Letter to PM on his Trip to China

Venerable Prime Minister,

I have never regarded you as a mere politician, but ever considered you as a sheer statesman, but with basic differences. Your recent visit to China, if the media reports are correct, demonstrates your national vision which is liberal enough to treat close friendship with our great neighbour, China, an integral part of foreign policy and international alliance. India, China and Russia, if they stand together as a fraternal trinity, will be a force for global peace and stable security, as Lenin forecast long, long ago. In this dimension your recent visit is a great contribution to the world order which is now losing its non-aligned status and sovereignty of member states because of the unipolar super-sovereignty and hegemony of a Mega-Power.

India has always stood for its status as an independent, non-aligned nation with a socialistic, democratic ethos and friendly relations as a basic liberal outlook. The various points highlighted in the Joint Statement issued by you and your Chinese counterpart is a creditable achievement and a tribute to your diplomatic excellence. I consider it proper that an all-party committee should be set up to support this treaty with frank, even critical, exchange of views and elimination of differences by uninhibited discussion, so that India-China friendship has an all-party foundation beyond the Congress party’s policy success. There may be many more points which require to be clarified and illumined, many matters where cooperation may have to take deeper roots, many live issues social, economic, cultural, political, where people-to-people relations may have to be strengthened.

I stop here, although as an old-time Chairman of the Tellicherry India-China Friendship Society, I have had occasion to receive a distinguished Chinese team. Of course, I have had several occasions to visit China and cherish friendship with that country.

Your leadership will nourish the neighbourly amity between our two countries is my expectation.

With high regards,

Yours sincerely,

January 15, 2008 V.R. Krishna Iyer

The author, a veteran CPI leader, was the Union Agriculture Minister in the United Front Government (1996-98).