There is no point in the PM saying Naxalism is a grave situation. What are you doing as PM?

Shishir Gupta: As External Affairs minister,you had a certain experience with terrorism,Kandahar in particular. Now,some senior members of the RSS are allegedly involved in terrorist activities. Dont you think the BJP,as a political organisation,should distance itself from the RSS?

I think the crime is an individual crime,it cant become institutional. Secondly,if this is about the RSS,the members of the RSS,then the RSS will respond to it. Thirdly,should the BJP disassociate itself from the RSS? A number of BJP members have their grounding in the RSS. To say that because a few RSS members are alleged to have engaged in activities which are criminal in nature,therefore the BJP must distance itself from the RSS,would be stretching the point.

Dhiraj Nayyar: Do you think the political right in India suffers from a lack of intellectual robustness?

Do we have any intellectual robustness in the countrybe it Left,Right or Centre? I have often asked myself this question. This is my eighth term in Parliament. If I go back to when I started my parliamentary career,there were so many there who were authors. How many in Parliament today are published authors? It is not so much a question of Right or Left because if you dont think,then you cant write and if you cant write or think,what do you say?

Swaraj Thapa: After you were asked to exit the BJP,you had said there should be a rethink on Hindutva. Do you think it is time to initiate such a debate in the party?

I think the debate on this word Hindu has got fixed with either cliches or within the confines of clichés. The word Hindu doesnt define a religion,it cant define a religion because the origin,the historical,geographical,etymological origins of Hindu are directly derived from the word Indus,hence India,hence Hindustan. To me,Hindu is the same as Bharatiya or the essence of India. It has become political and I think it would be wise to separate the political from the eclectics.

Swaraj Thapa: You also said BJP cant be a party of yesterday. Was that reference to issues like Ayodhya?

I wont go into specifics but which political party could possibly be relevant to the challenges of today and be a party of yesterday? It cant be,thats self evident.

Manoj C G: You are back in BJP after ten months but without any post. Does this worry you?

No,it doesnt worry me,I have a great deal to do. I have never hankered after a post. I am amongst the very few in Parliament who have survived for this long and a post is of no concern.

Pradeep Kaushal: You are amongst the founders of the BJP. What was it like to be without the BJP during those ten months?

I did not become a different person. What I felt acutely is the difficulty of obtaining parliamentary time. The allocation of parliamentary time is by the party. If you are unattached,you are last on the list. But I had the time to give lectures here and abroad. I went to Pakistan when they launched my book which I found very rewardingnot in terms of money but otherwise.

Swaraj Thapa: You have been defence minister as well as external affairs minister. Do you think the army should be used in places like J&K when there are public protests?

You forgot to mention that I have also been a soldier. I think its wrong to use the army in such a manner. The army is not meant for policing functions. Please dont lightly or casually talk of employing the army against our own citizens,whether it is here or against the Maoists. I cant think of anything less desirable.

Manoj C G: Why do you think using the army against the Maoists is not desirable?

You have to first identify the causes of what is resulting in what we loosely call the Maoist problem. I personally believe that the factories that are producing Maoists are active on a daily basis in every police thana,every tehsil and patwaris office. Governance depends on grievance redressal system. If grievance redressal is blocked, what will the army do? The failures we are witnessing are failures of intelligence,training and leadership. If there is no training,if police reforms do not take place,if there is no coordinated leadership,there will be incidents.

Manoj C G: How is this to happen?

The Home Minister of India is not the chief of the police forces of the country; states have a responsibility. There has to be coordination. There is no point in the Prime Minister saying that this is a grave situation for the internal security of the countrywhat are you doing as Prime Minister? In the 1950s,we employed the army for the first time against our own citizens in Nagaland. I was already by then a commissioned officer. One aircraft was downed by the Nagas and it took months to find where that aircraft was and it took more months to recover that pilot who had been taken captive. The army is already employed along the the whole eastern border and the whole western borderits not an unending asset.

COOMI Kapoor: In the last two parliamentary elections,the BJPs tally has been falling. Do you think the party has lost direction?

I think we suffered in 2004 because of the loss of the southern alliancesTamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. That was a loss of almost 60 seats. That couldnt be made up in the north. That continued into 2009 when we lost a little. I think we had expected more in UP.

Coomi Kapoor: But you are losing your image as a national party and you are losing your NDA allies too.

I dont think we are losing our image as a national party. As of now,there are two national partiesthere is either the Congress or the BJP.

Vandita Mishra: There was a time when the NDA had 23 or 24 parties. Now your tally would be three or four. Is it that the BJP has lost the glue of power or has it lost something else?

There is a very fine distinction between office and power. The parties that have gone with the ruling UPA are there because of the convenience of office,not so much out of a commitment to an ideology.

Shailaja Bajpai: What do you think of the governments decision to resume talks with Pakistan and is this the way forward after 26/11?

If you expand the question slightly,it becomes even more important. Never since Independence have we had a situation in which almost our entire neighbourhood is in turmoil and we dont have a policy. We need to reflect very deeply on developments in Sri Lanka,Nepal,Bangladesh and Pakistan as well as in Afghanistan. If you look at the challenges to Indias foreign policy,it starts from Africa and goes down to south-east Asia.

Now we have an approach to Pakistan,which is that irrespective of what happened before,we must continue to talk. That paradigm breaks down as soon as there is a challenge to law and order within India. Then we say irrespective of that,there should be a joint handling of terrorism and we must continue talking. When you talk,you must realise that in todays Pakistan,the transformed strategic situation takes into account what happens in Afghanistan,what the US is going to do or not going to do and where is India. I am disappointed by the absence of an overall geo-strategic vision that inspires our policy. I think one of the most crucial incidents that occurred in Pakistan is the bomb in Data Ganj Baksh in Lahore. The shrine is the soul of Lahore,its also venerated throughout Pakistan. So where is Pakistan going? There has to be a very substantial inquiry into such questions by our government and policy-makers before we proceed.

Ravish Tiwari: There are two issues with regard to the Nuclear Liability Bill. One is the content of the Bill introduced in the Lok Sabha and the second is whether we need a liability Bill at all. Where does the BJP stand on this?

I wont go into the contents because the issue is really about the fundamentals. Why does USA want a Nuclear Liability Bill when Russia and France have not sought any similar assurances? This is something the Manmohan Singh government ought to have reflected upon when this was negotiated. The rationale for the negotiation was that we will get cheaper power. Where is the cheaper power? The government should first convince Parliament that the fundamentals are right,that the United States has a right to limit the liability of the equipment that its supplies should it malfunction. And I dont want to cite the example of Union Carbide.

Ravish Tiwari: So,do you think we are better off without a Nuclear Liability Bill?

Why do you want it? The government has to explain that.

Ravish Tiwari: Are you saying that this is being done at the behest of the United States?

Of course. I want the government to explain the rationale.

COOMI Kapoor:What was the public reaction to your book on Jinnah,both here and in Pakistan?

I found it very good. The sales went to 25 reprints in India. For a 600-page book dealing with a subject which has no sex,that is not a detective story,is really the best comment. In Pakistan it was a three-city visit to Karachi,Islamabad,Lahore. It was overwhelming.

Manoj C G: What will be the topic of your next book?

Its a book on Rajagopalachari. I think Rajaji is a rather neglected figure of Indian politics. He is an extremely wise man,quite a remarkable figure,he had great foresight and his political life is really a commentary on those times.

Coomi Kapoor: Why is it that subject matters for your biographies are icons from other parties and not from your own?

I dont think there is anything to be read in to that. These are studies.

Seema Chishti: Leaders like Atal Bihari Vajpayee,Bhairon Singh Shekhawat and you were seen as different in the party,people willing to push the boundaries of the BJP and enlarge its scope. As Atalji is not very active now and Bhaironji is no more,what is it that you miss the most?

It would be an error on my part to live reminiscently. You cant live like that,you have to live prospectively in a political organisation. I do think that the present president of the party,Nitin Gadkari,is addressing himself to the challenges energetically and with ability. He has said that we need to increase our vote base by at least another 10 per cent.

COOMI Kapoor: You are one of two senior leaders of the BJP who is not from a Sangh background. How did you get into the party?

The first party I joined was Janata Party. Bhairon Singh Shekhawat was then the leader of the Jan Sangh. He asked me to join the Jan Sangh but I had difficulties doing that. Then,Rajmata Gayatri Devi of Jaipur asked me to join the Swatantra Party. I knew Minoo Masani and Rajaji were in the party. I had to tell Rajmata Gayatri Devi that I couldnt join the Swatantra Party. She was quite irate and asked me why not. I told her there were too many princesses in it! Post 1975,I joined the Janata Party and when the Janata disintegrated,I went to the BJP. That was the long and short of it.

D K Singh: Could you rate Manmohan Singh as prime minister in comparison to Vajpayee?

I do think that we are going through difficult times. Its rather challenging internationally,internally and politically. Personally,I find it alarming how the writ of the central government has stopped running. I have known Manmohan Singh from his civil service days. We have a government with two characteristics: where there is talent,there is no authority and where there is authority,there is no talent. The other thing which troubles me is that Manmohan Singh just doesnt take a decision. I cited the example of the Maoistsit is not good enough. The tendency to transfer every problem to a group of ministers is not how we govern.

D K Singh: If you were defence minister,what would you do in Kashmir?

The defence minister has no role in this. It is for the government. There is an alliance government in J&K of the Congress and the National Conference. They are the ones who have to address this question. Why has the Prime Minister not uttered a word? Even my friend Chidambaram hasnt said anything. Why? The country has a right to know. So the question is not how or when or whether to use the army,the more substantial question is that you are in an alliance. Tell us what is happening there and what you intend to do.

Vandita Mishra: Isnt this a larger problem of lack of communication by the government with the people? Even when Vajpayee was PM,except for his musings,there were very rare instances of him speaking to the people.

I agree with that. Governments need to share what is happening in the country on a more regular basis. A lot of things went wrong with our systems post 1975. It was a fraudulent time: it destroyed the civil services,it destroyed the systems and it destroyed the electoral pattern. Until then,states and the Centre held elections simultaneously. All that went wrong and communication stopped.

Transcribed by Mohit Sharma