12-27-2003, 07:19 AM
<b>Atal Bihari Vajpayee: Man of the year</b>
Atal Bihari Vajpayee: Man of the year
Vir Sanghvi
New Delhi, December 26
Never has it been easier to select HT's Man of the Year. As 2003 draws to a close, it is clear than one individual has dominated India throughout the year: Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
Why is Vajpayee our man of the year? Well, if you think we need to list the reasons for this most obvious of all selections, here goes:
The assembly election victories in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. Two things were significant about these victories. First of all, they were largely unexpected. The pollsters had given both Rajasthan and Chhatisgarh to the BJP and in Madhya Pradesh, the polls had been wrong at the last election, so nobody was willing to write Digvijay Singh off. Despite all that, the BJP pulled off clear victories.
Secondly, unlike say, Gujarat where the credit for the victory was evenly decided between Narendra Modi, Praveen Togadia and the rioters, these elections were won on the Vajpayee agenda of moderation and good governance.
At a time when hardliners within the Sangh Parivar had come to believe that the Vajpayee agenda was a vote-loser, the PM demonstrated that it was unwise to underestimate the Indian voter.
The Peace Initiative. Last summer, sections of the BJP seemed to have readied a programme for action. They would go on and on about the terrorist threat, would abuse Pakistan (where this threat originated) and would attempt to subliminally associate Indian Muslims (through references to 'Mian Musharraf') with the threat from Pakistan. Experience has shown that Hindu insecurity can be exploited for electoral gain. (Gujarat is only the most recent example. The Shiv Sena did it in Maharashtra after the Bombay riots and, of course, the Congress tried it nationally in 1984-85 after Mrs Gandhi's assassination and the anti-Sikh riots.)
This agenda was overturned when Vajpayee refused to buy into it. The difference between a politician and a statesman is that a politician thinks of the next election while a statesman thinks of the next generation.
Vajpayee recognised that an India divided along communal lines could not progress. He recognised also that peace in South Asia â and between India and Pakistan â is an essential prerequisite for all development in the region.
Despite having been betrayed in the past (remember Lahore?) Vajpayee did not allow personal bitterness to get the better of him.
He disregarded the divisive agendas of some of his supporters and put his reputation and his career on the line once again.
Nobody can say with any certainty what the results of his visit to Pakistan next month will be. But equally, the world now knows that despite the gravest provocation, India is willing to talk peace ---- from a position of strength.
Indiaâs place in the world. Foreign policy has been one of the great success stories of the Vajpayee government. In the last year, Vajpayee has had a private lunch with George W. Bush, has driven to V. Putin's dacha for a quiet dinner and has broken the deadlock with a new generation of Chinese leaders.
In Thailand, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is a fan. In England, Tony Blair greets Vajpayee at Chequers, dressed casually in a pair of jeans and holding his infant son. In Syria, President Assad insists on making every member of Vajpayee's delegation (including the media) a state guest. And in Delhi, Israel's Ariel Sharon tells a banquet of the high regard he has for India and its leader.
The foreign policy triumphs and the recognition of India's new place in the world emerge out of Vajpayee's lifelong interest in foreign affairs (he was Foreign Minister from 1977 to 1979) and his conviction that a newly resurgent India must stand at the forefront of the new world order. At the HT Leadership Initiative, leader after leader congratulated Vajpayee. Benazir Bhutto praised his courage. Madeleine Albright applauded his vision of India and even Sonia Gandhi said that the Congress was backing Vajpayee's peace initiative.
The Economic Boom. The Sensex is now at a high, the rupee has strengthened against the dollar, our foreign exchange reserves have broken all records and business confidence is booming.
To adapt Harold Macmillan's famous comment, most of our people have never had it so good. Not only are we doing well, but we expect to do even better.
Manmohan Singh launched the liberalisation drive. But there can be no lasting prosperity without stability. And the early reforms would have come to nothing without the political will to see the liberalisation process through.
After a shaky phase in the second half of the 1990s, when unstable, short-lived governments lacked the strength to continue the reforms or to win the confidence of the Indian people, the stability and strength of the Vajpayee government have ensured that the economy enters a prosperous phase. More important, Vajpayee has proved to be a man of economic vision and courage, launching a silent revolution in road-building and pushing through the difficult reforms that many had feared that India's politicians would flunk.
His unquestioned leadership. It is hard to remember sometimes that the BJP does not enjoy a majority in Parliament or that, even within the BJP not everybody agrees with Vajpayee.
Such is Vajpayee's towering leadership that those who support him will do so regardless of the party he represents. During his first term, fractious coalition allies (chiefly, Jayalalitha) and internal party sniping affected the performance of his government. But ever since Vajpayee came back, his own leadership has never seemed stronger.
Though the NDA may be something of a revolving door where allies come and go, though NDA constituents may have their own problems, and though not everybody in the NDA may like the BJP agenda, they are all agreed on one thing: their respect for Vajpayee's leadership.
Within the BJP, the occasional whimpers of revolt have been snuffed out by the merest gesture. When Venkaiah Naidu made his ill-advised remark that the party would treat Vajpayee and L.K. Advani on par, all Vajpayee had to do was declare that he would not lead the party into the next election. A cringing Venkaiah scurried to make hasty amends.
His sheer stature. Not since Indira Gandhi at her peak (1971-72) has India had a Prime Minister who is so universally respected or admired. Other Prime Ministers have been loved (Rajiv Gandhi in 1985) but few have commanded the kind of stature that Vajpayee now enjoys.
In a sound-bite era, he is a man who pauses interminably between words. In a media-dominated age, he is a man who hardly ever gives interviews. In the era of the quick response, he is reticent and unwilling to reveal his mind.
And yet, none of this matters. When it comes to it, Vajpayee can break all the rules and still be, unquestionably, India's Man of the Year.
Atal Bihari Vajpayee: Man of the year
Vir Sanghvi
New Delhi, December 26
Never has it been easier to select HT's Man of the Year. As 2003 draws to a close, it is clear than one individual has dominated India throughout the year: Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
Why is Vajpayee our man of the year? Well, if you think we need to list the reasons for this most obvious of all selections, here goes:
The assembly election victories in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. Two things were significant about these victories. First of all, they were largely unexpected. The pollsters had given both Rajasthan and Chhatisgarh to the BJP and in Madhya Pradesh, the polls had been wrong at the last election, so nobody was willing to write Digvijay Singh off. Despite all that, the BJP pulled off clear victories.
Secondly, unlike say, Gujarat where the credit for the victory was evenly decided between Narendra Modi, Praveen Togadia and the rioters, these elections were won on the Vajpayee agenda of moderation and good governance.
At a time when hardliners within the Sangh Parivar had come to believe that the Vajpayee agenda was a vote-loser, the PM demonstrated that it was unwise to underestimate the Indian voter.
The Peace Initiative. Last summer, sections of the BJP seemed to have readied a programme for action. They would go on and on about the terrorist threat, would abuse Pakistan (where this threat originated) and would attempt to subliminally associate Indian Muslims (through references to 'Mian Musharraf') with the threat from Pakistan. Experience has shown that Hindu insecurity can be exploited for electoral gain. (Gujarat is only the most recent example. The Shiv Sena did it in Maharashtra after the Bombay riots and, of course, the Congress tried it nationally in 1984-85 after Mrs Gandhi's assassination and the anti-Sikh riots.)
This agenda was overturned when Vajpayee refused to buy into it. The difference between a politician and a statesman is that a politician thinks of the next election while a statesman thinks of the next generation.
Vajpayee recognised that an India divided along communal lines could not progress. He recognised also that peace in South Asia â and between India and Pakistan â is an essential prerequisite for all development in the region.
Despite having been betrayed in the past (remember Lahore?) Vajpayee did not allow personal bitterness to get the better of him.
He disregarded the divisive agendas of some of his supporters and put his reputation and his career on the line once again.
Nobody can say with any certainty what the results of his visit to Pakistan next month will be. But equally, the world now knows that despite the gravest provocation, India is willing to talk peace ---- from a position of strength.
Indiaâs place in the world. Foreign policy has been one of the great success stories of the Vajpayee government. In the last year, Vajpayee has had a private lunch with George W. Bush, has driven to V. Putin's dacha for a quiet dinner and has broken the deadlock with a new generation of Chinese leaders.
In Thailand, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is a fan. In England, Tony Blair greets Vajpayee at Chequers, dressed casually in a pair of jeans and holding his infant son. In Syria, President Assad insists on making every member of Vajpayee's delegation (including the media) a state guest. And in Delhi, Israel's Ariel Sharon tells a banquet of the high regard he has for India and its leader.
The foreign policy triumphs and the recognition of India's new place in the world emerge out of Vajpayee's lifelong interest in foreign affairs (he was Foreign Minister from 1977 to 1979) and his conviction that a newly resurgent India must stand at the forefront of the new world order. At the HT Leadership Initiative, leader after leader congratulated Vajpayee. Benazir Bhutto praised his courage. Madeleine Albright applauded his vision of India and even Sonia Gandhi said that the Congress was backing Vajpayee's peace initiative.
The Economic Boom. The Sensex is now at a high, the rupee has strengthened against the dollar, our foreign exchange reserves have broken all records and business confidence is booming.
To adapt Harold Macmillan's famous comment, most of our people have never had it so good. Not only are we doing well, but we expect to do even better.
Manmohan Singh launched the liberalisation drive. But there can be no lasting prosperity without stability. And the early reforms would have come to nothing without the political will to see the liberalisation process through.
After a shaky phase in the second half of the 1990s, when unstable, short-lived governments lacked the strength to continue the reforms or to win the confidence of the Indian people, the stability and strength of the Vajpayee government have ensured that the economy enters a prosperous phase. More important, Vajpayee has proved to be a man of economic vision and courage, launching a silent revolution in road-building and pushing through the difficult reforms that many had feared that India's politicians would flunk.
His unquestioned leadership. It is hard to remember sometimes that the BJP does not enjoy a majority in Parliament or that, even within the BJP not everybody agrees with Vajpayee.
Such is Vajpayee's towering leadership that those who support him will do so regardless of the party he represents. During his first term, fractious coalition allies (chiefly, Jayalalitha) and internal party sniping affected the performance of his government. But ever since Vajpayee came back, his own leadership has never seemed stronger.
Though the NDA may be something of a revolving door where allies come and go, though NDA constituents may have their own problems, and though not everybody in the NDA may like the BJP agenda, they are all agreed on one thing: their respect for Vajpayee's leadership.
Within the BJP, the occasional whimpers of revolt have been snuffed out by the merest gesture. When Venkaiah Naidu made his ill-advised remark that the party would treat Vajpayee and L.K. Advani on par, all Vajpayee had to do was declare that he would not lead the party into the next election. A cringing Venkaiah scurried to make hasty amends.
His sheer stature. Not since Indira Gandhi at her peak (1971-72) has India had a Prime Minister who is so universally respected or admired. Other Prime Ministers have been loved (Rajiv Gandhi in 1985) but few have commanded the kind of stature that Vajpayee now enjoys.
In a sound-bite era, he is a man who pauses interminably between words. In a media-dominated age, he is a man who hardly ever gives interviews. In the era of the quick response, he is reticent and unwilling to reveal his mind.
And yet, none of this matters. When it comes to it, Vajpayee can break all the rules and still be, unquestionably, India's Man of the Year.