| The history of relations between Pakistan and India should never be read from cover to cover; it is better comprehended by skipping pages. By overlooking events such as the 1965 and the 1971 wars, Kargil and the Agra summit, one can, in the words of a popular song of the 1950s, accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative. That would appear to have been the continuous endeavour of Shri Inder K. Gujral, whether in his capacity as India’s Foreign Minister and subsequently as its twelfth Prime Minister. |
| Born in the town of Jhelum, Mr Gujral is not alone among Indian prime ministers for having left his birthplace on the Pakistani side of Wagah border. His predecessor Gulzari Lal Nanda - twice interim prime minister following the deaths of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in May 1964 and of Lal Bahadur Shastri in January 1966 – was born in Sialkot, now in Pakistan. Amongst Indian prime ministers, I. K. Gujral is unique though for having visited Pakistan on a number of occasions both privately and officially, his latest visit being a brief trip to Lahore last week (14-17 October). |
| He is famous for another attribute – for a speech he made when Foreign Minister in January 1997 at Colombo, during which he delineated a new direction that Indian foreign policy could and should take in its relations with its South Asian neighbours. The ideas embodied in that speech he named after himself, as the Gujral Doctrine. [EXTRACT] |
Published in DAWN 25 Oct. 2004, and reprinted in WHEN BUSH COMES TO SHOVE & OTHER WRITINGS (2006). |
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