Atal Bihari Vajpayee
Atal Bihari Vajpayee (Hindi pronunciation: [əʈəl bɪɦaːɾiː ʋaːdʒpai]; 25 December 1924 – 16 August 2018) was an Indian politician and poet who served three terms as the 10th Prime Minister of India, first for a term of 13 days in 1996, then for a period of 13 months from 1998 to 1999, followed by a full term from 1999 to 2004.[1] He was the first non-Congress prime minister to serve a full term in the office. Vajpayee was one of the co-founders and a senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party. He was a member of the RSS, a Hindu nationalist volunteer organisation. He was also a Hindi poet and a writer.[2][3]
"Vajpayee" redirects here. For other uses, see Bajpai.
Atal Bihari Vajpayee
L. K. Advani (starting in 2002)
ministry opened
Chandra Bhal Mani Tiwari
Subhadra Joshi
Office established
Office established
25 December 1924
Gwalior, Gwalior State, British India (present-day Madhya Pradesh, India)
Bharatiya Janata Party (from 1980)
- Janata Party (1977–1980)
- Bharatiya Jana Sangh (1951–1977)
- Victoria College, Agra University (BA)
- DAV College, Agra University (MA)[a]
- Poet
- politician
- writer
- Bharat Ratna (2015)
- Padma Vibhushan (1992)
He was a member of the Indian Parliament for over five decades, having been elected ten times to the Lok Sabha, the lower house, and twice to the Rajya Sabha, the upper house. He served as the Member of Parliament from the Lucknow constituency, retiring from active politics in 2009 due to health concerns. He was among the founding members of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, of which he was president from 1968 to 1972. The BJS merged with several other parties to form the Janata Party, which won the 1977 general election. In March 1977, Vajpayee became the Minister of External Affairs in the cabinet of Prime Minister, Morarji Desai. He resigned in 1979, and the Janata alliance collapsed soon after. Former members of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh formed the Bharatiya Janata Party in 1980, with Vajpayee its first president.
During his tenure as prime minister, India carried out the Pokhran-II nuclear tests in 1998. Vajpayee sought to improve diplomatic relations with Pakistan, travelling to Lahore by bus to meet with Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif. After the 1999 Kargil War with Pakistan, he sought to restore relations through engagement with President Pervez Musharraf, inviting him to India for a summit at Agra. Vajpayee's government introduced many domestic economic and infrastructural reforms, including encouraging the private sector and foreign investments, reducing governmental waste, encouraging research and development and privatisation of some government owned corporations.[4] During his tenure, India's security was threatened by a number of violent incidents including 2001 Indian Parliament attack and 2002 Gujarat riots which ultimately caused his defeat in 2004 general election.
The administration of Narendra Modi declared in 2014 that Vajpayee's birthday, 25 December, would be marked as Good Governance Day. In 2015, he was conferred India's highest civilian honour — Bharat Ratna, by the then-President of India, Pranab Mukherjee. He died in 2018 of age-related illness.
Early life and education
Vajpayee was born into a Kanyakubja Brahmin family on 25 December 1924 in Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh.[5][6] His mother was Krishna Devi and his father was Krishna Bihari Vajpayee.[7] His father was a school teacher in their home town.[8] His grandfather, Shyam Lal Vajpayee, had migrated to Morena near Gwalior from his ancestral village of Bateshwar in the Agra district of Uttar Pradesh.[7]
Vajpayee did his schooling at the Saraswati Shishu Mandir in Gwalior. In 1934, he was admitted to the Anglo-Vernacular Middle (AVM) School in Barnagar, Ujjain district, after his father joined as headmaster. He subsequently attended Gwalior's Victoria College, Agra University (now Maharani Laxmi Bai Govt. College of Excellence) where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Hindi, English and Sanskrit. He completed his post-graduation with a Master of Arts in political science from DAV College, Kanpur, Agra University.[6][9]
Early works as activist
His activism started in Gwalior with Arya Kumar Sabha, the youth wing of the Arya Samaj movement, of which he became the general secretary in 1944. He also joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in 1939 as a swayamsevak, or volunteer. Influenced by Babasaheb Apte, he attended the Officers Training Camp of the RSS during 1940 to 1944, becoming a pracharak (RSS terminology for a full-time worker) in 1947. He gave up studying law due to the partition riots. He was sent to Uttar Pradesh as a vistarak (a probationary pracharak) and soon began working for the newspapers of Deendayal Upadhyaya: Rashtradharma (a Hindi monthly), Panchjanya (a Hindi weekly), and the dailies Swadesh and Veer Arjun.[9][10][11]
By 1942, at the age of 16 years, Vajpayee became an active member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Although the RSS had chosen not to participate in the Quit India Movement, in August 1942, Vajpayee and his elder brother Prem were arrested for 24 days during the Quit India Movement. He was released after giving a written statement that while he was a part of the crowd, he did not participate in the militant events in Bateshwar on 27 August 1942. Throughout his life, including after he became prime minister, Vajpayee has labelled the allegation of participation in the Quit India Movement to be a false rumour.[12]
Early political career (1947–1975)
In 1951, Vajpayee was seconded by the RSS, along with Deendayal Upadhyaya, to work for the newly formed Bharatiya Jana Sangh, a Hindu right-wing political party associated with the RSS. He was appointed as a national secretary of the party in charge of the Northern region, based in Delhi. He soon became a follower and aide of party leader Syama Prasad Mukherjee. In the 1957 Indian general election, Vajpayee contested elections to the Lok Sabha, the lower house of the Indian Parliament. He lost to Raja Mahendra Pratap in Mathura, but was elected from Balrampur.
He was influenced by Jawaharlal Nehru to the extent that he mirrored his style, diction, and tone of his speeches.[13][14] Nehru's influence was also evident in Vajpayee's leadership.[15] In the Lok Sabha his oratorial skills so impressed Prime Minister Nehru that he predicted that Vajpayee would someday become the prime minister of India.[16][17][18] On the occasion of Nehru's death on 27 May 1964, Vajpayee termed him as "the orchestrator of the impossible and inconceivable" and likened him to Hindu god Rama.[19][20]
Vajpayee's oratorial skills won him the reputation of being the most eloquent defender of the Jana Sangh's policies.[21] After the death of Upadhyaya, the leadership of the Jana Sangh passed to Vajpayee.[22] He became the national president of the Jana Sangh in 1968,[23] running the party along with Nanaji Deshmukh, Balraj Madhok and L. K. Advani.[22]
Personal life
Vajpayee remained a bachelor for his entire life.[146] He adopted and raised Namita Bhattacharya as his own child, the daughter of longtime friend Rajkumari Kaul and her husband B. N. Kaul. His adopted family lived with him.[147]
Unlike purist Brahmins who shun meat and alcohol, Vajpayee was known to be fond of whisky and meat.[148][149] He was a noted poet, writing in Hindi. His published works include Kaidi Kaviraj Ki Kundalian, a collection of poems written during the 1975–1977 emergency, and Amar aag hai.[150] With regard to his poetry he wrote, "My poetry is a declaration of war, not an exordium to defeat. It is not the defeated soldier's drumbeat of despair, but the fighting warrior's will to win. It is not the despirited voice of dejection but the stirring shout of victory."[151]
In popular culture
The Films Division of India has produced the short documentary films Pride of India Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1998) and Know Your Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee (2003), both directed by Girish Vaidya, which explore different facets of his personality.[214][215] Vajpayee also appears in a cameo in the 1977 Indian Hindi-language film Chala Murari Hero Banne by Asrani.[216]
In 2019, Shiva Sharma and Zeeshan Ahmad, owners of Amaash Films, acquired the official rights of the book The Untold Vajpayee written by Ullekh N P, to make a biopic based on Vajpayee's life from his childhood, college life and finally turning into a politician.[217][218][219]
Aap Ki Adalat, an Indian talk show which airs on India TV, featured an interview with Vajpayee just before the 1999 elections.[220] Pradhanmantri (lit. 'Prime Minister'), a 2013 Indian documentary television series which aired on ABP News and covers the various policies and political tenures of Indian PMs, includes the tenureship of Vajpayee in the episodes "Atal Bihari Vajpayee's 13 days government and India during 1996–98", "Pokhran-II and Kargil War", and "2002 Gujarat Riots and Fall of Vajpayee Government".[221]
Hindi-language film "Main Atal Hoon", starring Pankaj Tripathi as Vajpayee, was theatrically released in India on 19 January 2024.[222]
Abhishek Choudhary wrote an original portrait of Hindutva’s first prime minister in VAJPAYEE: The Ascent of the Hindu Right, 1924–1977.[223] The book won the 2023 Tata Literature Live! First Book Award.[224]