(Yashwant Sinha, former BJP leader, was Minister of Finance (1998-2002) and Minister of External Affairs (2002-2004). The article first appeared in the NDTV on August 17,2021)
- It was October 2002. I had taken over as the External Affairs Minister of India a few months earlier and was making my first goodwill visits to countries in India’s neighbourhood. As part of this, I decided to visit Afghanistan, which had been liberated from the Taliban’s clutches a few months earlier. I did not confine my visit to Kabul alone as most visitors did in those difficult days. I decided to visit Herat, Mazar-i-Sharif and Kandahar as well. In Herat, the local warlord Ismail Khan gave me a reception fit for a head of state/government. I responded by asking him what India could do for him…