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Jaswant and Jinnah

B. Muralidhar Reddy

The former External Affairs Minister's decision not to visit Qaid-e-Azam's mausoleum may not have gone down well with his hosts in Pakistan.

THE FORMER External Affairs Minister and the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Jaswant Singh, appears to have put a dampener on his recent "historic" journey to Pakistan with his decision not to visit the mausoleum of Mohammad Ali Jinnah.

Mr. Singh's decision is ironical on more than one count. The significance of a symbolic visit to the mausoleum had been explained by none other than the BJP leader himself before his arrival in Pakistan on January 30. Also, Mr. Singh spent more than half of his nine-day trip very close to the monument in the port city of Karachi.

In the post-Advani episode phase, Mr. Singh's conduct could be treated as an internal matter of Sangh Parivar but for the possible impact on India-Pakistan relations. It was no ordinary trip. Mr. Singh was in Pakistan at the head of an 86-member delegation on a pilgrimage to shrines in Balochistan and Sindh after special permission granted by Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf. Thanks to the gesture, Mr. Singh and his entourage crossed over from Rajasthan in their own vehicles, the first time anyone has done so since Independence.

According to Mr. Singh's personal staff, a visit to the mausoleum was never part of the itinerary. This is in total contrast to the statement attributed to Mr. Singh at his press conference in New Delhi before the trip and the remarks attributed to the BJP spokesman on the day Mr. Singh embarked on the trip.

On January 21, Mr. Singh was quoted as having said: "He is the Quaid-e-Azam of Pakistan. I am going to fulfil my duty as a guest and I cannot be disrespectful to them by refusing to visit as suggested by my hosts," he had said. Asked whether his visit could trigger a controversy akin to that which followed Mr. Advani's trip, Mr. Singh had said "I don't think it will lead to any controversy. I am going on a pilgrimage."

On January 30, BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad had said: "The question is not whether the party approves of Mr. Jaswant Singh's itinerary or not. He will be a state guest in Pakistan, and not visiting Jinnah's mazar would be akin to a guest in India refusing to visit the Gandhi samadhi."

During the visit, Mr. Singh met a cross-section of Pakistani society including representatives of political parties. He appeared overwhelmed by the warmth of the people and liberally employed superlatives such as "epic," "historic," and "memorable" to describe his feelings.

Mr. Singh took everyone by surprise by his cutting comments on the Bush administration for its "patronising" attitude towards the world, and South Asia. "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, but it is very worrisome," he told The News.

He talked about the need to "apply a balm, not keep scratching the surface of every little itch that has taken place on the skin" when asked how he looked back on the Vajpayee Government's decision to cut off people-to-people contacts between India and Pakistan after the December 13, 2001 attack on Parliament. Would it, then, have cost him too much to visit Jinnah's mausoleum tomb?

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