New Delhi: If India, the world’s largest democracy, continues to follow parliamentary democracy, it’s largely due to a man who ironically does not respond when his name Atal Bihari Vajpayee is called.

Not that Vajpayee was opposed to the then Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi’s ambitious plans of leaving behind the colonial British legacy and embracing the American model of presidential supremacy over parliament; it was the fear of Vajpayee that prevented Indira from taking the risk.

Such was the popularity of Vajpayee that while he apparently stood no chance of becoming prime minister as the Bharatiya Jana Sangh was not expected to get a majority in the Lok Sabha, the lower chamber of India’s bicameral parliament, Indira was apprehensive that one-to-one Vajpayee may defeat her in the popularity test.

Probably the words of her father Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Indian premier, still rankled Indira. Vajpayee who served as a parliamentarian for more than four decades and served as member of the Lok Sabha for nine terms and Rajya Sabha twice, was not even 34 years of age and had made his debut as a lawmaker in 1957. His first speech in the house displayed his oratorical skill and mesmerised all, including Nehru — so much so that he predicted that Vajpayee would someday become India’s Prime Minister.

Born into a middle-class upper caste Brahmin family at Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh, Vajpayee became a poet at an early age influenced by his poet teacher father Krishna Bihari Vajpayee. However, instead of becoming a teacher, he found his ideological moorings in the nationalist teachings of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) which asked Vajpayee to join politics when it floated its political wing the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, probably unaware that they were ordering to politics a future prime minister of the country.

Nehru’s prophecy did come true but only 39 years later, by the time three generations of the Nehru-Gandhi family had passed away. Indira and her son Rajiv Gandhi had been assassinated, the son less than seven years after his mother Indira, leaving a leadership vacuum.

Vajpayee had displayed his administrative qualities when he became foreign minister in the first non-Congress party government in 1977. Although he had merged the Bharatiya Jana Sangh that he headed with the Janata Party, he refused to disassociate himself with the RSS leading to the collapse of the Janata Party experiment and the birth of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) under his tutelage.

1996 did provide him with the opportunity to become prime minister, but for just 13 days. The BJP had emerged as the single largest party in a hung parliament and within those 13 days he showed his uncompromising quality as a leader, opting to resign rather than allow himself to be bullied by regional parties for the elusive majority.

And those 13 days were enough to make the masses who always loved him, miss the romantic poet-turned politician as the prime minister. As two governments fell and fresh elections were called, Vajpayee became the prime minister again in 1998. And this time various regional parties had no problem joining hands with a secular Hindu nationalist leader while they were still sceptical of the ideologies of the RSS and the BJP.

By the time he had bowed out as the premier after the shocking defeat of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA), Vajpayee had created a record of becoming the first non-Congress party prime minister to serve a complete tenure.

And that was not the only history he created. Since 1974, when India conducted its first nuclear test, seven prime ministers came and went who lacked the guts to make India a nuclear power. Vajpayee went against the tide within months of taking over the reins of the country in 1998, withstood international pressure and alienation only to make India stronger both militarily and economically, leading to the BJP coining the slogan India Shining.

The BJP lost power in 2004 and India was left to wonder what an ageing Vajpayee could have done to the country had he become prime minister at the prime of his political career.