A POLITICAL career with many highs and lows defies easy summary. But this much does appear to be certain: where the political right in India is struggling to produce a true statesman and national leader today, Atal Behari Vajpayee once combined a formidable intellect with political skill and organisation to widen the political mainstream in that country. A nonagenarian who was thrice prime minister of India and entered politics as a teenager in pre-Partition British India, Vajpayee represented a kind of politics that was without precedent before him and that is not likely to be emulated by others anytime soon. From a Pakistani perspective, the Pokhran-II nuclear tests and a historic bus trip to Lahore where a joint prime ministerial declaration was signed with Nawaz Sharif are the two standout moments of Vajpayee’s stints as prime minister. The Pokhran-II nuclear tests ushered in an era of overt nuclearisation in South Asia and have arguably forever changed the security equation in the region. No peacenik can favourably look upon Vajpayee’s decision to campaign for and then conduct five nuclear tests as prime minister in May 1998.

Yet, Vajpayee undeniably showed great courage and vision in travelling to Pakistan by bus at the invitation of then-Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif. The Lahore declaration that was signed by the two prime ministers in February 1999 is a high point in the last two decades in the quest for the normalisation of relations between the nuclear-armed rivals. Vajpayee’s successor as a BJP prime minister of India, Narendra Modi, invoked Vajpayee’s approach to India-held Kashmir in his Independence Day speech on Wednesday, but Mr Modi has not shown a willingness to engage Pakistan in a sustained and meaningful manner. The Lahore Declaration remains a template for governments in both countries to follow today. Less welcome was the marginalising of Vajpayee in BJP politics and a takeover of the party by far-right elements. It is hoped that the Vajpayee path with Pakistan can be returned to by the BJP and by India.

Published in Dawn, August 18th, 2018