:: Nihal Singh

The great divide within the BJP

S. Nihal Singh

Behind the poor showing of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the general election was the crisis of identity the party faced, among other factors. This led to a split personality between a party ready to absorb 21st century innovations and technology such as the Internet and social networking websites like Facebook and social and ideological mores that would take India back to a mythical golden age.

Partly, of course, the umbilical cord that connects the BJP to its mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), can explain this dual personality. It is incumbent upon leaders from top down, from Atal Behari Vajpayee to Lal Krishna Advani, publicly to declare their loyalty to the RSS creed.

The precise connection between the two organisations is never fully explained. Historically, the RSS has claimed to be a cultural organisation on occasion to escape political punishment. But nobody disputes the fact that major decisions taken by the BJP must be approved by the RSS. And when a leader strays from course, such as Mr Advani's remarks on Mohammad Ali Jinnah's avatar as a secularist in Karachi, retribution is swift. He was deprived of the party presidency.

Mr Advani succeeded in winning back the RSS' trust by agreeing to an ailing Mr Vajpayee conferring upon him the title of Prime Minister-in-waiting, a peculiar American presidential graft on to the Indian parliamentary system. In contributing to the Hindutva philosophy, Mr Advani has the distinction of converting it into a saleable political commodity by launching a blood-spattered rath yatra accompanied by incendiary rhetoric leading to the destruction of the Babri Masjid and the polarisation of the Hindu voter, particularly in Uttar Pradesh.

In his new role as an aspiring Prime Minister, Mr Advani tried to invent a new image of a more tolerant and inclusive politician in the manner of his senior, Mr Vajpayee. His political memoir, revealing a softer and emotional side to his character, was launched in Delhi with much fanfare, surely a unique feat for a politician still in the thick of politics. And he even shed tears in a television studio over the rough treatment meted out to him by his party colleagues and the RSS over his Jinnah remarks.

Against this backdrop, Mr Advani was particularly ill-equipped to cope with the problem created by Varun Gandhi's hate speeches whose intemperate phraseology aimed at Muslims was astounding even by the yardstick of election campaign rhetoric. He had not then been nominated as the party's candidate for Pilibhit, but instead of drawing a line below such hate rhetoric, the BJP sprang to his defence, sheltering behind Mr Gandhi's transparent alibi that the tapes were doctored, and the young Gandhi belonging to the wrong branch of the Gandhi family was duly given the party ticket, which he converted into victory.

The BJP's strange conduct cost it countless Muslim votes around the country because although Muslims do not always vote collectively, here was a budding BJP politician being blessed by the party leadership for totally unacceptable remarks against 12 per cent of the country's population. It was perhaps less strange that Narendra Modi, who had presided over the 2002 Gujarat pogrom, should be billed as the party's star campaigner addressing a total of an estimated 300 rallies. In the popular mind, Mr Modi had already been crowned Mr Advani's successor.

A second cardinal mistake Mr Advani made was to express his frustration with emerging political trends by repeatedly aiming cruel and personal barbs at Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. His main charges, repeated ad nauseam, were that he was the weakest Prime Minister ever and he was not master in his own house, taking as he did orders from Congress president Sonia Gandhi's residence. Dr Manmohan Singh was finally provoked to charge Mr Advani with sins of omission and commission during his days in power, but few sober men and women forgave the BJP leader for dragging the political debate to such a level.

The confusion about what the BJP is and should stand for is reflected in the party's election manifesto building up a dream history of India by distorting facts and harking back to mythical glory days. BJP ideologues, of course, reject the reality of India's composite culture and have written their own alternative history to convince themselves and others about the primacy of Hindutva, as they understand it. Regrettably, textbooks in some schools in BJP-ruled states seek to perpetuate these myths.

If Mr Advani is a child of this philosophy, he suffers from a handicap in dealing with phenomena such as Mr Varun Gandhi's hate speeches. Indeed, he occupies a pedestal as the instrument of bringing the BJP to political power although in later years he became addicted to rath yatras for all occasions, earning diminishing returns.

In the end, Mr Advani's great handicap was that he was unable to master the art of managing contradictions, in stark contrast to Mr Vajpayee. How does one govern a nation state in the modern age with a warped view of history and a philosophy of amalgamating India's plurality into one Hindutva pot? Mr Vajpayee's answer was to cultivate an image of tolerance while occasionally making a bow towards the RSS. Mr Advani, on the other hand, was billed as the "Iron Man" of the BJP and has found it difficult to reconcile his RSS philosophy with the demands of Indian politics.

But being on the verge of retirement from active politics, Mr Advani was gracious in his party's defeat and he deserves sympathy for being denied his life's political ambition when he seemed so near it. By his own lights, he is a sincere man and finds it impossible to disguise his beliefs, acquired in the RSS factory over a lifetime. Somewhat like his Marxist political adversaries, he has been caught in a time warp. At 81, it is difficult to change one's philosophy and ideology. Perhaps he will now find time to write a sequel to his political memoirs to complete a remarkable political life.