Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s completion of a full term as Prime Minister in 2004 was as much a historic moment in India’s political history as his passing away on 16 August 2018. The first non-Congress Prime Minister, he was also the only one from the far Right who could claim an association with India’s struggle for Independence, even though a fleeting one. In any case, elected to the second Lok Sabha in 1957, Atal Bihari Vajpayee for long became the voice and face not only of the Bharatiya Jan Sangh (BJS) in Parliament–indeed he represented the Saffron Party in both the Houses, but also of the Opposition. He made his presence felt at the altar of power even as he was interacting with the government. More than one Prime Minister not only praised him but also sent him to represent India in various international meets including the UN, accepting that on international issues, the Government and the Opposition stand together and Atal Bihari Vajpayee was among the most competent parliamentarians to stand for India, even if ideologically he differed with the Government.
Abhishek Choudhary’s second volume of biography of one of the most vivacious leaders in Indian politics (in every respect), who emerged from the Opposition benches to govern India as its Prime Minister in three instalments, is equally comprehensive, covering a broad spectrum of his political life. Organized in four parts and 22 chapters, Choudhary’s book begins from 1977, the year the Congress lost power for the first time at the Centre since Independence. In fact, the significance of the year was in the completion of an era. Vajpayee not only became the first leader from the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS) to hold ministerial rank in the Union Government, he was the first from the ‘right flank’ to engage with India’s foreign policy in the Government and in Parliament. A shrewd, yet popular politician that he was, he became Foreign Minister in the Morarji Desai-led Janata Party Government and left his mark on several issues. Vajpayee’s Rightist ideology did not come in his way when, as the External Affairs Minister, he dealt with issues relating to China or Jammu and Kashmir. He took initiatives to normalize ties with China, a country which had been eyeball to eye ball with India since 1962. He also looked for a solution to the Jammu and Kashmir issue in engaging constructively with Pakistan.
Vajpayee became Prime Minister of India thrice—May 1996, March 1998 and October 1999. As Prime Minister, Vajpayee acted on the longstanding agenda of the BJS/BJP to convert India into a nuclear power, despite being aware of the consequences, especially sanctions, from the United States. He also walked several extra miles to be seen as India wanting to be friends with Pakistan. Though it looked populist to many, and, in fact, it did not turn out to be effective; a bus ride to Lahore on 19 February 1999 along with several ‘Lahorians’, including an excited Indian film star Dev Anand, who nostalgically roamed around peeping into the college class rooms he once sat attending lectures of prominent teachers, is still remembered. This was one of the several images of oneness between the ‘two nations’ that the trip created. Despite his efforts, only three months passed when by the middle of May Pakistani troops moved into the hill areas around Kargil. Vajpayee’s response to Pakistani incursions in Kargil displayed statesmanship. He maintained his balance also during the 2001 armed attack on the Parliament House.
In fact, Vajpayee’s political balance came out sharply even as he held the first public office as the External Affairs Minister in 1977. As Foreign Secretary Jagat Mehta took him around in the South Block, Vajpayee noticed the absence of a prominent portrait of Nehru hanging on the wall. Even as Mehta was nervous, Vajpayee asked for the portrait of the architect of India’s foreign policy to be restored. Vajpayee believed in maintaining a connect of enduring process with the Opposition. In his own style, Vajpayee treated the comment saying ‘I (Vajpayee) am good but my party is not.’ He said that for a tasty fruit some credit must go to the tree: ‘This tree has been nurtured over the years with our blood and sweat’ (p. 219). Thus, even as the Party, points out Choudhary, was crossing the line of acceptability even at the national level, with Vajpayee standing in the front to lead it, an absolute majority was still some distance away. But the acceptability of coalition created a possibility. The parties, which did not have a national presence were filling in the space vacated by the Congress. No wonder Vajpayee-led BJP was filling that void. The murmur of Atal-Raj Kumari Kaul was being accepted with a sneer, without creating an adverse impact (p. 220). The Party’s acceptance of Ministers with a criminal background was also being accepted by Vajpayee and other senior leaders (p. 223). Vajpayee proved a master strategist to pull together parties and leaders from different States.
Choudhary rightly argues against lazy conclusions on the rise of the reincarnated Hindu Right since 1980. It had got a toehold on the journey to power in 1967, a place on the footboard in the mid-1970s with an Opposition that was giving a boost to the JP movement and a space with the centrist parties that were pushing the Congress out from the pedestal of power. The decline of the Congress—institutionally, ideologically and organizationally—was a major factor in making space for the parties in the Opposition. Where the BJP got an edge was in a strong ideology that binds together an organization tightly in a leadership. Vajpayee stood in the front not only to use the ideology to glue together the party, but also to reinterpret the ideology to make space in the gradually increasing void in the party system. Thus, Choudhary rightly and aptly suggests, ‘…Vajpayee was at the heart of the Sangh Parivar’s project to Hinduize India. The RSS was desperate to capture political power because it understood, accurately, that seizing the state would allow it to mould the body politic to its desire. Vajpayee, for all his grumbling, helped the RSS and its affiliates function as India’s deep nation’ (Italics mine) (p. xv).
Obviously, for all his liberal utterances, Vajpayee was a deeply committed RSS pracharak. A known fact, but given the aura of his liberal image, Choudhary’s elaborate research establishes this. In the process, he labours to go deep on his post-1977 persona and politics. It shows that Vajpayee himself was conscious of his image and not only for himself, but for the Party too, he chooses a middle of the course. This also meant that he must loosen the RSS stranglehold. Hindutva was not the face he wanted. He stirred a debate with the ‘parivar’ by suggesting that membership of the RSS should be opened to members of the Muslim community. No wonder Govindacharya, an RSS pracharak and ideologue, called Vajpayee a mukhauta (mask).
Choudhary presents a positive image of Vajpayee as Prime Minister. His credit emanates from the fact that he stood firm in front of the RSS on a variety of matters. He really walked a tightrope in not allowing the RSS to derail his reform programme. Wherever he thought fit, he also ensured continuity with the previous regimes, particularly Narasimha Rao-Manmohan Singh’s economic policies. Choudhary has also highlighted that Vajpayee stood firm when it came to bringing talent from outside the parivar. Jaswant Singh and Arun Shourie were examples.
It is not easy to review a book which is a sequel to the biography of a Prime Minister, who was declared a potential in his early days by none other than Nehru. It was still in the realm of unlikelihood, for India was being ruled by the Indian National Congress, the Party that was at the vanguard of India’s Independence. The Party Vajpayee represented was far from the mainstream; the ideology he represented was scarred soon after Independence; the organization was banned due to the assassination of the father of the nation. India of the 1940s, even till the 1980s, was far from being enchanted by Hindutva. Yet he did lead his Party to rule India from 1999 for a full term.
It is worthwhile to end the review with two episodes that cast their shadow on India’s future and led to the present era. Both can be seen also as linked to each other. First, the natural calamity (the Bhuj earthquake) that as an accident brought the most unlikely person as the Chief Minister of Gujarat—Narendra Modi to the forefront. As Choudhary says, ‘At fifty, Narendra Modi was not considered one of the BJP’s GenNext stars…. In his own way, though, he was defying stereotypes associated with pracharaks. He had little by way of a formal education’ (p. 324). It was Advani who persuaded Vajpayee to send this pracharak from a little room of the Party office in New Delhi as Chief Minister of Gujarat. Second, the author’s narrative of Vajpayee’s indifference towards the Ayodhya issue, even with the ongoing Allahabad Kumbh Mela. Vajpayee paid not more than lip service to the VHP’s resolution on Ayodhya. Vague promises aside, Vajpayee did not assign the matter high priority. He was looking for an out-of-turn settlement.
These two, and several such little but significant episodes tiled up the road that led to Ayodhya and the way through which the Saffron Party was led by its leader to rule India. The two volumes together provide a rich analytical resource for the students of India’s contemporary history, politics and leadership.
Ajay K Mehra is Senior Fellow at the Centre for Multi-level Federalism, New Delhi.