Page 10 - ARUBA TODAY

A10 WORLD NEWS
Friday 17 august 2018
Former Indian PM Vajpayee dies after illness at age 93

By ASHOK SHARMA fice in 2004, he launched a
NEW DELHI (AP) — Former peace process that, while
Indian Prime Minister Atal often rocky, remains the
Bihari Vajpayee, a Hindu basis of ongoing negotia-
nationalist who set off a tions.
nuclear arms race with rival Vajpayee avoided bed-
Pakistan but later reached rock nationalist issues, like
across the border to begin plans to build a Hindu tem-
a groundbreaking peace ple at the site of a demol-
process, died on Thursday ished north Indian mosque.
after a prolonged illness. But critics excoriated him
He was 93. for failing to quickly quell
The All India Institute of anti-Muslim riots that shook
Medical Sciences, where the state of Gujarat in 2002.
Vajpayee had been hos- More than 1,100 people,
pitalized for more than two almost all of them Mus-
months for treatment of a lim, were killed in the riots,
kidney infection and chest which began after a train
congestion, announced his fire killed 60 Hindu pilgrims.
death. Muslims were accused
Vajpayee, a leader of the of setting the fire, though
Hindu nationalist Bharatiya the true cause was never
Janata Party, had suffered Students from an art school place flower petals around a painting of former Indian prime minister known. Vajpayee's public
a stroke in 2009. Atal Bihari Vajpayee in Mumbai, India, Thursday, Aug. 16, 2018. response to the riots reflect-
A onetime journalist, Associated Press ed his many contradictions.
Vajpayee was in many In the days after the po-
ways a political contradic- in 1998, stoking fears of black and white. appeal. He again served grom, Vajpayee said he
tion: He was the moderate atomic war between India But his critics considered as India's prime minister could not understand how
leader of an often-strident and Pakistan. Then, a few him the leader of a fanatic from 1999 to 2004. Hindus could burn women
Hindu nationalist move- years later, it was Vajpayee movement - a movement It was in India's relations with and children alive, sadly
ment. He was a lifelong who made the first moves partially rooted in Euro- Pakistan where Vajpayee's asking a group of Muslim
poet who revered nature toward peace. pean fascism - that sought influence may last the lon- survivors: "Have we lost
but who oversaw India's Vajpayee's supporters saw power by stoking public gest. our way so much that we
growth into a swaggering him as a skilled politician fears of India's large Muslim While India's nuclear weap- cease to be humans?"
regional economic power. who managed to avoid minority. ons program is believed Just a year later, though,
He was the prime minister fanaticism, a man who re- The one thing both sides to date to the 1980s, New he told a mostly Hindu au-
who ordered nuclear tests fused to see the world in could agree on was his Delhi had long insisted its dience, "Wherever there
honesty. Vajpayee was atomic program was purely are Muslims in large num-
that rare thing in Indian for peaceful purposes. That bers, they do not want to
OFFICE SPACE politics: a man untainted changed within a month of live in peace."
by corruption scandals.
Vajpayee returning to the While known for his poetry
One of seven children of a prime minister's post in 1998, and gifted with a politician's
FOR RENT schoolteacher in central In- when he approved a series common touch - as a par-
dia, Vajpayee joined India's of nuclear weapons tests liamentarian he would take
Hindu revivalist political that shocked the world his dogs for walks in pub-
movement in his late 20s. and pushed Islamabad to lic - he was not known for
Elected to Parliament in launch its own tests. public introspection. Few
1957, he became the best- But the next year, when people could claim to un-
known figure in its moder- Islamabad sent fighters derstand what drove him.
ate wing, and helped the across the cease-fire line He never married, but lived
Bharatiya Janata Party that divides the disputed with his adopted daugh-
become one of India's few Himalayan region of Kash- ter, her husband and their
national political parties. mir between the nations, daughter.
One of India's longest-serv- Vajpayee resisted military Vajpayee quickly dropped
ing lawmakers, Vajpayee pressure to launch a broad from sight after the BJP lost
was elected nine times to counter-attack of Indian power to the long-dom-
the powerful Lok Sabha, or forces. inant Congress party in
lower house of Parliament. After 11 weeks and more 2004 elections. As his health
He also served two terms in than 1,000 deaths, Pakistan failed, Vajpayee stayed
the Rajya Sabha, or upper ordered the fighters to with- out of the limelight even
house. draw. India earned interna- when the BJP returned to
He led the party to its first tional praise for its caution. power a decade later and
national electoral victory in His peace efforts began Narendra Modi became
1996, but lasted just 13 days with a groundbreaking bus prime minister.
as prime minister before he ride to Lahore, Pakistan, in Modi's government pre-
resigned in the face of a February 1999, where he sented Vajpayee as an
no-confidence motion. He met with then-Prime Minis- icon, seeking inspiration
returned to power in 1998 ter Nawaz Sharif. The diplo- from his political career
for 13 months after forg- matic journey inaugurated and cashing in on his stat-
ing an alliance of 22 par- the first regular bus service ure and popularity as a
ties, mostly regional power between the two nations. statesman acceptable
brokers with disparate local Then, just before leaving of- across political divides.q