Post-riots, Vajpayee didn’t want me to go to Gujarat: Kalam

NEW DELHI: Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee did not want the then president APJ Abdul Kalam to visit Gujarat in the aftermath of 2002 riots. Kalam also faced the moral dilemma whether to resign during the office of profit controversy in 2006 when he had to reluctantly sign the bill that kept certain posts out of the list.
This and few other temporal matters find mention in Kalam’s spiritual biography of Pramukh Swami, head of Swaminarayan sect, to be released early next month.The former President claims many of his problems could be resolved with the blessings of the Pramukh Swami.
Transcendence: My Spiritual Experiences with Pramukh Maharaj published by Harper Element, an imprint of HarperCollins, talks of Kalam’s visit to Gujarat in 2002 after the riots. He writes that after the devastating earthquake of 2001, “mindless violence of 2002 dealt us another unexpected blow” “Innocents were killed, families were rendered helpless, property built through years of toil was destroyed. The violence was a crippling blow to an already shattered and hurting Gujarat,” he writes. As President, he wanted to visit the state. But as he writes, “Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was discomfited by my decision. He asked me, ‘Do you consider going to Gujarat at this time essential’? I replied, ‘I must go and talk to the people as a President. I consider this my first major task.’ ” He says there was fear that then chief minister Narendra Modi will boycott the trip. However, he says, Modi and his cabinet colleagues accompanied him.
During the office of profit controversy in 2006, Kalam says, “I experienced an intense moral dilemma: should I have signed or should I resign?” The conundrum, he says, could be resolved only after meeting Pramukh Swami in Delhi.
Kalam writes that after Jaya Bachchan had to resign, “opposition parties smartly turned the fallout from this disqualification against Sonia Gandhi as she was the chairperson of the National Advisory Council”. However, he writes, when the Parliament (prevention of disqualification) Amendment Bill 2006 came to him for approval, “I felt the manner in which exemptions were given was arbitrary”. Kalam says that he first returned the bill for reconsideration but since government sent it back to him without changes, he had no option but to sign the bill.
There is also an episode of Kalam visiting late Khushwant Singh in his house to enquire about his health. Singh told Kalam that he wanted to trash the President’s books that had come for review but later realized he was a good writer.
The book co-authored with Arun Tiwari calls “Swaminarayan temples and Akshardhams” the “sanctuaries of pious and virtuous living”. The book has an interesting cast of characters and events while the story of Pramukh Swami runs throughout the text. Having first met Pramukh Swami in the summer of 2001, Kalam writes he “felt a strange connection with something that exists in the realm of spirit—the part that is closest to the Divine”. “I felt I had acquired a sixth sense,” he writes.
The book also cautiously avoids taking potshots at any religion or individuals and quotes from all religious texts. In fact, Kalam says he has been blessed by his elder brother Maracayer for this project. Maracayer told Kalam about the treaty that Muhammad entered into with Jews and Christian tribes on entering Medina. An important element of the treaty was that each party will hold counsel with the other.