Cracks In The Parivar

In some circles the kerfuffle over the resignation of L.K. Advani as the president of the BJPhas been compared to the televised drama over Sonia Gandhi's refusal to bethe Prime Minister last May. Apart from the surface similarities in terms oftelevision channels trying to cover a farce live, the differencescould not be more stark.

For one, there was no unanimity among the so-called leaders of the wider SanghParivar, and no one scene of action. As against one 10, Janpath, the attentionthis time was divided between Nagpur, Ahmedabad, Gandhi Nagar and various keypoints in Delhi: Jhandewalan, Prithviraj Road,Krishna Menon Marg and Ashok Road. More importantly, this time the farce being played out could well be said to owe its origins to the TV channelsthemselves.

But let's tackle to the latest episode first and leave dissection anddeconstruction of the role played by media frenzy for another day. It began when news of Mr Advani's letter of resignation as the president of theBJP, addressed to party general secretary (RSS point man) Sanjay Joshi was made public by Mr Advani's aids early morning today:

I am writing this letter just before departing from Karachi. I have decided to request the party to relieve me of presidentship. I am sure acceding to my request would be in the best interests of the great cause I have served all my life, as also of the party which has given me so much. I have taken this decision after pondering the matter very carefully. And I believe that my visit to Pakistan last week has immensely reinforced the initiatives taken by the NDA government to bring about peace and normalcy with Pakistan. I have not said or done anything in Pakistan, which I need to retract orreview.

The last sentence was crucial and it is this which left the RSS stunned andstumbling for words as it had again, late last night, asked for just such a retraction -- or at leasta review. By explicitly ruling it out and releasing a letter which wassupposedly written before departing from Karachi (though one has trouble buying thatat face value), Mr Advani had very adroitly, it seemed, struck where it hurt --challenging the very authority of the RSS without overtly joining issue withit.

The Sarsanghchalak or his deputy were not to be heard from and it was left tothe RSS spokesmanRam Madhav to handle the barrage from the press. He predictably refused to comment on the resignation, calling it an"internalmatter of the BJP" and not its domain. The contradiction does not escape anyonebecause the RSS obviously thinks it is their domain to comment on what the BJPpresident says (or believes or should retract or review). Nor did he have anything to say to A.B. Vajpayee'sendorsement of Advani's remarks on Jinnah. "The chapter is now closed withhis resignation".

The Congress spokespersons too were upset that Mr Advani who otherwise calls them"pseudo-secular is praising the secularism of Jinnah, the architect oftwo-nation theory". All thisafter stating for the record that this is after all between Mr Advani and hisparty and parivar, and having acknowledged it as their internal matter they,perhaps understandably, could not restrain themselves from pointing out the obvious "communicationgap" in the Sangh parivar or that the"mask of Mr Vajpayee does not fit the face of Mr Advani".

The upshot of all this seems to be that both the Congress and the assortedelements of the parivar who have "spoken out" (barring a few, by thetime you get to read it) so fardisapprove of Mr Advani praising "Jinnah's secularism", thusdisplaying their great affinity when it comes to parsing texts not to theirliking.

While the Congress was only behaving true to form, and while there was nary a squeak of satisfaction at the way Advani had been a perfect ambassador, particularly as the "hardline" leader of opposition, for the peace process with Pakistan, itat least made an effort to hide its glee, but the "cracks" (used, in its Indian sense, also as noun) in the Sangh parivar were all too visibleon the TV cameras. Ram Madhav's uncomfortable demeanour was apparent, but the VHP and its various spokesmen, always in search of a mike and a TVcamera were exultant: "This (resignation) is a victory of Ram bhaktas and defeat for Jinnahloyalists." MrTogadia had also earlier felt free to expound on how his heart bled when instead of Mahatama Gandhi, who stoodfor a united India, being invoked in Pakistan, the "gaddaar" Jinnah,the founder of Pakistan, no less, was singled out for praise.

While Atal Behari Vajpayee had expectedly endorsed Mr Advani's remarks, onlythe lower-rung leaders such as Sahib Singh Verma and Sumitra Mahajan openly"spoke out" in Mr Advani's defence ("they should apologise whoasked Advaniji to apologise", "Advaniji is our leader and notTogadiaji, and we shall persuade him to reconsider his decision") earlierin the day after a stunned party tried to come out of the funk it had gone into. Yashwant Sinha,when he spoke, made no secret of the fact that he thought Advani's remarks were"unnecessary and avoidable".

The group described as the Young Jerks (YJs) were away from the TV cameras.Perhaps they were all busy in "damage control". The buzz was thatefforts were on to perhaps get the RSS deputy or someone to come out with asimilar formulation as had been "managed" after the Sarsanghchalak hadtalked his walk: that there was no need for a resignation. But that was not tobe. Besides, it was a tough, unexpected call for them, career-prospects wise: to come out openly against the RSSand the VHP vehemence diminshes their stock in the parivar and thus the party, post-Advani, and the opposing course of action spoils their acceptability among the allies in this coalition era.

Pramod Mahajan, Rajnath Singh, Sushma Swaraj, Ananth Kumar and Bal Aptegenerally so accessible to the press had all huddled up, confabulating in private, firstat Advani's Prithviraj Road residence and then moving on to Vajpayee's Krishna Menon Marghome. By late evening, Advani had been to Vajpayee's, the two had conferred, muchprivate chintan-baithaks had been had, but neither the duo nor any of theYJs would meet the press on record. Uma Bharati, after a similar but separate yatra that also included a stop-over at the BJP office, first would not say anythingto the press, but, by late evening, decided it was time to act responsible and matureby pointing out that while Advani's remarks and resignation were "issues of debate","uncivilised language" should not be used against such an eminent person.

Mohan Bhagwat, general secretary of the RSS had been persuaded to issue aperfunctory statement -- "Togadia has been advised to be careful in the usage of language while referringto eminent leaders like Advani" -- and Venkaiah Naidu was back to mouthingplatitudes about Advani, lashing out at assorted VHP leaders without namingthem, bemoaning the "unacceptable" language used. And that is where thematter rests as of now. Meanwhile, the VHP functionaries are bursting, well, crackers invarious parts of Gujarat and assorted goons are issuing fatwas banningentry of Mr Advani to Gujarat, asking for his resignations from Gandhinagar LokSabha seat, Somnath Trust, and such like, accompanied by much of the usual foaming at the mouth and working themselves into a lather.

But what of Mr Advani? Leaving the wider debate about his own political career aside, how much is he to blame for the cracks in his party andparivar? Well, for one he could point out that his views have always been consistent (determined solely by political expediency and real politik) and thathe is being quoted out of context, apart from the minor matter that he did notquite use the formulation of a "secularJinnah" during his visit to Pakistan (though his admiration for Jinnah seems strikingly genuine and aspirational: after all, basically both are areligious men, cynically encashing religion for politics of hate).

Besides,didn't he, in reminding his hosts, Pakistan, of the historic speech given byJinnah take agreat incisive dig (I desist at using the word crack any more) at his hosts -- atthe "secular state" its founder promised but failed to accomplish, the one that chose instead to become an "Islamic republic"? After all, this is the speech that was sought to be censored almost as soonas it was delivered in 1947, allegedly at the behest of Choudhry Muhammad Ali, the Principal Secretary to thePakistan government.

That particularly since the time of General Zia, anyreference to the speech was routinely censored and all government publicationshad deleted it from their records? That even General Musharraf hasnot made it so bold as to invoke this particular speech explicitly? And wouldn't thegeneral be glad,considering the opposition from the "Islamic fundamentalists" to his"moderate" views and the "secular" image he wants to project of himself andPakistan to the whole world?

Image. The difference between the image and the man. That, after all, seems to be the problem for Mr Advani as well. Cynicswould immediately argue that the whole Pakistan visit was calculated to castaside his hard-liner image and to don the mask of moderation to gain acceptancefrom the rest of the NDA allies, so far reserved for Mr Vajpayee. While there isno denying this, it is also a fact that Mr Advani's platitudes aboutJinnah are, after all, no different from what, say, General Musharraf says about Mahatama Gandhi when he visits New Delhi anddecides to offer a floral wreath at Gandhi Samadhi at Raj Ghat.

But Mr Advani's decision to resign, his aids would have you believe, stemsprimarily from the fact that, during his absence, none of the party leaders spokeup when he was characterised as a "gaddaar" (traitor) by the variousVHP "leaders". A point that gets reinforced by the way eventspanned out today -- as it took a whole day to get the RSS to come out with a"mind your language" message to Togadia & co.

Mr Advani has also thought it fit to let it beknown in an off-the-camera interview to a TV anchor that his decision toresign is not impulsive and that there is no question of withdrawing theresignation now. And also, crucially, that he would not resign as the leader of the oppositionor as the leader of the BJP Parliamentary Party in Lok Sabha. "My resignation is not an emotional decision, it's been well thought out. My family supports mydecision."

"I was referring to Jinnah's vision of a secular Pakistan," he isreported to have said, but he also was perceptive enough to admit, according tothe same anchor, that " either he failed tocommunicate to his party and parivar what exactly he said in what context orthat they failed to understand him"

That perhaps is the crucial question that screams for attention. While there is nothing objectionable about what Mr Advani actuallydid say in all his pronouncements in Pakistan -- and all of them needed to be made -- or should be, even to the Hindutva-walahs in general as they are not anything that the parivar spin-meisters could not have handled, why did he, forever considered thegrand strategist, fail to even take his senior party and parivar members intoconfidence? Indeed, while Mr Advani seemed to have prepared well forhis Pakistan visit, he appears to at least have miscalculated the level of intelligence --and ambition -- and factionalism in own his party and parivar, and ofcourse its inability to face facts for what they are.Or was this all to finallybring it all to a head?

Mr Advani seems to have calculated that either the party, if not the parivar, rallies behind him or at worst he rules by proxy, and goes down in history as a "statesman", in as much as Mr Vajpayee is one for the gullible -- and there are plenty of those around, it would appear. And, in the unlikely event of there being a possibility of an NDA government being formed in the near future, he has ensured his prime-ministerial candidature. The shrill criticism from RSS and abuse from VHP would only improve his image, just as had been the case with Mr Vajpayee. The mask may not fit convincingly now, but what was the option in the face of advancing years, pressure from the RSS to quit and his enduring image as the hardliner of hate?

What wouldeasily have been pitched as raj-niti, real-politik, koot-niti and such like, aimed at securing a better deal for the Hindu minority of Pakistan and inaugration of Hindu temples in "Islamic Pakistan", a master-stroke of statesmanship and diplomacy and even the beginning of a newdiversionary (arguably, even needed) discussion about Secularism and theCongress' own role during Partition, particularly vis-a-vis Jinnah by the greatparivar spin meisters routinely, has become an opportunity for all thecracks in the party to come screaming out full blast.

From a party with a great PR machinery, the BJP seems to have lost the plotentirely. Finally, after the continuing baiting since the stunning defeat lastMay, and the public demand for retirement from the Sarsanghchalak, and perhaps insheer desperation at being publicly taken to task yet again, Mr Advani has sought to take the battle to the Sanghcamp in the hope that the TINA factor would result in the party and the parivarfinally rallying around him.

But the Sangh appears in no mood to compromise and seems determined todemonstrate whoafter all calls the shots -- cute sound-bytes about "internal matters of the BJP" notwithstanding.The problem is that it also seems to be in a bit of a quandry about whoshould head the BJP. The international reactions to Mr Modi and the internalfactionalism in the Gujarat BJP itself seems to have put paid to those wistfulyearnings in some hearts. Ms Bharati, though a favourite, is perhaps too much ofa loose cannon. Other hopefuls are silent, while rumours do the roundsabout who's in the race and who's not.

Meanwhile, Venkaiah Naidu sounds almost touchingly wistful that "even now Mr Advani will accept the wish of the party to reconsider hisdecision," but the battle-lines in the parivar seem clearly drawn.

Perhaps it would be too soon towrite anyone's political obituary, but history sure seems to have come fullcircle for Lal Krishna Advani and the party he built. The master manipulator of media seems to have become its victim this time. Back in 1992, one of his yatras polarised thenation and its polity and this time, as he made his way back from his Pakistan yatra to New Delhi,the cracks in his own party and parivar are more pronounced than everbefore. The poison he had helped spread is difficult to suddenly dilute in keeping with his political expediency, instinctsfor real politik, just as it was for Mr Jinnah to do in 1947.

It is not just the ghost of Mohammed Ali Jinnah that haunts the subcontinent, it has also been joined by the genie that Mr Advani so triumphantly took out of the bottle, the one that now refuses to be put back in.

It would be too much to expect the Congress to honestly introspect on its own role in both these cases, but for now it is up to Lal Krishna Advani and the Bhartiya Janata Party to decide what to do next.They could either get rid of the cracks, or be engulfed by them.

Post Script(added after this article had been uploaded on the site): As for 'victim of the media', it emerges that while Mr Advani's "Jinnah secular" remarks had created a furore in India, Mr Sudhendra Kulkarni had faxed the full text of his remakrs to Mr Prakash Jawdekar who took them to Mr Venkaiah Naidu, Ms Sushma Swaraj and Mr Arun Jaitley, and they, in turn, decided, for reasons best known to them, that they were not fit to be distributed to the press, or even to be put up on the party website. Mr Kulkarni insisted, but he was rebuffed and, despite angry phonecalls, it took Mr Advani's return on Monday for these to be made available on the party website. So much for 'media management' by the BJP's fabled Gen Next. If Mr Advani's own blue-eyed boys and girls were not willing to even release the full texts of his remarks to the press, who is to blame for the confusion over what he had actually said? This website, because of its routine of not filing web-exclusives on Saturdays and Sundays, was the first to point out exactly what Mr Advani had stated in Pakistan and to carry the full-text of his explanatory statement of June 5 as the lead story on June 6.