An unfair allegation

It is untrue that the position the BJP took on the nuclear deal in 2005 was L.K. Advani’s alone; it was arrived at after detailed discussions within the party at every stage

January 30, 2015 01:44 am | Updated 02:05 am IST

I was a little surprised to read Sanjaya Baru’s article published on January 28, 2015 (“ >After the nuclear step, the big leap ”). In this article he has talked about Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), L.K. Advani’s BJP and Narendra Modi’s BJP and has unfairly blamed Mr. Advani for a shift in the BJP’s position on the nuclear deal when he was leading the party. This is completely untrue. The position that the BJP had taken on the nuclear deal, after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh inked it in July 2005, was not Mr. Advani’s alone. It was arrived at after detailed discussions within the party at every stage under the leadership of Mr. Vajpayee. Some people even then had tried to float the rumour that the BJP was divided on the issue, and only a few of us had hijacked the party as far as opposition to the deal was concerned. As a direct and active participant in this whole process within the BJP throughout this period, I would like to assert that the BJP leadership then was fully united in its opposition to the deal, as also later, as far as the provisions of the civil nuclear liability law were concerned.

Vajpayee’s role There is no doubt that Mr. Vajpayee was the architect of the new policy of friendship towards the U.S. It was under his guidance and leadership that Jaswant Singh worked hard to improve relations with the U.S. after the nuclear tests of 1998, which culminated in the visit of President Bill Clinton in 2000. It is also true that it was in his regime that the ‘first steps’ and the ‘next steps’ in the strategic partnership between India and the U.S. were formulated. But nowhere did they envisage the kind of nuclear deal that Dr. Singh finally concluded with the U.S.

Mr. Vajpayee genuinely believed in improving and intensifying India’s relations with the U.S., which he described as a natural ally, but he also believed that it should be a relationship between equals. Just as he did not submit to U.S. sanctions following the nuclear tests, he was loath to having a relationship with the U.S. which was unequal or tilted in favour of the U.S. Anyone who has closely studied the Hyde Act and the bilateral ‘123 Agreement’ would agree that they are prescriptive in nature and unequal. Mr. Vajpayee, with his sense of international relationships, saw this imbalance in the deal immediately and therefore felt that the BJP should oppose it.

India has so far had a consistent position on the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), irrespective of the political persuasion of the party/parties in power. The kernel of our opposition to these two international agreements is that they are discriminatory. The five permanent members of the UN Security Council, who also happen to be the five nuclear weapon states, are recognised as such by the NPT. The rest are barred from having nuclear weapons. As a threshold power, we always felt that this was unfair and unacceptable. The Indo-U.S. nuclear deal has elements which are equally discriminatory and was therefore unacceptable to us, including to Mr. Vajpayee.

Mr. Vajpayee’s position did not change even after Dr. Singh won over Brajesh Mishra. Dr. Singh personally invited a few BJP leaders for a discussion on the deal when the bilateral 123 agreement was under negotiation, some time before Mr. Vajpayee suffered the debilitating stroke in 2009. I had also been invited to this meeting at 7 Race Course Road. The evening before, I received a telephone call from Mr. Vajpayee in which he asked me whether I was fully prepared for the meeting the next day. When I assured him that I was, he said I would have to hold the fort — a clear indication that he had stopped depending on Mr. Mishra on this issue. I have witnesses to support this statement because they were present when the call came. The next day’s meeting, which was attended by Mr. Vajpayee, Mr. Advani, party president Rajnath Singh, Jaswant Singh, Arun Shourie, Mr. Mishra and me, proved to be futile because we refused to lend our support to the deal.

Changing world Mr. Vajpayee has an understanding of foreign policy and international relations which is unmatched. Some people believe that he erred on occasions. Subsequent events have shown that he was absolutely right in his approach; only the others could not see the future as clearly as he did. I can recall many incidents to prove this point. But we live in a changing world. People change, situations change, points of view change and relationships change. What does not change is the written word like the Hyde Act, the ‘123 Agreement’ and the civil nuclear liability law. Maybe, some day, they will also change, hopefully for the better. For the time being, we live with them and hope for the best. Meanwhile, let us not put the blame where it does not lie.

(Yashwant Sinha is a former External Affairs Minister.)

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