A New Era in the Indian Polity

Not since Jawaharlal Nehru in the early y ears of independence has a political leader commanded such wide respect as Atal Bihari Vajpayee. This book presents, in the opening part, pen portraits of Vajpayee by some who have worked closely with him. Also his views, in his own words, on major problems faced by the country. the author sees the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party, under Vajpayee’s leadership, to first position in the eleventh Lok Sabha as more than an episode in the history of elections in free India. it marks the electors’ increasing realisation that other political parties have been disrupting Indian society by continuing, in order to secure more votes, the British colonialist policies of religious minorityism in the name of secularism, and of caste antagonism in the name of social justice. Commended, instead, is the BJP’s vision of social equity and harmony based on equal rights for all citizens with appeasement of none, and on the compassionate Gandhian economics of mutual sharing, Antyodaya and Swadeshi.