A look at the decisions of Atal Bihari Vajpayee as Prime Minister, whose effect will be visible in Indian politics for a long time.
1. Plan to Connect India
The work that can be considered the most important of Vajpayee as Prime Minister is the plan to connect India through roads.
He implemented the Golden Quadrilateral road project connecting Chennai, Kolkata, Delhi, and Mumbai. Along with this, Pradhan Mantri Gramin Sadak Yojana was implemented for rural areas. His decision accelerated the economic development of the country.
However, during his government, the plan for linking rivers at the Indian level was also drawn up. He formed a task force in 2003 under the chairmanship of Suresh Prabhu. However, along with water conservation, there was a lot of opposition from environmental activists.
2. Promotion of privatization - beginning of disinvestment
During Vajpayee's prime ministership, privatization in the country was increased to a speed from which there was no scope for a comeback. This strategy of Vajpayee may have been behind the connivance of corporate groups with the BJP, although it was also considered to be the influence of Pramod Mahajan, who was close to him at that time.
Vajpayee had formed a unique ministry in his government in 1999 as the Ministry of Disinvestment. Its minister was made Arun Shourie. Shourie's ministry started selling government companies like Bharat Aluminum Company (BALCO), Hindustan Zinc, Indian Petrochemicals Corporation Limited, and Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited under Vajpayee's leadership.
Not only this, before Vajpayee, the sector of insurance in the country was handed over to government companies, but the Vajpayee government opened the avenues for foreign investment in it. He had raised the foreign investment limit in insurance companies to 26%, which was increased to 49% by the Narendra Modi government in 2015.
With the privatization of these companies, the obligation of reservation in appointments also ended. This step, which increased the privatization of Vajpayee as Prime Minister, is still heavily criticized.
According to critics, with privatization companies made profit their objective. However, for those who used to intervene in the market, it started providing better facilities to the people, but this change was not favorable for those working in these sectors.
Keep in mind that the scheme of pension for government employees was abolished by the Vajpayee government itself. But he did not change the pension facility available to public representatives.
3. Second Phase of the Communication Revolution
Rajiv Gandhi and his appointee Sam Pitroda may be considered the father of the communication revolution in India. Still, the Vajpayee government had done the work of bringing it to the common people. In 1999, Vajpayee ended Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and implemented a new telecom policy.
Pramod Mahajan's mind was told behind this too. Through the revenue sharing model, people benefited from making phone calls at cheaper rates, and later the era of cheap mobile phones started.
However, that world was open under the new telecom policy, which came to the fore during the UPA tenure in the form of a 2G scam.
4. Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan
The campaign to provide free education to children between six and 14 was started during Vajpayee's tenure. He implemented this scheme in 2000-01. Due to which there was a decrease in the number of children dropping out in the middle. In 2000, where 40 percent of children were dropouts, Vajpayee Vajpayee, their number had come down to around 10 percent by 2005.
Vajpayee's attachment to this mission can be gauged from the fact that he himself wrote the theme line 'School Chale Hum' promoting the scheme.
5. Pokhran test
In May 1998, India conducted a nuclear test in Pokhran. This was India's first nuclear test after 1974. Vajpayee did the test to show that India is a nuclear-rich country. However, his critics have been questioning the need for this test, as Pakistan had also conducted a nuclear test as a response.
Noted author Arundhati Roy wrote a long article in the August 5, 1998 issue of Outlook, criticizing the nuclear test, titled 'The End of Imagination.' In this, Arunhit Roy had written, "If there is a nuclear war, it will not be a war of one country against another, our enemy will neither be China nor America. Our enemy will be the earth. Its elements- Kshiti, Jal, Pavak, Gagan, Sameera, all these will turn against us. Their anger will be very dangerous for us.
By the way, this was when the people of Vishwa Hindu Parishad demanded that Pokhran's sand be distributed as prasad all over India. Referring to this, Arundhati Roy had written, do these people want to travel across the country for cancer?
After this test, America, Britain, Canada, and many western countries had imposed economic restrictions. Still, Vajpayee's diplomatic skills were amazing that by the time of 2001, most of the countries had removed all the restrictions.
6. Failure of Lahore-Agra Summit and Kargil-Kandahar
As Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee had intensified efforts to improve relations between India and Pakistan. He started the Delhi-Lahore bus service in February 1999. He himself went to Lahore by the first bus service and signed the Lahore document with Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. He did this step in his second term as Prime Minister.
Not only this, but Vajpayee also visited Minar-e-Pakistan during his Lahore visit. In fact, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh had always been denying the existence of Pakistan and had been talking about a united India. Vajpayee's visit to Minar-e-Pakistan was, in a way, considered a sign of acceptance of the sovereignty of Pakistan by the Sangh.
It is a matter that even a Congress Prime Minister of India could not muster the courage to go to Minar-e-Pakistan. Minar-e-Pakistan is the place where the proposal to create Pakistan was passed on 23 March 1940.
Vajpayee went to Minar-e-Pakistan and said that a lot had been told to me, but I do not see any logic in it. That's why I wanted to come here. I want to say that the existence of Pakistan does not need my stamp; if I am asked questions in India, I will answer there also.
Senior journalist Kingshuk Nag has written in the book All Seasoned Man written on Vajpayee that the then Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had told him that now Vajpayee Ji will win if he contests elections in Pakistan too.
However, soon after, Pakistani troops infiltrated the Indian border in Kargil. After this, they struggle for two months to get the Pakistani soldiers back to their place. According to official figures, more than 500 people were killed from the Indian side in this conflict.
This was the first time that Pakistani soldiers had come inside the Indian border and attacked; Vajpayee was criticized.
After this, a big failure happened to Vajpayee during the Kandahar hijack issue. On 24 December, the IC-814 aircraft was hijacked by the people of Pakistan-based extremist organization Harkat-ul-Mujahideen. The flight coming from Kathmandu to Delhi had 176 passengers and 15 crew members.
This plane was hijacked in Indian territory, and the hijackers took this plane to Kandahar, Afghanistan. These people demanded the release of three extremists Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, and Maulana Masood Azhar, from the Indian government.
The then Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh went to Kandahar with these extremists and got the passengers released. It has been said that the Vajpayee government gave priority to the security of the common people, but AS Dulat, a close watcher of the Kandahar crisis and former chief of the Indian intelligence agency RAW has reiterated this point many times that then at the government level in Delhi, this was not the case. The matter was not handled properly.
After this, the command of Pakistan fell in the hands of Pervez Musharraf; Vajpayee still preferred talks to improve the relationship; there was a high-profile meeting between the two leaders in Agra, although these talks failed.
7. POTA Law
During Vajpayee's full term as prime minister that on December 13, 2001, five extremists attacked the Indian Parliament. This is considered to be the darkest day in Indian parliamentary history.
No Indian leader was harmed in this attack, but five extremists and several -security personnel were killed. Earlier on September 9, the World Trade Tower in America was the most horrific terrorist attack.
Given all this, the demand for making a strict law for internal security was gaining momentum, and the Vajpayee government enacted the POTA Act, a stringent anti-terrorism law, which was considered very strict compared to the TADA Act of 1995.
However, only after enacting this law, a round of criticism started that the government is targeting the opponents. Within just two years, 800 people were arrested under this law, and about 4000 people were booked. In Tamil Nadu, MDMK leader Vaiko was also arrested under the POTA Act.
During just two years, the Vajpayee government banned 32 organizations under POTA. When the UPA government came to power in 2004, this law was repealed.
8. Constitution of the Constitution Review Commission
The National Commission for Review of the Constitution was set up by the Vajpayee government on February 1, 2000, to consider amending the Constitution. However, apart from the opposition parties, then-President RK Narayanan also opposed such a commission.
On 26 January 2000, in his address on the occasion of 50th Republic Day, RK Narayanan had questioned the need for a review of the constitution and said that even when there is a system of the amendment, why should there be a review?
But the Vajpayee government constituted the commission and it was given six months. There was an apprehension that how the constitution, which took nearly three years to prepare, would be reviewed in just six months.
Although the commission headed by former Chief Justice of Supreme Court MN Venkatachaliya made 249 recommendations, their recommendations were largely opposed. The Vajpayee government could not proceed with the work of amending the constitution.
9. Ban on caste census
Before the formation of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government in 1999, the HD Deve Gowda government had approved the caste-wise census, due to which the caste census was to be held in 2001. After implementing the provisions of the Mandal Commission, the first census in the country was to be held in 2001; the demand for conducting a caste census was gaining momentum to see whether the provisions of such Mandal commission were being implemented properly or not.
The judicial system was repeatedly talking about gathering factual data to make a solid working system. The then Registrar General had also approved the caste census. But the Vajpayee government reversed this decision. Due to which caste-wise census could not be done.
The Bahujan section of the society and its leaders have been criticizing Vajpayee for this; according to them, Vajpayee's decision has hit the campaign of rights according to the population.
10. Observance of Rajdharma
Like every prime minister, Vajpayee's decisions have been judged based on good and bad. But Vajpayee is most criticized for his silence for a week during the 2002 Gujarat riots.
The Godhra massacre started on 26 February 2002. The first statement of the then Prime Minister Vajpayee came on 3 March 2002 when he said that the way people are being burnt alive from Godhra to Ahmedabad is a stain on the forehead of the country. But he did not take concrete steps to stop it.
About a month later, on April 4, 2002, Vajpayee went to Ahmedabad, and there Vajpayee said, even though he only said that Modi should follow Rajdharma.
History will always remember Vajpayee for this 'political lapse' along with all his specialties.
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