ATAL BIHARI VAJPAYEE

25 December, 1924

It is hard to recall now that AB Vajpayee first came to prominence in the mid1960s, during the debates on the imposition of Hindi. (He was pro-imposition). By 1968/9, he was the unquestioned leader of the Jan Sangh, a fiery orator who echoed the RSS stand. But by the time the Jan Sangh became part of the ruling Janata party in 1977 and Vajpayee became Foreign Minister, he had moderated his policies and was almost Nehruvian in his approach. When Janata collapsed and the old Jan Sangh morphed into the BJP, Vajpayee began to be spoken about as a potential Prime Minister. This had as much to do with the regard his party had for him as it did with his image as the acceptable face of the BJP. Despite a couple of false starts, Vajpayee finally made it to Race Course Road, pleased his core constituency with a nuclear test and then went on to rule India with sense of fairness and dignity. The party’s lunatic fringe was sidelined, a war with Pakistan (over Kargil) ended in victory and no minority felt unsafe. He will be remembered as one of our best Prime Ministers. But more important: he will always be the man who proved that the BJP was no longer a political untouchable and dragged it into the mainstream of Indian politics. Without Prime Minister Vajpayee, there would be no Prime Minister Modi.