''Then I feel that I cannot go into oblivion leaving the challenges behind. I have to struggle....I will not accept defeat and will start the struggle afresh. I will write and unwrite my own destiny and sing a new tune..”
On August 15, 1998, the then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee recited these lines as he delivered his first speech from the Red Fort, recalling the challenges that lay in front of the country as it completed 51 years of Independence. He entwined his own struggles and hopes with those of the nation.
Twenty years later—two days after India celebrated its 71st Independence Day—Vajpayee breathed his last after a protracted illness. He was 93.
Today those lines sound prophetic. He did “write and unwrite” his destiny. His struggles along with those of several of his party colleagues finally led to the BJP winning a historic majority in 2014. The BJP may have grown up as a different entity from the time he had last actively participated in party affairs, but his legacy is lasting one in the saffron party. It was Vajpayee's stellar personality that he could bring together all the non-Congress parties with him. After two brief tenures, his was the first non-Congress government to finish its term in 2004.
Ironically, he was the third veteran leader from the non-Congress stable who died within a gap of two weeks. Earlier this month, DMK supremo M. Karunanidhi died, followed by former Lok Sabha speaker and Left leader Somnath Chatterjee. All three left behind their distinct legacy in the country's political history. Last year, AIADMK chief Jayalalithaa had died after an illness.
Spontaneous outbursts of sorrow were witnessed as the news of his death was announced by bulletin issued by AIIMS saying Vajpayee breathed his last at 5.05pm. He was admitted in hospital on June 11.
What Vajpayee brought to the country’s political scene was the enduring presence of a pan India party founded in April 1980.
“How can you deride us by saying we are the cow belt party. We have won in Haryana, we got support in Karnataka; though we did not win in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, but we have organisation there.”
“Ours is a 365 days party, its not a party which springs up during the elections. Now you are putting us in the dock. We will sit in opposition and cooperate in the running of the house...But we will return,” Vajpayee had said during his short but memorable speech in Lok Sabha in May 1996. As he could not gather enough numbers, he announced at the end of his speech that he was going to Rashtrapati Bhawan to submit his resignation.
He returned with a larger political mandate in 1998, and finally in 1999 to run country's first non-Congress for five years.
For the BJP born in 1980s, Vajpayee's tenure and strategic skills became the guiding point for governance and engaging with the people. No party function or poster was complete without invoking the work done by Vajpayee-Advani combine. As the new leadership rose in the party, L.K. Advani was relegated to marg darshak, the proverbial oldage home for the senior leaders.
Incidentally, 2018 marked 20 years of three historic events of the country's history – Pokhran nuclear test, Kargil war and bus ride to Lahore.
One example of Vajpayee's governance is cited when the US wanted India's involvement in the Iraq war. Left leaders, now deceased, A.B. Bardhan and Harkishan Singh Surjeet had gone to meet PM expressing their opposition to the move. Vajpayee, who was also not very keen on allowing the US, wanted an escape route. Left leaders told him that there was opposition to the government's proposed move. Vajpayee dropped a subtle hint that he did not see much opposition on the ground. Left parties, along with others, mounted a huge protest against the move. Vajpayee then conveyed to USA that owing to growing local pressure at home he wont be able to accede to their request.
Vajpayee wanted peace with the neighbours despite the failed Agra summit and the Kargil war. His remarkable phrase on solving the Kashmir issue—that we will talk to these people by staying within the limits of insaaniyat (humanity)—has often been used by subsequent PMs like Manmohan Singh and Modi to talk about the solution to the vexed problem.
Unlike the current strong relations between the RSS and the BJP government, both had a strained run during the NDA-I regime. Vajpayee kept the RSS at bay, to which the latter responded with severe criticism of the government's policy.
The NDA-I tenure gave the BJP the confidence of running the government. His style brought two phrases to the political lexicon – coalition dharma and raj dharma. Non-BJP parties often quote coalition dharma as practised by Vajpayee to remind the present dispensation in running the government.
A few phrases were frequently used to describe him. He was called Bhishma Pitamah of Indian politics, while the Opposition called him a right man in the wrong party. It was RSS parcharak and BJP general secretary Govindacharya who infamously called him mokhota (mask) and termed L.K. Advani as the real power centre in the party. Vajpayee was the liberal face of the party, while Advani was the aggressive Hindutva icon who brought aggression in the Hindu right wing. But over the years, Advani too mellowed down to put forth a more liberal outlook.
However, Modi discarded the liberal pretensions that the BJP had acquired during the UPA tenure to bring back muscular nationalism and Hindutva as the main political plank of his party, which paid him rich dividends.
Vajpayee was elected to the Lok Sabha for record 10 times. His first brush with nationalist politics was in his student days when he joined the Quit India Movement of 1942. He also briefly embarked upon a journalistic career, which he left as he he joined the Bharatiya Jana Sangh in 1951. He worked with Rashtra-Dharma (a monthly), Panchajanya (weekly); and Swadesh and Veer Arjun, both dailies.
“A critically acclaimed poet, he still takes time off from affairs of state to indulge in music and in a bit of gourmet cooking,” his official profile described when he became PM.