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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Kingshuk Nag
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August 22 - September 7, 2018
Atal was not comfortable with the Ayodhya movement and would express his reservations in private conversations. But publicly he went along with the party. He had novel ways of protesting; when it was suggested that he become the leader of the party in the Lok Sabha so as to relieve Advani of the burden (since he was leading the Ayodhya movement), Atal refused. Possibly he had a premonition about what would happen in Ayodhya on 6 December 1992, and thus kept away from the holy town. When the Babri Masjid was demolished, he said that it was the saddest day in his life. In
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Ironically, the problem that Atal faced was from his parent organization, the RSS. To insulate himself, Atal surrounded himself with liberal leaders in the BJP like Jaswant Singh and George Fernandes of the Samata Party. Brajesh Mishra—former secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs who was Atal’s principal secretary as well as the national security advisor—was also a close ally. All of Atal’s novel political moves were planned through this team. A
Troubled days started for Atal after the Godhra riots and their handling by the Gujarat state administration. With national and international pressure being mounted on the Atal government to change the BJP-run Gujarat government, Atal was highly embarrassed. He decided to get rid of Chief Minister Narendra Modi. But, because of the pressure mounted by the hardliners in the party led by Advani, this could not materialize. Atal had to retreat; it was the first time in so many years that his leadership had been questioned. Soon thereafter, in July 2002, Advani was promoted to the rank of deputy
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The demand for a Bharat Ratna for Atal was raised forcefully by the BJP for the first time in 2008 and again in 2010. Even L.K. Advani wrote a personal letter to Manmohan Singh, putting forth the demand. Stories doing the rounds suggest that Manmohan Singh, the then prime minister, was not averse to it, but UPA chairman Sonia Gandhi would not agree. Manmohan had thought very highly of Atal ever since the mid-1990s. Apparently, Atal had sternly criticized Manmohan in the Lok Sabha when he was the finance minister. Manmohan was so taken aback that he went to submit his resignation to his boss
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Atal recollected, in an interview many years later, how once Nehru gave a point-by-point rebuttal of the arguments made by him in an intervention. Vajpayee spoke in Hindi and so did Nehru while replying to the points made by the Jana Sangh Member of Parliament (MP). It was clear that Nehru thought highly of Vajpayee because he would make it a point to introduce him to foreign guests and invite him to receptions thrown in honour of the visiting dignitaries. Nehru once introduced Atal to the British prime minister, stating, ‘He is a young leader of the opposition who is always criticizing me,
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It is said that at another reception, Nehru introduced Atal as one who could be a future prime minister.
Incidentally, reflecting his soft corner for Atal, Nehru himself did not come to campaign in Balrampur, although he was electioneering in UP. It seems that even Subhadhra was keen that Nehru address election meetings for her, but the prime minister declined. Many years later, journalist Visveshwar Bhatt stated in an article that when efforts were made to persuade Nehru to campaign openly against Atal, he said, ‘No I cannot. Don’t persuade me. He is very much interested in external affairs.’ External affairs was not only Nehru’s pet subject but also Atal’s.
On 26 March 1977, when Atal went to his ministerial office after taking oath in the Morarji Desai government, he instinctively realized that something was missing in the room. He had been there many times before as an MP and thus had a fairly good idea about what was there in the room. He soon spotted a vacant space on the wall and it immediately occurred to him that what was missing was a portrait of Jawaharlal Nehru that used to hang on the wall. ‘This is where Panditji’s portrait used to be,’ he told
his secretary, according to contemporary historian Ramachandra Guha
Needless to add, the photo was soon fetched from the attic. Atal knew that the rather clumsy spring cleaning was the effort of the babus to ingratiate themselves with the new regime by removing all signs of the old. However, Atal greatly respected Nehru, who held the external affairs portfolio in addition to being prime minister for all the seventeen years that he was at the helm. In fact, the external affairs minister’s room was once used by Nehru when he was prime minister. After
On 5 and 6 April 1980, the erstwhile members of the Jana Sangh met at New Delhi’s Feroz Shah Kotla and formed a new party headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee. There was discussion whether the party should revert to its old name and be called the Bharatiya Jana Sangh once again. Vijaya Raje Scindia felt that it should be so. Atal, however, was of the opinion that the Jana Sangh was perceived as too hardline a party and it would be best if the new party was projected with a different image. Atal’s and L.K. Advani’s experience of working with the Janata government prime minister Morarji Desai had been
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Two decades later, the Liberhan Commission, enquiring into the demolition of the Babri Masjid, held twenty-eight persons responsible for the act. Atal’s name also figures in the list. The commission labelled Atal, Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi, ‘pseudo moderates’. The report held that Atal was ‘pretending to keep a distance’ from the Ram Janmabhoomi campaign, ‘but he was actually part of the conspiracy’.
Apart from ideologically neutral voters like Dua and core Hindu supporters of the BJP, the voters were upset with the performance of the Atal government because
the party had done nothing to further its agenda on building a Ram temple at Ayodhya in the five years that it was in power. It had neither abrogated Article 370 that gave special status to Kashmir nor taken any steps to introduce a uniform civil code. The
