Former Union minister and one of the founding members of the BJP, Jaswant Singh wanted to fight one last battle electoral battle in 2014 before he hung up his boots. The BJP denied him the chance. The soldier-turned-politician took it as an affront and decided to contest as an independent from Rajasthan's Barmer constituency. He lost, but proved a point. He was tested again as he suffered a head injury and went into coma. After battling it for six years, Singh breathed his last on Sunday morning. He was 82.
Singh was a rarity in the public life. He was close to Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani, as he stayed by their side handling difficult assignments. With his clipped Oxford accent and trademark baritone voice, Singh crafted the image of a genteel and sauve politician. His penchant for flapped shoulder safari suits gave him a distinct look, setting him apart from the Hindi heartland politicians who followed a native dress code. He was born on January 3, 1938, in Jasol village of Barmer to a Rajput family. He went to Mayo College and later to National Defence Academy, Khadakwasla, as a 19-year-old cadet.
He was drafted into political life by then Rajasthan chief Minister Bhairon Singh Shekhawat. Having being elected to Rajya Sabha five times, and Lok Sabha four times, he served as a cabinet minister, handling key portfolios of external affairs, defence, and finance, defining the country's strategic engagement with the world. Author of several books on strategic affairs and history, Jaswant Singh did not shy away from controversy, one even earning him an expulsion from the party he helped found. BJP expelled him after his 2009 book Jinnah India-Partition Independence was considered soft on the founder of Pakistan, as he lay the blame of partition on Congress leaders including Jawharlal Nehru. For the BJP, Nehru was still more palatable than Jinnah; it was against the latter's ideological pinnings that the party fashioned its politics. Four years earlier, Advani had to resign from the post of party president after he praised Jinnah as secular.
Another book Call to Honour released in 2006 led to controversy. In the book, he claimed that there was a mole in the P.V. Narasimha Rao government, leaking information to the Americans. The issue dragged till 2013 when Singh finally said his information was based on a hunch.
Singh played a key role when India tried to come to its own after decades of following the Nehruvian policy on diplomatic and economic fronts, particularly during the 1998-2004 tenure of the Vajpayee government. His key role came after India's strained relations with the world following nuclear tests in 1998. His engagement with the US diplomats for easing of economic sanctions were even highlighted by deputy secretary of state Strobe Talbot in his book Engaging India: Democracy, Diplomacy and the Bomb. Between 1998 and 2000, Talbot and Singh, then an external affairs minister, met “fourteen times in seven countries on three continents”. This intensive consultation led to US president Bill Clinton's defining visit to India in 2000.
Singh again landed in controversy when, in 1999, he escorted three terrorists in Indian custody, Omar Saeed Sheikh, Mushtaq Ahmad Zargar and Azhar Masood, to Kandahar, in exchange for 175 passengers of IC-814 aircraft hijacked by Pakistan-backed Afghan militia. The Vajpayee government had given in to the demands of the hijackers following emotional appeals of the families repeatedly televised across the country.
Singh's marginalisation from the BJP lasted through the UPA years, particularly after his expulsion in 2009. He was brought back to party fold by then party chief Nitin Gadkari in 2010, and was expelled again in 2014 for seeking a ticket. Jaswant Singh is survived by wife and two sons, including Manvendra Singh, who also had to leave the BJP as he campaigned for his father. Manvendra had since joined Congress. Jaswant Singh may have passed away in his comatose state as an expelled member of the party he founded, but he kept his integrity and reputation intact.
