LK Advani’s Blog

India’s independence was accompanied by the creation of Pakistan.

Partition had traumatic consequences: the killing of lakhs of innocent men, women and children, and the uprooting of crores.

Since independence, therefore, a vital touchstone for judging Government of India’s handling of external affairs has been its Pakistan Policy.

And presently, New Delhi’s Pakistan Policy is really in a shambles.

Starting with the Prime Minister’s blunder at Sharm-el-Sheikh when he announced delinking the issue of Indo-Pak dialogue from the issue of Pakistan’s cross-border terrorism, to the External Affairs Minister’s recent performance in Pakistan, never before has India’s Pakistan policy been so completely alienated from public opinion as it is today. Even within the Government, Ministers have serious reservations about the policy.

I have personally known Home Secretary G.K. Pillai as a very responsible and competent official and so when at the joint press conference in Islamabad, Pakistan’s External Affairs Minister Qureshi castigated Pillai and bracketed him with terrorist Hafeez Saeed, and I saw our foreign minister quietly swallowing the insult, I was surprised.

My surprise verily became a sense of outrage when a couple of days later, our own minister added injury to the Pakistani insult by publicly admonishing Pillai not for any fault of his but for the Click to Read More

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Some years back, a friend who had gone to Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country in the world, on his return met me at Adipur in Kutch (Gujarat) and showed me a high-denomination (20,000 rupiah) currency note of that country with Lord Ganesh imprinted on it. I was as surprised, as I was impressed.

When last month a group of eminent Sindhi gentlemen came to Delhi from Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia and invited me for a World Sindhi Conference scheduled to be held at Jakarta on July 9, 10 and 11, 2010, I readily agreed. One reason was that I had never before been to that country, though I had often heard reports about the impact of Indian civilization and more particularly, the impact of epics like Ramayana and Mahabharata on that country. The Ganesh inscribed currency note was only an example.

Accompanied by my wife Kamla, daughter Pratibha, my associate for decades, Deepak Chopra and his wife Veena, I left for Indonesia on July 8 and returned on July 13 with very fond memories of the trip. Indonesia comprises 13,677 islands of which over 6000 are inhabited. Of its total population of 20.28 crores, more than 88 per cent are Muslims, and 10 per cent Christians. Its 2 per cent Hindu population is concentrated mainly in the island of Bali, the famous tourist paradise.

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The epithet ‘committed’ is ordinarily regarded a positive attribute. But I recall political discourse of the late sixties and the early seventies when suddenly this adjective began being used in a manner as never before.

One started hearing phrases like committed press, committed bureaucracy and committed judiciary – phrases that sounded very worrisome to all lovers of democracy.

The last of these three phrases was particularly upsetting. Indeed, it was believed that it was in pursuance of this concept of a committed judiciary, that Prime Minister Smt. Gandhi in 1973 superseded three senior judges, Justice K.S. Hegde, Justice J.M. Shelat, and Justice A.N. Grover and appointed Justice A.N. Ray, junior to all these three, as Chief Justice of India.

It was this event that brought me in close touch with Justice K.S. Hegde, and his family, a relationship that has lasted all these decades, since then. But it is only recently while looking back at the dark days of the Emergency that I discovered that this supersession of judges had a lot to do with the election petition against Mrs. Gandhi, and particularly with Justice Hegde personally.

Every one now knows that it was the Allahabad High Court verdict in that case which triggered the Emergency. Bishan Tandon’s PMO DIARY is an authentic and revealing account of all that went on in the Prime Minister’s Office in those days. The book quotes Law Minister Click to Read More

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After an engrossing trip down south along with Kamla, my wife and Pratibha, my daughter to visit the only one of the four Dhams which I have not visited, namely, Rameshwaram, I spent a relaxed Friday watching on television the two Wimbledon semi-finals.

Both the matches, Tomas Berdych (Czech) vs. Novak Dyokovic (Serb) and Rafael Nadal (Spain) vs. Andy Murray (U.K.), were absorbing games, and well contested.

What I particularly liked was the Spaniard’s very warm comments about his British adversary in his post-match remarks. He lauded Murray not only as a player but also as a person. The warmth was evident even when after the game was over, the two formally hugged each other over the net.

This brought to mind a remark one often hears in our country about sports and politics.

In India, it is said, in sports there is too much politics, whereas unfortunately in politics there is very little sportsmanship.

I recall the last week of the Budget Session which ended on May 7. I was in my room in Parliament House when I got a call from Sushmaji. She said to me: “Basudev Acharya and Gurudas Das Gupta, the two Lok Sabha leaders of the CPI(M) and CPI are here, and wish that you also join us for a brief discussion”.

The moment I reached Sushmaji’s office, Gurudas Das Gupta’s opening remark was: “Advaniji, today we have for the first time entered ‘forbidden territory’! I Click to Read More

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It will always remain a matter of dispute among students of Indian political history as to whether the Emergency clamped on the country in 1975 was on June 25 or on June 26.

Fact is that the President signed the Emergency Proclamation late night on June 25. But the Cabinet was informed about this only at 6.00 AM on June 26. The country came to know about it from Prime Minister Indira Gandhi herself on June 26 in an All India Radio broadcast made at 8.00 A.M.

In an earlier blog I have quoted from a book by a senior official in the Prime Minister’s Office Bishan Tandon. About the events of those crucial days there cannot be a more authentic record than this book titled PMO DIARY. The Foreword to this book has been written by renowned British constitutional pundit Granville Austin.

Austin writes :

“This insider’s account of events, coupled with Mr. Tandon’s analysis of their meaning, would be of little or no value to us had he then not had a reputation as a very accurate reporter - a reputation he possesses today. Well informed political analysts may now occasionally disagree with Mr. Tandon’s views of the time, but the accuracy of his account seems above reproach.”

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Here are some excerpts from Bishan Tandon’s diary of those days which would give readers unfamiliar with events Click to Read More

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I was a college student when I had first read William Shirer’s ‘The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich’ about Nazi Germany.

Shortly after the imposition of the Emergency in June 1975, I happened to lay my hands on an old copy of this famous book. It prompted me to write a pamphlet for our Anti- emergency movement’s underground activists, titled “A Tale of Two Emergencies”.

The pamphlet was circulated not only among our own people but also among delegates who had come for the Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference held in New Delhi that year.

Today, on June 25, I feel it would be worthwhile reproducing some essential parts of this pamphlet here :

A TALE OF TWO EMERGENCIES
[Written in Bangalore Central Jail some time in September, 1975]

William Shirer’s ‘The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich’ is regarded as a monumental, definitive work on the history of Nazi Germany. Going through it a second time these days, I have been greatly struck by the remarkable, but disturbing similarity between the methodology of Adolf Hitler to make himself an absolute dictator and the steps being taken by Indira Gandhi here to decimate and destroy Indian democracy.

When the Weimar Constitution was adopted in 1919, it was hailed as the “most Click to Read More

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In the past few decades I have attended many book-release functions. But the one I participated in at Mumbai last week was truly unique.

The nature of the book was unique, and so was the individual who had given birth to the book.

I have known Nana Chudasama since the early seventies when my friend and party colleague late Makarand Desai of Gujarat introduced me to him. Since then we have been meeting often enough to bind us together in ties of mutual esteem. The University Convocation Hall in the Fort Area of Mumbai was jampacked that day. The cream of the city was present, both in the Hall, as well as on the dais. The Hall was so crowded this evening that my daughter Pratibha who had accompanied me to the function had to remain standing for nearly half an hour.

The book has been titled History on a Banner. The well known writer Shobha De has commented, “There have been just two significant voices that have accurately reflected the hopes and frustrations of the ‘aam aadmi’ in Mumbai – R.K. Laxman’s and Nana Chudasama’s. R.K. Laxman is famous because of his cartoons. Nana is famous because of his banners.”

For over three decades now, for occasional visitors to Mumbai like me, a drive along Marine Drive has been as much an attraction as Click to Read More

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Today, India commands respect in the world, not only because it is perceived as an emerging economic power, but also because from among the developing countries, it is the only one that has been functioning as a vibrant and vigorous democracy.

Within the country, however, many are blissfully unaware that in June 1975 we came very close to a situation when the ruling party wanted to bury multi-party democracy and introduce a single party set up. In my blogs this month, therefore, I have been consciously trying to recall the happenings of the Emergency inflicted on the country on 26th June, 1975.

The country needs to be intensely alive to this phase of independent India’s history. Allowing this phase to be forgotten would be tantamount to doing a grave disservice to Democracy!

As I pointed out last week two events that took place on 12th June, 1975 led to the Emergency. And the Emergency brought to the surface the innate distrust some leaders of the ruling party have always had for democracy. Smt. Gandhi herself once said those days: “The nation is more important than democracy”.

The National Herald, the daily paper in Delhi started by Pandit Nehru, wrote an editorial then praising the one party system in African states like Tanzania as being no less virile than the multi-party system. The paper observed:

“The Westminster model need not be the best model, and some African states Click to Read More

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I am in Patna today for the two-day session of the party’s National Executive. This will be the first meeting of the new National Executive named by President Nitin Gadkari.

For the host of young first timers in the Executive today would be an important date for that reason itself. But those keeping track of the events in independent India since 1947, today is a historical date of landmark significance.

In the annals of India’s political history June 12 is a very important date. It is a date the country must not forget.

Exactly on this date, thirty five years ago, two events occurred which if the Establishment’s reaction to those events had stabilised, and their intentions had succeeded, Indian democracy would have been completely annihilated. Today, we would have been living in a different India. It would certainly not have been an India which is respected immensely because it has been a successful democracy.

I am recalling today 12th June, 1975. I have in front of me a publication titled PMO DIARY : Prelude to the Emergency by B.N. Tandon. I have known the author and his family closely for over four decades. The family lived next door to my residence in Pandara Park. Bishan Tandon has been a senior IAS official who in Mrs. Gandhi’s regime was Joint Secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office. When I was Information and Broadcasting Minister in Shri Morarji Click to Read More

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MAMATA BANNERJI has made history. A leading Kolkata daily has front paged her victory story with the headline: “QUEEN OF CALCUTTA, NOT OF BENGAL YET”.

She may well become that also; she needs not be impatient for an Assembly encounter earlier than scheduled. Patience may pay her richer dividends.

If the Marxist citadel of Kolkata has collapsed, Mamata has served only as an instrument. The real achievement is of the Reds themselves. The ‘achievement’ is negative: ‘alienation’ from the people, as Prakash Karat has rightly commented.

Americans by themselves could never have achieved the disappearance of the gigantic U.S.S.R. empire. An unending series of Stalinist excesses, of Hungarys and Czechoslovakias, and a growing arrogance that it was only a matter of time before, as used to be the British boast in the days of U.K’s colonial dominance, the sun would never set on the Marxist empire!”

Not many soothsayers could have predicted how revolutionary 1989 would prove. This was the year that saw the Berlin Wall crumble, the U.S.S.R. disintegrate and the Cold War dramatically come to an end!

As an active participant in Indian politics since the first General Election of 1952 I cannot miss the significance of this year, 1989, for our own country as well. This year proved a turning point in national politics also.

The BJP which in Click to Read More

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