Atal Bihari Vajpayee

Atal Bihari Vajpayee, born on December 25, 1926 in Bateshwar in Uttar Pradesh, is the Prime Minister of India, a Hindi poet and an orator known for his spellbinding eloquence. Vajpayee's poetry is marked by nationalistic fervor and human values. He believes that poetry should awaken a sense of duty and social responsibility in people. He is inspired by Hindu mythology and his poetry is rich in religious symbolism. Simple in language and imagery, his poems extol the heritage, history and destiny of India. Ideas of cultural nationalism inform his vision of India. According to Bhagwat S. Goyal, the man who translated Vajpayee's poems into English, Vajpayee believes that "Politics and literature do not belong in separate compartments. Rather they enrich and refine each other. When a litterateur gets involved in politics, his politics gets more refined. Similarly if a politician has a literary background he cannot ignore human feelings and emotions."

Prime Minister Vajpayee has occupied a number of distinguished positions during his long and illustrious political career, including those of the Leader of the Opposition and the Foreign Minister, before he took office as India's Prime Minister on October 13, 1999. He has received many honors and awards including the Hindi Gaurava Award and the Padma Bhushan.

The Library of Congress has in its collection twenty works by him and fourteen books on him.

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