People's Democracy

ADVANI ON HIS WAY OUT

BJP In A Crisis Of Its Own Making

Harkishan Singh Surjeet

BJP chairman Lal Krishna Advani has now got a bit of reprieve. The national council meeting of the party, which was scheduled to open at Chennai on July 21, has been postponed and will now meet in the middle of September. One notes that this was in accordance with the ‘magnanimity’ displayed by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) towards the BJP. The RSS dictation is that (1) Advani is to relinquish any one of the two posts he now holds, i e of party president and of the leader of opposition in Lok Sabha, and (2) he can choose his own timing for relinquishing one of the two posts. It is another thing that the RSS bosses have made it clear that they want Advani out of BJP chairmanship specifically. All the tall talk of bringing to the fore “a new generation” leader points to the same thing.    

BJP CAPITULATES TO RSS BOSSES

AS the RSS bosses had expected that Advani would announce his resignation after the Chennai meeting of the BJP national council, the party had no option but to postpone the meet in order to avoid the inevitable --- as long as possible. The other option was to stand up and defy the RSS leadership’s wishes, which the party did not simply have the guts to do.

The reason is simple. No matter what the BJP says of itself and no matter how much innocence the RSS professes about being a purely cultural organisation that has nothing to do with politics, the fact is different. It is that the BJP is nothing but a creation as well as a handmaid of the RSS and that the latter controls the party from behind the scene. This is what makes comprehensible the Sangh demand, made by its spokesman Ram Madhav on July 17, that “swayamsevaks working in organisations inspired by the Sangh ideology should maintain (the) utmost commitment to ideology and also behave in a manner befitting Sangh traditions.” Madhav also said “serious efforts” must be made in the coming days to address the views of the Sangh on “issues like ideology, conduct, organisation (and the) emergence of a new generation” of leadership. Another demand was of maintaining “organisational discipline,” which cannot mean anything except the RSS discipline.

This also makes comprehensible what BJP vice president Venkaiah Naidu said on the day: “All concerns of the Sangh related to the BJP will be addressed” and “we will then move forward” (The Hindu, July 17).

It is thus clear that, to repeat a cliché once again, it is the RSS that controls the BJP from behind the curtain and that the BJP has to capitulate to the RSS on any particular issue, willingly or unwillingly. In fact, this is the way a fascist, conspiratorial outfit like the RSS functions. Any talk of the BJP having an independent position on a political or another issue is simply a humbug, an eyewash.

Not surprisingly, therefore, the BJP has capitulated to the RSS in the recent episode, after all its prevarication.

ADVANI’S UTTER HUMILIATION

ONE need not go into the details of how the controversy erupted after Advani, while in Karachi, said a few words about Jinnah’s ‘secularism’ and how the VHP, an RSS controlled outfit, began to bay for the BJP chief’s blood. These details are now public knowledge, and have been commented upon in these columns several times. The main thing to ponder here is whether the VHP could dare to utter a single word against Advani if the RSS were not egging it up from behind.

This is the irony of the situation. The same Advani, who led the BJP’s most strident communal campaign in the history of independent India, found himself being dubbed as “secular” (really!) and hence being attacked by an outfit like the VHP. Be that as it may, however, the RSS finally made it clear that it was not for any dilution of its communal ideology.

What took place on Sunday, July 17, was a culmination of the whole drama that had been going on for the last one odd month. On that day, the BJP was to hold a meeting of its general secretaries to discuss the agenda for the Chennai meeting of its national executive. But the meeting could not be held as party leaders remained preoccupied with the RSS bosses’ anger over Advani’s Karachi speech. A few rounds of hectic meetings took place at RSS headquarters in Jhandewalan (New Delhi) between RSS leaders (like Mohan Bhagwat and Suresh Soni) and BJP leaders (Venkaiah Naidu, Jaswant Singh and Sanjay Joshi) in a bid to end the standoff. And then, “After shunting between Jhandewalan and Mr Advani’s residence, the BJP leaders accompanied Mr Advani to Jhandewalan to meet Mr Bhagwat and Mr Soni” (The Hindu, July 18).

Earlier, RSS chief K S Sudarshan had been carefully avoiding Advani for the last one month. According to The Hindu, “Those close to the Sangh disclosed that the telephone call between Mr Advani and Sangh sarsanghchalak K S Sudarshan over the past 24 hours was the “first contact” between the two since the resignation issue came to the fore.”

It was thus that Advani was punished for his “ideological deviation.” The only ‘grace’ shown to him is that he is to himself decide the timing of his resignation, so as to avoid giving the impression that he is quitting under the RSS pressure. It is another thing that any such attempt is bound to be in vain.

One thing, however, can be safely said after watching this month long tragicomic drama. Let alone a national party, the head of even a small party has never suffered such utter humiliation as this poor fellow Advani has. Even Balraj Madhok didn’t suffer such a fate when he was made to quit, in the late 1960s, from the presidentship of the Jan Sangh, the previous incarnation of the BJP.

MUCH WIDER RAMIFICATION

HOWEVER, all this drama involving a person called L K Advani has a much wider ramification. The fact is that, after the NDA’s rout in the May 2004 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP and in general the whole Sangh Parivar has simply been unable to decide their course of action. What to talk of regaining the lost ground, they are at a loss to figure out why the people at all showed them the door. On top of that, the BJP is not yet reconciled to the fact that it is now not a ruling party but one in opposition, and has to behave as such. The plain fact is that parties keep coming into and going out of power in a democratic system, and they adjust their mode of action accordingly. But not so the BJP. The way it has boycotted the parliamentary proceedings in the last one year, only indicates how the BJP is yet to learn the basics of democracy.

However, there is nothing surprising in it. Under the diktat of its mentor, the RSS, the BJP has been taking recourse more to deceit and deception than to legitimate methods of mobilising the people. In March 1998, the BJP came to power because of the following factors:

(1) As the people were fed up with the Congress government led by Narasimha Rao and then with the two United Front governments, they had no option but to vote for the BJP in the absence of any other alternative. The latter’s slogan of being a party of principles and a party with a difference also deceived the people.

(2) Even then the BJP failed to get a majority on its own. So it hurriedly cobbled a post-poll alliance, called the NDA.

(3) But the NDA did not have a majority either. This became possible only because of outside support from the TDP that was till then a part of the United Front. TDP chief, though, extracted a very heavy price from the union government for this support.

But the tragedy is that as soon as the BJP came to power, it embarked on the course of implementing the RSS policies that were detrimental to the people’s interests, to our national unity and our economic sovereignty. India’s prestige in the world arena was jeopardised when the BJP regime began to dismantle our time-tested foreign policy and pursue the goal of becoming the US’s adjunct in South Asia. Liberalised imports of agrarian produce and drastic cuts in subsidies on agricultural inputs led to suicide by thousands of farmers, and showed where the BJP policies would lead us to. The period saw unprecedented attacks on Christians and Muslims.   

ROOT OF THE CRISIS

BUT, as they say, you can deceive all the people for some time and some people all the time but you cannot deceive all the people all the time. The result was that the basically secular, peace loving and freedom loving people of this country rejected the BJP and allies as soon as they got a chance. So much so that they did not make the BJP the largest party, thus depriving it of a claim to be called for government formation. No amount of propaganda barrage about feel good and India shining came to the rescue of the party.

In fact, this is where the root of the BJP’s crisis lies. While its policies in diverse fields are not acceptable to the people, the RSS cannot now push its agenda the way it did during 1998-2004. But, as said, the brigade is still unable to fathom out why the people showed them the door. The RSS and its outfits still think the BJP was defeated because of too little communalism. This is what transpired from the August 2004 meeting of BJP national executive and from the Haridwar conclave of the RSS which VHP leaders boycotted till Advani remained there. But the fact is that it was their communalism that earned for the BJP its well-deserved defeat.

This their tragedy is. They cannot give up their communal, pro-rich and pro-imperialist policies, as these are their very raison d’etre, while the people too are not prepared to condone these policies. The result is that, as the proverb goes, they are all dressed up and nowhere to go. The only novelty of the situation is that as they have nowhere to go, they all are tearing up one another’s dresses. The way Ms Uma Bharti defied Advani’s authority last year was only one example of the internecine conflict going on within the BJP and between various outfits of the Sangh Parivar.

Nay, this was precisely the reason that last year the RSS desisted from handing the BJP’s responsibility over to the “new generation” leaders. Uma Bharti, Pramod Mahajan, Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj, and so on and so forth --- all are pulling one another’s legs.

CONFUSION GETS CONFOUNDED

AND now the latest episode involving Advani has confounded the confusion already prevailing within the BJP. There is no doubt that, on his part, Advani’s attempt was to get for himself a new dress, that of a moderate, though he was all along considered the leader of hawks within the BJP. (This means unrealistically assuming that a doves and hawks division is valid for the BJP, though some people do think so.) For the so-called moderate image of Vajpayee had indeed paid some dividend to the Sangh Parivar and no less to Vajpayee. If he was acceptable to other NDA allies, and if the RSS pushed him forward as the prime ministerial candidate, the only reason was his ‘moderate’ image, which the RSS did it best to exploit.   

By all indications, Advani’s attempt was to step into Vajpayee’s shoes by getting for himself a new image, and the way Fernandes, Nitish & Co. welcomed his Karachi speech indicated that he could well be accepted by the rump NDA. But this was precisely what irked the VHP and other Parivar outfts, coupled with the hypocritical statement that the Babri demolition was the saddest episode of Advani’s life. And now, by all indications, Advani is on his way out; the only thing is: when!

But the thing is: will Advani’s ouster pull the Sangh Parivar out of the inevitable, and unenviable, predicament it finds itself in? Going by the available indications, the answer may be in the negative.

To be very frank, we of the CPI(M) and the Left are not concerned with the internal problems of the BJP. It will be another thing if their problems begin to affect the national life and polity. But one thing we do say. While the LPG policies cannot solve the people’s problems and are only adding to popular discontent, the Left and democratic forces have to be doubly vigilant so that this discontent is not diverted into fratricidal channels. This demands energetic mass movements from the Left parties. And let me assure you of one thing: the situation today is favourable as never before.

In the end, a few words about the NDA parties. Out of their hunger for power, these parties chose to remain mute spectators to whatever the saffron brigade went on doing during 1998-2004. The BJP’s allies did not do anything except making a faint murmur even while Muslims were being butchered in Gujarat, with a windbag like Fernandes going to the extent of praising Modi. And they have reaped what they had sowed. The fate of Chandrababu Naidu and Om Prakash Chautala can serve as an object lesson to the other NDA parties for future.      

It is not only that the mass base of NDA parties has eroded, the NDA itself has undergone an erosion. The TDP has deserted it and so have the INLD, Haryana Vikas Party (that later merged into the Congress), half a dozen parties in Tamilnadu, the AGP, the LJP, the National Conference and so on. As for the rest, the BJD etc is not very keen to defend the BJP on this or that issue. There thus remain with the BJP only those parties that have nowhere else to go. E g the JD(U), Shiv Sena and Trinamul Congress. And they too have suffered no less erosion in their mass base.

By now one thing is patently clear --- that whosoever aligned with the BJP had to pay dearly for it. As of today, can the other parties hope to gain by aligning with a party that cannot maintain its own internal cohesion or win the people’s confidence? This the non-Congress secular parties have to ponder in their own interest.