Views on Pakistan accords with Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh, says Mani Shankar Aiyar

Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar recently came under fire after an old interview of his went viral.

Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar said his old video clip on Pakistan was “dredged up by the BJP to give life to their faltering campaign” during the poll season.

Aiyar recently came under fire after an old interview of his went viral where he said, "India should give respect to Pakistan as it has an atom bomb! If we don't give them respect, they'll think of using an atom bomb against India. You should talk to them. But instead, we are flexing our military might."

In an editorial in the Indian Express, the former Union Minister wrote that the video was shot months ago in the context of his recent books. Aiyar said the Congress had distanced itself from his remarks, but the clip attracted so much attention because his “consistent advocacy of a structured dialogue with Pakistan is an important national issue”.

“Indeed, the Congress has refused to let me speak from any Congress platform for the past 20 years. Why do I matter so much as to attract editorial page condemnation?” he said.

The Congress leader said, “the rationale of his argument cannot be compressed into a clip of a few seconds and then distorted for ulterior purposes”.

He termed the comments his “personal views on Pakistan” but said they also accorded with two other distinguished Prime Ministers of India — Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh.

Aiyar said it was Vajpayee who posted him as India’s first consul-general to Karachi (1978-82).

According to him, Manmohan Singh was “the first to admit that he was building on Atalji’s initiative”.

Aiyar also said how, notwithstanding the Mumbai terrorist attack on 26/11/08, Manmohan Singh had not only attempted a resumption of the dialogue with the then Pakistan PM but also continued to use diplomatic channels to keep in contact.

“I had, therefore, welcomed PM Modi’s invitation to Nawaz Sharif and the decision to resume talks at the swearing-in of the new Indian PM in May 2014. That invitation is referred to in the editorial, but it fails to mention that those talks never took place because the new BJP PM objected to his BJP predecessor, Vajpayee ji, having encouraged Pakistani envoys to bring the Hurriyat into the loop, even to the extent of allowing a Hurriyat delegation to visit Pakistan,” he said.

Aiyar said it was PM Modi’s sudden decision in the third week of August 2014 to not send the Foreign Secretary for talks in Islamabad. “True, as the editorial says, Modi ji made a dramatic stop in Raiwind on December 25, 2015, but while that might have signalled a thaw, ever since a terrorist attack the following month, our relationship has been in the deep freezer,” he stated.

He said nuclear deterrence to prevent nuclear war arises out of dialogue between hostile nuclear powers. He cited the example of the US and Russia ever since the Soviet Union went nuclear. “They have not childishly downgraded their diplomatic relations or refused to talk. What I said even in the clip was to point to Pakistan possessing a nuclear arsenal. My remarks have been distorted both by the BJP and The Indian Express to suggest that I was recommending dialogue out of fear,” he said.