New Delhi, March 19 :     Pramod Mahajan?s carefully selected extracts from Indian history elevated Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to the exalted stature of the second Mahatma this evening. At the Vajpayee government?s first anniversary bash amidst the Hauz Khas ruins in south Delhi, Mahajan spoke of his political mentor in a son-et-lumiere presentation in which the major omissions were India?s entire Islamic heritage and the nearly five decades of Congress rule. It was like yesterday?s inauguration of the Doordarshan sports channel: a complete Mahajan show. Had it been a proper anniversary bash organised by the party, there would have been a significant presence of the senior leadership. Among notable absentees were home minister L.K. Advani, who spent the day in Kerala. There were no speeches and no garlanding as Mahajan welcomed the Prime Minister?s cavalcade and led Vajpayee to his seat at the foot of a hastily constructed wooden gallery on which the 2,000-odd invitees had been patiently waiting. The programme started 45 minutes behind schedule. Once it began, the Special Protection Group (SPG) in charge of the Prime Minister?s security realised to its horror that the audience would have to stand and crane their necks to be able to see the performance. The people were allowed to be on their feet through the show as SPG personnel positioned themselves at various vantage points among them. Then, without a warning, the Pokhran blast was simulated. It was a poor recreation, more like a fire-cracker going off with a decibel level that would have satisfied green judges. There were no mushroom clouds and the unimpressed audience forgot to applaud. However, officials later claimed the blast had no link with Pokhran. Once narrator Om Puri took over and the episodes from history began to be enacted, the presentation became smarter. With popular patriotic songs from the film Roja and one by the late Mohammed Rafi among the fare, the audience became more and more engrossed. It was only then that the discerning few in the audience were able to analyse how carefully the team hired by Pramod Mahajan had played around with the history of this country. From Pokhran, the focus moved on to a dialogue between Yudhisthira and Krishna towards the end of the battle of Kurukshetra. The logic for this shift from Pokhran to the Mahabharata was to extol India?s anti-war heritage. A broken Yudhisthira was lamenting the death of his kinsmen and commenting on the futility of war. As an obvious corollary, the next episode dealt with Lord Buddha and his preaching of ahimsa. From Buddha, Mahajan?s performers moved on to a dialogue between Chanakya and Chandragupta Maurya on statecraft and the need for the ruler to be accountable to his subjects. Mahajan?s history then flew across several significant centuries, negating India?s medieval and Islamic dynasties to land directly on the arrival of the British. Jehangir was mentioned only in passing with reference to his granting of permission to the British to set up a factory in Surat. There was no reference to the Sepoy Mutiny. The narrator recited a Mirza Ghalib couplet to rue the arrest of the last of the Mughals. Bhagat Singh was given almost a 50-minute slot in the one-hour-and-50-minute show. Mahatma Gandhi came as the last two paragraphs. He was depicted fasting during Partition riots and wondering if he could travel to Pakistan. The Mahatma could not go to Pakistan. But another son of India, Atal Behari Vajpayee, did. The Wagah outpost scene was enacted. A beaming Mahajan was leading the Prime Minister out as securitymen took over, urging the audience to wait till Vajpayee left. The Congress? contribution to the freedom struggle and to independent India?s governance had been blacked out by Mahajan. Only once, to suggest India?s gaining of freedom, the first few lines of Nehru?s oft-repeated ?Tryst with Destiny? speech was played out. But Nehru?s name was not uttered even once. Others like Lal Bahadur Shastri and Indira Gandhi were even less fortunate. They did not even find mention in passing.