Summing up mood in the country, Somnath Bharti of the AAP said, he had had to think twice, before deciding to rub shoulders with Pakistani legislators.
It was an unusual evening at a five-star hotel in Delhi where a group of Pakistani parliamentarians had crossed the border to Delhi to felicitate Mani Shankar Aiyar, who is bowing out from Parliament on March 21, after two decades. An evening full of emotion and reminiscences was attended by diplomats, MPs and politicians across the divide, from expelled BJP member Kirti Azad to JD (U)'s Pawan Verma and AAP's Somnath Bharti.
But the people missing were from Aiyar's own party -- the Congress – which is engaged in a "nationalism" debate with the ruling BJP. The latter was represented by Kiran Bedi, though Bedi insisted that she was there in a personal capacity. While BJP's official absence was understandable, the Congress' staying away from the farewell do was inexplicable.
A blunt Aiyar did vent his frustration, mentioning in his speech that everybody except his own party was present, even lamenting that since 2004, when he became minister and a key member of the Manmohan Singh government, it was made sure, he had nothing to do with either the foreign office or policies vis-a-vis Pakistan, on which he is an expert. A dozen Pakistani MPs under the banner of Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (PILDAT) highlighted Aiyar's contributions to cross-border peace, both as a diplomat and later as a politician.
Summing up mood in the country, Somnath Bharti of the AAP said, he had had to think twice, before deciding to rub shoulders with Pakistani legislators. But he said Aiyar's crusade for peace with Pakistan, and the coinage of his term of having an'uninterrupted and uninterruptible' dialogue to prevent frequent derailments had enticed him and made him believe, that it was possible to survive in politics, even without political shenanigans.
Born of Madrasi parents in Lahore and graduating in Delhi and Cambridge, Aiyar was chosen as India's first consul general in Karachi by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, foreign minister in the Janata Party government in 1978. Making a case that there was no escape from engaging Pakistan, Aiyar asked, whether India can ignore firing along the LoC or terrorism or infiltration or if Pakistan can shut its eyes to cross-border smuggling? For all these issues, dialogue is a must.
He further stated that trust can come, while getting to know each other, without allowing old wounds to fester. He congratulated Satish Lamba, who was the Manmohan Singh government's pointsman for achieving the impossible, by almost setting a roadmap for settling the difficult issue of Jammu and Kashmir with his Pakistani counterpart Tariq Aziz through back-channel talks between 2004 and 2007. "In settling such issues, neither side should claim victory. The only true victory is that no one wins. That is what Lamba and Aziz had done," Aiyar said.
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