How should history judge Atal Bihari Vajpayee?
As is the case with Rajiv Gandhi and P V Narasimha Rao, Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s legacy is forever marred by his complicity in events that twisted India’s trajectory towards division and divisiveness. There were three such events, so darkly powerful that the years of their occurrence are seared into our national consciousness: 1984, 1992, and 2002. Rajiv Gandhi cannot be forgiven for 1984, and for overseeing an election campaign based on hateful anti-Sikh rhetoric; Rao not just for 1984 — for which he bore primary responsibility as home minister and the man
As is the case with Rajiv Gandhi and P V Narasimha Rao, Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s legacy is forever marred by his complicity in events that twisted India’s trajectory towards division and divisiveness. There were three such events, so darkly powerful that the years of their occurrence are seared into our national consciousness: 1984, 1992, and 2002. Rajiv Gandhi cannot be forgiven for 1984, and for overseeing an election campaign based on hateful anti-Sikh rhetoric; Rao not just for 1984 — for which he bore primary responsibility as home minister and the man
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