Roland Francis: Vajpayee cannot be judged solely on the basis of being a long-time member or indeed a founder of the BJP or on the basis of not being fluent in English.
Non ideologue and non orthodox that he was ....... Response: Non-ideologue and non-orthodox? Really??? Please read Excerpts: "Perhaps the most significant elaboration of the Golwalkar-Savarkar thesis of India as a Hindu nation beset by Muslim trouble-makers in recent times was that provided by Atal Bihari Vajpayee in his speech to the BJP national executive meeting in Goa on 12 April 2002 <https://thewire.in/preview/280293>. The speech is remarkable for the manner in which a prime minister attempts to justify the murder of Muslim citizens in Gujarat by referring to Godhra and contrasting the supposed ‘traditional tolerance’ of Hindus with the alleged ‘intolerance’ of Muslims. Like Golwalkar, who believed only Hindus were true Indians, Vajpayee uses ‘us’, ‘our’, ‘Hindus’ and ‘Indians’ interchangeably throughout his speech. He begins by making an observation about Hindu kingdoms in ancient Cambodia. “No king destroyed a temple or damaged the deities’ idols at the time of attacking another king. This is our culture. This is our outlook, which treats all faiths equally.’ India, he said, was secular before Muslims and Christians set foot on her soil. Once they came, they had freedom of worship. ‘No one thought of converting them with force, because this is not practiced in our religion; and in our culture, there is no use for it.” Here, Vajpayee was trying to contrast the ‘tolerance’ of Hindus and Hinduism, which he described as ‘our religion’, with the supposed intolerance of Muslims and Christians. The reference to the destruction of idols and conversion ‘with force’ is a standard part of the RSS arsenal. At the root of major incidents of violence, he said, was ‘growing intolerance’. Since Hindus are, by definition, tolerant, the obvious inference is that this ‘growing intolerance’ is on the part of the Muslims. Turning immediately to the burning issue of the day, he asked: “What happened in Gujarat? If a conspiracy had not been hatched to burn alive the innocent passengers of the Sabarmati Express, then the subsequent tragedy in Gujarat could have been averted. But this did not happen. People were torched alive. Who were those culprits? The government is investigating into this. Intelligence agencies are collecting all the information. But we should not forget how the tragedy of Gujarat started. The subsequent developments were no doubt condemnable, but who lit the fire? How did the fire spread?” *Here, in as unsophisticated a fashion as Narendra Modi had stated it earlier, we find Vajpayee presenting his own version of Newton’s Third Law. *There is no remorse about the killing of hundreds of innocent people, no apologies for the failure of the government to protect its citizens. He makes no attempt to distinguish between the criminal perpetrators of the Godhra attack and the innocent victims of the ‘subsequent tragedy in Gujarat’. For him, Muslims are an amorphous, undifferentiated lot who collectively ‘lit the fire’. They were to blame, not his party men who took part in the ‘subsequent developments’. The statement is classic hate speech, but after it generated a huge controversy, Vajpayee claimed his remarks were aimed not at all Muslims but only ‘militant Muslims’. The Prime Minister’s Office subsequently issued a doctored version of the speech in which the word ‘such’ was inserted between ‘Wherever’ and ‘Muslims live’. Many newspapers subsequently printed this version. It was not until a privilege motion was raised in Parliament — for Vajpayee had made the mistake of claiming on the floor of the House on May 1, 2002 that the doctored version of the speech was the true version — that he was forced to admit the word ‘such’ had been deliberately interpolated <https://www.thehindu.com/2002/05/17/stories/2002051702321300.htm>. In another attempt to soften the impact of his Goa remarks, Vajpayee told parliament <https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/indiascope/vis-a-vis/story/20020520-lk-advani-versus-atal-bihari-vajpayee-796594-2002-05-20> that he was as opposed to militant Hinduism as he was to militant Islam. ‘I accept the Hindutva of Swami Vivekananda but the type of Hindutva being propagated now is wrong and one should be wary of it.’ Having said this, however, he went back to square one by adding that although there were laws to deal with such an eventuality, he was confident no Hindu organisation would become a danger to the country’s unity. In other words, only Muslim (or Christian or Sikh) organisations have the potential of endangering the country’s unity. After maligning Vivekananda — who never spoke of Hindutva but of Hinduism — Vajpayee went straight back to the teachings of Golwalkar and Savarkar. Vajpayee will go down in history as a prime minister who preached the virtues of tolerance even as he turned a blind eye to the massacre of innocent citizens. Instead of using national television to tell the people of Gujarat that the genocidal mobs would be put down with a firm hand — and that policemen failing to protect the life and liberty of all would be punished — Vajpayee delivered a sermon on the need for religious *sadbhavna* . https://thewire.in/politics/let-us-not-forget-the-glimpse-we-got-of-the-real-vajpayee-when-the-mask-slipped " He went to Staten Island off New York and told a congregation of Hindu priests he was a born *swayamsevak*. " https://www.telegraphindia.com/opinion/the-man-with-many-faces-252515 Regards, Marshall
