Vajpayee – RSS Man in Nehru Coat
By: Manas Sinha
Tags: Bjp, Hindutva, Pakistan, Congress, Narendra Modi

Atal Bihari Vajpayee had a political career between 1957 and 2009, a good 52 years.

When I was in middle school still, I used to ask my die hard Congressi father who among the opposition leaders who can head India if a chance comes. My father used to put two persons in very high esteem, Ramkrishna Hegde and Atal Bihari Vajpayee. This inspite of my father’s unquivocal refusal for the Bharatiya Janata Party. Thats how my interest in these two leaders generated.

Then I came across an article which quoted Jawaharlal Nehru who it seems once told young Vajpayee that he has the potential to become country’s top political executive. That reaffirmed my faith in him. Otherwise quite honestly I was not much interested in the politics of BJP, in any case they were a marginal force then.

Come 1989 and suddenly BJP became mainstream due to an opportunistic and myopic alliance / seat adjustment of VP Singh and Left Parties with them which gave tremendous legitimacy to Vajpayee and Advani as faces across India. VP Singh in hindsight had done more harm than good for India and in his less than two years rule, his policies had tremendous ramifications for the future of Indian politics. VP Singh destroyed the secured vote banks of Congress in Hindi heartland first in favour of caste parties and later in favour of BJP and it started a process of fragmentation which was not seen since our independence.

The persons who benefited the most out of VP Singh rule were Vajpayee and Advani and they very consciously decided to play good cop bad cop role to test Indian ground which was still steeped in Nehruvian secular legacy. So Vajpayee, the good cop was the front where samajwadis were coalesced while in the back, the bad cop Advani kept the more radical elements prepared to take maximum advantage of the situation as it appears going forward.

Vajpayee was a master orator and he could say much more with saying very less, an extraordinary quality which only the most intelligent posseses. Moreover he was the one who was influenced by some of the democratic values which Nehru cherished and those shaped him much more than the ideological construct of the RSS which was his cradle still. Vajpayee evolved over time and realised even with a strong hindu core, India has to follow the path of multi culturalism, consensus building is so very essential for a diverse nation like India and some steps which Congress was forced to take were to be followed still howsoever ideologically he may be opposed to them.

Advani too realised the importance of Vajpayee during BJP1.0 version and hence never tried to overtake him though the bigger success of converting hindi heartland from anti Congress to pro Mandal to pro Mandir definitely goes to his rallies, rathyatras, organisational abilities and his ability to pick a few fresh blood for the party in several states, Narendra Modi being one for Gujarat. Vajpayee was so very important in that phase of India turning slowly saffron from the earlier tri-colour patch it had. Vajpayee was successful in building apparently contradictory coalitions in state after state especially where BJP had no presence. It was a beautiful strategy of the two and each played his role to perfection. So while Advani was actually present in Ayodhya when the mosque was brought down, Vajpayee by then was faraway from the scene but not before leaving a broad hint of what is coming the earlier afternoon in a rally near Ayodhya. Such was the skill of the man.

Vajpayee in a way was the first true non Congress prime minister of India as he never had been part of Congress ever and his rule of 6 years had shown several improvements after almost 5 years of coalition confusion at the centre. Vajpayee took up infrastructure building in a big way which no prime minister ever did and that definitely accelerated India’s productivity and economic growth. Vajpayee ushered in telecom revolution in a very big way though both Rajiv Gandhi and Narasimha Rao also did their bit. Vajpayee created a extremely cordial and democratic atmosphere in the country where parliament sessions were used properly to debate and legislate, his rule dispelled lots of fear about BJP being a pariah party to many and it was his astuteness which brought Kashmir almost to the brink of a solution. Though initially taken of guard, under Vajpayee India did fight back valiantly in Kargil and had a major victory; he did Pokhran tests much to the anger of the western world. Being a outright pragmatist, he opened vistas with several countries like Israel with whom India did not share good relations. Being a person who was quite conscious and reserved of what he spoke, he earned admiration across the board of all parties and became a modicum of a truly democratic prime minister of a truly democratic government. He was perhaps the most democratic of all prime ministers since Nehru and in that sense, he had imbibed Nehru more than most Congressmen truly could.

But having said all that, it will be a mistake to think Vajpayee was not committed to the core beliefs of Sangh where he was reared up and without whose support he could ever became the leader he could. So he did not do enough to stop the demolition knowing full well that it was going to happen, he did a mild reprimand for Gujarat riots but did not do as much as he was expected to do, he did not do much to control the fanatical elements of his party and most disturbingly did try to hide behind words when firm and affirmative actions were expected of him. In hindsight it was clear that he was just doing a stand by job and was keeping the seat warm for a much more virulent hindutva to set in for India. He was preparing the Indian mind slowly but surely and quite successfully as well.

Till the advent of Narendra Modi at the national scene and till he could create a tremendous personal appeal across India, undoubtedly Vajpayee was the best mascot for the hindutva party. But today its no more. Hindutva doesn’t need the pretence of Vajpayee anymore. Its a strong and a durable force and its cadres are extremely committed to see a Hindu Rashtra and this idea has a substantial backing across India.

So as I write about Vajpayee on his 96th birthday, he will be remembered for laying the foundation stone of the new Avatar of Jana Sangh on April,1980 which has become the Burj Khalifa of Indian politics in 40 years, a remarkable feat no doubt.

The rise of BJP as the prime political force has its genesis in two nation theory and the subsequent partition of India. The day Pakistan got created, this was an inevitability which got postponed by a few decades.

Vajpayee gave mortal shape to that historical eventuality and Modi is giving it a more permanent one.

Copyright © Manas Sinha December, 2020