When the Vajpayee ‘parivar’ made the Parivar uneasy

When the Vajpayee ‘parivar’ made the Parivar uneasy

In a new book, political scientist and author Vinay Sitapati traces not only Atal’s jugalbandi with Advani but also the ‘high command’ at home who shaped his life

28.11.2020

Soon after he became a Lok Sabha MP, Vajpayee was invited to Ramjas College to give a talk. Present in the audience was a middle-aged philosophy professor, Brij Nath Kaul, along with his younger wife, Rajkumari. Rajkumari and Vajpayee had been classmates in Gwalior in 1941, but the attraction had fizzled and they had lost touch for the next sixteen years. The Ramjas talk rekindled the flame. From then on—and through the 1960s—the Kauls and Vajpayee were constantly in each other’s homes. When B.N. Kaul became warden of Ramjas hostel, students would know that Vajpayee was visiting by an official black Ambassador car parked outside. Kaul’s children soon became Vajpayee’s. He developed a special affection for the younger daughter, Namita, who was called Gunnu…

The heart of the relationship between Vajpayee and Rajkumari was intellectual. From a provincial north Indian milieu, Vajpayee was both perplexed by as well as attracted to an educated woman who could hold her own. Friends remember Rajkumari arguing with Vajpayee on politics, her persistent yet soft sentences a contrast with Vajpayee’s commanding words. Rajkumari was fluent in English, well read and, unlike Vajpayee, came from an urbane family. As a Kashmiri Pandit in the Delhi of the 1960s, she had got to know the ‘Kashmiri Mafia’, i.e., the Pandit bureaucrats and officials who surrounded first Nehru, then his daughter — Rajkumari Kaul was after all a blood relation of Indira Gandhi. All this added up to a confident liberal.

This presented the RSS with a hurdle. As a family friend of the Kauls says: ‘The RSS had a huge problem with aunty Kaul. Vajpayee was a show-boy and they were proud of him. But they were very scared of aunty Kaul. Aunty Kaul had a huge influence on Vajpayee. She was a very, very powerful woman. She also made Vajpayee far more mellow, secular, cosmopolitan than he initially was. He was quite a provincial politician before he met her.’ If Mr Kaul had an objection to the relationship, he never articulated it. While Mr Kaul raised no objections, the party did...

Sometime around 1965, (RSS chief) Golwalkar travelled by train from Nagpur to Delhi, headed straight to the RSS office in Jhandewalan, and called a meeting with one item on the agenda: What was to be done about Mrs Kaul? Bhausaheb Deoras, the UP pranth pracharak, voiced his opinion: ‘As long as there is no publicity, it’s ok.’ Jana Sangh treasurer Nanaji Deshmukh disagreed, saying, ‘He [Vajpayee] should marry Rajkumari Kaul.’ Golwalkar listened to these opinions before pronouncing his own. He told Vajpayee to break off the relationship with Mrs Kaul. ‘Vajpayee, to his credit, refused to do so,’ Dattopant Thengadi, who was present, later told an aide.

Faced with a choice, Golwalkar decided not to punish Vajpayee… But it was also decided that Vajpayee would be removed from the inner circle of the RSS. Until now, Vajpayee had always done what the RSS had asked of him. But from now on, they would be at arm’s length, each needing the other, each never trusting the other.

Though she took care to never appear in the press herself, Rajkumari Kaul would ensure that the Hindi-speaking Vajpayee reached out to the Englishspeaking media. Karan Thapar remembers calling up Vajpayee’s house number to schedule an interview. ‘Mrs Kaul picked up and very sweetly asked us to come. When we came on schedule, Vajpayee was waiting. “You have spoken to the high command,” he told us.’ Advani had known Rajkumari Kaul for the last thirty years, and both had accepted the primacy of the other in their man’s life. What Advani found harder to accept was that Rajkumari Kaul’s son-inlaw Ranjan Bhattacharya and daughter Namita began to wield power.

In May 2001, the prime minister drove to the home minister’s home for a fourhour lunch. Advani poured out his hurt. He was being ignored by his oldest friend. Advani complained: ‘Not just other members of your family, but even Mrs Kaul is calling me a saanpnaath [snake lord].’ Vajpayee listened to Advani, then poured out his own hurt: Why were those close to Advani leaking stories in the press against his daughter and son-in-law? And why had the attacks on him by the RSS been so ‘vituperative’? Advani replied that it was thanks to his personal intervention that the criticisms had been ‘general rather than pointed’. Vajpayee got the message. He could not sideline both the RSS and Advani and expect to survive.

Edited excerpts from ‘Jugalbandi: The BJP before Modi’ by Vinay Sitapati with permission from Penguin Viking

KINSHIP: The Kauls became Vajpayee’s foster family. (From left) Rajkumari’s son-in-law Ranjan Bhattacharya, granddaughter Neharika, daughter Namita, at his cremation

The RSS was scared of Rajkumari Kaul’s influence. After a meeting in 1965, RSS chief Golwalkar told Vajpayee to break off the relationship. As he refused it was decided that Vajpayee would be removed from the inner circle of the RSS