BEST PM OF INDIA: ATAL BIHARI VAJPAYEE ? | ATAL BIHARI VAJPAYEE BIOGRAPHY

 BEST PM OF INDIA: ATAL BIHARI VAJPAYEE ?

Atal Bihari Vajpayee ji, a well known former prime minister of our country is no more with us. He was elected as the prime minister in 1996 for only 13 days and then again in 1998 he was the prime minister for 13 months and he completed his full term between 1999-2004. He was the 1st non congress prime minister who completed the full term. During his tenure India has seen such a great development that according to me he should be known as one of the best prime ministers of India.

How was this performance.

Let's see,

Drinking water, education, health, roads and now electricity, no one is looking at it. If you want to know the intention of a politician how good or bad he isthen you should look at his focus on the basic fundamentals like education, healthcare, electricity, road and water.

Atal ji was one such politician who used to focus on such issues especially education. He revolutionized the education sector in 2001 by launching the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan. Under Sarva Siksha Abhiyan every child between the age of 6-14 years will be given free and compulsory education and this scheme turned out to be very successful, school drop out rates decreased, enrollment rates increased. In 1985 25 million kids of our country used to not study and were out of the primary school in 2001 Sarva Siksha Abhiyan was launched and after that you can see how quickly did this graph dropped down by 2006 this number was left to just 4 million.

To bring such a big change in 5 years is not less then any miracle. Atalji's government even declared that the Free education in our country is every child's right by passing 86 constitutional amendments. Atalji used to understand after education how important was Science for the development of the country hence he launched a new Science and Technology policy in 2003 .Since our country got independence this was the just the 3rd policy on Science. Here Scientists were encouraged and research and developments were promoted. The first objective of this policy was - To ensure that the message of Science reaches every citizen of India man and woman, young and old so that we advance scientific temper, emerge as a progressive and enlightened country.

This sounds very normal to hear but it has become very uncommon these days.

In 2003 India used to invest 1.1 % of GDP in scientific research. This much money used to be put in the research. Atal Bihari Vajpayeeji promised that this number will be raised till 2 % by 2007 but unfortunately he couldn't become the prime minister again and since Congress has come this number is going down and today in 2018 friends this has reached to 0.69%. In all the developed country, the investment in research and development is more than 2%. It's 4.29% in South Korea. 4.1 in Israel, 3.58 in Japan, these are those countries who encourages Science and research and development and our India is just at last where it's 0.69% in 2018.

How we used to promote Science in 2003 we are unable to do even a bit of that percent in 2018.

That era was a different one friends.

In today's time the scene is such that the wrong number baba's are made to sit on the chair of the chief minister Computer babas are given the posts of ministers. Woods are burnt saying it will reduce the pollution. So many unscientific statements are given by the ministers that I have lost the counts! Superstitions is promoted so much.

Anyways lets go back to Atalji's scientific achievements.

The first spacecraft to go on space in 2008 from India, Chandrayan 1, it's approval was given by Atalji.When Nuclear tests were conduct in the famous Pokhran, India was declared as the Nuclear state during Atalji's time. However it's debatable to see how much advantage has India got from it in actual.

Let's move forward to economy and infrastructure.

In infrastructure without doubt his most important achievement was Golden quadrilateral Highway project.You must have read about it in the school text book. This was the largest highway network in the country. It's total cost was 50,000 crore rupees. That time in 1999 Vajpayeeji's government has come and the total length of all the highway was 50,000 km. In 2004 when his Government ended by that time the length of the highways were 65,000.That means he made 15,000km of highways in 5 years. For comparison during the time Manmohan ji's government the length of highways increased to 69,000 in 10 years. So whatever he has done in 10 years was done by him in 5 years.

After this his another success was of the Grahmin sadak Yojna. To make road reach every village. Delhi Metros, which is one of the most successful projects in today's time, that project was also approved by Atalji. So, Nehru ji was present in that debate. Should government make the hotel or no? Will it be in advantage or loss? I stood up, I was a new member. I said Government's work is not to make the hotel but to make Hospitals. Nehruji got upset, he is the new member, he doesn't understand the matter. We will make the hotel and from the profit of the hotel we will make hospital too. Hotel is still running in loss! Talking about economics then he very well continued P.V. Narsimha Rao's historic economic liberalism reforms. Inspite of facing so many problems during his government he maintained a steady economic growth. There was a parliament attack in 1998-99, there was cyclones in 2001 and a devastating earthquake accounting for a loss of economics. There was a world oil crisis, 9/11 attack, parliament attack in India and even Kargil war so these are such things due to which the economy can come down but he didn't let it come down. He encourages privatization and to reduce fiscal deficit he introduced fiscal responsibility act which was soo successful you can see in this chart, it shows how much reserve India has in proportion to how much debt India has. So it crossed more than 100% that India got so much money that it can pay all it's debt and still remain with some money So this was a big achievement , you can see how it rose with such a good speed.

Fourth very big achievement during Atalji's time was in the Foreign policy. He used to believe that we must maintain peace with all our neighbours and improve our ties, he used to not believe in the politics of swearing on Pakistan and asking for votes. He used to not consider any country as our enemy country. His government resolved many territorial disputes that we had with China and even encouraged trade between India and China. A new era was seen by US and Indian ties during Atalji's time.Bill Clinton the US president visited India which after a long term that a US president was coming to India. Free and Fair election in Kashmir was also held for the first time during his time many people even think that if Atalji would have been elected one more time then Kashmir would have a different scenario. Maybe it would have become a very peaceful state today. But the most daring achievement in the foreign policy was his try to promote peace between India and Pakistan. He started a new bus service between Delhi to Lahore in 1991 where he himself went to Lahore He gave a famous speech in Lahore, which was telecast by Pakistani TV and was appreciated by Pakistanis. but unfortunately Kargil war started after a few months and the peace talks had to end. But even after that as soon as the war ended he resume the peace talks and 2001 he called President Parvez Musharraf to Agra, India to start the bonding again and find the solution between the two countries. Pakistan's former prime minister writes in his book that Both the countries reached very close to end their enmity and find the solution in the Agra Summit. But that solution couldn't be materialised unfortunately. 

Fifth achievement is Atal Bihari Vajpayeeji's personality and his believes.He was a very down to earth person and a humble person. He used to not differentiate between the common man and an influential man. There's a very famous quote by him "If India is not secular then India is not India at all"

This quote shows that he used to believe in inclusive growth. He used to believe in walking by taking everyone along. Atalji was a precious gem in politics. It's very rare to see such politicians. He used to never abuse the opposition politician to make him feel low. Used to never talk in bad language with them. He used to always talk with dignity and respect,Infact he has praised many opposition politicians and even respected them. He used to never blame Nehru for his mistakes. Unlike how some politicians do these days. Infact you may get shocked to hear his statement for Nehruji on his death.

The game of politics will be there, Governments will come and go, parties will be made and broken but the democracy of the country should be forever.

So these were some of his achievements friends. specifically the first four performance based achievements, the performance done by his government. Looking at that it could be said the Atal Bihari Vajpayeeji is one of the Best Prime Minister of the country. You may not say The best but I feel he should be counted in the top three. At the same time I would like to tell that No person can be 100% perfect. He had his weaknesses and his own negative points I have not spoken about in my video or else it would have been very long.

Respect Atalji, take inspiration from him, learn from him.

Thank you