Henry Kissinger, described as the “super Secretary of State” who shaped global policy under US Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford between 1969 and 1977, dissed Indians and then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi during the Cold War.
But he is said to have become an admirer of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Kissinger passed away at the age of 100 on Wednesday. Eighteen years ago, some tapes were declassified, in which he and then US President Richard Nixon could be heard using derogatory remarks against Indira Gandhi and also about India in 1971.
According to the declassified tape, a day after meeting Indira Gandhi in November 1971, when India was on the brink of war with Pakistan, while Richard Nixon called her an “old witch”, Kissinger referred to her as “a b**ch” and called Indians “b**tards”.
After the tapes were released, Kissinger regretted his words and said that the remarks were made “in the context of the Cold War” and that he had high regard for Indira Gandhi.
HENRY KISSINGER’S COLD TIES WITH INDIA
Henry Kissinger, who was then the US Secretary of State, received a cold reception when he visited India in 1974, according to an article in The New York Times.
The day Kissinger landed in India, Indira Gandhi was quoted as saying that the US thought India was “marginal” to its global strategy. It was also announced that she would visit Kashmir to meet with Army personnel the next day, a move that was meant as a snub to him. Although several government officials had stated that Indira’s remarks were not hostile towards the US, many American officials saw this as a thumbs down for India-US relations.
Two factors were mentioned for this treatment of Kissinger, the first being the $10-billion American aid to India, which was thought to be a source of humiliation for India, and the other being US support for Pakistan during the 1971 war.
Kissinger later stated in an interview with India Today that the US had “an inevitable clash” in 1971, which, given the “new relationship with China and the role Pakistan played in that at the time, had its own necessities.”
Kissinger batted for the permanent membership of India and Japan at the Security Council as early as 1972 before tilting towards China, due to deteriorating relations with Indira Gandhi.
HENRY KISSINGER OPPOSED SANCTIONS ON INDIA
After the Cold War, Henry Kissinger’s views towards India changed, and he pushed to improve ties with India.
Kissinger even opposed sanctions on India after the second Pokhran nuclear test in 1998. According to his piece ‘Working with India’ in The Washington Post, he opposed the sanctions, suggesting that “India should be treated as a nuclear country whose progress in the nuclear field had become irreversible.”
“In such a context, nuclear cooperation with India is appropriate. But it needs to make explicit an Indian commitment not to spread nuclear materials to other countries, such as the United States itself has undertaken. The scope of nuclear cooperation should avoid the rhetoric and the reality of a nuclear arms race in which China could be tempted to support nuclear programs in Iran and Pakistan as a counterweight,” he stated in the article.
KISSINGER TRAVELLED TO LISTEN TO PM MODI’S SPEECH
In June 2018, Henry Kissinger made a rare appearance in Washington to attend the first annual leadership summit of the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF). At the event, he said, “When I think about India, I admire their strategy.”
According to a report by news agency PTI, Kissinger had been advocating stronger US-India ties for the last decade (since 2014, when Modi became the Prime Minister), under the leadership of PM Modi.
In fact, many say, over the past few years he has become a great fan of PM Modi, according to PTI. Kissinger became such an admirer of PM Modi that, although he was not in good health, he traveled to Washington to listen to PM Modi’s address at the luncheon at the State Department jointly hosted by Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken in June this year.