Vajpayee: The statesman who taught India to dream big | India News
Students create a large charcoal portrait of former PM Vajpayee on his birth anniversary in Moradabad, Thursday
Atal Bihari Vajpayee was not only a politician and Prime Minister, he was the conscience-keeper of India’s democracy and a statesman who taught the nation how to combine courage with compassion, conviction with inclusiveness, and nationalism with humanity. His impeccable legacy continues to inspire the transformational changes being carried forward by the Modi govt.Vajpayee’s life remains a guiding light for all those who believe that governance can be effective, corruption-free, and rooted in concern for the common man. Appropriately, his birthday, Dec 25, is observed as Good Governance Day.His decency, simplicity, sensitivity and poetry endeared him to people across generations. I have fond childhood memories of his regular stays at our Mumbai home.One afternoon, while I was playing marbles in the living room, he noticed me struggling to hit a marble. Sitting beside me, he placed his palm on his knee and accurately flicked a marble with his index finger to strike the target nearly eight feet away. I was awestruck. That moment forged an intimate bond with ‘Chachaji’, as we children called him.As a school-going boy, I had gone to the airport tarmac to meet him as he embarked on a four-day tour of western Maharashtra. When he learnt my holidays had started, he invited me to accompany him. I was completely unprepared, yet Chachaji ensured I was comfortable – buying me Kolhapuri chappals and clothes at the first stop.I remember a speech he delivered in Sangli honouring the legendary Lata Mangeshkar. For nearly an hour, Vajpayee mesmerised the audience with his reflections on Indian culture, tradition and music-without a word of politics. It reminds one of PM Modi‘s Mann Ki Baat, which similarly rises above politics to engage with society at large.Vajpayee was a deeply grounded leader, rooted in India’s civilisational ethos. He was the first Indian leader to address the UN General Assembly in Hindi, a precedent later followed by PM Modi, who uses the national language not only at multilateral forums but even while addressing leaders of English-speaking nations.His legacy continues to inspire us. In my constituency of North Mumbai, a successful Skill Development and Job Center is named after him. This year’s budget provided for setting up 50,000 Atal Tinkering Labs in govt schools to encourage innovation and a scientific temper.His philosophy of strength – India conducted nuclear tests during his tenure – tempered with sensitivity is visible today in PM Modi’s governance, where decisive action to strengthen national security goes hand in hand with compassion through initiatives such as free homes, toilets, foodgrains, cooking gas connections, healthcare coverage, and direct benefit transfers.In his I-Day address in 2000, Vajpayee declared, “To reform is to improve the life of every citizen. There is no scope for apprehension or fear about economic reforms.”His govt undertook far-reaching reforms in banking, telecom, insurance, pensions and disinvestment of sick PSUs, while simultaneously expanding social initiatives such as universal primary education and Antyodaya Anna Yojana, which provided highly subsidised foodgrains to the poorest households. PM Modi is taking these, and other transformational initiatives forward in a mission mode as Reform Express.Vajpayee clearly understood that enduring national strength rests on robust infrastructure. Landmark initiatives such as the Golden Quadrilateral and Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana transformed connectivity, integrated markets, and brought remote regions into the national mainstream.These initiatives laid the foundation for India’s present-day infrastructure transformation. It was Vajpayee who recognised the strategic importance of a tunnel connecting Himachal Pradesh to Ladakh and J&K. PM Modi fittingly named it the Atal Tunnel, honouring the visionary.For BJP, Vajpayee is special – a founding member and its first president. In the party’s first national convention in 1980 he prophetically said, “Andhera chhatega, sooraj niklega, kamal khilega” (Darkness will disappear, the sun will rise, the lotus – BJP’s symbol – will bloom).For BJP, he is not merely a leader of the past, he is a moral compass for the present and future. Under PM Modi’s leadership, India is fulfilling many of the aspirations he envisioned-a confident, self-reliant nation that commands respect across the world.(The writer is Union minister of commerce & industry)
