Though U.S. President Richard Nixon and his National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger, who died on Wednesday, had created “huge headaches” for India in 1971, former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and her principal secretary P.N. Haksar were more than a match for them, Congress communications chief Jairam Ramesh said on Thursday.
Kissinger, who died at the age of 100, was “as immensely consequential as he was hugely controversial”, Mr. Ramesh said in a post on X. Both celebrated and condemned during his life, the U.S. diplomat’s brilliance cannot be denied, added the Congress leader.
“For the last three decades, he positioned himself as a great friend and supporter of India and indeed he was. But this was not always so and in 1971 especially, President Nixon and he created huge headaches for India and thought they had us cornered,” Mr. Ramesh said in his post. “However, Indira Gandhi and P.N. Haksar proved more than a match for them. I have described the Kissinger-Haksar and Nixon-Indira Gandhi encounters with archival detail in my book ‘Intertwined Lives: PN Haksar & Indira Gandhi’,” he added.
