Ashraf Ghani's voice shivered. The Dalai Lama offered prayers. And across the border, Pakistani minister Fawad Choudhry missed “twitter melee with her”. Sushma Swaraj, veteran politician, proved just how popular she was as leaders, celebrities and common people across the world mourned her demise. Twitter, her weapon of choice to reach out and solve problems, became the platform for those who had been touched by her.
“She was a giant in her own right,” tweeted Choudhry, at a time when the India-Pakistan relationship, has lost all its warmth. Retweeting a tweet by Swaraj, where she promised, “even if you are stuck on Mars, Indian Embassy there will help you,” actor Ayushmann Khurrana tweeted, “This is how she made foreign ministry accessible to the masses.”
It is her Bharat Mata avatar that seemed to have touched a chord with people across the world. For the first time, since it was formed, the ministry of external affairs was forced to move out of its rather stuffy (read elitist bubble) to actually get their hands messy. Public diplomacy, in a single tweet, became the most visible aspect of diplomacy in India. As Nirmal Kumar Ganguly tweeted, “a huge loss indeed and my small interactions with her to help my school mate Anish Sharma who was abducted 2 year back in Nigeria. And her swift response to me in twitter.”
But it wasn't only the aam aadmi that will miss Swaraj and her warmth. Every leader, including Sonia Gandhi, whose prime ministerial bid in 2004 she opposed making a declaration in parliament that she would shave her hair and give up being a politican, came out to mourn her. In a letter to her husband, Gandhi described Swaraj as “a lady of extraordinary gifts, her courage, dedication and ability manifest in every position she held”. Despite Swaraj's virtulent opposition to Gandhi becoming Prime Minister—it was a much publicised rivalry—the two seemed to have patched things up and become friends.
“In our many years together as colleagues in the Lok Sabha, we developed a warm personal relationship and I feel her loss greatly. The same courage and grit that was a hallmark of Sushmaji's political life, she showed in her personal life as well, as she faced her serious ailments with incredible fortitude,” Gandhi wrote.
The letter is a testimony to Swaraj's ability to cultivate friends across the aisle. Her politics may have differed but it didn't stand in her way of her friendships or relationships. Whether it was in India or abroad. Her friendship with Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina went back years. “In her death we've lost a true friend,” Hasina has been quoted as saying. “Bangladesh will recall her contributions in taking relationship between the two countries to a new height,” added Hasina.
