THE CONSENSUS BUILDER
ATAL BIHARI VAJPAYEE (1924—) A prime minister three times, once for 13 days in 1996, then for 13 months and finally for a full term from 1999 to 2004
Democracy and respect for diversity are even more closely interlinked in India than elsewhere, and Atal Bihari Vajpayee understood this better than most leaders of his time. India is a land of unmatched diversity, which is reflected in its geography, social structure, cultural landscape and political life. No community, organisation or ideology has ever succeeded, or can ever succeed, in establishing complete dominance over others. Vajpayee knew this. Therefore, he would have never allowed the arrogant, unseemly and plainly myopic talk of “Congress-mukt Bharat” (Congressless India) put out by the BJP’s current leaders.
Vajpayee’s belief in secularism was a natural corollary of his belief in democracy and diversity. It was not the Congress brand of secularism which, willingly or otherwise, used Muslims as a vote bank. His was certainly not the Communist brand of secularism which has deliberately chosen to de-recognise and defame India’s Hindu personality. Indeed, this has been one of the principal reasons for the Left’s stagnation and decline in Hindumajority India. The more the Congress and the Left attacked the BJP as a “communal party”, the more they helped the party mobilise Hindu support. Vajpayee never shied away from acknowledging his Hindu-ness. One of his earliest poems, which remains very popular with BJP-RSS supporters even today, attests to this. It reads: “Hindu tan-man, Hindu Jeevan, rag-rag Hindu mera parichay…” (My body and mind are Hindu; My life is Hindu; My Hindu identity flows in each and every vein.) Yet, like any true Hindu, he was never anti-Muslim or anti-Islam. His long experience in politics further convinced him that India cannot abandon its commitment to secularism. When the BJP party was founded in 1980, he made sure that ‘positive secularism’ was included as one of its basic ideological commitments. The party, quite rightly, interpreted this commitment as ‘Justice for all, appeasement of none’.