People's Democracy

IT was confusion galore. Contradictions marked the event. The lack of enthusiasm was palpable. The BJP observed its golden jubilee on October 21 --- more as a ritual than an opportunity for introspection. The pomp and hype that normally accompany a BJP event were missing from the national council session of the party. It seemed the party was speaking in many voices. Or, was it mere posturing for other RSS constituents? The trappings of power, the worries to gain/retain power at all costs, were nakedly visible.

The reason is simple. As we know, the Jan Sangh earlier and the BJP later traversed many routes, and wore many a cap from "Gandhian socialism" to "integral humanism," to get itself catapulted to power. Retaining this power, naturally, was the paramount concern for its leaders who are undergoing considerable worry with their shrinking base and the ordinary cadres’ indifference.

The three years in power have exposed the party to the hilt. The cry of being "a party with a difference," which they used to gain power, is unable to dupe the masses any more. The BJP’s years in office at the centre have torn away the fancy masks that it wore from time to time.

And that is why none other than Shri L K Advani articulated that time has come to go back to the basics! Nostalgically recalling his blood-stained rathyatra, he said: "If we had not taken up the Ram Janmabhoomi issue as a symbol of cultural nationalism (read: majority communalism), we would not have progressed so much." He then expressed the determination to "continue to project it in the right perspective and carry it forward."

The resolution adopted at the BJP national council session said in the same vein: "The Ayodhya movement became reflective of India's cultural personality. It convinced the people of the certain and sharp distinctions between positive secularism and pseudo-secularism. Symbols of India's cultural personality are not inconsistent with secularism. The movement created a massive national impact and changed the mindset of millions of Indians. Our acceptability grew. We spread into those areas of the country where we earlier had little presence. We found legislative representation in almost every major state….. The 1996 elections made us the central pole of Indian polity. It was a landmark election. We emerged as the largest single party in parliament."

There is no doubt that if it had not been for the infamous rathyatra, the communal clashes and deaths that were engineered in its wake and the consequent polarisation, the BJP could not have imagined to occupy the seat of power in New Delhi. The reaffirmation has not come a bit late, and is intended to serve two purposes. While the BJP wants to refurbish its Hindutva image, keeping in mind the long term perspective of establishing a Hindu Rashtra, in the immediate context, it is the UP elections that are upper most in the BJP leaders’ minds.

In UP, the last assembly elections did not give the BJP any mandate to rule. It came to power only by engineering defections and breaking parties --- throwing to the wind its own claim of being "a party with a difference." The defectors were rewarded en masse. A jumbo-size cabinet, unprecedented in the country's history, was formed. A total of 94 MLAs, including about six dozen defectors, were made ministers. But five years in governance have seen the ground beneath their feet shifting. Corruption, nepotism and maladministration have been ruling the roost. The BJP changed the chief minister twice, but has failed to recover the lost ground. It is only Ayodhya that can bail them out --- so thinks the entire BJP now. Hence the perceived need to bring Lord Ram from the vanvas of all these years, and to resurrect the movement to build the temple. There is no doubt that from time to time the VHP, Bajrang Dal and other such outfits had been reminding the people of Ram Lala, lest their devotion be questioned. But the fervour and the tempo were missing. Now they have decided to inflame the passions on the issue of Ayodhya once again, with all the venom at their command.

At the national council meeting, BJP president Jana Krishnamurthy took off from where Advani left. He reminded the delegates of the "kind of relationship" the BJP and RSS have. The BJP-RSS relationship has been defined from time to time, depending on the political climate and context. While at times the RSS has sought to project itself as a "cultural" organisation and the BJP as its political wing, in fact the RSS has been the preceptor (guru) and the BJP its disciple. At times, attempts have been made to obfuscate the difference between the two, while at others they have sought to mislead the masses by projecting a distance between the two. However, all these attempts to confuse the people have so far failed. The people saw the line demarcating the two vanishing the very day the Janata Party was split in 1979 on the issue of dual membership of the leaders of present day BJP --- membership of both the Janata Party as well as the RSS. While a majority in the Janata Party wanted that the Jan Sangh men within its ranks severe all links with the RSS, the swayamsewaks were not willing to do so. The Morarji Desai government fell as a result. The pro-RSS elements fought the Lok Sabha elections in 1980 on the Janata Party ticket but later walked out of the party when they thought that the party was no more of any use to them.

It was natural for the BJP president to remind his cadres of the robust relationship the two organisations enjoy. Himself a hardcore swayamsevak, Krishnamurthy explained: "Whenever the party errs to uphold dharma, the Sangh corrects it." But the contention failed to carry conviction. While the RSS control over the BJP is an open secret, the people are not ready to buy the theory that the RSS has been correcting the erring BJP functionaries. Rather than doing so, they have rehabilitated even people like Bangaru Laxman who had to relinquish the post of BJP president after he was caught receiving money from decoy arms dealers.

Can the television image of the BJP president receiving cash and stashing it into his drawer at the BJP's national headquarters be washed from public memory? It is a solemn reminder that "the party with a difference" is in fact no different. They talk of probity but the shameless manner in which George Fernandes was re-inducted into the union cabinet, smacks of contempt both for the commission of inquiry constituted under the law and for people's sensibilities. Fernandes was forced to resign after the Tehelka tapes showed the footage of his party president receiving money at his official residence from fictitious arms dealers in return for promise of favour. No less a person than the prime minister has come out in his defence and exonerated him even before the inquiry commission has completed its work. Readers will recall that the BJP had refused to concede the opposition demand for a JPC inquiry into the Tehelka expose. It, instead, appointed the Venkataswami commission. Now showing utter disrespect to the commission that it had itself instituted, it has re-inducted Fernandes, one of the persons whose conduct is under the scanner, that too only a few days after the commission had authenticated that the tapes were undoctored. So much for morality and probity in public life! Going by the same yardstick, is it not the turn of Bangaru Laxman now?

Corruption is, the BJP says, a part of political life. While Venkaiah Naidu says that the opposition, which is "neck-deep in corruption," has no right to criticise it, party veteran K R Malkani takes cover behind the fact that "we have more gentlemen than the Congress does."

Being in power has evidently corrupted the BJP stalwarts, and given rise to soaring ambitions and indiscipline. That Shankarsinh Vaghela could engineer a vertical split in the BJP legislature party in Gujarat, speaks volumes about the party losing grip over its organisation. Even a leader of the stature of Madan Lal Khurana resigned from ministry and later from his elected position in the party. Factional squabbles and bickering over party positions have reached menacing proportions.

All this explains why the BJP is fast losing ground among the people and sees its prospects of winning constantly and increasingly dwindling. The only way out of this unenviable situation, to their way of thinking, is to polarise the people on communal lines, particularly now when the UP elections are fast approaching. That was the reason why, in connivance with a pliant state administration, some VHP leaders entered the prohibited area in violation of the Supreme Court ruling. The hypocrisy was more than evident. While the state administration had to perforce file an FIR against the law-breakers, the union home minister gave them a clean chit saying they had not violated any law. The question is: if the union home minister himself is out to condone the crime, who is going to believe that the state government would pursue the case in an independent manner?

On his part, the prime minister too is doing whatever he can to help the RSS brigade realise its nefarious aim, though still trying to resurrect his "moderate" image that has been badly sullied in the last few months. While in Lucknow, his constituency, he told the press on October 22 that "negotiations" are on to resolve the Ayodhya dispute. Yet he refrained from divulging as to who is negotiating with whom. It is the same Vajpayee who had told his party colleagues at the national council jamboree that he could not do much in this regard as the matter was sub judice. And it is the same Vajpayee who had earlier promised that a solution to the dispute would be found before March 12, 2002 --- the dateline set by the VHP hawks at the time of Mahakumbh in the early part of this year.

Moreover, Vajpayee has now cleared the ground for constitution of an "Ayodhya cell" in the PMO. He has approved the name of an officer of Uttaranchal cadre as the head of the proposed cell that is soon to be notified. It is true that Vajpayee first talked of a peaceful solution of the dispute: either an out-of-court settlement or through a court verdict. But, as The Statesman editorially put it on October 22, "Advani categorically rejected the idea that courts of law can have anything to do in the matter." The RSS-BJP’s sense of contempt for our judicial system is nothing new. Vajpayee toed this hard-line stance of Advani by constituting the Ayodhya cell. All this is a signal enough that, on its part, the government will help the Sangh Parivar realise its aim, while the frenzied mobs may take to the streets once again and stoke the flames of communal fratricide. In fact, the way of blood and mayhem remains the only way the RSS and its outfits can fulfil their heinous dreams.

The question is: what do the non-communal NDA partners have to say? As usual, they are maintaining a stoic silence even in the face of such vociferous articulation of the intent to resurrect the "Ayodhya movement." They did not raise a finger about the unashamed imposition of saffron agenda in the sphere of education, forcing our children to be groomed as bigots and fanatics. By their silence, they allowed the reversal of the basic goals and direction of our education system --- like the goals of democracy, equality and secularism. They allowed the institutions of higher learning like the NCERT, ICHR, IIMC and ICSSR to be packed with RSS men and introduction of courses in Vedic astrology, karmakand, yogic consciousness, etc, which promote superstition and obscurantism.

It seems the BJP’s allies in the NDA are content with their power and pelf, caring not a bit for what will happen to the secular ethos of this country, to its federal democratic structure, to our national unity, and to our time-tested foreign policy and our status in the world. Nay, they appeared not even bothered about their own mass base that is suffering erosion because of the BJP government’s LPG policies and its misdeeds in other spheres. Going by the fate of the allies in the assembly and local bodies polls that have taken place in the last three years, such an erosion is undoubted.

Now that no less a person that Advani has urged to "carry the movement forward," is it not the time for these NDA partners to ponder which way the BJP is taking the country? Even though the BJP had promised to keep out contentious issues like abrogation of article 370, uniform civil code and Ayodhya out of the National Agenda for Governance to placate its allies, BJP leaders are quite vocal that they have only postponed these issues, not given them up. Moreover, by their practice, BJP leaders have even made it clear that the government at the centre is in fact a BJP government. One will hence be watching how long these allies continue to behave like ostriches!