Pilgrim's Progress: Interview with Jaswant Singh

The News on Sunday, Pakistan

February 5, 2006

firstperson

Jaswant Singh

Pilgrim's progress

The citizens of these two countries, the ordinary people of these two countries, are miles ahead of their respective governments in their search, their yearning for peace.

By Ammara Durrani

On Thursday (February 2) afternoon, visiting Indian Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Jaswant Singh, entered a meeting room in a Karachi hotel, profusely apologising. He was thirty minutes late for this interview.

Understandably so, because the man had been on the road since Monday, crossing three deserts in India's state and Pakistan's Sindh province to get to the Hinglaj Mata temple on the southeastern fringes of Balochistan, and later driving down to Karachi to meet the city's who's who over the next few days.

The 67-year-old veteran politician had taken pains to allay the Indian press's concerns stemming from what happened the last time a leader from his Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) had come calling in Karachi. L K Advani's visit last April had landed the then president of the party into a huge troubles because of the tribute he paid to Mohammad Ali Jinnah.

Interestingly, a visit to Jinnah's tomb was included in Singh's itinerary as well. But from the outset, he had made it clear that there was "nothing official" about his visit; rather, it was a personal journey of pilgrimage to his ancestral deity. Echoes of the party's angry music, which Advani had faced upon his return home, also accompanied Singh as he had boarded for his road journey to Pakistan. Hence his parting shot to India: "We should keep the doors of our mind open."

Singh sat down with The News on Sunday to share his impressions on his non-political journey, and some views on everything that is currently political in South Asia and the world at large. Excerpts follow:

On the pilgrimage:

TV cameras accompanying Singh had captured him receiving a warm welcome at every stop starting from Khokhrapar-Munabao border, and traversing Umarkot, Mirpurkhas, Hyderabad, Lasbela, down to Karachi. "But on camera you only capture the picture, you can't capture the sentiment," he says. "It has been remarkable."

He reflects on what a difficult journey it must have been during the olden days, when his ancestor would ride on camel backs for days to cross the deserts and the hills to reach their deity. "Only after undergoing it myself I came to know how difficult the journey must have been and how much simpler it has become," he says.

"You know," he laughs, "it is the first time ever -- I don't like saying first in everything -- but it is for the first time ever that a group of pilgrims has crossed Munabao-Khokhrapar border by road. This is not the traditional route. The rail route... (goes) back to late 19 Century. But the railway is not operational just now, so we came by road."

"...It has been an epic journey," he says, searching for words to express his emotion. "Superlatives like 'epic', 'historic', 'memorable'... they don't even touch the fringes of what all of us collectively have experienced. You can speak to other pilgrims and they will tell you the same thing."

On the personal-political divide:

"It still is a personal journey," he emphasises when steered towards political questions. "I didn't start it as a politically motivated one, but the fact is that I am a political activist not entirely unknown in my country. For me, the experience of being greeted in the fashion that I was -- not just I, but all 86 of us" -- is overwhelming.

"The warmth and emotional outpouring of citizens of Pakistan living in that part of Sindh has to be seen, has to be gone through and to be believed."

On the 'irreversible' India-Pakistan peace process:

"I go a step beyond," Singh says. "Irreversibility is the recognition of what is a fact. I think India and Pakistan, not just India and Pakistan, but the people of India and Pakistan have entered a period, a phase where, I am convinced the citizens of these two countries, the ordinary people of these two countries, are miles ahead of their respective governments in their search, their yearning for peace. That chapter (of enmity) is over. Time has moved far more rapidly and a far great distance (has been covered) in the minds and hearts of people of Pakistan and India, than (what) the governments (have achieved)."

On Vajpayee government's decision to cut off people-to-people contacts post-December 2001:

"I don't think," he begins, then pauses, searching for words. "If you were to assess everything that has happened in the long epoch that spans India-Pakistan relations, and if we spend time in identifying what were the mistakes, then I think we are engaging in a kind of negativism or masochism of self-injury, inflicting on ourselves the painful memories. Admittedly, as two people, we have gone through a period of time which has left searing wounds on the psyches and minds. The need is to apply a balm, not keep scratching the surface of every little itch that has taken place on the skin and to identify it as a mistake."

On India's remarks on the current situation in Balochistan:

"I am in the opposition," he says. "There are some restraints and considerations that as a member of the opposition I must reflect, in what I say about my government."

Smoothly diverting the conversation, he says, "I personally resent what the United States of America, for example, does when it attempts to educate the rest of the world on democracy. I don't see why we have to become the evangelists of democracy. It's not necessary. Democracy is an evolutionary process. It is a testament of the people's wishes. We have to move away from those fixations."

On US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's remarks about India's need to make 'tough choices':

"Perhaps it's best if the United States of America stops telling all of us here in South Asia what to do and what not to do," says Singh, known to be the man responsible for initiating the new US-India engagement, following his historic talks with the then US Deputy Secretary of State, Strobe Talbott in 1998-2000.

"It's very good of Secretary of State Rice to suggest that we have to take a decision about things," he says, recalling having met the lady before she took up her current office last January. "It's self-evident that we have to take a decision, but we don't take decisions, at least I don't take decisions, because somebody told me I have to take a decision. I find it a bit patronising."

On Iran's nuclear standoff:

"I have some problem," he says, carrying on with his criticism of America, "firstly, with the manner in which the United States is projecting the situation within Iran. I find it troublesome, worrisome what President Bush has given voice to in his State of the Union address on Tuesday. Troubling really (is his suggestion) that in the national interest, the United States of America should go where (it) thinks there is a problem, which might eventually become a security issue. At a certain different level, I have analysed this whole question differently in my forthcoming book. But I find it very, very difficult to accept that in this world -- and we have only one world -- the primacy of any country's security interests overrides all other countries. That's very difficult to accept.

"Until yesterday it was Iraq; today it is Iran; and with NATO forces in Afghanistan, tomorrow it could be that... I don't want to go any further... It is very worrisome," he shakes his head with a frown.

On the peace process becoming 'Kashmir-centric':

"Of course, it has become Kashmir centric," he says emphatically, agreeing with Vajpayee's assessment from last year. Singh is of the opinion that too much focus on the Kashmir issue has resulted in the suffering of people living in other parts of the subcontinent, particularly in Sindh and Rajasthan, because their problems have increased tremendously because of the closure of Khokhrapar-Munabao border. He sees his own journey as a step to expand the peace process in this region.

Singh refuses to answer a question on how he views the Indian government's policy of engagement with the Kashmiri political leaders. "I don't want to say anything on that," he says. "It's my government too, you know."

And what is the one thing that he is most looking forward to doing during the remainder of his stay? "Oh," he says, opening wide his arms and closing his eyes with head bent slightly like a pilgrim, "to spread the constituency of peace as widely as I can."

Singh will be spending the next few days socialising in Karachi, traveling up to Sehwan Sharif and Jagir in Sindh, before heading back home on February 7, the same way he came.