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Why we love to remember Vajpayee for his Pakistan policy which did not actually succeed

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Dipankar Gupta
Dipankar GuptaAug 21, 2018 | 11:44

Why we love to remember Vajpayee for his Pakistan policy which did not actually succeed

History will steadfastly remember successes and failures

Successes are written in water but it is the spirit that is written in stone.

The Vajpayee-led government had many achievements to its credit from Pokhran to Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, to the Golden Triangle, to disinvestment, and more.

Yet today, he is remembered most appreciatively, fondly too, primarily for his overtures to Pakistan, the one area where, paradoxically, he did not have tangible success.

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Pakistan backstabbed the Lahore Bus initiative with Kargil, the invitation to Pervez Musharraf was repaid by an attack on our Parliament.

Even so, success or no success, what soared high, in spite of setbacks, was the appreciation of Vajpayee’s vision.

Petty political calculations could not have prompted him to lean over across the cliff to offer the olive branch to Pakistan. It was a grand gesture, fraught with risks and yet he pressed on with it.

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Invitation to Pervez Musharraf was repaid by an attack on our Parliament, but history doesn't forget the gesture (Photo: Reuters)

Popular appreciation

It was the popular appreciation of this spirit that brought thousands to join Vajpayee’s funeral procession. A new generation of young adult Indians were born around the time, or after, Vajpayee began his five-year term as Prime Minister and hence, too young to have experienced the live passions of those times.

Yet one could hardly tell this from the way they thronged around the cortege carrying Vajpayee’s body. This was primarily because the spirit behind the Pakistan overture dominates our appreciation of Vajpayee, much more than the many successes of his government.

Commentators across different TV channels covering Vajpayee’s funeral also expressed the same sentiment.

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Time and again the Pakistan peace process was recalled with an occasional aside on Pokhran or the Golden Triangle.

History will steadfastly remember successes and failures, but Vajpayee’s legacy will primarily pivot around his efforts to bring about better relations with Pakistan. It is the spirit that enabled him to reach out to foes and make friends out of enemies — even in difficult times — that will stand out in our memories of the man.

This is why even those who were fervent, and often harsh, critics of Vajpayee readily accept his exalted status today. It has been well over a decade that he left active politics, yet his impress on our system can still be felt. Obviously, a man like Vajpayee had to take hard decisions, such as whether to start the BJP, or make the Ram Temple, conduct the Pokhran test and, not least of all, on how to calm Kashmir.

On each of these occasions, Vajpayee had to contend against his critics and in the heat of engagements, there was little time to reflect on the totality of the man. Even so, what one cannot help but appreciate is that he broke the mould in every ministerial post he held, whether as foreign minister or Prime Minister.

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On each occasion one began by expecting him to perform as expected, along ideological lines, but he invariably surprised us. This happened primarily because he saw his party’s fortunes linked with the country’s democratic process, and not in its own orbit.

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Pakistan backstabbed the Lahore Bus initiative with Kargil, but could not overshadow the spirit (Photo: Reuters)

Convivial relations

People often remark about his convivial relations with political rivals, but this was largely on account of his commitment to a parliamentarian disposition and not simply generosity, which too must have been present.

It is usually believed that coalition governments don’t work. This was a strong opinion among the general public based on the experience Indians have had with such experiments, beginning with the Janata government under Morarji Desai in 1977.

Coalitions are no longer laughable and can be taken seriously largely because of the credibility the Vajpayee government gave it between 1999 and 2004.

Common goal

This brings home how one could straddle political differences and yet work towards a common goal. It is because Vajpayee gave space to divergent political views in his government. He could weld his Cabinet together as a team. The Kargil War took place and so did the dastardly attack on Parliament, but through these very testing times, Vajpayee held true to his temperament and style. He could have been quite easily deflected by partisan passions, because Vajpayee was not ideologically neutral.

He was groomed as an RSS worker, he was the star figure of the Jana Sangh and he also started the BJP.

Yet, there is no doubt that his government achieved a broad and abiding consensus which is why it succeeded on a variety of fronts, ranging from raising our defence capabilities to making progress on fractious issues like Pakistan and Kashmir. On each occasion, Vajpayee came through more as Prime Minister than as a leader of a political party.

(Courtesy of Mail Today)

Last updated: August 21, 2018 | 20:39
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