Atalji: The gentle giant

I first heard Atalji’s speech in 1967, when I was in school. There was a political rally near my house in Delhi for the 1967 general election. He came to address that rally. He had a reputation as a great orator. He was on his way to becoming an iconic political leader. Many youngsters used to repeat the sentences that they heard in his speeches. They imitated his style.

I became a student activist of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) in 1970. Atalji was a familiar face in both Parliament and political rallies. We had invited him for several speeches in Delhi Univ-ersity (DU). Whenever we wanted some issues to be raised in Parliament, we rushed to brief him. My acquaintance with him started in 1973, when I was a student leader in DU. Thereafter, I started interacting with him frequently. He is a great listener. He used to occasionally react to some ideas which we gave with humour. During JP’s movement in 1974, he was active across the country.

When Emergency was proclaimed in 1975, he, along with L.K. Advani and some other politicians, was detained in Bengaluru. I was initially detained in Ambala Jail and subsequently in Delhi’s Tihar Jail. We heard about Atalji having a serious back problem. He was shifted to house detention at his Delhi residence. His back problem worsened, for which he spent a significant part of the Emergency at AIIMS, where he was rushed for surgery. During this time, we received a poem he had written on his hospital bed.

The context of that poem was relevant. The doctor at AIIMS asked Atalji if he had bent too much. “Aap jyada jhuk gaye honge?” To which Atalji replied, “Doctor Saheb, jhuk to sakte nahi, yun kahiye mur gaye honge.” He penned a poem, which was very often heard in the 1977 election. The opening sentence of the poem read: “Toot sakte hain magar hum jhuk nahi sakte.” Thereafter, we saw him as India’s external affairs minister in 1977, an Opposition MP, as the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha. As he was growing in years, my image of him in the early 1990s was of “the best man” who never became Prime Minister, but history vindicated him and he went on to become one of the outstanding Prime Ministers of India.

Atalji is the product of a democratic system. He realised the virtues of both consensus and harmony. His conduct of Cabinet meetings was never tense. If any of us raised any point, or even contradicted a point, he encouraged discussion. The last word, of course, belonged to him. He was liberal in his economic thinking. He realised the importance of infrastructure creation.

The national highway programme and the power sector reforms are a part of his legacy. He was committed to normalising relations with our neighbouring countries. His “bus initiative” with Pakistan was a great political risk, since his own constituency had to be convinced of this. In 2003, he tried to normalise relations with China, and signed an agreement on the settlement of the boundary dispute. A new chapter of Indo-US relationship was authored during his tenure.

He was unquestionably the greatest orator India has heard since Independence. He could play with words but he was always measured. He was a wordsmith. He never fell into the temptation of committing an impropriety. He realised the virtues of social harmony. His ability to rise above the party for a larger national cause was significant. Today as we celebrate the 90th year of his birth as “Good Governance Day”, we wish good health and long life to this gentle giant.

The writer is the Union finance minister