Editorial
The passing of I.K. Gujral
We have lost a man of vision
In the death of Inder Kumar Gujral, India and indeed the entire South Asian region has lost a man of vision and courage. There was in Gujral an urbanity, both in terms of his approach to politics and in his dealings with people on an individual level, that revealed the substance his personality was made of. No one could have foreseen, back in the 1990s when India went through some rather rapid changes in power in New Delhi, that Gujral would one day be called upon to lead India as its prime minister. But, then again, as foreign minister twice, first in the VP Singh government and then in the HD Deve Gowda government, he did a rather good job of giving a new dimension to Indian diplomacy, especially where it concerned Delhi's relations with its neighbours. As prime minister, albeit rather briefly in the late 1990s, what came to be known as the Gujral doctrine would subsequently be regarded as the foundation upon which future leaders in South Asia could build an edifice of cooperation.
Like every man with a deep understanding of history and culture, Gujral possessed layers of toughness within him, aspects of his character that manifested themselves in the mid-1970s. Surprised, perhaps even shocked, by the precipitate manner in which President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi imposed a state of emergency on India in June 1975, Gujral nevertheless was not about to take things lying down. He was irked by the rude and, to him as well as to others, extra-constitutional manner in which individuals like the prime minister's son Sanjay Gandhi were beginning to exercise their new-found authority. He brushed aside the young man's attempts to run the ministry of information and broadcasting by ignoring the minister in charge, in this instance Gujral himself. That was an act of surprising courage for many. For Gujral, it was nothing out of the ordinary.
I.K Gujral was a friend of Bangladesh. His belief in good neighbourly relations between Delhi and Dhaka earned him not only the gratitude but also the abiding respect of people across the spectrum in Bangladesh. In particular, as Foreign Minister in Deve Gowda's government, he played a pivotal role in bringing about the Ganges water sharing agreement with the Hasina government.
We mourn his passing. Such a one as Gujral does not dignify politics every day.
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