Atal Bihari Vajpayee: A Maestro of Foreign Policy

My Foreign Service career (1967-2004) coincided with the emergence of Atal Bihari Vajpayee as a national figure, from a leader of Jan Sangh to an Opposition Leader, Minister of External Affairs and Prime Minister. I had the privilege of getting to know him on various occasions in New Delhi, New York and Washington. Regardless of his position in the national hierarchy, he remained a nationalist, a patriotic and balanced leader, a consensus maker and a cultured intellectual, poet and a visionary. He had a faultless personality, free of any controversy and was clearly seen as destined to lead the country. Several people predicted many years ago that he would be the Prime Minister of India one day.

The defeat of the Congress Party in the elections in 1977 and the choice of Morarji Desai as Prime Minister in the Janata Government brought him to the Cabinet as the External Affairs Minister. But long before that, he used to take a keen interest in Foreign Affairs. He attended several sessions of the UN General Assembly and participated in the various Committees and learnt the ropes of multilateral diplomacy. As the Leader of the Opposition, he led the Indian Delegation to the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva at a crucial time.

Vajpayee was a Nehruvian to the core and helped the formation of a consensus foreign policy, even while in the opposition. As the Minister of External Affairs, he stood for continuity in foreign policy, applying certain correctives as and when necessary. The first challenge came soon after he assumed office, when a bewildered Soviet Union, which had expected Indira Gandhi to win, felt unsure of the new dispensation in New Delhi. For several days, the Soviet media did not even report the defeat of the Congress and finally admitted that Indira Gandhi had failed to get sufficient votes to continue in office. The media reported that an old Gandhian and Congressman, Morarji Desai, had become the Prime Minister of India. The palpable confusion about Indo-Soviet relations in Moscow was felt in New Delhi and urgent action was necessary. Vajpayee took the first step by announcing that Ambassador Inder Gujral, who had won the confidence of the Soviets, would continue in Moscow. This news was received with relief in Moscow and the invitation extended to the Soviet Foreign Minister, Andrey Gromyko to visit New Delhi was warmly welcomed. Gromyko was visibly anxious when he boarded the plane to New Delhi, but the presence of Gujral reassured him of some continuity. But Vajpayee and others told Gromyko that though the Indian faces had changed, their hearts were the same as those of their predecessors. Gromyko returned to Moscow to business as before and the rest is history. Even though the Janata Government had declared that its foreign policy would be “genuine nonalignment” there was hardly any tilt away from Moscow.

Having consolidated Indo-Soviet relations, Vajpayee paid a visit to China in 1979 with a view to improve relations, which were frozen for years. He sought negotiations to settle the border issue and virtually opened the discussion. But as it happened. the Chinese invaded Vietnam when Vajpayee was still in China and Vajpayee cut short his visit and returned to India. The message was clear that India would like to make new friends, but would not tolerate aggression against a friend. But a beginning was made, which developed further with Rajiv Gandhi’s visit in 1988 and Narasimha Rao’s in 1993.

Pakistan missed a splendid opportunity to normalize relations with India when Vajpayee made a historic visit to Lahore by bus and signed a Lahore Declaration to begin a peace initiative. Within three months, Pakistan invaded Kargil and India’s restraint in fighting a war without crossing the Line of Control won the respect and support of President Clinton. Clinton invited Pak PM to Washington and insisted that he should withdraw from Kargil. Clinton kept Vajpayee informed of the progress in the negotiations. For agreeing to withdraw, Nawaz Sharif tried to extract an assurance from Clinton that he would mediate between India and Pakistan, which was rejected by Vajpayee. Of all the Indian leaders, Vajpayee had the credibility to find a negotiated settlement on the border, but Pakistan army stood in the way of a settlement.

Vajpayee’s crowning glory was the nuclear tests of 1998. Rao had prepared the ground for a test and he had taken Vajpayee into confidence and the latter announced in the BJP manifesto that the nuclear policy of India would be reviewed if the party came to power. Clinton was very anxious not to allow a nuclear arms race between India and Pakistan and repeatedly stressed that India should not test. The tests of May 1998 came as a big surprise to Clinton and he imposed unprecedented sanctions against India under the Glenn Amendment.

India-US relations came to a standstill as the Americans refused to hold talks with India. Vajpayee offered discussions on the nuclear issue without signing the NPT or the CTBT and there began the long negotiations between Jaswant Singh and Strobe Talbot, which resulted in the identification of certain benchmarks to end sanctions and to arrive on certain understandings, which led to productive visits by Clinton to India in March 2000 and Vajpayee’s visit to Washington in December the same year. Subsequently, the same understandings became the India-US nuclear deal of 2008, which enabled India to enter nuclear trade with other countries and even to set up foreign nuclear reactors in India .Although the nuclear deal ran into rough weather on the liability issue, it was Vajpayee’s brave moves and subsequent negotiations that brought India back to the nuclear mainstream.

As Prime Minister, Vajpayee’s contributions far exceeded his foreign policy successes, we should remember in his centenary year that it was his moves on the Soviet Union, China, Pakistan and the United States that paid great dividends to India in its emergence as a global power in subsequent years.

Atal Bihari Vajpayeediplomacyforeign policyglobal powerIndia-China relationsIndia-US relationsIndo-US nuclear dealPrime Minister