Every day a new crisis. Even party leaders don’t know when all this bloodletting will end.
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“Down, down, down. Would the fall never come to an end? I wonder how many miles I’ve fallen by this time?”
—Chapter 1. Down the Rabbit Hole, Alice in Wonderland.
RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat |
The question being asked is: has BJP-watching become a bloodsport that will end only with the last man standing? Should we liken party leaders to gladiators in the arena, drawing blood at every opportunity? At the time of writing, on Thursday (August 27), five days had passed without the BJP having an official briefing. Since the otherwise voluble party usually fields spokesmen on a daily basis, this seemed a clear sign that the saffron party was terrified by what other embarrassments could be in store. Senior leaders say they are disheartened and demoralised and have no idea when the madness will stop. The BJP may have stopped briefings but as the magazine goes to press, there were reports that RSS sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat intended to go through with the somewhat extraordinary decision to address a press conference the next day, on Friday, August 28.
These are incredibly bad days for the party. Although Shourie ridiculed Rajnath in the eyes of the entire Indian public, the president who’d been so swift to act against Jaswant took no action and lamely asked Shourie for a written explanation. So twisted is the logic of the coteries that operate and so pathological the problems that sources say Rajnath’s “advisors” believe Shourie has his uses—“he can be used to target Arun Jaitley”. One twisted explanation on offer is that Shourie actually hates Jaitley but since the articulate lawyer/politician can’t be ridiculed lightly, Rajnath Singh became the fall guy for the “Humpty Dumpty” and “Alice in Blunderland” barbs. No one actually knows why Shourie is so livid with the two. To quote from chapter two of Carroll’s Wonderland saga, ‘Pool of Tears’, the intrigues in the party are getting “curiouser and curiouser”.
Take, for instance, the cloak-and-dagger operation behind the Bal Apte report ‘leak’ when the party was engaged in the much-publicised introspection session in Shimla. There was indeed a real Bal Apte report that is yet to be made public although it has been shared at party forums. This report is full of homilies and generalities. But there is another document—purported to be the Apte report—that was put into the briefcases of the 25 select invitees to the closed-door meet. One copy was then apparently purloined. An internal investigation, it seems, has revealed that the document was then photographed on a mobile phone and sent by e-mail to a functionary operating out of Rajnath Singh’s office who forwarded it to the media. All of this was apparently done with the purpose of again throwing some mud in the general direction of L.K. Advani, Arun Jaitley and Narendra Modi. Indeed, the version of the fake report initially available on the web is clearly photographs of pages. It’s all terribly sordid and low.
A senior member of the parliamentary board told Outlook: “You pay to take your child to a circus. This is a free performance.” He’s one of the leaders who told Rajnath to tread cautiously on Shourie as “he can be more dangerous outside the party”. The word “vicious” is repeatedly used for Shourie and there is an overall belief that he can cause greater mayhem than Jaswant Singh.
Although not a product of the Sangh parivar, Shourie has written books and essays that give legitimacy to the Hindutva ideology. During the days of NDA rule, he was also a minister in two critical economic ministries (disinvestment and telecommunications) and part of many controversial decisions. In other words, sources say party leaders are afraid of Shourie, whose diatribe was apparently triggered by reports that he was unlikely to be given another Rajya Sabha seat when his current term ends next year. Sources say he had sent feelers to Narendra Modi but had been rebuffed. It was Shourie who had created confusion in the middle of the 2009 election campaign when he said that Modi could certainly be projected as PM. Significantly, even as he lambasted the BJP leadership, Shourie cleverly took cover with a so-called invoking of the name of the RSS. He suggested that the Sangh take over the party.
Take the Jinnah ghost, which must haunt Advani. There must be some soul-searching on why he failed to speak up in defence of Jaswant’s right to analyse Jinnah’s complexities. After the veteran had been expelled, former RSS chief K.S. Sudarshan added to the confusion. At a public function, he stated that Jinnah was once secular and committed to an undivided India but the actions of the Congress leadership drove him to embrace separatism. Those views were very similar to what Jaswant Singh had argued.
The BJP had nothing to say on the ideological contradictions as by then it had suspended all formal media briefings. But off the record, leaders were trying at least to make light of matters. Some samples: “Why are you calling? Is someone else abusing us?” or “We are as clueless as you” or the gem—“We can’t brief you because we are translating Humpty Dumpty into Hindi to explain the meaning of the insult to the party president.” One leader swore he heard an account of a party worker suggesting to Rajnath that since Shourie also called him Tarzan, it was actually a backhanded compliment.
The BJP has always had shades of the surreal and can indeed on days be called the Mad Hatter’s party. But the situation is no longer funny now. Every day a new implosion takes place, a new charge is hurled or an insinuation made. In between the two big bangs by Jaswant Singh and Arun Shourie, there were minor implosions. Brajesh Mishra, principal secretary to Atal Behari Vajpayee, did further damage to Advani’s tattered reputation when he said the former home minister endorsed Jaswant’s journey to Kandahar. At the time of writing, the party was agog with anticipation over what the RSS chief would say the next day [He didn't really say much -- Ed, outlookindia.com] To conclude with another Lewis Carroll gem from the ‘Walrus’ Song’ in Through the Looking Glass (which perhaps best describes the way the RSS has begun to view its wayward child):
“It seems a shame, the Walrus said
To play them such a trick
After we’ve brought them out so far
And made them trot so quick.”