L K Advani's Pakistan Yatra

Advani has, in the course of his momentous five days in Pakistan, departed too radically from his established political persona to convince those who would like to believe that he has acted in good faith. And for those who believed that he was a committed ideological ally, his utterances smack of little less than perfidy. There have been unexpected political dividends of course. Advani?s is the first high-profile political resignation (June 7) occasioned by conflicting readings of history. In this sense, it limits the potentiality of history being a quarry from which prejudices can be mined for political advantage.