In 1988, Vajpayee flirted with the idea of joining V P Singh but realised the cost

Time of India

a day ago

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The man mourned by both Shah Rukh Khan and Vladimir Putin, and whose legacy has only grown since his death, is at the heart of Abhishek Choudhary's expansive biography of Atal Behari Vajpayee.
In an interview with Neelam Raaj, the author, who has just released the second volume titled 'Believer's Dilemma,' reflects on his eventful life and poignant final years
It's the centennial year of both Vajpayee and the RSS. Does the dilemma in the title allude to Vajpayee's complicated relationship with the Sangh Parivar?
Yes. In phases of ascendancy, Vajpayee outgrew the RSS to become a national figure; in moments of crisis, he was pulled back into the fold by the Parivar's organisational muscle. Tensions sharpened in 1979, when he publicly blamed the RSS for the Janata govt's collapse. They floated the
BJP
in confusion, but the relationship remained convoluted.
The title also gestures beyond Vajpayee- to broader dilemmas in the right-wing ecosystem: the tension between power and responsibility versus ideological purity. It also hints at the predicament of the average Hindu believer: how to inhabit one's religious identity without surrendering to its chauvinistic articulations.
You call Vajpayee a 'classic doublethinker'...
Only in a specific context. Vajpayee saw himself as both a swayamsevak and a democrat and convinced himself the two were not only compatible but complementary: that a gentle kind of Hindutva was the only sustainable model of secularism.
Flip the conviction slightly, and yes, one could call him a classic doublethinker. But that tendency isn't unique to him. Jawaharlal Nehru, Vallabhbhai Patel, Ambedkar too had moral dilemmas, but not this kind of double-speaking.
Yet, the same traits that made Vajpayee a doublethinker also kept him consequential, while more progressive voices of his generation faded from public memory.
You write that in 1988, Vajpayee came close to quitting the BJP- a moment V P Singh also alluded to in his memoir. But Vajpayee later laughed this off. How did you confirm this, and what brought him to that point?
The late 1980s were a confusing, event-packed phase, and Vajpayee's worst period.
Marginalised after the 1984 rout, he let Advani and Nagpur steer the party rightward. After Shiv Sena won Vile Parle in 1987, the BJP sought collaboration. Simultaneously, Bofors broke out and V P Singh was floating a new party. Vajpayee flirted with joining him. The BJP's founding president proposed a new party with select moderates.
But he realised the cost: his political capital and emotional investment were tied to the Sangh ecosystem.
If the alternative had been more robust, Vajpayee may have quit. I would not judge him. He would deny it later, but several people I spoke to confirmed that it did happen.
You start the book by saying you wanted to set some facts straight. What were these myths?
Let me mention three here. First, he wasn't as culpable in the 1983 Assam violence as some make out. Second, his obfuscations during the Ayodhya movement — especially his defence of the BJP in Parliament — helped spread the impression that the razing of Babri was a freak accident, despite much evidence to the contrary.
Third, that the 1998 nuclear tests were a political stunt by the right-wing govt. In fact, by this time, with the CTBT deadline looming, nuclear testing had ceased to be a moral question for the political class.
The Treaty was seen as the P5 (permanent members of the UN Security Council) freezing the nuclear apartheid status quo. Even the CPM thought the P5 were being hypocritical. Any stable govt might have tested. The protests from Communists and Congress later were mostly tactical.
Why has Brand Vajpayee become bigger after his death?
Because the ideological project he served has grown far bigger. We forget how often he was overshadowed by Congress prime ministers. In 2004, he completed a full term, helping turn India into a multi-party democracy. At this moment of paranoid polarisation, it's easy to forget that three decades ago, few believed that a party other than Congress could steer this mindbogglingly disparate country.
There's a PR aspect too: the current dispensation wants his name on welfare schemes etc, minus his civility and sagacity.
Some of the posthumous glow also comes from liberal nostalgia — for a more conciliatory era. But that, too, is selective memory.
You describe how Vajpayee voted against the Indo-US nuclear deal he helped lay the groundwork for. What made him do that?
It had everything to do with the BJP's desperation by mid-2008.
As poll defeats piled up, survival instincts trumped foreign policy. Vajpayee, stroke-battered, wanted to help Advani bag the top job. If the UPA lost a trust vote, a bypoll might follow. If the NDA grabbed power, Advani told allies he'd renegotiate the deal. And so, the patriarch was stretchered into Parliament to vote against the deal — a pathetic final visit for India's longest-serving parliamentarian.
You write with empathy, especially in the final chapters. How did you navigate the balance between biographical detachment and empathy?
Navigating the balance is not my chief concern. I gather the material, then let it lead me; both take depressingly long. Yes, I try to understand my subjects on their own terms, especially when I disagree with them. Vajpayee's final years, stripped of voice and agency- were tragic, and I tried to capture that. In one of his last appearances, he wondered if a human being could ever truly liberate oneself. Asked to recite a poem, he said he'd turned into a kavi ka bhoot, a poet's ghost, the title of the last chapter.
For his peers, his end also intimated the nearing of their own. The last bits are, therefore, about the tolls of ambition and the burden of history.