Atal Bihari Vajpayee Retires: A Brief Look at His Achievements
1 Comments Published by Indyman on Thursday, December 29, 2005 at 11:08 PM.
Today Atal Bihari Vajpayee announced his resignation from politics. Vajpayee was a prime minister of India for a brief period in 1996 and then for a longer period from 1998 to 2004. Personally, I have always liked Vajpayee and supported him. I can't say I like BJP (the party he is associated with) - I am more like indifferent towards BJP. I know I prefer it more than Congress (the other major party in India because I think Congress has ruled India for too long (for 40 years right after India's independence in 1947) and achieved very little. I believe Congress has had its chance at trying to run a country (and really failed at achieving sustained levels of growth) and other parties should be given a fair chance. May the best man win. And hence, when Vajpayee ran for prime ministership, I wanted him to win. I believe in the man's abilities to run the country and to pull together all his coalition partners and balance it all well.
I think Vajpayee has demonstrated good leadership abilities to be able to rise within a party with primarily fundamentalist views although he was more moderate and to be able to rally the entire nation behind him and take control of the wheel when India was dabbling with coalition politics in the late 90s (and also with financial instability, especially the Asian financial crisis). Vajpayee also conducted the nuclear tests in 1998 which established India as one of the major nuclear powers in the world. Although most of the world frowned at us, I think it was a necessary to take the step in the way we did to establish India as a south asian power. India has always been a peaceful country and it has never invaded any country and all the wars we have fought were for our self-defence. If power were to be concentrated in one country, I believe India is a good country to be that one. (However after Pakistan's nuclear tests in response to India's the power is more equally balanced and that in my opinion is even better).
Vajpayee also initiated the Golden Quandrangle Highway Project which aimed to create America style national highways in India that connected the four major cities in north, south, east and west and hundreds of other small to medium cities along the way. It was an ambitious project (for which unfortunately the Congress prime minister Singh cut funding after BJP lost in the most recent elections) that could have accelerated India's growth, especially foreign investment in large plants and projects.
There are many other Vajpayee achievements which have led India to be where it is today. Ofcourse not every thing is achieved by one person, it is a team effort, but a country needs someone with the right attitude to move ahead as a whole and I still believe Vajpayee was the right man for the right point in time when he was in power. I say "still" because a lot of people believe that India only grew in the urban areas and only the rich and the middle class enjoyed the benefits of Vajpayee's politics. Most of the poor were left in the dark. Hence their "India Shining" campaign failed miserably. True that India Shining failed, but I think it takes more than 2 or 3 years for all the benefits of change can percolate through to all the different classes of people and that the people of India should have had more faith in Vajpayee for another term.
All said and done, this man has done a lot for my country and hence I would like to salute his time and his work for India. Thank you Atal jee.
A decent read is the article "How will history remember Vajpayee" by BBC. It was written when Vajpayee lost the elections to Congress and its alliance in 2005, but it assesses Vajpayee and his work and its impact on India.
I think Vajpayee has demonstrated good leadership abilities to be able to rise within a party with primarily fundamentalist views although he was more moderate and to be able to rally the entire nation behind him and take control of the wheel when India was dabbling with coalition politics in the late 90s (and also with financial instability, especially the Asian financial crisis). Vajpayee also conducted the nuclear tests in 1998 which established India as one of the major nuclear powers in the world. Although most of the world frowned at us, I think it was a necessary to take the step in the way we did to establish India as a south asian power. India has always been a peaceful country and it has never invaded any country and all the wars we have fought were for our self-defence. If power were to be concentrated in one country, I believe India is a good country to be that one. (However after Pakistan's nuclear tests in response to India's the power is more equally balanced and that in my opinion is even better).
Vajpayee also initiated the Golden Quandrangle Highway Project which aimed to create America style national highways in India that connected the four major cities in north, south, east and west and hundreds of other small to medium cities along the way. It was an ambitious project (for which unfortunately the Congress prime minister Singh cut funding after BJP lost in the most recent elections) that could have accelerated India's growth, especially foreign investment in large plants and projects.
There are many other Vajpayee achievements which have led India to be where it is today. Ofcourse not every thing is achieved by one person, it is a team effort, but a country needs someone with the right attitude to move ahead as a whole and I still believe Vajpayee was the right man for the right point in time when he was in power. I say "still" because a lot of people believe that India only grew in the urban areas and only the rich and the middle class enjoyed the benefits of Vajpayee's politics. Most of the poor were left in the dark. Hence their "India Shining" campaign failed miserably. True that India Shining failed, but I think it takes more than 2 or 3 years for all the benefits of change can percolate through to all the different classes of people and that the people of India should have had more faith in Vajpayee for another term.
All said and done, this man has done a lot for my country and hence I would like to salute his time and his work for India. Thank you Atal jee.
A decent read is the article "How will history remember Vajpayee" by BBC. It was written when Vajpayee lost the elections to Congress and its alliance in 2005, but it assesses Vajpayee and his work and its impact on India.
Tagged: Atal Bihari Vajpayee, India: Politics
I think you are right: he managed to extend the appeal of his party to the South, making it a credible All-India rival to the Congress Party, has never condoned communal violence and seems to have had a genuine belief in improving relations with Pakistan, where he also made some progress. Of course, in the end it is History that will judge how successfully he laid the groundwork for future progress.