“I prefer to die rather than eat beef.”

Indian statesman and poet

Atal Bihari Vajpayee was an Indian statesman and poet, and a central figure in modern Indian politics. He served as prime minister of India from 1998 to 2004, after a brief term in 1996, and was the first non-Congress leader to complete a full term in office. He was a co-founder and senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party, and earlier served as a full-time RSS pracharak. His politics combined cultural nationalism with a measured public style, and he is associated with a strand of Hindu nationalism that sought to balance civilisational identity with democratic pluralism.