Balishta Bharath Nirman

Atal Bihari Vajpayee (born 25 December 1924) is an Indian statesman who served as the 10th Prime Minister of India, in three non-consecutive terms, first for 13 days in 1996, then for 13 months from 1998 to 1999 and then from 1999 to 2004 for a full five year term.

A parliamentarian for over four decades, Vajpayee was elected to the Lok Sabha (the lower house of India's Parliament) nine times, and twice to the Rajya Sabha (upper house). He is the only parliamentarian to have been elected from four different states at different times (Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Delhi.) He won his first election from Balrampur and later he moved to Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, until 2009, when he retired from active politics due to health concerns.

Vajpayee was among the founding members of the erstwhile Jana Sangh political party and had also been its President. He was also the Minister of External Affairs in the cabinet of Morarji Desai.

Early life and education:

Atal Bihari Vajpayee was born to Krishna Devi and Krishna Bihari Vajpayee on 25 December 1924 in a middle-class Brahmin family in Gwalior. His grandfather, Pandit Shyam Lal Vajpayee, had migrated to Gwalior from his ancestral village of Bateshwar, Uttar Pradesh. His father, Krishna Bihari Vajpayee, was a poet and a schoolmaster in his hometown. Vajpayee did his schooling from the Saraswati Shishu Mandir, Gorkhi, Bara, Gwalior. Vajpayee attended Gwalior's Victoria College (now Laxmi Bai College) and graduated with distinction in Hindi, English and Sanskrit. He completed his post-graduation with an M.A. in Political Science from DAV College, Kanpur, and was awarded a first-class degree.

Later he became a full-time worker of the Hindu nationalist organisation^.Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). For a while Vajpayee studied law, but midstream he chose to become a journalist. This choice was largely influenced by the fact that as a student he had been an activist in India's struggle for freedom. He edited Rashtradharma (a Hindi monthly), Panchjanya (a Hindi weekly) and the dailies Swadesh and Veer Arjun. Vajpayee never married and remained a bachelor his entire life.

Vajpayee's first exposure to politics was in August 1942, when he and his elder brother Prem were arrested for 23 days during the Quit India movement.

In 1951, he was deputed to work for the newly formed Bharatiya Jana Sangh, a right-wing political party associated with the RSS that espoused the Hindu cause. He soon became a follower and aide of party leader Syama Prasad Mookerjee. In 1954, Vajpayee was with Mookerjee when he went on a fast-unto-death in Kashmir to protest against perceived inferior treatment of non-Kashmiri Indian visitors to the state. Mookerjee died in prison during this strike. In 1957, Vajpayee was elected to the Lok Sabha, the lower house of India's Parliament, from Balrampur. There, his oratorial skills so impressed Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru that he predicted that Vajpayee would someday become India's Prime Minister.

By virtue of his oratorical and organizational skills, he became the face of the Jana Sangh. After the tragic death of Deendayal Upadhyaya, the mantle of the leadership of Jana Sangh fell on the shoulders of a young Vajpayee. He became the national president of the Jana Sangh in 1968 and, along with Nanaji Deshmukh, Balraj Madhok and Lal Krishna Advani, led the Jana Sangh to national prominence.

From 1975 to 1977, Vajpayee was arrested along with several other opposition leaders during the Internal Emergency imposed by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of the Indian National Congress party. In 1977, heeding the call of social reformer Jayaprakash Narayan for all the opposition parties to unite against the Congress, Vajpayee merged the Jana Sangh into the newly formed grand-alliance, the Janata Party.

Following Janata's victory in the 1977 general elections, he became the Minister of External Affairs in Prime Minister Morarji Desai's cabinet. As foreign minister, that year Vajpayee became the first person to deliver a speech to the United Nations General Assembly in Hindi. By the time the Janata government crumbled in 1979, Vajpayee had established himself as an experienced statesman and a respected political leader.

The Janata Party was dissolved soon after Morarji Desai resigned as Prime Minister in 1979. The Jana Sangh had devoted its political organisation to sustain the coalition and was left exhausted by the internecine political wars within the Janata Party.

Vajpayee joined many of his Bharatiya Jana Sangh and Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh colleagues, particularly his long-time friends Lal Krishna Advani and Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, to form the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 1980. He became the BJP's first President. He emerged as a strong critic of the Congress government that followed the Janatagovernment.

While the BJP opposed the Sikh militancy that was rising in the state of Punjab, it also blamed Prime Minister Indira Gandhi for her divisive and corrupt politics that fostered such militancy at the expense of national unity and integrity. The BJP did not support Operation Blue Star and strongly protested against the violence towards Sikhs in Delhi that broke out in 1984 following the assassination of Indira Gandhi by two of her Sikh bodyguards. The BJP was left with only two parliamentary seats in the 1984 elections. During this period, Vajpayee remained at the centre-stage as party President and Leader of the Opposition in the Parliament.

The BJP became the political voice of the Ram Janmabhoomi Mandir Movement, which was led by activists of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the RSS, and which sought to build a temple dedicated to Lord Rama in Ayodhya.

Victory in the assembly elections in Gujarat and Maharashtra in March 1995, and a good performance in the elections to the Karnataka assembly in December 1994, propelled the BJP to greater political prominence. During a BJP conference in Mumbai in November 1995, BJP President L.K. Advani declared that Vajpayee would become the Prime Minister of India. The BJP won in the May 1996 parliamentary elections.

Nuclear tests

In May 1998, India conducted five underground nuclear tests in Pokhran desert in Rajasthan. The tests were held just a month after the government had been in power. Two weeks later, Pakistan responded with its own nuclear tests making it the newest declared nation with nuclear weapons.

While some nations, such as Russia and France, endorsed India's right to defensive nuclear power, others including the United States, Canada, Japan, Britain and the European Unionimposed sanctions on information, resources and technology to India. In spite of the intense international criticism and the steady decline in foreign investment and trade, the nuclear tests were popular domestically. Effectively the international sanctions failed completely in swaying India's decision to weaponize their nuclear capability, something that was planned for and anticipated by the Vajpayee administration.

'Baapji' as called by his close friends and relatives has an adopted daughter, Namita. He is fond of Indian music and dance. He loves nature and one of his favourite retreats is Manali in Himachal Pradesh.

Vajpayee has expressed very clear thoughts about his poetry: "My poetry is a declaration of war, not an exordium to defeat. It is not the defeated soldier's drumbeat of despair, but the fighting warrior's will to win. It is not the despirited voice of dejection but the stirring shout of victory."

Travel and diplomatic assignments

Vajpayee has visited several countries, the first being in 1965 as a member of the Parliamentary Goodwill Mission to East Africa. He was also part of the Parliamentary Delegations to Australia in 1967, the European Parliament in 1983, and Canada in 1987. He was part of the official Indian Delegation to Commonwealth Parliamentary Association meetings held in Canada in 1966 and 1994, Zambia in 1980, and the Isle of Man in 1984. He was in the Indian delegation to the Inter-Parliamentary Union Conference, Japan in 1974, Sri Lanka in 1975; and Switzerland in 1984. He was a regular at the UN General Assembly, having been part of the Indian Delegations in 1988, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994 and 1996. He led the Indian Delegation to the Human Rights Commission Meeting at Geneva in 1993 and the Delegation of Standing Committees of External Affairs to Gulf countries i.e. Bahrain, Oman and Kuwait.

AWARDS

· 1992, Padma Vibhushan

· 1993, D. Lit. from Kanpur University

· 1994, Lokmanya Tilak Award

· 1994, Best Parliamentarian Award

· 1994, Bharat Ratna Pandit Govind Vallabh Pant Award

Positions held

· 1951 - Founder-Member, Bharatiya Jana Sangh (B.J.S)

· 1957 - Elected to 2nd Lok Sabha

· 1957-77 - Leader, Bharatiya Jana Sangh Parliamentary Party

· 1962 - Member, Rajya Sabha

· 1966-67- Chairman, Committee on Government Assurances

· 1967 - Re-elected to 4th Lok Sabha (2nd term)

· 1967-70 - Chairman, Public Accounts Committee

· 1968-73 - President, B.J.S.

· 1971 - Re-elected to 5th Lok Sabha (3rd term)

· 1977 - Re-elected to 6th Lok Sabha (4th term)

· 1977-79 - Union Cabinet Minister, External Affairs

· 1977-80 - Founder- Member, Janata Party

· 1980 - Re-elected to 7th Lok Sabha (5th term)

· 1980-86- President, Bharatiya Janata Party (B.J.P.)

· 1980-84, 1986 and 1993-96 - Leader, B.J.P. Parliamentary Party

· 1986 - Member, Rajya Sabha; Member, General Purposes Committee

· 1988-90 - Member, House Committee; Member, Business Advisory Committee

· 1990-91- Chairman, Committee on Petitions

· 1991- Re-elected to 10th Lok Sabha (6th term)

· 1991-93 - Chairman, Public Accounts Committee

· 1993-96 - Chairman, Committee on External Affairs; Leader of Opposition, Lok Sabha

· 1996 - Re-elected to 11th Lok Sabha (7th term)

· 16 May 1996 - 31 May 1996 - Prime Minister of India

· 1996-97 - Leader of Opposition, Lok Sabha

· 1997-98 - Chairman, Committee on External Affairs

· 1998 - Re-elected to 12th Lok Sabha (8th term)

· 1998-99 - Prime Minister of India; Minister of External Affairs; and also incharge of Ministries/Department not specifically allocated to the charge of any Minister

· 1999- Re-elected to 13th Lok Sabha (9th term)

· 13 Oct.1999 to 13 May 2004- Prime Minister of India and also in charge of the Ministries/Departments not specifically allocated to the charge of any Minister