On His 91st Birthday Here Are 7 Achievements Of Atal Bihari Vajpayee That We Should Never Forget

4:17 AM Rajsamand Blog 0 Comments

It is hard to debate that Atal Bihari Vajpayee was arguably India’s best PM. Just look at the other recent names – there’s Indira Gandhi who couldn’t let go of power (and resorted to an Emergency to hold on to it), and Manmohan Singh (nothing needs to be said).

As the nation celebrates his 91st birthday, we feel it's only right to share this quick list of his legacy and achievements for those who need a history lesson.

1. He scripted the DNA for the Right To Education. 

If you think the Right To Education was exclusively a Congress achievement, here's a shocker - it was Vajpayee who created its foundation with the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan, which made education for children aged 6 to 14 years a fundamental right.

2. He made India a nuclear weapon state. 

"We have the capacity for a big bomb now. Ours will never be weapons of aggression." 
Atal Bihari Vajpayee

This was in 1998, when India had conducted 5 Indian nuclear tests in one week. As we have seen with our strange love-hate relationship with Pakistan, nuclear weapon capability is a powerful bargaining chip.

3. He was behind our telecom success story.Here’s a photo of celebration at Pokhran after the testing. In the photo, you can see (from left) Vajpayee, George Fernandes, Abdul Kalam, and R. Chidambaram. However, Vajpayee understood the ills of nuclear weaponry, and presented his feeling in a poem, Hiroshima Ki Peeda (Hiroshima's Pain), after seeing Japan’s Ground Zero. 

4. He maintained a strong GDP growth during his time.The Congress would have us believe that Rajiv Gandhi brought the telecom revolution to India. Rahul Gandhi even said this at a rally, “You got mobile phones because Rajiv Gandhi heard you." A decade after Rajiv Gandhi left office, our tele-density grew from a 0.6% (1989) to 2.8% in 1999 - not exactly a revolution. On the other hand, Vajpayee's New Telecom Policy (NTP) led to a telecom penetration rate rise from below 3% (1999) to over 70% in October 2012. Don't believe us? Columbia University’s Professor Arvind Panagariya also gives Vajpayee due credit for his role in ramping up our telecom success story in his book .

5. He improved our international relationships extensively.During his time, India saw a devastating earthquake (2001), two cyclones (1999 and 2000), the worst drought in thirty years (2002-2003), Gulf War II and an oil crisis from 2003, the Kargil conflict of 1999, and a Parliament attack. Yet, our GDP didn't falter during his time.

- Improved trade ties and attempted to resolve territorial disputes with the People's Republic of ChinaTake a look at a few of Vajpayee's achievements: 

- Strategic and military cooperation with Israel
- With the 2000 Bill Clinton visit (the first US President to visit India since Jimmy Carter), there was a thaw in India's Cold War-era distant relationship with America, leading to improved trade and cooperation
- Vajpayee was among the first passengers on the inaugural Delhi-Lahore Bus which established road connectivity between India and Pakistan for the first time since 1947

6. He approved the Delhi Metro Project.

While the Sheila Dixit government likes to tell us it brought what is possibly India's best mass transit public transport system, that is not true! The Delhi Metro project was approved, and the first line inaugurated, by Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He boarded the first line at Kashmiri Gate, en-route Seelampur

7. He sent India to the moon.