NEW FRIENDS: Advani's job was to convert Powell to the Indian cause

George W. Bush: "Mr Advani, your reputation has preceded you here. You stand up for what you believe. You are a strong leader. We appreciate that and also those who speak their mind."

Lal Krishna Advani: "The pity is that most of the time I have been in the Opposition. And as you know I'm known as a hawk."
Bush: "But the Opposition needs a backbone too."

Bush: "Your prime minister is an outstanding leader, very soft-spoken but very firm ... I know his English is halting but so is mine. But when he spoke to his audience in his mother tongue, he kept them spellbound."

Advani: "Mr President, he speaks so well that working with him I sometimes develop a complex."

MEDIA BLITZ Advani's Talkathon As a parliamentarian and a public figure, L.K. Advani's strongest point has been his communicative skill. Among India's notoriously verbose politicians, he stands out for precision and brevity. He used this weapon tellingly to try and win over the American media and sections of the intelligentsia during his visit to Washington DC. Advani made himself more accessible to the media than probably any Indian leader who has visited the US. Of his first 48 waking hours in the world's most important capital, he spent 10 with journalists. He began with a breakfast meeting with the right-wing but sometimes shrill Washington Times and had similar sessions with senior journalists from The New York Times, the Washington Post and the Baltimore Sun, representing some of the most respected papers in America. There were, of course, the usual snafus. The editorial board of the Wall Street Journal, the biggest financial daily in the US, asked Advani for an appointment. Inexplicably, some Indian embassy officials vetoed the idea. Advani also did his duty before the cameras, appearing for interviews on CNN and Fox-between them representing the liberal and conservative television markets-and PBS, the public television channel. Washington DC's think tanks and lobbies, while often competitive, provide key inputs in the making of American policy. The Indian home minister approached this section astutely, choosing to cultivate those who, if not India's friends, were at least adversaries of India's adversaries. Of his first 48 waking hours in Washington, Advani spent 10 briefing the media. His biggest date was a dinner with 12 members of the American Jewish Committee and the Jewish Institute of National Security Affairs. It was also attended by Ben Waltenberg of the American Enterprise Institute. The Jews, along with the Indians the richest ethnic group in America, fly the flag for Israel in Washington. The commonality of interests with India, also battling Islamist violence, is clear. Among Advani's other meetings was a working lunch with Robert Hathaay, director of the Asia Program at the Woodrow Wilson Center, Michel Krepon, president of the Henry L. Stimson Center and Arnoud De Borchgrave, upi's chairman and former editor of the Washington Times. The home minister's persuasion machine was working overtime.

It was the sort of banter and obvious affection for India that the Indian home minister was simply not prepared for. When L.K. Advani reached Washington DC for Mission America, he knew his meeting with President George W. Bush was the key to success. Expectedly, Bush "surprised" his guest by dropping into his meeting with National Security Adviser Condeleeza Rice in the White House. The interaction between the poster boy of American conservatism and the patriarch of its Indian variant lasted 25 minutes.

Time and again Advani had said that he was travelling to America not to seek the Bush Administration's aid in the battle against Pakistan-sponsored terrorism but merely to state India's case. It was as much a message for a domestic audience as for his American interlocutors. It did seem to work.

Advani stressed the "dubious duplicity" of Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf. He told Bush no country could support the hypothesis that what was happening in Afghanistan under the Taliban-Al Qaida regime was "terrorism" but the violence against India was a "freedom struggle".

Nodding vigorously, Bush told Advani he had made it clear to Musharraf no political issue could be resolved unless there was an abrogation of "terror as an instrument of state policy".

For Advani and the Republican veterans who man the Bush Administration the series of meetings was, at least initially, an exercise in mutual scepticism. Advani last visited the US 10 years ago to inaugurate the Overseas Friends of the bjp organisation. Unlike the UK or even Israel, societies and polities with which he has a certain familiarity, the US is unknown terrain for Advani.

The US Administration on its part had been very thorough in its homework on Advani. It had met Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh and National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra but realised they were political lightweights. Advani represented the core of the BJP and the NDA Government, the hard-nosed political practitioner, not the dilettante diplomat.

It was a recognition of Advani's domestic importance that the Americans packed his schedule in Washington. Apart from Bush and Rice, he met Secretary of State Colin Powell, Attorney General John Ashcroft-as America's "home minister", Advani's official host-and FBI Director Robert Muller.

He interacted with Vice-president Dick Cheney, officially at an "undisclosed, secure location" ever since the war began in Afghanistan so as to ensure continuity should anything happen to Commander-in-Chief Bush. Advani also visited CIA Director George Tenet at the agency's headquarters in Langley, Virginia, on the outskirts of the capital.

It was an action that would have given Yank-phobe Indian politicians the shivers a generation ago but was par for the course now, indicating how much equations between the two largest democracies have changed.

The counter-terrorism and intelligence-sharing aspects of Advani's passage to the US were clear from the composition of his entourage. Travelling in a bullet-proof Cadillac and Lincoln, it included Home Secretary Kamal Pandey and Intelligence Bureau chief K.P. Singh, in addition to joint secretaries from the home and foreign ministries and Sudheendra Kulkarni, OSD to and speechwriter of the prime minister.

Conscious of protocol, Advani described his chat with Bush as "the most important discussion in my tour". Yet the meeting with Powell, perceived to be pro-Pakistan, was no less crucial. Like many others in the administration, Powell still has hopes of Musharraf reining in jehadis.

There were noises about the General's efforts to contain terrorist groups. Advani retorted, "How can one explain largescale infiltration into India when armies are protecting borders on both sides? Not even a stray dog can enter unless it is helped by the army on the other side." Meeting the press, Powell made the point-echoed by White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer-that Musharraf had some "additional work" to do.

Fairly significantly, while the Americans did issue general warnings of how tragic war could be, they didn't ask Advani for a "de-escalation of the military build-up". Advani too gave his new friends an exit route, a four-point charter of demands for Musharraf.

One, hand over the 20 terrorists whose names have been given to Pakistan. Two, close down camps and cease help to jehadi militias in Pakistan and PoK. Three, don't facilitate infiltration of men and arms into India. Four, categorically renounce terrorism in all forms everywhere, irrespective of the cause.

Making room between official commitments for extensive sessions with the media and influential think tanks (see box), Advani did play a good innings. As Lalit Mansingh, India's ambassador to the US, put it, "His forthright enunciation of India's position on Pakistan has created enough doubts in the minds of opinion-makers here about Pakistan's sincerity in combating terrorism."

The man himself was cautiously satisfied. "I came here a little sceptical about the US role," Advani said, "but after all the meetings I am a little optimistic now." India hopes he's right.