Despite being the month in which India celebrates its freedom from the British Raj, this August felt like one being flooded with bad news. It started off with the demise of the legendary Tamil Nadu politician and DMK patriarch M. Karunanidhi. Then, a day after Independence Day, came the dreadful news that one of the nation\u2019s greatest ever prime ministers, Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee, was no more. Next, of course, there were the real floods down south in Kerala.
\nSoon after the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi declared with much regret in the evening of August 16 that the poet-politician par excellence had breathed his last, succumbing to years of debilitating ailments, the mourning that followed transcended far beyond the boundaries of the country where he was born and bred, where he rallied for his own and his people\u2019s rights, and where he finally ruled their hearts as their preeminent national leader for years.
\nAmidst the scale and depth of the tributes that kept pouring in on social media, the most remarkable takeaway, according to many political and social observers, was the respect that Vajpayee enjoyed across the political spectrum of India and the world. From United States to Russia, from Sri Lanka to Japan, from Afghanistan to Bangladesh, and most importantly from Pakistan to China.
\nIndia\u2019s fractious relations with its two northerly neighbours seemed to have had no impact on their regard for one of its finest sons. While China\u2019s ministry of foreign affairs paid a glowing tribute to him while expressing its condolence to all Indians, Pakistan\u2019s minister of Law and Information Syed Ali Zafar was among the many foreign dignitaries in attendance at Vajpayee\u2019s funeral near Raj Ghat \u00a0in the national capital.
\nAll this happened despite the fact that the Pokhran II nuclear tests, which kicked off a nuclear arms race in the subcontinent, happened during Vajpayee\u2019s time \u2013 as did the Kargil War.
\nJust as his life did, Vajpayee\u2019s death too reflected the greatness of his persona. He was not merely an immensely successful political leader but also a great human being. It was the greatness of his being that came through in his domestic and foreign policies and endeared him even to those entities whose interests might have been in conflict with his or his party\u2019s or country\u2019s.
\nWhile paying an eulogising homage to Vajpayee, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley wrote recently that Vajpayee\u2019s death was not really \u201cthe end of an era\u201d, as was being widely noted in the media, but \u201ca continuation of the era\u201d for which he laid the foundation.
\nIt is difficult to determine whether \u2013 and to what degree \u2013 are Jaitley\u2019s views shared by others. Some political observers who disagree with that perspective point to the way Bharatiya Janata Party leaders reacted to the recent incidental hug between cricketer-cum-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu and Pakistan’s Army General Qamar Javed Bajwa, or for that matter, Sidhu sitting beside the President of Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) Masood Khan at the swearing-in ceremony of Imran Khan as the new prime minister of that country.
\nThey say that Vajpayee would have been pretty disappointed with the petty-minded flak that Sidhu drew for all that happened during his visit to Islamabad.
\nBut then there are others who say that a few BJP leaders do not represent the stand or thought process of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who the saffron party wishes to project as a statesman on the lines of the great Vajpayee.
\nAs Kerala suffers the aftermath of probably the worst flood it has ever had in nine decades, all eyes are on the Centre, which has provided much relief assistance but politely and proudly refused foreign aid for the battered state followed by accusations of the BJP regime playing partisan politics with the Communist Party of India-Marxist-ruled state.
\nIt is now up to Team Modi to prove whether the Vajpayee era indeed continues under the current BJP dispensation. n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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