Atal Bihari Vajpayee: A Hero of India’s Second Freedom Movement
In adversity, he was a unifier, in victory, magnanimous, in defeat, equanimous, and in exit, gracious.
Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
This is his finest hour.
Mesmerising Orator
A late rainy monsoon evening, 1991. The familiar venue of the National College grounds in Bangalore was overflowing, throbbing with energetic anticipation awaiting the climactic speech of Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
Murli Manohar Joshi and L K Advani had finished thundering to endless applause by a drenched crowd, the lucky ones holding chairs above their head trying to shield themselves from unstopping rain.
For the next hour, Atal Bihari Vajpayee opened the cork on his now-familiar, mesmerising oratory, playing the audience like a finely-tuned violin. His command over a vast swathe of literature and ability to draw from them at will to match the occasion was the feat few virtuosos aspire to attain. One phrase has stuck indelibly in mind: Vajpayee’s comparison of the Rajiv…
