Jaswant Singh’s closeness to Vajyapee and LK Advani ensured that their talents were recognized.
New Delhi:
Former Union Minister Jaswant Singh, who died today in Delhi at the age of 82, had left his military career to join politics. A former student at Ajmer’s Mayo College, he made a course correction because he felt he couldn’t make a difference while in the military.
Upon resigning his post with the Central Indian Horse, an armored regiment, he contested his first election as an independent MLA from Osian of Rajasthan, near his hometown of Jasol. But he never looked back after his entry into national politics in the 1980s. He won four Lok Sabha elections and was a member of the Rajya Sabha for five terms.
It was his time in the home of the former royals of Jodhpur that brought him into contact with the rising political leaders of the state such as Bhairon Singh Shekhawat. The turning point in his political career came when he met Atal Bihari Vayjpayee in the 1970s by Sardar Angre, a close associate of Vijayraje Scindia.
Their friendship lasted a lifetime. They both shared a taste for things literary, and those close to Jaswant Singh recall how he and Vajpayee spent their nights together sharing common interests: politics, prose, and foreign affairs. Jaswant Singh’s son Manvendra had recalled in an article how his father was often called “Hanuman of Atalji.”
Jaswant Singh had no RSS experience. But his closeness to Vajyapee and LK Advani ensured that his talents were recognized.
In the government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Jaswant Singh served as Minister of Finance, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Defense. He was vice chairman of the Planning Commission, leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha and vice chairman of the opposition in the Lok Sabha. As Minister of Foreign Affairs, he was instrumental in defending India’s case for the removal of US sanctions after the nuclear tests in Pokhran. Singh shared a close personal friendship with Madeline Albright, the US Secretary of State in the Clinton administration.
But during his tenure, Singh also faced criticism for handling the Kandhar hijacking episode after the Indian government released terrorists like Masood Azhar to secure the release of Air India passengers held hostage. Jaswant had taken a flight to the Afghan city to bring the hostages back.
Jaswant Singh, a founding member of the BJP, would not shy away from expressing views other than in conjunction with the party’s ideology. His book “Jinnah: India Partition Independence”, published in 2009, which praised Jinnah and blamed Congress for the partition, is a case in point. Instead of Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, Jaswant Singh had blamed the partition on Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabhbhai Patel.
Party insiders say the leader, who supported LK Advani in the Jinnah controversy, was disappointed when Advani did not reciprocate.
But he never backed down from his views and the great controversy that followed led to the expulsion of Jaswant Singh.
At the party’s National Executive meeting in Shimla, the party was pressured by Narendra Modi, then Gujarat’s chief minister, who said that Vallabhbhai Patel was an iconic figure. The Gujarat government had banned Jaswant Singh’s book.
At the time, Jaswant Singh was the deputy from Darjeeling. He was sent to participate in elections from the hill district in Bengal, far from his native Rajasthan, as his military record was well received by the Gorkha constituency in the constituency. Gorkhas has been at odds with the Bengal government for decades over his demand for statehood.
In his book, Jaswant Singh also claimed that Vajpayee wanted to fire Narendra Modi as then Gujarat’s chief minister, but was stopped by LK Advani.
He also claimed that after the Gujarat riots, Vajpayee had wanted to resign from the PM post, but gave up after Singh took his hand and stopped him to write his resignation letter.
In 2014, Jaswant Singh had his last break with the BJP after he was denied a ticket from the Barmer Lok Sabha seat. One section claimed that the refusal came at the behest of Vasundhara Raje, then chief minister who also led the party.
Jaswant Singh fought as an Independent, gaining more than 4 lakh votes, but was behind BJP Colonel Sonaram Chaudhary, who won by around 87,000 votes. Congress, which now governs the state, came third in that election.
Shortly after the May elections, Jaswant Singh suffered a fall at his Delhi residence in August and fell into a coma. Since then he was being treated at the Army Research and Reference Hospital.
A scholar and diplomat with a keen interest in military and foreign affairs, Jaswant Singh is the author of more than eight books. His book “A Call to Honor” generated controversy when he wrote about a mole in the Narasimha Rao government in 1995, prompting the government not to go ahead with its plan to go nuclear under pressure from the United States.
Jassu, as his friends affectionately called him, will be best remembered as a man of letters, a rare combination of a politician who never shied away from expressing opinions that may have been divergent from his party’s views.
.
