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Remembering Atal Bihari Vajpayee: A Statesman Par excellence

7 months ago
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Atal Bihari Vajpayee

The BJP which now stands tall proudly in the Indian political arena today has made its way gradually through the efforts of various stalwarts starting from Shyama Prasad Mukherjee to L K Advani, Rajnath Singh, Sushma Swaraj, Murli Manohar Joshi, Kalyan Singh, Narendra Modi, Amit Shah, and Yogi Adityanath, to name a few.

However, the party’s evolution from the Jana Sangh to the Modi era owes its success greatly to Atal Bihari Vajpayee the ‘Titan of Indian Politics’.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the first non-Congress Prime Minister to complete a full term, during the coalition era of the 1990s, the BJP Prime Minister, possessed a nationwide appeal.

A Politician par Excellence

He forged friendships with political counterparts from various parties, he was from one of those classes of political leaders, who respected even their archenemies, which can be seen from Vajpayee’s council of ministers, which included Nitish Kumar, Mamata Banerjee, Naveen Patnaik, and Omar Abdullah.

He belonged to an era where parliamentary democracy didn’t stoop low, to personal attacks, mockery, and undignified behaviors. To quote one incident in this regard, one day when he came to his office as a foreign minister on his first day, somebody had removed Nehru’s portrait from the passageway in the South block, after noticing this, he again made the portrait put back in place.

In recent times, where debates have lost their meaning, the thrust is mostly upon the personality cult in politics, rather than building ideology. Rarely do politicians offer substantive fresh ideas. In contrast, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, helped an ideologically fired-up party make space for itself despite the liberal mainstream, while simultaneously fine-balancing nationalism and Hindutva with liberalism.

A true democratic leader

Atal Bihari Vajpayee supported the next line of leaders forging a strong internal party democracy, which gave India a wide coterie of leaders with a fine political acumen like Rajnath Singh, Sushma Swaraj, Manohar Parrikar, Narendra Modi, Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari.

Unlike the absence of strong leaders in many parties like TDP, SP, TMC, BJD, after the waning political clout of their Party patriarchs,  the conditions that prevailed in Tamil Nadu after Jayalalitha’s demise and in party fighting in AIADMK, Shiv Sena, it is because the present leaders are short-sighted to encourage and motivate the next line of young leaders because encouragement of a new face becomes a threat to their autonomy, which further keeps the internal democracy within the party at bay. In the long run this narrow-minded, short-term thinking does more harm to the NATION, depriving it of able political leaders who could have been nurtured to steer the democratic ship in the Indian political waters.

It was Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s personal grit, political acumen, sensitivity in judging the nerve of the majority and also being simultaneously accommodative of the needs even of the minuscule minority, that he could speak the hegemonic language firmly put in place by Nehru’s secularism, while finely balancing Hindutva with liberalism.

A simple man… A Statesman

It was his common sense and statesmanship that Vajpayee was able to make inroads in the Valley where he will be remembered as the national leader who gave equal value to Insaaniyat, Kashmiriyat, and Jamhooriyat.

Vajpayee had the courage to accept both the failure and success of his decisions, which led to results like Operation Shakti in May 1998. He was a political statesman who mastered oratory and had the art of deliberations, with refined thinking he was able to make informed decisions that led to large transitions. His legacy will endure in a more modern and less hidebound economic and foreign policy, with daring leaps of imagination in the infrastructure policy.

True to his name, “Atal”, were his decisions and he further proved them right, through his further course of action. The diplomacy followed with respect to Pakistan was in consonance with his belief, ‘that you can change your friends, but not your neighbors.’

An Inspiration

Gone are the days, when despite the differences, Nehru, Sardar, Ambedkar, and Gandhi worked in tandem. We are heading to times where rarely, a young Bright Atal would be encouraged again in parliament.

Rather, if you have dissenting views from the majority opinion, then voices will be scuffled. Even opposition these days is more interested, in making personal attacks, not even keeping in mind the grace or dignity of the official post, because this is an era of post-truth where a lie will be considered a truth depending on the number of likes and shares and truth would be standing alone because nobody circulated it on WhatsApp or rather who has the time to read the facts, figures and make informed debate.

In these dark days of Indian democracy, the country can only keep its fingers crossed to get a political statesman like Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who kept national interests at the fore, had a pan-India appeal who could persuade voters even from across the fence to give him and his part a chance. 

His vision for India was profound and selfless, when he said, “Sarkarein ayengi…jayegi …partiya badalti rahengi …lekin iss desh ka loktantra amar rehna chahiye …yeh desh chalte rehna chahiye”

(Translation- Governments will come in power and go, parties will come to power and go, but this democracy should be kept alive, whatever happens, this country should keep on going)

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