How do we remember Atal Bihari Vajpayee?
“Itna Kaafi hai antim dastak per khud darwaza kholein” (The best way to live life is to open the door when the death knocks).
These lines by Atal Bihari Vajpayee sum up his wish for the end of his life. But could he achieve those milestones he set for himself? Perhaps only he had the answer for that question. For people who don’t know about him, he was India’s Prime Minister who actually ruled a coalition of around two dozen political parties during 1998–2004. After his death, however there were three kinds of tributes: one of the extreme critical kinds, much of which were substantiated by liberals and secular intellectuals who didn’t like his controversial role in Babri Masjid demolition or his reluctance to take action against Mr Modi when Gujarat was burning in 2002, the other of a holistic praise kinds (people from all walks of life including liberal journalists, politicians across political lines, film personalities, business leaders etc) and the third from the followers of the present dispensation through the RSS protegee websites of the likes of opindia where Vajpayee was produced as a sanskari saint. The third category of loyal supporters would not appreciate if you say that he was a non-vegetarian or a drinker. In his old age he preferred a good French wine. I know this for sure as I was hosting him in a leading star hotel once, where I worked in the Human Resources and we had ordered the best of wine for him. He lived a king size life for sure. Liberals are surely right in seeing Vajpayee wearing a communal hat but is that the only hat he was wearing? Perhaps not. As a liberal and an apolitical observer of politics who hates the very nature of right-wing politics, I am tempted to share my point of view and that’s what I have done through this piece.
Not withstanding the criticism, it is surely difficult to assess Vajpayee’s persona and his politics in few words. There are three shades to this narrative. The one shade is of a loyal RSS worker who was an observer/participant in the Ram Janambhoomi Rath Yatra (a movement started by the Bhartiya Janata Party, the current ruling party in India, in 1989, to claim a piece of land as an ancient Hindu Temple where a Mosque was built by the Mughal Emperor, Babur) that catapulted the BJP to power. The same movement allowed BJP to play with communal re-engineering that finally led to demolition of Babri Masjid, followed by nation-wide perilous riots, including that at the city of Bombay, that had seldom seen violence of this magnitude. My home town, Agra was not spared either. Although Vajpayee said that he was pained by violence, in his later interviews but again he used to contradict his liberal image when he used to address his own party workers. His now-famous speech in Goa, where he addressed the reasons of Gujarat riots of 2002 is heavily criticized by people and groups whose idea of India is all about inclusion, diversity, fraternity and liberty.
The second side of his persona was a leader who was inclusive in the sense that the cabinet was empowered to take decisions (Arun Shourie, Yashwant Sinha etc vouch for that quality) and his PMO was represented by a bold, decisive former IFS officer Brajesh Mishra. Vajpayee was also interested in finding the path towards peace in the Kashmir valley and hence A S Dulat, former RAW chief was hired to build up the momentum, that finally led to Vajpayee meeting the Hurriyat. Dulat mentions this at great length in his book, Vajpayee, The Kashmir Years. Dulat’s tribute, published in The Indian Express is also worth a read. In this tribute, the Separatist leader Maulvi Omar has also praised Vajpayee because he allowed them to talk to the Pakistanis, as a part of a larger peace process.
Also, as a leader, his initiative to bring a thaw in India Pakistan relationship from the bus trip to Lahore to engaging with former President of Pakistan Musharraf post Indian Parliament attack, was indeed way ahead of the time. That made him popular in Pakistan and leaders of all parties in Pakistan have sent messages of condolences to his family in India. From the Dawn’s tributeto him to an article by Beena Sarwar, calling him the man of peace, views praising him are coming from all corners of the political spectrum. So much so, Pakistan sent a small delegation to attend Atal’s funeral. Besides this, his diplomacy with the United States brought giants like Microsoft to Hyderabad, which as a city gained credence as an alternative to Bangalore’s silicon valley (with much efforts from the then Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, Chandrababu Naidu as well). Also, post-Pokaran II, his emissary Jaswant Singh had long dialogues with the United states to break the impasse and that resulted in the Nuclear deal where Manmohan Singh took on the baton. His failure as a Prime Minister was that the rural economy was not touched by his polity or the economics. Secondly, the Gujarat riots created a dent in his politcal career which on the other hand uplifted Narendra Modi’s career in the making.
This second side of his persona created a fan following of sorts among a large section of the society. The same people who are vary of Modi’s politics and despise him in many ways were somehow enchanted by Vajpayee’s style of politics. If not enchanted or inspired, there were people like Khushwant Singh who had a little “soft corner” for Vajpayee although he (Khushwant) thought that Vajpayee’s poetry was trash.
Following tweets highlight some of the comments by people from different walks of life on his death;
Atal’s reach was to all political formulations and that shows in the following rather surprising gesture by the Indian National Congress at Mumbai. The opposition party has created a poster mourning Vajpayee’s death;
The third side to Vajpayee’s persona was his poetry which was also contridictory in its ethos, like his personality. His initial poetry was about his pan-Nationalist views, on being a proud Hindu or being anti-Pakistan. His later poetry focused on peace, self-reflection and positive thoughts (like Hum Jung na hone denge, apne hi man se kuch bolein etc).
Yes, one must also remember that Vajpayee was a democrat in his spirit and deeds as a parliamentarian. He was that rare authentic Nehru-era anti-Congress politician who never ignored any narrative on Nehru, even as a PM. He had respect for Nehru even though he was not in agreement with many of his policies. That respect was given back to him by Rajiv Gandhi as well as PV Narasimha Rao (who sent him on a UN delegation along with Salman Khurshid once)
In nutshell, how do we remember Vajpayee? As a great leader who build bridges or a Communal politician who was bereft of any vision for India? In this era of taking positions, it would be appropriate if the readers think of it themselves. Like any human being, he surely had his own low and high moments but one cannot but remember his contributions as a old school gentleman politician who was driven by consensus. There were contradictions in his politics but that comes naturally to a right wing politician who was in many ways liberal if compared to what we see today as an exclusive right wing polity.
