“This Taj Mahal, this Taj Mahal
As it flows, the stream of Yamuna sobs inconsolably
This Taj Mahal, built over the tears of every Hindu.”
New Delhi: The poem, written by late prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in the 1930s, is a rare glimpse into his formative years. It is part of a new book that concludes that the early Vajpayee, with his strident Hindutva core, was markedly different from the avuncular, moderate one that dominates public memory today.
The younger Vajpayee, the book says, was a loyal soldier of the RSS, internalised Hindu victimhood and regarded Muslims as inherently disloyal to India — and not the hero of the liberals that he is today.
Called Vajpayee: The Ascent of the Hindu Right 1924–1977, the book’s author Abhishek Choudhary spent seven years trying to peel the layers off one of the most enigmatic politicians of the BJP.
“There was a lot of nostalgia among the liberals for Vajpayee,” Choudhary said at a discussion about his book in Delhi with Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, BJP leader Swapan Dasgupta and journalist Manisha Pande. “When I started going to the archives, I realised that the impression I had of Vajpayee was very different from the man in that phase. During the three times the RSS was banned, he would grumble a little bit here and there but always came to their rescue. I began to see patterns, genuine dilemmas and cynical doublespeak.”
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Mask or makeover?
Former BJP general secretary Govindacharya had famously called Vajpayee a ‘mukhota’ or a mask in 1997, referring to him as being the acceptable face of the BJP. His moderate mask was, of course, immensely useful for the party. In an unwieldy coalition government in 1998, it was this image of Vajpayee that gradually turned the BJP into a touchable party.
A quarter of a century later, Choudhary’s book attempts to undo that tag and, in the process, has only added to the complexity of Vajpayee’s character and political journey. There are a number of unanswered questions about when his image began to dilute; did he contribute to this makeover and was the change merely cosmetic?
The book talk in Delhi drew a hall full of India’s old establishment Left and liberals — scholars, authors, journalists, activists, retired civil servants, commentators. It appeared like a gotcha moment for many.
Shashi Tharoor said Vajpayee’s popularity among the liberal community is that he looks a lot better in comparison to Modi.
But BJP’s Swapan Dasgupta called Vajpayee his ‘boyhood hero’ and rued the liberal tag he had accrued.
“When he appeared ambivalent, it wasn’t because he didn’t have a strong conviction,” said Dasgupta. “When it came to the crunch, he didn’t waver.”
Dasgupta acknowledged the frustration many in the BJP experienced in the past because of his softer image.
“Yes, we criticised him, we were exasperated with him, we wanted a faster pace,” recalled Dasgupta. But Choudhary’s book has brought back his original RSS hero. “I recognise more of Atal Bihari Vajpayee in this book.”
Then, he added, there was an Atal Bihari Vajpayee “in the minds of those orphaned by the Congress. But there was another Vajpayee who existed for us, the believers.”
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Poetry and prose
By chronicling the rise of Hindu majoritarian politics in post-independence India, the book is helpful for those who wish to understand the moment India is in today. It holds the answers to the all-important ‘how did we get here?’ question.
Understanding the young poet-politician Vajpayee is crucial for this endeavour.
Many of Vajpayee’s early writings are dipped in Hindu victimhood and Muslim distrust — something that is not associated with his public image today.
Vajpayee’s Taj Mahal poem “borrowed from the revisionist Arya Samaji version of history he was reading in the novels,” wrote Chaudhary. The poems “speak of the intense rage and victimhood Atal felt.”
In another poem called Hindu Tan Man in the early 1940s, he wrote about religious invasions and Hindu pride:
“When did I ever desire to conquer the world?
I have only taught myself to conquer the mind, look within.
When did I torture someone in the name of my gods Krishna and Ram?
Did I ever massacre in hordes to inflict Hinduism upon the world?
Could anyone claim that I broke a mosque in Kabul?
Not another slice of earth, only determined to win hearts everywhere.
My body and mind, every ounce of my existence, is Hindu –
That’s my only identity.”
Vajpayee, the PM, may not have made as many visits to RSS’ Jhandewalan office in Delhi as his colleague LK Advani did, but his early role as a Sangh mobiliser and editor of its weekly magazine Panchjanya cemented his commitment.
When the RSS was banned in 1948 after Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s assassination, many members were poached by the Congress and the socialists. Some even fled. “It was in this state of sagging spirits that the Sangh launched an underground movement, steered by mid-level full-timers like Atal who had evaded arrest,” the book says.
“He didn’t desert the RSS at that time, he didn’t go home,” said Chaudhary at the event.
In December 1949, under Vajpayee’s leadership, Panchjanya, published an unnamed article on Ayodhya and Muslims. “The real test of loyalty will be on the question of Ayodhya, Kashi, Mathura, Bahraich. If they don’t want to restore to sanctity the birth place of Ram, it would not be possible to call them lovers of India.”
Choudhary speculates that it may have been written by the editor Vajpayee himself.
The book also has some fact-checks — he was not from Gwalior but from Bateshwar, near Agra. His real birthday was 1 May 1926, not 25 December 1924 (which PM Modi rechristened as Good Governance Day).
“I write distilled, short biographies for the TikTok generation,” said Tharoor. These can be read on one intercontinental flight’s duration. But Choudhary’s biography, he said, was a well-researched, deep dive into Vajpayee’s early life which also relied on primary research.
The book stops at 1977, but the author’s second volume will be out next year — featuring the Janata Party government, the 1984 drubbing, Ayodhya, government formation and end in 2007 when he had a stroke.
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Vajpayee’s ghar wapsi
Other than ‘mukhota’, another label that got stuck to Vajpayee’s image was the much-used media phrase ‘right man in the wrong party’. It was a measure of how much non-BJP voters, politicians and intellectuals wished to appropriate him. So, the natural question that followed from the audience at the event was whether Vajpayee would have still been a part of Modi-era BJP.
Chaudhary was very emphatic about this. He would have stuck around though he would have ‘occasionally grumbled’, he said.
This dichotomous insider-outsider image of Vajpayee has had many benefits. It attracted non-BJP centrists and liberals and also hoisted Modi as the proto Hindutva icon. Vajpayee is not counted as a Hindutva Hall of Famer today. His iconography was edging alarmingly close to the ideological centrism of Indian politics and farther and farther away from the RSS. It’s a lot like how Sardar Patel is not seen as a Congress leader but has been grafted on to the BJP today.
But now Abhishek Choudhary’s new book has placed Vajpayee right back into the Hindutva history of India. Modi and he are part of the same ideological continuum and political history. The book returns Atal Bihari Vajpayee gift-wrapped to RSS ahead of its 100th year.
“This book helps recover the Vajpayee we thought we had lost,“ said Swapan Dasgupta. “So, thank you, Abhishek, for restoring Vajpayee to the Hindu fold.”
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)