Vajpayee: Right man in right party at right time

Vajpayee was supremely conscious of India's self-esteem as a country of 1 billion people and he as the leader clearly emphasized that to one and all.

- VIVEK GUMASTE

My first memory of Atal Bihari Vajpayee dates back to the mid 1960s, when I was a high school student in the southern city of Bangalore as it was then called.

A classmate of mine introduced me to the Jan Sangh (the forerunner of the BJP) and gave me a Jan Sangh brochure, which had a picture of Atal Bihari Vajpayee alongside that year's calendar; for a long time I carried this brochure in one of my notebooks. Around the same time, Vajpayee visited Bangalore to address a public meeting. I was too young to be allowed to attend the meeting, but an older college-going neighbour did; he told me of the overflowing crowd of at least 1 lakh people who had turned up to hear him and the rapt attention with which they listened to Vajpayee.

Who was this man who could draw thousands with the skill of his oratory and the logic of his thoughts in a political environment, which was overwhelmingly in favour of the Congress party? He piqued my interest in Hindu Nationalism, inspired me to delve further into this ideology and formulate my own thoughts as I grew up.

Setting aside this schoolboy infatuation with a great leader, I have over the years attempted to objectively analyse Atal Bihari Vajpayee, both as a political personality and as a national statesman. I have not been disappointed.

When Vajpayee began his political career in the early 50s in post Independent India, the country was still heavily under the influence of Gandhian pacifism despite the horrors of partition; this mindset continued for several more decades. Indians failed to see the ills of this blind pacifism that had wreaked havoc with the nation. Nehru, Gandhi's avowed disciple continued to further this ideology crafting a warped type of secularism that believed in suppressing India's Hindu identity.

In contrast, the Jana Sangh felt that India needed to be reformed in the image of its ancient civilization with an emphasis on its Hindu ethos.