BY M D NALAPAT
As Prime Minister, Narendra Modi has shown sincerity, devotion and commitment to the policies of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, by reinforcing rather than replacing them.
Narendra Modi was
handed over the responsibility for the state of Gujarat in 2001 with
the blessings of Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee, who stood by him despite
an orchestrated effort in the coming years to ensure that the Gujarat CM
be made to step down. Before Modi took charge, the situation in the
state was precarious for the BJP, largely as a consequence of
mismanagement by Keshubhai Patel. As Chief Minister, Modi was a fast
learner and well before the close of his first term, had mastered the
intricacies and nuances involved in ensuring a continuation of the
upward trajectory of Gujarat. This is a state that possesses some of the
most gifted individuals found in the country where commerce is
concerned. Governance under him was streamlined and public remedies made
more accessible, a factor that assisted the BJP to romp to victory
repeatedly under his watch, even while the UPA government was
energetically seeking to ensure the removal of the Gujarat CM through
involving him in criminal cases. Although efforts to enmesh him
continued throughout the UPA decade, no evidence was found that
implicated Narendra Modi in the terrible events which took place in
Gujarat after the 2002 killing at Godhra of karsevaks
returning from Ayodhya. Both during the period when he was Prime
Minister and after losing to the Congress Party led by Sonia Gandhi in
2004, Vajpayee remained a backer of Modi, despite efforts by several of
those close to him to create fissures between him and the Gujarat CM.
After himself taking over as the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi
generously ensured that important responsibilities were allocated to
some of the very individuals who had in the past urged Vajpayee to cut
loose from Modi.
It must be said that Vajpayee showed
great tenacity in soldiering on as PM despite severe ailments that by
2003 were causing him great discomfort and pain. Even during his final
days this week, it was clear from the hospital bulletins that Vajpayee
was fighting on, only giving way at 5.05 p.m. on 16 August, a day after
another anniversary of the country’s freedom from colonial servitude.
The whole country had been collectively holding its breath when informed
by the doctors at AIIMS that the condition of the former Prime Minister
was hyper-critical. By a supreme act of will, Vajpayee saw through
Independence Day before deciding to finally let go of the staff of life.
Prime Minister Modi spent a substantial chunk of time at the hospital
during this period, and it is certain that he felt intense emotion that
the leader he adored so much and sought to emulate so often was
approaching his passage into the afterlife. Some believed by mid- 2003
that the physical strain which any Prime Minister would have to endure
made the question of Vajpayee’s retirement a live issue from the point
of view of his own well-being. He could have stepped down from office,
handed over the reins of government to L.K. Advani, and rested at home
in the care of his family, rather than enduring the grind of hard work
that is the lot of a Prime Minister in a country as complex as India.
Indeed, as PM, Vajpayee did offer to step down, but a unanimous cry of
anguish from his party forced him to continue and lead the BJP’s charge
during the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, despite not being in good health.
Among those who must most strongly have urged Vajpayee to continue as PM
in 2003 despite the elder man’s expressed wish to resign would have
been Narendra Modi, who considered the poet and orator as his mentor.
Although by then he had been secluded from public contact, Vajpayee must
have been delighted when in 2013 the BJP chose Narendra Modi as its
standard bearer for the 2014 polls. A year afterwards, the team Modi
unveiled on 26 May 2014 was substantially composed of those who had
earlier been chosen by Vajpayee to be in his government after taking
office in 1998. And in several matters, such as Kashmir or the search
for better relations with Pakistan, Modi has followed the course set by
Vajpayee. He went ahead with an alliance with the PDP despite that
party’s adherence to soft separatism and closeness to the Pakistan-led
Hurriyat Conference. From the time of his swearing in to Modi’s dropping
in at Lahore on the family of Nawaz Sharif, it was clear that the new
PM was moving on the same course that Vajpayee had, that of going an
extra hundred miles if necessary, to see if peace with Pakistan could be
secured.
India is a land where the people exalt
their leaders, and since 5.05 p.m. on 16 August, there have been such
waves of adulation directed towards Vajpayee and his legacy that those
unfamiliar with the sociology of this country would be surprised that
despite such an exalted status in the public mind, he lost to the
Congress Party in the 2004 polls and thereby ensured that the governance
of India was directly dominated by Sonia Gandhi for a decade. Of
course, since the 1990s, successive governments in India had been
significantly influenced by the determined daughter-in-law of Indira
Gandhi, including during 1998-2004. Modi chose a team that is almost
identical to what Vajpayee himself would have selected had he been PM in
2014. In that process, he reinforced rather than replaced the policies
of Atal Bihari Vajpayee. As Prime Minister, Narendra Modi has shown
sincerity, devotion and commitment to the personality and policies of
Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
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