A Bad Menu for Peace

By Alex Perry

He drank heavily for decades and reportedly still likes a whiskey or two, Churchill-like, at age 77. He takes pain-killers for his knees and has trouble with his bladder, liver and one remaining kidney. He is said to take a three-hour snooze every afternoon. He is given to interminable silences and sudden bursts of poetry, and not infrequently falls asleep in meetings.

Atal Behari Vajpayee, then, does not seem like the first choice to control a nuclear arsenal. But for four years, the Indian Prime Minister's hands have been the grandfatherly restraint holding back the warmongers in his nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (B.J.P.).

Increasingly, Vajpayee's hands are looking far from safe. He seems lost, forgets names--even that of Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh, a longtime colleague. A Western diplomat characterizes him as "half dead." At a rare press conference last month in Srinagar, the PM tottered onto the podium and apparently had trouble understanding questions. He asked repeatedly for whispered prompts from Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani and stumbled over his replies. Says a B.J.P. official: "He is very alert when he is functional. But there are very few hours like that, and being a Prime Minister, unfortunately, is a 24-hour job." Asked if he suffered from any serious ailment, Vajpayee once replied, "Yes. Old age."

Vajpayee once told friends that his great ambition was to do for India-Pakistan relations what Richard Nixon did for China and the U.S. and that only a conservative leader could cut a peace deal with an archenemy. Now he seems content to serve out his term, which ends in 2004. With Vajpayee fading in mind and spirit, many wonder who wields the real power in India. Vajpayee's shadowy right-hand man and national security adviser, Brajesh Mishra, has the Prime Minister's ear. But consensus has it that it is the hawkish Advani, 72, his B.J.P. colleague of 50 years and heir apparent, who increasingly calls the shots.

To keep Vajpayee healthy, his family--longtime companion Rajkumari Kaul and her daughter Namita--ensures he is served only boiled vegetables and rice. But Vajpayee still insists on an evening libation. And in the family cottage at Manali in the Himalayan foothills, his diet retreats when he does--nothing can keep him away from deep fried trout. Says an aide: "He promises to stick to his diet with doubled rigidity once he leaves, but the trout he must have." --By Alex Perry, with reporting by Sankarshan Thakur/New Delhi

With reporting by Sankarshan Thakur/New Delh