It has been an
eventful half a century. I first met him when I was a student at Delhi
University and he was a charismatic rising star in the Jan Sangh. I then
worked under him in a long career in the Foreign Service, first when he
was External Affairs Minister and later Prime Minister.
I then joined
the BJP, and got inducted into the Council of Ministers, which is
implementing the vision for India worked out by him and amplified by
Prime Minister Narendra Modi. To today, making arrangements for his
farewell. It has been both an honour and a privilege to have known and
served the man we all loved and adored. In any listing of all-time
greats, no matter when prepared, he will figure as one of the great
Prime Ministers.
Twelve-time Member of Parliament, ten
through the Lok Sabha; a three-time Prime Minister—the first
non-Congressman to complete a five-year term; and of course, a poet
par-excellence—an artist with ability to make people laugh and cry at
the same time. Such stalwarts and their accomplishments cannot be
encapsulated in an op-ed.
India today is the sixth largest economy
in the world, one of the fastest growing, with a growth rate of over
7.5%. In PM Modi’s words, “the sleeping elephant has woken up and has
started running”. The foundations for this growth were laid by PM Atal
Bihari Vajpayee, who ushered in a new age of economic reforms in India.
Three measures merit mention in particular.
First, the passage of the Fiscal
Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act in 2003, and the idea of
maintaining the fiscal deficit under 3% of the GDP was a pioneering
effort—it came five years before the 2008 financial crises and at a time
when the leftist world-view of increased government expenditure without
due consideration to macroeconomic fundamentals was the dominant
narrative.
Second, reforms in the telecom sector
changed the way Indians connect with each other. As of May 2018, India
boasts of 984 million wireless telecom users, and schemes such as the
Jan Dhan Yojana are leveraging this penetration to deliver goods and
services to the poorest of the poor in the country. This has been
facilitated by the New Telecom Policy introduced by him and the steps
taken to end the state monopoly of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL).
Phone banking and e-payments, which we take for granted today, are
thanks to the vision of the then NDA government, led by Vajpayeeji.
Third, it would not be entirely wrong to
describe Vajpayeeji as India’s first “Infrastructure Prime Minister”.
L.K. Joshi, who was a member of the National Highways Authority of India
(NHAI) at the time, recently recalled Vajpayeeji’s words “humaare desh
mein sadkon mein gaddhe hain ya gaddhon mein sadke hain (does our
country have potholes on roads or roads in potholes)?” The Golden
Quadrilateral Project and the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana ushered
in India’s first big push towards connecting fellow Indians with each
other. It was independent India’s biggest push towards building roads
and highways. The 28 km a day highway construction we see today draws
from that vision. And while his emphasis on roads and highways is both
recognised and acknowledged, his contributions to other infrastructure
sectors, particularly civil aviation (he opened up India’s skies to
private actors, both Indian and international, in 2003), are bearing
fruit to this day.
For those of who worked in the profession
broadly categorised as diplomacy and foreign policy, the legacy of
External Affairs Minister and Prime Minister Vajpayee, is particularly
impressive. He had a profound impact on how India conducted itself at
the global stage, both bilaterally and in the multilateral framework.
His speech in Hindi at the United Nations General Assembly in 1977
remains a source of pride and inspiration.
The nuclear tests conducted in 1998,
Pokhran-II, introduced a transformative and paradigmatic change. The
Americans were visibly upset and found support from India’s left-liberal
brigade, as indeed elsewhere in the world. India faced sanctions from
America, even as it was embarking on the second phase of its
liberalisation. The European community was outraged. Pakistan’s
hypocrisy was in full display as they appealed to US President Bill
Clinton to make India a pariah, and the President was all ears to these
cries. It took a steering speech in Parliament from PM Vajpayee to calm
the nerves of India’s citizens, a befitting reply to the Opposition,
which had chosen politicking over national security. My colleagues in
the Foreign Service had clear instructions from the very top to convey
to the world that a nuclear India would be a moral and ethical India. It
is a testament to his diplomatic efforts that we are today recognised
as a responsible nuclear power by all nations and even the United States
feels comfortable entering into the US-India Civil Nuclear Agreement.
It was PM Vajpayee who had coined the phrase “natural allies” to define
the relationship between the two nations.
One cannot write about Vajpayeeji’s
legacy without mentioning his attempts to resolve our dispute with
Pakistan, and his outreach to the people of Kashmir. The bus yatra he
took to Lahore ushered in a period of unprecedented peace between the
two nations, and were it not for the deceit on part of the Pakistan’s
military establishment, my firm belief is that today the two countries
would be partners, rather than foes. If his invitation to President
Pervez Musharraf for the Agra Summit, despite the former General’s role
in the Kargil War, showed Vajpayeeji could conduct diplomacy with a soft
touch, his rebuke to the General’s demands at the Summit itself showed
he was adept at realpolitik. Vajpayeeji could be a dove or a hawk,
depending upon situation at hand, and that in essence is what diplomacy
is all about.
Vajpayeeji’s usage of the word
“insaniyat” in the Kashmir context changed the entire narrative around
conflict resolution, not just in the region, but globally. It was a
marked departure from the “human rights” centric approach, and the
far-right “interventionist” framework, both of which have, over the
years, showcased their limitations. During my years as a diplomat,
particularly during my term as the President of the Security Council at
the United Nations, I made many attempts to explain to my international
counterparts the ethos behind “insaniyat”, as against the then
prevailing narrative anchored in the use of force.
It is a testament to the life led by
Vajpayeeji that many who had opposed him during his time in public
service are today waxing eloquent praises. It is important to clarify
that Vajpayeeji was a proud swayamsevak. It was him and his
brother-in-arms Advaniji who gave a voice to Hindus, who almost came to
be treated as a persecuted minority in their own country, and were a
community often derided for its beliefs. They fought hard, and often
bitterly, to build the Bharatiya Janata Party and made it a force to
reckon with.
There are many lessons I have learnt from
the life of Vajpayeeji. Some of these have come in the area of domestic
governance, while others in foreign relations. But personally, my
biggest learning from him was his approach towards the rights of women
as a matter of public policy, and his belief that women deserve an equal
stature in all walks of life. Having married a feminist, and raised two
strong and independent daughters, my own thinking on the topic of
women’s empowerment has been shaped by Vajpayeeji.
For these and many more life lessons, I shall remain eternally grateful. Thank you Vajpayeeji, you will be sorely missed.
No comments:
Post a Comment