Part 10 (1/2)

Along with the partying there was also work. When I joined the prime minister's office on the first day of 2001, I asked Brajesh what I was supposed to do. 'Anything you like,' Brajesh said. 'But we want you to focus on Kashmir.'

Though the brief was not yet specific I was content because I had spent a lot of time on Kashmir and it was what I enjoyed doing.

A few days later we had a longer chat and I asked, 'Okay, what in Kashmir?'

'Elections are coming up next year,' the princ.i.p.al secretary said. 'We want as much partic.i.p.ation as possible, as many people as you can get in.'

'Okay,' I said.

'And try and get these separatists in,' he added.

What more could one ask for? Kashmir had always been my favourite subject and now I would be devoting all my time to it. What added to these three and a half years being a great experience, possibly the best period in my career, was that one saw everything from close quarters.

There were people who had problems with my brief on Kashmir, be it when I headed R&AW or when I was in the PMO. Why was I meddling in Kashmir, it was an internal matter? But Brajesh Mishra encouraged it, and even when I was in R&AW he would tell me, every three-four months: 'Bhai, woh Kashmir pe PM ko thhoda brief kar dena.'

The IB was not very happy about my meddling, but it carried on throughout my stint in R&AW and the PMO, and only ended when Dr Manmohan Singh came to power and M.K. Narayanan took over as his national security advisor; Narayanan made it clear to the R&AW people that they would not meddle in Kashmir. Sadly, a lot of Kashmiris were then dumped by R&AW, and many of them are dissatisfied today.

Those who cribbed about my involvement were technically correct but the fact of the matter was: they weren't doing anything. So what was the problem with my doing something in Kashmir? As I said, Brajesh needed to stop me if that was the case, and say, look at Pakistan instead. But he encouraged me to handle Kashmir when I was in R&AW and got me to the PMO to specifically deal with it. I was officer on special duty but unofficially referred to as advisor on Kashmir in the PMO. Whatever little our problems may have been Shyamal Datta and I got along famously (I was after all beholden to him for my job) and the IB and R&AW had a great relations.h.i.+p.

Brajesh Mishra in that regard was a great boss. He gave the brief, but how I did it and when I did it, he never interfered. I was free to do things my way. We had hit it off back when I joined R&AW, and from there it only got better. He made me feel comfortable and complimented the organisation on a couple of occasions.

Occasionally he might say, 'you're overstepping something', or 'you're becoming too prominent'. For instance, there was a time I went to Srinagar and a major Delhi paper splashed a story on its front page that I had gone to Kashmir to conduct 'golf diplomacy' with the separatists and other Kashmiris. Actually, whenever I went to Srinagar during those days I played a lot of golf, and if anyone asked it was a good cover story. Of course I did not go just to play golf but to meet someone or discreetly take care of some governmental business. When I returned to Delhi and briefed Brajesh Mishra, he told me that I had become too prominent. 'Take it easy for the next three weeks,' he said. 'I don't want any news.'

In our PMO there was no doubt who the boss waswhich has not been the case in some other PMOs. Here, Brajesh virtually ran the government for the prime minister; he was everything. No wonder he is regarded as one of the most powerful princ.i.p.al secretaries ever to serve a prime minister. And of course he was India's first national security advisor. With so much power he eclipsed even the cabinet ministers.

Everyone who worked in the PMO and who worked with him never complained about Brajesh Mishra. He was good with people, he was clear-headed, quick on the uptake, quick on deciding, he knew how to get things done and he never wasted time. You could be sitting with him, and if you overstayed by two minutes or he was to meet someone else, he would tell you, 'Someone's waiting, I'll talk to you later.'

And yet Brajesh Mishra was an extremely relaxed person, though paradoxically he found it difficult to relax. He loved his drink and smoked a lot, which was bad for him. The doctor stopped him but he would still smoke three or four cigarettes. He was not a social namby-pamby drinker. He drank everywhere and he only drank his Scotch. Also, he would talk about how, when he went to New York, the first thing he wanted to do was go and listen to some jazz. He loved jazz and often spoke of the jazz clubs in New York, which he frequented when he was our permanent representative to the United Nations from 1979 to 1981.

At the same time, however, you would never see him in anything but a safari suit (or a suit in winter). It was amazing. I travelled with him a few times, once to Israel, once to China, and even on the flight where there were just the two of us, he would not even take his tie off at night to sleep. On an El Al flight from Bombay to Tel Aviv, for instance, he took off neither his jacket nor his tie. I found that funny. (For the record, the only time I wore a safari suit was for a brief while during my posting in Kathmandu; safari suits had just come into vogue, invented by the Chinese, I think.) His wife used to joke about it: 'Can you ever imagine him in a T-s.h.i.+rt?' she asked me. 'He never gets out of his safari suit.'

Unlike other bureaucrats, Brajesh Mishra did not like to be seen strutting around. He didn't encourage politicians to come and meet him unless it was the one or two he was comfortable with: Arun Shourie and Arun Jaitley, who in any case couldn't offend him in any way. He didn't like politicians and he didn't attend political functions, even if the prime minister was going. Brajesh and Vajpayee had an understanding: you run your politics and I'll run the government. And they got along amazingly.

Which was not the case with the most powerful ministers in the government. It's strange that the most senior ministers in the government did not see eye to eye with Brajesh Mishra, be it Home Minister (and later Deputy Prime Minister) L.K. Advani or Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh. And it didn't seem to bother anybody, least of all Vajpayee, who of course was an accomplished politician and had a good equation with Jaswant Singh and even with Advani.

Brajesh Mishra was very democratic and sometimes I wondered why at times he would waste his time. 'Everyone is ent.i.tled to his say, so let him have his say,' he would tell me.

For instance, a new organisation was carved out of R&AW's Aviation Research Centre (ARC) called the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO), modelled on the USA's National Security Agency. The ARC director was to head the NTRO, and there was a lot of friction between R&AW and the NTRO; as it happened back in 1968 between the IB and the R&AW, they were arguing over cupboards, chairs, officers. I don't know why it had to be created, the ARC was doing fine.

There was a big flap about how many airplanes the NTRO would get. I told Brajesh, 'Sir, take a call, end this nonsense.' But he was very open about it, very democratic, willing to listen. He gave everyone time and a hearing. And things got sorted out.

If he didn't want to see someone, he would palm that person off to me. He didn't suffer fools. And if he had to put off a call on something, he would say, 'I will have to ask the PM about this,' which was his standard line, popular among his own colleagues.

In the PMO I was free to meet the prime minister whenever I wanted; even if I wanted to meet him every day I could, but I did not need to nor would he have wanted to meet me every day. He never refused an appointment nor would Brajesh meddle or ask why I was going to meet the PM. All appointments were listed on his table and he would merely note that you had a meeting that particular day. He might have occasionally asked: 'Koi khaas baat hai?'

On normal days Brajesh Mishra interacted with the prime minister every evening. Vajpayee functioned out of his residence and rarely came to his South Block office, so if any of us had to meet him we had to go to RCR. In Brajesh's case it was not a question of him briefing the prime minister because they knew each other so well. It was a question of sitting down and discussing a matter. So at the end of every day Brajesh would leave office at about 6:30 p.m.he didn't sit late, like a lot of people doand he would go to RCR, where he would spend his time depending on how much time Vajpayee had. He probably wound up and reached home at 8:30 to 9:00 p.m. most evenings.

You might wonder how the government functioned at all in this easygoing manner, but the truth is, in our country the government functions on its own and in Vajpayee's time it functioned smoothly despite the fact that there was a coalition government. Vajpayee managed the coalition very well: he was good with people, he was good with words, and above all he had a sense of humour.

Once, for instance, there was a time when the railway minister, Mamata Banerjee, was sulking. She was a moody person who could be very difficult to get through to. I witnessed one example of Vajpayee's people skills at the airport. Mamata had stormed out of a cabinet meeting, and then Vajpayee went on a trip abroad. I was still in R&AW then and in those days we had to go and stand in line at the airport to either see off or receive the prime ministermore on his return than his departurein case he had a brainwave or something and you were required.

At the airport the officials were lined up on one side and the politicians on the other side. For the politicians it was purely optional who went. But on this occasion Mamata was at the airport and she was first in line. As Vajpayee came in she bent down to touch his feet, as was her habit. He caught her hand and gave her a hug. That ended all problems with her party, the Trinamool Congress. Vajpayee could do that.

Vajpayee was not only a very astute politician but a poet and philosopher as well and an unparalleled orator. I had the privilege of first hearing the great man in 1978 while posted as first secretary in our emba.s.sy in Kathmandu when as foreign minister Vajpayee spoke at a function of the NepalBharat Maitree Sangh starting with 'Jis desh ke kanker, kanker me Shankar ho' which sent the crowds into raptures. Vajpayee mesmerised the packed house; most of the Nepalese women came out with moist eyes. Not only in Kathmandu but everywhere he went and spoke as in Lah.o.r.e in 1999 and Srinagar in 2003 he held the crowd in thrall.

Vajpayee fulfilled Plato's ideal of the perfect state in which 'philosophers were kings and kings philosophers'.

My only reservation was that Vajpayee took his time in deciding things, particularly in important or crucial matters. You would never be able to tell that from meetings, which he never allowed to meander uselessly; he would sit there, munching his samosa and jalebis, but ensured the meeting was quick and business-like and over. If he had to say something or make a remark, he would do so; otherwise it was thank you very much.

Perhaps his decisions now took a long time because of Kargil, etc., and he had to face that criticism. Vajpayee the foreign minister who went to Pakistan, when he was much younger, and Vajpayee the prime minister were two different people.

Nonetheless, Vajpayee was never one to allow himself to be led by the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy antic.i.p.ates things and tries to be 'his master's voice'. In Vajpayee's government, however, you never felt an unnatural swing to the right; it was like any other government. Indeed, it was a friendlier government, a happier one, and I don't think the bureaucracy had a better time than during Vajpayee's time, though there might have been the odd guy who felt he was being discriminated against because he was with the Congress or some such thing.

For instance, if you leave it to bureaucrats, things like relations with Pakistan will not improve no matter how much you may personally want to improve thema clear example is Dr Manmohan Singh's ten-year tenure as prime minister. When Vajpayee took the bus to Lah.o.r.e, it was not a bureaucratic decision; it wasn't a whim either, but it was a decision 'driven' by the prime minister himself, with the supporting homework being done by the bureaucracy. And who would have thought that within two years of Kargil, Vajpayee would invite and talk to General Musharraf.

In his 'pure politics' approach of not being led by his bureaucrats, Vajpayee to my mind showed several similarities with his predecessor, P.V. Narasimha Rao (recall that Vajpayee headed a thirteen-day government in 1996 after the Congress government led by Narasimha Rao lost power). The two of them were keen on a breakthrough in Kashmir, and in this both were willing to look beyond Farooq Abdullah: in the mid-'90s, Narasimha Rao placed his hopes on Shabir Shah, while, as we shall see in the next two chapters, Vajpayee favoured Omar Abdullah over his father.

The other similarity that people talk about is that both Narasimha Rao and Vajpayee were nudged along in their Pakistan and Kashmir initiatives by the Americans. Though those who argue this seem to make a logical case for their a.s.sertion, I never saw anything that suggested this nor do I have evidence that such was the case with either prime minister. Perhaps this suggestion comes from those quarters who are themselves unwilling to credit these prime ministers with original thinking.

Narasimha Rao was, like Vajpayee, a smart strategist and must be given credit for a couple of things. For one thing, after the shock of the militancy erupting in 1990, whatever opening we in the government madetalking to all Kashmiris, no matter who they werethe credit goes to Narasimha Rao. His approach was not at all hampered by any baggage. There was a time when separatists or Kashmiris going to the Pakistan High Commission would be hara.s.sed by the police and agencies. In May 1995, Pakistan president Farooq Leghari came to Delhi for a South Asian a.s.sociation for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit and he invited the Hurriyat leaders for a meeting. We at the IB did our best to try and dissuade them; the result was that two went, two didn't go, one reported sick, and Moulvi Abbas Ansari landed up at 2 p.m. for an 11 a.m. meeting, saying that he had gone shopping and had got lost in an auto-rickshaw coming to Chanakyapuri, which is the diplomatic enclave. It was comical.

'What's the big deal?' Narasimha Rao asked. 'If they want to go there, let them. It's not a big deal.'

This opening-up started in Narasimha Rao's time. Before that, anyone who visited the high commission was suspect. They'd be searched or frisked or whatever it is, and followed. So all that stopped. Narasimha Rao said, nahi, aane dijiye jaane dijiye. Why are we doing this? There is no need.

Perhaps it was because Narasimha Rao wasn't too impressed with intelligence work (or the officers that brought him intelligence). Part of it might have been because his predecessor as Congress prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi, was impressed by the intelligence community, and his tenure is remembered as the best it has ever been for Indian intelligence. But it was mostly due to Narasimha Rao's notion of intellectual superiority, and the att.i.tude that there was nothing new that the spooks could tell him.

In any case, Narasimha Rao, who had overseen the 1992 a.s.sembly election in Punjab after which the Khalistan movement lost much of its steam, was determined from 1994 onwards that democracy be revived in J&K. This governor's rule business will not do, he apparently felt, referring to the arrangement in J&K from 19 January 1990, when Farooq Abdullah resigned following the appointment of Jagmohan as governor. We have to get back to the political process. If you want to normalise Kashmir, that is the only way.

And in Narasimha Rao's mind, reviving democracy did not mean going back to the Abdullah family. He did not see that as moving forward. He was one for talking to the Kashmiris, and if he could rope separatists or even militants into the political process, then that would be dream fulfillment. On this job, he deployed his young telecommunications minister (and from 1993 to 1995, the junior minister for home affairs), Rajesh Pilot, and the DIB, D.C. Pathak.

Rajesh Pilot had already had some involvement with Kashmir during Rajiv Gandhi's time, when he was a junior minister in charge of surface transport (198589). At that time, Pilot was a sort of message carrier between New Delhi and Farooq Abdullah, and he a.s.sisted Rajiv Gandhi in the 1986 Congress accord with the National Conference. That's how I got to know Rajes.h.i.+ used to meet him after I was posted to Srinagar, and we got along quite well. I found it easy to talk to him.

The only thing was, Governor K.V. Krishna Rao could not stand Pilot. General Rao was a former army chief who was appointed to the J&K Raj Bhavan for a second stint in May 1993, succeeding Gary Saxena (a former R&AW chief who would also do a second stint, from 1998). Gary was a great man manager: though an intelligence services man, he got along well with Kashmiris and with the army. He could have, in my opinion, helped a Kashmir initiative from Raj Bhavan in Srinagar, had he been asked.

Krishna Rao's importance, perhaps, was that he had a great relations.h.i.+p with Farooq. It was a sort of father-son relations.h.i.+p that the General said formed because he was the corps commander in Jammu from 1974 to '78, when Sheikh did the accord with Indira Gandhi and then took over as chief minister.

Besides not liking Pilot, Krishna Rao was also allergic to the home secretary, K. Padmanabhaiah. In another smart move, Narasimha Rao set up a Department of Kashmir Affairs that he himself headed; the secretary was Padmanabhaiah, and this gave Kashmiris encouragement that their matter was being handled at the highest level of government. To his credit, Padmanabhaiah also visited Kashmir several times, which is more than what can be said about other home secretaries.

Padmanabhaiah and Rajesh Pilot, though, were on the same wavelength. This brings up an interesting story. Pilot was very close to K.P.S. Gill, the Punjab police chief credited with leading the fight against militancy from the front, and in 1996 he wanted to send K.P.S. to Kashmir as governor. K.P.S., however, preferred to go as director-general of police. There was a vacancy, so Pilot got the ball rolling. But as soon as Krishna Rao got wind of it, he immediately filled the vacancy by appointing an officer he was not fond of, M.N. Sabharwal. Just to pre-empt these guys. Such were the fun and games in Kashmir.

Narasimha Rao was a veteran at balancing out people. In March 1994, for instance, when India was under a lot of pressure internationally because of Kashmir, there was an important meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, of the fiftieth session of the United Nations Commission for Human Rights; a few months earlier, in 1993, US a.s.sistant secretary of state Robin Raphel had questioned the finality of J&K's accession to India; at the same time Pakistan prime minister Ben.a.z.ir Bhutto said the Kashmir dispute was an 'unfinished business of Part.i.tion'. Both statements had come during a high-profile standoff between the army and JKLF militants at the Hazratbal shrine on the outskirts of Srinagar. Narasimha Rao's brainwave was to send to Geneva a delegation headed by the leader of the opposition, who at that time was Vajpayee, and which included Farooq Abdullah. India presented a united front to the world on Kashmir, and this helped relieve the pressure internationally.

However, whatever balancing Narasimha Rao might have done, Rajesh Pilot was key to the Kashmir breakthrough. The prime minister knew that this was a youngster who spoke his mind; who was open, frank and ambitious; and who had a future, perhaps even as prime minister. Narasimha Rao's thinking did not always match Pilot's thinkingin fact, he wanted to go much slower than Pilot did, and thus did not fully trust him, often using the senior home minister, S.B. Chavan, to slow him down. Pilot was prepared to do at that time what no other person was prepared to do: take a little risk and talk to Kashmiris. Which is how I got into this whole business of talking.