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The day after
election results were declared, two Rashtraya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) senior
leaders went to meet BJP leader L K Advani who had announced relinquishing
the post of the leader of the opposition. These leaders had gone to endorse
his decision on behalf of the Sangh. But to their surprise, nay shock,
Advani informed them that he had decided to continue as opposition leader in
view of the “request from party leaders” and in order to “cushion the
post-defeat impact on the party”. The change came about within 24 hours.
Reason: Advani
oscillates between a high sense of self-righteousness that makes him
renounce the allurement or trappings of power at the drop of a hat (Hawala,
Jinnah, Kandhar) and a perceived sense of duty that an `acquired’ image of a
leader of `Hinduttva vintage’ forces him to carry.
Again, two
allegations were leveled against Advani in post- defeat slanging-match. One
that his Man Friday Sudheendra Kulkarni’s article lambasting the Sangh and
putting the blame for defeat on the latter was written at the behest of
Advani. Second, his `coterie’ made tacit attempt to see that another BJP
senior leader is defeated. Even some senior Sangh leaders believe the first
allegation to be true although few in the party give any credence to the
second accusation. Advani was misunderstood.
The fault lies
with this octogenarian’s personality. He has become prisoner of his own
image in the last one decade. Those, who know Advani, instantly trash both
allegations.
“Do you think he
had asked Sudheendra to write an article lambasting the Sangh in an attempt
to put blame on it” ask such people. “Second allegation is a product of a
perverted mind” they add.
But, then, why
do some Sangh senior leaders believe in complicity of Advani with regard to
Sudheendra’s article? Advani’s personality alternates between various
paradoxes --what he has imbibed as culture and what political dispensation
demands of him; a rational being who rejects identity politics and a leader
of Rath-Yatra fame that allows him to bask in reflected Rama-glory; a
quintessentially gentleman politician whose party is degenerating and a
family-man who keeps telling the world how he loves Kamla, his wife and
Pratibha, his daughter as any decent Hindu does to the institution of
family.
It is gentleman
politician in Advani that too often hamstrings himself resulting in his
giving scope for people to misunderstand him. He would not stop a
Sudheendra from writing anti-Sangh piece. Obviously, this gives scope to
Advani-baiters to think that Sudheendra being his man cannot do so on his
own. Sudheendra has a leftist background. Advani who has been trying to
offload the Hindutva baggage to make the BJP a modern, aggregative and all
encompassing party finds in Sudheendra a person who can be used for giving
`right suggestions’.
Few people know
that initially Advani was averse to Varun Gandhi’s anointment as youth
hardcore Hindu icon. I was the first TV journalist to interview him during
his election campaign. The news of Varun Gandhi’s arrest in Pilibhit was
notified (through a slip) to Advani who was half way through his election
speech in Gorakhpur. Advani did not mention the name of Varun nor did he
criticize the Government for arresting the scion of Gandhi family. Later
when I asked him in the aircraft why he did not mention Varun issue, he
showed a palpable reluctance suggesting he did not endorse that kind of
politics. But a day later BJP president Rajnath Singh, another leader sans
any mass base visits jail to meet Varun. He and his cronies saw in the issue
a major tool to galvanize Hindus. Advani again took the opprobrium. He was
again misunderstood because he did not stand up to a plan which smacks of
turpitude ---a recourse that normally leaders without mass support take.
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Observe the
contrast. In my interview Advani clearly said the party should reach out to
Muslims and instill a sense of confidence. And under this perception he
refuses to mentions even arrest of Varun in his election speeches. Two days
later, when some party leaders forces him to allow Varun’s anti-muslim
utterances a poll issue, he yields.
Yes, Advani has
a coterie –not because he is temperamentally scheming but because of his
penchant for anglicized individuals who talk in sociological terminology. A
Sudheendra, a Swapan and some Aruns who have no touch with ground realities
but are in their argumentative best form part of his coterie. That is
because of initial upbringing of Advani in a cultured but Anglicized
atmosphere and therefore his penchant for seeking justification for identity
politics through the prism of rationality and intellectualism.
That is the
reason why not a single BJP chief minister was there in the group that
fashioned election strategy. Is it not a paradox that those who have no
touch with ground reality dictate those who have been facing the masses day
in and day out in their respective states? Even when the strategists
identified “Weak Manmohan” as one of the main issues, at least two Chief
Ministers opposed the idea but they were ignored. Even the Sangh is
shrieking from the rooftop saying “we do not endorse what Varun had
said” (MG
Vaidya’s article).
Apart from
personality trait there is another reason behind why Advani oscillates, nay,
dithers. Riding the crest of Hindutva wave the BJP and Advani did walk upto
Raisina Hills seat of central power. But subsequent poll results showed
pursuing hardcore Hindutva even in euphoric days of post-demolition phase
could not win the party more than 16 to 18 per cent of total votes polled.
The party realized that by and large Hindus are liberal. They found majority
Hindus do not like dogmatically created anti-Muslim shrilled pitch. As 18
per cent votes are insufficient to win seats in the Lok Sabha it had become
imperative to bring in an Atal Behari Vajpayee. As Vajpayee has faded out of
scene, Advani wanted to don that mantle. Jinnah statement should have been
scene in that light. But Advani erred again. He could not realize that
saying that Jinnah was secular in a book release function in India is
different from saying it in Pakistan (Karachi), a Muslim country with whom
we have a history of four major wars. Sudheendras prevailed. A reasoning and
fairly knowledgeable Advani could not see the obvious.
Today Advani is
caught in a cross-fire. The Sangh which has developed this political adjunct
from a seed into a big political tree feels cheated when it is told about
party’s limitations in the new and emerging social context. “Yes, let them
shun Hindutva in order to get more `secular’ allies”, said Sangh leader MG
Vaidya in a recent article. In fact in his sarcasm he wanted to caution the
BJP of the corresponding repercussions.
Advani’s
predicament is that he can neither say goodbye to Sangh or Hindutva (for
fear of losing 16 to 18 per cent base votes) nor can he allow the party as
its senior most and most accepted mass leader to function in isolation
ignoring the fact that majority of 80 per cent Hindus abhor high pitch
anti-Muslim gestures.
Besides, Advani
as a rational leader also knows that priorities of 4.10 crore young voters
who were included after 2004 elections are different as India is changing
apace. They are either de-politicized or have job as their priority.
Hindutva hardly influences them.
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[The author is
Political Editor, ETV , and can be contacted at email:
singh.nk@etv.co.in , 2E/12, Jhandewalan Extnsn New Delhi 110055 M-bile
9312623020 ]