LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

May 1--15, 2003 - Vol. 12, No. 09

Editorial by Arabinda Ghose

Only Vajpayee

Dear Reader

Namaste!

In the summer season of 1953, the Bharatiya Jana Sangh president Syama Prasad Mookerjee had entered the State of Jammu and Kashmir without a valid permit which would have been issued by the Sheikh Abdullah Government, as a consequence of which he was incarcerated in Srinagar, where he expired on June 23 that year. This sacrifice by the founder-president of the Jana Sangh might have, for the time being, crippled his own party, but had laid the foundation for total integration of the State on Jammu and Kashmir with the rest of India. While courting arrest, Dr. Mookerjee had told his secretary Atal Bihari Vajpayee to go back to Delhi and inform the country about his arrest and his mission for integrating Jammu and Kashmir with the rest of India.

Almost half a century to date later, that secretary, now the Prime Minister of India, undertook a mission aimed at winning the hearts and minds of the second and third generation of the Kashmiris born after or around 1953 and judging by the utterances of political leaders of various hues including the Congress Party and the People's Democratic Party of Jammu and Kashmir, the partners in the coalition Government in the State, one might be forgiven if one describes this visit as a historic success story of the Vajpayee brand of politics of consensus.

What is more, Atalji's offer to Pakistan for a dialogue had not only "confused" the Pakistani establishment but has also caused considerable surprise to them. This is just the Vajpayee touch to diplomacy. When no one had thought of any remote possibility of a dialogue between India and Pakistan, it was Atalji who had stunned Pakistan by declaring his intention to visit Lahore in a bus, marking the inauguration of the Delhi-Lahore bus service. Despite the treacherous Kargil misadventure undertaken by Pervez Musharraf and Company, the military dictator was invited for talks at Agra, in the fond hope that the romantic ambience of Taj Mahal would soften the hearts and minds of the Pakistani dictator. And now, when he became the first Prime Minister of India to visit Jammu and Kashmir after sixteen years, disregarding the threat to his life from terrorists across the border, he suddenly made this offer of talks, stumping Musharraf once more.

What might have rattled the Pakistani dictator was that the offer of talks was made from Srinagar, the capital of the State which Pakistani claims to be its own and has provided political, moral and material support for separatists all these 56 years, since the fateful day of October 26, 1947 when Pakistan had launched an attack on the State which became Indian territory by virtue of the Maharaja signing the Instrument of Accession that very day.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee has obviously taken this step of offering the hand of friendship after a great deal of thought and foresight and whatever be the response from Inlamabad, Indians will certainly join in hailing the Prime Minister of India as "Only Vajpayee".

(AG)