Vajpayee’s vacation gave a unique push to tourism in Kumarakom

92-Vajpayee Welcome break: Vajpayee on a houseboat during his trip to Kumarakom

It was a Mann Ki Baat of a different genre. 

The time was the beginning of this millennium. Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the then prime minister, had chosen the beautiful Kumarakom village in Kerala to usher in the new year. He had spent five days on the banks of the serene Vembanad Lake, keeping mostly to himself, ruminating about the past, present and future of India. 

The result was the famous Kumarakom Musings, two essays where he touched upon India’s two “legacy problems”—the Ayodhya dispute and the dispute with Pakistan over Jammu and Kashmir. Both were contentious issues that his predecessors had struggled to deal with. Through Kumarakom Musings, Vajpayee tried to rise above the rabble and become a statesman.

 And, he did become one.

“Each new generation… has to give a worthy account of itself in its own lifetime, aware that its contribution to India’s progress will be judged essentially on two counts: One, how many ‘legacy problems’ inherited from the past has it resolved? Two, how strong a foundation has it laid for the future development of the nation?” Vajpayee wrote in his essay. “My mind probes these questions as my eyes feast on the verdant environs of Kumarakom resort on the banks of the sea-sized Vembanad Lake in Kerala.”

The prime minister reached Kumarakom on December 26, 2000, a day after his 77th birthday. It was a vacation he badly needed, as he was being attacked from all sides—while his political opponents called him a “counterfeit moderate”, the hardliners in his party considered him a “closet Nehruvian”. “Vajpayee ji’s Kumarakom trip turned out to be much more than a mere vacation. He used the trip to give a credible and inspiring message for the people of our country,” said Sudheendra Kulkarni, a close aide of Vajpayee who had accompanied him on his trip. “He was a man of dialogue and tried to think out of the box to find solutions to two long-pending issues that our country was facing then.”

For Vajpayee, the Kashmir issue was a subject very close to his heart. That was a time when the bitterness of the Kargil War was still fresh in Indian minds, but he sounded optimistic when he wrote: “In our search for a lasting solution to the Kashmir problem, both in its external and internal dimensions, we shall not traverse solely on the beaten track of the past. Rather, we shall be bold and innovative designers of a future architecture of peace and prosperity for the entire South Asian region.”

 The portions of Kumarakom Musings on Kashmir did become a talking point in diplomatic circles. “It was unusual for a prime minister to sit down and pen his ideas and thoughts about bilateral relations. His ideas on the subject were quite unorthodox,” said former diplomat T.P. Sreenivasan, who has had a long association with Vajpayee ever since he was the foreign minister in the Morarji Desai government. According to him, Vajpayee was committed to bringing peace to Kashmir and tried many things to make it possible. “He followed up what he wrote in the musings with the Agra Summit later that year, when he invited Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf to discuss the Kashmir issue,” said Sreenivasan. “Vajpayee was determined to find a solution but could not because of the pressures from hardliners in his party.”

 In December 2001, the Indian Parliament was attacked. Vajpayee was shocked and disappointed, but he continued with his efforts to solve the Kashmir issue. He visited Kashmir in April 2003. “I had accompanied him on this visit. He took everyone by surprise when he announced that India was ready for talks with Pakistan on all issues, including the issue of Kashmir,” said Kulkarni. According to him, Vajpayee would have solved the Kashmir issue amicably if he had got a second term. He added that Vajpayee would never have approved of what the current BJP government did in Kashmir—the abrogation of Article 370. 

The Ayodhya dispute was something that had earned Vajpayee a lot of brickbats from the opposition and his own party hardliners. On Ayodhya, he wrote: “It is a challenge to the collective wisdom of our society that we find a peaceful and amicable solution to this problem, sooner rather than later.” He also upheld the Constitution and the supremacy of the law of the land in the matter.

Kumarakom became a much sought-after name in the tourism map of the country after Vajpayee’s visit. “As a person who was with Vajpayee ji in Kumarakom, I know how the beauty and serenity of Kumarakom influenced Vajpayee to write his musings,” said Kulkarni. Dr Venu V., who was the tourism director then, said Vajpayee’s visit to Kumarakom happened due to some smart moves made by the Kerala tourism department, then headed by Amitabh Kant.

  “When we came to know about the prime minister’s vacation plans, we immediately prepared a brochure on Kumarakom, its backwaters and houseboats,” said Venu. “He was fascinated and changed his initial plan to go to a tourist destination in the north [India].”

 People from various parts of Kerala had flocked to Kumarakom to catch a glimpse of Vajpayee. “We never knew Vajpayee had those many fans here, as the BJP had a bare minimum presence in Kerala then,” said Shyju K.P., a local journalist, who covered the event.

 Vajpayee attended only one public meeting during his stay—a BJP convention where he exhorted his party cadre to do everything to make the party a strong presence in Kerala. The coconut palm he had planted at the premises of the Taj Kumarakom resort became a tree and produced many coconuts, but his call to make the BJP a strong player in Kerala is yet to see desired results.

“Kerala is certainly God’s own country… so beautiful,” Vajpayee said as he was leaving. When journalists asked him whether it has inspired him to write poetry, he replied: “Poetry will follow.” And, it did… in the form of Kumarakom Musings.