LK Advani’s Blog

Mumbai has been a favourite target of Jehadi terrorists. After all, it is the commercial capital of the country. Two years back, they shifted their attention to Bangalore rapidly developing into the principal I.T. hub of India.

In July, 2008, a series of bomb blasts took place in the city. I remember visiting the city soon after, going to all the spots where bombs had been hurled, and finally visiting the Hospital where scores of blast victims were being treated.

Police investigation have indicated that the Bangalore operation was masterminded by Abdul Nasser Madani of Kerala and executed by a protégé of his by name T. Nasseer.

Madani is the Chairman of Kerala’s People’s Democratic Party, a Muslim extremist Party that is being assiduously wooed by both the Congress and the Leftists. When earlier Madani was in jail, the Kerala assembly passed a unanimous resolution demanding his release. The Court trying the 2008 bomb blast case had issued warrants of arrest against Madani which have been executed only last week by the Karnataka Police. Madani therefore has been very much in the news last week.

It is this name that reminds me of an unforgettable episode of my own life.

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Conscientious newsmen can be very tenacious. For political persons, this is sometimes very annoying. But I cannot forget an occasion when such tenacity on the part of Click to Read More

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Last weekend, I visited Adipur in Kutch to inaugurate the new building of a B.Ed college affiliated to Kutch University. My wife Kamla inaugurated a Nursing School on the same occasion.

Both these institutions were the outcome of the endeavours and dedication of Kamla’s close friend Nirmala Gajwani, presently Chairman of the Sindhu Resettlement Corporation.

For me, there are two places for which I have a very special attachment. One of course is Karachi, the place where I was born, but where after the country became independent in 1947, I have been able to go only twice, first time in 1978 and last in 2005. The second place is the township of Adipur in Kutch, which my father and our family adopted as our new home after partition.

Since the early fifties I used to go to Adipur twice or thrice every year to meet my father and other kinsmen.

An eminent entrepreneur of Sind, Bhai Pratap Dialdas, had thought up a resettlement plan for migrants from Sind. The essential feature of Bhai Pratap’s scheme was construction of a reasonably decent seaport by the name of Kandla on the north-west coast of Kutch. This port, he hoped, would in course of time become a substitute of Karachi.

Close to Kandla Port was built the twin township of Gandhidham and Adipur. Gandhidham is a bustling trade centre, while Adipur is Click to Read More

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Kashmir is very much in the news these days. BJP MLAs from Jammu & Kashmir came to New Delhi last week, met the Prime Minister and submitted to him a memorandum cautioning him against any dilution in the presence of security forces in that state.

They also urged him not to succumb to the acceptance of any separatist demand. For the BJP, the issue of Kashmir’s complete integration with India is one which the party has pursued relentlessly since its birth as Bharatiya Jana Sangh.

Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerji, founder President of the Jana Sangh laid down his life for the cause of the State’s integration.

At the first National Conference of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh held in 1953 at Kanpur Dr. Mookerji gave the nation a resounding slogan with profound significance :

Ek desh mein do vidhan, do pradhan, do nishan -nahin chalenge, nahin chalenge.(We cannot have two constitutions, two presidents, two flags, in a single country).

Dr. Mookerji’s martyrdom in Kashmir led to achievement of two of the three goals identified in this slogan.

The Two Presidents that existed till 1953 – one in New Click to Read More

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BJP Deputy Leader in the Rajya Sabha, Surinder Singh Ahluwalia, has received a letter from Dr. Mahinder Singh, a friend of his in Bahrain, expressing immense satisfaction about the blog I had written a fortnight back about Indonesia. Dr. Mahinder Singh has actually enclosed a copy of the blog also to Ahluwalia, saying that he found the piece so “interesting and informative” that he had sent copies of it to numerous “friends all over the world.”

Responses to that blog which have come directly to my office are equally appreciative. As I had mentioned, I visited only Jakarta and Bali. Both places are situated in the island of Java. I wish I had also gone to Yogyakarta (pronounced Jogjakarta) about which it is often said: “If Jakarta is Java’s financial and industrial powerhouse, Yogyakarta is its soul”.

I could not visit Yogyakarta. I was told about the Prambanan Temples there. Built between the 8th and 10th century these temples are believed to be outstanding examples of Hindu art.

Here in India there are hundreds of Shiva Temples, hundreds of Vishnu Temples, but I have known just one Brahma Temple, at Pushkar, in Rajasthan. In Yogyakarta there is a Shiva Temple, a Vishnu Temple and a Brahma Temple as well, making it perhaps the second Brahma Temple in the world !

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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.

Click to Read More

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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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