Kabul to Delhi via Lahore: Modi realises Manmohan’s dream

At a 2007 event, Manmohan Singh had said “I dream of a day when, while retaining our respective national identities, one can have breakfast in Amritsar, lunch in Lahore and dinner in Kabul.” PM Narendra Modi’s surprise visit to Lahore on the way from Kabul to Delhi has realised the former PM’s dream, albeit in reverse.

Updated on: Dec 25, 2015, 20:53:42 IST

Hindustan Times | By Rezaul H Laskar, New Delhi

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More than eight years after former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh spoke of his dream of having breakfast in India, lunch in Pakistan and dinner in Afghanistan, his successor Narendra Modi made it come true, albeit in reverse.

Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif welcomes PM Narendra Modi at Lahore airport. Modi is visiting Pakistan on Sharif’s birthday on Friday on his way from Kabul to Delhi. (Twitter/@MEAIndia)

Addressing an event organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry in New Delhi on January 8, 2007, Singh had even expressed the hope that India and Pakistan would enter into a treaty of peace, security and friendship.

“I dream of a day when, while retaining our respective national identities, one can have breakfast in Amritsar, lunch in Lahore and dinner in Kabul. That is how my forefathers lived. That is how I want our grandchildren to live,” said Singh, who was born in the village of Gah, now part of Pakistan’s Punjab province.

Singh had also referred to the “interlinked destinies” of the people of South Asia and an increasingly integrated world in which “political borders are no longer economic and social barriers”.

Those were the heady days when the two countries were making incremental progress through their composite dialogue process. But the talks were derailed after 10 Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives targeted Mumbai in November 2008, killing 166 people.

India put on hold the composite dialogue and Singh never realised his dream of visiting Gah, to which he was invited by successive Pakistani governments.

On Friday, Modi realised Singh’s dream when he flew into Kabul – well in time for breakfast – for a previously unannounced visit to inaugurate Afghanistan’s new Parliament building built by India at a cost of $90 million.

Though Modi’s departure for Lahore was apparently delayed, he held talks with Sharif over tea, the MEA spokesperson tweeted.

And Modi returned to India well in time for dinner.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rezaul H Laskar
Rezaul Hasan Laskar is Foreign Editor with the Hindustan Times, which he joined in 2015. He began as a journalist in his hometown of Shillong in northeast India and has worked in newspapers and wire services over the years. He moved to New Delhi in 1997 and initially focused on defence, national security, Jammu and Kashmir and the northeast, while also working of foreign policy and international relations. He has been part of the media delegation accompanying PMs on foreign visits and has reported from destinations ranging from Tibet to Ukraine. Between 2007 and 2013, he was the Press Trust of India correspondent in Pakistan, one of only two Indian journalists allowed to report from the country. He extensively covered Pakistan’s domestic politics and the life of the common people, as well as the fallout of the 2008 Mumbai attacks on India-Pakistan relations and the subsequent trial in Pakistan of the suspects involved in the attack. As part of his reportage in Pakistan, he travelled the breadth of the country, from the Swat Valley to Balochistan. Reza’s first gig in journalism was writing a weekly music column, and music – especially classic rock – remains a keen interest. He is also a movie buff and a keen photographer.Read More