Kshama karo Bapu tum humko, vachan bhang ke hum apradhi/ Rajghat ko kiya apawan, manzil bhule yatra aadhi (Forgive us, Bapu, we are guilty of breaking our oath/ We desecrated Rajghat, forgot the goal and left the journey halfway).” Many in the ruling BJP may not believe that the poet seeking Gandhi’s forgiveness in such emotional words is their ideologue, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, whose birthday they are celebrating as “good governance day”.
I have known Vajpayee since the early 1980s, when neither he nor his party, the Jan Sangh, had any role in the governance of the country. He noticed the enchanting lights of the Hamdard complex from the Tughlaqabad huts where he stayed at the time, and wished to visit it. At a lunch meeting held for him, it was a pleasant surprise for his hosts to hear his ideas on religion, the neutrality of the state and minority welfare. Attracted by his oratory and poetry, I later attended some of his meetings but never heard him speaking ill of any community
in search of political gain. In later years, his political association with my birthplace, Lucknow, made me more interested in learning about his ideology.
As chair of the National Commission for Minorities during 1996-99, I worked with three prime ministers — H.D. Deve Gowda, I.K. Gujral and Vajpayee — one after the other. I must say that I was most comfortable with the last. By pulling the rug out from under both Gowda and Gujral, then Congress president Sitaram Kesri circuitously enthroned Vajpayee. During its election campaign, the BJP had been saying that on coming to power it would abolish the minorities commission. But, on the contrary, the new prime minister generously sent me a letter wishing me well in the discharge of my “formidable responsibilities” — a gesture his two predecessors had not thought to make.
Many a time during the remainder of my term, I met Vajpayee at his official residence, and he was always very cordial. In 1998, when minorities in the country were facing unprecedented atrocities, I met him on his birthday and presented him two poems. One of these was my Urdu translation of his poem “Jung na hone denge (Won’t allow war)”, in which he forcefully pleads for world peace and especially for friendly India-Pakistan ties — “Bharat-Pakistan padosi saath saath rehna hai, teen bar lad chuke ladaee kitna mehenga sauda (India-Pakistan as neigbours have to coexist, went to war thrice at such heavy cost)”. The other poem was my own composition and addressed to anti-minority forces, ending with a couplet: “Hai kasam Gita ke amrit ki tumhe, desh ko tum yun vishaila mat karo (I beseech you in the name of the Gita, don’t make the country so venomous).” Vajpayee very much appreciated both poems and asked me to release them to the media.
In his personal life and thinking, Vajpayee is a staunch follower and ardent supporter of his religion. In one of his poems titled “Parichay”, he proudly declares: “Hindu tan-man,Hindu jeevan, rag rag Hindu mera parichay (Hindu body and heart, Hindu life, Hindu in every vein, my introduction).” Through the rest of this poem, he aggressively portrays his religion as the most exalted, superior and tolerant faith in human history. What is remarkable is that he never translated his belief in the ideological superiority of his faith into his policies for the governance of the country. All the controversial issues that his party had been forcefully advocating during its election campaigns were put aside by him, not — in my reading of the man — due to compulsions of coalition government, but in pursuance of his firm belief in pluralism, participatory democracy and all-embracing governance.
In 1999, when atrocities against Christians in Gujarat were on the rise, I had, as the minorities commission chair, recommended to the government to make use of Article 355 of the Constitution, which binds the Centre to the duty of protecting every state against external aggression or “internal disturbance”, and ensure its governance in conformity with constitutional ideals. Vajpayee was not averse to it, but did not want to create a potentially dangerous precedent that could be misused in future. Later, in 2002, during the communal riots in Gujarat, he forcefully counselled then Chief Minister Narendra Modi to abide by rajdharma (a ruler’s sacred obligations).
Discussing the provisions of the Constitution relating to religious freedom and minority rights, the Supreme Court once observed: “These provisions enshrined a befitting pledge to the minorities in the Constitution of the country whose greatest son had laid down his life for the protection of the minorities” (Ahmedabad St Xavier’s College vs State of Gujarat, 1974). It was the same “greatest son” of India whose forgiveness Vajpayee sought in his poem mentioned earlier.
What is happening today across the country — forced and induced change of religion with great fanfare, destruction of minorities’ houses of worship and all sorts of communal tensions — belies Gandhi’s convictions and makes Vajpayee’s poem seeking his forgiveness pertinent for the present-day rulers. Unless they take effective measures to curb these trends, impartial critics will be justified in seeing the
ritual of paying homage to Gandhi and designating Vajpayee’s birthday as “good governance day” as a mere political tactic, if not outright hypocrisy.
The writer, former chair of the National Commission for Minorities, is member, Law Commission of India
