Hi Eddie, Vajpayee cannot be judged solely on the basis of being a long-time member or indeed a founder of the BJP or on the basis of not being fluent in English.
Non ideologue and non orthodox that he was, his only fault would have been by being moderate, to give his party a wider base with the population that allowed it to evolve into the hands of men like Modi and his ilk. If he was even slightly extremist during the sensitive 50s to 80s, his party would have been obliterated from the scene. Although not fluent in English, he knew and had studied the language and I was surprised to learn from you that he orated in Hindi during his Kenya visit. My only explanation to that would be that the Kenyans intimidated him with their pronunciation of English and he must have thought “let’s avoid that problem altogether”. Roland.
