More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
The then bosses of the fledgling Jana Sangh (founded in 1951), realized that Atal’s way with words and
the passion that he brought to his speeches were invaluable assets.
For constituents of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA)—like Chandrababu Naidu of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), Naveen Patnaik of the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and Nitish Kumar of Janata Dal (United) [JD(U)]
The stories about his wanting a Nobel Prize started after then American assistant secretary of state for South Asia, Karl Inderfurth, stated: ‘Leaders of India and Pakistan are certain to win the Nobel Prize if they succeed in implementing their resolve to live in harmony.’
The three were made members of the party’s Margdarshak Mandal.
Atal did this like a composed elder brother smoothing the ruffled feathers of a younger brother. Since that day Manmohan had begun to regard Atal highly.
The tragedy is that even though the Bharat Ratna has been conferred on Atal, it has come a few years too late. In his present state of health, suffering as he is from Alzheimer’s, Atal is hardly in a position to understand or appreciate that he is now officially a gem of the country.
(the youth wing of the Arya Samaj) in Gwalior, that a senior worker, Bhoodev Shastri,
Atal was quick to act on the recommendation of Shastri, whom he considered a great organizer and an intellectual. Unknown to him then, this decision was to change his life and set him on the road to one day becoming the prime minister of India.
His grandfather, Shyam Lal, was a Sanskrit scholar, and was fond of poetry, routinely peppering his conversation with shlokas. His father, Krishna Bihari, was also fond of literature and composed poetry in Khari Boli and Braj Bhasha. Thus, it was no surprise that the young Atal also developed a love for reading and composing poetry.
On coming of age, Atal was admitted to the Saraswati Shishu Mandir. As was the widespread practice in those days (and maybe even now), Atal’s year of birth was entered as 1926 though in reality he was born in 1924. His father thought that reducing the official age of his son would give him two extra years of service; not knowing that his son would never be in service, much
father, Krishna Bihari. He was a man strong spirit and determination; and even though he had retired from service, he wanted to keep himself intellectually busy. For some time the father and son stayed together in the same hostel room.
Atal’s sister Vimala told Rediff.com in an interview that Atal attended the RSS shakhas on the sly and that she, two and a half years older than him, would throw his khaki shorts over the wall for him to pick up from outside the house and go to the shakha. His old-time associates say that Atal would go to the shakha, come what may, such was his interest in the activities of the shakha.
The leader, however, once young Atal had spoken, felt no need to speak, saying that Atal had articulated very well all that he
Little wonder then that Atal Bihari soon became an assistant to Shyama Prasad, helping him in his political work, especially relating to Kashmir.
Even though he was in his early thirties, he was elected the leader because of his fantastic oratorical skills that could be pressed into service by the party to make its point.
Nehru once introduced Atal to the British prime minister,
stating, ‘He is a young leader of the opposition who is always criticizing me, but I see in him a great future.’
Hiren Mukherjee, of the Communist Party of India (CPI) was the best orator in English and Atal in Hindi amongst the members of the House.
government made 436 assurances on the floor of the Rajya Sabha and in the following year, 495. The Vajpayee-led committee found that all the assurances were implemented.
In 1962, as an MP, Atal brought in a private member’s bill to amend the Constitution to introduce Sindhi in the eighth schedule and thus make it an official language.
A few months later, on 21 August 1959, as the Government of India was preparing to raise the question of entry of China in the UN, at the UN session scheduled for 15 September that year, Atal moved a motion in the Lok Sabha. The motion said: ‘The opinion of this House is that the government should send the Tibetan issue to the UN. By this motion I would like the House to suggest to the government to also raise the Tibetan question at the UN session.’ The motion was defeated but Atal had drawn attention to a rather important issue.
Thus, in August 1962, Atal introduced a private member’s bill that sought to amend the Companies Act of 1956, to bar companies from making donations to political parties.
Thus Deen Dayal Upadhyaya became the president of the Jana Sangh at its Calicut conference at the end of 1967. However, his presidency was not to last more than forty days, with him dying mysteriously after
somebody pushed him out of a running train in Mughalsarai in February 1968.
Political scientist and Hindutva expert Jyotirmaya Sharma wrote in his biography of Guruji that Atal would never
sit on a chair in Guruji’s presence.
‘if the Congress is malaria, the communists are plague’.
A story doing the rounds in those days (late 1960s) was that Atal had told Madhok in the past that if he had not joined the RSS in 1941 he would certainly have joined the communists.
It seems that one day, in the late 1950s, when the entire opposition was busy criticizing Nehru, Atal had stood up and asked whether it was mandatory for the entire opposition to criticize every move of the government just for the sake of opposition.
‘Nehru was an honest man who was never afraid of negotiation and never negotiated with fear.’
party indiscipline and when party documents got leaked in the Indian Express, he was charged with being indiscreet and was suspended from the Jana Sangh for three years.
The bill, however, could not be debated and lapsed. Among the other legislations introduced by Atal, one was to amend the Constitution so as to remove Article 370 that gave special status to J&K.
Things came to a head on 12 June 1975 when an Allahabad High Court judge, Justice J.M.L. Sinha, found Indira Gandhi guilty of electoral misconduct in her election from Rae Bareli in the preceding election, and barred her from contesting elections for six years after unseating her. Immediately pandemonium broke out across the country and the opposition stepped up the gas. Indira Gandhi, instead of heeding the call of the opposition to resign
and taking into consideration the mood of the public, decided to invoke extraordinary steps and imposed Emergency in the country in the early hours of 26 June 1975. This, she claimed, was to maintain public order and ensure the integrity of the country. The opposition was accused of breaking this.
Emergency
The Emergency was still on but the stature of these leaders had gone up with their incarceration. The public at large started viewing them with new respect and Atal, who also had his baptism by fire, found his popularity soaring. A rally was organized by the opposition parties at New Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan.
Rajkumari did in fact reply. The reply was also left in a book but it did not reach Atal.
Atal welcomed these young lads and engaged them in conversation even as Mrs Kaul plied them with sweets and sometimes even made thandai. Other than Das, the other lads included Ashok Saikia, who also became an IAS officer and was joint secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office when Atal was prime minister; B.P. Mishra, who also became an IAS officer and was chairman of New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC); and M.L. Tripathi, who joined the Indian Foreign Service and became India’s high commissioner to Mauritius and Bangladesh.
There was a change in the Atal household in the early 1980s when his adopted daughter (and Mrs Kaul’s daughter)
L.K. Advani said in an interview many years later, when Atal was PM and he deputy PM, how in those days, even
till the mid-1970s, they used to go together to Regal cinema to watch movies. After the movie, they would often go and eat paani puri.
In one of his poems entitled, ‘Kaun Kaurava, Kaun Pandava?’ Atal asks how to distinguish between the armies of the ethical and those of the unscrupulous? The corrupt genius of Shakuni is being used by both sides equally. Dharmaraj Yudhishtira, the righteous one, is still a slave to the dice and Draupadi is still being shamelessly violated in every assembly. The Mahabharata is imminent. This time the great war will be fought godless, without Krishna the saviour. Victory might belong to either side, but the only loser will be the man on the street, the poem asserts.
Kaun Kaurava, Kaun Pandava
Atal may not have found much time to write poems, but he was very fond of attending kavi goshtis. Budhiraja says that political ideologies and party affiliations did not prevent Atal from going to poetry-reading sessions organized by rival party members. ‘He required just a nudge to attend these poetry-reading sessions and I have seen him at the home of Congressmen like Bhagwat Jha Azad and Girija Vyas or at the home of socialists like Ladli Mohan Nigam. For him poetry was above politics.’
‘He brought in feelings in his recitation and made up for what the poetry may have lacked in its contents. He gesticulated and paused at the right places to breathe life in the poems.
Harivansh Rai Bachchan or Sumitra Nandan Pant,’ says a poet who has evaluated
Those who know Atal closely say that he is a man of great depth and oftentimes his speeches and actions reflected his poetic and other deep thoughts. A good example of this is that when the BJP came into being, Atal zeroed in on the kamal, lotus, as the symbol for the party. Just as the lotus grows in mud but is itself untainted by the muck around, he wanted the BJP to be a party of principles, above the muck in politics.
However, at a personal level, Atal and Pranab shared a great equation and the two would, at times, go for walks together. They would also meet and have long discussions on various matters. Once, when the NDA government was in power, Pranab got into a row in the House about the practices of Hindu gods.
When Murli Manohar Joshi challenged him, Pranab replied to him quoting Sanskrit shlokas with their English translations. Atal told Pranab, ‘I warned Joshi not to take pangas with you on religious matters. He does not know that you have deep knowledge of the scriptures.
Atal was defeated by a huge margin, Madhav Rao winning more than 3,00,000 votes or 66 per cent of all the votes cast. Atal got over 1,00,000 votes or 28 per cent of the total votes. This was the third time Atal had lost an election in his thirty-one-year long electoral career. He
As per legend, Lord Rama was born at a place in Ayodhya and the temple that stood at his birthplace had been razed by the invading Mughal army of Babur. In its place, a mosque called the Babri Masjid had been erected in 1528.
