Atal Bihari Vajpayee: A man for all seasons

By Kingsuk Nag

Political biographies are not a common genre in India. Good ones even less so. This one is not the best in class biography by a long shot. But this is a short one and a reasonably good one.

The book starts with Vajpayee getting arrested in Quit India movement without really participating in it. The Hindu Mahasabha and the RSS wanted to take a pro-British stance. It’s one of those instances where Nehru and RSS were on the same side. In due course, Vajpayee met all the right people including Shyama Prasad Mukherjee and Deendayal Upadhyay, founders of Bharatiya Jan Sangh. He was Mukherjee’s assistant for a short stint. His identity as a Kanyakubj brahmin, supposedly the highest among the brahmin hierarchy of Uttar Pradesh, also helped his ascent.

But it was up-to Upadhyay who identified the genius in Vajpayee and took upon him to get him elected to the parliament. Deendayal was so determined that, for the 1957 Lok Sabha elections, he made Vajpayee contest from three different places. And thus Vajpayee gets elected to Lok Sabha for the fist time.

Vajpayee is one of the four seats won by of Jan Sangh that year. But Vajpayee’s oratorial skills quickly make a name for him. His skills were so legendary that Pandit Nehru not only noticed his skills, but had to give a point by point rebuttal to his speech. Nehru even said to have mentioned it to a foreign minister that he has the potential to become a future prime minister. Vajpayee admired the stellar parliamentarian, dedicated patriot, the orator in Nehru, but the economist in Nehru, not so much.

When Nehru said the government was going to build hotels, Vajpayee had to rebut him saying the government needed to build hospitals, not hotels. But Vajpayee mirrored his style, his diction and tone on Nehru’s speeches. When Nehru died, Vajpayee noted that the sun has set, and the orchestrator of impossible and inconceivable has died.

The book then slowly picks up speed on RSS and Jan Singh’s internal politics. Deendayal pushes for the moderate in Vajpayee to become the president of Jan Singh, against extreme RSS folks like Balraj Madhok. Deendayal’s mysterious death leaves the party in disarray, but Vajpayee slowly stabilizes the party in spite of RSS meddling from time to time.

As decades roll, Indira Gandhi solidifies her hold on the congress party, helps Bangladesh win their freedom (Vajpayee extolls her as Maa Durga after this victory), and eventually leads the country into emergency. Mrs. Gandhi, under the spell of completely misguided intelligence reports, is an illusion that fresh elections are likely to give her a massive mandate and so therefore calls for elections.

The entire opposition unites under Lok Nayak Jayaprakash Narayan, and Vajpayee is one of their star campaigners. Vajpayee contests from New Delhi, one of the few places in India with Television sets. Indira’s government, in an effort to dissuade people to show up to Vajpayee’s rallies, telecasts Raj Kapoor’s Bobby on Doordarshan. But Vajpayee still draws huge crowds and wins the election. Jan Singh wins one the biggest partners of the coalition and Vajpayee is the leader of the party. Morarji Desai forms the government and Vajpayee is the external affairs minster. LK Advani is the Information Broadcasting minister.

As external affairs minister, Vajpayee is very much in the Nehru mold. He does try to reset a few relationships like the one with Israel and south east asia, but Desai’s government falls before Vajpayee can make his mark. But after the fall of Morarji government, Vajpayee wanted to rebrand the Jan Singh party. He was thoroughly impressed by JPs’ Janata Party and its Gandhian socialism. He wanted a party in that blue print with some RSS grounding. So he starts Bharatiya Janata Party.

Indira Gandhi wins majority in the subsequent election. Indira takes a distinct right turn, she is more Hindu this time around, making a lot more visits to Hindu temples, much to the chagrin of RSS. She takes a tough stance on Bhindrawale and the Sikh extremism, much to the delight of RSS. RSS prods their political party BJP and its president Vajpayee to take a distinct right turn to make their party standout amidst the competition from Indira. They also encourage their dormant sister organization VHP into more active activism. But the moderate in Vajpayee refuses to do so with the party.

Indira Gandhi is assassinated, and Rajiv wins a huge majority. Vajpayee himself loses the election as Rajiv fields Madhavrao Scindia against Vajpayee in Gwalior. Vajpayee offers his resignation as party leader and that marks the ascension of LK Advani as the party leader. Rajiv Gandhi’s missteps, especially, in the Shah Bano case give Advani new opportunities. Both RSS Sarsanghchalak and VHP see an opening and encourage Advani to take the cause of Ayodhya Ramajanmabhoomi. They realize the importance of having an idealogical issue to keep the base. The moderate Vajpayee is ambivalent. He would have much preferred a Somnath style reconstruction of temple, but reluctantly gets onboard with the Advani rath yatra.

This was one of the few places of the book, I had minor PTSD, as tension built towards the Babri masjid demolition. I still remember trying to walk to the neighborhood Hindu temple under heavy police protection. I don't think I was fully comprehending what was going on, but the tense vibes were unmistakable. They were all around in the air.

Anyway, back to the book as the unimaginable and unforeseen happens. Karsevaks bring the mosque down. Vajpayee’s moderation and distance pays off. On the third day, Vajpayee reassured tells the press that his easily the worst miscalculation of BJP as they did not expect the karsevaks to demolish the structure. He apologises and says he is sorry for it. In the successive Narasimha Rao years, Advani gets charge-sheeted in bribery cases too, and Vajpayee remains the only acceptable face of the party.

In first of a kind campaign, BJP pits Vajpayee against Rao in 1996 elections. They bring back an old slogan from 1960s - अबकी बारी अटल बिहारी/abki baari atal bihari and here is ignorant me thinking - ab ki baar modi sarkar and char sau paar are super innovative. I wonder why didn't use abki bari narendra modi. Congress gets 28% of the vote, but only 140 seats. BJP gets a mere 20% of the vote, but 161 seats. Vajpayee’s interim government falls after a mere 13 days and ends the no-confidence motion with one of the best speeches in parliament, ever.

The second stint in 1998 had a similar fate. But this time Vajpayee loses the no confidence motion with one vote. That losing vote was the highly unethical vote by congress MP, Giridhar Gamang who was recently invited to form the state government in Orissa. He should have resigned to his MP seat, but did not. (On a side note - GMC Balayogi was the speaker of the house then, and apparently confided in Lok Satta leader Jayaprakash Narayan about his conundrum, where he could have cast an unethical vote himself and made the motion a tie. But he did not, and JP encouraged his ethics for not doing so.)

But this time Vajpayee returns to power with a bigger mandate. The rest of the book is about his term as the Prime Minister all the way till the post mortem of the loss of India shining election.

He starts with a literal big bang of Pokhran nuclear tests in spite of American pressure. He follows this with Lahore bus diplomacy. Unlike much of RSS who has a vision of akhanda bharat, Vajpayee’s mentor Deendayal Upadhyay had a vision of confederation of India and Pakistan. Vajpayee wanted this to be his long lasting legacy. But he faced insurmountable hurdles like the hijacking of IC814, and Kargil war itself. But Vajpayee continued to press for long lasting peace without much to show for.

His other major achievements included -

1. He normalized relationship with America after 12 rounds of negotiations between Jaswanth Singh and his american counterpart.

2. One of the most trusted coalition partners Mr. Chandrababu Naidu talked him into building the golden quadrilateral highways project which ended up seeding major infrastructure upgrades in India.

3. BSNL becomes very profitable and unleashes a cellphone and broadband revolution.

4. Opened insurance to foreign investments.

5. Although Vajpayee was a socialist when he started, he was liberal on the economic issues. He started disinvesting in several government owned entities. The first of which is - selling off Modern Foods, which made modern bread! (Can you imagine government making bread?! like USSR!).

RSS is fundamentally opposed to disinvestments and foreign investments. He appoints Arun Shourie to fight RSS. The RSS meddling doesn’t stop with just that issue. But up until Rajendra Singh played the Sarsanghchalak of the Sangh. Rajendra Singh was like an elder brother of Vajpayee and was able to keep the Sangh out of government affairs for a while.

Godhra riots changed that fundamental balance, though. Vajpayee has been unhappy with the state government’s response. But things came to a precipitation during a joint press conference with the chief minster Modi and the Prime minister Vajpayee. In that press conference, when the press asked if the chief minster is practicing the raj dharma of not discriminating based on caste, creed and religion - the chief minster simply snubs the press. Vajpayee tells himself that he is going to rid off the chief minister in the upcoming party meeting. He asks the CM to submit a resignation. But in the party meeting there is a ground swell from RSS asking him not to resign.

This change in power balance has other consequences. RSS starts criticizing the prime minster for not prioritizing the Ram temple, of no abrogation of article 370 amongst others. They want to keep non-RSS members out of key cabinet positions. Jaswanth Singh, Yaswanth Sinha are outsiders, but Vajpayee manages some arm-wrestling and keep them in the cabinet. Vajpayee starts promoting relative outsiders like Jana Krishnamurthy, Bandaru Dattatreya, Bangaru Lakshman, Venkayya Naidu etc to counter constant RSS influence.

The book also spends considerable amount of time about Vajpayee as the poet as well as his live-in relationship with Mrs. Rajkumari Kaul, his relationship with adopted daughter, and son-in-law Namita Bhattacharya and Ranjan Bhattacharya. Ranjan even becomes a Delhi power player as he lives in Race course road residence along with the prime minster.

The book ends with India Shining campaign and NDA’s loss in that election. Mr. Chandrababu Naidu talks Vajpayee into calling an early election, 8 months ahead of schedule. Vajpayee who usually takes time mulling over issues, readily agrees with Naidu and calls for early election in Feb 2004.

This takes away an important tool from the administration. They cant present a populist budget anymore before the election. This delves a big blow as India Shining campaign was already targetted mainly at urban India. Millions of tonnes of food grain continue rotting in FCI warehouses, when they could have been helpful to farmers struggling from successive famines. Bribery scandals of Bangaru Lakshman, George Fernandez makes the lines between Congress and BJP less blurry. Ashok Singhal criticizes both Vajpayee and Advani for not caring enough about Hindu causes. Vajpayee’s own analysis of the loss includes inadequate government response to Gujarat riots.

Vajpayee retires from active politics soon after. He continues to gain widespread accolades as a statesman in his retirement. Journalists and analysts call him the right shade of saffron. He is awarded the Bharata Ratna, but it comes too late when he has slipped deep into Alzheimers when he cant even recognize most visitors.

The book has its fair share of problems too. The writing is heavily cliched. It has too many anonymous sources. It doesn't have access to the equivalent of presidential archives and documents, and has to rely on lots of interviews. It doesn't quite go into detail of how Vajpayee wrangled power or convinced people or maintained balance etc. We just have to take the author’s word for it. There is a constant push to show him as a moderating influence with no counter examples whatsoever.

There is a more comprehensive 800 page biography (from a different author) coming out next year. Vajpayee is an incredibly fascinating leader and one of the most consequential of Independent India. In many ways, he is the bridge between Nehru/Rao India and the Modi India. Can’t wait to read the longer biography in 2025. But this one is a quick primer.