"You can change friends but not neighbours."
This was once stated by our very own loving prime minister Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee who is no more with us. Today at 5.05 pm IST he died at the age of 93.
The reason I have quoted this line and not chosen any famous lines from his poetry is because this is the thought which resulted in creation of a State which become 6th country to harbour Nuclear capability in the world and the story of how it was done is an epic to be told some other time. As for now, it’s a moment of grief and hope, our nation will recover from it and hold the spirit of freedom and democracy like how he wanted it to be.
8% is the GDP rate which was achieved by India between the period of 1998-2004 which made India among the fastest growing economies in the world after only to China. His economic reforms and especially the rise of Telecom Industry is largely attributed to him.
Under his regime, India became focused on creating itself an economic superpower with the help of accelerated privatization,Education policy, Science and research, Infrastructure development and International relations.
The world knows the level of animosity which exists between India and Pakistan and every Indian wants peace from Pakistan reason is simple Pakistanis are like us only and before Independence, it was part of India. With these on mind he initiated a Mission to make peace with Pakistan by starting Delhi-Lahore Bus service in which Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee itself visited Pakistan to meet his counterpart in order to create harmony among both the nations but we all know what Pakistan did after that, which is not required to be mentioned as its not the point of this article and that’s the reason I have started this article with his famous lines. "You can change friends but not neighbours."
Anyway, it was under his leadership western countries started looking towards India as a potential superpower a giant in the region who has the potential to counter the rising power of China. This can be very much understood by the fact that when India conducted Nuclear Bomb test which CIA failed to identify. The USA and Europe posed many sanctions to India but India dint even lost a single digit in his tremendous growth rate, rather Western nations realized that they are losing by not doing trade with India which is world second largest market and slowly diluted sanctions from stopping further losses they were making.
This is the power it gave to the nation and for which he deserves a salute..!!
I must say it was under his leadership when India started shining and people from around the world started respecting India. Inside the country itself, he was so loved that even opposition parties liked him very much.
In the end, I want to say that he will remain an inspiration for all of us and for coming generations.
"What he taught us is to take stand even when the world is against you as eventfully world will follow you"