August is a cruel month for India. Three political stalwarts died in quick succession. First it was Karunanidhi, then Somnath Chatterjee, and now, the doyen of the Indian political landscape – Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He was the first Indian Prime Minister who was not a member of the Congress party to have served a full five-year term in office (1999- 2004). In 1980 Vajpayee restructured the Jana Sangh into the Bharatiya Janata Party. An amiable gentleman he strode the Indian political landscape like a Colossus and saw it through many ups and downs. A poet with a gentle nature Vajpayee was never known for throwing barbs at political opponents. His speeches were laced with wit and poetry. But most of all Vajpayee did not believe in the politics of machismo we see today. He was able to build friendships across and beyond the borders of political ideologies.
At a time when the country was wracked by the politics of caste and religion, Vajpayee brought in the notion of good governance and connectivity. He conceived of the Asian trilateral highway. It was during his time that India’s North East received maximum attention. The Ministry for the Development of the North East (MDoNER) was created in September 2001 by the Vajpayee Government. It was Vajpayee who crafted the term ‘Look East’ Policy which helped in improving India’s ties with countries in South-East Asia and East Asia. Indeed, it was Vajpayee’s statesmanship and his astute real-politik that changed the image of the BJP from being seen as a party with hard-line rightist leanings, after the demolition of the Babri masjid, to one that was respected by allies across the political divide.
India at the time also gained ascendancy as a nuclear-capable country when under Pokhran-II, five nuclear bomb tests were conducted clandestinely at the Pokhran Test Range in Rajasthan’s Jaisalmer district in May 1998. This was known as the American CIA’s biggest intelligence failure. Although that event resulted in sanctions by the United States and the European Union, Vajpayee’s strategically important and courageous decision made India a nuclear weapons power.
Vajpayee’s tryst with Nagaland is considered a landmark because he coined the words “unique history” to define the Naga quest for sovereignty. He was the first Prime Minister to admit that mistakes had been committed by the Indian Government and to lament the needless violence in the state. But being the statesman that he was, Vajpayee also summed up his statement by remarking that the uniqueness of Naga history did not mean that Nagas are not patriotic Indians and that they cannot live with dignity within the Indian political framework. Vajpayee’s demise has caused a huge political void in India’s North East. He was the paternal figure of the region.