Vajpayee’s bus ride to Lahore
Vajpayee’s first move came with the bus ride to Lahore. It was a decade ago, but not enough time has still passed for me to be able to recount the inside story of that move — which surprised the foreign ministries on both sides — or to disclose any conversations. But during that period there was no let-up in attacks in the Valley; in fact a major massacre took place even when Vajpayee was in Lahore. Yet he visited Minar-e-Pakistan and declared that a stable and prosperous Pakistan was entirely in India’s interest. The significance of a BJP prime minister making that statement was not lost on anybody in Pakistan. It was as historic as Advani’s subsequent rationalisation of Jinnah as a modern leader — and Vajpayee was never to go back on it even after the embarrassing, and politically near-fatal discovery that Musharraf’s infiltrators were occupying Kargil exactly when he was making the peace in Lahore. That is because finding peace with Pakistan was never a tactical, short-term ploy in his mind. It was a Great, Big idea. In fact, the Great Big Idea of his entirely statesmanly mind. And when he lost power in May 2004, his biggest regret was that he would not be able to take it to its logical conclusion.
http://newageislam.com/india-pakistan-relations--two-pms,-one-big-idea/current-affairs/d/1590
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4:03 AM
Moderate Islamist here
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