1967–1968
The country did not notice when I stopped shaping it.
That was the point.
History rarely marks the moment when foresight leaves a room. There is no announcement, no vacancy declared. Decisions continue. Files move. Speeches are written. What changes is invisible.
The certainty fades.
Debate returned.
Not the managed kind.
The real kind.
Contradictions surfaced without resolution. Committees argued without guidance. Ministers disagreed publicly instead of quietly adjusting language behind closed doors.
For the first time in years, outcomes were not pre-arranged.
That frightened many.
It reassured me.
The silence that had once been strategic now became contested.
Some wanted doctrine.Some wanted alignment.Some wanted moral clarity restored through declaration.
None of them waited for permission anymore.
India had begun speaking to itself again.
I listened more than I spoke.
That was new.
And difficult.
Mistakes appeared quickly.
Policies overlapped awkwardly. Messaging contradicted itself. International partners tested boundaries, unsure which voice now spoke for India.
There was confusion.
But there was also ownership.
The nuclear option remained unnamed.
But it was no longer mine to guard.
Scientists continued their work without instruction. Institutions carried knowledge without obsession. The option existed — not as destiny, but as inheritance.
Inheritance is dangerous.
But it is honest.
The border remained quiet.
Not because ambiguity persisted.
But because readiness had become routine.
Routine deters more reliably than vigilance.
I noticed something subtle.
India's decisions grew less elegant.
Less optimized.
More human.
Trade-offs were acknowledged rather than disguised. Compromises were defended openly. Blame was argued, not deflected.
This was messy.
It was also democratic.
The generation that had grown under restraint now pushed against it.
They did not reject survival.
They demanded direction.
They would choose louder paths.
They would make errors I could see coming.
I did not stop them.
Because foresight, if it never steps aside, becomes a cage.
I thought often of what I had protected.
Institutions strong enough to absorb disagreement.Capabilities sufficient to deter surprise.A state that could endure being wrong without collapsing.
That had been the real project.
I had not built a perfect India.
I had built one that could survive imperfection.
One evening, watching a parliamentary debate unfold without my intervention, I felt something unexpected.
Relief.
The burden of knowing outcomes was gone.
So was the temptation to manipulate them.
I wrote nothing that year.
Not because there was nothing to say.
Because it was no longer mine to say it.
History would proceed.
Not safely.
Not optimally.
But freely.
And freedom, I knew better than most, is always inefficient.
That inefficiency is its proof.