Idolising Bhishma Pitamahas

Brajesh Mishra, in 1967. He is addressing the Special Committee on Peace-Keeping Operations at the United Nations on May 15.-THE HINDU ARCHIVES

Brajesh Mishra and P.N. Haksar before him are idolised as Bhishma Pitamahas of Indian diplomacy, but it is a little-discussed fact that they had feet of clay.

FOR centuries, drawing on the Ramayana, millions of Indians have revered Shri Ramachandra Ji for his honesty, sincerity and love of fellow creatures; Sita, for her kindness and chastity; and Lakshmana and Bharata, for brotherly affection. The Mahabharata describes the truthfulness and forgiveness of Yudhistira, the generosity of Karna, and the wisdom, strength and detachment of Bhishma Pitamaha. But these great books also record their human weaknesses in other respects. This, as an authority points out, made them more lovable and lifelike. This tradition is not followed in India today, least of all in obituaries. Western tradition is different. Both qualities and failings are recalled, for the most part in good taste.

The obituaries that poured forth on the death of Brajesh Chandra Mishra told us much more about the outlook on Indias foreign policy and the values that command respect now than about Mishra. He was idolised as the modern-day Bhishma Pitamaha as, in his time, was Parmeshwar Nath Haksar. Like the Turk, neither tolerated a brother near the throne. Both fought turf wars with their respective Foreign Ministers, Jaswant Singh and Dinesh Singh.

Indira Gandhi was a strong personality; Atal Bihari Vajpayee is a weak one, though more likeable. Power is of two kinds, original and derivative. Advisers wield derivative power. La Rochefoucauld withdrew some maxims he had written. One of them bears on trusted advisers and their like: Kins turn men into coins to which they assign what value they like, and which others are obliged to accept at the official rate, and not at their real worth. Indira Gandhi found Haksar dispensable. He had a brief tenure. Vajpayee depended on Brajesh Mishra pitiably. Both amassed power. Haksar made the Prime Ministers Office (PMO) a behemoth. He created the Research & Analysis Wing (RAW), the Border Security Force (BSF) and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), putting all of them under the PMO. The Intelligence Bureau (I.B.) was divorced from the Home Ministry and Revenue Intelligence from the Finance Ministry and brought under the PMO. He lorded over Ministers and civil servants. A French Prime Minister, Pierre Mendes-France, described in his memoirs the scene at a dinner where Haksar had other Indians cowering under him. He fancied himself as an intellectual until one day the late Sham Lal knocked the image for a six in a withering review of his writings, for which he was never forgiven.

Mishra had no such pretensions and was more circumspect. Haksar drank at the fount of the Communist Party of Great Britain during his student days in London, where he befriended Communist leaders. His pro-Soviet sympathies were never concealed. He was the only one of note in the 1980s to advise India to accept Gorbachevs proposals for Asian security.

Brajesh learnt his politics at the feet of his father, D.P. Mishra, acclaimed by some as a 20th century Chanakya. He had no use for non-alignment. Their views clashed in 1970. The issue was rapprochement with China. Indian Foreign Affairs Journal (Vol. 1, No. 4, October-December 2006, pages 109-118) published an interview with Brajesh Mishra as part of its Oral History Programme, conducted ably by Ambassador Vinod Khanna, a China specialist. Mishra was Charge daffaires ad interim in Beijing when, on May 1, 1970, Chairman Mao Zedong spoke to him. New Delhi ignored the overture on Haksars advice.

These extracts reveal what happened. Before taking up his post he met the Prime Minister. And she said to me, we are in a box, in our relations with China. I want to get out of that box. This was all that I got as instructions before going to Peking.

Khanna: Sir, I was Under Secretary in the East Asia Division and had been tremendously struck by an answer which she had given at the January 1, 1969, press conference, where she had made this point, but not so directly.

As a good professional, Mishra established contacts with Deputy Director Yang Kung Su. He was a very nice man and we used to have conversations lasting for an hour or hour and a half, as I said, once a month or something like that, pushing for this. And this went on for a few months. At that point, I remember, T.N. Kaul, who was the Foreign Secretary, told me, Brajesh why are you engaging in all this? I had to remind him about the instructions of the Prime Minister. Incidentally, T.N. Kaul wrote to Indira Gandhi, after her election as Congress president in 1959 urging her to split the Congress on ideological lines, as if Jawaharlal Nehru did not matter.

Mishra added: Then came May Day, May 1, 1970, and we were all lined upon the ramparts of the Tiananmen and the entire diplomatic corps was there. We waited there for the Chinese leadership to appear and suddenly we saw Chairman Mao himself leading the Chinese delegationMao, Lin Biao, Zhou Enlai, Li Xiannian and others. Mao went to each Head of Mission to greet them on May Day and, of course, the first one was the Dean of the Diplomatic Corps, the greatest friend of China at that time. Albania! So they had an exchange of a few words and he went down the line. I was almost the last. Just before me was the British Charge daffaires who was ranked above me. He thought that he would curry some favour with the Chairman and said to him, Congratulations on your sending a satellite. Yes, just before they had sent up a satellite, Long March or something. So he congratulated the Chairman on that. The Chairman with a twinkle in his eyes said, My regards to Queen Elizabeth and I wish you the same success.

And then he moved on to where we were standing and looked at my wife and her bindi. He said Indu (Indian) and without waiting for me to say anything, he said, How long are we going to keep quarrelling like this? Let us be friends again. I think these are the exact words he used. Then he said, My greetings to the President of India and Prime Minister Gandhi. And then of course he passed on. And then food was served, mao tai was served, and I waited impatiently to return to the Embassy and send a telegram that this is what the Chairman had said.

The following days, I went to the Chinese Foreign Office. They gave an appointment immediately with the Deputy Director. I asked him, Well, where do we go from here? So he said, Well, the Chairman has said what we have to say. Now it is for you to respond. He was not going to expand on what the Chairman had said. The smile was a calculated overture.

Vinod Khanna: A reputed Chinese publication has this text of what Chairman Mao is supposed to have said to you. That does not necessarily make it authentic but I will read it to you in any case. India is a great country and the Indian people are a great people. The Chinese and Indian people are old friends and they cannot always quarrel. This is a translation of the Chinese text.

BM: I have given almost the exact words. I mean, he may have said that the Indian people are great and what not. That was not the big thing. The big thing was how long are we going to be quarrelling like this? Let us be friends again. I am absolutely sure. In fact, the Ministry has the telegram and you should be able to check it out on that. Then I waited for Delhi to react. Delhi took its own time. So I telephoned P.N. Haksar, the Principal Secretary at that time, and I said, Sir, I want to come to Delhi to discuss this. He wasnt very enthusiastic but when I insisted, he agreed.

Maos smile

So, I arrived in Delhi some time in June, eight-nine weeks after what the Indian journalists call Maos smile. It was of course much more than a smile. Raja Dinesh Singh was the Minister. He and Haksar were not on speaking terms the usual problem between Principal Secretary and Ministers. But he [Dinesh Singh] was enthusiastic. This is a very good opening. I spoke to [N.K.] Seshan, the Private Secretary of Indira Gandhi, and asked for an appointment with her to discuss our response. Four of us were called to her residence. So I was called there. Tikki Kaul [T.N. Kaul] was present but not his Minister [Dinesh Singh]. Swaran Singh was there, who was the Defence Minister at that time, and, of course, Haksar. So I said my piece. I said, We need to respond in a substantive manner. And the best thing would be for us to send an ambassador to upgrade the relations. The Soviets had already done so in 1969. Other socialist countries were doing the same. Why should we lag behind? And we had not withdrawn our ambassador. When G. Parthasarathi left, he left after completing his term. So we had not withdrawn our ambassador, but we didnt appoint a new one. And the Chinese also didnt appoint a new one. And this was now about ten years. So I said, It is time now to send an ambassador to Beijing and in this way we are responding to what Mao has said, not merely by words but by deeds. And Tikki and Swaran Singh supported me, and Indira Gandhi was also inclined to do that. There was some discussion as to how it would be received in Parliament. Mrs Gandhi said, you leave that to me. That means, she was saying that you people need not bother about politics, thats my job. Then Haksar spoke against and he turned the meeting around.

Khanna: What were his arguments?

Mishra: He was speaking in a very indirect fashion. And it was only later on I learnt that negotiations were going on for the Indo-Soviet Treaty at that very time. As you know, this later on came in August 1971. Somewhat later, when I returned to Peking, I learnt from the Chinese that D.P. Dhar, who was the Ambassador in Moscow, was checking with the Chinese whether they were serious or not. Yes, I am pretty sure that Mrs Gandhi didnt know anything about that. Must be Haksar and D.P. Dhar. So the meeting ended in Mrs Gandhis residence and I was told, You carry on the dialogue. I said OK, what else could I do? Then I went back. But the Chinese did not give up. They remained very cordial and their propaganda against India subsided. They were hopeful that something would happen. So much so that when Mrs Gandhi went for midterm elections in February-March 1971 and she was re-elected I was at a reception given by Zhou Enlai for a Nepalese dignitary he was Prime Minister or Speaker, I dont know, but Zhou Enlai gave a reception for him, and Zhou Enlai came round to all the Heads of Mission. When he came to me, he said, My congratulations to Mrs Gandhi for her victory and her re-election as Prime Minister. The interpreter fumbled slightly. So Zhou repeated it in English. So even then, which was almost a year after, they kept at it.

I have no doubt in my mind that with the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, the Brezhnev Doctrine and then the clash along the Ussuri, Damansky Island, which was a very serious clash, China decided to balance the Soviet Union in its relations with it, and India was a part of that, apart from the U.S. When Mao said his slogan was: We have friends everywhere in the world, it meant that they were seeking friends everywhere in the world. This was his way of putting it. So, there was a decision taken to open up relations with as many countries as possible. Not to be hemmed in by the Soviets and by India in the South, they were trying to take India along with them.

There was a briefing going on from some quarters. Mrs. Gandhi had told me that she wanted to get out of this box in our relationship with the Chinese. But Haksar and D.P. Dhar had a different kind of view. Whether it was connected to the Chinese actions in India or it was due to their leanings towards the Soviet Union, I dont know. Till March 1971, Zhou Enlai was still very hopeful when he said, My congratulations to Mrs Gandhi, etc. Within a few weeks the whole thing changed. Yahya Khan unleashed terror in Bangladesh and the Chinese were pretty sure that it would lead to some major problems between India and Pakistan. The Chinese began to hesitate because they did not want to abandon Pakistan.

Keen insight

Brajesh Mishra showed keen insight. He explained: There were apprehensions that in a war between India and Pakistan, China might do something. At the end of August 1971 and after the signing of the Indo-Soviet Treaty, I came to Delhi and met P.N. Haksar, who had by then taken over as Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, and P.N. Dhar was appointed as Principal Secretary. I met D.P. Dhar and I said, Look, in my view, you should still make a move towards China. Because, if a war comes and I think a war is imminent, then you would become even more beholden to the Soviet Union. And then the Chinese would feel that there was no way India would act against the wishes of Moscow. So it is in the interest of the country to make a move before the war. P.N. Haksar said, No no no, Brajesh this should not be done. D.P. Dhar was even more critical about it. He said, Why do you want us to bend to China? So I said to Haksar, I will take my case to Mrs Gandhi and convey my message to her. He said, Yes, of course, it is your right.

So I wrote a letter to Mrs Gandhi giving these arguments. She called me a couple of days later. P.N. Dhar was there. This was the first time I met P.N. Dhar. She [Mrs Gandhi] said to me, What is it you propose? I said, It is very simple. You are going to be heavily dependent on the Soviet Union in case of a war between India and Pakistan. There is no doubt about that. Whether it is arms material or it is the Security Council. And then you will feel more obliged to the Soviet Union. And all these arguments of not doing anything in relation to China so as not to displease the Soviet Union will be strengthened. So, before there is a war you must make another move to China. She said, What do you have in your mind? I said, I will go there and I will say that we have decided to send an ambassador to China. And while saying this in Parliament, we will say that we have no reason to believe that the Chinese will not reciprocate. This is all. What will this achieve? she asked. I replied, The Chinese will know that we are very keen to have normal relations even after having signed the Indo-Soviet Treaty. And this they will know before a war. She said, OK, you go and draft something. So P.N. Dhar and I went to the office of the Principal Secretary, which I occupied so many years later, and I drafted something. I insisted that I needed written instructions and could not proceed without them. It was too tricky.

Soviet Defence Minister Marshal Grechko arrived in India on March 2, 1969, with the draft of a treaty. That very day armed clashes broke out between Chinese and Russian troops on the Ussuri river. Haksar and D.P. Dhar had set their hearts on signing the treaty. They could not until Indira Gandhis massive victory in the Lok Sabha elections in 1971. The clause for help in the event of attack was inserted later in the year.

As the war clouds hovered on the horizon, Brajesh Mishra began conducting his soundings. I went on talking to the Foreign Office. I wanted to assess Chinas reaction to the impending war. A few days before the war began, 30 November or 1 December, I forget now, I asked the Director, What are you going to do? He could not be indiscreet or anything like that. After about 40 or 45 minutes of sparring, I ended the conversation. He came out to see me off at the steps my car was there as we were approaching the steps he said to me, Mr Charge daffaires need not worry, China will act in accordance with international law. What more assurance could we want? And now we know that at this point of time, when he said this to me, the Americans had been pushing China to take some action on the border against India. The Chinese said, No. Why ? Did it have something to do with our going and saying to them even after the Indo-Soviet Treaty that Look we want to normalise relations and they didnt want to shut the door completely. Suddenly, China had become a very responsible country after becoming a permanent member of the Security Council. I dont know, but I am merely saying that they did not want to take steps which would exacerbate the situation between India and China, while at the same time they wanted to keep supporting Pakistan, you know diplomatically, verbally, even giving supplies, whatever it is, but not direct action on their part as Kissinger was urging them to do. You know, White House Papers, which came out last year. And it was at that moment that the Director was saying to me, Mr Charge daffaires need not worry, China would act in accordance with international law. Mishra was in China until August 1973. Four years later, Mr [K.R.] Narayanan went as ambassador with the same formula which I suggested at that timewe send ours first and they send theirs after that.

To conclude this, the Mao thing was a well-thought-out calculated move. And the main reason for that, I cant say that the only reason was to see that India did not go into the pocket of the Soviet Union. In fact, one of the Chinese, I forget now who, said this to me later. I responded, Look, you are a big country and we are a big country. Can you be in the pocket of somebody? We cant be in the pocket of somebody either. But they had this apprehension. You know, Mrs Gandhi didnt want to remain beholden to the Soviet Union. In his opinion: What is clear today is that they dont want conflict on their borders. We should take advantage of that.

It was a splendid performance. Yet this was the very man who wantonly cited China as a reason for the nuclear tests in May 1998 in Vajpayees letter to Bill Clinton. It was leaked, predictably. As Special Representative, he made little effort to make any significant progress on the boundary problem. His concern was delineation of the Line of Actual Control (LoAC), which China rejected.

Coercive diplomacy

Mishra believed in coercive diplomacy minus its vital contentsimultaneous offer to settle. He manipulated the media. A New Delhi daily carried a front page story by its editor, no less, citing the coercive measures he had in mind. One of them, incredibly, was denunciation of the Indus Water Treatyto which the World Bank was a party. The next day or two, two former High Commissioners to Pakistan, one strategic affairs analyst and a couple of others wrote articles supporting the idea. Fools seldom differ. These were not fools but pliable establishment regulars.

It is an integral part of coercive diplomacy to leave ajar the door to the negotiating table, as Michael Dobbs pointed out in his analysis of the Cuban missile crisis 50 years ago. It remains valid today. Presidents Lyndon Johnson and George W. Bush ignored it. Unlike Haksar, Brajesh Mishra was innocent of lessons from history. He wanted to go the whole hog. The U.S. went along until its own purpose was served and pulled the rug from under the regimes feet in June 2002. Operation Parakram was called off in bizarre circumstances in October 2002. The U.S., with the United Kingdom in tow, prescribed the next steps precisely in a joint statement on March 27, 2003ceasefire in Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan to be committed to respect the Line of Control (LoC), and moves within the SAARC [South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation] context. They were obediently followed. The ceasefire came, under pretences; Vajpayee did attend the SAARC summit in Islamabad in January 2004 after feigned suspense and Pakistan gave the planned undertaking in the Vajpayee-Musharraf joint statementa real achievement for the Bhishma Pitamaha to flaunt and tout. He never ceased to talk about this achievement even after the folly of Operation Parakram was exposed.

The other side

The former editor of Outlook Vinod Mehtas memoirs shed a most unflattering light on this dark aspect of Brajesh Mishras personality. The weekly published a story concerning the husband of Namita, Vajpayees foster daughter, the famous Ranjan Bhattacharya. His primary conduits, say all, are [Brajesh] Mishra and [N.K.] Singh. The proprietors premises in Mumbai were raided. Worse, he was harassed daily and made to wait from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Vinod Mehta reveals, I rang up Brajesh Mishra. He agreed to see me. When we met, he feigned surprise, even shock. You have been raided! I know nothing about this. Very unfortunate. You know both Atalji and I believe in press freedom. We would do nothing to harm the press. Listening to him, I nearly vomited. He then lectured me on the importance of a free press in a democracy.

What happened next remains perhaps one of the most humiliating experiences of my life. I had to reassure Brajesh I was never in any doubt about his and the Prime Ministers commitment to press freedom. The raids on Outlook must have occurred due to some misunderstanding or perhaps some fault on our part! All this to butter him up for my next move. I told Brajesh I was not seeking any favour in the ongoing tax evasion investigations. All I was asking for was an end to the harassment of my proprietor. Could he please do something? Of course, of course, he said. I am very sorry to hear Mr Raheja is being troubled. He picked up the phone and fixed a meeting between me and the Finance Minister, Yashwant Sinha. My interaction with Brajesh lasted no more than ten minutes. I shook his hand, thanked him and ran out of his room. I urgently needed fresh air to recover from his hypocritical bullshit. Yashwant Sinha made no pretence of surprise. I read something about it. He promised Rajans harassment would stop. Miraculously in twenty-four hours it did.

A week later President Narayanan sent for me. The DUJ [Delhi Union of Journalists] resolution had been received by his office. I recounted to the President the whole Mahabharat. He said he had read the Outlook stories. I found out later that Narayanan sent the DUJ resolution with a covering letter to Vajpayee, who was most upset at receiving the communication (Vinod Mehta; Lucknow Boy; Penguin, Viking, 2011; pages 205-206).

Vinod Mehta will not tell a lie and Brajesh Mishra did not deny the serious charge. On another occasion, Brajesh Mishra improperly asked for the source of a story concerning Arun Jaitley, L.K. Advani and Gujarat. Astonishingly, Brajesh Mishra called. Straightaway, he accused me of printing a concocted report. Who did you speak to? he wanted to know. Before I could reply, he disclosed he was fully aware of Arnab Duttas familiarity with [Ashok] Saikia [in the PMO] and Namita. I put my hand on Namitas head and asked her if she had spoken to your reporter. She denied it outright. I suggested someone from the PMO write a formal letter refuting our alleged mischief. He didnt seem too hot on the idea (ibid.; page 207).

But such is our intellectual culture that a leading writer on strategic affairs, who was opposed to one man holding both postsPrincipal Secretary to the Prime Minister and National Security Advisercame around to praising this systemit made for efficiency. Building institutions and establishing norms are of little account. From at least 1969 Haksar freely advised Indira Gandhi on party affairson snatching the Finance portfolio from Morarji Desai, bank nationalisation, abolition of privy purses, the presidential election and, most importantly, the strategy for the Congress split in 1969.

Two and a half years later, she all but discarded him. But he was upright to warn her honestly on the doings of Sanjay Gandhi. Brajesh Mishra had a different attitude on Vajpayees foster son-in-law Ranjan Bhattacharya. Neither had much of a vision on world affairs. The speech that Vajpayee delivered at the Asia Society in New York on September 28, 1998, was a plaintive wail and a pathetic appeal for respect from the U.S.: I have been trying to analyse the reasons and I think I can at least indicate where the shoe pinches us. First and foremost, it is American reluctance to accept us as a responsible member of the international community. Whether it is regional arrangements dealing with Afghanistan, where we have vital security and other interests; whether it is cooperative arrangements in the Asia-Pacific region, where we have a clearly positive, moderating and stabilising role to play; whether it is global organisations like the U.N. Security Council or the discriminatory Non-Proliferation Treaty; in all of these the United States does not appreciate and accommodate Indias interests and concerns. He ended by saying that India and the U.S. are natural allies.

Respect is not to be begged for. It is to be commanded by building up national power and by adopting far-sighted policies. President Clinton became sick of this and told Strobe Talbott that India was the Rodney Dangerfield of great nationsconvinced that it was never getting enough respect (Strobe Talbott; Engaging India, page 78). Haksar was no better. Our Bhishma Pitamahas had feet of clay.