It is fascinating that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh invoked the Vajpayee spirit to seek both inspiration and validation for his own move at Sharm el-Sheikh. Fascinating because Vajpayee made three landmark moves to make peace with Pakistan, each time going out on a limb, in spite of grave provocations. Each time he was let down — though by the Pakistanis, and not his own partymen, as almost became the case with Manmohan Singh until Sonia Gandhi imposed Section 144. And yet, each time the public opinion supported him. You ask Jairam Ramesh what were the strongest factors still working for the incumbent in the 2004 campaign, and he will tell you: highway building, and peace with Pakistan.

Vajpayee’s first move came with the bus ride to Lahore. It was a decade ago, but not enough time has still passed for me to be able to recount the inside story of that move — which surprised the foreign ministries on both sides — or to disclose any conversations. But during that period there was no let-up in attacks in the Valley; in fact a major massacre took place even when Vajpayee was in Lahore. Yet he visited Minar-e-Pakistan and declared that a stable and prosperous Pakistan was entirely in India’s interest. The significance of a BJP prime minister making that statement was not lost on anybody in Pakistan. It was as historic as Advani’s subsequent rationalisation of Jinnah as a modern leader — and Vajpayee was never to go back on it even after the embarrassing, and politically near-fatal discovery that Musharraf’s infiltrators were occupying Kargil exactly when he was making the peace in Lahore. That is because finding peace with Pakistan was never a tactical, short-term ploy in his mind. It was a Great, Big idea. In fact, the Great Big Idea of his entirely statesmanly mind. And when he lost power in May 2004, his biggest regret was that he would not be able to take it to its logical conclusion.

... contd.