Editing Atal Bihari Vajpayee (section)

== Early works as activist ==

His activism started in [[Gwalior]] with Arya Kumar Sabha, the youth wing of the [[Arya Samaj]] movement, of which he became the general secretary in 1944. He also joined the [[Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh]] (RSS) in 1939 as a ''swayamsevak'', or volunteer in [[Gwalior]] at the age of 12 years. Influenced by [[Babasaheb Apte]], he attended the Officers Training Camp of the RSS during 1940 to 1944, becoming a ''pracharak'' (RSS terminology for a full-time worker) in 1947. He gave up studying law due to the [[Partition of India|partition]] riots. He was sent to Uttar Pradesh as a ''vistarak'' (a probationary ''pracharak'') and soon began working for the newspapers of [[Deendayal Upadhyaya]]: ''Rashtradharma'' (a Hindi monthly), ''[[Panchjanya (magazine)|Panchjanya]]'' (a Hindi weekly), and the dailies ''Swadesh'' and ''Veer Arjun''.<ref name=":1" /><ref>{{Cite news|url=http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/outliers-prime-minister-narendra-modi-rss-pracharak-indira-gandhi-p-v-narashima-rao-atal-bihari-vajpayee/1/355731.html|title=The outliers who won the PMs post|access-date=24 July 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161112204756/http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/outliers-prime-minister-narendra-modi-rss-pracharak-indira-gandhi-p-v-narashima-rao-atal-bihari-vajpayee/1/355731.html|archive-date=12 November 2016|url-status=live}}</ref>{{sfn|Jaffrelot|1996|pp=131–132}}

By 1942, at the age of 16 years, Vajpayee became an active member of the [[Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh]] (RSS) and joined it shakha in [[Gwalior]] along with his elder brother. Although the RSS had chosen not to participate in the [[Quit India Movement]], in August 1942, Vajpayee and his elder brother Prem were arrested for 24 days during the Quit India Movement. He was released after giving a written statement that while he was a part of the crowd, he did not participate in the militant events in Bateshwar on 27 August 1942. Throughout his life, including after he became prime minister, Vajpayee has labelled the allegation of participation in the Quit India Movement to be a false rumour.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Chatterjee|first1=Manini|first2=V. K.|last2=Ramachandran|url=http://www.frontline.in/static/html/fl1503/15031150.htm|title=Vajpayee and the Quit India movement|journal=[[Frontline (magazine)|Frontline]]|date=7 February 1998|access-date=11 November 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130928060424/http://www.frontline.in/static/html/fl1503/15031150.htm|archive-date=28 September 2013|url-status=live|quote=a role he explicitly denied then and has denied again, in his January 1998 interview to Frontline.}}</ref>