India is not blessed with a book culture; nor do Hindus (as the Arab traveller Alberuni complained a thousand years ago) have an evolved sense of history. Given these inherent limitations, it was audacious of a serving politician like LK Advani to try and break the mould with his autobiography, My Country, My Life.

Of course, public figures who are still at the crease cannot be expected to tell all. Mahatma Gandhi's The Story of My Experiments with Truth and Jawaharlal Nehru's Autobiography, both written and published well before their authors were anywhere near completing their innings, combined reminiscences with political statements. This meant that the stories of very interesting lives were tempered with measured candidness. Gandhiji, for example, never spelt out the acrimonious debates in the Congress over his rise to the top. Instead, in the final chapter on the India of the early-1920s, he fell back on the assertion that "My life from this point onward has been so public that there is hardly anything about it that people do not know..."

Compared to the Mahatma's masterly evasion, Advani has been remarkably forthcoming. He may have not told the entire story of his political life but he has narrated enough for future historians to pick up the threads. More important, Advani has given a very clear sense of his feelings at the time. An autobiography is not a diary that records life on a daily basis. It is made up of broad brush strokes that highlights features considered important and relevant by the author at the time of written. As someone who has interacted with him very closely since the Ram rathyatra of 1990, I can honestly say that Advani has faithfully narrated the course of politics as he perceived it. There may have been omissions of detail but there have been no distortions. Advani is one of those rare politicians who is naturally transparent about his thoughts and feelings, and this transparency comes through in the 900 pages of narrative. His shrewdness as a political strategist has never been at the cost of his innate intellectual honesty.

Given the temperament of the author, it was only natural that the autobiography was guaranteed to ruffle a few feathers. The past fortnight has proved a bonanza for the media in terms of the controversies the book has generated. Initially, I imagined that passions would be aroused by what is arguably the most contentious period of his political career -- the Ram Janmabhoomi movement of the 1990s. Curiously, the Ayodhya years have occasioned little interest -- something that validates Alberuni's observation.

Nor has there been too much fuss about Advani's account of his controversial trip to Pakistan in the summer of 2005. Regardless of the passions he aroused at the time, it is now generally accepted that Advani was totally sincere in wanting to find a way for India and Pakistan to bury the hatchet.

It is a different matter that he could have considered the other implications of honing in on Mohammed Ali Jinnah as the instrument of reconciliation. Yet, the fact that Advani has stuck to his guns and not done an intellectual summersault has only increased my admiration of him. Advani, as his autobiography bring out, has never been afraid of original thinking. He is not afraid of swimming against the tide when convinced of its necessity.

This is why the kerfuffle over the Kandahar hijack that has dominated the media space for the past week needs dissection. That Advani was unhappy at the way the Government responded to the hijack, particularly the decision to exchange Maulana Masud Azhar and two other terrorists for the innocent passengers, was known at the time of the incident. Whether he was party to the decision to send the then External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh to Kandahar in the same aircraft as the terrorists or learnt about it subsequently is an interesting piece of trivia. However, it is only an incidental detail of a larger question that needs to be addressed: How should India have reacted and how should it respond to a similar situation in future?

With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that the country now believes that the Government erred grievously in succumbing to the terrorists.

However, at that time, this clarity wasn't so apparent. Both the Congress (then in opposition) and the liberal media were clear that the safety of the passengers was paramount. Despite the fact the hijack took place immediately after the Kargil War and a General Election victory, the Government lacked the nerve to prepare the country to face all the consequences of standing up to terrorism unflinchingly. Under the circumstances, capitulation became the only viable political option.

Yet, the context in which this decision was taken to swap terrorists for passengers has been forgotten. What remains is the shame and ignominy of Kandahar. It will haunt India and it will haunt the BJP. The UPA Government has tacitly taken refuge behind the shield of Kandahar to avoid carrying out the Supreme Court judgment on Afzal Guru.

Advani has taken an important step in distancing himself from the shameful capitulation in Kandahar. That, unfortunately, isn't enough. It is necessary for him to take advantage of the renewed interest in the subject to propose a policy that will make it impossible for another Kandahar to recur. In short, the BJP as a whole must admit that it erred in 1999 and assure the nation that no Government in future will repeat that mistake. A counter-terrorism code which identifies a bottom line for dealing with a hostage crisis is not only necessary but imperative if India is to profit from a post-mortem of the Kandahar hijack.

Unless India learns from its own history, it is condemned to repeat it.