It was one of those days,when i was blind surfing,searching for nothing in particular,that i came across a blog about the US diplomatic handling of the nuclear flash point of 1998.The blog had a few passages from a book, of which it was an review .
My interest was triggered ,by the sheer action that seems to be taking place in the diplomatic circle of an country trying to meddle into the affairs of two other countries to safe guard its interests, and I ended up hunting the book down.It was Engaging India: Diplomacy, Democracy, And the Bomb.
The book is an memoir of sorts and presents the perspective of an individual from Clinton administration(Strobe Talbott). Whatever is mentioned in the books might not be absolute truth,but rather,but what what the individual things is happening and what he deduces to be the possible P.O.V of other parties involved.Keeping in mind there are other narratives possible is the right context to read this non fiction.
I did have to say the book did manage to hold my interest till the end,possibly due to the fact that i am trying to formalize my views on India.
One of the Key I have from this book is change in my opinion about the senior statesman of BJP,Mr.Jaswant Singh.For me through its term at the helm of Indian affairs ,i always considered Jaswant Singh to be a peripheral figure,with more of the actions being handled by Vajpayee,Advani Fernandes et al.But the book seems to indicate the sort of clout Jawant had over the govt and more so the trust Vajpayee had on him.
Jaswant Sing also comes across as a suave ,urbane and quite sophisticated gentleman.Whoever uses words like "principle variable in the calculus","vivisected","find modus vivendi" definitely has to be termed as a sophisticated man.A unintended side effect of reading this book is that i have ended up buying Jaswant Singh's memoirs "A call to Honor" ,to get his perspective of the NDA days and events mentioned by Mr.Talbott.
Also in the book,I found a few interesting tid bits ,inter spread across the pages in the book. like how the Foreign office was rather pissed off that they came to know the news about Indian nuclear tests from CNN,How George vented his feelings about being strip searched in US airports as a reply to an innocuous comment from US delegation,how there were clues about impending nuclear tests in a Sikh newsletter ,how N.Rao had to abandon the initial plans of the nuclear test as U.S found the Satellite images of the blast preparations beforehand, leading to a more discreet and successful second attempt.
Also of interest is the mention of a what I believe to be the back story of the Jallianwallah massacre by Genral Dwyer,(Further research needed).
There are also a couple of interesting quotes that I will take way from the book
"Author of memorandum of conversation never comes across second best-Dean Acheson"
"Jis gaon nahin jaana, uska raasta mat poocho"
