Myth of Vajpayee

Mukesh Chandra Devrari

Book Review: Title - Vajpayee: The Years that changed India, Author - Shakti Sinha, Publisher - Penguin Random House India Private Limited, Kindle price – 387 Rupees

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee enjoys a mythical status in the history of non-Congress politicians who could reach the zenith of political power in India despite his humble origins. His mesmerizing poetry, powerful speeches, commitment to constitutional morality and devotion to the centre to right ideology was remarkably down to earth. He was a diamond in a coal mine. Due to his humility and demeanour, he was described as the right man in the wrong party by liberals in India.    

Former private secretary of Prime Minister Vajpayee Shakti Sinha recently published a book titled, ‘Vajpayee: The Years that Changed India’. It is difficult to say what was his purpose of writing the book. If the purpose of the author was to establish his illustrious former boss as larger than life figure than he achieved just opposite of what he intended to do. The book is a story of limitations of Vajpayee as a human being, the chaos in the coalition, his inability to successfully manage exacting coalition partners amidst his desperation to save his government.  

The book provides no new information or perspective. It carries marginal errors as well. It mentions that the state of Uttarakhand was created in 2003. The state was created in 1999. The struggle of the PM Vajpayee to maintain the coalition government against all odds have been well recorded in the mainstream media during his tenure. The book attempts to establish Vajpayee as foreign policy stalwart but surprisingly fails in doing it as well, neither it succeeded in telling the tale of Vajpayee years with any refreshing standpoint.

Even during his heydays also the opposition parties dismissed Vajpayee as a communal politician. Although, PM Vajpayee was reluctant to stand by the controversies and was sensitive to the international criticism of his government unlike the current PM Narendra Modi and his acolytes. It is well known that during the demolition of Babri Mosque Vajpayee decided to stay away from Ayodhya in 1992. The book makes no attempt to vindicate Vajpayee of the charges of communalism levelled against him in any meaningful manner.    

Liberal media argued that during the Vajpayee’s term also BJP promoted cultural domination of Hindus and demonized minorities. The radical Hindu outfits felt emboldened to indulge in violence. The nature of problems erupted during the Modi’s tenure are similar to the problems surfaced significantly during Vajpayee’s tenure.

The author established Vajpayee as a mere mortal who while in office as PM was way behind his prime. He was forgetting things, lacked the confidence to deliver extempore speeches and concerned about the content of important speeches on most of the occasions. As per the book, Vajpayee was so much stressed with the tantrums of coalition partners that he could barely focus on governance.

The book mentions in great detail his tendency to forget things like one shoe in the car before interacting with media, hearing aids and other things due to excessive stress and increasing age. This book is definitely not a hagiography of Vajpayee if the author attempted to write an exalted account of one of independent India's greatest politicians, then he has miserably failed in it, in fact, the book has achieved the exact opposite.  

There was a belief in the vast population that Vajpayee was never a power-hungry and he spent most of his life in opposition, it did not personally matter to him whether he is in power or not, whether he is PM or not. His commitment to ideology and national interest (the way he sees it) is above any government office, and not having an office could not compromise his ability, neither could ever compromise in the past, to work to serve the country.

Anyone started a political career in the 1950s with RSS affiliate Jan Sangh could not have joined the party for the lust of power, those men and women could be only driven by the commitment to the cause and ideology, as no would have imagined in the wild dreams that one day RSS's affiliate organization will dethrone the extraordinary hold of Indian National Congress on people.

In this context, it is remarkable to read that Vajpayee’s eyes were full of tears after losing the majority in the lower house as his coalition partners decided not to support the BJP-led NDA government any longer and ensure its fall in 1998. Readers will be simply shocked by the revelation, after all, it can’t be Vajpayee, no other politician in India can care less about power.  

(End.)