Remembering Vajpayee as India’s political role model

Hari Jaisingh

In the country’s changing political spectrum, we, the people, will continue to feel a big void in the absence of Atal Behari Vajpayee in our national life. Atalji was the first BJP Prime Minister of substance who believed in and practised Raj Dharma and the intricacies of Statecraft. His was a different personality – a genuinely enlightened liberal Hindu at heart, cast in a Nehruvian mould. That is what grassroots India/Bharat is all about.
Atalji represented an allinclusive forward-looking modern India, rooted in rich tradition historically. That was the strength of his a 26-party coalition of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA). This was truly Federal India that united all its diverse political elements .
Atalji as PM enjoyed tremendous support and goodwill in the country’s complex multidimensional coalition politics.
Even the maverick leader from West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee, was then part of the NDA umbrella. So was Farooq Abdullah of J & K’s National Conference. Such was Vajpayee’s magnetic personality and personal qualities of heart and mind.
I am recalling the years of Prime Minister Vajpayee for the benefit of the present lot of BJP leaders, including Prime Minister Modi who all, I am sorry to say, are yet to fully grasp the complex ground realities of the Indian polity as evolved over the centuries. Nor do they seem to have proper appreciation of the broad liberal frame of Hinduism. On top, what seems to have got added to PM Modi’s “Change India” agenda is onetrack mindset of a section of the Sangh Parivaar which wishes to reverse the process of history in one go by erasing what it considers to be its “sore points”. History provides us a mirror on

Atalji as PM enjoyed tremendous support and goodwill in the country’s complex multidimensional coalition politics. Even the maverick leader from West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee, was then part of the NDA umbrella. So was Farooq Abdullah of J & K’s National Conference. Such was Vajpayee’s magnetic personality and personal qualities of heart and mind !

Farooq Abdullah with Atal Behari Vajpayee past and present events, palatable or otherwise. It helps to draw and learn right lessons so that mistakes and blunders committed in the years gone by are not repeated. But it so happens that as a people we are poor learners of history. Small wonder that we repeat the mistakes and add to the problems for the generation next.
Vajpayee was well aware of harsh facts of history and in his own poetic way, he looked for new instruments of policies and strategies to tackle problematic areas that the nation has been faced with. He had a vision, not only of modern India but also of the sub-continent. His bus yatra to Lahore and the Agra summit were part of his endeavour to mend fences with a hostile neighbour through the process of reconciliation and dialogue.
It is a different matter that General Parvez Musharaff happened to be too clever by half. His Kargil misadventure and the diplomacy of duplicity upset Vajpayee’s peace process with Islamabad. This has been Pakistan’s never-ending tragedy ever since its birth on August 14, 1947.

The author with the Prime Minister at 7, Race Course Road. Its hate psyche-cumuntrustworthy mindset has thrown up jehadi terror monsters of its own making. The heartrending killings of innocent school children at Peshawar by Taliban jehadis do tell Pakistani leaders how and where they have gone wrong but, regrettably, Islamabad’s military-cum-ISI establishment continues to be blindfolded and is still reluctant to give up its policy of using the instrument of terrorism as a state policy, especially against India.
Amidst this gloomy setting, it is worth recalling that I saw some glimmer of hope in Vajpayee among large sections of Pakistanis during my visit to that country.
Looking back, I feel India-Pakistan relations could have taken a different turn had Vajpayee’s government returned to power in 2004. Well, the dots of history do not get filled in with ifs and buts.
History goes by its own momentum, though a man of vision and courage can definitely change its course.
Vajpayee as Prime Minister never allowed his philosophy of Hindutva to get caged in a narrow frame of politics and power.
For him, Hinduism has always been a vast canvas of ever green liberalism. Hinduism actually derives strength from its liberal roots of tolerance and understanding of other faiths. It is flexible in approach as well as in practice. Several streams of thoughts and faiths have emerged from the mainstream of Hinduism in different periods.
Even the growth of Sufism in Punjab, Sind, and Jammu and Kashmir deserves special mention since it symbolizes some of the best thoughts of Hinduism and Islam. Regrettably, organized attempts by Islamist fundamentalists have taken the Kashmiris away from rich Sufi thoughts and have led most of them into areas of intolerance.

Babri Masjid demolition It is, in fact, liberal parameters which have put the concept of Hinduism on a high pedestal of life and thinking, the very basis of India’s time-tested civilisational roots. India is eternal and everlasting. For Vajpayee, these were not mere sentimental words.
Indian culture is ageless. With his firm belief in Raj Dharma in Statecraft, Vajpayee was always guided by the Indian spirit of tolerance, understanding and accommodation. He invariably looked beyond the barriers of caste, community and religion.
The challenge before the RSS-BJP leadership today is how to widen such liberal commitments of evolving a consensus within the Sangh Parivaar and the people of other faiths and ideologies.
I am of the view that the basic essence of liberal Indian tradition need not be politicized. Nor should it be given a deliberate communal twist by varied players among the opposition parties, including the Congress. This is not a matter of bargain. Of course, within the old traditional mould some new symbols could be evolved. Nehru did so by calling dams and factories as “new temples” of modern India.
PM Modi’s stress has been on Vikas, Parivartan and Su-shashan (Good Governance). We hope that he would redeem his promises. Vajpayee espoused a moderate line against the hardline Hindu position of some of his party colleagues. The most striking example of this was his stance on the Babri Masjid demolition.
He described the incident as India’s “darkest hour”. No wonder, many ideological opponents have gone out of the way to praise Vajpayee’s political, social and humanitarian philosophy of life. Vajpayee’s approach was invariably laid back and conciliatory. This is a great lesson that the present set of Sangh Parivaar leaders would do well to learn.

Vajpayee espoused a moderate line against the hardline Hindu position of some of his party colleagues. The most striking example of this was his stance on the Babri Masjid demolition. He described the incident as India’s “darkest hour”. No wonder, many ideological opponents have gone out of the way to praise Vajpayee’s political, social and humanitarian philosophy of life. Vajpayee’s approach was invariably laid back and conciliatory. This is a great lesson that the present set of Sangh Parivaar leaders would do well to learn.

It may be worth remembering that Vajpayee began his public career as a journalist. His background as a media person with Delhi’s daily Veer Arjun in the early fifties probably gave him the rare quality of reaching out to persons of diverse backgrounds and varied views and opinions. A swadeshi to the core, Vajpayee’s multi-faceted personality, non-partisan characteristic and broad-minded approach to men, matters and issues put him on a high pedestal of India’s political spectrum. This is a rare feat which few Indian political leaders have been able to achieve.
As Editor of The Tribune, I had several opportunities to interact with Vajpayee at 7, Race Course Road and during his foreign visits. This enabled me to size him up objectively as a visionary person and a statesman who nursed a wish to shape India’s destiny as a modern forward-looking nation. In this pursuit, he was always willing to listen to different viewpoints as well as criticism.
What is important to note is Vajpayee’s responsive attitude and open-mindedness on complex national matters. His understanding of India’s ground realities was unique. He could feel the people’s heartbeats in different parts of the country. It is time to listen afresh to the heartbeats of the poor, the backwards, tribals and deprived and disprivileged sections of our society who have been fed on “dreams” of change for 72 years since Independence.
We have to translate their “dreams” into joyous realities of their life speedily and without fail. India can no longer live by rhetoric of our politicians. The sole mantra for India today has to be Just, Fair, Transparent, Swift and Honest Action for a Better Tomorrow.