As Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee guided India’s foreign relations through a volatile and uncomfortable period to a more comfortable environment. Vajpayee’s first major decision was to give directions for carrying out nuclear tests — ending India’s nuclear ambiguity was one of the important promises made in the BJP manifesto. It was a defining event for India’s foreign relations, but it plunged the newly elected Vajpayee government into a serious crisis.

The nuclear tests evoked widespread condemnation from the US and other western countries as they imposed stringent economic sanctions against India. Tensions peaked with Pakistan as Islamabad conducted its own retaliatory nuclear tests, while China bristled at it being named as one of the main threats to India’s security in an explanatory letter to the US President. Isolated from international opinion for having wrecked the global non-proliferation regime, the Vajpayee government was forced to go into damage control.

Damage control

Normalising ties with the US and setting them on a firm foundation within two years was the most significant achievement of the Vajpayee government. Under Vajpayee’s leadership, the duo of former National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra and the then External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh, together with intense diplomatic activity, reversed the chill in relations.

Singh began a series of meetings with former US Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott that converted the isolation of the post-Pokhran period to a state where the two sides could discuss a comprehensive document on India-US relations. The document titled ‘A Vision for the 21st Century’ was signed during a visit by former US President Bill Clinton to Delhi in March 2000, the first by an American President in 22 years.

Vajpayee was the towering leader in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and could take decisions that went against BJP’s traditional stance. He took the initiative with Pakistan when he travelled to Lahore on the first bus on the Delhi-Lahore route and signed the Lahore Declaration with his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif, in February 1999. But the Lahore spirit did not last for long as Pakistani troops were found to have intruded in Kargil area. Operation Vijay forced Pakistan to withdraw its troops.

Vajpayee then made another effort with Pakistan in July 2001 when Gen Pervez Musharraf was invited to India for a summit. But the Agra summit was unproductive. But by 2003, the two sides had agreed to a ceasefire along the Line of Control, and at the SAARC summit in Islamabad in January 2004, Vajpayee and Musharraf laid the ground for starting a composite dialogue process.

Through the period of his prime ministership, India’s relations with three countries most affected by the Pokhran tests — the US, Pakistan and China — were stabilised. The seeds of a robust relationship with the US were put in place, while the strains in the ties with Pakistan and China were reduced.

Beijing rolled out the red carpet for Vajpayee’s visit in 2003; there had been an unpleasant surprise during his last visit to China in 1979 as Foreign Minister when Beijing had invaded Vietnam. But in 2003, India and China adopted a joint declaration that set out the principles for friendly bilateral relations and comprehensive cooperation between them.

Vajpayee added depth to the Look East policy, visiting several South-East Asian countries and focussing on closer trade relations with ASEAN.

Vajpayee had a special affinity towards the Indian diaspora and met members of the Indian community with great warmth, on his foreign tours. He constituted the High Level Committee for the Indian Diaspora and accepted many of the Committee’s recommendations, including setting up a separate ministry for overseas Indian affairs.

However, the experiment of appointing an Ambassador-at-Large for the diaspora was unsuccessful as it created discord among the Indian community in the US.

The writer is a senior journalist.

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