NEW DELHI: Henry Kissinger, who died on Thursday aged 100, was never one to mince words and there certainly was no love lost when it came to India and its policies, especially during the height of the Cold War.The former Secretary of State greatly influenced global affairs under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford between 1969 and 1977, garnering both vilification and the Nobel Peace Prize.However, there were many incidents which reflected his hatred towards India.Hateful comments against IndiaDuring the 1971 Bangladesh–Pakistan War, Kissinger reportedly described Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi as a "b***h".

He also said "the Indians are b******s", shortly before the war.

Kissinger later expressed his regret over the comments.According to a taped conversation, President Richard Nixon cited a meeting with Indira Gandhi the previous day.

"We really slobbered over the old witch," he told Kissinger, as quoted in a report by The Guardian.“While she was a b***h, we got what we wanted too," Kissinger replied, as quoted in the report.

“She will not be able to go home and say that the US didn't give her a warm reception and therefore in despair she's got to go to war.""The Indians are b******s anyway," he added.

“They are the most aggressive goddamn people around," as quoted in the Guardian report.Gary J.

Bass, a professor of politics and international affairs, wrote that as millions of traumatised Bengali refugees fled the Pakistan army, Kissinger was indignant at the Indians on June 3, 1971.

According to Kissinger, the Indians were responsible for the refugee flow by sponsoring the Bengali insurgency covertly.

Kissinger then condemned Indians as a whole, his voice oozing with contempt, "They are a scavenging people".A hint of respectFor all his criticism of Indira Gandhi, Kissinger once acknowledged that the then US Republican administration had always wished it had a man as "strong" as the "formidable Indira Gandhi"."Our relations with India are friendly and aloof.

It's a fortunate thing the Indians are pacifists, otherwise, their neighbours would be worried.

The first time we were in India, they told me that Kabul belonged to India too," Kissinger has been recorded as having said according to a White House Memo.In his book World Order, Kissinger said:"Emerging into a world of established powers and the Cold War, independent India subtly elevated freedom of maneuver from a bargaining tactic into an ethical principle ...

Jawaharlal Nehru and subsequent PMs proceeded to buttress India’s position as part of the global equilibrium by elevating their foreign policy into an expression of India’s superior moral authority."On nuclear bombAfter India tested a nuclear bomb in 1974, then Secretary of State Kissinger took a pragmatic approach and strongly rejected the State Department’s proposal for a critical statement.

According to Kissinger, the department’s proposal represented a “self-serving and self-promoting tendency” that amounted to "breastbeating".Kissinger wanted to avoid any action that could antagonise India and further complicate US-India relations.

In his role as national security adviser to president Nixon, Kissinger sent a note to his White House deputy in which he took a rather scornful approach to the nuclear nonproliferation agenda.

Opposed to taking the lead in a “world-wide” hostile reaction to the test, he argued that it would needlessly antagonise India and would be mainly reflective of a "self-serving and self-promoting tendency [designed] for the domestic record".Change in attitude towards IndiaAfter the end of the Cold War and the emergence of India as a strong power in the last 10 decades, his views on India changed and for successive administrations, Kissinger advocated strong ties with India.

He acknowledged that the Cold War and the Bangladesh crisis pushed India and US to the "edge of confrontations".

"India was at the beginning of a historic evolution and not all of the problems that concerned us were of equal importance to India.

India was heavily involved with its own evolution and the policy of neutrality," he had said.

But by 2008 he recognised that "India has parallel objectives to the United States", and he called India an ally of the US.

"I would say no two countries now are better situated to evolve their friendship," Kissinger said."When I think about India, I admire their strategy," Kissinger said during a leadership summit of the US India Strategic and Partnership Forum in June 2018.After Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister in 2014, Kissinger, also the former US National Security Adviser, started advocating strong ties with India.

In fact, many say, over the past few years he had become "a great fan" of PM Modi.When PM Modi was in the US on an official State Visit in June this year, Kissinger travelled to Washington to listen to Modi's address.Kissinger further recognised that India will be a "fulcrum of 21st Century order".

"India will be an indispensable element, based on its geography, resources, and tradition of sophisticated leadership, in the strategic and ideological evolution of the regions and the concepts of order at whose intersection it stands," he had said.(With inputs from agencies)WatchControversial yet influential: Henry Kissinger, singular US diplomat, dead at 100