Internet on Independence Day (1995)

71. The BJP’s first government (1996)
It was a government known more for the dramatic way in which it collapsed than its formation or governance. Yet, the 13-day government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee marked a pivotal turn in Indian politics and the end of the political isolation of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) by elevating arguably the tallest Opposition leader in Parliament to the prime minister’s position. After the 1996 election, the BJP emerged as the single-largest party in Parliament for the first time, leaving a weakened Congress far behind. But when asked by President Shankar Dayal Sharma to form the government, Vajpayee found the party’s image tough to shake off and didn’t manage to win over even a single legislator from other parties. But his emotional resignation speech struck a chord with many ordinary people and only elevated his legacy as a statesman. He would go on to become prime minister twice again, definitively bringing the curtain down on an era where the BJP’s Hindu nationalist moorings were seen as a hindrance, and laid the groundwork for the party’s unprecedented dominance two decades later.
The Kargil War (1999)
Kargil war: In the end, India emerged victorious, stamping its military superiority in the region while Pakistan lost face both domestically and internationally.
On May 3, 1999, local shepherds in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kargil region spotted something unusual: The intrusion of men speaking an unfamiliar tongue, seemingly from across the border. They reported it to the army, which sent out a patrol team – but the men were captured and killed. By the end of the week, it was clear that this was no ordinary incursion across the Line of Control by isolated militants but a large-scale intrusion by Pakistani army backed forces. In a fierce offensive over the course of the next two months, the Indian military flushed clean strategic heights and key sectors – the first time the two nuclear-armed neighbours had engaged in military conflict since the 1971 war of independence of Bangladesh. In the end, India emerged victorious, stamping its military superiority in the region while Pakistan lost face both domestically and internationally. The episode, which was the first war broadcast on live television, also underlined the political chaos and rivalry between Islamabad and Rawalpindi, and dealt a body blow to the fledgling peace process.