can I tell my family? Yes, yes, yes, of course. Early in the morning, I get a call saying no. Advaniji could have stood up for me. But he just said that some senior members of the Sangh are against swearing me in. He kept quiet and transferred the responsibility. So I said fine. Atalji wanted to argue with them and was upset. Advaniji just said you will not be sworn in. There are many other examples, like Kandahar. I feel bad saying this now. It’s almost like tattling. I have to live with myself. I can’t behave like they behave. I want to be comfortable with myself. I want to be able to relax when I take a drink in the evening....

Are you driven by any sense of revenge?

Actually, it’s not revenge. It’s a great sense of pity for Advani. Here was a man who was consumed by an ambition to be prime minister, and that desire made him commit so many mistakes. Do you know this whole wretched thing of money for votes is a classic example of wrong decision-making, and it’s extremely troubling that he did not stand up and say no? Advaniji was at the centre of this whole drama. The facts are clear. I stumbled on to the whole thing when a very strange-looking fellow was brought here to my house by Sudheendra Kulkarni. I was not consulted but I was appalled that Advaniji was giving the MPs the go-ahead to display money in Parliament. Advaniji said they had two choices. They could take the money to the Speaker or into the House. But Advaniji told the MPs to display the money in Parliament.

You recently went to see Atalji. Did you get any signal or message from him?

I went to see him. It was Ganesh Chaturthi. He is able to speak though a voice box here (points to his throat). So he speaks. But you know the voice box speech is always very guttural. His mind is clear. I went really to wish him well. I said, “aap ka ashirvaad lene aaya hoon (I have come to seek your blessings).” He said, “kya ho gaya, kya ho gaya (what happened, what happened).” It’s enough actually. I asked for no comments about the furore after the book. He just said kya ho gaya, kya ho gaya. That was all.

Did you know Mr Shourie was getting ready to explode against the party?

No. I had invited him for the book launch as one of the speakers because I didn’t want all to be speaking with the same voice. I wanted different points of view. He expressed his inability to attend the launch. Now that we are talking of book launches, I want to say something. I’m very distressed and this I do want to say that Advaniji is using the party to which he belongs for his various book launches. Every book launch he goes to in whichever part of India (for language editions of his autobiography, My Country, My Life) is actually organised by the party. Please, this should be asked of the party. The party congregates for his launches. This is a demonstration of sycophancy. Misuse of the party. It’s sickening. You go there because the party has organised everything. Marathi, Telugu, Urdu. How many have read even his English book? But people are compelled to go there, demonstrate sycophancy.

You must have read his English book. As a fellow author, how do you rate it?

It is written in a variety of styles. It is as if one person has written one chapter. Another chapter has been picked from some speeches. That sort of thing. You know they hate me. I don’t want to hit below the belt.

You are being most polite, Mr Singh. Now Mr Shourie has called the BJP president Humpty Dumpty, Alice in Blunderland, Tarzan....

(Smiles) That is Arun’s style you know.

Do you agree with the suggestion that Rajnath Singh is like Humpty Dumpty?

No, no, he is president (smiles). President! You know he is just a provincial leader who should never have been pushed up. He is a UP state-level leader who has been prematurely pushed up without sufficient preparation or thought.

Would you please go back to your journey in the BJP.... You were known to have an identity often at odds with the party. But you kept your peace till they expelled you. Do you think there is a dark side to the party?

You know, the late Sikander Bakht saab once told me, “God, you have a sense of honour, of self-respect.” The party, because of its mixed parentage and mixed-up loyalties, doesn’t really know what is the chain of command. As an armyman, I respect a chain of command. But because members of the BJP do not know the chain of command, they are invaded by a sense of fear. They are fearful of their neighbour, their companion, who is behind them, who is listening to what they are saying. It fills me with despair. Is this the party with the difference we kept boasting of? Bhay mukt Bharat (India, free of fear) was Advaniji’s call. How will Bharat be free from fear when the party is afflicted with endemic fears and lack of trust—where shadows seem to be chasing everyone?

This is no longer a political party. It is a cult or a sect. I used to say that other than the Communists and the BJP, all political parties are really private limited companies built around a family or a leader. That no longer applies to the BJP. It has been reduced to the proprietary partnership of a few. This has come about under the leadership of Advani. If you allow this to happen, I say you are then not a fit instrument to serve the interests of the country. It is misleading to say we have now achieved a bipolar polity. Don’t mock the intelligence of the country. Bipolar it was when the NDA was a healthy organism. To explain superficially, the 116 BJP MPs today are really like lost waifs.

The BJP nominated you to be the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, but now that you have been expelled, should you not be giving up that post? One leader told me you are an honourable man and will yourself offer to resign from the position.

They now suggest I am an honourable man (sighs). Do they want me to go? They should say so. Let them issue a statement. I have asked the secretary general of the Lok Sabha. He says the rule is that if you are incapacitated or if the Speaker finds you are unable to work, then you go. Just because I am expelled by the BJP does not mean I’m not still a member of Parliament. The parliamentary committee is like an elected body of Parliament and in that sense it is a mini Parliament. I intend to continue and discharge my duty.

There are so many accounts of Kandahar. It has been suggested that you wanted to go though Advaniji was not in favour....

Look madam, why don’t you ask the other members of the cabinet committee on security? There was Yashwant Sinha, George Fernandes, Brajesh Mishra, Advaniji and Atalji. Do ask them. They will tell you it was a collective cabinet decision. Also, please go into the crisis management group. Whenever there is such a crisis, there is a crisis management group comprising the cabinet secretary et cetera, but it was home minister Advani who was in the crisis group. Please look at the role of this group. Remember how the hijacked aircraft was allowed to leave Amritsar.

Once the aircraft was in Kandahar, the officers (Indian negotiators) said someone has to come if there is a last-minute hitch. And there were last-minute hitches. They said someone with authority to take political decisions must go to Taliban-controlled Kandahar. So in the cabinet meeting I said I’d go. My dear Saba, I didn’t go to Taliban-held Kandahar because there was an excellent nightclub there, I did not go to see belly-dancing.

In an earlier interview to me, you had said you “would not defend Operation Parakram”.

Yes, I had doubts. I was not there when certain important decisions were taken, such as banning of overflights. I was away on an important visit. It was a decision of the CCS. When I came back, I said, what have you done? No, no, it will be advantageous, I was told. Then it was fait accompli. Troops had already been deployed. Then impatience was mounting. I said I did not stand for war. Soldiers know what war is. A soldier can never be a war-monger. I had differences with Atalji too at that time. When he said “aar-paar ki ladai ho jaaye (let there be a fight to the finish)”, I said to him, what are you saying? Atalji said, “Us waqt kah diya (I just said it at that time).” He was a man given to emotion and rhetoric. But he would never take offence at honest criticism. I would tell him, Atalji you will not like what I am saying. He would say, “to kyon kah rahe ho (then why are you saying it).” That was the spirit of democracy. “Unke baat karne ke tareeke mein ek tehzeeb, saleeka tha. Bhondapan nahin tha (there was an elegance in the manner he spoke, he was never crude and clumsy).”

I recall the proposal that India should support the US war in Iraq. Brajesh Mishra told some of us it was imminent. But troops never went. What really happened?

Yes, there was a proposal. The Americans were keen. I remember Atalji, Advani and I having a discussion, and I said that India can never go as an occupying force. You can go with medical teams, engineers, ambulances and so on. We had trained the Iraqi army during Saddam’s years. I felt we could certainly go back but never as an occupying force. But even that was rejected. Atalji’s way of rejecting, his method of disagreeing, was often to keep quiet. He just wouldn’t say yes as prime minister. And unless he said yes, how do you do it? I think Advaniji had mixed feelings.

Do you recall any great error made by the NDA government at that time?

What distressed me greatly was when we sent the BSF into Bangladesh while Kargil was on and a photograph was carried. The Bangladesh Rifles had killed BSF personnel and their bodies were carried slung on bamboo. That was a wounding photograph. I never really was able to elicit an answer to who ordered the BSF to go into Bangladesh. You should ask the question now. What ministry is the BSF under, my dear? Is it not the home ministry?

Do you think Advani’s tenure as home minister was a complete mess?

No, to be fair to him, he tried his best. But did he solve any problem?

Do you believe the Kargil war happened because of an intelligence failure?

Yes. It all began with heavy artillery shelling in the Kargil sector. I remember the chief of army staff was not there at that time. He was in Poland or something. It was clearly an intelligence failure. And the Group of Ministers gave an excellent report that highlights intelligence failure, border management and internal security.

Is there any political culpability?

There is always an intelligence failure anywhere in the world when an attack is launched. 9/11 was an intelligence failure. It cannot be placed at any one doorstep. And triumphalism after victory in a military conflict is characteristic of all democratically elected leaders. It happened after World War I, World War II. Kargil was one of the most remarkable feats of our infantry. When American military observers were taken to Kargil after the operation, they said, “Did you really reconquer these peaks?” The great victory was also strategic. Atalji’s early decision not to expand the war beyond the Kargil sector, let alone the rest of Jammu and Kashmir and the international border. I had many private conversations with him about this. He took a deliberate decision.

Second was the use of air force. Again, I was not here when the decision was taken. I was in Paris when the decision was taken and George (Fernandes) had kindly telephoned me and told me the decision was taken. You know, we knew that you may lose a platoon but it is not as politically visible as the loss of an aircraft. Third was the scoop of our intelligence of the conversation between General Musharraf and his CGS (chief of general staff). Musharraf in Beijing talking to Islamabad. We had the technical ability. Also, Atalji’s refusal to go to Washington when like an unappointed referee Bill Clinton had invited Nawaz Sharif to Washington. Atalji politely declined.

Henry Kissinger met me during the conflict. Kissinger asked me rather pointedly, “Do you think, Jaswant, you’ll be able to take these peaks back?” I found it a wounding question. At that level of diplomacy, you wound with stilettoes, you don’t wound with kandhas (daggers). I said, yes we will and you’ll see.

There are second-rung leaders in the BJP. Would you tell me your assessment of your former colleagues?

I don’t want to comment. Good luck to them. May god show them the light.

Do you see yourself joining any other party?

I am a free, unshackled, independent member of Parliament. I want to enjoy this freedom and discharge my duties.

What is it about Jinnah that fascinates BJP leaders? How is your interest different from Advani’s interest?

His was public relations. He was born in Karachi and left the city when he was in his 20s. I think he had seen Jinnah in his youth. Perhaps there were electoral considerations in his mind.

You mean he thought that if he showed respect for Jinnah, Indian Muslims might vote for the BJP....

Yes. I think there was also a point where he thought that by saying what he did about Mohammed Ali Jinnah, he’d somehow make amends for Ayodhya. Because it weighs heavily on him—Ayodhya is a millstone in legal, personal and political terms. His assessment is that Ayodhya is a negative.

My interest is different. I am born in the desert of Rajasthan. I have relatives in Sindh. I believe in a composite culture. You know in Jaisalmer Muslims don’t eat beef, Rajputs don’t eat pork. Near Pokhran, there is the great shrine of Ram Deora. Muslims call it Ramsa Pir, Hindus Ram Deora. So I wanted to know more about Jinnah—a man held responsible for Partition. The earlier title (of my book) was ‘India 1947, a fractured freedom. Mohammed Ali Jinnah: a journey from the ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity to the Qaid-e-Azam of Pakistan’. The publisher said it was too long.

In the book, I question the two-nation theory. I am saying Jinnah is wrong to say Muslims had a separate homeland. I say look into the eyes of Muslims and see their pain. How have they benefited from Partition? Jinnah was obdurate and obstinate but he did wish to protect the Muslims of India because he feared majoritarianism and he called the Congress the Hindu party. But when Muslims ask for anything today, the rejoinder is, you are still asking. It is ironic that the reactions of the BJP and the Congress classically reflect majoritarian tyranny, do they not? I hope they’ll understand the subtle point I am making. Sixty years down the line, Jinnah is still being proven right by the behaviour of the BJP.

What are you working on now after the Jinnah book?

In six months, my book on Rajagopalachari should be ready. I began it when Jinnah was being edited. Again, I’m looking for the same answers. He was the one who stood up and said, accept what Jinnah is saying. He resigned from the Congress and 10 members of the Madras legislature resigned with him. The AICC disagreed with him. Yet, he was made the first governor-general of India. Different standards existed at that time. Another work is still at the thought stage. For 30 years, I’ve maintained a political diary. I’m wondering whether to publish it.