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| Prabhu Chawla @ 1987 |
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If
Politics is an exercise in the rhetoric of posturing, it is also the
art of forgetting the lessons of history. In NDA's hour of conflict over
the intolerance debate, it would serve the government and the BJP to
remember the lessons of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee era and adopt his Idea
of India. His style, substance, intellectual and aesthetic depth, and
the wry sense of humour with which he handled victories and defeats
alike hold lessons to follow. After retirement from politics, Vajpayee
spends his time in a quiet, leafy enclave of Lutyens' Delhi. But his
presence and vision continue to be relevant at a time when the BJP's
first standalone government is trying to find its feet in governance and
the adversarial arena of statecraft.
Vajpayee believed in an India where the common man triumphed by example. Almost two decades before Prime Minister
Narendra Modi
spoke of a tea-seller's son becoming the nation's supreme leader,
Vajpayee had spoken on August 15, 1996, "It is a symbol of strength and
the potential of the Indian democracy that the son of a school teacher
hailing from the dusty and smoky environs of a village has the privilege
of unfurling the Tricolour from the ramparts of the Red Fort on this
auspicious Independence Day."
He can be called India's most secular Hindu, history's most inclusive
nationalist, or the greatest leader the country has ever had who could
reconcile geopolitical contradictions with astute diplomacy and elegant
intelligence. In an interview in January 2004, Vajpayee had explained to
me 'swaraj' in a nutshell: "Yes, I am (a swadeshi). But the difference
between swadeshi and videshi has narrowed considerably." Yet he has been
always conscious of being an Indian first. His motto-"a sense of
oneness, a sense of Indianness, requires to be created among our youth
to halt the mad rush towards an imported five-star video culture"-can
direct his party to reconcile India with Bharat.More than a
decade after he stepped down as the Prime Minister, Vajpayee is still
known as the "Great Connector". Connectivity is the essence of harmony,
an ancient law that has helped the evolution of cultures and
civilisations. It has been Vajpayee's signature-in politics by achieving
consensus and respect from both allies and opponents; in governance
through linking India by creating a vast new network of highways and
envisaging linking the country's rivers; and for the common man by
heralding the telecom revolution engineered by his Lakshman, Pramod
Mahajan. The India he envisaged is a celestial allegory of the cosmos,
where different galaxies existed without conflict, each one containing
its own solar systems, where planets orbited the Centre, obeying natural
laws. It is also an allegory for different intellectual universes of
varied cultural and socio-political opinions, which he enjoined with the
quiet charisma of his paternal presence.
Vajpayee's greatest
virtue is to have become the connector who created an image of India in
the world as a harmonious whole. He also connected the world with India,
through his visits to the US, Russia, China as well Asian countries
such as Malaysia, Singapore and Cambodia to ink economic deals and push
neighbourly ties. Integrating India is Vajpayee's main legacy. But India
had to become a power by itself, breaking away from its moribund
socialist past which made the poor poorer and the rich richer, where the
economy and society were controlled by a cabal of the rich and
powerful, who influenced government policies.
Connectivity is part
of ancient Indian heritage, achieved by glorious empires like Ashoka's
and Chandragupta's, which made Bharatvarsha the hub of commerce by
building a vast grid of roads, rivers, canals and ports and helped
commerce and industry. Determined to upgrade the country's
infra-structure, destroyed by years of colonialism, Vajpayee pulled
General Khanduri out of retirement and appointed him the minister in
charge of road transport and highways in 2000. The Golden
Quadrilateral-the largest highway project in India-came into being in
2001, and was finished under the budget with 21 km of roads having been
built daily. Mahatma Gandhi, who said India lives in its villages, was
an inspiration for Vajpayee-both as a selfless emancipator and reformer.
The Pradhan Mantri Gramin Sadak Yojana linking 5 lakh villages to
cities took off. The connectivity that followed increased immigration
from the hinterlands to cities, offering millions of villagers a dream.
Prosperity and semi-urbanisation helped in obfuscating entrenched
prejudices such as caste and backwardness in education. The Sarva Siksha
Abhiyan gave education a much-needed impetus.
The Delhi Metro,
which began under Vajpayee, changed the way the common man travelled in
the Capital, connecting slums, non-glamorous colonies and upscale areas,
thereby becoming the great equaliser. The modern is being replicated
successfully all over the country: SEZs flourished, connecting expansion
with results. The NDA 1 government lowered interest rates to boost the
economy. The foundation Vajpayee's economic policies laid enabled
Manmohan Singh to claim the title of India's Reform Man.
This
is because Vajpayee understood his connection with India as a holistic
covenant. He grew with India. He didn't become the Prime Minister
because of hierarchical reason, heading a state or an important Union
ministry. He is India's true face even today. At the age of 35, his
admirers called Vajpayee Hriday Samrat. Even before the age of India's
television blitzkrieg made its brash entrance, he had acquired a mass
following in major parts of India-I remember walking for three miles to
listen to Vajpayee's speech in a trans-Yamuna area in Delhi. He is a man
who wins both the mind and the heart-a symbol of power, rarely feared
but always revered.
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EXCERPT
January 12, 2004
THE ARTFUL NAVIGATOR
Vajpayee has never been a favourite of Nagpur, the headquarters of the
RSS. He is not Hindu enough for the swayamsevaks. The prime minister
knows that confrontation is not the way out, but containment is. The
grand old man of the saffron parivar is smarter. Madan Das Devi, RSS
joint general secretary, at 59, and M. Venkaiah Naidu,
the BJP president, at 55, are former ABVP colleagues and get along smoothly. In the early 1970s, Devi was the ABVP organisation secretary
and Naidu the general secretary. The Class of 70 is in power in the
states as well as the Centre. The rise of Devi and Naidu has provided
Vajpayee with a politically useful link between Reshmi Bagh in Nagpur
and Race Course Road in Delhi. The patriarch uses the generational shift
in the family as a personal source of consolidation-and peace.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Neither break nor bend
Over the
last decade, Parliament has become a battlefield of invective and noisy
grandstanding, to block development to score political points. As a
parliamentarian, Vajpayee's record has been unparalleled both as a
resplendent orator and an uncompromising democrat. He is still known for
his generosity cutting across political lines. Although he had clashed
with Jawaharlal Nehru over Jammu and Kashmir when he was still a young
MP, Vajpayee's speech after Panditji's death was perhaps the most moving
tribute anyone has paid him, saying "a flame has vanished into the
Unknown." Later, Nehru's daughter Indira Gandhi would throw him in jail
during the Emergency. He underwent surgery and suffered from extreme
back pain but refused to be released on medical grounds. "Hum toot sakte
hain jhuk nahi sakte (we can break but cannot bend)," he would say.
Vajpayee's
belief that India should neither break nor bend is the thrust of his
personal and political philosophy. He realised that consensus is the key
to economic reform, considering that he ran a smorgasbord of a
government, populated by colleagues with divergent opinions. Coalition
dharma was his mantra. "We are not the initiators of reform. We are
carrying forward a process that was started by the Narasimha Rao
government, and continued by two United Front governments. But we do
take the credit for having broadened, depended and accelerated the
reform process," he told me in an interview. Three senior politicians
who became Prime Ministers-Narasimha Rao, Chandrashekhar and Vajpayee
used to confabulate often on national issues, exchanging views and
advices. The spirit of democracy and gentlemanly conduct was one of
Vajpayee's traits.
One morning, sometime in mid-July 1998, I had gone to 7, Race Course Road to meet him. Vajpayee was with four of his ministers, who were forcefully advocating action against
Sonia Gandhi.
He sat silently like a contemplative Buddha, his chin sunk on his chest
and his eyes partially closed. When they finished, he raised his head
and looked at me, ignoring his companions. "Editorji," he addressed me
by the nickname he used for me. "Aise karenge toh phir Congress aur BJP
mein farak kya hoga (If we do this, what is the difference between the
Congress and the BJP)?" It provided a window to Vajpayee's thinking: no
vindictiveness, but adhere to the letter of the law.
The five
qualities of Vajpayee can form the manifesto of today's political conduct-one who inspires, delegates but also takes charge, accommodates,
gives respect where it is due, and has a great vision. Even if he had
strong reservations on any issue of policy or politics, Vajpayee was a
magnanimous leader, never insecure about his position, always refraining
from personal attacks on his adversaries. These are marks of a true
visionary.
Vajpayee was as comfortable with foreign policy nuances
as he was with domes-tic political challenges. When the post of the
Indian ambassador to the WTO fell vacant in 1999, foreign minister
Jaswant Singh pushed Hardeep Singh Puri's name, little knowing that the
decision rested with the Commerce ministry. When commerce minister
Murasoli Maran protested. Vajpayee did not take a moment to withdraw the
decision and allow Maran to appoint K.M. Chandrasekhar instead. His
respect for women power is evident in a different instance. In 2001,
Lalit Mansingh was to retire as foreign secretary and Kanwal Sibal, then
India's ambassador to France, was one of the front-runners for the post
and Jaswant Singh's first choice.
Singh got his appointment
cleared by Vajpayee, although it meant superseding over half-a-dozen
others senior to Sibal. An officer from Vajpayee's trusted circle
pointed out that the Chokila Iyer's claim for the job in New Delhi had
been ignored. Vajpayee called for her file to study her profile. Iyer
got the posting, and India its first woman foreign secretary.
A dramatic defeat but a moral victory
Vajpayee
is perhaps the first South Asian leader to create a patent ideology of
his own Vajpayeeism. While Marx and Mao may have provoked the masses to
start bloody revolutions, Vajpayee could work wonders by steering a
government comprising 25 parties which had hardly anything in common
barring a noun: NDA.
The correct use, instead of its misuse, of
power was ingrained in Vajpayee. When his government fell in 1996 after
13 days in power, Vajpayee told his political foes in Parliament, "We
bow down to the strength of majority. We assure you that till the time
the work that we started in national interest is not completed, we shall
not rest. Respected Speaker, I am going to the President to tender my
resignation." It was a democratic defeat, but a moral victory. And
Vajpayee was vindicated when the BJP formed the government after winning
the next elections in less than two years. In May 1998, the Vajpayee
government pulled off nuclear tests in Pokhran, named Operation Shakti,
catching the big powers by surprise.
An uncompromising patriot, he
declared India a full-fledged nuclear state, emphasising that there is
"no compromise on national security; we will exercise all options,
including nuclear, to protect security and sovereignty". He took Lal
Bahadur Shastri's slogan 'Jai Jawan Jai Kisan' forward by adding
'Jai
Vigyan'.
As with all Indian prime ministers, Vajpayee's dream was
also to leave behind everlasting peace with Pakistan as part of his
legacy. Between July 14 and 16, 2001, he met Pakistan President General
Pervez Musharraf in Agra to resolve long-standing issues between the two
countries. On the last day, the general told assembled editors that no
accord was possible without including Kashmir: "Kashmir pehla mudda
uthaayenge (the first issue we will raise will be Kashmir)," he said.
When
I informed Vajpayee, he sound-ed incredulous. "Aise bola usne (Did he
say that)?" he asked. When I replied in the affirmative, he refused to
issue the joint statement planned at the end of the summit. This was
after he had initiated the historic Lahore bus journey in 1999, meeting
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and urging an end to Pakistan's covert
activities. "Friends can be changed but not neighbours. We either live
as friends or we keep fighting, making ourselves the butt of ridicule
before the world," he said. The nationalist message of Vajpayee is
that a powerful neighbour should act with restraint even in the face of
blatant aggression. He would always send out the message that India has
the power to crush its enemy but was mature enough to wait and
diplomatically push Pakistan towards a pariah status on the global
stage.
On the morning of December 13, 2001, five terrorists
stormed Parliament and killed nine people before being shot by security
forces. Parliament was sacrosanct for Vajpayee - he was the only Prime
Minister since the 1980s who had never missed a single day of session.
Vajpayee's kindred spirit, L.K. Advani and Army Chief General S.
Padmanabhan were for decisive action. It almost brought the two
countries to the edge of war. Vajpayee's "speak softly and carry a big
stick" policy paid off globally, with international leaders condemning
Pakistan's hospitality towards terrorists.
In April 2003, during a
visit to Kashmir, he mooted friendship with Pakistan. A cease-fire
agreement along the LoC and Siachen was signed in November the same
year, but Vajpayee was firm that Pakistan should stop sponsoring
terrorism and violence before dialogue could proceed. He responded to
sceptical Indian diplomats by saying, "Plane to khada hi hai (The
airplane is ready)."
Kashmir held its first free and fair
elections in decades when Vajpayee was the Prime Minister, changing the
narrative of the debate.
Vajpayee has often been called "the Prime
Minister the Congress never had" and "the right man in the wrong
party". His gift of the gab was always self-deprecatory, but it won the
day. During the BJP's 1992 session in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, asked
whether he was being marginalised in the party, Vajpayee replied, "No,
but usually corrections are done in the margin." As the BJP grew in
stature during the 1990s, its leadership fell on the shoulders of two
old comrades in arms, Advani and Vajpayee. They complemented each
other-the warrior and the poet-philosopher. Ayodhya was a defining point
in the life of the BJP, and of both the leaders. The Rath Yatra made
Advani the new Ram. The pluralist in Vajpayee was not for aggressive
Hindutva, although he remained a loyal member of the party. Yet, on
December 6, 2000, the eighth anniversary of the demolition of the Babri
Masjid, Vajpayee told the Lok Sabha that the Ram Mandir issue was a
"nationalist movement", and "kaam adhura reh gaya hai (the mission is
unfinished)."
The Opposition exploded. The next day, at an iftaar
hosted by minister Syed Shahnawaz Hussain, Vajpayee explained that what
he meant was not that no temple construction would begin but that the
dispute continues. Vajpayee chose to stay enigmatic over the demolition.
After the 2002 Gujarat riots, which lowered the BJP's ratings as a
modern Hindutva party, Vajpayee was unsure whether Narendra Modi should
stay on as chief minister.
After the riots were brought under control, various meetings were held in Delhi between George Fernandez,
Nitish Kumar
and senior Opposition leaders, who felt that Modi should quit arguing
that it affected the NDA's image. At a meeting at 7-RCR, attended by
Advani, Venkaiah Naidu and allies, the non-BJP leaders urged Vajpayee to
sack Modi. He conveyed to the RSS leadership that Modi had to go, or
else he wouldn't go to Gujarat to campaign for the party. Eventually,
the RSS persuaded Vajpayee to change his views in the party's
interests-for he was the Prime Minister, not just any politician, and
moreover it would send out the message that the PM was protesting
against the riots because Muslims were killed.
As long as Vajpayee
was in power, however, the extreme right gunned for him, using the
deadly troika of RSS boss V. Sudarshan, VHP's Ashok Singhal and the
Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh's leader Dattopant Thengadi. They even roped in
ABVP to attack Vajpayee-who had dropped out of school to edit an RSS
magazine-for what they said were his faulty educational policies. They
were so upset that an RSS leader even told a cabinet minister that they
would not mind if the government fell. He also candidly admitted that
Vajpayee became PM not because of the RSS, but in spite of it. Vajpayee,
however, never abandoned any of the lessons he learnt as an RSS
pracharak. He remains an open book, which, if read between the lines,
can guide leaders present and in future to learn the art of keeping the
gigantic entity that is India together.
Magical, magnetic,
large-hearted In January 2004, I met Vajpayee to interview him for the
third and final time, when he was the Prime Minister, for India Today,
an honour not given to any other Indian journalist. Rumours about
midterm polls were flying thick and fast. Advani had already announced
the slogan 'India Shining'. Jaswant Singh was on a publicity binge even
though the elections were due only later in the year. I asked Vajpayee
whether the BJP would go for early elections. "Prashan hi nahin uthta.
Chunav samay per honge (The question doesn't arise. The elections will
be held on schedule)," he answered. But later on, BJP leaders such as
Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Venkaiah Naidu, Pramod Mahajan and others
persuaded the Prime Minister to cash in on the goodwill and feel-good
factor they believed the government had generated. Vajpayee agreed,
although he knew he was signing off as India's most magical, magnetic
and large-hearted leader. He is known for creating institutions and
healthy connections, thus defining the fine contours of India's
political dialogue.
This is the essence of Atal Bihari Vajpayee,
even in retirement, he remains above any party or organisation.
Ultimately he belongs to India. It is Vajpayee Shining. It always will
be.
