Three-time Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee died Thursday, sparking tributes from across the political spectrum as current leader Narendra Modi mourned the "irreplaceable loss" of the respected statesman. The 93-year-old had battled poor health for years but his condition deteriorated sharply in recent days, with doctors placing him on life support.
The sudden turn sparked a flurry of visits from top dignitaries, including Modi, who credited Vajpayee with laying the foundations for the meteoric rise of the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that rules India today. "Atal Ji's passing away is a personal and irreplaceable loss for me," Modi said in a tweet Thursday, using a Hindi-language honorific. "It was Atal Ji's exemplary leadership that set the foundations for a strong, prosperous and inclusive India in the 21st century.
"It was due to the perseverance and struggles of Atal Ji that the BJP was built brick by brick." Vajpayee was being treated at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi, where he was admitted nine weeks ago.
"Unfortunately, his condition deteriorated over the last 36 hours and he was put on life support systems. Despite the best efforts, we have lost him today," AIIMS said in a statement. "We join the nation in deeply mourning this great loss."
'A great son'The former journalist and poet-turned-politician was one of the few opposition lawmakers inside parliament when India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, still held office. His more than five-decade-long career peaked in the 1990s, when his masterful oratory attracted tens of thousands of people to his rallies across the country.
He also became the first non-Congress leader since India's independence in 1947 to complete an entire term in office as head of a BJP-led ruling alliance between March 1998 and May 2004.
Vajpayee's often conciliatory tone, and poetic jibes directed at opponents, were popular on both sides of the political divide. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said millions "loved and respected" the political icon. "Today India lost a great son. We will miss him," Gandhi posted on Twitter.
Many top ministers in cabinet today - including Modi - were proteges to Vajpayee and his deputy Lal Krishna Advani. Many paid solemn visits to the ailing Vajpayee in his final moments Thursday, including Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj and Home Minister Rajnath Singh. "In Atalji's demise the nation has lost a stalwart who was known for statesmanship and astute leadership. It is also a huge personal loss to me," Singh posted on Twitter.
Vajpayee's government helped ramp up tensions in South Asia by testing atomic weapons in 1998, which prompted tit-for-tat tests by arch-rival Pakistan and sparked concerns about a nuclear conflict in the region. Months later, in early 1999, he embarked on a historic bus ride to Lahore and met then-premier Nawaz Sharif in a bid to ease tensions.
He withdrew from the public eye after a BJP-led alliance suffered a shock election defeat in 2004. He had since rarely been seen or heard in public. It was widely reported that he suffered a stroke in 2009, which largely confined him to his New Delhi residence. He continues to enjoy devotion in many parts of the country, especially in key bellwether Hindu-heartland states in north and central India.
AP adds: A onetime journalist, Vajpayee was in many ways a political contradiction: He was the moderate leader of an often-strident Hindu nationalist movement. He was a lifelong poet who revered nature but who oversaw India's growth into a swaggering regional economic power. He was the prime minister who ordered nuclear tests in 1998, stoking fears of atomic war between India and Pakistan. Then, a few years later, it was Vajpayee who made the first moves toward peace.
Vajpayee's supporters saw him as a skilled politician who managed to avoid fanaticism, a man who refused to see the world in black and white. But his critics considered him the leader of a fanatic movement a movement partially rooted in European fascism that sought power by stoking public fears of India's large Muslim minority.
The one thing both sides could agree on was his honesty. Vajpayee was that rare thing in Indian politics: a man untainted by corruption scandals. One of seven children of a schoolteacher in central India, Vajpayee joined India's Hindu revivalist political movement in his late 20s. Elected to Parliament in 1957, he became the best-known figure in its moderate wing, and helped the Bharatiya Janata Party become one of India's few national political parties.
One of India's longest-serving lawmakers, Vajpayee was elected nine times to the powerful Lok Sabha, or lower house of Parliament. He also served two terms in the Rajya Sabha, or upper house. He led the party to its first national electoral victory in 1996, but lasted just 13 days as prime minister before he resigned in the face of a no-confidence motion. He returned to power in 1998 for 13 months after forging an alliance of 22 parties, mostly regional power brokers with disparate local appeal. He again served as India's prime minister from 1999 to 2004.
It was in India's relations with Pakistan where Vajpayee's influence may last the longest. While India's nuclear weapons program is believed to date to the 1980s, New Delhi had long insisted its atomic program was purely for peaceful purposes. That changed within a month of Vajpayee returning to the prime minister's post in 1998, when he approved a series of nuclear weapons tests that shocked the world and pushed Islamabad to launch its own tests.
His peace efforts began with a groundbreaking bus ride to Lahore, Pakistan, in February 1999, where he met with then-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The diplomatic journey inaugurated the first regular bus service between the two nations. Then, just before leaving office in 2004, he launched a peace process that, while often rocky, remains the basis of ongoing negotiations.
Vajpayee avoided bedrock nationalist issues, like plans to build a Hindu temple at the site of a demolished north Indian mosque. But critics excoriated him for failing to quickly quell anti-Muslim riots that shook the state of Gujarat in 2002. More than 1,100 people, almost all of them Muslim, were killed in the riots, which began after a train fire killed 60 Hindu pilgrims. Muslims were accused of setting the fire, though the true cause was never known.
Vajpayee's public response to the riots reflected his many contradictions.
In the days after the pogrom, Vajpayee said he could not understand how Hindus could burn women and children alive, sadly asking a group of Muslim survivors: "Have we lost our way so much that we cease to be humans?" Just a year later, though, he told a mostly Hindu audience, "Wherever there are Muslims in large numbers, they do not want to live in peace."
While known for his poetry and gifted with a politician's common touch as a parliamentarian he would take his dogs for walks in public he was not known for public introspection. Few people could claim to understand what drove him. He never married, but lived with his adopted daughter, her husband and their daughter.
Vajpayee quickly dropped from sight after the BJP lost power to the long-dominant Congress party in 2004 elections. As his health failed, Vajpayee stayed out of the limelight even when the BJP returned to power a decade later and Narendra Modi became prime minister.
Modi's government presented Vajpayee as an icon, seeking inspiration from his political career and cashing in on his stature and popularity as a statesman acceptable across political divides. "It was Vajpayee's exemplary leadership that set the foundations for a strong, prosperous and inclusive India in the 21st century. His futuristic policies across various sectors touched the lives of each and every citizen of India," Modi tweeted Thursday.
Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the Congress party, said "India has lost a great son" who was "loved and respected by millions." In 2015, the government honoured Vajpayee with the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian award, while his December 25 birthday was declared "Good Governance Day" in a tribute to his leadership. Vajpayee's body it to be taken to his New Delhi home and then to the BJP's office on Friday for people to pay their last respects. His funeral is to be held Friday afternoon.
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