Book Review by: Prof. Neelam Mahajan Singh
Ever since 1947, i.e the independence of India has been marred by the wounds of the partition of India and Pakistan. On 6th February, I went to participate in the interactive conference of Ajay Bisaria, who patiently outlined the theme of his book, Anger Management: The Troubled Diplomatic Relationship Between India And Pakistan. On 7th August 2019, High Commissioner Ajay Bisaria was expelled from Islamabad. His expulsion marked, yet another low, in the never ending toxic, political relationship between India and Pakistan. The author is a professional diplomat. He has dedicated the book to his parents; Mrs. Priyamvada and Mr. Jagat Narayan Bisaria, “who were witness to the Partition, and had many stories to tell of the times, before and after”! The author is himself a vivid commentator on international affairs and is a distinguished fellow of the Observer Research Foundation. Ajay Bisaria joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1987, and in a career spanning thirty-five years, he dealt with some of India’s key economic and security relationships.
2017 to 2020, the author was India’s high commissioner to Pakistan. He has been high commissioner to Canada, and ambassador of Poland, Berlin, Moscow and Lithuania. Ajay Bisaria represented India at the World Bank, in Washington DC. He was a key aide to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee from 1999 to 2004. This was also a period of PM of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif hugging PM Vajpayee and the subsequent Kargil war. The author is a graduate in Economics Hons. St. Stephen’s College, an IIM from Calcutta and has a Master’s degree from Princeton University. With such vast diplomatic experience and having been a privy to significant developments between India and Pakistan, the book is a definite insight towards several highs and lows of Indo-Pak relations. The Shimla Agreement between Zulfikar Ali Bhutoo and PM Indira Gandhi, was the guide for peaceful, neighbourhood. However were these initiatives really put to practice? Interestingly, PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee had said, when the author was in P.M.’s advisor, “You can change your friends but not the neighbours.” Keeping with that diplomatic relationship of harmonious coexistence in South Asia, the author has advocated peace efforts to continue between India and Pakistan, but “terrorism will not be tolerated at any cost”! PM Vajpayee said, “Hum jung nahi honay dengey; 3 bar lad chuke hain ladayi, kitna mehnga sauda hai yeh!” (We will not allow another war between India and Pakistan. We have fought thrice.
This is an unbearably expensive deal”). PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s words reverberate in Ajay Bisaria’s book. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee arrived at Wagah on the evening of February 19, 1999, on the inaugural Delhi-Lahore bus service to a 19-gun salute and was accorded a welcome bereft of participation by the public and Pakistan’s top military leadership. Little did he know then that within just months of his historic initiative, India and Pakistan would be embroiled in another jung — the Kargil War. Ambassador Ajay Bisaria writes, “Indian democracy’s greatest strength is that we have always put the nation above politics.” Chapter 27 of the book, titled ‘Revenge of the snakes’; deals with army coups and supremacy of army, that sapped the economy of Pakistan.
Benazir Bhutto returned from London to participate in the elections in Pakistan. “Benazir Bhutto clambered onto the rear seat of Toyota Cruiser, to stick her neck out of the sunroof hatch … It was early evening of 27 December 2007, she had just finished a stump speech at Liaquat Bagh in Rawalpindi, as part of her comeback campaign, given the eminent end of the Musharraf era”. The author gives chilling details of a 15 years old boy Bilal, who pumped three bullets, before blowing himself up. The D.G. of ISI, Lieutenant General Nadeem Taj, had given specific information to Benazir, fifteen hours before her assassination. Before this, Zia ul Haq had erased her father, three decades ago! The Bhutto family had a bloody fate. Benazir’s death saw the spontaneous eruption of grief and empathy in India. These were the analogous destinies of Rajiv Gandhi and Benazir. The then President of India, Pratibha Devisingh Patil termed Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, “a tragedy not just for Pakistan but for our entire region”. PM Vajpayee talked on, “Jamhooriat, Kashmiriyat and Insaniyat”, for the paradise on earth. The abolition of Article 370 and 35A from Kashmir has skirmishes in Pakistan as well. On page 447, Ajay Bisaria quotes, Amit Shah, home minister of India, who said in Parliament, “the revocation of Article 370 was meant to bring an end to the bloodshed and violence in Kashmir. With 41,000 lives lost in Kashmir, should we wait to lose 10,000 more before we changed the status quo”?
With cordiality between PM Narendra Modi and ousted PM Imran Khan, it was hoped that some solutions would emerge. The Talibaani militants, Jaish-e-Mohammed, are still remote controlling.
The overwhelming public sentiment in India is that no meaningful dialogue can be held with Pakistan until it abandons the use of terrorism as an instrument of its foreign policy. The author gives the readers a sneak peak into the invisible initiatives of diplomats, when ties are strained, dodging, spies and occasionally having to endure, the warmth and friendship that we receive from Pakistani people. The author hopes that the cantankerousness, bloodshed and cross border terrorism has blighted Indo-Pak ties, that would be replaced by normalcy, if not enduring bonds of warmth and amity. The book gives a narrative of the 1948 offensive, that was stopped in it’s track by prompt action of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, 1965 Indo-Pak war, ably handled by PM Lal Bahudur Shastri, 1971 war, during PM Indira Gandhi, that was won with resounding victory and the 1999 Kargil war that was repulsed by PM Vajpayee’s decisive leadership. The Mumbai terrorists attacks, by Pakistani terrorists, resurgence of ugly face of terrorism in Pulwama and Balasore, the terrorist attack on India’s Parliament by ‘Jaish-e-Mohammed’, the fangs of Punjab militancy, partition of Pakistan, into formation of Bangladesh, The Indira- Mujib ur Rehman comoradrie, Rajiv Gandhi- Benazir Bhutoo meeting, Focus is also on PM Vajpayee and General Parvez Musharraf’s ‘Agra Summit’ peace talks, although they were veiled by Pakistani army.
Anger Management, covers the peace initiatives of PM Narendra Modi’s ‘out of box’ diplomacy to attend Nawaz Sharif’s daughter, Maryam’s wedding. Infact when PM Nawaz Sharif came to attend the first oath ceremony of PM Narendra Modi, it appeared that stars of peace were sparkling. Ajay Bisaria offers a peace plan for harmonious coexistence between India and Pakistan, to be able to arrive at lasting peace. In a world torn with wars and agrendisement, where religious polarisation and economic- strategic interests are dominant, Anger Management: The Troubled Diplomatic Relationship Between India And Pakistan, is indeed an A+ book for readers of global, strategic cooperation and a guidance to keep in mind that, respecting the territorial integrity of comity of nations is the midas stone for future. The forthcoming general elections in India and Pakistan, may kindle some hope of peace in the region. In the last paragraph, the author writes, “amongst all the debate on war and peace, terrorism and Kashmir, diplomacy and discord, I reminded myself of the steps my mother and her family had taken all those decades ago, of a South Asian space, more connected than it is today.
I wondered if the borders of the future could be more open and welcoming”. Ajay Bisaria has succinctly written the book with sensitivity, precision and first hand account, hoping that, “the borders could be opened up once again without the terrorists and bloodshed. If new generation reject the flawed choices of the past, such a future does seem possible”. In retrospect, while reading and penning the book review, the author went into her memory down the as her parents also suffered the horrors of partition of India and being a ‘Daughter of Kashmir’ she applauds Ajay Bisaria for giving a guidance for a peaceful coexistence of India and Pakistan. The book is a must read for students, foreign policy experts, aspirational diplomats, policy makers of India and Pakistan and above all an excellent book for encompassing, seventy five years of India’s relations with Pakistan. Indeed a project for peace in the region.
