Generals can yet again foil political bonhomie

Recalling back stories is sometimes instructive for the land mines that these reveal. In the story of India-Pakistan relations, there have been plenty of those. In February 1999, then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif shook hands in Lahore and issued a joint declaration. This was preceded by an elaborate build-up of carefully constructed dialogues, resulting in a new conversation between India and Pakistan.

But few remember that then Pakistan Chief of Army Staff, General Parvez Musharraf, Air Chief Marshal Parvez Mehdi and Admiral Fasih Bokhari did not attend the reception for the Indian PM, and stayed away from ceremonial functions. They protested that the government should not "welcome an enemy nation in this manner". They also told Nawaz Sharif their presence at Wagah would send out wrong signals and jeopardise the honour of the Pakistani armed forces.

In early May, the Indian Army discovered large scale infiltration by Pakistani soldiers across the LOC in the desolate Kargil sector, engaged in a practice known as salami-slicing: setting up camp in enemy territory and annexing land. The operation to evict the mountain tops of the Pakistani Army is now celebrated in India as Operation Vijay. It was mounted as another operation was mounted in Pakistan - by Gen Musharraf to depose Sharif in a coup.

Despite this, India and Pakistan persisted in efforts to normalise relations, even after the war in Kargil. In 2001, Musharraf made a pilgrimage of sorts to India and a summit meeting took place in Agra. That once again revealed the fundamental faultlines. Vajpayee's presence at the Saarc summit failed to resolve any of the problems although the composite dialogue stayed on course.

In 2008, the strategic help provided by Pakistan's security agencies to a group of terrorists led to the Mumbai attack. This matter kept coming up but did not deter India and Pakistan from resuming a conversation at Sharm El Sheikh.

After a hiatus, the silence between the two countries was broken following an invitation by PM Narendra Modi in 2014 to Nawaz Sharif to his swearing-in ceremony.

MODI'S BIRTHDAY GIFT TO HIS MENTOR IN POLITICS

• THE HIGH POINT: Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Nawaz Sharif shared rare camaraderie when they were Prime Ministers in the late 1990s. In February 1999, Vajpayee travelled by bus across the Wagah-Attari border for bilateral talks
  

 

BIRTHDAY BOYS: Interestingly, both the leaders were born on the same day - December 25. While Vajpayee turned 91 on Friday, Sharif turned 66. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, was born on December 25, 1876.
 

ELOQUENT ATAL: "I bring the good wishes and hopes of fellow Indians who seek abiding peace and harmony with Pakistan... You can change friends but not your neighbours"
Vajpayee on February 21, 1999, after crossing the Wagah border
 

INSPIRING SHARIF: "Vajpayee Saheb, ab to aap Pakistan mein bhi election jeet sakte hain (Mr Vajpayee, now you can win an election even in Pakistan)… We must bring peace to South Asia... We owe this to ourselves and to our future generations"

Nawaz Sharif, in his response to Vajpayee's speech
 

KARGIL WAR: Months after the visit, Kargil war was launched by the Pakistan Army. While India won the war, Sharif witnessed a coup in October 1999 in which Gen Pervez Musharraf, the then chief of Pakistan Army, overthrew him and declared emergency