The early 1990s were among independent India’s weakest moments. Rao deserves full credit for fobbing off relentless American pressures on the nuclear and Kashmir issues and readying the nation for nuclear tests. Pulling back from the planned December 1995 tests by no means takes away from Rao’s extraordinary contribution for the consolidation of India’s nuclear programme. That Vajpayee could test within seven weeks of coming to power in 1998 was in itself a testimony to what Rao had achieved.

Vajpayee, Jaswant Singh and Brajesh Mishra successfully managed the consequences of the nuclear tests and opened the door for a long overdue nuclear reconciliation with the international community. It is a profound tragedy that the three men are today at the forefront of wrecking what they sought to achieve for the nation, just because it is someone else who has clinched the final deal.

A little bit of effort by the NDA in 1998 and the UPA in recent years could have helped spread the substantive credit that India has accumulated in its defiance of the world order in May 1998 and its successful negotiation of an exceptional nuclear status for itself in July 2005.

The BJP’s wanton destruction of the national consensus on foreign policy could have even bigger consequences for India’s relations with China and Pakistan. Vajpayee boldly altered the framework of negotiations on two of India’s most sensitive issues — the boundary dispute with China and the Kashmir question with Pakistan. Jaswant Singh and Brajesh Mishra discarded old impractical propositions on both these issues.

... contd.