Book Review: If we talk about popularity among the Prime Ministers of India, then after Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh, even the current Prime Minister Narendra Modi is included. Now if we talk about the Indian Prime Minister of the choice of neighboring country Pakistan, then the most popular face comes in front of Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Because of his merits, Vajpayee was as popular in India as he was in Pakistan. Writer and journalist Sagarika Ghosh has written the biography of Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He had also written the biography of Indira Gandhi before this.
In fact Vajpayee was the most popular Indian Prime Minister of India in Pakistan. The reason behind this was, despite being the leader of a fanatical party like BJP, he was generous to Muslims, his reach in Jammu and Kashmir, his decisions taken for Pakistan. Mani Shankar Aiyar further wrote in his review, there can be no doubt that he has certainly remained the most beloved Indian Prime Minister in Pakistan! I must admit that I was deeply disturbed by Morarji Desai’s nomination of him as External Affairs Minister because I had imagined that he would make Pakistan-bashing a matter of his foreign policy. He remained determined to work out practical modalities with Pakistan in spite of more than one successive failure. However, he also had some setbacks from Pakistan such as the terrorist attack on Parliament and the Kargil war.
Vajpayee was the most popular Indian Prime Minister of Pakistan
It is about the time when Mujahideen terrorists were gathering at a height overlooking the important Srinagar-Leh highway. These terrorists also had the support of Pakistani soldiers and high level agencies of Pakistan. Conditions between the two countries were tense but Vajpayee made no effort to maintain cordial relations between the two countries. Even Vajpayee visited Minar-e-Pakistan, Lahore, the site of the proposal on which both countries He had memories of partition and the visitors’ book read, “A strong, stable and prosperous Pakistan is in India’s interest. Do not doubt anyone in Pakistan. India sincerely wishes for the well being of Pakistan.”
Gujarat riots disappointed Vajpayee
Referring to the Gujarat riots in this book, Sagarika said that there was a time when Hindutva rhetoric was reserved for public meetings. When his party was making a small start. Then once in the office his voice became sad. Sagarika said, there is hardly any such memory in our mind when Vajpayee has become difficult to work due to some idea or discrimination. But after the Gujarat riots something similar happened which was a big and unforgivable crime. When there was a major massacre in Gujarat under the supervision of Narendra Modi. Vajpayee’s face was furious over the Gujarat riots. The Sangh Parivar was voting differently on the events in Gujarat, due to which it took Vajpayee more than a month to reach Ahmedabad. Vajpayee publicly said, “I have a message to the Chief Minister that he should follow Rajdharma… A ruler should not discriminate among his subjects on the basis of caste, religion or birth.” Modi said softly, ‘I am also doing the same sir’.
There was pressure for Modi’s resignation
Ghosh said, “Vajpayee said after a long pause, ‘I am sure Narendrabhai is doing this.’ Having said this, Vajpayee continued, in at least six private political discussions, to press for Modi’s resignation, but could not work his way up. It was confirmed that the matter was now Modi vs Vajpayee in which Moditva clearly prevailed with Vajpayee.
With the fall of Vajpayee came the rise of Narendra Modi.
Returning from his trip to South-East Asia for the BJP plenary session in Goa on April 13–15, 2002, he tried to defend his position in the eyes of the hardline RSS-BJP element by putting up a serious fight instead of cursing radical Muslims. tried. Golavkar used to say, “Wherever Muslims live, they do not like to co-exist with others… Instead of propagating their ideas in a peaceful manner, they want to spread their faith by resorting to terror and threats.” Now that curse of Govindacharya also happened in this way with the fall of Atal Bihari Vajpayee as well as the rise of Narendra Modi.
Vajpayee had offered peace to Pakistan
Vajpayee also clearly understood the relationship between Pakistan and Kashmir. “He warmly offered peace to Pakistan at a rally in Srinagar.” It was also in Srinagar that he came up with his famous formula of “Insaniyat, “Jamhooriyat” and “Kashmiriyat” rather than just the “framework of the Constitution”, within which to find an answer to the ongoing discontent in the Valley. This was done on the eve of his visit to Islamabad in January 2004 to mark the beginning of a new and promising round of dialogue with our “distant neighbour”.