Modi’s BJP wants us to forget Vajpayee’s old, weak BJP. IC 814 facts not the real issue

In the Opposition, the BJP always used flaming rhetoric about war and retribution. But when it came to power in the late 1990s, it was revealed as meek, confused, and caught off-guard.

File photo of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Narendra Modi on 27 March 2002 | Wikimedia Commons

In hyper-polarised times, it can be hazardous to chronicle contemporary history or learn from its mistakes. Not surprisingly then, a Netflix series titled IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack has got the ruling BJP, particularly its social media handles, all hot and bothered.

The series tells the story of the infamous hijack of the Indian Airlines plane from Kathmandu to Delhi on 24 December 1999 and the subsequent eight-day ordeal before the plane was finally set free.

The ostensible reason for the BJP’s noisy indignation is that in the Netflix series, the five hijackers—Sunny Ahmed Qazi, Shakir Mistri Zahoor Ibrahim, Shahid Akhtar Sayed, and Ibrahim Athar—are called by Hindu names ‘Shankar’ and ‘Bhola’. However, hijack survivors have testified that these were indeed the nicknames the hijackers adopted to conceal their identities and that they used these names throughout the operation. In fact, the hijackers also used other nicknames like ‘Burger,’ ‘Chief,’ and ‘Doctor,’ and their real names only became known days after the hijacking drama ended.

The BJP is also furious that the series does not focus sharply enough on the role played by Pakistan’s ISI, effectively giving it a “clean chit”. Some BJP supporters are even calling for a boycott of Netflix. Yet, the real reason for the BJP’s rage is not the so-called inaccuracies in the series.

Still from the trailer for Netflix’s ‘IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack’ | Photo: YouTube screengrab

BJP’s anxieties about IC 814

The BJP is enraged because the IC 814 hijacking showed a BJP-led government as weak, flabby, confused, lacking decisive leadership, and compromising with terrorists. It showed the BJP’s first prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee (then 75 years old) buckling under public pressure. It showed a government working at cross purposes and instead of projecting a clear line of command, becoming a chattering, arguing Tower of Babel.

The IC 814 incident was a fiasco, a shameful disgrace. That’s why today’s BJP, priding itself on a so-called “strong state” and on its “nationalist” credentials, does not want to be reminded of the hijacking.

As Vajpayee’s biographer, I researched the IC 814 episode in detail. I interviewed Jaswant Singh, who had been external affairs minister in 1999 during the hijacking. I interviewed then-R&AW head AS Dulat. I also had the benefit of several extended conversations with Narayan Madhav Ghatate or ‘Appa’ Ghatate, who remained Vajpayee’s closest confidante all his life. All three of them referred to the IC 814 hijacking as a painful memory.

Singh refused to talk about it. All he said was, “We had two choices, one was bad, the other was worse.” Ghatate mentioned that until the end of his life, Vajpayee did not like any mention of IC 814. Dulat wrote in his book, Kashmir: The Vajpayee Years, that “The fact of the matter is everybody compromises. You can act big and say you don’t compromise with terrorists. But everyone does.”

Hijacking of IC 814

On 24 December 1999 at 4 pm, Indian Airlines flight IC 814 took off from Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport for New Delhi with 189 passengers on board. As the plane entered Indian airspace, a masked man forcibly pushed his way into the cockpit and thrust a gun at Captain Devi Sharan’s neck. Immediately, four other masked men rose to their feet in the cabin, yelling: “Put away your food under your seat and put your hands up.”

The captain’s voice came over the PA system: “The plane has been hijacked, please obey their instructions.” Irony of ironies, seated in the plane was a senior R&AW officer, Shashi Bhushan Singh Tomar.

“How much fuel is in the plane?” the hijacker asked Captain Devi Sharan. “Enough to go to Delhi,” the captain replied. “Then take us to Lahore,” said the hijacker.

Devi Sharan informed Air Traffic Control that IC 814 was heading to Lahore. Due to a miscommunication, air traffic controllers failed to read the situation quickly enough. Months after the India-Pakistan Kargil war, authorities in Lahore were wary and refused to let IC 814 land in Lahore. With fuel running out, the plane landed at Amritsar at around 5:30 pm.

It is at Amritsar where the Vajpayee government completely failed the hapless aircraft. As IC 814 stood on the ground at Amritsar for a full 50 minutes, the government erupted into a storm of instructions and counter-instructions. Some suggested the plane be immobilised by a truck, road roller, or trolley, while the Punjab chief minister kept insisting that nothing should be done that could harm the passengers.

Vajpayee was not even immediately informed of the hijacking. En route back from Patna, the prime minister was able to join the emergency meeting called at his residence only at 6 pm, a full hour after the pilot flashed the hijack code to the Delhi ATC. Vajpayee’s immediate reaction to the hijacking, Ghatate recalled, was a complete shock—the prime minister said barely a word.

The Amritsar blunder

At Amritsar, the Vajpayee government failed to immobilise IC 814 all the while it stood at Raja Sansi airport. On board the aircraft, the hijackers grew increasingly agitated as they urged that the plane be urgently refuelled, or else they would start killing passengers.

The Crisis Management Group set up by the Vajpayee government kept mulling options, such as storming the aircraft, an idea which was rejected. Reports later emerged that India’s crack anti-terror force the National Security Guard failed to board a plane to Amritsar in time because the NSG got stuck in a traffic jam between Manesar and Delhi airport!

Meanwhile, the hijackers started to get hysterical and began to fear a commando operation by India. To show they were serious about their threats of harming passengers, they repeatedly stabbed 25-year-old Rupin Katyal, who was returning from his honeymoon in Nepal. As Katyal began to bleed heavily and later died, the hijackers screamed for the plane to take off.

“We are going to Lahore,” Devi Sharan told the ATC, as IC 814, still not refuelled, again took to the skies at 7:49 pm. In a bizarre twist of circumstance, the NSG arrived in Amritsar only at 8:15 pm, about 20 minutes after the plane had departed.

IC 814 then managed to land in Lahore, refuelled, and then landed at an airbase outside Dubai.

At Dubai, the hijackers agreed to release some passengers. Then Civil Aviation Minister Sharad Yadav was told to get ready to go and receive the released hostages there, except Yadav did not even possess a passport. While the plane was in Dubai, India reportedly readied a commando-style operation, but no decisive action was taken.

Meanwhile, the enormous pressure of 24*7 news TV kicked in. Anxious frenzied relatives crowded the prime minister’s doors, wailing and lamenting, their screams and cries broadcast nationwide in a never-ending loop. The government buckled and Vajpayee’s nerves gave way.

A humiliating exchange

After the Pokharan II nuclear tests of 1998, India was isolated globally. It was the end of December and the Western capitals were in the holiday mood ahead of the new millenium. Nobody came to India’s help.

Unable to withstand the relentless pressure, the government stepped up negotiations with the hijackers, who by 25 December had taken the plane to Kandahar in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. After six days at Kandahar, the sorry saga finally ended when India released three of India’s most wanted terrorists, Masood Azhar among them. Azhar was later accused of planning the attack on the Parliament in 2001 and of being involved with the Pulwama attack of 2019.

Most humiliating of all, none other than External Affairs Minister Singh escorted the terrorists to Kandahar to hand them over to the Taliban. After Singh had left for Kandahar, a helpless Vajpayee uttered only these bewildered words: “Kya woh chale gaye (has he gone)?”

The sight of a union minister of “strong”, “nationalist” India escorting terrorists to their freedom, symbolised the complete capitulation of India to the terrorists’ demands. All the top officials in the Vajpayee administration came in for scathing criticism from the media. Among Vajpayee’s top team at the time was none other than the present national security advisor, Ajit Kumar Doval.

No wonder the “new” BJP, led by Narendra Modi, wants to forget the “old” BJP, led by Vajpayee. The old BJP did not move fast enough on the Hindutva ideological agenda and brought disasters upon itself like the IC 814 hijacking and the Kargil War. Major terrorist attacks took place during its days.

BJP’s arrogance

In 1999, Pakistani troops came swarming into India at Kargil. In the same year, IC 814 was hijacked. In 2001, terrorists struck the Indian Parliament, and there was a major attack on the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly.

Previously, the BJP had unleashed slogans like “muh tod jawab denge (we will give a crushing response)”, and during the tenure of former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao, demanded the immediate capture of Dawood Ibrahim for the 1993 Mumbai bombings. However, after coming to power, it found itself confronted by the harsh realities of geopolitics and was forced to confront the limits of its own arrogance.

During the 1990s, the BJP, which was in the Opposition was always unleashing flaming rhetoric about war and retribution. But once it came to power in the late 1990s, it was revealed as meek, confused, and often caught on the backfoot by terror attacks.

After the 2001 Parliament attack, the Vajpayee government ordered Operation Parakram, which was dubbed a “strategic fiasco”. For 10 months, the Army stood fully mobilised at the Pakistan border without any clear instructions from Vajpayee. Eight hundred soldiers perished in battle accidents and crores worth of ammunition went to waste.

Mortifyingly, even while this full Army mobilisation was on, Pak-based gunmen struck Kaluchak near Jammu and killed over 30 in what was called a “massacre”.

The Modi-led “new” BJP, priding itself on its 56-inch chest, muscular bravado, and uber-nationalism, wants to erase all these strategic failures of the Vajpayee years. The Modi dispensation wants to project the previous Manmohan Singh government as weak and the Modi years as a period of strength.

Yes, dialogue with Pakistan has been snapped and India launched air strikes in Balakot in 2019. But has the Modi government really been successful in the muscle-flexing diplomacy of the “ghar mein ghus ke marenge (we’ll kill them in their own territory)” variety? The words were used by Modi in March 2019 at a rally in Gujarat.

Weak, fearful, indecisive

According to recent reports, China occupies 2,000 square kilometres of Indian territory. 

Twenty-one rounds of negotiations have taken place between Indian and Chinese corps commanders. If there is no border dispute, what are the corps commanders discussing? India lost 20 soldiers in clashes with China at the Galwan Valley in 2020, even though Modi kept disingenuously insisting, “Na koi ghusa hai, na koi ghusa hua hai (No one has come into our country).”

So far, Modi has never once dared to directly refer to China by name in connection with the border dispute. In 2014, Modi was seen seated on a swing with China’s leader Xi Jinping on the banks of the Sabarmati, but today India is struggling to get China out of Indian territory. Modi’s so-called tough ‘ghar mein ghus ke marenge’ posture is up against the Great Wall of China.

Braggadocio and sharp rhetoric are good to fire up domestic audiences. But when in power, the realities of international disputes, global pressures, and armed non-state actors mean that compromises are invariably made.

BJP supporters are arguing that Vajpayee’s coalition partners also need to take the blame for the release of the three terrorists in 1999. This is disingenuous because all national security decisions were generally taken by a small core team around Vajpayee. The buck cannot be passed. 

It has taken a TV series to remind the BJP that for all its fire and brimstone rhetoric, its record on national security is far from stellar. The BJP rains hellfire on governments when it is in the Opposition, but in government, it has on several occasions seemed weak, fearful, and indecisive. That’s why the hijacking of IC 814 is a story the BJP wants to forget.

Sagarika Ghose is a Rajya Sabha MP, All India Trinamool Congress. She tweets @sagarikaghose. Views are personal.

(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)