[The anecdote, in the first excerpt below, about Vajpayee's poetry, one may consider just amusing. The image of his foster daughter, provided on the original site, many may find a sipitting one of her foster father, may again be the topic of a gossip. But the saga of income tax raid on the Outlook is a serious one. Rather bone-chilling. It throws revealing light on Vajpayee's reputation as a "democrat".
That his companion was never given the due recognition of her status in his life says a lot about his "liberalism". <<Mr Vajpayee’s poetry presented me with a little difficulty. When I was editor of Pioneer, a slim volume of his poems had been published. I gave it to the eminent Hindi writer Nirmal Verma to review. He kept the book for some time but sent no review. Finally, he rang up to say he couldn’t do it. “The poems are not worth reviewing. They are the work of a well-meaning amateur. If I review it, I’ll have to slam it, which I don’t want to do.” I asked one or two other big names in Hindi literature. They also refused for the same reasons. Eventually, I got it reviewed in-house by Kanchan Gupta, who later joined Vajpayee’s PMO as speech writer. He produced the goods. Atal Bihari Vajpayee was no saint. He liked to drink moderately and eat non-vegetarian food less moderately. Being a bachelor and a political star (Henry Kissinger: power is the ultimate aphrodisiac), he was never short of female company. When he became India’s first bachelor prime minister, he juggled a strange domestic life. A Mrs Kaul, whose husband was a college professor and had passed away, moved into 7 Race Course Road, along with her daughter Namita and the daughter’s husband, Ranjan. Namita’s official designation was foster daughter and Ranjan Bhattacharya became foster son-in-law. Vajpayee, to his credit, made no effort to hide the ménage à quatre. Foreign journalists posted in Delhi would ask, tongue firmly in cheek, why the brave and fearless Indian press never wrote about Vajpayee’s unusual family arrangement. I would say it was our strength, not weakness, which dissuaded us from tabloid voyeurism. ... The activities of the trio had found cursory mention in the media. Nothing more. Our reporters came back with the full chronicle: the three were running riot. We put two senior reporters on the job and in March 2001 published our cover story, “Rigging the PMO”. It provided details of numerous decisions taken by the PMO, brazenly favouring a select group of business houses, especially the Hindujas and Reliance. With the former, Mr Vajpayee had long-standing personal relations; he had even written an indiscreet note to Prime Minister Narasimha Rao, seeking his indulgence on their behalf in the Bofors scandal. We got hold of a letter, which in today’s context assumes relevance. It was written in January 2001 by the telecom secretary to the industries secretary (who is vested with the authority to approve FDI), complaining how his minister and his ministry had been totally bypassed by the PMO when it cleared FDI up to 74% in the telecom sector. The ministry had warned in writing about allowing more than 49% equity in telecom. ... In the last week of March, our second exposé – “Vajpayee’s Achilles Heel” – appeared. It began, “Ever since Atal Bihari Vajpayee became prime minister and consolidated his hold over the NDA, the whispers in the corridors of power have been about the formidable clout Brajesh Mishra, NK Singh and Ranjan Bhattacharya enjoy.” Later in the report we were more specific: “Over the last couple of years Bhattacharya’s influence has grown … a cross-section of people Outlook spoke to, including bureaucrats, industrialists and politicians, say Bhattacharya is a ‘powerful yet invisible’ force which drives the PMO. His primary conduits, say all, are Mishra and Singh.” ... On 29 May 2001 at 8.30 am, “in one of the largest operations launched in recent times”, the proprietor of Outlook, Rajan Raheja, was raided by the income tax department. As the Hindustan Times put it: “More than 700 officials began search and seizure operations in 12 cities across the country. About 120 premises in Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta, Chennai, Surat, Madurai among other cities were raided.” The paper also noted that the editorial office of Outlook in Bombay had been raided. The raiders from 7 Race Course Road made one stupid mistake – they entered our editorial office on the tenth floor of Raheja Chambers in Nariman Point. And took over all the computers and harassed the lone journalist present at that early hour. Floppies were removed. IT officials, it appeared, were hoping to find evidence of tax evasion in the files of old stories Outlook journalists had sent from Bombay! Our correspondent Manu Joseph had his bag searched and diary confiscated. “We were well within our rights (to raid the editorial office) since evidence may be lost,” justified the director general of investigations, G Saran.>> (Excerpted from sl. no. I. below.) <<Writing an obituary after Mrs Kaul's death, former Atal aide Sudheendra Kulkarni described her as 'Rajkumari Kaul, mother of Shri Atalji's adopted daughter Namita.' In fact, soon after Atal started living with the Kauls, he informally adopted the two daughters of the family—Namita and Namrata. Kulkarni, who had been closely interacting with Atal for many years and had been visiting Mrs Kaul's home for years even before Atal became the prime minister, described her as a very kindly woman, whose face was motherly and whose heart was motherly. Kulkarni added,'Those who interacted with her found her very cultured in a very profound and multi-dimensional sense.' 'Of all the members of every prime ministerial household since Independence, Auntie (as she was known to those who had privileged access to her home) was the most understated but her worth was known to those who knew the intricacies of the organogram of Atal's private life,' wrote K.P. Nayar in The Telegraph. He added that with the death of Mrs Kaul, 'the greatest love story of Indian politics ended forever in as subdued a style as it flourished for several decades under the radar but was known widely'.>> (Excerpted from sl. no. II. below.)] I/II. https://scroll.in/article/890631/vinod-mehta-on-atal-behari-vajpayee-and-the-1998-nuclear-tests-how-a-tired-pm-became-a-bold-pm Atal Bihari Vajpayee and his Achilles heel: Excerpts from Vinod Mehta’s memoirs The poetry no one would review, the unusual family life, and the three powerful men who controlled the bachelor prime minister’s office. Atal Bihari Vajpayee and his Achilles heel: Excerpts from Vinod Mehta’s memoirs PTI Yesterday · 06:30 am Vinod Mehta In 1999, the third Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition in four years came to power. As far as numbers were concerned, both the party (with 182 seats) and the coalition (with 296 seats) seemed comfortably placed. Instead of the troublesome Jayalalithaa, the National Democratic Alliance had the less troublesome Karunanidhi inside the tent. The pundits predicted a full term for Mr Vajpayee and his coalition. Atalji mostly got the cabinet of his choice, with Jaswant Singh – humiliatingly barred by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in the 13-month 1998 coalition – as foreign minister. My relations with Vajpayee were good. Very good. I had known him since my Debonair days and when I moved to Delhi in 1991, I had several opportunities to meet him socially and officially. He was leader of the Opposition and I often found myself sitting next to him at banquets. He didn’t say much, but listened with interest. Like Ronald Reagan he loved jokes. He was not overly humble, but neither was he pompous. He knew his own worth and therefore did not need to prove anything. Since I was a self-confessed pseudo-secularist and vocal about it, most BJP politicians kept me at arm’s length. Not Atalji. Perhaps he was a pseudo-secularist too! I used to go over for tea, with appointments easily fixed through his personable press officer, Ashok Tandon. Once when I went to see him he looked uncharacteristically glum. I asked him if anything was wrong. “Aap ke baad Jayalalithaa aayengi.” (After you Jayalalithaa is coming.) And then he laughed for the first time. Mr Vajpayee, not the most media-friendly of politicians, gave me a rare, extended interview in early 1999, just after the fall of his government. He sincerely believed that if any prime minister could make peace with Pakistan, it was a BJP prime minister like him. He would give the example of how a hardline Republican president in the US, Richard Nixon, was able to achieve a breakthrough with China. I asked him if being a poet helped him keep his cool. “Yes,” he replied. “They say about Ram that the expression on his face when he was going to be enthroned and when he heard he was going into exile for fourteen years was the same.” No saint Mr Vajpayee’s poetry presented me with a little difficulty. When I was editor of Pioneer, a slim volume of his poems had been published. I gave it to the eminent Hindi writer Nirmal Verma to review. He kept the book for some time but sent no review. Finally, he rang up to say he couldn’t do it. “The poems are not worth reviewing. They are the work of a well-meaning amateur. If I review it, I’ll have to slam it, which I don’t want to do.” I asked one or two other big names in Hindi literature. They also refused for the same reasons. Eventually, I got it reviewed in-house by Kanchan Gupta, who later joined Vajpayee’s PMO as speech writer. He produced the goods. Atal Bihari Vajpayee was no saint. He liked to drink moderately and eat non-vegetarian food less moderately. Being a bachelor and a political star (Henry Kissinger: power is the ultimate aphrodisiac), he was never short of female company. When he became India’s first bachelor prime minister, he juggled a strange domestic life. A Mrs Kaul, whose husband was a college professor and had passed away, moved into 7 Race Course Road, along with her daughter Namita and the daughter’s husband, Ranjan. Namita’s official designation was foster daughter and Ranjan Bhattacharya became foster son-in-law. Vajpayee, to his credit, made no effort to hide the ménage à quatre. Foreign journalists posted in Delhi would ask, tongue firmly in cheek, why the brave and fearless Indian press never wrote about Vajpayee’s unusual family arrangement. I would say it was our strength, not weakness, which dissuaded us from tabloid voyeurism. Reign of the triad Brajesh Mishra, NK Singh, Ranjan Bhattacharya | File photos AB Vajpayee’s PMO fell into the hands of three individuals. Brajesh Mishra, who had been India’s permanent representative at the UN between 1979 and 1981 and on deputation with the United Nations till 1987, was his closest aide. Mishra took an anti-Soviet line in the UN when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. That line was sought to be reversed when the Congress came back to power in 1980. Brajesh argued that it did not behove India to suddenly change its stance, but Indira Gandhi insisted. He put in his papers. Vajpayee and Brajesh were chums. When things got hot for the “moderate face” of the BJP inside the party, he would pop off to New York to spend time with Brajesh, doing, rumour had it, some naughty things. Mishra roped NK Singh, a suave bureaucrat, into the PMO as officer on special duty for economic affairs. The third member of the trio was Ranjan Bhattacharya, Vajpayee’s foster son-in-law. His background? The hospitality business or more accurately the banqueting business in luxury hotels. During Vajpayee’s final term, this trio took complete charge. They controlled the PMO. Atalji, never keen on matters of detail, blessed the arrangement by not interfering. However, he had a fair sense of what was going on. The trio, especially Brajesh Mishra, was detested in the BJP. The feeling was mutual. LK Advani, Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj, Narendra Modi watched helplessly as Brajesh marched imperiously to his own tune. There was no love lost, especially between Mishra and Advani. Vajpayee made it clear to the party and the RSS that he was prepared to make compromises in most areas, but not over Brajesh, whom both the BJP and the RSS wanted out. If the parivar insisted on Brajesh going, Vajpayee would go with him. Namita and Ranjan Bhattacharya | PTI file photo Power centres The husband and wife team of Ranjan and Namita were the other power centres in 7 Race Course Road. Vajpayee may have had some reservations about his son-in-law. However, the foster daughter could do no wrong in his eyes. Namita and Ranjan began assiduously cultivating the Delhi media. They had unconcealed contempt for what they called knickerwala journalists; they mingled with Vir Sanghvi, Barkha Dutt, Shekhar Gupta – even me. Ranjan and Namita invited my wife and me for lunch to the Chinese restaurant at the Oberoi, Taipan. I was happy to accept because I wanted to get to know the people who ran the Vajpayee household. And dabbled in other matters too. They were charming hosts. The talk was inconsequential and gossipy. At one point my wife dropped her napkin. Ranjan, in a flash, picked it up. I was touched by the gesture. “We must have you both over for dinner,” I found myself saying. It was fixed; only dates had to be agreed. Midway during the lunch, a seedy-looking man flashing diamond rings and reeking of aftershave walked over to our table. He greeted Ranjan effusively, Ranjan responded equally effusively, as did Namita. He looked like an upmarket realtor. A few minutes later another gentleman of a similar description arrived. The interaction was repeated. My antenna went up. Both men appeared to have aspects and mannerisms of cosmopolitan wheeler-dealers. I told my wife as we were going down, “We are not inviting these people to our house.” ... The activities of the trio had found cursory mention in the media. Nothing more. Our reporters came back with the full chronicle: the three were running riot. We put two senior reporters on the job and in March 2001 published our cover story, “Rigging the PMO”. It provided details of numerous decisions taken by the PMO, brazenly favouring a select group of business houses, especially the Hindujas and Reliance. With the former, Mr Vajpayee had long-standing personal relations; he had even written an indiscreet note to Prime Minister Narasimha Rao, seeking his indulgence on their behalf in the Bofors scandal. We got hold of a letter, which in today’s context assumes relevance. It was written in January 2001 by the telecom secretary to the industries secretary (who is vested with the authority to approve FDI), complaining how his minister and his ministry had been totally bypassed by the PMO when it cleared FDI up to 74% in the telecom sector. The ministry had warned in writing about allowing more than 49% equity in telecom. Our coup d’état, however, was a smoking gun interview with a senior bureaucrat transferred so often that he quit a year before retirement. EAS Sarma was widely known in the civil service as “an outstanding officer, honest to a fault”. He had served as secretary in key ministries – power, expenditure, economic affairs. In his 36-year career, Dr Sarma had been transferred twenty-two times. The latest, which he got to know through the media, convinced him that enough is enough. ... The hidden hand orchestrating these deals appeared to be that of Ranjan Bhattacharya. While all three worked in concert, the third man remained behind the scenes. Once “Rigging the PMO” came into the public domain, consternation and panic set in at the PMO. Outlook and its editor could be dismissed as congenitally biased. Dr Sarma’s revelations, on the other hand, were not easy to dismiss because of his widely acknowledged reputation for probity and professionalism. None of the specific instances of wrongdoing could be denied or contested. His testimony was rich in detail. Vajpayee summoned me home for tea. It was an unhappy meeting. NK Singh, Vajpayee conceded, could if necessary be shown the door. Brajesh and Ranjan were another matter. I had got it wrong, Vajpayee mildly scolded, those two were pure as snow. I refused to get into a wrangle with the PM. Suddenly, he changed the subject and launched an attack on Outlook correspondent Saba Naqvi, who was covering the BJP. “I don’t know what has gone wrong with her lately; she is always writing against me.” He suggested she had been covering the BJP for too many years. Perhaps she needed a change of beat. The two reporters who produced the earlier story were still digging. This time they were concentrating on Ranjan’s precise role in the PMO, something which the disgraced BJP president Bangaru Laxman had indicated on the Tehelka tapes – he had made it known that power and infrastructure deals were Ranjan’s main focus. An RSS swayamsevak, RK Gupta, was also caught on tape, saying, “Ranjan is doing for himself. In one deal I killed (outmanoeuvred) Ranjan and Brajesh Mishra.” Word got around Outlook was working on another exposé, this time centred on the son-in-law. At a Rashtrapati Bhawan banquet Vajpayee, while walking to his seat, stopped and had a word with me. He said he had something to discuss. Someone would get in touch with me. It is possible there were a couple of black sheep around on our staff who were leaking information. The PMO seemed to have a fair idea of what we were up to. As our exposé got ready for press, I got several calls from Brajesh Mishra. I knew if I took his call he would try and persuade me to either drop or delay the story. I told my secretary to tell his secretary that I was out of town. One evening, when I came home from work, my mother seemed unusually excited. She said a very nice man from the prime minister’s office had telephoned. He was exceedingly polite and called her “mataji”. She couldn’t recall his exact name. “Brajesh something,” she said. My eighty-plus mother urged me to quickly return his call, as he had requested. In the last week of March, our second exposé – “Vajpayee’s Achilles Heel” – appeared. It began, “Ever since Atal Bihari Vajpayee became prime minister and consolidated his hold over the NDA, the whispers in the corridors of power have been about the formidable clout Brajesh Mishra, NK Singh and Ranjan Bhattacharya enjoy.” Later in the report we were more specific: “Over the last couple of years Bhattacharya’s influence has grown … a cross-section of people Outlook spoke to, including bureaucrats, industrialists and politicians, say Bhattacharya is a ‘powerful yet invisible’ force which drives the PMO. His primary conduits, say all, are Mishra and Singh.” We flagged the deals Ranjan was meddling in. Topping the list was the Rs 58,000-crore national highways project which had been moving at a frenetic pace because of the extra push being given by the PMO. The first lot of contracts had been awarded to a clutch of seven dubious Malaysian firms. The Rs 20,000-crore Reliance Hirma power project, referred to earlier, was also on Ranjan’s radar. He and the PMO were pushing the Reliance case for a counter-guarantee which amounted to a gift for Reliance... When Jagmohan’s tenure as telecom minister was abruptly terminated through the powerful lobby of private operators who owed the huge sum of Rs 3,179 crore to the ministry, they knocked on the door of the PMO via Ranjan. The defaulters included Birla, Reliance, Tata and Essar. These influential corporates pressed the PMO for extension of the payment deadlines. They succeeded. Further, they pushed through the draft of a new telecom policy heavily tilted in their favour. The Samata Party, a vital ally of the NDA, in a stinging letter to Vajpayee on 16 March, demanded a probe into the various corruption charges against Mishra, Singh and Bhattacharya. A long-time RSS pracharak, who had faithfully served the organization for little material reward and who saw the BJP as the natural party of governance in place of an atrophying Congress, was quoted in the magazine as saying, “In one stroke the reputation built over 40 years has been destroyed.” A couple of days after our second expose hit the stands, Brajesh Mishra and NK Singh held a press conference. Without mentioning Outlook even once, they denied outright all the charges as “mischievous” and “baseless”. It was a commanding performance. The raids On 29 May 2001 at 8.30 am, “in one of the largest operations launched in recent times”, the proprietor of Outlook, Rajan Raheja, was raided by the income tax department. As the Hindustan Times put it: “More than 700 officials began search and seizure operations in 12 cities across the country. About 120 premises in Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta, Chennai, Surat, Madurai among other cities were raided.” The paper also noted that the editorial office of Outlook in Bombay had been raided. The raiders from 7 Race Course Road made one stupid mistake – they entered our editorial office on the tenth floor of Raheja Chambers in Nariman Point. And took over all the computers and harassed the lone journalist present at that early hour. Floppies were removed. IT officials, it appeared, were hoping to find evidence of tax evasion in the files of old stories Outlook journalists had sent from Bombay! Our correspondent Manu Joseph had his bag searched and diary confiscated. “We were well within our rights (to raid the editorial office) since evidence may be lost,” justified the director general of investigations, G Saran. ... I wrote a letter to the prime minister which I released to the press. “Dear Atalji, “The income tax raids on Outlook’s proprietor, and worse, Outlook’s editorial office, are shocking. You yourself have been a victim of the Emergency, so you know better. “I appreciate that you, your party and some of your advisers do not always agree with our point of view. But to order income tax raids!” I was careful to ensure my letter did not sound like a mercy petition. “I write this letter to you not because I want you to do anything. An editor must learn to live with such things. I write this letter because I hold you personally in such high esteem and I am sure you did not know of these attempts to muzzle the free press of India (I lied. He knew). “Of all the people in public life today, you stand for certain values which go beyond party politics. If I was not convinced of this I would not be sending you this note. “Best wishes and godspeed with the operation.” (He was going in for some surgery.) I did not even get an acknowledgement to the letter. Rajan told me a lovely raid story. As the searches were going on at his residence, the sleuths were having difficulty in finding some substantial loot. At one point, one of the inspectors asked Rajan if he could use the phone. Permission was granted. He dialled a number in Delhi and said quite audibly, “Sir, problem hai. Kuch mil nahi raha hai.” (Sir, there is a problem. We can’t find anything.) The raids on Outlook evoked a measure of sympathy in the profession. It could have been more forceful, especially from the higher echelons, but I am not complaining. The Editors’ Guild issued a strong statement; the Congress party spokesperson said “the raids are yet another manifestation of authoritarianism and an assault on the free press”. The Delhi Union of Journalists (DUJ) passed a resolution condemning the government for ‘curbing the freedom of the press and unleashing a reign of terror on the scribes’. Khushwant Singh in his column came out in our support. Kuldip Nayar in the Hindu wrote: “One vainly hopes that the liberal Vajpayee will one day wake up. So far he has proved to be only a mukhota (mask), as RSS ideologue Govindacharya once said.” I read no editorials for or against the raids. One reason for the ambivalence could be the extensive links Mishra, Singh and especially Bhattacharya had developed with the media. Once they found little or nothing in Rajan’s house, office and companies, the income tax authorities resorted to mendacity. They announced the discovery of Rs 51 lakh in unaccountable cash. Again through a press release I had to set the record straight. Not Rs 51 lakh but Rs 51,000 had been found in the residence of an ailing relative of Rajan Raheja. The cash, Rajan explained, was kept in the house for emergency medical expenses. The lies did not bother Rajan. The harassment did. He would be summoned to the damp, piss-stinking offices of the Enforcement Directorate and made to wait from 10 am to 6 pm. He would then be told to come again the next day. Besides, the income tax inspectors would ask for some 20-year-old file, keep it for a while and give it back. Then they would ask for another, and another. It was clear that interrogation and examination was not the real purpose; hounding and hassling was. Rajan asked me to see if this could be stopped. His entire group was doing nothing else but looking for files! Humiliating experience I rang up Brajesh Mishra. He agreed to see me. When we met, he feigned surprise, even shock. “You have been raided! I know nothing about this. Very unfortunate. You know both Atalji and I believe in press freedom. We would do nothing to harm the press.” Listening to him, I nearly vomited. He then lectured me on the importance of a free press in a democracy. What happened next remains perhaps one of the most humiliating experiences of my life. I had to reassure Brajesh I was never in any doubt about his and the prime minister’s commitment to press freedom. The raids on Outlook must have occurred due to some misunderstanding or perhaps some fault on our part! All this to butter him up for my next move. I told Brajesh I was not seeking any favour in the ongoing tax evasion investigations. All I was asking for was an end to the harassment of my proprietor. Could he please do something? “Of course, of course,” he said. “I am very sorry to hear Mr Raheja is being troubled.” He picked up the phone and fixed a meeting between me and the finance minister, Yashwant Sinha. My interaction with Brajesh lasted no more than ten minutes. I shook his hand, thanked him and ran out of his room. I urgently needed fresh air to recover from his hypocritical bullshit. Yashwant Sinha made no pretence of surprise. “I read something about it.” He promised Rajan’s harassment would stop. Miraculously, in 24 hours it did. A week later President Narayanan sent for me. The Delhi Union of Journalists resolution had been received by his office. I recounted to the President the whole Mahabharat. He said he had read the Outlook stories. I found out later that Narayanan sent the DUJ resolution with a covering letter to Vajpayee, who was most upset at receiving the communication. It was never the same again between me and Vajpayee. I continued to meet him formally and at one briefing he held for editors, something he did rarely, I sat through without saying a word. He came up to me at the end and said, ‘Aap aaj bahut chup hain.’ (You are very quiet today.) I smiled snidely. There are not many politicians I like on a personal basis. Vajpayee was one of the few I did. History, I suspect, will remember him with question marks. Was he a liberal conservative, or someone who put his finger up in the air to find out which way the wind was blowing? A politician who aspires to be a statesman needs to have a moral centre. Did Vajpayee have one? That, I am afraid, is a question-mark question. Fali Nariman told me that despite all of Vajpayee’s inconsistencies he ‘liked the old boy’. I’ll ditto Fali’s opinion. Excerpted with permission from Lucknow Boy: A Memoir, Vinod Mehta, Penguin India II. https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/vajpayee-love-life-and-poetry/296648 15 FEBRUARY 2016 Last Updated at 3:50 AM Vajpayee: Love, Life and Poetry The better half Atal Bihari Vajpayee never had and yet was always at his side... KINGSHUK NAG Vajpayee: Love, Life and Poetry Vajpayee playing with his niece and pets Prashant Panjiar/Outlook Archive ATAL BIHARI VAJPAYEE: A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS BY KINGSHUK NAG RUPA PUBLICATIONS INDIA | PAGES: 202 | RS. 395 Hum ne dekhi hai in aankhon ki mahekti khushboo, Haath se chuke ise rishton ka ilzaam na do. Sirf ehsaas hai, yeh rooh se mehsus karo, Pyar ko pyar hi rehne do, koi naam na do. Gulzar's immortal lines in the film Khamoshi aptly describe a very important aspect of Atal Bihari Vajpayee's life.Though not unknown to his associates, this vital part of Atal's life journey has been lived out of public discussions. When Rajkumari Kaul died in May 2014, many newspapers reported the news. The conservative ones described her as Atal's household member but, writing in The Telegraph, journalist K.P. Nayar said, 'Mrs Kaul will be remembered for many years by those who knew her as the self-effacing, conspicuously selfless better half that Vajpayee never had and yet was always at his side till she fell ill and succumbed to heart attack.' Journalist Girish Nikam, writing for Rediff.com, recounted his experience with Vajpayee and Mrs Kaul. Nikam, who was in touch with Atal for his reporting assignments (he was talking of the days when Atal was yet to become prime minister), recounted how Mrs Kaul picked up the phone every time he called up Atal's residence. Mrs Kaul on picking up the phone would automatically say, 'Mrs Kaul here.' Once Nikam, who had got used to Mrs Kaul's voice, answered, 'Yes I know,' the moment Mrs Kaul identified herself. Mrs Kaul shot back very gently, 'You don't know who I am?' Nikam was forced to reply, 'No Ma'am.' Mrs Kaul then replied, 'I am Mrs Kaul, Rajkumari Kaul. Vajpayeeji and I have been friends for a long time, over forty years. You don't know?' Nikam wrote that he mumbled a reply, 'Oh I am sorry I did not know.' Mrs Kaul then laughed and went on to say how Vajpayee had lived with her and her husband Professor Kaul all these years. The only time the self-effacing Mrs Kaul gave an interview to the press was to a woman's magazine in the mid-1980s. When the interviewer asked her about herself and Atal, Mrs Kaul replied that both Atalji and she never felt the need to offer apologetic explanations to Mr Kaul once the dirty rumours began (of them living together in the same household). She added that her relationship with her husband was far too strong for that. Sunita Budhiraja—a public relations professional, poet and writer—who knew both Atal and Mrs Kaul very well, recollects having called up the latter when she read the interview. But the phone was answered by Atal and Sunita said that she wanted to compliment both him and Mrs Kaul for the bold interview. Atal said, 'Aap khud hi yeh baat unhe bataayein,' and handed the phone to Mrs Kaul who was around. Sunita, who was once close to Mrs Kaul but later drifted away, recollects that one day in a pensive mood she had confided in Sunita about her relationship with Atal. Apparently the two were in college in Gwalior at the same time. This was in the mid-1940s and those were conservative days when friendships between boys and girls were frowned upon. So, most of the time, emotions were never expressed by those in love. Apparently, young Atal left a letter for Rajkumari in a book in the library. But he did not get a reply to his letter. Rajkumari did in fact reply. The reply was also left in a book but it did not reach Atal. In course of time, Rajkumari (whose father was a government official) was married to a young college teacher, Brij Narain Kaul. 'Actually she wanted to marry Atal but there was tremendous opposition at her home. The Kauls considered themselves of a superior breed, although Atal was also a Brahmin,' says Sanjeev Kaul, a businessman from Delhi whose family is related to Mrs Kaul's. He said that Mrs Kaul grew up partly in the Chitli Qabar area of the walled city of Delhi with her cousins before moving to Gwalior. She was known there by her nickname of 'Bibi'. Mrs Kaul's father, Govind Narain Haksar, was employed with the Scindias' education department. Kamini Kaul, a niece of Mrs Kaul's, but only slightly younger than her, remembers Bibi Behn's engagement. 'It was in 1947 around the time of partition and there were riots in old Delhi where we stayed. But Bibi Behn's mother brought her hurriedly to Delhi and got her engaged to this young college lecturer. The marriage was held later in Gwalior,' Kamini Kaul remembers. She says that Brij Mohan Kaul was a very decent man: 'Bahut sidhey the.' Atal moved on in life but did not marry, and he became a full- time politician. The two met once again when Atal had become an MP and Rajkumari had moved to Delhi, her husband teaching philosophy in Delhi University's Ramjas College. S.K. Das, an IAS officer who retired as secretary to the Government of India, has vivid memories of Atal in Mrs Kaul's house in Ramjas College. He said,'Professor Kaul was the warden of Ramjas College hostel where I was a student between 1965 and 1967 and a hosteller.' He adds, 'Professor Kaul was strict and would land up in the hostel in the evenings. We were young students and we wanted to enjoy our newly found independence, sometimes imbibing a drink or two, and found the presence of the professor rather disconcerting.' Das relates that after confabulations with some like-minded hostellers they decided to 'complain' to Mrs Kaul, who looked very friendly. When she heard of the 'complaints', Mrs Kaul was very understanding and smiled, saying, 'Why don't you come to my house when my husband goes to the hostel?' The young students took the suggestion seriously and began landing up in her house every other evening. There they encountered Atal Bihari Vajpayee who was a frequent visitor. Atal welcomed these young lads and engaged them in conversation even as Mrs Kaul plied them with sweets and sometimes even made thandai. Other than Das, the other lads included Ashok Saikia, who also became an IAS officer and was joint secretary in the Prime Minister's Office when Atal was prime minister; B.P. Mishra, who also became an IAS officer and was chairman of New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC); and M.L. Tripathi, who joined the Indian Foreign Service and became India's high commissioner to Mauritius and Bangladesh. 'In those days we had no clue that Atal and Rajkumari had any friendship and many years later when we heard tales we felt very guilty for coming in the way of the two to be a sort of kabaab mein haddi,' says Das. He is also quick to point out that Atal was never resentful of their presence and would encourage the boys to talk and was solicitous about their future careers options. 'In fact he would try to convince us that academics offered a good career and we should think of pursuing that. He also promised to help us get jobs. The Jana Sangh in those days had a strong hold over Delhi University,' Das reminisces. These interactions between Das and his friends and Atal took place when the Jana Sangh leader was a Rajya Sabha MP and was already well- known for his oratory skills. Das says that after college he lost contact with Atal and after becoming an IAS officer, he was allotted the Karnataka cadre. However, in 1978, when he was secretary to the Karnataka Chief Minister Devraj Urs, a visitor suddenly came over without any prior appointment to his office in Bangalore. It was his former warden Brij Narain Kaul. Prof Kaul said, 'Atalji is remembering you and so is Mrs Kaul. You must visit them in Delhi.' Atal was, at that time, external affairs minister in Morarji Desai's Janata government. Posted with a chief minister close to Indira Gandhi, Das went to Delhi with some hesitation. When he went to meet Atal at his Lutyen's residence, Das found Mr and Mrs Kaul and their two daughters staying there. Sometime after Das passed out of college, Atal had moved into the Kaul household even when they were in the Ramjas College warden's quarters. 'Yes, we remember having seen Atalji living there and met him when we used to go there. In fact when she got old even Mrs Kaul's mother was staying with them,' says Kamini Kaul. In 1968, after the sudden death of Deen Dayal Upadhyaya, the then president of the Jana Sangh, Atal's name was considered for the presidency. However, Atal had a strong rival in the party— Balraj Madhok.The latter averred that he was a better candidate to take over the reins of the party, especially because the Jana Sangh's creditable performance of winning thirty-five seats in the Lok Sabha in the 1967 general elections was under his watch. Moreover, he was the seniormost vice president of the party. Madhok began lobbying with the RSS sarsanghchalak M.S. Golwalkar, who wielded tremendous influence in the party. Among other things, Madhok also referred to allegations about Atal's immoral lifestyle and contended that there were complaints that women were visiting him. This was a reference to Mrs Kaul sometimes dropping into Atal's home to meet him. Atal even used to share his home with some other Jana Sangh leaders. The complaint, however, yielded no results because Golwalkar dismissed it. Atal's unconventional lifestyle and his staying together with the Kaul family were spoken about in Delhi's political circles. However, the press never made a big issue of it and so Atal's personal life never came under the scanner. The Indian Express wrote the day after Mrs Kaul's death, 'Both he [Atal] and Mrs Kaul never gave their relationship a name and whispered rumours apart, were never pushed to do so.' In fact, reports on Mrs Kaul's death, in some sections of the press, described her as a member of the Atal household. This description was prompted by a press release from Atal's home that described her as such. Since Atal himself is suffering from Alzheimer's disease, he could not have had any hand in drafting the release. 'It was a rather incorrect description of her that Mrs Kaul would have been the first person to shoot down. Alas, in the hour of grief, somebody stupidly described her merely as a member of the Atal household. In reality she was the anchor of Atal's life, somebody without whose emotional support, perhaps the man could not have reached the level to which he rose,' says a person who knew both of them closely but would rather not be identified. Of course, political circles recognized the importance of Mrs Kaul. Though she died when campaigning for the 2014 general elections was at its peak, top BJP leaders like L.K. Advani, Rajnath Singh and Sushma Swaraj attended the funeral. Narendra Modi was, however, held up elsewhere in the country. Significantly, Congress supremo Sonia Gandhi paid a quiet visit to the Atal residence to condole the death; even Jyotiraditya Scindia, the scion of the house of Scindias, who ruled Gwalior when Atal and Rajkumari Kaul were attending college there, went for the funeral. Writing an obituary after Mrs Kaul's death, former Atal aide Sudheendra Kulkarni described her as 'Rajkumari Kaul, mother of Shri Atalji's adopted daughter Namita.' In fact, soon after Atal started living with the Kauls, he informally adopted the two daughters of the family—Namita and Namrata. Kulkarni, who had been closely interacting with Atal for many years and had been visiting Mrs Kaul's home for years even before Atal became the prime minister, described her as a very kindly woman, whose face was motherly and whose heart was motherly. Kulkarni added,'Those who interacted with her found her very cultured in a very profound and multi-dimensional sense.' 'Of all the members of every prime ministerial household since Independence, Auntie (as she was known to those who had privileged access to her home) was the most understated but her worth was known to those who knew the intricacies of the organogram of Atal's private life,' wrote K.P. Nayar in The Telegraph. He added that with the death of Mrs Kaul, 'the greatest love story of Indian politics ended forever in as subdued a style as it flourished for several decades under the radar but was known widely'. In the same vein, senior journalist Pankaj Vohra, who has been a keen observer of Delhi's political scene, told this author,'Mrs Kaul was the fulcrum around which the Atal household functioned.When Atal became the prime minister, the boys from Ramjas College who knew him from their student days gained prominence. In fact Ramjas Club became a term used in Delhi in those days. But remember that these boys were very close to Mrs Kaul and less so to Atal. They came to be known because of Mrs Kaul.' S.K. Das also seems to ratify this view indirectly when he says, 'For most of us staying outside Delhi but visiting the Atal household when in the capital, the attraction was to meet Mrs Kaul rather than Atal himself.' When Atal became prime minister, his first private secretary was Shakti Sinha, an IAS officer of the union territory cadre. Sinha's wife, an Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer, was the niece of Mrs Kaul. Sinha was the secretary to Atal even before Atal was the leader of the opposition. Incidentally, when Sinha left his job for a World Bank assignment, he had his junior V. Anandrajan elevated to the position. Anandrajan, a relatively junior IRS officer at that time, was yanked out of his modest job to be put in the Prime Minister's Office for the simple reason that he knew Shakti Sinha from before. Anandrajan's wife was reporting to Shakti Sinha's wife in the income tax department. 'It is thus that the Mrs Kaul angle worked in the Atal regime. As another example, another IAS officer P.K. Hota became important in the Atal regime. He was not from Ramjas College but was a hosteller in the neighbouring Kirori Mal College of Delhi University and was friends with the boys who formed the core of the Ramjas Club,' says Pankaj Vohra. Vajpayee with Ranjan Bhattacharya There was a change in the Atal household in the early 1980s when his adopted daughter (and Mrs Kaul's daughter) Namita got married to Ranjan Bhattacharya. The latter was a Bengali from Patna who was working for the Oberoi hotel in Delhi when his romance with Namita blossomed in the early 1980s. She had passed out of Delhi University's Daulat Ram College and was working in Maurya hotel at that time. They had met earlier in 1977, during their university days. Soon Ranjan had started visiting the Atal household, but Atal maintained a distance from him even if they were at the dining table together. Though Ranjan and Namita lost their hearts to each other, a crucial test lay before Ranjan. He had to win the approval of Atal Bihari Vajpayee himself before he could marry Ghunnu (Namita's nickname). As Ranjan recollected in an interview later, Atal used to forget his name every time he met him and would address him variously as Banerjee, Mukherjee and even Bengali babu. Needless to add, the smooth-talking Ranjan, the very epitome of a marketing man, passed the Atal test and became part of the household. After marriage, he moved into the house and this may be partly due to the fact that Ranjan, although from a well-to-do family, had lost both his parents in quick succession while he was still in his twenties. Like his wife, Ranjan also began calling Atal 'Baapji' and, in fact, became extremely close to him. Ranjan soon left his job and became an entrepreneur in 1987. He built and ran a hotel in Manali for a few years. Later, he set up a marketing company that provided reservations to the US-based Carlson Hotels Worldwide. After that, Ranjan became the managing director of Country Development and Management Services, a joint venture involving Carlson and Chanakya hotels, providing budget hotels in different locations. Clearly, the career of the adopted son-in-law flourished after he became a part of Baapji's family, but then Baapji himself also used to repose a lot of faith in Ranjan. Evidence of this came when Atal was appointed as prime minister for the first time in 1996. His government lasted merely thirteen days but even in that period, Atal had appointed Ranjan as his officer on special duty (OSD). During Atal's later stints as prime minister, including the five-year one from 1999 to 2004, Ranjan had no official position but was widely known as a mover and shaker in Delhi's political and business circles. There would be regular stories in the media about the alleged deals being struck by Ranjan, though the son-in-law always denied them and asserted that he had nothing to do with the government. He agreed that he lived with the prime minister in his official residence, but, according to him, there was nothing wrong with that. After all he had been staying with Atal since 1983 and, therefore, there was nothing amiss with his moving into the prime minister's residence once Baapji became the PM, Ranjan was quoted as saying in media interviews. Ranjan also pointed out that he conducted his own business from his office in Greater Kailash and not the PM's residence in Race Course Road. Mrs Kaul's elder daughter Namrata became a doctor and ultimately moved to New York where she lives even now. Her father Brij Narain Kaul spent his last days with her. He had gone there for better medical treatment. This was much before Atal became prime minister. K.P. Nayar of The Telegraph wrote in his obituary of Mrs Kaul, 'The only demand she made on Vajpayee when he went to the UN in New York for annual general assembly was that he should adjust his travel dates so that he could be in the US on the birthday of Namrata.' Nayar also wrote, 'Mrs Kaul never figured in PM's protocol books as hostess at official programmes and did not travel with Vajpayee on his foreign trips but her unseen presence was evident during all such trips.' He added, 'Bhattacharya, who almost always accompanied the PM abroad at times with Namita and were listed in the protocol book as family was often reminded by Mrs Kaul on his cell phone when it was time for Vajpayee to take medicines.' -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to greenyouth+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. 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