A gentle giant who embraced dissent

Vajpayee’s all encompassing humanity, graciousness of conduct, and courtesy leaves a towering legacy that deserves all the more to be remembered and hailed in an era where such virtues appear to have disappeared from public life

The longest-lived Prime Minister of India is no more, taken away at 93. But in many ways ill-health had deprived India of his sage counsel for nearly a decade before the end came. The mellifluous oratory, the sparkling wit, the laughing eyes had not been seen or heard since he departed the national stage. Now, sadly, the loss is permanent.

Many will speak of his Prime Ministership, his political leadership of the Bharatiya Jan Sangh and then the Bharatiya Janata party, both of which he built up to national prominence and led with elan. But there have been other Prime Ministers, and other political leaders. What distinguished Atal Bihari Vajpayee was what he himself called “insaniyat” – his humanity.

At a time when the BJP has become synonymous with the ruthless, single-minded acquisition of power and its deployment in disregard of all others, Vajpayee harked back to a kinder, gentler era. No talk of “Congressmukt Bharat” for him; he spoke with enormous respect of his opponents and predecessors.Upon Nehru’s death in 1964, Vajpayee delivered a magnificent elegy in Parliament that “a dream has remained half-fulfilled, a song has become silent, and a flame has vanished into the Unknown. The dream was of a world free of fear and hunger; the song a great epic resonant with the spirit of the Gita and as fragrant as a rose; the flame a candle which burnt all night long, showing us the way.”

When he took over as Minister of External Affairs in India’s first non-Congress Government in 1977, Vajpayee noticed that a portrait of Nehru was missing from its usual spot in the ministerial chamber, removed in an excess of zeal by functionaries anxious to please the new rulers. Though a lifelong critic of the Congress, Vajpayee demanded its return. As he had said in his elegy, “the sun has set, yet by the shadow of the stars we must find our way.”

That was the essence of Atal Bihari Vajpayee — a great-heartedness that embraced even those with whom he disagreed. His Prime Ministership is chiefly remembered by his own political party for its emphasis on road development— the national highways he conceived and built, and the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana, which did so much for rural connectivity. But I will remember him more for his extraordinary — though in the end unsuccessful — attempts to make peace with Pakistan.

The amiable Vajpayee, unexpectedly made Foreign Minister in Morarji Desai’s government, had already surprised many by conducting a Nehruvian foreign policy with grace and conviction. As Chairman of Parliament’s External Affairs Committee, he led many Indian delegations abroad in an admirably non-partisan spirit.

But even then his dramatic initiative, to take a bus journey to Lahore in February 1999 and to disown his lifelong prejudices in a stirring speech at the Minare-Pakistan, surprised many. It was a brave gesture that only one with his impeccably Hindutva credentials could have risked, and it opened the genuine prospect of real peace with our truculent neighbour.

But the “spirit of Lahore” was soon buried in the snows of Kargil, as the Pakistani military betrayed the peace-maker. Undeterred, Vajpayee called the new military ruler, Gen.

Musharraf, for talks in Agra in 2001, and when those also failed—followed by an attack on the Indian parliament— he still summoned up the spark for a final diplomatic thrust for peace in 2003-4. The thaw that Vajapyee established lasted till Pakistani jihadists again put an end to it in the Mumbai massacre of 26/11 in 2008.

When challenged on his repeated attempts to make peace with Pakistan, Vajpayee memorably responded that you can change history but not geography. Pakistan was next door: you had to live with it.

It was in the same vein as his attempt to settle the Kashmir situation by initiating dialogue with secessionists. When it was pointed out to him that they would not discuss a settlement under the Indian Constitution, Vajpayee suggested that the talks could take place under the rubric of “insaniyat”— the humanity that we all share.

That humanity shone forth in his poetry, his personal reflections and occasionally in his speeches, which were masterpieces of artfully-constructed political rhetoric delivered with great flair. In later years his famous pauses were longer than his sentences, leaving foreign interlocutors puzzled as to whether he had finished his statement or was still collecting his thoughts. It was my misfortune that I only got to know him towards the fag end of his career, when, as Under-Secretary-General of the UN, I was accorded an annual meeting with my Prime Minister before his address to the UN General Assembly.

I enjoyed those brief yearly encounters, and will cherish the blessing he gave me when I called on him in 2006 to seek his benediction for my bid to become Secretary-General of the United Nations. Atal Bihari Vajpayee leaves India the better for his contributions to it.

His pioneering Sarva ShikshaAbhiyan, which put serious money into primary education, his stewardship of economic reforms, and his skilled management of an unruly coalition, made his six-year stint as Prime Minister (after the collapse of his first 13-day government) a memorable one. But more than the specific accomplishments, Vajpayee should be remembered for the way he achieved them.

His gentle, patient disposition, his unfailing courtesy, his graciousness of conduct and his all-encompassing humanity leave a towering legacy.

It is one that deserves all the more to be remembered and hailed, in an era where such virtues appear to have disappeared from our public life.

THOUGH A CRITIC OF THE CONGRESS, VAJPAYEE DEMANDED THE RETURN OF A NEHRU PORTRAIT IN HIS CHAMBER