Atal Bihari Vajpayee 'a rare thing in Indian politics', 'political contradiction': Foreign media on former PM
As Indians paid rich tributes to former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, condolences poured in from across the globe. His demise was widely covered by foreign media. This is how various obituaries described the charismatic leader.
The Washington Post
Mr Vajpayee, known as an avuncular politician, was credited with helping bring mainstream acceptance to his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The party had struggled for many years before gaining political prominence in the 1990s by carefully nurturing religious pride and projecting the Congress party as being softer on the country’s Muslim minority group.
But later, it was Mr Vajpayee’s personal charisma and moderate image that helped the BJP stitch together a broad-based coalition of smaller, disparate regional parties. Between 1999 and 2004, he deftly managed the unwieldy coalition government of fractious partners.
He deployed similar skills to begin a new peace process with his Pakistani counterpart, Nawaz Sharif, and traveled to Lahore in northeastern Pakistan by bus in February 1999. But the effort was undermined three months later when the Pakistani army and separatist militants launched an offensive in the Kargil mountains of Kashmir, a Himalayan region claimed by the two South Asian neighbors.
Associated Press
'India’s Vajpayee, who set off nuke race and peace, has died'
Former Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, a Hindu nationalist who set off a nuclear arms race with rival Pakistan but later reached across the border to begin a groundbreaking peace process, died Thursday after a long illness. He was 93.
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.
The New York Times
Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who as India’s prime minister from 1998 to 2004 stunned the world by ending a decades-old moratorium on nuclear weapons tests but nevertheless managed to ease tensions with Pakistan and build closer ties to the United States, died on Thursday in New Delhi. He was 93.
A published poet, Mr Vajpayee dabbled in law, journalism and rebellion against British colonialism as a young man. A leader of the Hindu nationalist opposition to the once-invincible Indian National Congress party of Gandhi and Nehru, he was virtually unknown outside India for most of his 50 years in politics.
The South China Morning Post
'Three-time Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee dies at 93, prompting Narendra Modi to pay tribute'
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.
TASS, Russian news agency
Vajpayee repeatedly met with Russian President Vladimir Putin during official visits and at international forums. In 2000, the two state leaders signed the Declaration on Strategic Partnership, which became the first document of this kind in relations between India and Russia.
The Guardian
Vajpayee had a gift for ambiguity. Nobody could be completely sure whether he was a lone liberal among Hindu fundamentalists or simply a plausible salesman for religious nationalism. It was perhaps his command of Hindi, the most widely spoken language of India, that allowed him to conceal his true beliefs from so many for so long. He became prime minister first in 1996 for less than a fortnight. Then, in March 1998, the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), long considered a pariah in Indian politics, welded provincial parties into a workable coalition. Vajpayee again became prime minister.
In power, he burnished his rightwing credentials. His popularity soared when the government detonated a nuclear bomb under the sands of the Rajasthani deserts in the teeth of international disapproval. A month later Indian forces won a decisive victory over Pakistani soldiers in the Kargil war.
Yet, domestically, Vajpayee often appeared not to be in charge. His attempts in 2001 to forge better relations with Pakistan’s military ruler General Pervez Musharraf were undermined by Hindu hardliners. While Vajpayee tried to build bridges, the religious right simply burned them down.
Atal Bihari Vajpayee, former Indian prime minister, dies at 93 https://t.co/yatq0mMVBz
— The Guardian (@guardian) August 16, 2018
Dawn
'Vajpayee, partisan of peace with Pakistan, dies'
Vajpayee was idolised in Pakistan as a sincere peacemaker and wooed by rivals at home as the right man in the wrong party.
“Suppose I am that — a nice man in the wrong party — what would you want me to do?”
Typical of how he ribbed his doting opponents, on this occasion, shortly before resigning from a 13-day stint as prime minister in May 1996. In 1998, he had another short innings, but which he packed with game-changing nuclear tests, and a landmark visit to Lahore by bus.
A glimpse of Vajpayee’s diplomatic preferences can be seen from the fact that he favoured “genuine non-alignment”, an implied criticism of the movement founded by Jawaharlal Nehru. His pro-West politics was derived from the staunchly anti-communist Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), of which he was a lifelong member.
BBC
Atal Bihari Vajpayee's tenure as Indian prime minister brought his country's emergence as a nuclear power, triggering fears of conflict with Pakistan...
A free marketeer by inclination, he was criticised by unions and civil servants for his policy of privatising some of India's government-owned corporations. But his support for new hi-tech industries made India a global IT player and fuelled the country's economic expansion. Like many Indian leaders before him, AB Vajpayee found himself having to hold together a sometimes fractious coalition to wield power.
But he was seen by many as a unifying force when divisions threatened Indian society and as a staunch defender of his country's borders.