During the Budget Session of Parliament in 2008, BJP veteran LK Advani requisitioned the NDA, then in Opposition, to form a human chain to protest against the price rise. But no enthusiasm was forthcoming from the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha — former Major and Union Minister Jaswant Singh Jasol.

More at ease with diplomatic parleys and parliamentary debates, Singh would be persuaded to hit the streets only if he got to hold hands with the Bollywood Dream Girl , BJP MP Hema Malini. The wish was leaked and it made for a juicy news item with a picture of the LoP holding hands with the Dream Girl. Next morning, I was woken up with a stern call from the LoP’s residence, my anxiety building up as the line got transferred. Ready for a dressing down, I exhaled as he chuckled on the other end. “So, would you get me a print of the picture? It’s rather a nice one,” said he, in his deep baritone.

Had he not been in a coma for the last six years after he suffered a head injury, Singh, a founder member of the BJP with Advani and Atal Behari Vajpayee, would have been ill at ease with the rising social conservatism and the militaristic precision with which the ruling party is being centralised.

For, although he was a military man with a feudal lineage, India’s former Foreign, Defence and Finance Minister was a true democrat. After Vajpayee, Singh’s passing away this Sunday marks the end of the “moderates-versus-hardliner” debate and reflects the definite shift towards the core ideological agenda of the BJP.

Singh was a moderate and a peacenik. In his book Jinnah: India, Partition, Independence , he sought to correct the historiography that portrays Pakistan founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah as the only villain of the Partition. The book was a red rag to the RSS as it glorified Jinnah in parts and Singh was unceremoniously expelled from the party by then President Rajnath Singh.

But Singh remained nonchalant. In the cosy garage-cum-study in his quiet, leafy Teen Murti Lane residence, he played Beethovan Sonata Number 1 in F Minor and guffawed at the “illiteracy” in his party. “They sacked me over a book,” he exclaimed. He had utter contempt for the manner in which the party had functioned under Advani.

As the BJP drifted further rightwards, Singh became increasingly bitter. He felt he was never given his due for the undoubtedly critical part he played in securing a diplomatic victory over Pakistan after the Kargil war. Between Vajpayee, his all-powerful Principal Secretary Brajesh Mishra and Singh, the military effort in throwing Pakistani forces out of Kargil was matched in even measure in India’s sharp diplomatic moves in profiling Pakistan’s reckless misadventure in Kargil.

He was caricatured for leading the Indian mediating team in Kandahar airport where the swap of three terrorists was negotiated for the release of passengers aboard the hijacked IC814 flight. Singh and Vajpayee faced a lot of flak, especially from Advani. But Singh, who was initially against the swap, changed his position and stuck to it. “I could not, in any sense, accept the responsibility of letting 166 innocent men and women and one child, some of whom were not even Indian, be blown apart on the midnight of December 31 as the millennium changed,” he wrote in his book A Call to Honour . To the end of days, this is what Singh signified — honour and grace. The words may be a relic of the past in today’s politics, but to this officer and gentleman, they actually meant something.

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