The man with the courage to hope against history

Vijay Goel’s Atal Bihari Vajpayee: The Eternal Statesman highlights the former Prime Minister's warmth, wit and grace through a rich visual showcase of his life

- Pavan K Varma

Atal Bihari Vajpayee: The Eternal Statesman by Vijay Goel

(Heritage India Foundation)

The thing about Atal Bihari Vajpayee was that he was not only a political leader but a good human being. It was this combination that made him a statesman.

In the avalanche of fast-moving events, the vivid memories of recent history often fade into sepia tones of collective amnesia, recalled only in the tokenisms of annual commemorative events. Vijay Goel's book is an antidote to this eclipse. He has painstakingly collected photographs from multiple sources to build rich visual gallery of the life and times of a great son of India.

Vajpayee's political journey is recalled in detail in the book. Born into a humble teacher's family in Gwalior and making his debut as a parliamentarian in the 1950s, he distinguished himself not merely through political ideology but as an orator of rare grace. Even ideological adversaries acknowledged the magnetism of his speeches, imbued with poetic cadence, intellectual depth, humour and often withering sarcasm. Vajpayee was one of the few leaders who commanded respect across party lines, and, indeed, had genuine friends across the political spectrum, as is convincingly portrayed in this book. A plethora of photographs show his camaraderie at a personal level with leaders opposed to him politically. Goel reinforces this point when he quotes Jawaharlal Nehru as saying that Vajpayee, then a young MP, would be PM one day. This was said after Vajpayee had delivered a blistering speech critical of Nehru during the India-China war of 1962.