Isey mitane ki
sazish karne walo se kahedo
Chingari ka khel kahatarnak
hota hae ……..
(Those who are trying to ruin it, must be told that
to play with fire is a dangerous thing)
(Vajpayee’s
illustrious verse addressed to Pakistan )
In another piece,
he penned:
Kab takJammu
ko Yun-hi
Kab tak
Jalne denge
Kab tak julfo ki
madira Dhalne denge
Maa beheno ka
apman sahenge kab tak
Bhole pandav chup
chaap rahenge kab tak …..
(Uptill when will u let Jammu Burn, Till when this addiction of lust
continue....Uptill when will the sisters and mothers be raped...
Till when the stake holders (UN/International community) will remain silent)
-
(Bhole
pandav (Innocent UN; world community)….
-
And see
how things have turned out to be across the globe!!
March 1999, Bharat Ratna Vajpayee and some of us |
Many years ago, Vajpayee also had penned a few lines giving an insight
to his mind:
"Chhalna bhare vishwa mein...kewal sapna hi sach hota hae....
Mein bhi rota Aas Paas Jab Koi nahi hota hae (In this deceptive
world, only dreams are your own; I do shed tears at times when I am alone, in
isolation)". His detractors used to call him a 'mask' of the RSS and it's
ironic that
a few years back, he fell sick and has since then confined himself
in isolation.
Born on the Christmas Day, 1924, at Gwalior to a school teacher Krishna Bihari
Vajpayee, his baptism into politics had come as a student when he came in
contact with the RSS founder Keshavrao Hedgewar and later became a RSS
'swayemsevak'.
First sworn in as Prime Minister on May 16, 1996, Vajpayee had
to resign only after 13 days. But as promised by him in Lok Sabha on May 27,
1996 debate, Vajpayee returned to the coveted office on March 19, 1998 and
continued there till May 2004 when incidentally, the country voted out his
government in what was described by poll pundits as a most shocking election
results.
Celebrated for his pan-India acceptability and a leader with an
unblemished image, Atal Behari Vajpayee would be always credited with giving a
moderate veneer to BJP's hardline pro-Hindutva image.
His acceptability across the political spectrum and among the
minorities always came in good stead for the BJP, he had co-founded with L K
Advani, whom critics and opponents often call 'communal and reactionary'.
The founding president of BJP,
when it was launched in 1980 after split from the united Janata Party of
Seventies, Vajpayee was a perfect foil to his longtime compatriot L K Advani.
While Advani has been a forceful speaker with cold logic and argument,
Vajpayee, a genius orator was a poetic and persuasive with his characteristic
humourous style.
"One big difference between
Vajpayee and me was his sense of humour. It always gave me complex....Unke
samne mein ek rukha-sukha admi raha (Contrast to his humour, I was always
dry)," BJP patriarch L K Advani told me only on December 16.
Advani, Jaswant Singh, Atalji |
But the soft style was never a weakness of Vajpayee as more than
once he spoke firmly and many a times also differed with Advani. His reported
oneliner to Advani on 1992 Babri-Temple issue, "Advaniji yad rakhiye
aap...Ayodhya ja rahen haen Lanka nahi (Advani please remember you are going to
Ayodhya and not Lanka)" was as famous as his assertions in Lok Sabha in
1998 defending his government's decision to conduct nuclear tests. "Should
we prepare our defence only when we are attacked....should we not become guarded
and self-dependent on our defence capabilities," Vajpayee had said
countering high-profile anti-nuke debates from master orators like
Chandrashekhar, a former PM.
Jailed during 1942 Quit India Movement- though there have been
charges that he had given witness against freedom fighters, Vajpayee, a post
graduate in political science from Kanpur University, had started off as a
journalist with RSS magazine, 'Rashtradharam'.
A headline hunter later, Vajpayee often used to say, "I
cannot quit politics because nothing is more intoxicating in life than to see
your name in morning newspapers".
A person with a graceful taste for things apolitical like poetry
and cinema, Vajpayee would be also be remembered for his description of P V
Narasimha Rao as a 'karma-yogi' in Parliament while taking a dig at Rao's now
famous oneliner: "Not to take decision is also a decision".
Friends and Foes |
But Rao enjoyed a personal rapport with Vajpayee and it was Rao
who once deputed Vajpayee to lead Indian delegation to the UN Human Rights
Conference when Pakistan had
moved a motion on Kashmir .
A foreign policy expert, Vajpayee was PM Morarji Desai's External
Affairs Minister in 1970s and had left a mark with his efforts to improve ties
with Pakistan .
Once lauded by Pt Jawaharlal Nehru, the poet-politician and also
known as
bachelor boy of Indian politics, Vajpayee had proved right Nehru's
prophecy about him making it to the nation's top executive post.
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