Jaswant Singh can afford to lean back in his chair and smile. His new book has courted no controversies, and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is not baying for his blood. The last book — on Mohammed Ali Jinnah — created such a stir that it led to his expulsion from the party. Now that he is back in its fold, Singh speaks cautiously — though he does speak with words unsaid, or occasionally even with a haiku.

The author of around 20 volumes, he knows what it means to have a book mired in controversy. In A Call to Honour: In Service of Emergent India released in 2006, he had suggested that a mole existed in the Prime Minister’s Office when P.V. Narasimha Rao was in power. Later, he admitted that it was just a “hunch”.

His book, Jinnah: India-Partition Independence, published in 2009 showered praises on Jinnah — while the BJP showered him with brickbats. “I was told of my expulsion over the phone. I felt let down by my party. At that time, I never expected to go back,” Singh says. He was reinstated in the party in 2010, apparently only after the active intervention of senior leader L.K. Advani and party president Nitin Gadkari.

Singh’s new book The Audacity of Opinion: Reflections, Journeys and Musings, published by Amaryllis, is a collection of his writings over 30 years. “So it’s mostly my opinion from my younger days,” he says. His party seemingly has no problems with that, for no one has yet called for his head.

He is clearly an oddity in the BJP. One of the few leaders who didn’t take the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) route to the top, his liberal views are often in contrast with the Sangh’s ideology.

But Singh — once bitten twice shy — is not going to take potshots at the Sangh. “I have no equation with the RSS. They are a very good body for social service. But it’s not a political outfit,” he says. He ponders for a few seconds and continues. “Lots of members owe their allegiance to the RSS or are influenced by the organisation’s thoughts. But that’s not my origin. I am what I am.”

He is one of the few politicians to have headed three important ministries — defence, finance and external affairs — when the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) ruled at the Centre. I prod him a bit. What about reports that the RSS was opposed to his heading key ministries? “Don’t search for a headline, my dear girl” he says with a smile. “Let’s move ahead,” adds the 74-year-old parliamentarian who contested and won the seat from Darjeeling in 2009.

But Singh never thought of joining any other party during the 10-odd months he was out. “Political parties are not like tailor-made clothes. A political party is a group where you share philosophy and harmony.”

The book on Jinnah was banned in Gujarat because some references to India’s first home minister Vallabhbhai Patel troubled chief minister Narendra Modi. “Why would people want to ban a book? I am bewildered by such acts. It is reflective of a closed mind,” he says agitatedly. “Why do we ban books and at the same time recite Rabindranath Tagore’s line Where the mind is without fear? If you don’t agree with a book then write a better book. Don’t just ban it,” he says.

I ask him about his relationship with Modi. “I shall not comment on Modi,” says Singh sternly. Does he see Modi as the next Prime Minister of India? “I have said it earlier and will say it again. I feel Advaniji is most suited for the PM’s role from the BJP.”

Not long ago, after his expulsion from the party, Singh had questioned Advani’s leadership skills. But today, he maintains, he has outgrown his opinions. “Life is not static, so why should a change of views be treated with derision? I can change my opinion with time,” he adds.

Does he have any regrets, I ask him (looking for another headline). His deep baritone quivers. “I have regrets from none but the self,” he says. “But I can’t talk of my regrets,” he adds.

Singh picks up a piece of paper and asks, “Do you know what a haiku is? Let me read out one for you in response to your question.” He reads at a slow pace, with enough pauses, to make his meaning clear. “A pot of wine among the flowers I drank alone. No friend with me, I raise my cup to invite the moon. He and my shadow and I make three.” He gives me another tight-lipped smile.

Dressed in his trademark cream safari shirt with epaulettes, Singh had been giving interviews for the better part of the day. We are sitting in his official residence in the capital in a small but heavily furnished room that looks like his office. The room is lined with books — I can spot Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers and books on Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice and the Sino-India war. A panel stacked with music CDs and a music system adorn the room. Prominently placed on his desk is the British literary magazine London Review of Books.

“Books are those wonderful friends without any expectations,” he says with an impish grin.

I quickly return to the trickier questions. Does he think internal politics has divided the BJP?

“At a certain level, when it was a smaller party, it was homogenous and cadre-based. Please don’t quote me wrong,” he says. He fidgets in his chair and asks me why I haven’t brought a recorder. “Won’t you miss something if you don’t use a recorder,” he asks worriedly. I assure him that nothing will be quoted out of context. So he continues. “The transformation of the party from cadre-based to mass-based has bought both pluses and minuses. The cadre-based party had much more political homogeneity while a mass-based party will have diversity. That’s what we are witnessing in the BJP right now.”

Singh chooses his words carefully. That’s possibly why he won’t talk about the BJP’s constitutional change which would allow Gadkari to continue as party president for a second consecutive term — a move strongly opposed by sections of the BJP top brass. “The party hasn’t yet officially announced anything so it is unfair to say anything,” he says with a wry smile.

By his own admission he has grown wiser. “I left the army with no pension, no gratuity, but a lot of madness. Everyone said, don’t quit the army but I went and did it,” he says. Singh had joined the army in 1959 and left it within a decade for a career in politics, when he was married with two sons. “At that time I thought I had all the answers but now I know I don’t have all the answers.”

Born into a royal family in Barmer, Singh finished schooling from Mayo College in Ajmer. But his ambition to study in a foreign university was quashed by his father who told him that the family couldn’t afford his education with the abolition of privy purses. So Singh chose the armed forces at the age of 19 only to leave it at 28. At that time Singh wasn’t worried that he had little money in his pocket or that he had to fend for his two little boys and wife.

Singh entered politics in the late 1960s, and recalls that the first few years were extremely difficult. Then he met (former vice-president and senior BJP leader) Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, who took him under his wing. Singh was first elected to the Rajya Sabha in 1980. His proximity to Shekhawat and later Atal Bihari Vajpayee led to his meteoric rise. “They both are my political mentors,” he reflects. Today his elder son is a BJP MP from Barmer while his younger son is an entrepreneur.

Singh has had a long innings. He wants to go back to his home state Rajasthan. To serve his people and to ride horses. His penchant for horses led the king of Saudi Arabia to gift him a stallion and a mare during one of his official visits to the Arab land. “The king asked his son to show me their horses. He said, ‘He is a bedu (desert dweller) like us.’ The next day I was told by the ambassador that I had been gifted two horses and they were sent across on a special flight to India. I still have them at my home in Jodhpur.”

Singh feels his time in politics is now coming to an end. “I have served nine terms. I have got one more election to fight.” Earlier this year, the NDA had nominated his name for the vice-presidential elections which he lost to Hamid Ansari.

The end of politics, he stresses, does not mean the end of life. “I don’t want to put an end to my life with an end to politics,” he says. But he shall not divulge his plans. Clearly, some more controversial books are on the anvil.